Your wedding is the one day where everything is supposed to go perfectly. So of course, that means everything will definitely NOT go perfectly. A couple little slip-ups here and there are bound to happen, but these weddings devolved into complete disasters—and like any disaster, we can't look away.
1. Second Class Citizen
My husband’s co-worker invited him (plus me) to his wedding. The reception was held at a big park complex with several other receptions/parties happening at the same time. Each had their own banquet room but the outdoor spaces weren’t cordoned off from each other or from the surrounding public park. When we entered the complex building we were asked our names and which wedding, checked off a list, and then each got a hand stamp.
We figured there must be issues with wedding crashers—but I still had a weird feeling about it. After a bit of mingling and watching the wedding party do some photos out the windows, they entered and the two buffet lines opened along opposite walls. We got in line and noticed the servers glanced at our hands. Then I heard one tell a couple behind us that the bride’s line was the other one.
I’m thinking, what?! Yup, guests were fed according to whether they were bride or groom guests. And there was a big difference. The groom’s side had a choice of hot entrees (prime rib or ham), while the bride’s had cold deli tray stuff to make sandwiches. It was obvious that the sides on the bride’s buffet were either homemade or grocery store pre-made stuff and the groom’s obviously higher-end and catered.
They did have shared champagne bottles at the tables, at least. It was so uncomfortable to be sitting there eating with people from the other line. People seemed shocked. I didn’t see anyone make a fuss but we didn’t stay long—we left after the bride and groom dance—before people started to drink more heavily. Later on, my husband mentioned to his co-worker that he’d never seen that at a wedding before.
His reply was astounding. He said his parents didn’t think they should have to shell out for the bride’s side because her family couldn’t afford a nicer meal. I’ve been to some “interesting” weddings, but that was the rudest.
2. Empathy Doesn’t Cost A Thing
This occurred in Austin, Texas. There is a free wedding chapel there with an Italian-sounding name. All the couple has to do is put down a deposit of $200 to hold the date. Once you're married, you go to the office and get your deposit back. And that's it! Free ceremony. Since we booked our wedding over a year in advance, the deposit was $400.
That was fine, since hey, we're getting it back anyway! Cut to six months before our wedding—and tragedy strikes. He was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He passed just one month later. I contacted the free chapel and informed them of what happened. I quite literally received zero condolences and was told that you are only reimbursed the day of your wedding, and not going through with the ceremony would result in forfeiting the deposit.
Even though I literally could not get married as one person was NO LONGER ALIVE, they would not budge. Finally, they sent a check for half the deposit. Mind you, every other vendor refunded me immediately, no questions asked, no certificate to prove it. Including the venue hosting the reception! To this day I can't fathom how a place would want to profit off the loss of a human being.
And how someone could sit there and argue this back and forth all day, again, with no apology for my loss thrown in. I hope it's obvious that this is not about $200 but basic human decency. To essentially penalize someone for their fiancé passing is sick to me.
3. Keeping The Receipts
My friend is getting married. Her maid of honor planned the bachelorette trip. I honestly think she did well. She asked us our budgets and checked to make sure the prices were okay before booking stuff. One of the events she had for us was a lazy day in, which included hiring a private chef to make us brunch. But just before the party, disaster stuck.
Unfortunately, the chef’s mom passed and they will not be able to do the event. Life happens, they’re working on sending the money back. I thought all was good, we’ll either find some private chef willing to book this soon, or we just change plans—no biggie right? Well…not so fast. I cook and bake a lot. Recently have been doing freelance recipes for a paper and decided I’m going to make my own food blog.
Most of the women in the circle know this, including the maid of honor, because I made her baby shower cake. This is where the drama begins. She messages in the group chat, saying, “Sooo…want to be a private chef and cook brunch for us”? Here’s the deal, I really have NO issue doing that, I like cooking for the ladies. But now this trip turned into a job for at least four hours on site.
That’s plus whatever time I need to make a meal plan, list, and buy food. I also know how much the private chef charged since we already spent the money. So I responded I had no problem doing that, but groceries will need to be paid for, and I want $$$—which was still 30% less than the private chef charge. Everyone was fine with that, even offered to help do prep work, grocery shop with me, and clean up after.
I thought we were good—wrong. The maid of honor was “confused” why I’d charge them and by extension the bride. In her mind, I should be doing this because I am a friend, not because I want money. She even said I made her bridal shower cake for free. Well, not true. The bride’s mom actually paid me. So this shouldn’t be an issue.
Then she accused me of causing her extra stress because If I don’t go with it she’ll be scrambling to find someone in time or making a brunch reservation. I told her I’m being reasonable, anyone she finds is going to be five times my price, and she’s putting this on herself. She called me six times in one day over it.
Not long after, I asked about the money we paid her already for the private chef. Specifically, if the PC has already reimbursed her. Again, this is in a group chat. Some hours roll by and someone answers with a meme of the little kid doing math. So then the maid of honor says yes, the chef has. So the natural next question someone asks was, “Well, what do you plan on doing with it? Can you give that money for the brunch, since she’s willing to do it”?
Radio silence from the maid of honor. Then she comes back saying she’s already spent the money on a “bridal gift”. I knew something was up. We asked how much she spent…she won’t say. We can do the math. If you’re giving us $0 back, then we know how much you supposedly spent, dumb-dumb. That’s suspicious. That’s weird.
The group chat is confused because we never agreed to it. It’s rude to spend other people’s money without telling them, etc. She also won’t tell us what it is because it’s “a surprise”. Then again she says it would have been a “wash” if I didn’t ask to get paid. That’s when chaos really breaks loose. The Elle Woods of the group is throwing around words like small claims court.
People have already purchased train or plane tickets (most halfway across the country, or more) at this point. We’re all going just like, “You better have my money or tell me what you spent it on QUICKLY”! No one’s really talking about brunch anymore cause we can figure it out whenever. It’s just food, we’ll be fine. But like—this lady has my money.
One of the women in the chat is the bride’s sister. She texts the bride about this drama. The bride comes back with some disturbing information. She tells us about it in another group chat—one without the maid of honor. We come to find out that the maid of honor has been struggling financially as her husband gambles most of their money away or buys gaming stuff.
They’re falling behind on bill payments. The bride has offered some financial help and as recently as this past weekend offered again. Instead of accepting, the maid of honor said she got some money from her mom (maybe half true) and instead wanted to treat the Bride to nail day for being such a good friend while she’s dealing with her problems.
That was something the bride turned down and told her to save/keep her money. The last text right now in the chat is from the sister that says, “Did you spend our money on your bills”? There is obviously no confirmation for any of this. If she did get some bridal gift worth several hundreds and didn’t tell us, it would be less offensive but she’s still in the wrong for spending group money without a check from us all.
Plus, she was trying to demonize me because she didn’t want to tell the truth. That’s when I decided to investigate on my own. I emailed the women she said she hired as the chef to see if there was any actual transaction. She said she did book with her! But before you cheer too much, last Wednesday the maid of honor called to cancel. As in, the whole bachelorette party is canceled.
I haven’t shared this with the group yet. I’m continuing my fact-finding mission and will come to the party with receipts.
4. Mas Drama, Por Favor
My wedding is this winter and since my engagement earlier this year there has been nothing short of telenovela-esque drama. My father disowned my brother for cutting into the family business and I have been "banned" from inviting him which I probably would have, had he not called me to curse me out.
My mother and father recently separated so my mother keeps telling me she "only hopes this is my one and only wedding". That’s not the most mortifying part. She also says how we girls "should stick together and be single". I thought she was joking, but no she is not. I have the fifteen voicemails to prove it.
Thirdly, my recently divorced sister said she won't be attending and how inconsiderate of us to get married while she's trying to get her life together. As you can tell, it’s my family causing the most trouble since we got engaged. It would not be an issue if only my winter wedding was not a few months away and the drama is only intensifying.
My mother made a scene at the in-laws' lunch, calling my future mother-in-law "a white, nosey bat". Now my mother-in-law does not feel safe around her. My brother also recently stole some clients from the family business so my father is only tightening the strict banning on my brother. Lastly, my sister has decided not attending isn't enough.
She is forcing one of my vendors to choose between doing business with my fiancé and I or being friends with her. Safe to say, I can finally have my "screw this, let's elope" fantasy out loud now. For twenty people, this is an expensive and emotionally costly event.
5. Happily Ever Three Days After
Basically, my ex-girlfriend's boss left his wife ON THEIR HONEYMOON, because she and he were having an affair. They had the wedding and flew off to Bali, but he was sneaking off into the bathroom to send my then-girlfriend intimate pics…from his honeymoon. I saw one of the pictures and confronted her.
She admitted to it and messaged him back to tell him that I had found out. His reaction was seriously deranged. My understanding is that he basically came out of the bathroom, told his wife, "I think this was a mistake. We shouldn't have gotten married”, got on a plane, and flew home. Left her there on her own. On her honeymoon. With no explanation.
In the end, I had to be the one to go over to her place and tell her what had really happened because he wouldn't own up to it. So I think the marriage lasted all of about three days.
6. Grow Up
My best friends were not able to have a big wedding as planned, so they decided to just get married at the registry office and have a big wedding when the pandemic is over. They were allowed to bring eight people with them because of the restrictions, and they wanted to have a small celebration afterward in the backyard of the bride’s parents’ house with the closest family.
Even though it was just a small wedding, they requested everybody to dress properly: men at least with a nice shirt, better a suit; women in a nice summer/cocktail dress or blouse. The groom’s brother told them that he NEEDS to be with them at the registry office, otherwise it would be unfair. Because he wished to be there, they planned to bring both their parents.
So for the registry office, it was gonna be the four parents, the maid of honor, the best man, and both their eldest brothers. The groom has no more siblings, and the bride has three siblings in total. The big day came and everybody was getting ready at the house of the bride’s parents. The groom’s brother arrived with his wife and daughter from a two-hour drive away.
Most of the people were already in their nice clothes and the brother was "surprised" everybody dressed so nicely. He wore sweatpants and a t-shirt. Even his wife and daughter did bring dresses, even though they were "just" at the celebration afterward. He said he did not know about the dress code and blamed his wife for not reminding him—which she did for sure.
The groom ended up driving home (even though they were short on time) to find a suit for his brother. He found one, so his brother was wearing one of his slightly-too-big suits, a shirt, and shoes from the bride’s dad. But still, he insisted he had to come with them to the registry office and showed up in sweatpants. In my eyes, this wasn't even a proper outfit for a normal day.
The whole morning was about him, because a grown man wasn't able to think of a proper outfit for a wedding.
7. The Long Con
This story started years ago…. on the day I was born. See, my big sister was the “baby” of the family before I was born. I came along just weeks before she turned nine years old, and almost every day since then it has been a competition between us. When I was in seventh-grade science, I aced science class. On a major test, I was able to name all the major muscles in the body.
At that time, my big sister was a nursing student. My mother asked me not to flaunt my success because my sister was “sad” over not doing as well. Almost every shirt, pair of jeans, etc, I bought, with my own money, ended up on her side of the closet because she “liked it”. My mom clearly favors her, although she will deny it.
Step into the time machine to 20 years ago, when my husband and I got married. Mom wanted every detail of my wedding to be just like my big sister’s. The invitations had to look like hers, the colors of the bridal party had to look the same, the first dance had to be the same song. After decades of living in my sister’s shadow, I finally put my foot down.
I threatened to elope rather than have a church wedding. My mom is very religious, so that was my trump card. She caved, and I was able to get what I wanted. Finally. My big sister was the matron of honor, not by my choice—but because my mom didn’t want my BFF from high school, someone I had been almost a real sister to for over a decade, to take the place of a blood sibling.
During the ceremony, big sis did the first reading. This was about ten minutes after I walked down the aisle and was sitting at the altar with my hubby. I had no idea what she had up her sleeve. My jaw dropped when she announced, before the bible verse, “This is one of the best days of my life. I’m so proud to see my baby sister finally get married, but this morning I found out I’m pregnant”.
There was a scattering of slow but polite applause on my hubby’s side, and my mom almost ran to the podium to embrace her. Even on my side of the church, with my other siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, etc, was quiet. Dad was happy but looked angry. In the video of the wedding, which we watched later, you could clearly hear me say to hubby, “Are you kidding me”?
The rest of the ceremony, big sis cradled her flat tummy. But the story doesn’t end there. Time ticked on, and she never started to show. When mom asked her about it, big sis said she “must have misread the test” because she got her period two days after my wedding. Keep in mind that she is a nurse and it would have been her third pregnancy.
She brushed it off and shrugged her shoulders when a family member said it wasn’t the time to make the announcement. Her husband moved out of the house because of the drama, along with their two toddlers. The divorce soon followed. Last year, my big sister got remarried. It was her third marriage, and even though dad had passed on years earlier, she wanted the entire dramatic walk down the aisle.
She wanted me to be the matron of honor. She was VERY specific about the details of how I would look. I refused to have my mid-back-length hair cut into a bob. I hit the gym for hours almost every day and was able to fit into the backless dress in a size I hadn’t been since high school. It took months, but after 20 years and four kids of my own, I did it. It was an uphill battle.
At the last fitting for my dress, she took a close look at my skin and demanded that I take care of my dry skin so I would look perfect. The day of the ceremony came along, and I was the only member of the bridal party to walk down the aisle. My hair was in a beautiful updo, showing off my back, from the base of my skull to just above my butt.
It was a chilly day, so I kept my coat on until right before I walked. The groom’s side of the church was mostly silent, and there were a few chuckles on our side, but mom let out a gasp when she saw my new tattoos—which completely covered my back—every inch that the dress didn’t cover—and my new tatted “sleeves”. She was furious and shot me angry looks throughout the ceremony.
The tattoos, all henna, washed off within a few days. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And cooked low and slow.
8. Too Close For Comfort
My partner and I just got engaged this weekend. We already talked about what we would want our wedding to be like and have a pretty good idea what we are going for. We have a rough plan for the location, catering, dress code, and the wedding date. Instead of congratulating us, my brother-in-law went on a rant about us being inconsiderate towards him and his fiancé.
They got engaged in 2020 and are getting married in spring 2022. We are planning to get married in the fall of the same year. According to him, we are destroying his year by also getting married. We assured him several times that we are not planning on getting married before him and also don’t want to get married anywhere close to his wedding date.
Having to justify when we get married felt a little ridiculous to me. My future mother-in-law decided to also tell my fiancé that he should wait longer because it was so unfair that we were getting married 4-5 months after his younger brother did. She also proceeded to tell him that she thought my parents had paid him to marry me which is first of all untrue and second of all extremely hurtful.
We don’t even have invitations yet but the way they behave seriously makes me want to burn theirs.
9. The Final Boss Of Mother-In-Laws
My mother-in-law is a nice lady but something happens to her when a wedding is announced and she just loses her head.
Here's a list of the crazy things she's tried to pull during three of her son's weddings. My mother-in-law has tried to wear "cream" dresses to all three of her son’s weddings. Some were even lace. Some have sequins and rhinestones. Some were the palest of beige leaning into "champagne”.
She is a nice lady but I don’t know what gets into her head during weddings. She did wear that palest champagne dress to one of them. The bride was too fed up to deal with it anymore. At one wedding she tried to wear a full-length white fishtail ball gown with gold sequined embellishments and rhinestones. The bride burst into tears.
After the first dress debacle, which resulted in a very reserved bride in tears in front of everyone days before the wedding, every couple has pretty much tried to ban her from any further planning participation in their weddings. They devise whole strategies of trying to keep the weddings from her. Whole groups of people practice strategies to not give her information, so she can't mess it up.
Nonetheless, she persists. I've even had to tell her she can't wear what was a girl’s junior-sized mini dress to one of the weddings. The dress was tiny. Maybe a less than 5’ tall teen girl could have worn it appropriately. If she bent down or danced at all, as she is known to do, she would have shamed herself. I’m not being prudish. Ladies can wear short dresses.
Mothers of the groom don't need full-length gowns. She and I are the same height. There was no way it was long enough. We would have all seen her expose herself. And there are other incidents, too. She has shown up with her own dessert and appetizers to one of the weddings. There were four full-sized industrial baking sheets of food.
Her food was not properly refrigerated and in full sun. The event was fully catered by staff. Neither dessert nor appetizers had been asked for. The baking sheets were covered in tin foil and placed on the formal dessert table. This was not like a cookie table some people do, no one was asked to bring food for this wedding. She just decided to start catering it herself.
Her dessert was baked into the tin foil and she messed up the recipe badly. She can make this dessert well, but messed up and brought it anyways to the wedding despite knowing she messed it up. The making of these unwanted goods meant she was an hour late for the wedding and almost missed the wedding in the first place.
She had started these food trays the morning of...again, no one asked for this. She also tried to change the flowers for one wedding, while the bride and groom were overseas. This caused a ton of obvious tension and stress. She also scheduled a vendor at the reception from her personal friend as a "favor to the couple" and the vendor ended up charging the couple thousands for basic service that they didn’t realize they were paying for.
It was ridiculously above market price even for a wedding. They got scammed by her friend. Obviously, they were very annoyed to discover this on their wedding day. For one of the weddings, she decided to throw a huge day before the wedding day party for the whole family, against the couple’s wishes. And throw another huge party the day after the wedding party for the whole family again, against the couple's wishes.
They felt obliged to show up and they really wanted to destress before and after. At another wedding, she went and bought all this decor from thrift stores without the bride's permission. She wanted to be reimbursed for all of it. And yes, some thrift store stuff can be really cool. But this stuff was not. It was junk. So much so that she was storing it on her porch because she didn't want it in her house because it was so dusty and filled with cobwebs.
Well, that was the final straw for the bride. She decided to cancel her own wedding and delayed it for a whole year months before her wedding so they could reschedule everything without the mother-in-law being involved. She wasn't invited to be with the bride when she got ready that day. I don’t think she’s ever been invited to go wedding dress shopping with one of her future daughters-in-law.
Gee, I wonder why?
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10. It’s A Wedding, Not A Surprise Party
I got married this Saturday, it was a beautiful sunset ceremony by a bay. My sister-in-law was invited over a year ago, but declined to attend both the ceremony and reception because she was trying to quit drinking. Fine, totally understandable. I was disappointed but understood.
My mother-in-law convinces her to at least attend the ceremony and then leave before the reception. I say sure, no extra charge for chairs. The wedding happens, and my husband and I appear for our grand entrance after photos. That's when I see her.
My sister-in-law is standing at the doorway where we are supposed to enter with a drink in her hand. After the dance and dinner, my sister-in-law and her children and husband are still there. My mother-in-law comes over to apologize for her daughter and says, "Well at least so-and-so isn't here so sister-in-law can take their place”!
I responded, "No, actually there is a final count and so-and-so was already removed so they are three extra I get to pay for because everyone else had the decency to RSVP and show up”. My mother-in-law is between a rock and a hard place.
My husband turns to me and says, "Honey, I'm super angry at this too, but I can't kick my sister out. It's a bad look. And we can't let her crashing ruin our night”. He's right, of course. We have an amazing night and honeymoon. But it was still really annoying.
11. Getting A Head Start On The Drama
My wedding is in a few weeks and my bachelorette party was this past weekend. Months ago, when deciding on the trip, I asked everyone if the city we went to worked for everyone, and what price everyone would be comfortable with for an Airbnb. I also mentioned it was entirely optional and that I know it’s a big ask and would completely understand if anyone wanted to or needed to decline.
Everyone seemed excited and wanted to do it. So we all agreed on the city and Airbnb, so I asked everyone to let me know if there was anything anyone did or did not want to do while we were there so I could make an itinerary for us. My sister is my MOH and is a college student so I didn’t want to burden her with planning the trip and figured my other bridesmaids could help me plan.
Long story short, I sent an itinerary to the group a few weeks before the trip asking if it looked okay and to let me know if I should change or add anything. I included time for a scenic hike, pool time (it’s warm this time of year where we were), going downtown/shopping, karaoke bar, etc. I reserved all of our brunch, happy hour, and dinner spots.
I tried to go for more of a girls' weekend away versus a wild bachelorette party. Nothing wrong with a crazier bachelorette party but that’s not really my personality and my friends know that. The consensus from everyone on the itinerary was pretty much “That sounds good, thanks for sending”! No one made any other suggestions to me after I sent the itinerary or in the few months leading up to the trip, so I figured we would go with what I came up with. I was so, so wrong.
Basically, two of my bridesmaids ended up undermining the plan I came up with the entire time and we ended up not doing some of the outings I suggested because they didn’t want to, which is fine, but then wouldn’t offer alternatives. I also feel like they should have let me know back when I sent the itinerary so we could have come up with a different plan and things to do.
And it didn’t end there. One of my other bridesmaids told me that the whole weekend, these two were talking bad about me behind my back, and were mad at me and saying that I didn’t plan a good enough trip for them, etc—just saying some really mean things about me and the trip.
Without going into too much detail as this is already long, one of them was basically just in an obviously horrible mood the whole weekend and the other one snapped at me at one point over me not calling an Uber five minutes earlier than I did.
She caused a scene that ruined the evening while we were out on Saturday that caused us to end the evening early and head back to the Airbnb. That’s not even the worst part.
They were also apparently upset that I didn’t get sashes for everyone to wear or plan an expensive party bus or something. Which maybe I did drop the ball on some of that, but they could have suggested those things and if everyone was down we could have done them.
It seems like they expected me (the bride) to plan their perfect weekend without actually telling me what they wanted to do. I was always under the impression this weekend was more about what the bride wants while of course also being a fun weekend for everyone else too. It seems they have a different take on bachelorette trips/weekends.
Anyway, my feelings are definitely hurt and I honestly don’t know how to proceed from here. These are (I guess I should say were now) good friends of mine so I’m really confused. Part of me is worried they will behave this way on my wedding day and I feel like maybe I should respectfully ask them to step down from being bridesmaids and offer to reimburse them for their dresses.
Part of me also thinks doing that this close to the wedding might just create more stress and I should just leave them as bridesmaids but maybe nicely ask my other bridesmaids to keep them in check on my wedding day. The bridesmaid that informed me of their behavior already said she would do this for me.
Then once the wedding is over I will probably let the “friendships” with these two fizzle out. I would rather focus on my friendships with people who care about me instead of people that treated me like this, especially during what should be one of the greatest times in my life.
It’s unfortunate that they ruined it, but at the end of the day, it’s just a bachelorette party. I’m staying positive and focusing on the fact that I get to marry my best friend in a few short weeks!
12. She Needs A Taste Of Her Own Medicine
This is driving me absolutely insane. My mother will NOT stop trying to insert her friends into my wedding. Our budget is a firm 15k, so we are cutting a ton of corners and one of those is obviously our guest list. The 15k is our money, all my mother is doing is having it at her house to show off her property. She is, so far, only paying for our day-of coordinator.
However, she keeps trying to guilt trip us into inviting her friends because they’ll give us money. They’re family friends, so I don’t truly mind, but like...I already cut friends of mine off of the list. But that’s not even the craziest part. Just today, she came up to my fiancée and told (not asked, TOLD) her that her friend wanted to come to our taste testing.
Like, what? It’s a taste testing after business hours! If you want to get food with your friend, go out to dinner! My fiancée told her no and she was so taken aback. I am terrified of this happening more and more as we approach our wedding next June.
13. Notice Of Termination
One of my oldest friends and I have been drifting apart over the past three or four years. She's been a bit...weird, to put it nicely. When my fiancé and I got engaged, she texted me and started asking me about what she was wearing as a bridesmaid, etc. The thing is, I hadn't planned on asking her. But, I tend to be too nice, and a bit of a push-over, so I let her join the wedding party.
Yes, I realize that was my initial mess-up. So over the past year, she has become almost unbearable. She has stopped working and refuses to work at all anymore. She has self-diagnosed herself with: PTSD (allegedly from being "tickled too much" as a child), autism, and narcolepsy, along with a slew of other things. The crazy thing is, she doesn't have any of these things.
No doctor has confirmed it, and she switched therapists a couple of times, trying to find someone who would. She's been trying to get disability for these alleged ailments, so that she never has to work again. In the meantime, she has been mooching off her friends and family. She gets people to buy her all sorts of frivolous things; books, lingerie, vape supplies, art supplies, a $500 treadmill—the list goes on.
I've made SO many excuses for her because of our history together. I could probably ignore all that craziness if she hadn't been causing wedding drama too. The dresses I selected for the bridesmaids cost $30. Not $130. $30. I understand that she doesn't have money due to being unemployed, but that's her choice. She has had two years to save for this dress.
I've been gently reminding her to buy her dress over the past couple of months, since our wedding is coming up soon, but she's never got money. Honestly, I feel like if she can get someone to buy her a $500 treadmill and other expensive things she should be able to find a way to get a $30 dress. Not to mention, she owns her own house, lots of name-brand clothes, electronics, and a NEW MERCEDES.
She keeps dropping hints to the rest of the wedding party, hoping someone will pay for her. She's making everyone uncomfortable and angry. And on top of that, she's been messaging my maid of honor, who's planning my bachelorette party, and bossing her around, telling her what is and isn't allowed at the party, etc. It's not her party. So yesterday, I had finally had enough.
I told her, as politely as I possibly could, that she was demoted. I tried to take most of the blame and told her it was based on my own anxieties, and the fact that I felt guilty about adding to her stress and financial burden. Suddenly, she could MAGICALLY pay for everything and wanted to buy her dress. I told her I was sorry, but I'd made my decision and left it at that.
She's been bombarding me with texts and calls ever since, guilt tripping me and gaslighting me relentlessly. My fiancé, the rest of the wedding party, and my family all encouraged me and thought I made the right choice. If everyone agrees that it was the right thing, then why do I feel so awful? I don't want to let her back in, but I feel terrible...or at least I did until she called my fiancé about it.
14. Stealing The Spotlight
At my wedding shower, my future bro-in-law and his wife (who got married in April) show up wearing matching Mr and Mrs Shirts. They then promptly seated themselves on the bench at the head of the table that had balloons and decor tied to it for my fiancé and I to sit at during dinner. But it didn't end there.
After we ate, they then moved to the love seat that was sitting in front of the balloon arch and banner that was meant to be for my fiancé and I to open gifts in front of. There was plenty of seating at this shower and yet they waltzed in like they were the main characters.
I was just so irritated but my fiancé says they didn't mean anything by it and I'm overreacting. I didn't say anything to them, but now I'm afraid of what they may do at the wedding.
15. The Big Green Monster
My future sister-in-law is not a teenager. She's in her early 30s and can't stand that her brother and I are getting more attention than her. My future husband and I hate being in the spotlight for any reason, and aren't really talking about the wedding with anyone other than my amazing mother-in-law who is a professional wedding planner. But at Easter (we went to lunch with his side of the family) a few people asked questions.
Nothing crazy, but asking if a certain outfit would be appropriate, if I have a dress yet, stuff like that. Which I (and everyone else there) consider pretty normal for casual conversation. But not my fiancé's sister. This woman can't stand for there to be attention on anyone other than her.
She interrupted my husband’s grandmother asking about my venue to show us pictures of her cats. The same pictures she showed me the past three times I've seen her. His aunt asked about what I'll be wearing. Before I could answer, she started talking about how "she can't wear heels because she's so tall". How this was relevant I don't know.
But then she started showing off her options for outfits. All of them were either all black or white, for our spring wedding. I know she was looking for a reaction, and I nearly bit through my tongue trying to not give it to her.
But what upset me the most was whenever anyone brought up anything to do with our relationship (the wedding, our marriage, moving in together, etc) she immediately shoehorned her recent (relatively speaking, it happened in November of last year) breakup into the conversation.
They weren't in a super committed relationship, they had been dating on and off, and he just ended the possibility of them getting back together. Not saying that makes it any less heartbreaking, but I didn't think it was appropriate to talk about her break-up from six months ago during a conversation about someone else's wedding.
Like, why can’t she just be happy for us? I've gone out of my way to be nice to her, I made sweaters for those stupid cats to try and get her to like me. But us getting married is a threat to her getting attention, so I'm clearly the enemy.
16. Work-Life Balance
I asked my friend of five years to be the maid of honor, she says yes and I let her know the date of the engagement party a month before anyone else. She RSVPs on the invite as going—but two days before the event, she changes to "maybe going". I message her asking if everything is okay and if she got sick. She said she's fine but scared of large crowds, because of Covid.
I tell her not a worry and if she wants to meet for coffee nearby cause we live close to each other. She says she doesn't have the time with her busy schedule. The day after the engagement party, I see that people have tagged her in photos of some food blogger event that is an indoor restaurant that has 40+ people. So I felt betrayed and lied to, but wanted to clear the air.
I asked: “I have been wondering if everything is okay between us”? She replied: “Yep I've been busy”. I said: “It’s just I feel like you have been trying to avoid me lately, and I saw you tagged in photos at restaurants the day after my engagement and I feel cut that you lied to me about being scared of going out”. Her reply was infuriating.
She told me: “What I do with social media is my work. My content and other people's content who tags me is not on 'the day'. It's not even live. They are planned, edited, and promoted content. I'm sorry I cannot live up to your expectations of being available. I should not feel obligated to keep you posted with what I do or be there when you want me to. I have my full-time job as well as my content creation job and networking”. But the worst line of all was yet to come.
She said: “I do this every day and it is difficult to make time for non-content creators”. I said thanks for clarifying—and then she blocked me.
17. Hunting For A New Father Figure
My boyfriend and I are planning on getting married this November because we’re moving to a different country due to my boyfriend’s new job offer. We’re very excited to start our lives together so we started telling our family, most of whom are very happy for us. I told my dad we are getting married this November and that I’m very excited to start our life together.
His response was devastating. He told me: “November? No, that’s no good for me. I mean, you have to change the date. You know that November is hunting season and you know I never miss it. I can’t risk saying I’ll be at your wedding and then let you down when I don’t show up because I’m hunting”.
At first, I didn’t even understand what he meant, so I just said, “Well, let me know if you can make it”. But then after I pondered on what he said I became very sad, my very own dad can’t compromise to go to my wedding because he might be going on a camping trip that day. I’m his firstborn and I can’t believe he said that to my face.
Mostly I can’t believe I didn’t stand up for myself and uninvite him from my wedding. He has always been selfish, but I’m not sure I’ll ever get over his initial reaction.
18. You Had One Job
My husband and I got married last week. I had been super chill throughout the whole wedding planning and during the actual event. Because I know bad stuff happens and if anything goes wrong, or not exactly how we wanted, it's not that big of a deal and may even make the wedding more memorable for the guests. The one thing that I told my husband I didn't want to happen was I didn't want him smashing cake in my face.
I had a suspicion that he would find it funny to do it, so, during the planning, I flat out told him not to do it. I don't think it's funny, I don't want to mess up my makeup that took hours to apply, and I don't want cake on my expensive wedding dress. I told him I would be livid if he did it. He promised that he wouldn't. Well, come the cake cutting time, what did he do?
Smashed the cake in my face! It got on my dress, and messed up my makeup, just like I knew it would. I'm pretty sure his friends convinced him to do it, not that that makes it any better. I kept it together, went and cleaned myself up, and put on a smile for the rest of the reception. But afterward, I let loose on him.
I yelled at him that this was the ONE THING I asked him not to do, and he promised that he wouldn't. He told me I was being dramatic, that it's not a big deal, and we should just be enjoying our time as newlyweds. So was I being overly dramatic?
19. November Rain
We’ve been together for three years. We started wedding planning in October 2019. My mom and I have always been close, I thought the wedding wouldn't change that. I was so, so wrong.
At the start of wedding planning, she had opinions about EVERYTHING. My parents got married in November, my fiancé and I met in November, so we wanted to have a November wedding. I never wanted a summer wedding or anything outdoors because you can't trust Ohio.
Naturally, my mom had a fit that we wanted to be married in November, cue "It'll be cold. It gets dark at 7 pm you'll have to do pictures early...it's close to Thanksgiving". I can't tell if she had regrets from her own November wedding or what. Then, looking at venues was a nightmare.
She only ever thought about our side of the family and never considered my fiancé’s side when it came to distance and how far people would drive to the venue. When we finally found a venue she complained about us wanting to have an open bar, because our side of the family are not heavy drinkers. The rest of us however like the occasional beverage and want to have a fun wedding.
My fiancé’s parents stepped in and offered to pay for the bar so that way she wouldn't have a say in it anymore. And that’s not the most infuriating part. She keeps upping the guest list with people I don't know and don't want to attend, then complains about how expensive the wedding is getting. I try to explain "more people=more money" but then she suggests cutting my friends list.
Lastly, COVID-19. I was leaning toward postponing the wedding for everyone's safety. My mother feels like she's "lost a year of her life" with the shutdown and restrictions. People were actually losing their lives over the virus and she complains she's lost a year of her's because she can't go to the movies. My fiancé’s grandmother doesn't plan on attending which is a huge deal to me.
When I tell her the option of having a small immediate family-only ceremony this year (she states that the family will be divided and offended if not all my extended cousins come to the small ceremony) and then a reception a year later, she states that it won't be "special" and wants the full effect of my dad walking me down the aisle.
When I tell her we can do another vow renewal type ceremony next year (for the extended cousins and everyone else not invited to the small ceremony) she states it won't be the same since we'll already be married. There is no winning here. I hate not having support from her and feel like no matter what I do someone will be disappointed. I know I can't please everyone.
20. Sew Annoying
Okay, so my mom has been an absolute NIGHTMARE to deal with. From refusing any dress I liked, to demanding she walk me down the aisle since my parents are divorced, to freaking out over us having a sweetheart table instead of a head table, to causing a scene at my bridal shower and crying because I took a picture with my mother-in-law.
So she finally bought a dress at the most expensive boutique in town. Proceeds to hold it over my head for a few months that she’d better be in “all the pictures since she spent soooo much money on her dress”. This dress has been in for a few weeks now, and I’ve encouraged her to get it altered a few times as it’s a very layered dress and prom season is coming up.
The wedding is exactly four weeks from today. She texted me today that she had gone to get her dress altered. She said it was “huge” in both the chest and the waist. Then informs that SHE'S WAITING THREE WEEKS TO GET IT ALTERED BECAUSE SHE PLANS TO LOSE 20lbs.
Now, keep in mind my mom eats out every single day and drinks alcohol like it’s water. She doesn’t exercise. Her weight loss plan? She’s going back to work next week so she’ll be walking more.
I tried to explain to her it takes longer than a week to get a dress altered. She began to argue with me stating that “The seamstress says it’ll only take an hour, they do alterations right at the dress shop”. She refuses to give in. She says there’s no point in getting started on alterations now when she’s going to lose all that weight (which, for the record, she has been saying since she BOUGHT the dress and hasn’t lost any).
Then she changed her story to, “Well, it’ll only take like two stitches since it pretty much fits”. She absolutely refuses to listen to me that she needs to begin alterations, and she can’t wait till the week before the wedding. I’m seriously so frustrated at this point I feel like my head is going to explode.
21. A Black And White Issue
I’m really torn by this. My brother is about to be married. I am one of the groomsmen. My wife had informed me that our daughter, who is three, will be wearing a white dress to the wedding. I wasn’t sure if this was appropriate as I thought it was mainly brides and flower girls who would wear white. My wife didn’t care if any little girls wore white at our own wedding and others that she know say they don’t care.
My daughter will be the only child attending amongst about 80ish guests as she is the only grandchild in either family. There are no flower girls or page boys participating in the wedding. I try to be considerate as possible, as obviously it’s not my wedding, so I asked my brother whether there’s an issue with it. And he says it will be. White is strictly for the bride, which I respect.
Her wedding, her rules. And I don’t want any dramas. My wife’s reaction was chilling. She’s calling me out on it, calling me all sorts of names. Saying that I should’ve stood up for my daughter. Saying I should’ve kept my mouth shut and not mentioned anything and just showed up with her wearing her white dress. She wants the bride and groom to pay for a new dress (which was a hand-me-down from the beginning).
I am fine to go and get another dress but now it seems she won’t back down out of principle. I feel I did the right thing. But my wife’s reaction makes it seem like it wasn’t.
22. Control Freak
My husband and I are getting married in June, My S.O. is half Scottish, half Indian and my grandma has used disgusting racial slurs toward my S.O. For this reason, she is not invited to the wedding. But she’s not the only problem. My mom is a complete narcissist. She mistreated and neglected me until the age of nine when she abandoned me completely.
My only contact with her from the age of eight until 17 was an occasional letter. I was raised by my grandma. Mom and grandma have always hated each other. My mom however is insisting that she and Grandma have the right to be there. She has basically said that there is nothing I can do to stop them from turning up and I had better accept that.
She is insisting that she be placed in charge so she can fix the mistakes I've made in the planning. She's tried to cancel my venue in order to find a more appropriate one. The decor I've chosen is tacky owing to the fact that I have integrated some of the colorful elements of a traditional Indian wedding including music, and whoever heard of carnations rather than roses for a wedding. Somehow, it gets even more offensive.
In addition, she is insisting that Indian dishes in the buffet will make the whole place smell. My future husband wanted me to wear a sari for the wedding, but I wanted something more western so we came to the compromise that I would wear a white wedding gown for the actual ceremony and then a sari for the reception. This of course is not acceptable to mom, who thinks that since I have recently discovered that I'm pregnant, a white dress is inappropriate—as is the sari.
I have told her that I've spent a year planning this wedding and it is not about her. I am happy with the details as I've planned them and I will not be changing them. She told me that it was going to be a disaster and I would look back and be ashamed of my wedding day. I retorted that it was a chance I would take. I told her that she had her chance to plan her own four weddings and she was so unhappy with my plans she could feel free not to come.
She proceeded to have a full-on meltdown—and what she said was seriously deranged. She was saying that as the mother of the bride it was her special day and now it would be ruined. I reminded her that it was my special day not hers and told her that I only wanted happy supportive family members at the wedding.
It was then leaked to her via another family member what I plan to name my baby. Well, that really set her off. She said giving her such an Indian name was tantamount to abuse. I got over 200 calls emails, texts, and DMs from both her and my grandmother that didn't stop till 4 am. She showed up at my job the next day, having a full-on Karen-esque meltdown.
When I refused to comply with her wishes. I told her to calm down or I would have to call the authorities. She proceeded to destroy my office. My lamp and laptop were broken, office supplies, files, and coffee flew everywhere. I tried to leave the room but she pushed me down. Luckily, one of my colleagues had called 9-1-1 and they took her in.
Meanwhile, at my house, my grandmother had somehow convinced a locksmith to let her into my house. Various food stocks and spices were all over my kitchen and the tandoori (Indian cooking oven) was broken. She wrote several horrible slurs all over my walls in condiments. My house was trashed. My fiancé was livid, he was the maddest I have seen him, and he is not a man prone to temper.
When I got home I was in tears over the mess. His family came over to help tidy. Obviously, we called the authorities on grandma and we will be suing the locksmith. I've gotten a restraining order and blocked them from my phone and all social media.
In my family, we do a thing called shedding the skin, an Irish wedding tradition, before a wedding. Basically, we make a list of our emotional baggage and burn it over a bonfire symbolically getting rid of it. The theory is that you can't start a new life while holding on to the past.
It's a bit of a party and members of his family and mine were present—but of course, neither my mother nor grandma. I posted a few pics from the event on social media. This morning my cousin called and told me my mother had created a fake account and stolen the pics. She then posted them on FB like they were her pics.
The post said something about "the rehearsal dinner for my darling daughter's wedding" and loads of people had sent her good wishes and congrats. That’s not the craziest part. She even photoshopped herself into a few—very badly. She then contacted my future sister-in-law and gave her a list of the “disgusting” things I allow my fiancé to do in intimate situations—most of which were lies and none of which is her business.
She then told her that she and her husband were uninvited unless he shaved his beard. She just doesn’t stop!
23. An Object Lesson
My sister got engaged about two years ago. I don’t hate her. We were never the closest of sisters due to our age difference but we didn’t hate each other.
Her fiancé (now husband) is a great man. I really am happy for them. So fast forward to the wedding ceremony, when the priest finally said, “Are there any objections,” I stood up and said, “I object (long pause) because this couple is way too cute for each other”! I had no idea the chaos I would stir up.
I really just said it as a joke. I thought it was something we could all laugh about at reception. But I could visibly see the color drain off my sister’s face the moment I stood up. After I finished my little joke, I didn’t really get any laughs. My sister looked away, pretending that she didn’t care but I knew she probably did. I sat down and the ceremony continued.
At the reception, I went to my sister and congratulated her, but she absolutely blew up. She told me my joke wasn’t funny and that I ruined her mood, her happiness, and her special day. I was shocked. It literally wasn’t even that big of a deal. I was joking, not actually objecting. I argued back with those points and she just walked away from me.
This morning, I woke up with tons of notifications from my family members saying I’m a jerk for doing that. But I think everyone was just overreacting, it was truly just a joke.
24. Upstaging The Upstager
My half-sister "Heather" and I never really got along. We both are 24. My father left my mother for her mother and we were born the same month 20 days apart. It has always been weird. It doesn't help that Heather's mom hates me and my mom. By extension, Heather and I didn't have the best relationship.
She has always tried to one-up me. Even though we both have a similar economic background. I can give examples of this but for the sake of the word limit won't write them here. So now my fiancé and I got engaged last month and had our engagement party this Saturday. We had planned it originally as a casual-formal event. Nice dresses but not "I am going to the Met gala ball" nice. More like "We are going to a good restaurant" nice.
Anyway, my cousin hits me up saying she has to show me something. It was a picture of the dress Heather was going to wear. This dress...Jesus. It can only be described as opulent. It was long and white. Strapless with sewn-in "crystals" and golden accents. I'm pretty sure it's a wedding dress but I can't be 100 percent.
This made me really mad. So I decided…not happening. And I came up with a plan. I started texting people telling them that there had been a change of plans. And that instead of casual formal I decided to make a costume party. My mother's side is crazy for Halloween so they were immediately on board. I told my father via text, and asked for him to relay the message to Heather and her mother—knowing full well that he would forget or leave it to the last minute.
Saturday comes along. Guests start showing up. Most of them in costumes. Some didn't have time to get one. We just provided them with fun hats and cheap wigs. Heather, my dad, and her mother come one hour late. As soon as she notices that everyone was either wearing elaborate costumes or weird accessories and she didn't stand out, she lost it.
Especially when my fiancé came along and inadvertently twisted the knife in. He told her that "her bride dress looked amazing for a cheap costume". She left crying and her mother and my father told me that I was being childish and I could have told Heather myself and not have tasked my father. Whoops!
25. Photoshop The Whole Man Out
Me and my fiancé Aaron are getting married soon, We got done with wedding planning—although my future mother-in-law basically disagreed with every arrangement we had. But a whole new issue came up recently.
Aaron and I were discussing the wedding photos and my facial scar that I had in my early 20s came up. Aaron suggested that we have this area of my face (where my scar is located) photoshopped, I laughed thinking he was joking—but he said it was for real.
I was taken aback, but he explained that this is what photoshopping is for and that these are wedding photos that last for years and he'd rather them be flawless. I looked at him and asked if he sees my face as a flaw, he immediately apologized and said absolutely not, it's just that all couples point out what should and should not be photoshopped to get the best wedding photos.
But then the dark truth came out. He then admitted it was his mom's suggestion and he saw that she had a point this time. I refused and we began fighting. Aaron said that I was being a huge overreactor and that it was not about the scar itself, but the overall look of the photos, and I was being too sensitive for no reason.
I had an argument with my future mother-in-law after she nicely tried to talk me into considering it, most of the women in the family agreed with her. Aaron kept saying this is what photoshopping is for, and lots of people do it because they're not happy with a certain area in their appearance.
I told them I'm different because I'm not bothered by my appearance nor do I want to change it for any reason or occasion for that matter. They went on to say I need therapy for me to cope with my past trauma but I don't think my refusal has anything to do with it. Aaron is visibly upset with my response.
He said he loves me no matter what and I was ridiculous to be so hung up on this non-issue and holding it against him and his family who want what's best for me. I don't know if this is just my past insecurities popping up and I'm not sure if I'm overreacting and getting offended for no reason.
26. A Penny For Her Delusional Thoughts
I have a friend who we'll call Penny. I met Penny at work about three years ago. We quickly hit it off and became good friends. I was supposed to be getting married in January this year but obviously, because of the pandemic, it didn't go ahead. It's now going ahead next January. Penny is one of my bridesmaids. The problem is, I've seriously gone off Penny over the last year.
I'm pretty sure she's a narcissist and boy is she increasingly unpleasant to be around. She needs attention constantly. And I mean constantly. She makes absolutely everything about her, including my bachelorette party. She's a huge show-off, she gloats, she's competitive...the list goes on. She has insisted on taking over from my maid-of-honor in organizing my bachelorette and has told her I have demanded things when I haven't because she wants them.
However, that’s not the biggest problem. The main issue is that she acts totally inappropriately towards my fiancé. We both spent some time with her this weekend and the list of inappropriate comments, touching, and just general behavior is endless. It makes my fiancé feel uncomfortable and obviously makes me feel angry and upset that she clearly thinks this is okay.
She can't bear us to be affectionate towards each other and she tries to get in between us when we do by trying to physically push her way in saying she wants a hug because she's "happy for us". My fiancé had to tell her to stop. But she just keeps it up.
She tried to play footsie with him underneath the table, leaned across and stroked his face, and told him she's missed him (the two have met a handful of times and my fiancé is very quiet and reserved so they haven't really spoken much and my fiancé would not consider her a friend), trying to hug him...the list goes on.
The first time she met my fiancé, she texted me as soon as we got home, saying, “Don't worry I don't fancy him," which I thought was very strange. She then added him on Snapchat and told me, "If you're wondering what the Snapchat I've sent to him is, don't worry, it's just a normal selfie with my daughter." I said to her "Why would I wonder what you've sent him”? And she didn't respond. Very bizarre.
The second time she met him, he came to pick me up from Penny's house. The second she heard his car pull up in the driveway, she physically pushed me out of the way, ran to his car, flung the door open, and literally jumped on him and hugged and kissed him. I was so confused. This continuing behavior coupled with her constant need for attention and validation is really wearing me down.
We're both sick of it and I find it really disrespectful. I have no idea how to broach this with her as I am really terrible at confrontation and to be quite honest, the thought terrifies me. We also have quite a few friends in common and I'm worried they will side with her and think I'm overreacting.
I am also quite confident that she will gaslight me and say it’s just the way she is with everyone and my fiancé is one of her best friends…this is definitely not true.
27. You Had One Job
This happened during this weekend, me being in my early 30s and my girlfriend in her late 20s. I was invited to a wedding ceremony of a colleague and could bring someone with me. I asked my girlfriend whom I've been dating for a year if she would like to join me and she was really happy because she apparently loves weddings.
Since we don't live together, I drove to pick her up so we'd have some time to spare before the ceremony. As she comes out, she looks really beautiful and has obviously put in the time to fix her hair and make-up. She's also wearing an off-white dress that was rather ornate.
As she got in I told her that she looked stunning, but I asked if she could change to a different colored dress for the ceremony. I'm not one for etiquette by far, but one of the few things I have heard everywhere is that you should not wear a white dress to a wedding unless you're the bride. Her reaction was chilling.
She became pretty upset and wanted to know what was wrong with her dress. I said that it would be inappropriate to wear a white or off-white dress unless you're the bride, and that it's like wedding law or something, trying to be lighthearted about it. She rolled her eyes and said that it was an outdated tradition about women and virginity and that when her friends got married everyone wore white and that it's not a big thing anymore.
I told her that I don't know what the dress code is for this ceremony, but since it's not saying "all white clothes" I still thought she should change to another color that’s not white or "almost-white"—because my colleague was getting married and we had no idea how she felt about it.
My girlfriend became really upset and told me that I was trying to control what she was wearing and that I was mistreating her, which honestly made me really upset and hurt. I said something along the lines of, "Well, you shouldn't go to a wedding with someone who mistreats you then," and then I told her to get out of my car.
She began to cry and wanted to apologize and give me a hug, but I just told her to get out, which she did. To clarify we never left the driveway by her home, I did not drop her off in the middle of nowhere or anything like that. I drove off and she called and texted me a bunch. I answered "I don't want to talk right now" and then turned my phone off and attended the ceremony.
The bride was the only one that was wearing white so I feel as if my gut feeling was the right one. When I got home, my phone had blown up with texts from her and her best friend saying that I was being inconsiderate and controlling and should apologize for my behavior.
I've vented to a few friends—most of them agreeing with me but some have said that it was a jerk thing to tell her that she could not wear her dress—because it had nothing to do with me. I feel as if I was in the right since it was my colleague’s wedding and it was better to be safe than sorry.
28. Timing Is Everything
My future husband and I have known each other for four years, and have been together for two. He has never really liked his sister as a person growing up. He and his parents say she's always been lazy and entitled, that she would never take care of herself, her room, or her chores.
They would have to yell at her to get her to shower because she smelled disgusting, and when she moved out, they had to air her room for months because it smelled so bad. Then there's the way she moved out.
She called CPS at 16 on their mom and stepdad to try to say that they were beating her, there was no food in the house, they didn't have clothes that fit, etc. CPS did nothing because it was obvious she was lying. So she whined to the grandparents about how mean everyone was and moved in with them.
So my future husband doesn't talk to his grandparents because he's livid with his sister for pulling all that stuff and upset that they were siding with her. At 18, his sister ran off to another state with her then-boyfriend and cut off contact with basically the entire family. She was No Contact for seven years.
Nobody really talks about the sister to me, and my fiancé barely mentions her, so I forgot she existed for most of our relationship. Recently, my fiancé started talking to his grandparents again. I honestly love the whole family and am so excited to have them all at my wedding, but I don't think too much about his sister because she lives so far away.
Then out of the blue last year, she sends my fiancé’s mom a picture message of a positive pregnancy test. At some point, before the baby is born, she starts talking to the mom saying that having family is important now because of the baby.
Fast forward and the baby is five months old and suddenly her now-husband is a monster and she needs to get the baby away from him. My fiancé doesn't believe her but his mom and step-dad go on a 10-HOUR DRIVE and miss work to pick up her and baby, bring them back 10 more hours, and this girl literally didn't plan at all. so everything she and baby have is on them or in the diaper bag.
They help buy her EVERYTHING; clothes for both of them, diapers, toys, a baby walker, a stroller, you name it. My fiancé’s mother gets his sister a job where she works. My fiancé and I do go over because we already had plans to take his kids, and he ignores his sister the whole time. I ask him that since she's here now if he would be okay with having her at the wedding.
His reaction said it all. He is a HARD NO. I'm okay with it because I'm not even inviting most of my family. A month goes by, things are kind of quiet, so my fiancé’s parents stop over now and again to chat or see the kids. My fiancé’s stepdad complains about how the sister isn't really helpful and has no idea how to even chop vegetables when she helps cook and how they have to show her how to be a functioning adult basically.
Well, it's no surprise to us that my fiancé’s stepdad has had enough and yells at the sister for not helping. She instantly calls her grandparents, who come pick up her, the stuff, the baby, and move her in with them. Again, they make his mom feel like garbage and tell her she's a bad mom, while she’s working a second job to help pay for the sister’s lawyer fees and planning to take her back to her old state for court. So she's still helping her, despite everything.
I personally don't mind my fiancé’s sister as an individual but I'm not a fan of everything. My fiancé is basically saying he doesn't have a sister anymore at this point. Now we're all caught up to last week when my fiancé and I mail out invites because the wedding is in September. We sent one to grandparents with their last name, and didn't say anything about the sister, who still has her ex’s last name.
My fiancé’s mom reached out and asked me if the sister is invited and I tell her that my fiancé is firm on her not being there. He was already upset with her and now he can't stand the actual sight of her. She has begged him to reconsider because her parents are going to blame her for not being in control of her…ADULT CHILDREN?
My fiancé says his grandparents don't have to come and anyone who has a problem with that doesn't have to come and I'm upset because I just want to have an enjoyable wedding. I am just trying to marry the love of my life and have fun with our friends and family. It sucks that people I thought were great are being garbage suddenly right before we get married like, why right now?
29. It Doesn’t Add Up
My brother and his fiancée are getting married in September 2023, and I am a bridesmaid. The bride's two sisters are both maids of honor, and are planning the bachelorette weekend trip for August 2023. I appreciate the advanced planning, so everyone has an opportunity to plan and budget for the trip.
But with that being said, we had a poll to determine the budget everyone was comfortable with, the results being: Up to $300—3 votes, Up to $500—2 votes, No preference—4 votes.
So with those with a preference, the maximum of 300$ won out, but we got the itemized budget today and they are requiring $499 from each of the 10 in the bridal party (this doesn’t even include the $100+ for the spa day and $50+ for wine tasting, so we're looking at closer to $700). This itself just made no sense.
Yes, a majority had no preference, but does that mean we automatically pick the most expensive options? With nearly $1,000 just to reserve a table/bottle service at a bar? I’m 24, about to graduate college, work part-time, and have $2,000 in emergency vet debt I’m still paying off. I live paycheck to paycheck, with little left over, so to spend $500+ on two days is just not something I can reasonably/comfortably swing.
Even a year in advance, I just cannot justify spending so much money when I have other responsibilities and bills. To add onto it, the $100+ for a bridesmaid dress, ~$150 for hair/makeup, wedding gift, and ~$200 for lodging for the night of the wedding, it's just getting to be more than I could possibly afford.
How do I say no to this bachelorette party even though they budgeted it out to $499 if all 10 people were to pay? I'd be forcing other people to pay more to cover my not paying, and (living with her) facing the bride-to-be after.
30. An Impending Sense Of Doom
My in-laws have always been difficult people, to say the least. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law both fully believe that the world revolves around them, my father-in-law doesn't leave the house and probably won't come to our wedding, and my stepdad-in-law defends the woman to no end instead of helping us get them all on track. The only in-law I like is my brother-in-law who is a gem.
Since the day my fiancé and I got engaged, it was all about my mother-in-law (and a little bit about my sister-in-law). The first thing she asked was when she could announce it on social media and was mad when we said we wanted to announce it first because in her opinion it was her news to share.
We went over there for dinner to celebrate and she talked all about what her dress would be like and how nice her husband would look in his tux and all the pictures she was going to take with him and my sister-in-law. I was then asked when I'd know who our photographer was so that she could reach out about all the different photos she wanted.
There's a long list of other things she’s pulled since then. She threatened to call vendors before or talk to them during the wedding to change things to the way she wants them, like the implementation of a money dance, a special dance for just her and her husband, centerpieces, etc.
She purchased a full ballgown for our casual outdoor wedding without telling us and when she finally did, said, "I'm going to be the belle of the ball! I'm the princess”!
My future sister-in-law pesters us for months about what dress she gets to wear as a bridesmaid (without being asked to be a bridesmaid), never asks about how planning is going otherwise, and then a week ago, backs out of being a bridesmaid after we told her we'd pay for everything so she can focus on getting her own apartment and going back to school.
A few days after she bailed, she buys an extremely formal and very inappropriate bridesmaids dress from a different store. Literally goes to David's Bridal to shop in the bridesmaids' section even though she just said she didn't want to be one.
My aunts decided to throw an engagement party for us a year delayed (because of current world health issues) and my future mother-in-law threw a fit that she wasn't asked to throw one even though we told her countless times that it was a surprise to us (per the invitation) and we didn't ask for one.
And, finally, we've been asked multiple times if we plan to cancel the wedding because she may not be able to walk down the aisle or dance with her son because she refuses to get the surgery to fix her back now that the doctor said she had to go on a diet to be a candidate. This whole time I've felt like this isn't even my wedding anymore because everything I try to plan or get excited about is cloaked in 50 shades of their drama.
Either my fiancé and I are constantly thinking about and worried about their reactions to things or we get berated on the backend for not thinking about them. I told him I didn't want to talk about wedding stuff with them anymore, and he's ok with it. But I am so worried that will just mean a public display of their horrible behavior at the wedding.
It's just all feeling like it isn't even worth it to have this wedding that I've dreamed of because they've done everything in their power to take the joy from me and make it about them. I'm at a loss for what to do, and, short of uninviting them, I just know things will hit the fan that day.
31. All You Had To Do Was Show Up
My bridal shower came and went and my childhood best friend (and a bridesmaid) didn't show up. She texted me today and apologized profusely for not coming, because she has been in a horrible mental space. I'm not mad at her, because you can't control that kind of stuff. And I wouldn't want her to come if it was gonna make her sick. I'm just kinda hurt that it happened in general.
We met at eight years old in a karate class and have been best friends since. And when we stopped attending (around age 18), I feel like she stopped reaching out to spend time with me and upkeep our friendship. It was lame, and I was lonely, because she was my only friend, but oh well; you can't force someone to care.
Years later, she started engaging with me more and we started hanging out when we could. But it was a LOT of "Okay, meet you on ‘scheduled day’! Oops, nevermind, now that we've reached ‘scheduled day,’ I just really don't have it in me today”. It quickly became a pet peeve of mine: making promises and not keeping them.
But I just accepted this is how she functions, and when I see her, I see her. It's been like this for over six years. She got married two months ago, and I was a bridesmaid. I was so honored to be a part of her day, and I pulled any strings I could to make sure I was present at every wedding party of hers I was invited to in a town an hour away.
Her day was beautiful and awesome, I had so much fun. MY bridal shower was yesterday, and she didn't show up. No text. Just a no-show. I wasn't worried, cause I know her, so I knew it just meant she was having One Of Those Days. But still. She apologized to me today, and told me she "is still excited to be a bridesmaid, but would understand if I was mad and wanted to have her step down”.
I'm not MAD. But that apology kinda just hurt me a little more. Like...made me realize that she might very well not even show up to my wedding if she's having a bad day. And that's a really awful thought. It just feels really unfair that I feel like I really try to be physically present for her, and when it's my turn, she can't return the favor.
And again, I understand you cannot control your mental illness. You can't always "suck it up" and get stuff done anyway. But yeah argh I'm just really disappointed that she's failing to stand up for me the way I did for her. Like, after all these years, and a whole wedding together lol and it's the same old problem; still can't follow through with the promises.
I can't count on her to be there for me 100%. Still, I let her know that I can still leave a bridesmaid spot open for her, as long as she's able to come. Her answer shattered my heart into a million pieces.
She literally just texted me asking which of two bridesmaid dress options she should buy. Neither are from my list of 20 dresses that I gave everyone. Her reason? “None of those will come in time”. I gave my dress options months ago. My wedding is now three weeks away.
32. Stalemate
40 years ago, there was a big incident that was between my parents and my step-grandmother. They don't talk or acknowledge each other. Present day. I am the only one from my side that still talks to my step-grandmother. I absolutely adore her. My fiancé loves her too and we both wanted her at our wedding. I spoke to her about inviting my cousins (her biological grandkids) so she won't be alone.
I told her the ceremony and reception will be at my parents’ house. She has told me that she will not be attending because of my parents and will only come if I held the wedding somewhere else. She doesn't want to act smiley for one day with people she doesn't like. My initial response was that it will make no difference because my parents will be still at the wedding, regardless of the wedding location.
She told me she would only attend the ceremony and then leave, and not stay for the reception.
33. Winging It
My wedding is coming up in two months. One of my bridesmaids who I will call Jess and I have been friends for a little over two years, and are in school together. We were really close, we used to always study and do homework together, hang out, things like that. Recently as wedding planning/buying dresses and other plans are needing to be made, I’ve found that Jess has been distancing herself from me for some reason.
This is tough because three of my other bridesmaids are all a part of a group of friends, myself included. This has been primarily led by Jess, and I’ve found now that this has turned into small little backhanded comments about my wedding and how she’s too stressed to deal with it right now, to flat out ignoring me. But, Jess is still currently a bridesmaid in my wedding.
The biggest issue for me right now is the fact that she seems like she doesn’t care. For example, everyone has ordered their dresses already, and she got hers. Jess though has not tried it on saying, “She’ll try it on before the wedding, and if it doesn’t fit, she’ll get something on Amazon”. This rubs me the wrong way because it makes me think she doesn’t care.
I really tried to be accommodating regarding dresses and even offered to pay for them since everyone’s in college and money is tight. The dresses I picked are $80-100 each which is not expensive at all compared to others I’ve seen. This strange behavior from Jess is continuing despite me talking to her to see if she’s okay.
34. Make Up Your Mind
My husband and I eloped in 2020. Our wedding is in three weeks in Ireland where I am from and where I live. My in-laws are all in Texas. They have never been super easy people but not the worst—but I couldn’t get them to RSVP to this wedding. I know travel, Covid, etc, so gave them time.
Four days ago we said it was pretty close, and we really needed to give our venue final numbers and didn’t know if any of the five of them were coming. My husband was heartbroken. Pre-pandemic canceling and elopement, his brother was the best man and he had asked him to be again. They confirmed three would come. Then changed to two. Quickly back to three. And then six. But that was nothing compared to what happened next.
At that point, I said that this wasn’t really confirming anything and I was feeling stressed and confused and could I help with anything? I got a screaming phone call and an essay from his alcoholic mom about how this wedding was about their family and I wasn’t making her welcome enough.
My nice girl act cracked and I said that this wasn’t fair on my parents who were hosting, given that my dad is extremely unwell and we are just trying to organize something small and manageable for him (they needed transport, buses to venue, hotel rooms for extra nights that we had to sort).
So now nobody is speaking to me and I am sick to my stomach. I can’t eat or sleep. I never thought it would affect me this bad. My mum is throwing me a bridal shower on Thursday and I feel so embarrassed because I feel I cracked and now our wedding is a mess with potential drama.
35. Who Wants An Invite To The Boring Part Anyway
This past June, I got married and as I’m sure most brides would agree, I wanted to make sure this day was special. Given unusual protocols posed for Covid-era weddings, the health of our guests was certainly a priority but I also wanted to have as “normal” of a wedding as possible that I had been envisioning for so long. Our ceremony was at a church and the reception was at a separate venue.
The church had very strict capacity limitations which required us to drastically cut our guest list down. We decided to have an intimate ceremony at the church with our wedding party and families, but to invite everyone on our original guest list to the reception. We sent out two different invitations and assumed that those who we were not able to invite to the ceremony would understand the circumstances given the Covid situation.
Shortly after our wedding, I caught wind from many people that a few gals from one particular group of friends had been complaining during the entire reception about not being invited to our ceremony. Keep in mind, I am definitely not SUPER close with these gals but I do see them fairly frequently socially. While a big part of me felt like this was ridiculous and very rude of them to complain so blatantly, I chose to reach out to these gals to apologize if I had unintentionally made them feel excluded.
I explained that there were capacity limitations with the church so we, unfortunately, could only include a small group of people for the ceremony part of the day. In a lot of ways, I do not feel that I owed them any apology but I wanted to take the high road and clear the air because I certainly did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings.
After reaching out to apologize, I did not hear back whatsoever. I followed up a few weeks later to say, “Hey! Did you get my voicemail and text from last month? Just wanted to make sure and to again apologize for any misunderstandings about the ceremony. Would love to see you & catch up if you’re around”! Again, I was left with crickets.
It began to bother me after not hearing back so, after several more weeks passed, I reached out one last time saying something along the lines of, “Hi, so sorry to reach out yet again but I am a little worried that I haven’t heard back from you? Is everything ok”? Sure enough, radio silence.
This past week, over a month after that last text, I got a weird response from one of the gals essentially along the lines of, “I’m at a loss of words and haven’t known how to respond but didn’t want to keep you in the dark any longer. I was bummed about the ceremony and decided to take a step away from being your friend. Hope you’re doing well”! Well…that’s that, I guess.
36. Money Can’t Buy Happiness—Or A Good Wedding
First off, the bride and groom are lovely people and deserve no shame for any of this. They were failed by circumstances, their terrible vendors and a petty ex-husband. The bride has a very young toddler with an ex-husband. She was getting remarried shortly after a divorce.
The ex-husband was never spoken of but there were many references in speeches to how happy everyone was that the bride could finally be happy, how she got her prince charming and found such a good man. The bride was in tears, as was the maid-of-honor, the father etc. We as guests assumed the previous marriage had not gone well.
It’s a hot and muggy summer day. This is an expensive outdoor venue. Pulling up, you can tell they paid an outrageous amount of money for the place. The ceremony is supposed to start, the bride and groom have taken all their pre-wedding photos. There’s just one problem. Guests are waiting sitting in 90-degree full sun, baking and just melting in formal wedding attire.
There was a small appetizer tray and a few pitchers of water for guests as they arrived but it had long been pulled for everyone to get to their seats for the ceremony to start. The ceremony is supposed to start, and then there is a delay and we hear the generic orchestra music start back up again.
We can all see the bride and bridesmaids through the clear windows of the building. They are standing in line waiting to go but official people are scurrying about. More delays, and more delays.
It’s a full hour of everyone sitting and staring at the bride, waiting for this wedding to start. By the way, she had on a beautiful designer gown that was completely beaded from head to toe. She looked lovely. The groom and groomsmen are awkwardly standing at the alter the entire time. There is a lot of very worried shuffling going on between the bridesmaids and groomsmen groups.
At this point, I'm starting to wonder if older relatives are going to pass out. People start going inside the venue to fetch glasses of water and going to the bathroom for older people and pregnant ladies of which there were quite a few. The venue coordinator is very angry about this for a seriously stupid reason.
He wants no one to see the hall. The hall that everyone can see through 40 feet of clear glass windows with all the tables facing the ceremony site. The hall that everyone had to walk through to get to the outdoor garden in the first place. He starts barking orders at guests and yelling at them to leave the hall, water, and bathrooms behind.
He’s very forceful about it and rude. He actually at some point starts locking doors so people cannot enter. This is the only bathroom option on site. They do not put out more water for people outside at this point. Eventually, the wedding ceremony starts and the bride’s toddler is led out to participate in the ceremony.
During the ceremony, the DJ/sound guy massively fumbles the sound system. It cut in and out through the entire 40-minute ceremony loudly screeching and going silent the entire time. People were holding their ears in pain. I have no idea why the man didn't just turn the stupid system off.
It was painful and ruined any sort of videography the couple could have had. He never stops playing with the system. It was bad and if he wasn't the DJ for later on, I think he probably should have been fired on the spot. The ceremony is finished up and the couple are very clearly delighted and just so happy to be married.
The groom carries his new stepchild down the aisle with them—but there was something that we didn’t know...
We found out later, the bride's ex-husband had the toddler prior to the ceremony and had not brought/handed over the child several hours after he was supposed to for the wedding. He had clearly tried to spite the bride and groom by not showing up and delaying the ceremony start time over an hour because of his spite.
The bride insisted she was not getting married without her child in attendance. Pretty reasonable, and she stayed remarkably poised through the whole thing all considering. I suspect there was probably quite a bit of high drama behind the scenes finding that toddler and getting the child to the ceremony site.
Later, we the plebeians are all allowed by the event coordinator to enter the hall and find our seats. It’s a lot of people and a large wedding. The couple have clearly spent a lot of money on this. We all desperately gulp our ice water at the tables. I'm drinking mine when I make a chilling discovery.
I notice shards of glass in my water. I politely find a server and give them my glass and request a new one. Everyone at the tables starts eying their drinks. Then food service comes out. It's painfully slow. It takes well over an hour for everyone to get food. Everything is bland, unsalted, unsauced, and small meager portions. The cooked vegetables are raw. The potatoes are clearly instant.
What’s worse is we can't identify what meat we're eating. It's almost inedible. We eventually figure out eating two different types of sliced meat. We were all hungry. The cake was cut and served. Although beautiful, it was equally dreadful and stale. More speeches start and everyone cries about how great the groom is and how happy they are the bride found someone so wonderful.
It’s starting to get painfully awkward at this point. I and other guests are starting to wonder what sort of monster she was previously married to. Then the best man also makes an awkward speech saying he’s never seen the groom as happy as when he announced he was engaged to the bride. Here's the tricky thing.
The groom had also been previously engaged the year before to another woman. They had been engaged a long time. They broke up after some lifestyle differences. Which, fair enough, better to break up before than after the wedding. But the best man kept talking about how he had never seen the groom so happy to be engaged and in such a "healthy supportive relationship”.
Well, that was awkward. Talking about how his friend had just bloomed in the last year with the love of a good woman. Again also the groomsman talking about how he was so happy he could call the bride a friend and wanted them all to be a happy friend group together with him and their wives.
It should be noted the previous fiancé was also a nice lady, but they just decided to choose different life paths. So the highlight by the groomsmen of how much the groom loved this new woman and was soooo much happier after all these years was just a bit cringey. It felt a bit like he was saying he hated the other fiancé and this new one was so much better.
Through all of this, the bride and groom are just staring into each other’s eyes totally in love holding their toddler, and being a happy little family. Obviously, everyone was happy for them, but maybe the speeches could have been a bit more tactful about previous relationships. But the night wasn’t over yet.
Then comes the DJ with his music for dancing. He has decided he is going to crank the music all the way up in a concrete-built reception hall. The music is blaring. Again the sound system is not set up properly and the bass is vibrating the floors. It's physically painful to the ears again, something was clearly not balanced correctly with the speakers. No one can hear anyone speak. It’s bad.
People are screaming at each other in conversation. It's metal rock concert loud. It was bad enough after we left the wedding, I had ringing ears for hours after. I think it genuinely damaged my hearing. People begin to flee the reception room and the majority of all guests begin to stand in the foyer next to the bathrooms.
It’s actually a bit comical, if it wasn’t so sad. There are easily a hundred or more guests standing in the small foyer talking and drinking. The reception hall is essentially 25% full at this point. Everyone else has run away. The DJ still never read the room. All night, he kept the volume at the same level. Max. A few people try to dance.
But eventually, most of the guests tire of standing in the foyer and are hungry from lack of edible food. People start to leave at 8 pm. The evening wedding was supposed to start at 5 pm. We stayed as long as we could but by 9:30, nearly everyone was gone. It felt like it would be inappropriate to stay longer as the vendors had started cleaning up.
The venue also failed to set out the wedding favors in time for the guests. Nearly every guest had left without taking the custom bottled wedding favors. Walking away, I thought about all the money and time the couple had spent. They easily spent more than $50k, I would guess more on what was essentially a four-hour wedding day.
It was a beautiful venue, and with beautiful photo opportunities, a beautiful bride in a beautiful custom designer dress, and a happy groom. Everyone was thrilled for the couple. It had all the potential to be an amazing party. Honestly, if I had unlimited funds in the future I might have done something very similar for my own wedding. Even down to the decor and gown the bride chose. It was all of very good taste.
That’s when I determined, even if I had the funds, I wouldn't do this for myself in the future. I don't think my family are wedding people. I would be so disappointed if everyone had left my wedding four hours after they showed up. So much expense for so little in return. I would be absolutely crushed. Nope, I'm not setting myself up for that disappointment.
I'm probably going to elope somewhere in a fabulous destination. That way I can enjoy the experience and the expense of my own wedding. Family is welcome to join us for a barbecue after.
37. A Bloody Mess
This happened almost 10 years ago, but I still think about it from time to time. I was the wedding date to my male friend's family wedding. Let's call my date, J. It was a beautiful wedding at a hotel casino. As I only knew J and a couple other guests, I did not know what to expect. Turns out, his family really liked to party hard.
Before long, hard drinks and homemade moonshine were being passed around, mainly amongst the groomsmen and J. They all became incredibly rowdy rather quickly and after the cake was cut, the groom grabbed a handful of cake and shoved/punched J in the face with it. This is when drama erupted.
The cake to the face was meant to be fun and not malicious, but it caused J to start bleeding out of his nose profusely. Roughhousing can go too far, especially when intoxicated. Well, J became irate at being embarrassed and physically hurt by his cousin. He started yelling, then stormed out of the ballroom.
On his way to the bathroom, he sprayed blood all over the welcoming sign and then punched the metal door handle. It was one of those long horizontal push bars. Casino/hotel employees ended up having to rope off that area to sanitize and clean the blood. I felt really bad about that.
J went to the bathroom to clean up while still kicking up a fuss and many of us, including his mom and myself, followed him trying to help clean him up and calm him down. It soon became clear that no one was going to get him to calm down and he was too far gone to be reasonable.
His cousin tried to apologize many times, but J wasn't hearing it. Which is understandable considering J's present state. J's mom convinced us to leave him be and let him calm down without everyone around. I ended up going to hang out with some of the less rowdy cousins. I tried to wait for J outside, but it was getting really late and his mom told me that I could go back to our hotel room.
I was later woken up by J's mom, telling me that J had been arrested and that we would bail him out in the morning. I was upset by this, but there was nothing I could do but wait to figure out what happened in the morning. When I went to the county lock-up the next day, J came walking out in jeans and boots...that was it.
He had swollen hands and his button-up shirt he wore to the wedding was missing. I couldn't believe what had happened. I found out that he had ripped his shirt off due to getting so much blood on it, then left the casino and was wandering around outside because he was still messed up and angry.
He hit the side of the building with his fist and that's why one hand was messed up, and the other hand was swollen from when he hit the metal bar on the door. The authorities had picked him up outside the hotel. After picking him up from the lock-up, I drove us a few hours back home and then J went straight to the hospital for his hands.
He ended up shattering one of his wrists, I believe he still has a metal screw in it to keep it together, and he also broke a part of one hand, and a few fingers. I cannot remember the exact number of broken bits, but basically, he broke his hands and a wrist.
As far as I know, there is no animosity between J and his cousin. J knows he was off the rails and that if he had not been drinking so much moonshine, then the situation would have been very different. This was nowhere near my most favorite wedding I have been to, but it sure has the craziest story attached to it!
38. Thanks For Nothing
My husband’s cousin who lives near us is getting married to a lady that none of us want him to marry. She’s a boundary-stomping weirdo who has to control every situation and has very little idea of what she’s doing or social skills. First of all, the wedding is on Black Friday. Like, what the heck.
They want the rehearsal dinner on Thanksgiving, which is seriously rude, and also, we have Thanksgiving with my family since my parents are hosting. So, I’m livid. Now, they’ve decided that we need an extra rehearsal on Wednesday at a time none of us can attend. I think the bride scheduled it this way because she likes to be a victim and cause drama.
The best man (a close friend) is now no longer part of the wedding party. The bride has had beef with his wife for over a year and blocked her on everything a year ago before expecting her to do all of the wedding planning since it’s her day job. I wasn’t aware of any of this until she contacted me a little over a week ago super stressed over this and I told her to stand up for herself.
Her and her husband don’t deserve all the terrible treatment they were getting. Like, the bride was furious that the groom was getting a separate bachelor party than her? Wow. But the icing on the cake?
Right now, my husband and I are experiencing symptoms of Covid. We are both vaccinated, but I’m honestly hoping this gives us an out of the wedding. My husband says there’s no way we won’t be able to go, but I can dream.
39. Don’t Tell The Bride
This is a story about my cousin’s wedding last night. Nothing too horrible happened. However, there was a lot of talk going around at the wedding that perhaps some of the readers who are having a future wedding can avoid. So my cousin. She is utterly gorgeous. Extremely smart. And came from a super wealthy family. She is one everyone would be jealous of and was jealous of growing up.
Her wedding was expected to be no less than extravagant—and boy were expectations not met. Of course, she was the most stunning bride you ever saw, like right from a magazine and her ceremony was cute and simple. However, apparently unbeknownst to the rest of the family, her father (who was paying for the wedding) lost all his money the year before.
The cocktail hour with appetizers only lasted 15 minutes as they did not prepare enough apps for the entire hour between the ceremony and dinner. Our family is massive party people and an open bar is expected at any wedding when we are in attendance. Apparently, there were drinks only for up to $1,500 and that ran out also before the cocktail hour ended again.
So 30 minutes before the dinner was served, she had 150 guests tipsy, hungry, and bored. Something needed to happen. Some ran back to their cars to grab wallets. I was informed ahead of time that the bar had a limit and brought a TON of booze with me. I don’t drink but I knew it would be an issue and everyone sure enjoyed the things I brought.
Finally, dinner was served. It was supposed to be a steak filet mignon or chicken thing. Unfortunately, the steak was barely edible though. I ordered it and didn’t like the gravy they put on top. My mother didn’t like it, my father didn’t like it. Luckily my husband ordered the chicken so we all split that. But many people were again, left unsatisfied by dinner.
Thank goodness they had a dessert table…with only 50 cupcakes which were gone in five minutes once people discovered it. My sister started complaining the loudest (she works in hospitality) about how poorly this is all going. My other sister starts getting in her face about how this isn’t her wedding and none of this matters…the rest of the guests were divided.
What really got people complaining was when there was a huge gap between the dancing and the dinner. It was over an hour until the first dance and people could finally enter the dance floor. With no free booze or food, what were people supposed to do? We stood around and mingled, but most of the conversation was about how long we had to wait to dance.
During this time, grandma had a few too many and threw up and passed out in a car. She is frail and has dementia so she wasn’t keeping track of what she was drinking. Two glasses of vino put her out. But her mistake made things even worse.
After the first dances, they invited all the married couples to come to the floor and then do the year call-out, so at the end of the song, the couple who has been married the longest is dancing with the newlyweds and that is supposed to bring good luck and a long marriage.
Well, the DJ started the song and everyone went out, but he was quickly informed to not call out the years as the couple who has been married the longest (my grandparents) would not be dancing. A very big disappointment to both my grandpa and the bride. Once the dancing started going, the complaining didn’t stop.
See, the newlywed couple loved country music. So the DJ played four country songs back to back and that cleared the dance floor as no one else really liked that genre of music. Luckily my cousins stepped in and requested some “classic” wedding songs which got the party going. However, whenever a slow song was played…it was country and people were grumbling about it.
I don’t know how the rest of the night ended as I left a bit early. I said goodbye to the bride and she asked if I had fun which of course, you had to say yes. But overall, I have never been to a wedding with so many people complaining and unhappy. As long as the bride never finds out, people will forget and it will be remembered as a magical night.
40. Turning On A Dime
My best friend, let’s call her W, has been a staple person in my life since middle school. she’s been there through all of my relationships, heartbreak, and exciting moments and now she does not want to be my friend any longer. W became a pretty key member of our friend group at the beginning of 2021.
She came and hung out with my boyfriend and I multiple times a week and then would hang out with me and my BF and his best friend all weekend. We went on summer trips together and had a standing girls' night ever week. My boyfriend’s best friend, we will call him R, broke up with his long-term girlfriend of seven years back in March 2021, and of course, started going through women like no one’s business.
Long story short, W had her first time with R even though my boyfriend and I told her it was a horrible idea. R gave W a lot of heartache but she wanted to remain in the friend group because she didn’t want him to have the power to take her friends away from her. Now it’s been over three months since they got with each other and they both have their own partners now.
Except we don’t like W’s partner because he’s already showing red flags around us. He also doesn’t like her to come hang out with us on her own, and then if she does, he gets very upset with her and she leaves early. Yesterday, I bridesmaid proposed to W. Her reaction was devastating.
She says yes, but then spills the beans about how she hates R and never wants to see him again even though he will also be in the wedding. She texts me six hours later, saying she can no longer be my friend so she will not be at the wedding. I responded, telling her how much I loved her and want her there and she said it didn’t matter because of how much she hates R and apparently also my fiancé now.
I’m trying to just move on and not let her take my joy but it’s hard. Am I crazy to think it could all be her partner talking in her ear?
41. A Lesson In Rolling With The Punches
The mother of a good friend of mine is getting married next weekend. She's been widowed for about four years and has met a lovely man. We're in semi-lockdown so there are restrictions on numbers, etc, that they are following strictly. The drama? She fell over last week and broke her wrist and fractured her leg. She has a cast on one arm and a moon boot on one leg!
But they don't want to put it off so she's going to be limping down the aisle on her son's arm, happy as can be. She’s 78, he’s 82.
42. Unsupervised Minor
I am getting married in less than two weeks now. My soon-to-be mother-in-law has not been involved in any wedding planning, and didn’t come to my bridal shower. Yesterday, my fiancé and I went to their house for a little while and his younger sister (13) showed him her dress for the wedding, which is bright white. My dress isn’t even this white.
I know that it’s not her fault because she probably doesn’t know not to wear white, but I am annoyed with my mother-in-law for not telling her to choose a different dress for the wedding, especially when she didn’t ask me if it was okay. If they had asked I might have said it was fine. It just doesn’t feel good that she didn’t consider asking me how I felt about it.
I wouldn’t ask her to change it now, I just keep wondering if it’s wrong of me to be annoyed about it?
43. The Bait And Switch
My fiancé and I are planning our wedding. Three years ago, I moved across state lines five hours away from my hometown to be with my fiancé. Originally, when we started planning this wedding, we wanted it to be midway for the families (three hours for each of the families), however my family insisted that it's fine to go do it where we live now and the drive is not a problem, and if it is they don't have to come.
I'm thinking great, it's so nice that they are being flexible on this. It made planning everything else so much easier. The problem comes when we were planning the rehearsal dinner. My fiancé and I are private people, we are welcoming extended family to the wedding despite us wanting to keep the wedding small. With all the extended family invites, and random family friends, we have about 70 people.
We were happy with this number and were excited for our rehearsal dinner to be the core group of 30 we had initially wanted the wedding to be. We had this planned already, and everything was going smoothly until I went home for my bridal shower and mentioned that the rehearsal dinner is only 30 people.
At that point, my mom and stepfather are absolutely disgusted with me. They said you can't do that, all those people are coming from our state to see you, you have to invite them to the rehearsal. She kept telling me that they are booking a flight and a hotel to be at your wedding, so I need to invite them to the rehearsal as well.
That this needs to be treated as a destination wedding for MY side of the family. I kept getting harassed about this until I gave in. I told my fiancé about this and he got angry because this was the ONLY intimate moment we will probably ever have with all our close friends.
It's wrong to only invite one-half of the guest list and WE have made that drive the day of and stayed overnight at a hotel and left the next day, there's no need for them to be there for two full days early.
44. Actions Speak Louder Than Words
I need help deciding if I should tell my maid of honor I don’t want her in my wedding anymore or if I’m just overreacting. I am getting married in five months and have been having some issues with my maid of honor. So let’s start off with dress shopping.
I planned way in advance to go dress shopping and with restrictions, I was only allowed to have three people with me so I chose my maid of honor, my mom, and my sister. Day of, my maid of honor calls me one hour before the appointment to tell me she could not come because she is fighting with her boyfriend.
I just asked maybe she would like to come along anyways and vent while we shop as it was a big day for me and really wanted her opinion that day. She still said no and that was that. I ended up buying a dress that day and afterward, she has not yet asked me about that day or if I found anything. Next would be my bridal party’s dress shopping.
Day of, she called and told me she couldn’t make it due to she was having a mental breakdown I asked what was going on and she didn’t want to talk about it so I gave her some space. I have asked her plenty of times if she was doing okay and she said she’s fine. She has also given me a hard time with what she could wear for the wedding.
I let all the girls choose their style of dress as long as the color was the same but she said since she’s a maid of honor she should be able to decide what she wants to wear. I have talked to her about everything and told her how I felt like she didn’t want to be a part of the wedding and I said it would be totally fine if she wanted out but she said she wanted to be a part of it and a part of every step but her actions say otherwise.
After that talk, she still hasn’t reached out about anything. She told me she was planning something for me, but when I asked one of my bridesmaids about it, they said nope. I also found out my bridesmaids are planning my bachelorette party and wedding shower and that she hasn’t reached out to help with that.
I also don’t want or expect her to do any of that I just want her to be there for the important parts I just don’t get why she would lie.
45. Rubbing It In
My sister got married last Saturday. It was a nightmare. She and my mom spent nearly the entire year in the lead-up to the event talking about it. This wouldn’t have bothered me if it was excitement fueling all of those conversations, but instead, it was stress. I’ve never seen the appeal of a big wedding, but watching this play out has solidified my point of view.
My husband and I got married in a small ceremony in front of only close family and friends (maybe 25 people there at most), hosted a slightly bigger reception for others we also wanted to celebrate with, and called it a day. There was no anxiety about planning, no looming dread that this perfect day we had built up in our heads might not go 100% as planned. Just us celebrating our love with people we love.
My sister’s wedding was the antithesis of that. It was over the top. The guest list was already massive, and then she allowed children there on top of that. If you can imagine 200+ people plus kids running around what is supposed to be a peaceful event and NOT get anxious, I envy you. I already knew the whole thing was going to go terribly, as much as I hate to say it.
You can’t welcome that level of mayhem while also having your itinerary planned down to the minute. There was nothing intimate or personal. It seemed she was inviting “friends” she hadn’t spoken to in years just to fill out more seats. The whole thing was ostentatious and I have no idea who she was trying to impress.
Myself and the rest of our siblings are all in similar financial situations. Just because you have the money to pay for something doesn’t mean you should. My husband and I were ready to head home right after the ceremony, but we played nice and stuck around. At one point over the course of the night, she ended up in tears, unsurprisingly.
I got roped into trying to comfort her, and I asked my sister if it was worth it. Was all the planning and stress and money dropped on this event worth the final outcome. My mom told me that my attitude the entire day had been terrible, the comments from my husband and I were distasteful, and that the question I had asked was awful and rude.
I haven't spoken to either her or my sister since.
46. Cry Uncle
My mother had four sisters and five brothers biologically. She is adopted but invited all of her siblings and the ones who were going to attend RSVPed like normal people. The wedding was five days long and on the second day, one of my uncles turns up. We are going to call him Vincent. My husband Bill is the one who greets him, and he is very dismissive, he pretends that he doesn't know Bill.
A couple of hours later we come downstairs, we have dolled up and it is basically time to start kicking off the celebrations. We come downstairs and we hug everyone who was present. My mother results in telling Vincent that this is the Groom (Bill) and Vincent suddenly has a moment of clarity and blurts out, "I did not think you would have recognized me".
We proceeded outside to do a prayer recognizing the Earth as the mother who nurtures and provides for us. I heard him exclaim to the Priest that the women in his family do not know how to do anything right. For the Turmeric ceremony, Vincent started yelling at my second oldest sister—there are four of us.
He was yelling because according to him we were not doing things the right way. Like he knew better than the priest. When he put the turmeric on me, he basically was hitting me and he told me he is just going to the “Om Namah Shivay” mantra because he does not want my marriage to fail because my family did not have the sense to do things the right way.
All of my cousins who came to the wedding were given a role. My sisters were front and center but that is because we live in different countries and are absurdly close, and we are sisters. On Saturday I did his name tag/place holder thingie, while my sister did my hair. And when I walked in with an absurdly heavy and big three-piece Indian lehenga, he called me fat out loud.
My twin's fiancée was ticked off and spoke to him. He boasted about his wealth to one of my mother's friends and that resulted in the biggest insult of all, telling people that my mother has only achieved something because of his help. He also told people that my mother sleeps around.
Just after the Hindu Ceremony, he pulled my mother aside and yelled at her, telling her that had we (Bill and myself) invited his kids personally they would have come and they would have the same amount of fun as my other cousins. At the group photo, he proceeded in directing everyone on what to do, and continuously shouted at me "Can't you smile”?
I basically had a panic attack and fainted. I had also only had two hours of sleep. He told the priest that he was the black sheep of the family to which the priest responded, "Well, have you done anything to be the black sheep”? Basically, if he was the black sheep of the family he would not have been invited.
Our wedding favors were placed in little bags with the recipients' names on them. A few people were late, so he ended up taking multiple programmes and other people's wedding favors (my grandmother saw and was happy to report back). Then, he found my mother once more and told her that he would not stay for the Humanist wedding because he is very religious.
What does a Humanist wedding have to do with religion? I do not know. Since then, he says that he regrets not having brought his family to the wedding and they would definitely be coming for my twin's wedding. Cannot wait for what he does or says next...
How do you manage people like this? I wished he had stayed home with his obnoxious family. He always gives me weird vibes.
47. When One Door Closes
My uncle got left at the altar on his wedding day after a five-year relationship. My grandad had to go up to the altar, thank everyone for coming, and say there would be no wedding. My uncle was heartbroken and went on a trip to New Zealand to get over it. He sat on the plane next to a dude from there. The guy invited my uncle to his family’s home…and my uncle ended up marrying his sister.
They are still together and have three kids. She is awesome and the best aunt.
48. Never The Two Shall Meet
I’m a part-time wedding planner. The bachelor party and the bachelorette party were being held in the same hotel in New Orleans. I tried to get them to do separate venues but nooooo, the group discount would cover an extra day in Carmel. They begin at 8 pm and collide drunkenly at about 3 am. It was some kind of drunken fistfight that turned…intimate?
Everyone was so ashamed the next morning they called it off. They made up six months later and got married. They picked something simple, like their backyard, this time.
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49. For Better Or For Worse
A friend of mine had a bachelor party at the local peeler club a few days before the wedding. I was going to come later in the evening as I was flying in late for the bachelor party and wedding. Got a call right before takeoff. The news shook me to my core. The groom had fallen from the upstairs in the VIP section and had severed his spinal cord.
Even after a few months of rehab, he was fully paraplegic. Amazingly the wedding did happen, almost a year later. It puts things in perspective that she still stayed.
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50. Family Feud
My cousin runs a popular upscale marriage venue. The groom's mom was a heavy drinker and got belligerent when she drank, so understandably the bride wanted the groom to try to limit her drinking. The afternoon before the wedding, the bride arrives to see groom's mom smashed with the groom himself giving her drinks. Next thing my cousin knows, the bride and groom are in a straight-up fistfight.
This leads to an Anchorman-style street fight between members of both families in the parking lot. Apparently they recently scheduled a new day for it. I can't imagine the tension there.
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51. Gimme Gimme Gimme
Friend invites me to his wedding. He and fiancée are fairly poor and have lived together for years. They're both semi-disabled (his is PTSD, hers is physical) and on fixed incomes, and live in a somewhat expensive area. They have three gift registries (Target, Macy's, Crate & Barrel) and a HUGE invite list—over 300 friends and family members.
All the stuff on the registries is standard stuff like towels, coffee cups, flatware, etc. Anyway, people fly out, get ready for the wedding, and two days before the wedding is the bachelor party. That’s when the dark truth comes out. The friend has too much to drink and admits that she's not really his fiancée; they are just roommates and they have no intention of getting married, they just needed the stuff.
They're going to cancel the wedding tomorrow and keep all the gifts. I had to protect him from getting his butt kicked by about two dozen people. Then he had to have the fiancée come clean to everyone since he was too hungover. They ended up returning most of the gifts to people—but a surprising number of people let them keep the gifts. As his grandfather said, "If you needed these things that badly to lie like this, you must have been very desperate."
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52. Talk About Bad Timing
My friend had been with his fiancée for eight years when she got pregnant. Fast forward eight months and we decide that because they are basically common-law married anyway, we need to throw him a bachelor party. So we go to the nearest big city and we are all living it up when he gets the call that his fiancée is in labor. None of us is in any state to drive.
We end up calling a cab and paying over $300 to get him to the hospital as soon as possible. My friend is stumble-down hammered he walks into the delivery room smelling like a peeler club, with lewd things drawn on his face and covered in glitter. I was positive that was the end. They've been married seven years and just had their second child last week.
53. Liar, Liar
The sister of the groom chatted with the sister of the bride. Just casual conversation, but it came to light that almost 100% of what the bride had said besides her name was a complete lie. Sister of the groom calls him up and says he really needs to figure out if this is right. A few fights and some long thinking later, the groom leaves her and leaves town. It got worse though.
It turns out pretty much all the bride's friends had been lied to as well. They all stopped talking to her. She lied about all the normal details of a person's life. Where she went to high school, instead of a boring suburban school it was an expensive private school.
She claimed her family had a ton of money she was set to inherit. Claimed they had a home in Hawaii. Faked knowing people in the same industry. Small to large, didn't really matter, almost all of it was fake from what I heard. I didn't really know her, but we were at the same company. People I worked with used to work in her department so I just heard most of it second-hand.
I have no idea how she thought this would work for the rest of her life. I honestly think she had a mental condition. From what I understand, she tried to rekindle the friendships but quickly started to lie again and that was it. She quit the company shortly after all this went down.
54. She Dodged A Bullet
I had an awful teacher in high school who used to brag about how he left a woman at the altar. He was a short, angry, jerk of a man. He would cover the windows so no sunlight would come into the room, and make us put all of our backpacks against the wall. He would then publicly mock anyone who had to get up and retrieve something from their backpack during class.
Anyway, he said that he went up to the bride and told her it wasn't worth it. And then he went home to have a drink. Ugh, he was so smug about it, it made me feel sick. If I wasn't so insecure in high school, I would have complained about him.
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55. The Silver Coffin Lining
I used to work at an upscale wedding venue. Two weeks before a huge, expensive wedding, the groom's father dies, so they ask us to turn the wedding into a funeral instead. They were a lovely couple, and it was really awfully sad when it happened, but I still use it as my go-to answer for "describe a time when you delivered outstanding customer service" type questions in job interviews.
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56. A Nasty Surprise
I worked at a music venue in the Detroit area that was also a popular wedding reception location. Came into work one week in the fall, when pretty much every weekend is booked solid with weddings, and noticed Saturday was open, no one scheduled. I talked to the wedding planner and she tells me the groom canceled...Odd. Talk to the wedding planner’s younger brother, who was our head bartender.
He tells me that the groom, excited for the wedding, left work at lunch on Friday, bought a nice bottle of red, and headed home to surprise his bride-to-be. Except, he was the one in for a surprise. He walked into his new house to hear sounds coming from their bedroom. He walked in to find his bride in bed with another man…his father. We tried to talk him into doing a big screw you party because we'd never fill the space and there was no refund, but he declined.
57. A Whole Lot Of Fuss
This happened several years ago. My ex was the best man in a wedding for his best friend. The night of the bachelor/bachelorette party, the men and women each had their own get-together, and then were supposed to meet up with each other later that night at a bar downtown. I was with the ladies and after our party, we got into the party bus and headed down.
The bride called the groom and told him to leave to meet us there. We waited and waited. Groom is a no-show. Bride demands that I call my then-boyfriend and find out where they were. Boyfriend reports that they made a pit-stop at strip joint, which the bride and groom apparently had an agreement they wouldn’t do. The bride obviously flips out.
She grabs my phone demands that my ex order everyone to leave the club. Ex tries to explain that it is not going to be easy to get 40 highly intoxicated men out of the club when they had already "started." Meanwhile, the groom is still ignoring bride's calls. The bride demands that we all leave. The bride and groom's sister get into a physical altercation and have to be pulled apart.
The bride is screaming that she is canceling the wedding. The ex and I hightailed it out of there as it had escalated into a two-family brawl. The next day, the groom calls my ex and asks if we want to come over to watch movies with him and the bride. They got married weeks later and are still married.
58. The Biggest Betrayal
While working the night before a wedding at a hotel, the staff and I heard a loud scream from upstairs. Cue the bride screaming and sobbing shouting, "The wedding’s off!!!" while storming out the place, followed by the groom in his birthday suit covering his nether regions with his hands apologizing profusely. Turns out she caught the mother of the bride and the groom getting it on.
Safe to say we had an easy shift the next day as we didn't have a wedding to cater for.
59. A Moment Of Weakness
Neighbor's jealous harpy frenemies convinced her to cheat on the husband-to-be at the bachelorette party. Her friends were very far gone and SnapChatted evidence to him as "a joke." Obviously, he didn't take it that well and left her. Packed up all his things in their apartment and drove to his parents’ instead of getting married. The bride apparently didn't leave her room for about three weeks, totally distraught with how her relationship fell apart.
60. More Than Just Friends
This was my best friend’s bachelor party a few years ago. He had dated his fiancée for six or seven years at that point. She made a male friend at work that became a groomsman. I hated him, didn't trust him, and told my buddy that. The night of the party after huge amounts of drinking, my friend the groom breaks down crying, leaves, and walks home.
He didn't say anything to anyone, just left. Found out the next day that the bride-to-be had been banging that groomsman for months and they were trying to work through it. He couldn't get past it and canceled the wedding.
61. Everyone Knows But Him
A week before his wedding, a friend of mine walked into a nightmare. It was his dad getting it on with his fiancée. The next day in a fit of rage he trashed their room AND THEN in the process found explicit love letters to his recently married best friend (and best man) in her underwear drawer. The letters were as recent as the past week. The wedding was canceled.
Whenever I ran into him at a bar I made sure he never had to buy his own drinks.
62. The Show Must Go On
The bachelorette party is three days before the destination wedding. My sister (the bride) is taken by her friends for a dinner. I'm at the bachelor party with the groom, and we start getting weird messages. Garbled texts, and then we get a call from a local hospital. They’ve all got incredibly sick from the dinner. The groom goes "Yeah, this isn't happening boys" and we figure one more shot and we'll make our way to the hospital.
Never underestimate the determination of a bride and bridesmaids. The wedding was delayed by only a day, to the Sunday, and she walked down the aisle with enough gravol shoved up her bum and shot into her veins that I'm not sure she knew where she was, let alone that it was a wedding. The bridesmaids were all various shades of grey, green, and ill.
It was open bar, and to avoid spoiling the party, the husband and groomsmen stayed back and kept drinking. My sister was so tired that she and the bridesmaids took another dose of gravol and all went to sleep in their hotel room. My mother, who is a retired ICU nurse, went to take care of them.
63. Bad Habits
The day of the wedding, the bridesmaids discovered a bunch of drugs and syringes in the bride's bag. The groom was furious and called off the wedding an hour before it was set to happen, but still let us enjoy the food and bar that had already been paid for at the venue. He dodged a bullet and I got drinks for free all night. Win-win if you ask me.
64. A Backup Plan
Not mine, but a friend of my wife. It was a destination wedding in South America; we live in the US. Because it was a destination wedding, they both had their bachelor and bachelorette down there. The bride-to-be went looking for the groom the night before the wedding. No one knew where he was...and we eventually found the dude locked in a bathroom with some local girl doing coke.
The bride was obviously angry but they went through with the wedding. But then the twist came in. Cut to a few years later, and we randomly went out to dinner with just me and my wife with the bride. Turns out she never mailed in the wedding certificate. All this time, they haven't been married. She said she had too many red flags to go through with it.
Dude has no idea they aren't really married, even though they have been married for years and have two kids together.
65. Rekindling An Old Flame
I'm a musician, and I work on an infamous street for revelry and debauchery. One night, a bachelor party came in around the same time as a bachelorette party. The show I work with does special things like funny songs for special events, so I bring them both up at the same time to do something special. Then it got awkward. In the middle of this, on stage, they start making out.
And they Do. Not. Stop. I finish my routine as best I can and get them offstage. Later, as I'm looking around the audience, my eye catches on them again. They're in the back corner just going at it while their respective parties hang out up near the front of the stage. And they are really getting into it. Hands down pants and up skirts. At some point they disappear.
I take a break and head to the restroom. It's locked. I hear a woman yelling…some very encouraging…things from inside the stall. I sit in the lounge area outside the bathroom for about 10 minutes. The bachelor and bachelorette come out, looking a bit disheveled, but not too bad and not at all weirded out. They see me and immediately want to chat.
For some reason, people always want to get to know the musicians here. All their secrets came spilling out. There's curiously no guilt on them at all. I have to pee like a racehorse, but this is too good to pass up. Come to find out, they both are getting married to other people, but know each other from having lived in the same small town of about 5,000 all their lives. They ran into each other for the first time since high school graduation at our bar and old feelings emerged that neither had ever attempted to act on.
They don't stay long, and as they leave I hear the bachelor say, "I have my own room, let's go there." The rest of the party stays till the show is over, partying hard and having fun. Possibly the best bachelor/bachelorette parties I've had. Anywho, I wind up seeing the "bachelor" and "bachelorette" together at our bar and out in the street every night for four nights.
Always holding hands and/or getting frisky. They came back a little over a year later. They got married here in our town to each other instead of who they were engaged to that fateful night. Most of their respective bachelor/bachelorette showed up for the event. With this story, I always feel torn. Did I participate in the destruction of two relationships, or did I facilitate the meeting of two soulmates?
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66. Down To The Wire
My aunt was visiting me, and a friend's daughter was getting married that day nearby. My aunt wanted to drop by the reception to bring a wedding gift. When she got there, she got horrible news. It turned out the wedding had never taken place. It seems they got to the altar, and when he said "I do," and they asked her "Do you take this man to be your wedded husband?" she said, "No," and walked out.
The weird part is they were both at the reception, hanging with their friends. He looked really unhappy. She looked delirious. If I were him, I'd never want to be within a mile of her ever again after that. I don't know what her reasoning was. Maybe it was good. But it was really incredibly rude of her to literally wait until the very last moment to break it off.
67. A Photo Finish
An ex-girlfriend was at a bachelorette party at a seedy male dancer's place. She came home from the party and said, "Well, the wedding is off." The bride was getting the usual treatment, sitting in a chair with the men gyrating around her, whipping stuff around, and then they got, uh, really frisky. When it ended, the bride kind of comes to her senses, looks around, and sees like 20 of her friends pointing cell phones at her recording and taking photos.
She starts freaking out. My girlfriend says she started screaming at everyone "you better delete that” and generally having a full rage meltdown. This tale of modern romance closes very shortly after, with the bride’s phone ringing in a call from her fiancé, who has already received photos from her “friends” of his bride to be getting it on with a male dancer in front of a crowd.
68. Showing Her True Colors
I was at an engagement party of a long-time friend the other day, and everything was good until afterward. As soon as we got back to their house (I was crashing at theirs) they had an argument. I saw a side to her I never wanted to know. She got angry and punched him in the face twice, then said, "If you tell anyone I did this I'll say you're abusive."
He said he was done with her, but somehow the wedding is still on. I'm supposed to be the best man, but there's no way am I condoning the wedding in any form, and that includes going to the thing.
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69. Daddy’s Little Girl
This was my buddy's bachelor party. The bachelor got super loaded and the father of the bride, who was super conservative, was shocked and did not know the well-mannered/polite young man marrying his daughter was, in his eyes, a "raging alcoholic.” In fact, the bachelor got so tipsy, he began to let some secrets slip about his relationship with the bride.
Again, the father of the bride was a bit old school in his thinking, and the bachelor let the following slip: That his daughter was basically living with him since Junior year of college and her apartment in college was just for show. That even though he is drinking a lot, his future wife can outdrink him 2-1. His future wife has a cute tattoo on her inner thigh and that all their friends had seen it when they went skinny dipping at the father’s lake house.
That we had a massive graduation party at his lake house when he and his wife were in Europe for two weeks. Finally, the bride is into some kinky stuff. That drew the line. The father of the bride declared there would not be a wedding, and asked where had he gone wrong raising his daughters. He has four daughters total and this was his oldest and who he considered his best behaved. They married anyway.
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70. The Bro Code Strikes Back
A dancer came to my buddy Jack's bachelor party and was playing around with condoms, but nothing truly untoward happened throughout the party. At the end of the night, Jack the groom-to-be was cleaning up a bit and put the condom wrapper in his pocket absentmindedly. The next day his fiancée Kristen was doing laundry and found the wrapper.
She freaked out thinking that he had cheated on her. Jack tried to reassure her and explain the situation. Kristen is a really cool lady and takes it pretty well and calms down...but she can't quite shake the feeling. So, Jack tells her to call me to confirm what happened. Kristen calls and asks, "So what happened last night?" Mind you, I'm totally in the dark about the situation, and Jack and I had never discussed what we are supposed to tell Kristen, so I totally downplay it to erase the dancer completely.
"Not much, the boys just had a few drinks and had some Havanas.” I hear YOU LYING PIECE OF—click
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71. A Rollercoaster Ride
On man, so I have a good story. The night before the wedding, the rehearsal dinner is at a distillery. Everyone gets hammered. I mean everyone, even the grandparents, all extremely intoxicated. The groom's dad was so gone that when he tries to give his speech to the couple to be, he cannot even talk, nor stand up. After the rehearsal dinner, the whole wedding party decides it is a good idea to go out drinking some more at some karaoke bar.
At the bar, the groom’s little sister, who was in high school at the time, randomly decides to get on stage to try her hand at karaoke. However, instead of singing a song, she just starts talking about how she wants to screw all the groomsmen. Promptly, her family rips her off stage and takes her home. Later in the night, everyone is having a great time, but then the bride tipsily tells the groom that she is not sure if she loves him anymore.
The groom becomes enraged, leaves the bar, attempting to walk (stumble) back to his hotel, which wasn't anywhere near the bar. The groom's brother runs after him trying to calm him down and the groom ends up getting into a huge fistfight with his brother/best man. The next day, the groom and best man look like they had both been hit by a truck.
For some reason, the wedding is still on. The groom's mother decides the only way to fix things is by trying to cover the wounds with makeup. So now you have the groom and best man looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost up on the altar, and then in walks the bride…still soused. They end up both saying "I do" but weeks later, as expected, they get divorced. Then the plot thickened SO much.
It ends up that before the wedding while the groom was on his bachelor party weekend, they met a bunch of girls who were going to the same place for a bachelorette party. The groom hooks up with one of the girls he meets. Long story short, now he is married to the girl who he cheated on his ex-fiancée/wife with, and has been for the past seven years.
It’s always funny to think back on how much of a circus that wedding was.
72. Second Thoughts
My cousin was a young, newly-minted US Marine and was set to marry some girl he met at a gas station near base. She had no job, no real aspirations, and seemed only interested in his benefits, but she was putting out and he was happy. Nobody in the family wanted this to happen, but we were all afraid to push too hard and risk alienating him, so we all, including his parents, just went along with it.
We figured that it would fizzle out well before the wedding date. Well that didn't happen. Until the actual day of the wedding, it all went off. On the morning of the wedding, she informs him that her best friend will be coming to live with them for the first year in order to help her acclimate to living on her own. He tells her that there is no way that this can happen, because he lives in base housing and there are strict rules against it.
Apparently, this was a deal-breaker and she backed out, with not too much protest from him. We later found out that he had been having misgivings but was too chicken to call it off himself. The reception was bought and paid for already, and my cousin's family were all very relieved that the wedding was off, so anyone who felt like sticking around after the non-ceremony had an amazing time.
Even though the non-bride's family weren't there, I think we still drank almost all of the drinks.
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73. It’s Not All Fun And Games
A buddy of mine was getting married. We went out for drinks, but his wife did not permit him to have an actual bachelor party. As we drank, he made a disturbing confession. She was mistreating him and masking it as intimate “play.” The wedding was two weeks away. Only, he hated the whole idea and only went along with it because he had low self-esteem.
She was really aggressive. She had come on to me the year before and I said no. She went so far as to wake me up by sitting on me on the couch—without ANY clothes on—when I crashed once at their place. I was trashed and thought I was dreaming at first but came to my senses before anything terrible happened. I told him about it later, but he chalked it up as just her personality.
He didn't seem to care, even though I knew better. Anyway, we come home from the bar and sit in the living room and watch TV. He goes off to his fiancée for a bit. About 30 minutes later, I wake up to my buddy putting stuff in a backpack. He says he is going to go to a hotel, that he cannot stay here with her anymore. Says he will drop me at home.
That's when she comes out in full leather gear with another man following her. Starts yelling at him and doing some fairly familiar “dominant” commands. He isn't having any of it and leaves, while yelling at her for cheating and also leaving me there. Then she yells at me for not trying to stop him. I had the perfect response: "You're the one with handcuffs." And I walked home.
The wedding was canceled by him and she spent the next month saying stuff about how he was intolerant of her lifestyle. All I cared about was my buddy getting out of a horrible relationship. He is now married to one of the best women I know. So, a happy ending!
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74. It All Comes Out Eventually
How about the father of the bride, happily married with kids, sleeping with the maid of honor the night before the big day? Yup. That didn't go over too well with the bride. Even better, this is how it went down: The bride walked in on them bangin' boots. Big fight ensued, yada yada, then the maid of honor spills the beans that the groom ALSO had slept with her.
A few months before. Yeah. None of that went over well at all.
75. Bonnie And Clyde Y2K
So the couple has been sleeping together for a few years, she gets pregnant, and they decide to get married. Months of planning go by and she begins to show. Bride's parents wig right out, call her every name in the book, and forbid her to get married. But the couple got their revenge. They cancel the wedding all right, then take her parents’ car to elope and torch the garage on their way out. It was magnificent.
76. Watching Out For His Own
This ex-friend of mine, who has a daughter with another woman, was at his wedding reception with his new wife dancing. While there, she says he should forget about his daughter. He thinks she may be kidding and forgets about it. Later on she tells him again to forget about his daughter because she can give him as many kids as he wants.
He gets super angry, tells everyone to get out, the party is over. The bride doesn't know what the heck happened but he is already gone. He goes to see the bride a week after just to return the ring the bride's family gave him. He never spoke to her again so she gave up and a year later she sent him the divorce papers for him to sign at long last.
77. Finding His Fit
One of my dad's friends got way too loaded, left with a dancer at the club, disappeared for a few days, and then came back dating said dancer. But here’s the best part. Eventually, he actually married the dancer and they've been together for over 20 years. They seem pretty happy too. Romance can be weird and you find it in unexpected places, I guess.
78. Getting Cold Feet
On weekends I work at a place that hosts quite a few weddings. At about 2 pm one day, our in-house event planner came back downstairs looking really uncomfortable and asked if anyone else would go back up to the dressing room area with him. Turns out he rounded a corner to find the groom sobbing uncontrollably and being consoled by the bride's mother who kept saying, "It's not too late, you don't have to do this."
This was all made even more uncomfortable by the fact that the bride was pregnant. Wedding went off without a hitch and staff reported that the couple looked "very happy" once the trigger was pulled.
79. Let’s Call It Even
I had a buddy whose fiancée slept with a male dancer at her bachelorette party. He found out but wasn't totally irate about it. They had a pretty open relationship and flirted all the time with other people. Anyways, a couple days before their wedding…he got loaded and slept with one of his fiancée’s friends. But the outcome was hugely surprising to all of us.
He told her what he did, and they both basically said "truce." They got married. Eight years later, they're happy with two kids. It's weird though, because the friend that he banged still hangs out with all of us...no one really talks about it. True story man.
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80. Flying Too Close To The Sun
It was the party the night before the wedding. The groom and the groom's friends, as well as the bride and the bride's friends. They rent a cabin at a cool little state park for the party. We are all sitting at a picnic table, drinking, talking, nothing wild. The groom is stabbing a pocketknife into the picnic table top—not hard, just sticking it in the wood.
The bride-to-be says, "If you keep doing that, you are going to cut your finger off." Groom replies, "No, it's a lock blade, it won't close". Next stab: lock blade closes and cuts his pinky off. He was rushed to hospital with his pinky in the cooler. We have to hold the groom up at altar the next day due to his pain medicine. Pinky reattached, and everything was eventually cool.
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81. Does Anyone Here Object To This Union?
A few years ago, my family and I got invited to my second cousin's wedding. The bride (my cousin) and groom were wonderful people in their mid-twenties who had known each other since middle school. They were very much in love and had been deemed "the perfect couple" by our entire family. The wedding was exquisite, too.
It was a large outdoor wedding with beautiful decorations and flowers everywhere. It was a shame it ended up being nearly ruined. First of all, the bride and groom had to wait 45 minutes because the groom's mother was late. She showed up in a fancy white dress that could rival the bride's and insisted on being in all the pre-wedding photos, which made it hard to tell who was the bride and which visibly upset the actual bride.
The groom's mother then started verbally attacking the bride on her appearance, among other things, which left her close to tears. Then, when it came time to say the vows, the best man stepped forward—and what he said left us all in total shock. He professed his undying love for the bride, saying that he'd been in love with her ever since high school.
He proceeded to list all the things he loved about her including some pretty explicit things he said he wanted to do to her. He claimed he knew she felt the same way, but the bride just shook her head, looking extremely uncomfortable and even a little bit scared. He was escorted out of the premises unwillingly. And to top it all off, the groom's ex-girlfriend decided it was the right time to object to their marriage.
She claimed that it should have been her at the altar with the groom. But after that whole mess was taken care of, the bride and groom got married and the wedding party was still awesome. Despite the shaky wedding, they're still as happy a couple as they were before the wedding, and they've been married for five years and have two beautiful little girls.
Like I said. A very dramatic wedding.
82. What A Tangled Web They Wove
I was the best man at this wedding, but I lived in another city, so most of this is second-hand. Still, the drama involved seems crazy considering how undramatic this couple normally is. I was the best man for my older brother. The bride and my brother had eloped about a year earlier for health insurance reasons, but were throwing a moderately sized wedding to celebrate it (around 100 people) in a local park.
The bride asked her brother Alex to officiate the wedding and his girlfriend of four years, Christie, to be her maid of honor. Bride and Groom specified a very strict no plus-one policy. You weren't allowed to take your significant other unless there was a ring. Christie was an obvious exception, because she and Bride were already friends.
Note that my other brother's girlfriend of five years was directly told not to come because of this policy. About two months before the wedding, disaster struck. Alex calls Bride to let her know that he and Christie broke up and that Christie no longer wants to come to the wedding and won't be the maid of honor. Bride asks what happened and Alex just says that they drifted apart.
Also, Alex has a new girlfriend that he'll be taking to the wedding instead. Bride reminds him of the policy and that they won't allow plus-ones if there's no ring. Well, she was in for a surprise. Alex says that there is a ring. Alex and his new girlfriend (let’s call her Danielle) are engaged. Also, Danielle is pregnant. Bride asks how he met Danielle.
Alex met Danielle when he was helping teach a pottery class at his local community college. Danielle was a student taking the class. Danielle is 19. Bride asks the obvious question: "Did Alex cheat on Christie with Danielle and get Danielle pregnant”? Alex says absolutely not. Alex says he broke up with Christie, started dating Danielle, proposed to Danielle, and then he and Danielle got pregnant on purpose.
Note that Bride had spoken with Christie two weeks earlier and Christie had been excited for the upcoming wedding and being the maid of honor. Still, Alex is her brother, so Bride agrees to invite Danielle to the wedding and Christie is uninvited. The bride needs a new maid of honor and doesn't have many close female friends. She ends up asking her 16-year-old cousin from Europe who she hardly knows.
This isn't a big deal for her. The wedding goes forward without a hitch. Everyone has a good time. My little brother's girlfriend helps with set up and clean up, but doesn't attend the ceremony or reception as per the Bride's wishes. A few months later I run into Christie at a bar. That’s when I find out the twisted truth.
I buy her a drink and Christie is more than happy to tell her side of the story. Alex had been cheating on Christie for months with Danielle, before Christie learned about it. Alex and Christie were actually trying to have a kid during that time and had even picked out baby names. Alex only fessed up to his infidelity when he found out that Danielle was pregnant.
He then swiftly dumped Christie and proposed to Danielle. As a final insult to injury, Christie had recently found out the name of Alex and Danielle's new child. The name was one of the baby names Alex and Christie had picked out for their potential baby.
83. Mixing Business With Pleasure
The wedding planner we hired was seen by multiple friends and family making out with and going into various closets with a friend of ours who was helping set up our wedding. We confronted our friend and he confirmed they did the deed multiple times on our wedding day. I’m furious. It was so unprofessional and inappropriate on all levels.
And that’s not to mention there were tons of things going wrong with our wedding or not completed properly with our wedding that I can’t help but to think would’ve been done better/smoother if she hadn’t been “busy” all night. One of the major things was she did not check out catering at the end of the night and they ended up taking all of the food we paid for with them instead of leaving it behind.
Ultimately, she refunded us after the wedding. We expressed our concerns to her and she offered a refund and asked us not to review her.
84. Karma Is Real
My wife and I chose "rustic picnic" as the decor theme for our small wedding. This was in 2013 and mason jars were still very trendy. We aren't trendy people, and weren't then but figured this was the cheapest way to throw off a wedding that is still "pretty”. We also were having our wedding in a state park, so it fit. If you can't tell, our wedding was intentionally affordable.
As a working-class queer couple with conservative family members, it was important to my wife (and her mother) that our wedding "fit the mold" so to speak. We went to a few $25k+ weddings that year, and I'm still proud to say our wedding was the prettiest, and most Pinterest-worthy of that era. Of course, that all came with a downside.
In the hours before our nuptials, her mother cried out of sheer relief that our wedding was not going to be a total embarrassment. And it didn't come without significant effort. We scoured craigslist for mason jars. Drove an hour out of town for them, out to the country. Some were pretty plain, but some were genuinely antique jars—an excellent find.
We purchased lace and wrapped half of the newer ones with it, delicately gluing the lace to the outside of the jar. The other half or so we both made patterns with our hand prints in muted versions of our wedding colors. It was a dorky cheesy choice, but believe it or not, they looked nice and were very much ours. Or so we thought.
We also happened to pick up off craigslist about a hundred glass baby jars. They wrap those with almost impenetrable paper labels. It took very tedious hours to get these labels off. To pull off having these tables covered in mason jars, glass, and flowers it took us at least four weekends to pull off. Effort. Time. Money. Personalization. I'm still angry, can you tell?
Enter... Courtney. You know people like her. Well, she is engaged to Todd, my future brother-in-law. Did they get engaged a month after we did, after only knowing each other a month? Yeah, they did. First she showed up to our wedding shower wearing sweatpants. It was noticeable, it was weird, but whatever. I wish I could have gone in sweatpants.
She only got worse from there. What does she do in the middle of the shower? Burst out crying. "She doesn't have anyone planning a shower for her, she doesn't have any of their wedding planned, nothing is done, they don't have a venue”. Granted, at the time she was having issues with her family, a messy parental divorce. But money was no issue, they did quite well for themselves.
A brigade of my wife's relatives offered their help; My wife offered our help crafting anything that needs done. We were done with our own wedding labor at that point, but still in the crafting zone. She rebuffs ALL of these offers of help. Eventually, they land a venue at a countryside church, and plan to do their reception outside.
We hear about a few people in her family getting fitted for their attire for their wedding. Nothing strikes out of the norm because we are busy excited for our own impending wedding. The morning of our wedding our enlisted family and family friends (none of her siblings or their partners) helped me set things up perfectly. Our wedding goes off without a hitch.
Both of our parents contributed the food, and it was tasty. It was this amazing joint effort of love. As the reception wore on, it was easily noticeable that her siblings and their partners were nowhere to be found. They spent the entire reception drinking in their cars or around back of the building. It was a small wedding, thus easily noticed.
A few times, they came back around and Courtney would clearly be looking down her nose at everything. Just obviously, being a judgemental cow. My wife didn't notice either of the offenses until her maid of honor was mad on her behalf in the weeks after. I've got a keen eye for terrible behavior, but again, I gave it no mind as this was our day.
Just as folks helped us set up, they helped us clean up. Even Court and Todd—surprising considering their complete lack of participation. Everyone breaking things down without asking. Earlier than we would have liked. I wasn't angry about that. I appreciated the help, but chose to continue dancing with my wife, under the stars. We were blessed with wonderful weather.
In the midst of our dancing, I noticed something strange. Todd was placing boxes in his truck and Courtney was hovering around inside. Literally, she spent more time inside "cleaning" than during our entire reception. Again, I have a keen eye for garbage, but let it slide because again, this was our day. Do you know where I'm going with this? Yes, they attempted to steal all of our decor.
And that’s not all. My thief aunt also steals a table, chairs, and bottles of booze. But this is normal behavior for her. She recently was fired from her job for stealing cake from a work event. Our cake was also stolen. My wife's mother's BFF cut the cake for us. Tiny little slices for everyone, about a quarter inch wide. Why? Because at the end of the night she planned on asking to take some of the cake for a graduation party the next day.
"Of course, yes feel free, just leave us the top two tiers" What utter garbage. You should have seen these slices she was passing out. In the days after our wedding we had to fight to get our stuff back. My wife's mother attempted to convince us to let them have it, "they have nothing”. No. We hear from her cousin that Courtney is claiming we pilfered ideas off her Pinterest, and she feels the right to our things.
However, remember she had no idea what she was doing for her wedding at the time of the shower. They only booked a venue a month before ours. My wife finally gets a hold of him and explained they were very personal to our wedding, and that it would be extremely weird for them to use it. Finally, with enough cajoling, he dropped the boxes off at their parent's house.
We got most of it back. I still think there was some missing. But it’s still not over yet.
At the rehearsal dinner a week before their wedding, we find out that my wife's ENTIRE family was at the fitting. She was excluded from the very start. Everyone in her family, including cousins, children of cousins, and aunts are dressed similarly. They are all included in the wedding party. We are visually the outsiders. My wife is heartbroken and leaves their dinner in tears.
Despite a terrible experience at the dinner, the night of their wedding we are called by her mother that Courtney is freaking out. All of these plates she painted need work. My wife, the saint, actually helps. Well, that’s where karma came in. Guess what happens to the plates during the reception? The paint leaks off onto people's food.
It rains at their wedding and is the coldest day on record for June in our area. Their wedding is chock full of decor she had bought in the days prior at TJ Maxx. Some of the stuff still had price tags on. On top of it, she cheats on him. One and a half years later, he was both divorced and married again. Then, my wife’s other brother get engaged.
They include my wife as a bridesmaid probably to attempt to forego any drama (she wasn't REALLY included), and possibly to appease the mom. Her parents and brothers all start attending the same church that doesn't recognize or condone homosexuality. Awesome. The church lumps queer people in with "hoes, dealers, and drinkers”.
They don't bat an eye. Despite being a queer couple, once we had the necessary goods it was incredibly easy starting a family for us. We are blessed with two daughters, who happily will never know such family drama. Well, Todd is impotent and her other brother requires expensive intervention to conceive.
85. Communication Is Key
Just as early Covid was happening and no one really understood the implications, a family member was right about to have their wedding. Social distancing was just starting and masks were barely something the public needed. The original invites had been sent out months before. But they sent two updated invites. One said more news to follow.
The next new invite said what everyone expected—that it was now a small wedding. There was no new RSVP. Small weddings were just starting to happen. The family thought that the real one was happening next year, as mentioned in the invite. With a follow-up party the following year. Being a polite family, everyone thought the couple were nicely trying to say don't come, but come if you must see us get married in the church.
Well, it backfired spectacularly. No one actually came. Apparently the real one was this year and a small informal party was supposed to be next year for the supposed few who would bow out. They had an entire church and hall rented out. We all missed the wedding. None of the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, extended family showed up.
They had a huge banquet, and no one came. To make it worse, a few days later another family member had a socially distanced outdoor wedding on a farm. Everyone came. Everyone sat far apart and wore masks. And there was a separated food truck line, etc. The previous bride and groom had to sit through everyone coming to another family member’s wedding, while no one came to theirs.
Multiple people even apologized to them for what happened. The bride looked like she was near tears the entire time. However I'm not sure they would have been able to have a socially distanced reception anyways, because it was not outdoors. Major bummer. We all felt really bad.
86. Bridesmaidzilla
I got engaged in 2020, after the lockdowns but long before my friends and I were comfortable seeing each other in person. A couple of months after my fiancé and I got engaged, I sent out packages to all of the ladies I had chosen as bridesmaids. One of them is the crazy bridesmaid (I'll call her Ellen for the sake of anonymity) whom this story is about.
We have been friends since high school, are still in the same core friend group, and while not as close as we once were, I still wanted her to be a big part of our special day. We recently went on my bachelorette party, which was a weekend-long trip to a very affluent town a couple hours away on the coast. We were a large group of girls and it took my MOH a lot of time and effort to coordinate an itinerary and place to stay that would accommodate everyone.
Onto the story: From the very second we got to the house rental, Ellen was obnoxious. Everything was about Ellen. Someone had a funny story to share? Ellen had a funnier one. Someone complimented another person's outfit? Ellen had to step into the middle of the room to talk about how awesome her outfit was. At one point, someone asked me where we were honeymooning, and guess what?
Ellen and her husband had just booked a vacation to the same resort! It went on and on...and on. Now I am not the type of bride that needs constant attention. Seriously. I had to take a day off after the bachelorette because 72 straight hours of socializing had me completely exhausted. Anyway, onto the worst of what Ellen did. On our final night, we had a reservation at the nicest restaurant in town.
I'm talking renowned chef, $80+ entrees, dress code, etc. Everyone got dressed up and excited. We arrived to the restaurant about five minutes early. Our table wasn't ready yet—no problem. I understand that there are currently staffing shortages in the service industry and that patience is a virtue. Ellen does not understand this because she immediately started scolding the hostess for not having our table ready.
She then scolded her for seating us outside—at an outdoor restaurant—and next to a live band, even though everyone wanted to go for the music in addition to the food. It got increasingly worse from there. Ellen spoke about money constantly, as in how much she makes, how much she will make, and how her lifestyle will be going forward.
Something important to note is that everyone on the trip is not rich. We are middle and upper middle class—some are educators, some are mothers, some are in sales. We all work full-time jobs, have student loans, and while we are more privileged than some, we don't talk about money. We had all saved up for the bachelorette weekend and it wasn't something any of us could afford to do normally—it was a special treat.
My opinion is that when you talk about how "well-off" you are, you do a great job at making others feel like trash. Not to mention that literally no one cares about your financial situation. Ellen ordered around the waitstaff in a demeaning manner, screamed at a busboy to make him take away patio heaters from other patrons and bring them to our table.
She screamed at a manager to bring us complimentary prosecco (because she was cold...), took her cellphone flashlight out to show the manager that her steak was cooked medium and not medium rare, and made it a point to yell at/berate every employee she saw. It was mortifying. The final straw? Well, that was when it was announced that my father had graciously called the restaurant to pay for our $1,500 bill as a gift to all of us on our last night of the trip.
Ellen's immediate response was not to thank my father for the meal—he was on the phone with my MOH. Oh no, Ellen's first response was, "Well, if I knew someone else was paying for my meal I wouldn't have asked for my steak to be comped”. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, holding back tears of frustration and disgust.
The next day we were getting ready to leave and Ellen was clueless as to why nobody wanted to engage with her. Ellen is unaware of her behavior, never thanked my dad, and is mad at me (the bride) for wanting to go to a nearby pub for a nightcap after dinner. I needed one, trust me. After I headed home, Ellen and two other girls got into a rollercoaster of a conversation that didn't end well for Ellen.
I am still so disgusted by the way she treated the employees at the restaurant. I am so appalled by the way she so grossly discussed money in front of girls who are underpaid public school teachers. My wedding is coming up in under two weeks and I want the day to be drama-free. I am planning to compartmentalize my anger and frustration towards Ellen and not acknowledge it until after the wedding is over.
At this point I don't even know if I want to continue the friendship. I feel so sad and hurt over all of this.
87. Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
For your enjoyment, I give you the story of my very first wedding shoot. When I was just starting out in photography, I took low pay for full-day shoots. I had a few photos to show off, but not a pro-level portfolio. I got the chance to do a wedding, so I charged the lady $600 for eight hours. I was new and we all gotta start somewhere, right? I had no clue what I was in for...
It was at this really swanky local place. Old house converted into a wedding venue. She paid the $300, non-refundable deposit a couple of months before the wedding. The check bounced. It should have been a clue, but I needed the work and the pictures. I called and emailed her to let her know what happened. She apologized. She swears she'll pay the full balance, in cash, at the wedding.
I get there the day of, and there is no one in charge. Find the bride, she says she's going to get her money. Vanishes for 45 minutes. Find her again, she says her mom has it. Can't find her mom. Find the mom, she's clueless. A couple of hours go by and I help myself to the free food, wedding starts. At this point, I figure what the heck, I'll take some pictures anyway for my portfolio.
Her uncle is there with a camera constantly getting in my shots. I had to ask him to move or sit down five different times. Ceremony is over, they're doing the normal post-ceremony stuff. Finally get bride alone, says she's going to get the money right then. Doesn't return for half an hour, then says her new hubby has it. I finally realize, I ain't getting paid for this, but at least I got food and drinks and some experience.
I started up a conversation with the DJ, ask him in a joking way if he's been paid. He says of course, I tell him what's going on. He checks his bank right then and wouldn't you know it, his check had bounced too. He calls her over the PA (he's clearly done this before) and when she gets there, he informs her of the bounced check. I ask again about my money as well.
She makes some excuse about having to run to the car to get it. I tell her she's told me her mom had it, her husband had it, and she's gone to personally get it twice in the last four hours. So, no. She can call someone over to go get it for her. She starts whining that we're ruining her day and she'll pay us at the end. I’ll never forget what the DJ did next. He said, "Sorry, I don't work for free”.
He then cuts the music in the middle of everyone dancing and started unhooking his equipment. She loses it. He tells her she's got five minutes to get his money, or he's out. I tell her the same. She runs off, and 10 minutes later, I'm helping the DJ pack up his stuff. Her, her husband, her parents, and the uncle stop us at the door saying they have us for four more hours, we have a contract and we can't leave.
We both politely tell her that she hasn't held up her end of the contract by not paying for services by the appointed time. We agree that if we get our money right then, we'll stay. Shockingly, no one had the money for it, so we left. Here's the best part. She calls me a month later stating that she just got back from her honeymoon, and saw me taking pictures, saw the thumbnails on my site but couldn't access them without a code and she'd like her pictures and the code.
I told her I'd be happy to give her the proofs, and she could order the individual pictures she wanted from me, once she paid me the $600 she owed. She then spent the next two weeks emailing me and leaving me voicemails stating that I either needed to give her her wedding pictures or remove them from my site because she didn't give me permission to use them and she owns the copyright, or she'd take me to court.
I politely reminded her of the contract, told her that this isn't how that works, and said I'd be happy to meet her in court with all of my documentation, including my contract, bank statements showing bounced check, etc. Never heard from her again. Suffice it to say, now I won't even put your date down on my calendar until you've paid the deposit, and if you're still not fully paid up on the day of, my equipment won't come out of my car until I've been paid in full, if I even show up to begin with.
88. There’s No Way To Make Up For This Mistake
My wedding was this past weekend in Los Angeles. I first paid for a preliminary makeup trial with my makeup artist in March. I then chose to hire this makeup artist a week or so later in March and signed a contract and paid a deposit with her. In the contract she was to provide herself and one other makeup artist to do makeup on eight women for my wedding day.
The months go by and about 10 days before my wedding I ran through a timeline and schedule for her for the wedding day. Everything was fine. Fast forward to wedding weekend, it’s 9:30 am and she’s 15 minutes late, I’m annoyed but not too alarmed and text her. She has her read receipts on so I can see she read my message but doesn’t get back to me…
I start to get nervous. I proceed to message her multiple times. She finally gets back to me around 10:15 am, an hour after her scheduled start time. She tells me her daughter was in the hospital since 4 am with Covid. I ask her where her other makeup artist is that she was supposed to bring and why she didn’t get a hold of me sooner. She makes excuses.
She ends up sending another makeup artist around noon, three hours after the scheduled start time. This makeup artist only has time to do three people of the eight that she was hired for because she is alone when there were supposed to be two makeup artists. We don’t get out the door until 3:30 pm. My other five bridesmaids had to pay Ubers for their husbands to bring them their makeup bags. It was absolutely mortifying.
Because we are almost three hours behind schedule, my entire wedding ended up being three hours behind schedule. This affected every aspect of our wedding and basically thousands of dollars. The wedding coordinator was preoccupied putting out fires because of the makeup artist so there were aspects of my wedding that were executed incorrectly, such as hundreds of dollars in candles not being set up and lit, hundreds of dollars in fresh eucalyptus not being set out, and guest table place cards not being out.
The photographers were only booked for eight hours so most of their time was spent waiting for our makeup to get done and the wedding to begin, this means we didn’t get any dancing pictures of the reception. The catering threw away our leftover food because the planner was scrambling to fix the other things that were incorrect.
Our dancing and reception as cut short because the whole wedding was delayed due to makeup and this effected the money we spent on the hired DJ. Not to mention the emotional and mental damages done…I was crying and miserable most of the day and it shows in the sneak peek of photos we have gotten back from the photographers.
Still, I understood that a sick child takes precedent—until I learned the disturbing truth. This makeup artist was working another wedding on my wedding day. She was not sick. Just sick in the head. I did get my $100 deposit back from her but we still paid her other makeup artist $300 for the three girls she ended up doing makeup on.
In total, if we are talking about the DJ, coordinator, florals, and photography the total financial damage comes up to $10,000. All because of this one makeup artist.
89. Not Messing Around
My aunt and uncle are scum. They and my cousins lived with us when we were young because they needed help. When the tables were turned they treated my dad like garbage, laughed when I asked for a ride to my friend’s funeral, consistently ignored their kids so that my dad had to be their parent, and then would act like they've done nothing but favors for us.
After my father passed, my aunt tried to make the whole thing about her. We moved out of their house the same day he passed and we haven't seen/talked to them in the eight years since it happened. My wedding is in two months. I've invited my cousins because we grew up together and are practically siblings. Last night I received a FB message from my cousin—and when I opened it, my blood ran cold.
There was a screenshot from my aunt asking if she's invited. I told my cousin that I would handle it. She knew I was going to say no, even her own kids hate her. So I got her phone number from someone else. I sent the screenshot and texted her "Hey this is your niece, my cousin told me you were wondering if you were invited to the wedding. No, you and your husband are not invited. I will not have terrible people in my life anymore and if you show up, you will be thrown out for trespassing”.
No response from her, but my cousin told me they are freaking out about it and throwing a fit and making threats. I'm happy, I'm so happy. I don't care about the ensuing drama, I don't care if she does try to show up. I have waited since I was 11 years old to tell her off. That’s when she laughed in my face when I asked if my parents could borrow her car to take me to my friend's funeral.
If she tried to show up to our wedding, I'll probably hit her in the face and go straight back to dancing. I haven’t seen most of my family since I left for college. I have worked hard and made sacrifices to ensure my life and future family will not have to deal with the things my family did while I was growing up. I do not budge when it comes to terrible people anymore. I banned my own mother from coming.
90. Hashtag Doomed
I am the general manager of a restaurant often rented for weddings and other events. Bride has paid full balance on the event space. The package she purchased was ONLY for the space and the outside catering fee along with the other service charges, etc. She and her wedding coordinator ran through the contract with a fine tooth comb.
Yesterday we had our final meeting prior to the wedding which is in a little than two weeks. That’s when chaos broke out. At the meeting the bride informs me that the headcount is now 140 instead of 100. I let her know we would have to amend her invoice accordingly for the outside catering fee. She pouts and her fiancé says “I told you that we would have to pay more, but you didn’t listen”!
But they agree to the new amount and groom is huffing and rolling his eyes at every idea she mentions. She informs me that the chairs she rented fell through and that she’ll need to use some of our chairs. I inform her that we cannot provide additional chairs other than the seating already in the space she rented because our restaurant is still open to the public.
The seating provided is picnic tables and a very nice assortment of lawn and patio chairs. It’s an outdoor area, not commonly used for weddings in December. She’s nearly in tears because it’s not on theme with her vision for the ceremony—but the chairs are acceptable for the reception. Again, her fiancé makes her feel worse with the “I told you so” remarks.
The coordinator and I assure her that while we will have to be creative, we can make it work. It won’t look traditional, but will still fit into her “Rustic Winter Wonderland” theme. Bride seems placated, but groom is now laughing at her and petting her in a very patronizing way. Not sure if I can describe it, but it’s something my husband does to me playfully and mockingly when we both know I’ve done something stupid or boneheaded and we can equally laugh about it.
That was not the dynamic here. Finally, as I’m asking for contact information for each of her vendors that will be onsite, she informs me that her photographer backed out. This was apparently news to the wedding coordinator as well. So I’m helping them brainstorm ways to have their wedding captured, and the coordinator suggests using a hashtag with the groom’s last name.
The bride suggests they shorten the last name because it is a difficult name for a lot of people to spell. That’s when the groom loses it. Let me tell you, real quick, that these people were already nutty. Also, they are very religious and kept talking about propriety and how there will be absolutely NO drinking allowed because it’s the devil’s poison and how modest they expect the guests to dress, etc.
But then they mentioned the song that will play for their dance is the song they wake up to each morning, and caught themselves and tried to backtrack and say that they call each other and listen to it together. Anyway, back to the groom losing it. He gets up from the table and says “Forget this! Now you’re trying to butcher my last name!? That’s garbage”!
The bride was mortified and tried to calm him down but he was not having it. He yelled: “I can’t do this anymore. You keep lying to people about how we got together and why are we paying all this money for a wedding when we already live together” ?! The bride then again asks her fiancé if they can talk in private, but he storms out with “I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Find someone else to marry in a couple of weeks since you want this wedding so bad”!
When I initially met them, I could tell they were a typical super-religious couple where the man is dominant over the woman, so as much as it annoyed me, I did my sales pitch as selling the vision to the bride while keeping the cost within his budget. Planning a wedding is stressful, and I’ve seen my share of wedding drama after years of being in the industry.
But this one will haunt me, because—they went on with the wedding, and it was such a disaster. The weather was a windy 40°F and we had fire pits and several propane heaters out there, but the bride wanted a cold wedding, but apparently failed to inform her guests that it was an outdoor-only wedding. So remember that I had to add more money to the invoice because their headcount increased?
Well, they were not happy about that and waited until the very last minute to pay it. But then the day comes (yesterday). They ask to use our microphone and sound setup. No one brings a laptop. No one brings an aux-compatible device from which to play their Spotify list. Using our sound and sound tech is another add-on we offer, which they declined.
I add that to the invoice they still have outstanding and inform them that the wedding cannot begin until it’s paid. So the groom begrudgingly pays it. Everyone is freezing. Bride insisted on tall centerpieces, but after the wind knocked over two of them, breaking the vases, the wedding coordinator nixes the tall ones and just lays the flowers on the tables like sprays.
Their designated button pusher they asked to run the wedding playlist doesn’t know what the heck she’s doing. Did I mention everyone is freezing? The outside caterers don’t bring heating trays so the food is sitting on a table getting cold. Bride arrived almost an hour late. For the unity candle, they only brought the unity candle itself but forgot the taper candles with which to light the unity candle.
They ran an entire worship service in lieu of a traditional wedding ceremony. Everyone is freezing. Bride sang about four songs, very pitchy, a cappella. Headcount only ended up being 75 people. The groom’s cake was poop emoji themed. I’m not kidding. They brought nothing with which to cut either cake. Had to borrow our set. They brought nothing with which to serve cake. No plates, no extra forks.
They brought nothing with which to box the leftover cake. They had no music during the dinner or reception because they wanted us to change the restaurant station to praise and worship music, which we refused since the rest of the restaurant was still open. Their button-pusher left early because she was freezing. Here’s the best part.
The groom pulls me aside and says that they deserve a refund since most of their guests didn’t show up—or left when everything kept getting delayed. I explain to him that I did the pricing based on what was reported to me by his bride and the wedding coordinator. I also explain how they used much more of our items than was in the contract, without extra charge.
Then he starts feeding me a story about how he was behind bars until just 9 months ago and how blessed he is, but also starts threatening me with God’s vengeance if I don’t get him his refund. He’s literally waving a fist at me as he speaks to me in passionate tones, like he’s trying to preach to me and make me feel convicted, because God believes I owe him a refund since just under half the guests didn’t show up or stay for dinner.
One of my other managers, Ron, is a bouncer-looking veteran, takes-no-guff-from-anyone type, who is very protective of me. He sees what’s going down and hurries over. I’m doing fine at staying assertive, but when the groom sees Ron, he starts backing down and talking like a human being. He immediately changes his conversation and starts playing the good guy and asks Ron about how he can help move all the patio furniture back.
In other words, groom didn’t want any actual trouble from Ron but thought he could talk down to this “woman”. Ron knows me better and didn’t for once think I couldn’t handle myself. He only stepped in because he thought I might be in physical danger. I am not refunding anything and if they want to leave a bad review, I’m ready to respond to it.
91. Don’t Rain On Her Parade
I work as a bartender at events and I had a doozy of a wedding this past weekend. The bride insisted on having her wedding outside, despite the fact that there was a 100% chance of rain forecasted all weekend for the past week. The owners of the venue begged her to let them set up the ceremony in their indoor chapel. Her response was so bratty.
The bride insisted that she chose the venue for the outside ceremony area and that it’s the venue’s responsibility to…I don’t know. Make it stop raining? The couple only paid for the bar service to serve a selection of signature cocktails. Nothing else. No sodas. So the guests could either drink cocktails or water. They didn’t even provide us with water bottles to hand out to the guests.
The kitchen staff had to handle the water, but they weren’t contracted to start their dinner service until 7:00. Cocktail hour starts at 5:00 and was supposed to go until 6:00 when the ceremony was supposed to begin. The couple finally relent and decide to move the wedding indoors around 7:00. It takes almost an hour to break down the wedding arch/candles and move them I doors.
The ceremony takes place at 8:15. Everyone is nearly trashed because they insisted we extend the cocktail hour until the ceremony began. We had to cut people off who appeared physically intoxicated, due to also having not eaten anything. Since we had only been contracted until 10:00, I asked the wedding planner and owners if we needed to extend the contract to 11:00 or midnight.
Every time I asked, they said “no” because they didn’t or shouldn’t have to pay the extra hours. The ceremony concludes around 9:00 and it’s finally dinner time. They had ordered enough food and cocktails for 100 people. 150 people showed up. They ran out of food, and by the time they finished with dinner, the bar was closing.
Everyone was furious and kept blaming the venue and my bartenders, when neither issue was our fault. But it all went back to one person. I 100% blame the wedding planner—who was also the maid of honor—who was the one calling the (wrong) shots. Also, the bride and groom trashed their dressing rooms. Moved furniture, spilled drinks, scuffed up the walls... it was a nightmare.
92. Counting Down The Days—For All The Wrong Reasons
My fiancé and I have been long-distance between states for 4.5 years. We see each other once every two months. We are from the same town, and our families live nearby one another. Our wedding was supposed to be in August 2020, at which point he would move to NYC with me. However, we called off the big wedding for the safety of everyone involved.
We have been quarantining in our respective states so that we could both work and save money. We decided that it would be potentially safe for me to visit family in July, and decided to do a small elopement in my parents’ backyard, followed by a distanced garage door movie night of The Princess Bride, our favorite movie, for my parents’ cul de sac.
My father is picking me up in NYC the week before the wedding in a car. We were able to get all of our vendors to reschedule without a hitch, pick a day, and figure out ways to make things work all from separate states. The wedding is going to be in a state with extremely lax COVID rules, and I am coming from NYC, which is the opposite.
There will be 15 people present. Keeping our families safe and adhering to guidelines is extremely important to us. So we are asking that everyone distance, and only enter the house to use the restroom one at a time where there will be sanitizing wipes to clean doorknobs. My fiancé REALLY wants to hug everyone after, which I am uncomfortable with because of different homes, but I agreed that if people wore masks I would feel slightly better.
Everyone was super understanding and grateful for the precautions. Except my mother. I was so freaking excited for this small wedding and feeling good about everything, but now, it's totally gone. I've always been extremely close to my family, but as we near the wedding, they are continually pushing me away. As we are handling all of this planning, I had a huge falling out with my mother's extended family, who I have very little contact with.
They were using terrible, disgusting prejudiced language on social media, and I very politely told them it was vile and wrong. This caused me to receive insane amounts of texts from all of them, and they even hunted down my address of where I live and were flaunting it. I felt extremely unsafe so blocked all of them from social media/having any way to contact me.
Flashback to a week ago. My fiancé and I called my mother to discuss what sorts of burritos we should order, since my parents have very kindly offered to purchase food. Out of nowhere, she immediately turns the subject from if we should get rice and beans or sweet potato burritos into a screaming match about how COVID is fake and she will not come near me or wear a mask to hug me the day of the wedding.
She says her family hates her because of me, I'm keeping planning “secret” from her, and that everyone in both families thinks I'm high maintenance and out of control. My fiancé sat on Skype totally stunned, as he had just finished complimenting me on how surprised he was at the level of chill I have had, and the fact that we were literally calling to discuss the only plan necessary. Burritos.
My father called me after—and what he said broke my heart into a million pieces. He yelled at me about how I needed to elope without them present because he was sick of my mom and he didn't want to deal with it anymore. I broke down because my dad and I are EXTREMELY close, and I can't imagine him not walking me down the aisle.
I'm going to be staying with my family the week before the wedding, so it will be safe. At this point, I asked my fiancé if we could completely cancel and just elope with no family, but it is super important to him his family is there. He is moving eight hours away from them for me, and I want to make sure that he can spend this time with them, so I understand.
I tried for a full week to talk my mother down, include her in more, ask her opinion. All of her responses were short one-word text answers, and she would refuse to answer any phone calls. Finally, after watching an episode of Parks and Rec where Ben tells off his family, I told her that all she had to do was act happy in pictures and fake being nice to me.
If she couldn't handle that, she didn't need to come and we would pay for everything ourselves and change location. The fight immediately ended when I called her out, and she is now being actually helpful again and asking polite questions. HOWEVER, today I received a call from my 13-year-old sister who asked if "I really wanted to see her the week before the wedding”.
It’s because a friend invited her on vacation and she would be back the day before the wedding. I never get to see my little sister and we are just getting to the point where she thinks I'm “cool” again—we have a 14-year age difference. I was really looking forward to some time together where we could watch cheesy teen movies she's finally old enough for and make decor.
When she asked me if she could ditch, I totally lost it and just started sobbing. I know that was unfair to pin on her, but with everything that had been happening with my mother, I was like "Great, no one wants to be here”. I also feel unsafe about her going to a heavily populated beach right now with the dangers it may pose.
She felt terrible and started crying and said that she was just bummed because our family never goes on vacations and this would be her chance. I felt like total garbage after. She is most likely not going on the trip now, but I am afraid it's going to get chalked up to me sucking, and negate her wanting to spend time with me while I'm home.
I called my maid of honor who immediately gave me a pump-up speech about how I've really been the opposite of dramatic through this insane process, and that she was mad everyone is just walking all over me while I make concessions for them. My fiancé finally offered to elope without family, but I could tell he was extremely upset. My family has never been like this before, and I know there is a lot going on right now in the world, so I understand.
And weddings always supposedly cause tension, which I also understand. It just sucks, because two weeks ago, I was feeling good and totally relishing in how awesome the day would be. But I'm starting to feel like I am just a passenger on the journey everyone else is taking for this day and I don't get to drive at all. I'm not even excited, and I'm just counting down the next two weeks until it's done and my fiancé and I finally live together.
93. Putting The Cart Before The Horse
I got engaged only a few months ago to my boyfriend of eight years. We are very happy together and getting engaged has been wonderful, but neither of us are really looking to plan anything extravagant right now. Besides the fact that a lot of weddings have been postponed and rescheduled due to the pandemic, it is also challenging to get a date and a venue.
Most importantly, neither of us have the money to sink into a wedding right now nor do we want to waste money on it. There’s just one problem. My mom and future mother-in-law don’t care. They frequently ask if I’ve made any plans which I always tell them “no” in a nice way, but they’ve started getting much more pushy. The other day my mom told me that she was ready to start making plans for it.
I asked her who she thought was paying for this and she said that it didn’t matter. Like, how does it not matter? I don’t have $30,000 to drop on a wedding, I’d much rather put that towards a house! And my mother-in-law is starting to dictate who is on the guest list and who shouldn’t make the cut. Again, where do people get off thinking that this is appropriate?
Now you may be reading this and think that I’m just overreacting and that they’re simply excited, but I’d like to add a little context to this story. My older brother got married only two years ago, and my mom was a pill for that too. She only cared about buying herself a dress and showing off to everyone. I don’t use drastic words normally, but she is one hundred percent a narcissist.
She only cares about one person and that’s herself. My future mother-in-law has never had one of her kids get married before so this would be the first wedding for her. The more I look at the situation, the more I see that they aren’t really happy for my fiancée and I, they want this wedding right away so they can get attention from friends and family. Ugh!
94. Have Your Wedding Cake And Eat It Too
One of my best friends, Carla, is getting married soon. It’s only meant to be a small backyard type of wedding but they’ve been planning it for a few months now and originally it was supposed to be on my property. They wanted it because it’s private, has lots of open space for the reception, a nice view and the house could be used for them to get ready and stuff.
Of course, I said yes, she and her fiancé Rick were very happy. Thing is, Carla and I do have a history. We went out on and off in college but decided to stay friends. Then I met my wife, we got married, Carla met Rick and now here they are. My wife knows I went out with Carla back in college and she didn’t care. Carla still went to our wedding and everything.
I never knew if Rick was told or not, it’s not my relationship and therefore not my business to say anything, so I never did. Well, Rick found out recently—and it went BADLY. What I heard from friends is that one mutual friend told him (no idea why) that we used to date. Not only that, but apparently Carla said a couple of years ago she was still in love with me when she was already dating Rick.
I don’t have actual confirmation if that’s exactly what he was told. All Carla’s told me is that Rick was told about our past and he’s angry at her for never saying anything. It became quite a drama and I didn’t hear from her for over a month until now. She told me they’re going to couples counseling and that the wedding is still on, but Rick requested that I not attend.
It sucks but I totally get why he wouldn’t be comfortable. But I had one question: Where are they going to hold the wedding, then? To my surprise, she said they still want it at our place. Rick said so to and in my mind I’m going “He doesn’t want the guy who dated his fiancée years ago at the wedding, but still wants the wedding at his house.”
My wife and I are expected to just...not be at our home that weekend, And I told Carla no. They’re going to have to find someplace else since we’re not going to simply leave our home to them for the weekend. Not only for safety reasons but it just doesn’t make sense. Rick doesn’t want me around because he’s not comfortable but is comfortable enough to have their wedding at my house?
They really want their wedding here though and because of that, I’ve been bugged by not only her but also Rick and some friends who think I’m being a petty jerk for not letting them have the wedding here anymore. Honestly don’t think that I am, it just doesn’t make sense at all to have to leave our own place for a wedding we’re no longer welcome to and leaving our home totally vulnerable.
Still, I’m being accused of sabotaging their wedding and Rick believes it’s the least I can do after “everything.” But like, what did I do?
95. Missed Encounters
At the wedding of a college friend of my husband’s, we learned that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. We learned this from the women at our table at the reception. We introduced ourselves while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried.
My husband had NO idea that she had feelings for him. She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him.
She repaired herself, then followed us as we tried to leave quietly—her parting shot was to stare at my chest and say, "Well I guess I know what I was missing all along!" Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed—he was completely clueless and would never have gone to the wedding if he'd know she was obsessed with him. It was bizarre.
96. Family Strife
I guy I worked with was supposed to cheat on his fiancé with her best friend the night before their wedding, but she died in a car accident on the way to the hotel. He went through with the wedding, and now he lives with that secret every day. And I guess technically so do I.
97. Wedding Transference
I work in the industry and my friend is the wedding planner. He is a good-looking, straight male who has an amazing eye for design and detail. He can do everything from wedding dress design and execution to flowers, you name it. And his services are not cheap. He once had a bride who called him up a few days before her wedding.
She told him she couldn't go through with the wedding because she was in love with someone else. The conversation went something like this: Bride: "I can't marry him, I just don't love him anymore, I think I'm in love with someone else!" Him: "What do you mean you're in love with someone else!? Your wedding is in five days!"
Bride: "Well...I'm in love with you. You just GET me! I've never met anyone else like you!" Him: "...Do you know how much your parents are paying me to get you?!" She ended up getting married five days later as planned, and it was never mentioned again.
98. I’m Gonna Getcha
I was dating this girl who asked me to go to her ex’s wedding. We dated for a few months prior, but asking me to go to a wedding together felt like a serious commitment...I still accepted. I planned for the week off work and we went all out for this wedding. Half the time, I was trying to make the most of our time together, but she always went missing.
Fast forward to the reception. She made a scene in the most unstable and mentally sick way. In front of the groom, the bride, and everyone else, she said out loud: “I’m still in love with you. We literally have been sleeping together all week and I can't stop thinking about you." She quickly got escorted out after that.
The bride was clearly upset, but everyone tried to go about their business. As soon as I left, my “girlfriend” started completely ruining the hall and all the decorations, just throwing a fit on her way out. It was so embarrassing. I figured she was telling the truth since she was missing the whole time, but I’m pretty sure that everyone during the whole thing assumed this was too crazy to be real.
I definitely regret not seeing her true colors before, but when you work so much and try to date at the same time, you have very little time to get to really know some people. Time sort of flies by and you end up dating for a few months. Fast forward a month or two later...she got together with the groom and I’m pretty sure she has no regrets about wasting my time.
She probably doesn’t even feel bad about using me or even ruining that man’s marriage. This woman is seriously twisted.
99. Top Secret
The bride gave explicit wedding instructions beforehand through various channels. One rule was that there were to be no posts on social media before the bride gave the OK, and certainly no posts before she posted herself. Anyway, a few hours before the wedding, someone posted something, saying that they were at the wedding or whatever.
Absolutely nothing malicious, just a generic statement. The bride saw this and everyone could tell she was about to blow up. At the end of the vows, the bride turned to the congregation and said, "Can you all please unfriend Jennifer as I gave out explicit instructions that there are to be no social posts until I give the OK, and she has broken that rule today."
Just imagine—she literally just finished her vows and she finally has a new husband, but that was the first thing on her mind. Everyone awkwardly laughed as if she was joking…nope. She then stormed off, with her new husband awkwardly following behind. There was a weird atmosphere after that and everyone started making excuses to go home.
I'm talking proper fake emergency stuff here: "I have to get back because I need to err, my erm, yeah bye..." Everyone left much earlier than usual. No one wanted to be there and have awkward conversations with the bride.
100. Mean Girl
There’s a lot of drama with my fiancé’s sister. She’s always been rude to me and I don’t know why. When I first met her she seemed nice and I liked her, my fiancé’s friends told me to be careful because she always acts that way at the beginning and then she shows her true colors, which she did.
Even my fiancé told me not to trust her and not share much with her because she tends to use and twist whatever she sees and hears from other people. Despite all that, I always treated her with respect and was nice to her, until I got tired of her behavior.
She started with mean looks, mean comments about my accent to other people, not saying hi to me when she saw me, completely ignoring my presence and talking to whoever was next to me but not me, and then she started making comments about my family (we all speak Spanish so we have an accent when we speak in English).
She started saying things to my fiancé like, “Do you even understand what they are saying”?, which he ignored, then she one day just closed the front door when I was walking towards it after watching me struggle with grocery bags, complaining to her friends about how much she wanted me to go away even though I was engaged to her brother.
She's constantly making offensive jokes at lunch with her grandparents, she even insulted me in Spanish and when I called her out for it, she just laughed and ignored me. My fiancé has talked to her multiple times, but nothing changed, she just got defensive and started yelling at him, which seems to be what she does whenever someone tells her something she doesn’t like.
Despite all that, I tried to be civil around her for her parents’ sake since we get along really well and love spending time together. That was until one night she went off on me when her parents mentioned our upcoming wedding.
We were talking about guests and she started saying who should go and who shouldn’t, how I should think about their family and not mine when it came to guests (mind you, there will be three times more people from my fiancé’s side than mine), all of this because she wanted to invite her friends, so we tried to tell her that it was our wedding and it was our decision to see who we invite.
She said, “Well, we are paying for it”, which is not true, my fiancé's parents offered to help pay for the wedding and we are incredibly grateful for that, but she’s not giving us anything. She even went as far as saying, “We are just doing this because of your dad”, and that set me off.
A little background: my dad can’t come to the US because he doesn’t have a visa so my fiancé and I decided to do our wedding in Cabo. It was our decision because of course I have to have my dad at my wedding, and Cabo is a beautiful place for a destination wedding.
Going back to that night, after she said that, I just lost it on her. Things went bad really quick. She started yelling, I raised my voice because I was not going to let her talk about my family and wouldn’t let her yell at me, and then my fiancé and I left. We saw her only once after that (of course, she never said hi to me or acknowledged my presence), and we avoided her since then.
Now our wedding is coming up in five months and, of course, she’s going. We didn’t want to invite her but we knew we had to in order to avoid a fight with his parents, but now we just really don’t want to have her there because we know how much she likes to start drama. We’re even more anxious because we rented a villa so both families can be together and make a vacation out of it.
We’ll have it for a full week but we totally forgot about having to deal with her, and now we’re regretting it. My mother-in-law said her daughter will only go for the wedding, but it turns out she decided to go for the full week and made (yes, made), her dad buy her a plane ticket for those dates.
Her mom suggested that we could have a sit-down talk with her to talk about these issues and make sure we “clear the air” so nothing happens during our wedding week, but she also said she can’t promise it’ll go smoothly because her daughter is very difficult to deal with, and I don’t know if I want to do that.
I really don’t want to see her again because I know it’ll turn into a fight if we decide to have that talk, I don’t feel like I want to deal with that.
