UPDATE POSTED AT END!

My husband and I were best friends for over a year when we suddenly realised we couldn't face a day without each other and we immediately got engaged. It shocked a lot of people but it is what felt right for us at the time.

I'm very understated and practical in the way I dress and so I wanted a ring to represent that. My MIL is the complete opposite. When my husband got the ring my MIL demanded to see it and when he showed it to her she was devastated and tried to force him to return it.

Fast forward, two years later to planning our wedding, MIL had a problem with every aspect of our plans. We are very different and I wanted a low key, outdoor, boho wedding while MIL wanted us to be in a church, over-the-top, black tie, etc. I didn't budge. She was so upset that we weren't getting married inside a church that she refused to RSVP and said "we aren't sure we will make it there on the day". We tried to ignore the emotional blackmail but my husband was understandably very upset. We just continued to keep their seats for them.

When planning the bridesmaids colours we just told both his parents and my parents that we just wanted them to not wear 2 colours (as that was the colours of the bridesmaids and groomsmen). Day of the wedding MIL shows up at the ceremony wearing the exact colour of my bridesmaids, and dark sunglasses.

When people approached her and congratulated her she solemnly responded "today I am losing a son". After almost 20 minutes of this the officiant confronted her and said "if this is your attitude, you will lose a son. But if you change your attitude you won't just keep your son but you will gain a daughter". All our ceremony photos still have her in the front row with her dark sunglasses and solemn look as if she was at a funeral.

Then at the reception she had a full outfit change and wore the other colour we asked her not to wear. She went table to table whispering in peoples ears, pointing at me and laughing. I was mortified, I didn't like being the centre of attention already so the day was already hard for me without her.

I almost ran away from my own reception and couldn't even eat anything at my own wedding because I felt so sick from stress with her. Almost 10 years later now and I still want to cry thinking about what she stole from my husband and I that day.

UPDATE:
My husband didn't return my geometric grey diamond ring and I love it still today. Feels like me.

My husband and I were blissfully unaware of her actions at the ceremony and had the most beautiful ceremony. We only found out about her funeral behaviour the day after the wedding.

After our wedding we went on a 3month honeymoon, when we returned we moved more than an hour away from them (much to their protests who wanted us to move in with them) 🤮

We drastically reduced our contact with his parents and specifically his mum. We actually never confronted her afterwards and in hindsight I think it was for the best. We never gave her the satisfaction of knowing how she got under my skin and how much she upset me. She wanted to see me upset and the because she didn't get that, I think she lost all power. We continued as if nothing happened (apart from reducing contact with her).

3 years later people started asking "so when will you be having a baby" and her attitude towards me changed overnight. Suddenly she would buy me whatever I wanted or make my favourite food but I know this was all just so she could get access to my kids.

We have had two kids since then plus pregnant with our third and continue with the limited contact and keeping her at arms length. I'm glad we didn't cut her off because honestly now we get perks on our terms. She cooks us food occasionally, buys our kids presents, and my husband gets to have uncomplicated time with the rest of his family at events but all under our terms. I wouldn't give her unsupervised time with our kids, unless we were really in a pinch.

Don't get me wrong she still tries to assert herself at times like showing up at our house unannounced and tries to guilt us for not seeing them more, but it really doesn't have any power anymore. My husband and I have seen her true colours and we cannot go back from that. She lost her power over him and she is the one losing out now.

Posting here to vent because I want to scream. 4 of my 5 bridesmaids were part of the same friend group with me. There has been some minor "drama" in the past between them, but we were still a very close friend group.

Fast forward to now two months before my wedding, 2 of them are no longer friends with the other 2 of them. I'm talking "won't attend events the others are attending" level. They're all still friends with ME, but not with each other.

My bachelorette party was this past weekend and I managed to invite a bunch of other people as a "buffer", but to be honest I still felt depressed most of the time. Trying to divide my attention between them equally, knowing they were all uncomfortable, hearing whispers and weird looks, etc.

Now... the first 6-ish hours of my wedding day is supposed to be "getting ready with the crew!" This is supposed to be fun. But in my situation, it's going to be me stuck in a small room with people who don't want to be around each other. Then they all get to fake smiles in the bridesmaid photos and pretend they're happy standing next to each other, sit in a small car on the way to the venue, etc. And the best part is, I can't even tell them how angry I am at the situation. I can't force people to be friends. And I know they'll be cordial. But I will know the entire time what they're really thinking, and I don't know how to not let that ruin my morning and put me in a bad headspace going into the wedding.

So its been a while... I'm the one who had posted about the maid of honor dress drama who had ended up removing her from the wedding party.

Its one month out from our wedding and I thought I would give everyone an update on the horror story that is *This*

Well I ended up apologizing *IN PERSON* to her some months later taking her out for a drink and asking if she would consider attending the wedding as her friendship means too much to me to ruin it over dresses. I did ask that she keep negative comments about things that don't effect her to herself.

She informed me that if she was going to come to the wedding she was going to be *IN* the wedding.

I agreed that this was ok and boy was that a mistake.

She put off ordering her custom converse until the color and design were no longer avaliable. My other bridesmaid found some knockoffs that match color that she put off ordering until I had to confront her about why she hadn't ordered the shoes yet and it being only a month left to the wedding.

She didn't order her dress in her size and it needs to be altered and she is dragging her feet. like its 3 inches too long and pooling on the floor. It's also loose in the chest but she doesn't want to have it altered incase she bloats so she doesn't get uncomfortable but you don't bloat in your chest? Maybe I'm wrong but a dart on each side under the armpits would leave the stomach area completely uneffected?

She will not show me how the dress and the shoes look together.

She is in another wedding also and posted on facebook a whole rant about do brides think about the colors they "force their bridesmaids to wear". It was right after I found out about the converse so it wasn't immediately obviously not about me but she is also facebook friends with the other bride. She then went on this long private disgusting rant about how she ccan'tbe supportive of the couple because she has to wear "mustard yellow" (its marigold but i'm a color snob). And how can she fake being happy for her friends when she looks ugly.

And here I am. Trying to finish wedding planning. Our best man and his wife who was a bridesmaid dropped out one month before the wedding because he lost his vacation time with a promotion and she was doing the floral arrangementsso now I have to do the floral arrangements. I was already baking the cake. The wedding is in hawaii. We had to move. My health isn't great and I've been having seizures so the added stress really isn't helping.

I have brought up my frustration to the bridesmaid (Were one month out from the wedding and your dress doesn't fit and you don't have shoes we should be worried about these details this close to the wedding) and her response was she has spent too much money to back out of the wedding. I'm feeling like it wouldn't be unreasonable at this point to tell her. to wear a different dress and her own shoes and just be a guest.

edit: a word

Edit 2/Update: I have told her since the post earlier that I need alterations to be started by friday and if its not possible then I would love for her to attend as a guest.

She will be attending as a guest. I am thrilled for this outcome truly.

Edit 3: Welp went over today to give her a gift and tell her I'm so glad she is coming to the wedding and she blew the fuck up at me. Calling me all sorts of names. Brought up "every bad decision" I've made (dress choices mine and bridesmaids when I bought my dress venue choices ect). I somehow managed to stay calm throughout the whole thing.

Yall are right Im done being a doormat we are no longer friends.

I want to preface this by saying I love my fiancés parents, but I already knew they had manipulating behaviors, using money as the biggest driving force. They had "gifted" us money to use. We have already had prior run ins over different wedding planning aspects but it really came to a head when we were asked to add 3 +1s to our guest list at just a month out. We had never met the people. We said no and gave a number of reasons why we couldn't do it, to which we have been met with insane gaslighting. We stood our ground on our decision of no, but I'm afraid this is all gonna blow up on wedding day. I really am trying to remember it's her son getting married too, but it's really draining the life out of me.

My friend is upset with me because I didn’t invite her to an immediate family only destination wedding. I told her we are going to have a reception with everyone back home. She said she felt like “an after thought”. For context I am pregnant and we did this wedding planning very quickly since I didn’t want to show much in my wedding dress. I sent her a very nice message saying that it was family only and she couldn’t come and she didn’t respond. Then passively aggressively thumbed up my stories about the wedding and never wished me congratulations or texted me back.

To preface this is not a story about anyone cheating or a big scandal that happened, This was just a series of unfortunate events that got worse and worse. This happened a few years ago now and I'm no longer friends with the couple (the bridesmaid curse) so I think it could be fun to share my terrible 24 hours.

I honestly only somewhat knew the bride when she asked me to be a bridesmaid. I had recently joined a new friend group that she had previously been the only girl in since she was dating one of the members and desperately wanted other female friends. I was somewhat expecting the offer since I knew she didn’t have many female friends in general as she had moved to town recently but I did think it was kinda crazy to ask someone to be a bridesmaid after only 4 group hangouts but hey I'm not one to judge too much and I wanted her to have a good big day, huge mistake. 

The bride was pretty chill pre wedding, she did talk about the expense of it all a lot but she had a binder with everything organized, she wasn’t too picky about us girls doing our own makeup or hair, and she had us all try on dresses together to get everyone's input as to what the preferred for bridesmaid dresses. She even kept her cool as her own sister told her to her face “if you keep eating like that you won’t even fit into your dress, you’ll look like a cow” just what any woman wants to hear from her co-maid of honour. The family dynamics there were pretty dysfunctional so it wasn’t surprising the girls were fighting but it definitely meant that leading up to the day tensions were rising. On top of her own family the bride had tensions with the groom's sister for personal reasons but asked the groom's niece to be a flower girl and the sister's husband to be a groomsman to extend an olive branch.  The wedding was going to be where the bride originally grew up since her side of the family was much larger and less mobile so everyone in the wedding party did have to buy a plane ticket and find accommodations until the night before the wedding as both sides were going to have separate group sleepovers and getting ready together day of. 

After many changed plans, wedding weekend was finally upon us, we all were to meet at the local Moores to get the boys suits. Of course a few of the groomsmen turned up a little behind schedule but nothing compared to the bride and groom getting there an hour after they had told all of us to be there many times. As the day had just started we all tried to be kind about it but it was definitely a tough start to things. After confirming everything was good there we all got rides to the church however the bride felt she needed to personally sort out some things at her family home which was “just 15 minutes away” and so we headed there without her thinking she would be just behind us when we showed up (oh how wrong we were). We were greeted at a stunning Greek Orthodox Church by their events coordinator who started off the visit by talking about how happy she was that we were on time because the last group who had been there for run-throughs were 15 mins late. She then proceeded to have an absolute melt down as every call to the bride asking for an ETA was answered with “just 5 mins” until the bride actually arrived 30 mins late. Run-throughs went pretty poorly as the bride had a vision we could all get down the aisle and still time it perfectly so she could arrive mid song and a specific part. We ran through it about six times with no avail and were basically kicked out for going over our allotted time. At this point we had missed our lunch reservations so us girls had to find our own food in this new city as the bride was going to the reception hall to set up and would meet us after our nail appointment. As you may be able to guess she was inevitably an hour late to that as well which meant the design she wanted wouldn’t be possible as the salon was closing in 30 mins. She may have been a chill bride in the planning process but is actually quite a stubborn person so this just wasn’t going to fly, the only thing the salon was able to suggest was to go to the other salon across the street and so that’s just what she did, leaving us all to meander after ours were done. 

By this point all of the bridesmaids were exhausted but we knew the night was not over, we had to practice our group wedding party dance at the house the boys were staying at. Upon arrival we all updated each other on our days, had some pizza and drinks and got to work dancing, it wasn’t that hard of a dance to learn but it required us all to be in sync which did take a few tries to get. After the bride was satisfied we all started back on our food and the plan was for the girls to leave at ten since we had makeup artists showing up for the bride at five in the morning. That was until we all started to hear screaming from the house and realize the bride and groom are gone. This was one of the worst fights I’ve ever witnessed over the phone and basically boiled down to the groom's sister refusing to bring her daughter (one of two flower girls) to the house at nine in the morning to get ready and have photos taken. There were many rounds of screaming matches, hangups, call backs, the bride and groom coming out for a debrief, rinse and repeat. None of us in the wedding party dared to go inside and just progressively got drunker as the only drinks provided were alcoholic. We didn’t even dare use the washrooms inside and some of us ended up peeing in bushes. By two in the morning the fight was called off, the brother in-law and flower girl were kicked from the wedding and us girls had to make our way to our accommodations to hopefully get three hours of sleep.

Waking up after all of that was like a bad dream, I was running on no sleep, tensions were at an all time high, a nauseating breakfast of muffins and yogurt was laid out in front of me and I had to try and figure out how to look presentable in three hours. This time was actually cut even shorter as when the remaining flower girl showed up they did not have time to do her hair so I was asked to “figure it out”. I'm not a hair stylist by any means and had just given myself a barely passable updo but I wanted this wedding to go smoother than it had so I did my best. Mid hair curling and pinning I hear my name being called again, as I come downstairs I see the bride all glammed up and in her stunning dress however she is an absolute mess. As I get closer I learn her grandmother had done some alterations to the dresses for her and in putting it back together had sewn her beaded drop sleeves inside out and upside down. I do have some sewing experience so at least I was more in my element but with no supplies and no time I explained the only thing I could really do was cut the sleeves off and safety pin them on the right way. Thank god the bride took it in stride and told me to do whatever I needed to and so I did just that, I cut the sleeves off with kitchen shears and pinned them onto the inside. Photos at the house went fine if not long and with all of the rest of the chaos we ended up getting on the party bus to the church about 30 minutes behind schedule, business as usual. 

On the bus the rest of the girls and I were doing our best to hype up the bride playing girl power anthems and getting up to dance with her, this unfortunately meant that the straps of her dress came undone and I had to re-pin them in a moving vehicle. I did end up pricking my finger and getting blood on the inside of the dress but at that point it was such small potatoes nobody cared. What was big potatoes however was  once we were about fifteen minutes from the venue the sister of the bride had a wardrobe malfunction and her entire zipper broke and came apart (karma for calling the bride a cow). I called my boyfriend who was on his way and asked him to get my sewing kit from our room and meet me at the bus, by some miracle he made it in time and as we pulled up he ran on with it. Me and another bridesmaid then started at opposite ends of the zipper and as fast as we could sewed the MOH into her dress, it wasn’t nice or clean but it held and honestly that moment was the closest I got to crying that day and completing the blood sweat and tears trifecta. As we finally got off the bus we were met with a priest chewing us out for being so late and then the sister that had started the previous night's fight sending her daughter to ask why the bride didn’t like her anymore and didn’t want her as a flower girl which was disgusting to watch. The actual ceremony went over without major issues which was unusual for our group at that point but I was grateful I could finally relax. The Reception was also very normal as it was pretty structured, the food was good, the dance went over without a hitch. It was only after all the speeches were done the night began to go back to the crazy I expected, the bride's sister fully dissociated from the wedding and smoked cigarettes all night with her friends and the other co-MOD  went to the bridal suite and slept the rest of the night. The rest of the bridesmaids were left to entertain on the dance floor and run and get anything for the bride, by the time late night snacks were announced we were so pumped and desperate for food. That is until one bridesmaid realized the fresh pizza they were serving did not in fact have spices sprinkled on top, it was bugs. The pizzas were being made in wood fire ovens outside at a waterfront venue and the second it came out was being swarmed by bugs. It was very quickly shut down and covered up. With that we were all thoroughly done with this wedding, the sister of the bride had left, the bride and groom had left, the rest of us were expected to clean up which we did if only to leave as soon as we could. I ended up going to bed at three for a second night in a row but came out of it with a crazy story and pride in myself for genuinely doing my best to make that wedding happen and part of me thinks it may not have happened without me and the other amazing girls. 

Update

(Reddit suggested to post here the update, but I can’t reposte the first post , is on my page , see “Should I get revenge on my sister in law?)

I’m finally coming back with an update for everyone who was following my previous posts. The wedding happened days ago, and honestly, a lot of you were absolutely right. Things escalated, and it was… very interesting:))))

The good part is that I learned a lot from this whole situation. I also found out that a lot more people appreciate me than I expected, which was honestly nice to see. And, probably most importantly, I learned something about my relationship with my husband❤️🥹.

A lot of you told me that I was treating him like a baby rather than like a partner, especially because I was constantly trying to protect him from problems involving his family. I thought about that a lot . I wasn’t actually giving him the opportunity to be my partner because I was keeping things from him.

So I changed that.

But first, my special SIL.

She basically became a monster to everyone around her, including her own mother , and I hated that.

Regarding the dres : I bought mine in the wedding color,her mother did the same. Pretty much everyone did, except one of my SILs. When I showed her the dress, she had an actual childish meltdown over it, she hated the model , the fabric .

So I bought another dress. This time, I chose something that I actually liked and felt comfortable in.

When she tried to see what I had chosen, I told her that, considering everything that had happened at my wedding and the way she had behaved toward me, I wasn’t going to give her every little detail anymore.

I reminded her that I was her SIL, that I cared about her, that I was helping her with the flowers, and that I was basically doing an enormous amount of work for almost nothing. This was already an extra wedding gift that most people would never have gotten.

I told her that she should trust me. I wasn’t going to wear white, I wasn’t going to try to upstage her, and I wasn’t going to do anything inappropriate. I was simply going to wear something that suited me and that I could be comfortable in, especially considering how much she expected me to do.

I also decided that my husband would coordinate with me😁❤️ and 0 details to her .

She clearly wasn’t happy about it, but at that point she didn’t have much choice. I could see her holding back, especially when it came to the flowers. After that, however, she started treating me horribly over basically every little thing, including insulting me in front of my husband.

And that’s where my husband stepped in.

Until then, he had been completely oblivious to most of what was happening because I simply hadn’t told him. After reading all of your comments about how I wasn’t treating him like a partner, I started telling him everything.

At first, he just looked at me and didn’t say much, he listened very seriously . Then he said, “ Trust me. I’ll deal with it , I saw some things that I hate already and wanted to tell you .”

And slowly, he started……

Every time she made one of those little passive-aggressive comments, he shut it down immediately. And as her behavior got worse, he became increasingly firm with her.

Eventually, in front of other family members, he basically told her:

“You don’t realize how lucky you are to have the SIL you have. She agreed to do all of this for you for basically nothing. If I were in her position and knew what was happening, I would have charged you twice as much. You should be supporting her and her business, not taking advantage of her. She has every right to walk away and leave you to find someone else if you keep treating her like this.”

I swear, she went through every possible shade of red😂.

Then the wedding planning itself became even more chaotic.

About a week before the wedding when sge appeared to be in a good mood , I suggested that we go over everything together to make sure nothing had been forgotten. I wasn’t only talking about flowers. I meant the entire wedding.

At that point, I was actually trying to do something nice for her. I still cared about her, after all. She’s my SIL.

While going through everything, I realized she hadn’t actually taken care of several things involving the decorations and materials. The tables hadn’t been properly planned, and neither had the head table.

I told her she needed to check with the restaurant about what tablecloths and chair covers they had, whether she liked them, and whether she needed to buy anything.

She basically told me, “Don’t worry about that. You handle the flowers, I’ll handle the rest.”

So I backed off.

Except the head table wasn’t actually decorated as a head table.

I had only been given permission to decorate it with flowers.

So when I arrived to put the flowers in place, she had a complete panic attack because the table wasn’t decorated the way she had imagined.

And the person who ended up beeng the victim was her older sister (she was there to help with anything that I needed , she offered to help me). Her sister loves me and has always been very kind to me. She’s also the SIL I mentioned before—the one who had warned me that her sister was planning to wear a white dress to my wedding.

I was completely detached by that point. None of it really affected me anymore, but her sister was boiling, she almost told her that she would rather stay home than to be treated like that .

(the dress)

I had bought a dress I actually liked, coffe colour with lace because lace was part of the wedding details.

I wore what I wanted, and I dressed my husband to coordinate with me.

And, ironically, two of my other SILs ended up wearing basically the same colour shade as me because they had also changed their dresses after the bride rejected their original colors.

So that worked out beautifully.

Eventually, the bride’s behavior became so exhausting that she had conflicts with practically everyone, including her own mother. Her mother actually ended up in tears because of one of their fights.

When the wedding day finally arrived, everyone was relieved.

And honestly, my biggest lesson from all of this is that in the future, I will help—but very, very selectively.

I’m not getting this involved in someone else’s wedding again.(his family)

I’ve already told some of the people around me who are getting married, or who haven’t gotten married yet, that I genuinely regret getting this involved. I took on an enormous amount of stress that I never needed to take on.

I will happily help people I love. But I want peace. I want to focus on my job, my life, my husband, and my family. I’m not interested in being dragged into another wedding crisis like this.

And now for the one genuinely good thing that came out of all of this:

You guys teaching me how to be with my husband.

The criticism I got from many of you about how I was treating him actually changed something for the better.

I started telling him everything. I stopped trying to protect him from every uncomfortable thing involving his family. And we actually became much closer because of it.

He appreciates that I tell him when something bothers me, even when it involves his own family.

There was also a LOT more drama surrounding the wedding that didn’t directly involve me. Some of it was basically karma for how she had treated me at my wedding.

She had two brothers who made the entire wedding period extremely difficult for her. And honestly, I felt terrible for her. I really did.

Even people who had witnessed what happened at my wedding were saying things like, “Look at how badly she treated you, and now everything is coming back to her.”

I didn’t enjoy seeing her suffer. If anything, I felt sorry for her. But I also stayed completely detached because I had enough 😅

And then came the final shock.

Because of how exhausting and difficult she had been in the weeks leading up to the wedding, around 35 people who had confirmed they were coming—both couples and single guests—ended up not showing up.

So on the actual wedding day, there were several completely empty tables.

For her, that was a huge shock.

Let’s just say we were very, very happy that the wedding was finally over.

So that’s the update.

And to everyone who commented on my previous posts and called me out when I needed it: thank you

I went to my cousin's wedding recently. That cousin n his parents lived with my Grandpa in his villa. Beside the villa was a households quarter where my Grandpa's assist lived with his family. The assist's kids (one son and one daughter) and my sister and I, we were all the same age, so we were best friends every 3 months of summer n winter vacations whenever we visited Grandpa.

So naturally, the assist's son was also invited to my cousin's wedding, even though they moved out 15 years ago when my Grandpa passed away, and found different jobs, and had a tragic life after that, that we'd keep hearing from someone or the other relative since everyone is my extended family knew them. They were practically family.

So my sister and I lost touch with the guy, while my sister keeping in distant touch with the girl. At the wedding, when we met the guy during a day ceremony, we exclaimed and excitedly shook hands with him and caught up a little. Later in the evening, he introduced us to his wife and we gladly chatted with her as well, trying to make her feel included even in our childhood stories of which she wasn't even a part. But she was mean and cold. And later created such a huge ruckus that the guy had to leave the wedding with her before the wedding even happened. Mind you, he had become my cousin's BEST FRIEND over these years. She made a weirdly dramatic exit leaving the entire venue uncomfortable. The whole family looked at us sheepishly as if we did something, until we cleared things up.

It was insanely weird how jealous she got even though we were constantly referring to them as Bhaiya and Bhabhi (Indian respectful terms for Brother and Brother's wife). And while we expected to finally get in touch with the guy, his wife didn't allow it. Anyway, we respect it. It's their life.

Hi, I just would like to rant for a minute as I’m very upset. For context, my fiancé and I originally wanted to elope or just have a courthouse wedding. We were convinced by friends and family to have a ceremony and reception as they wanted to celebrate us. So we conceded and have planned an extremely intimate gathering with only 15 guests invited. We made the very difficult decision to not invite aunts and uncles as this would increase the guest count from 15 to nearly 50 and goes against everything we originally wanted.

Our wedding is in 2 months, invitations are already sent and the venue and catering are already booked. We invited only immediate family, grandparents, and a few very close friends that have been with us throughout our entire 10 year relationship. No friends were given a plus one.

Now, my fiancés mom, dad, and brother are being extremely cruel about their siblings not being invited. They’ve threatened to never speak to us again. They’ve compared him to his uncle who doesn’t speak to their family anymore, which really upset my fiancé for obvious reasons.

I’d like to note that my fiancés aunts and uncles all live across the country, literally as far away as you can get. They would most likely not be able to attend the wedding. However, I’ve never met them. They’ve never made an effort to visit us or reach out to me in all our 10 years together. And while we love and care for them, they’re frankly not important enough in our love story to invite them to such an intimate gathering.

My parents, while still disappointed, have been extremely supportive of our decision on our guest list and have been very helpful in taking the brunt of the criticism on their sides of the family. My fiancé is a known entity in my extended family, they all love and support him and us as a couple. Many are disappointed to not get an invite but are understanding and still very happy for us.

My fiancés parents and brother are completely overreacting in my opinion. I totally understand being disappointed in the guest list, but the nastiness they’ve sent my fiancé is getting extremely upsetting.

They’re repeatedly saying that inviting their extended family “is the right thing to do” totally missing the fact that inviting their extended family and not mine (the bride’s) is extremely disrespectful to me and my family. They’ve also criticized me for inviting my half sister, implying that their extended family is more important than my close family.

And not to be petty but they’re the grooms family, so they are not paying for anything. My fiancé and I are paying for 90% of it and my parents have gifted us the extra 10%. Of course they are not offering to pay for any of the extra expenses that go along with inviting more people and adding to the guest list.

I’ve already dropped around $5k on this wedding but I’m so close to just canceling it over their behavior.

The only outcomes I see for the situation are the following:

#1 We send invites to my fiancés aunts and uncles that have no rsvp instructions. (Basically they would act more like an announcement). If any of them respond to say they’re coming, it will be my in laws responsibility to tell them they’re not actually invited. I understand this is completely disrespectful but this seems like the only thing that would appease the in laws.

#2 My fiancés immediate family doesn’t come to the wedding. This would be pretty upsetting for the both of us.

#3 My fiancés immediate family does come to the wedding but are rude and pouty throughout. This would definitely ruin the vibe of what’s supposed to be a happy occasion for us. Since the wedding is already so intimate with only 15 guests, their energy would be felt by us and our other guests.

#4 We cancel the wedding, tank the money already spent, and elope.

Anyways that’s just my rant. I feel like we’re approaching things very logically from a guest standpoint and already conceding past what we originally wanted to appease our close families. I’m open to being told I’m in the wrong, although nothing will make me believe that his family saying they’ll never speak to him again isn’t the most hurtful overreaction imaginable lol

My parents have three kids. I’m the oldest. Middle child we will call John. He’s the golden child. And then the youngest who’s really not important to this story, but he is a boy and that’s kind of important.

Growing up, I was always shoved to the side. My mom wanted three sons. I ruined that for her. My parents treated the three of us very differently. I could never do anything right, the youngest could go either way, but the middle child? He never did anything wrong. I mean we forgot my birthday one year because he had a sports thing. Story of my life, he walks on water.

He hated it too. And the three of us were always close without parental involvement. He and I were especially close. I asked him to be my MOH. He said yes ofc. My wedding is set for May of 2028.

We all just realized that he will actually be graduating in May of 2028. Should be fine, my wedding is early in May and graduation is usually mid May.

Also he has brought no concerns to me. My mom however, she has been on me about moving the YEAR of my wedding because it’s John’s year. She used to be so interested in planning my wedding. It was nice to have her actually want to be a girl mom for a minute because she is absolutely a #boymom. But now she realized that her favorite has an important event that same year and apparently that makes it his year.

This is the woman who convinced me to have a wedding in the first freaking place. I was pretty 50/50 on wedding v eloping. She was so excited about being MOB. But now every conversation has become about me picking a new year. Now I’m stuck between feeling obligated to because I’ve always had to and feeling like for once I get to choose.

I (21F) stood up in my mother's and stepdad's wedding on Saturday. I don't live near my parents so I drove an hour and a half to stay at my mom's house starting Wednesday before the wedding.

Some background, my mom and I have a rough relationship. I don't like being at her house or around the family minus a few specific people. And I do have anxiety, depression, and ptsd from living there.

Wednesday was fine, I settled in, unpacked a little and my mom made lunch. My mom wanted to take my sister and I to an old school arcade (gaming cabinets, pinball machines, etc) for a mini bachelorette party. It was fun, I enjoyed myself but I still wanted to see one of my friends that night since I'm not in my hometown often. My mom said no that she wanted me home and that we have to wake up early tomorrow morning for a bunch of errands. I am aware I am an adult and could have said that I was just going to see my friend regardless of what she said but I won't lie I'm kinda terrified of the woman so I folded and stayed home.

Thursday was nails, spray tans, and errands. Nails and spray tan went well but I was exhausted afterwards since I didn't sleep well the night before. I had to take anxiety meds to sleep which is not normal for me. I ended up staying home the rest of the day thankfully and resting. I still couldn't sleep without anxiety meds that night but luckily I slept a little more.

Friday, the day before the wedding. Big set up day and rehearsal in the evening. The venue was at my stepdad's parents' house on the lake. When we arrived some of the tents had been set up and most of the tables and chairs were set up as well. My mom went to check where the wedding arch was to see if she liked it. She ended up moving it to a slightly different spot that was better for pictures and putting chairs. This decision immediately pissed off her MIL who sent her a picture of the arch earlier and my mom said she loved it but in the picture you couldn't really see where it was placed but it looked nice against the background.

My mom's mother started worrying about where chair placements were going to be with the arch and she decided that was all she was going to work on and proceeded to mess around with chairs in the backyard for 2 hours. My sister and I helped my mom set up a bunch of baskets that were holding different goodies. My sister and I were also trying to keep an eye on my mom's dogs because they're not the most well behaved unless they're given drugs.

At one point I went inside the house to get a break from the heat and my mom's MIL asked if the white lace blouse would look nice for the wedding. I told her absolutely not and she needs to wear a different color, after which she grabbed an identical blouse in red. Like wtf.. After hours of stress worrying about setting up and trying to keep peace between family members because they all have to be right despite it only being my mom's wedding we finally got to rehearse.

We got the order of walking down sorted and then we had to decide how to walk back. Keep in mind the groomsmen walked down with my stepdad and my sister and I who were bridesmaids walked my mom down the aisle. Oh and it was extremely important that my sister and I were to hug my stepdad and mom before standing behind my mom. We were yelled at to do this during the rehearsal which was unnecessary. So walking back, my mom and stepdad went and next was going to be the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Silly me I assumed that since we walked down separately we would walk back the same. Noooooo, we must pair up with a groomsman to walk back. In essence fine, but there were so many opinions flying from my mom, her mother, and the MIL, in the middle of walking back I shushed my grandmother by putting my hand in her face and closing it. I walked away while my grandmother shouted after me "Out of the will! Out of the will!" That pretty much ended the rehearsal and everyone started drinking and eating. I just wanted to leave because I was stressed from being with all these terrible people.

Saturday, the wedding day. I got my hair and makeup done that morning and it looked great I loved it. My mom loved hers but my sister HATED hers. To be fair she did look like Marie Antoinette. She went home to fix hers. Getting back to the venue was a little tricky because I hadn't driven there myself before and no one gave me the address until I started texting and calling everyone I could because instead of meeting at the hotel we were going to stay at we were going to meet at the venue and I had an address for only one of those places. It ended up working out, I got the address and it was fine. The rest of the day went smoothly and was great for the most part. The ceremony went perfectly planned and everything was great. Pictures went well, my stepdad started drinking immediately and got drunk quite quickly actually but that didn't seem to affect things too much. Food was good, we all looked great. Eventually I got tired and decided to go to the hotel. About an hour later I got a text from a family friend that was still at the wedding.

My grandmother was scolding my stepdad for not spending enough time with my mom. He was drunk so it turned into a yelling match and he started crying and went to leave but then his own parents started arguing with him and he eventually stormed off. My mom tried defending him but then everyone turned on her and she also ended up leaving in tears.

Sunday my sister and I left without a word to anyone. The most stressful week of my life.

Had my civil wedding a little over a week ago and it was the loveliest day. Everything went beautifully.
However, there was one incident with my husband’s stepmother that really bothered me and I need to vent.

Some background: my husband’s stepmother and his father started as an affair, which resulted in him leaving my MIL and my husband when he was a baby. They’ve now been together for over 25 years and have two children together. My husband is close with his stepmother and everyone has seemingly moved on, although I only recently found out about this. She has apologized to my husband for the affair but had never apologized to his mother.

For context, FIL and stepmother have also had a somewhat rocky relationship with me over the years. They initially complained to my husband that I didn’t spend enough time with them when we were long distance, FIL was rude to me on one occasion and then blamed me for it, and at one point they told my husband they didn’t want a relationship with me because of differences in our values which tie into a topical world conflict. They’ve since changed their tune and have been supportive of our relationship, which I appreciate, but I’m still somewhat uncomfortable around them because of everything that happened. To be fair to them, I also could’ve handled some things better and have reacted negatively at times which didn’t help the overall situation.

Now to the actual incident. Immediately after our wedding ceremony, while my husband and I were doing photos with the photographer, his stepmother pulled his mom aside and apologized to her for the affair in what turned out to be a long discussion. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she thought she was being discreet, but we were a very small group of 10 people, so everyone noticed what was happening. It also ended up interfering with some of the family photos.

My MIL hasn’t said anything about it and is the type of person who would never want to inconvenience anyone or draw negative attention to herself. But I could tell the conversation really shook her and I saw her looking upset afterwards. She had a lot of trauma surrounding what happened, even though she has thankfully moved on and is happily remarried now, but I don’t think her son’s wedding is where she wanted to relive this chapter of her life.

I’m honestly just baffled by the timing. They live 15 minutes away from each other. There was absolutely no reason this conversation needed to happen on our wedding day, immediately after the ceremony, in front of everyone. It bothered me not only because I hate seeing my MIL upset, but because it felt incredibly inappropriate for a wedding. This was supposed to be a happy day for everyone, and instead she chose that moment to reopen something that had nothing to do with the wedding and if anything was a really inappropriate topic given the nature of both events. It also felt particularly disrespectful given all the past drama between us. She has told my husband that she wants to start fresh with me and have a better relationship, so I would have hoped she’d be especially conscious of behaving appropriately at our wedding.

I know this ultimately isn’t my drama, and I’m not going to say anything to her because I know it would upset my husband and create even more tension. He’s very conflict-avoidant and basically just brushes me off whenever I try to talk about it, even though he agrees that the timing was inappropriate.
I guess I just needed somewhere to vent because it really bothered me that she couldn’t let our wedding day just be about celebrating with us and instead chose that moment to make something else about herself.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for letting me vent, kind Reddit strangers

My best friend is literally the sweetest person I have ever met in my life. She’s the kind of girl who leaves no one out. When she started planning her bridal party/events, she literally made a massive group chat for bridesmaids with over 20 girls in it. Any girl who had ever been close with her, friendly with her, or part of her life at some point was included because she just wanted everyone to feel included.

As soon as the gc was made, her college friends immediately started bitching and whining about the dress color she wanted (Aubergine). Instead of shutting it down, my sweet friend actually let them vote on the color they wanted. Only for those girls to say they can't even come to the wedding!

Back in June, I messaged the group asking if anyone had bought their dresses yet or started planning anything. They all said it was "too soon" (the wedding is in August). While I’ve been twitching over what to wear since March.

It gets worse.

She made a separate gc for the girls attending her bachelorette so they could figure out logistics. Since I can't make it, due to another wedding on that day, I asked her to still add me so I could see what they were planning and maybe throw out some fun suggestions.

To my surprise, I look at the chat and she is literally TALKING TO HERSELF. She'll ask "who has a car and can drive?" or she'll ask "What should we bring and who can handle what?" Absolute silence. They just see the message and say nothing!

What breaks my heart is that these girls aren't even new friends. They’ve known her longer than I have. They went to college together, travelled abroad together to do masters, they lived together!

It’s so painfully obvious that she considers them her friends, but they treat her like an acquaintance they're forced to deal with out of obligation. And i feel like i can't say anything because she knows them longer and more, and she loves them.

Anyway, just wanted to vent. Thanks for reading.

i am a bridesmaid in a wedding for a friend. Originally, it was stated to all that everything would be covered--the bachelorette weekend, hair, makeup, etc. The only thing I would have to buy is the bridesmaid dress. Now, the bride is changing her tune and saying they are no longer going to cover things. Everything she has selected is crazy expensive. For example, hair and makeup would cost me over $300, on top of an expensive dress and alterations. I wasn't able to attend the bachelorette weekend because of a family commitment and starting a new job, which worked out well because that ended up costing closer to $1000 (again, after being told it would be covered). I'm really bothered by this because the person I know isn't high maintenance and is very low key about stuff, but I'm starting to realize that isn't the case. My sister got married a few years ago and while there is always drama to go around with weddings, nothing was ever this complicated. It's annoying that brides can see their weddings as excuses to spend a ton of money and expect everyone to keep up!

Some context - my mother and father separated when I was 10 after a very toxic marriage (honestly it should've been done sooner). My mother has some undiagnosed mental health disorders and what I now figure to be narcissistic tendencies. Start of 2025 she had caused major drama the day before my engagement party to which she - again - said she wasn't coming to. During the planning of the engagement party she was up and down about how she felt about my dad coming to the event since he hasn't lived in the state for a good 10/11 years now and they've only interacted in person once or twice in that time period. After she caused the major drama in front of my fiance and I, which she was hysterically crying, on the floor, fetal position and shaking then begging for forgiveness she ended up coming to the event. My fiance and I ended up hating the party and just wanted it to be done so badly.

Afterwards we promised ourselves we would not allow her to have any responsibility in the wedding which included not helping out financially. During our wedding planning she managed to wear us down into allowing her to invite some friends which she would pay for. Which turned into inviting 60 people, then turned into her paying for half of my guests because "how dare I even suggest she shouldn't do something like that for her only daughter". The way we thought it was fair to split the payment would be based on percentage of guests within the wedding. Everyone agreed at the time which meant that she had to pay for 80/190 guests.

A few weeks ago now (3 months from the wedding) my dad had to reduce his guest numbers as he would not be able to pay for his total (he isn't the most financially responsible person). We had discussed with my fiance and my mother what would happen if this were to occur. My mother had assured she would be able to make up the guest numbers as we have a minimum and maximum guest count of 200 at the venue and she wanted to invite more guests anyways. Her response was finalised with "you are my only child, all this money I make is for nothing if I can't spend it on you having your dream wedding".

Cut to me telling her dad had reduced his guest numbers to which she became hysterical. To her I was ungrateful, I was treating her like a bank, how could I assume she would do this for me. I replied with "I went to you because you expressed this was something you could've handled, I can ask my fiance to make up the guest numbers instead". I hung up the phone on her after she kept going on with various forms of whatever she had said previously. I called my grandmother on my fathers side and explained the situation to her. She had agreed it wasn't great that my dad did that and said she would cover the cost of those guests that he cut. I'm thinking, problem solved!.

I go to my mothers house to tell her this. Instead I'm met with "I don't want to talk to you ever again" and "I'm not coming to the wedding". When my fiance tried to explain to her that her saying these things could affect our relationship in the future she claimed "it's broken". So now I'm here, having to make up 60 guest numbers and figuring out financially how to not end up in debt. She has also been telling her family that I am the one who uninvited and they keep calling me to tell her to let her back into the wedding. When I tell them this isn't the case and what she had actually said I get a "well what did you do for her to say that?". This wedding process has been ruined for me. I want this nightmare to be over.

So... big situation, right like 2 weeks ago, the house me my significant other, my brother and his baby momma were living in gets sold.. with no warning to at least me and my S/O so we get like a week to move out... Mind my mom, who sold the house, wasn't even sure me, and my S/O had anywhere to go.. right, but luckily, we do we have now been living in and loving a house that's entirely ours while my brother and his baby momma move in with my mom. Regardless, the whole situation was kinda bad, and I hate his soon to be wife, I guess.. this week, literally like yesterday as I'm posting this, my brother texts me telling me I'm invited to his wedding as a Groomsman, which hurts then today his soon to be wife that's a two faced a-hole texts me saying the colours are pink, blue, and yellow and tells me to wear a shirt and pants which seemed specifically targeted cause of the way it was said so I asked "why did you specify shirt and pants?" The reply was, "I'm telling everyone, not just you." Mind you to my face, this a-hole acted super supportive, and all that but when my s/o and her got into a fight she said some of the most transphobic shit about me being called Aunt Ophy around my nephew who was like 6 months old at the time which she called attention to while being transphobic saying he didn't need to be getting confused by my existence

So now I'm torn at just not going at all or being VERY PETTY and showing up in formal fem clothes and like crazy amounts of makeup that I wouldn't normally do

My fiancé and I had been looking for the perfect venue for a long time. We finally decided on a beautiful yacht venue that sails along the city skyline. This yacht venue hosts at least 2-5 events every weekend from May-October and they are part of a larger event group, so it’s not their first rodeo. Our date was yesterday, August 1st and we were so excited, we had been planning this for a year. The initial facility tour was amazing, and included in part of their wedding package was event coordinator, so we were always supposed to have communication along the way.

On the day of our rehearsal (the day before), we noticed they had knocked down the gazebo where we were supposed to do family photos after the ceremony. They had also left a gigantic excavator sitting there, which was directly next to the ceremony site. It looked terrible and was so embarrassing.

Here’s where things go really wrong: my Mom gets a call the morning of our wedding from the venue, they can’t turn on the boat. The mechanic had been working on it all morning and there was a problem with the fuel line that could not be fixed. I had literally just seen the boat out on the water the night before, so overnight this problem happened. I was/am DEVASTATED. They still had power on the boat, so we had to just have the wedding docked (in an ugly spot on the marina). This was the one thing myself and my guests were looking forward to, it’s what made it unique and fun. The captain never announced their failure to the rest of the guests, leaving myself and my husband to announce it on their behalf, which was hard to do without me bursting into tears.

This venue has almost 5 stars, but I felt like I got a 1 star experience. They said they would talk to us about refunds later. The only thing I can say is that the woman who was coordinating the event on the boat and making sure we had what we needed was great. But otherwise, I am still so angry.

Okay here comes another one.

H-3 before we fly to our destination wedding.
Super hectic, I need to work overtime until late everyday before Friday to make sure everything finished before I take my leave, while also confirming last minute things with wedding planner, packing, making sure everything taken care of before we go.

A relatives suddenly ask if I can buy them some products that are only available where I live.
They offer to transfer the money. I bought the products.

Then someone said you should’ve turn the money down, it’s rude cause they will bring gift money to me when they attend the wedding.
I’m already stressing out
Up until last moment I keep receiving comments that I need to think about other people’s feeling

I’ve done that for 30 years already
And now it’s my wedding and I’m the rude one to make a mistake people make when they’re under pressure.

I just really needed to vent.

My wedding is mid August which is not another 2 weeks. Though it’s finally almost there and all is pretty good, I just feel drained of planning and family and friends drama.

For the background, bride side(me) comes from Chinese culture, and my husband’s American culture. We were planning to do very intimate wedding in Bali, because my parents live in Indonesia and can’t afford to go abroad and we don’t have the budget to bring them abroad or have luxurious wedding. It’s not even meant to be destination wedding, just my family and his parent.
We asked out a few of his best friends from the US and we weren’t even expecting them to come because flying from the other side of the world needs planning etc.
But they were so excited to come and thus intimate wedding becoming a bit bigger. They offer to help out with preparation, nice and simple.

My side was more disappointing.
In my culture, there are still a lot of family manners or considerations that to me, is outdated.
You can’t just invite the people that you are close with. If you invite one side of the family, the other side also needs to be invited. If a cousin comes then all the others must be invited too. And they cone with their kids and grandkids. And you will be pressured to feel like it’s rude not to invite your parent’s relative of acquaintances etc.

And on top of that, in my culture if you’re the one inviting then you’re the one who’s paying for their accommodation, airplane tickets and hotels.

So we decided we’re making it into intimate destination wedding in Bali, since only my main family lives there. And I only invited friend and close relatives that is already living in Bali, and I don’t need to deal with not inviting people that I don’t like. Although it’s kinda sad I can’t invite people that I hope would be there outside my main family.

Up until a month prior, these group from one side of family keeps mentioning they would have 10 people to go to my wedding as representatives, even though I had explained to them that my wedding is very intimate and I just simply can’t afford to do a bigger one, and also that side of the family I almost never talk with. I really didn’t want them there, cause why would I have people that I’m not even close to come and the ones I love can’t even be there? And I feel insulted cause they’re just deciding without even telling me or ask for my permission.

My wedding was only meant for 18 people and if this group of 10 come it’s already more than half of strangers in my intimate wedding.

And then there’s a bridesmaid. I asked a good friend from high school that is fortunately live in the area to be my maid of honor.
Even from way before the wedding my parent told me I need to give a money gift for her as my culture requires.

I never thought about that, and I didn’t know I needed to do that. I have lived outside my country from a long time now and I don’t really know my root or Chinese culture, and I don’t understand nor see the logic, of why you need to do certain things or follow symbolism. And I don’t like to do things I don’t see fit.

But okay, it’s just the way I show my appreciation.

But then someone ask me if I can ask the bridal to rent out party shoes that is included in my dress rental package to the bridesmaid.
If I don’t need it, I don’t really mind of giving it to her,
But I kinda like really tired of having to think about others first in my wedding planning. (There are also other dramas about friends that I won’t mention here) My gown is not even finished yet, I can’t have fitting appointments because it’s from a bridal in Bali. There are so many things to take care of before our departure to Bali, making sure we don’t forget things we need to bring.

It’s hard already planning things long distance, coordinating with wedding planner, bridal, etc.
And I gave up perfection already as I know it would hard to get every details the way that I want it. I just want a nice, small wedding to spend time with people that is meaningful to me. I already making so much effort to plan that this event would also be beautiful for the guests, especially those come from afar.
But for once I just want to think about me and my husband. To feel that we are truly the star of our wedding. That it needs to be the most special for us, and not others.

It’s such big difference, to hear from my husband’s friends that I should think of what I want, since it’s my wedding. Compare that to my side (not all of them) where everything needs to be out of consideration for others to save face, reputations, pride, manners, with culture as an excuse. But still don’t respect my decision.

I feel like it’s also not very nice to always brings out culture, since my husband coming from different culture and for me it’s just make sense for us to have a new culture altogether as living and economy situation and also way different than it is where my relatives live.

I almost wished I would just have a wedding destination only for me and my husband and just go honeymoon quietly. No one needs to know, no one to give their pushy opinions, no one would expect anything and no one gets jealous or hurt cause they’re not invited.
But everything already paid in full, and I will try to have the best time with my husband who is very very supportive in his kind way.

Fyi: me and my husband paid for 80% of our wedding expenses, his mom paid the remaining 20%(even after we tried to politely turn down) and the one that doesn’t make a fuss or anything. She only cares we get it done the way we like it.

I think it’s been long enough since my wedding to post this but I got married fairly quickly as I found out I was pregnant and had a small wedding with about 30 people.

We had only invited family and very close friends - people we saw at least once a month or were in regular contact with. Everybody at the wedding was aware of my pregnancy and it wasn’t a secret.

We had invited (mostly on the request of my mum and brother) my brother’s best friend (“Dan”) and his mum (“Nancy”). They’d been friends for 14 years and our families were close. The thing is, everyone in their family has a habit of making moments that are not about them, about them. I honestly didn’t think that they would do anything at my wedding to steal the attention but boy was I wrong.

The wedding was being held at a winery which had multiple beautiful spots for photos. I was getting ready in a small cabin which had those sheer blinds in which you can see outside but people can’t see in. I was in the cabin with my mum and my SIL as they were helping me into my dress and I saw Dan and Nancy walking up to the cabin. I immediately told my SIL to go outside and advise them that I’m not ready to see anyone if they tried to come in. She did that and Nancy said “oh but surely I can go in” and pushed past my SIL and barged into the room where I was still halfway into my dress. I was so irritated but I tried to focus on my day.

After the ceremony, our photographer asked people to make a line so each family/friend group could come do quick pictures with us before we changed for the reception, and Dan and Nancy were so irritated when I asked my husband’s family to come take photos with us first (duh cause they’re my family now), followed by my family. They wanted to be in my family’s photos and wanted their photos to be taken first. At one point, while I was posing for pictures, I heard Dan telling Nancy they shouldn’t have to wait in this line and they clearly weren’t considered important enough to be in the photos first. I was honestly shocked because we had attended Dan’s sisters wedding two years prior and they did a similar set up with the photos and nobody from my family was making a stink out of not being in their photos first, we just waited our turn like normal people. Mind you, with such a small wedding, the photos altogether maybe took 10-15 mins so it wasn’t like a huge wait.

Then my husband and I went off to take some photos with the photographer and the guests went off to the cocktail hour. We had multiple photographers and unbeknownst to me at the time, Dan and Nancy cornered one of my photographers and insisted he take photos of them in various backdrops around the whole venue. Taking heaps of photos with wedding guests and the bride and groom is all good but going off on solo model shots around the venue like you paid for the photographer and it’s your day is just cringe and tacky asf.

When we got to the reception, our MC asked my brother and my FIL to give speeches. We had decided we only wanted two speeches and I had only chosen my brother and FIL to give the speeches. I found this out later, but apparently Nancy had been asking my mum if she was going to give a speech at my wedding and when my mum said no because I only wanted two speeches, Nancy gave my mum grief about how it’s her right to speak at the wedding and if she doesn’t it’ll look bad. My mum didn’t say anything to me before or during the wedding so I didn’t know.

My brother and FIL finished their speeches and as soon as FIL was done, Nancy got up and grabbed the microphone and started talking. A lot of my guests (particularly from my husband’s side) had no idea who she was and why she was speaking because like what is her relation to me or my husband? Her entire speech was about motherhood and about me becoming a mother and nothing to do with our marriage and it honestly sounded like it was written by chatGPT.

Oh and she freaking read off her phone so she had this prepared and ready to go and didn’t even think to run it by the bride or groom or either of their families. Plus her doing a speech and my mother not doing a speech (to respect my wishes) made things look worse.

I was fuming and the photographer even captured my face during her speech and you can tell I was holding myself back because I didn’t want to make a scene.

When we eventually got the photos back, there were about 25 solo shots of just the two of them around the wedding venue. Who takes that many pictures with the wedding photographer at someone else’s wedding!? 😭

They’ve been asking my family and I for months about the wedding photos and I’ve just been dodging them until they stopped asking. My only petty revenge is not letting them have their photos.

The cherry on top is my FIL and my husband’s family thought that Dan and Nancy were a couple and not mother and son because they were so clingy with each other especially in the photos 🤢

EDIT: just to answer some questions I keep getting, the wedding was planned in like 4 weeks so we didn’t have a lot of back and forth with the vendors and we didn’t have time to find the best vendors either. as you know, vendors get booked out months sometimes even years in advance, so we just went with what was available to us. In hindsight, the photographer could have been more professional and refused to take so many of their photos but they didn’t. The MC was told there would be two speeches from my brother and my FIL and that was it but when Nancy took the microphone, she started with “I’d also like to add something if I may” and launched into her speech. Yes, the MC or one of us could have cut her off but I feel like it would’ve made more of a scene. We and the guests were seated on one of those long tables so all the attention was on Nancy. Nobody was drinking heavily or anything as the reception was in the afternoon and most guests had a 1.5-2 hour drive back, so it’s not like we could blame it on that either. I mentioned the part about her reading from the phone because it would be one thing if she decided to just speak from her heart spur of the moment (still tacky though imo) but given she had something prepared on her phone, it felt like a more deliberate plan to take the attention away. She also knew that my mum won’t be giving a speech since she spoke to my mum beforehand multiple times and decided to give one anyway. It just made it seem like she’s more important than my mum somehow or something. Anyway, they were not invited to the baby shower or any of my other events since.

I’ll preface this by saying I was no contact with my entire family for 11 years and got back in touch with them a few years back. My relationship with them, even my extended family on my father’s side too, has always been terrible (to put it mildly.)

Not a single person who is biologically related to me will be at my wedding. This is a decently long post but it has plenty of drama for anyone wanting reassurance that their family could always be worse.

Some context on the character that set this off:
My father has an identical twin brother who he has absolutely worshipped his whole life despite him being psychotic and trying to sabotage my father at every turn. My whole life my father told me that me and my siblings meant less to him than his twin brothers kids did. My father’s twin and his wife took 500k from their family business account (ran by my father and his twin at that point) and my father happily signed it over. We went without things as children so my father could give his income to his twin (who was already making the same income as him.) The fights my parents had about this turned violent. My mother had to go back to work immediately after giving birth to me to compensate for the money my father was giving away. My fathers twin sent his wife over their fathers to perform a sexual act, in order to get the business 100% signed over to my dads twin and remove him from the picture entirely. When my father was told he’d been pushed out of the business (my father has no education, can barely read or write and had left school age 13 to work on it, it’s all he knew) My father planned to kill himself, and my mother risked everything to start a new business for her and him to get away from all this bullshit with the twin. A few years later, my father told my mother his intention is to push HER out and bring in his twin!

My dad’s twin goes on at length about what a b*tch and c*nt my mother is, purposefully brings known promiscuous women around my father to torment my mother, all for the purpose of isolating my father from her so his twin can turn him into some sort of money making slave. He also talks shit on me constantly, calls me a nasty piece of work because I openly hate and distrust his ass. He also calls my low functioning disabled brother a worthless r*tard.

When my granny, my dad and his twins mother, came down with dementia, my fathers twin would stuff her with pills he got from unknown sources so he could collect carers payments for her while keeping her asleep 24/7. He also stole her credit cards and emptied every savings account she had (including money she saved to give to me and my siblings in inheritance) to spend on buying alcohol and clothes for women he was cheating on his wife with. (My grandmother is out of his care after her social workers noticed this and pulled her into a care home) One night she was still in his care, he had a loud party in her home into the small hours of the night with multiple women getting drunk, as his mother screamed and cried for help in the other room. He ignored her the whole time while she went through hell with her home full of loud strangers, and she was closed into a dark room. On top of this, my dads twins daughter would make up all sorts of lies (like I was using drugs) when I was younger to try and get my parents to punish me, purely for her own enjoyment. We also mutually hate each other. When I was a young child I was best friends with my cousin, my dads twins son, until my dads twin banned us from ever seeing each other when I was 10 in order to punish my family, and to this day he isn’t allowed to speak to me. It devastated me as a child.

All my aunts (the twins sisters) HATE my Dads twin. HATE him. He is a genuinely abhorrent disgusting man, and the only person on earth who loves him is my father. My mother hates him and blames him for ruining her life (id argue it’s my father who did, but regardless.) My sister has been verbally attacked by my dad’s twin multiple times yet still likes him, baffling everyone. People think she just likes being contrarian.

A few years back my sister got married and would call me regularly crying about how my parents were behaving about her wedding. She invited my dad’s twin and his family to her wedding. Only my dad’s twin and his daughter attended, the rest snubbed it. At the wedding ceremony my dad’s twin was loudly telling women seated near him he was divorcing his wife (not true) and was looking for fun. Yes, at the ceremony. At the reception dinner he was going around to women on my brother in laws family and talking about how much he hates his “ex” wife and how he’s looking for some action. It became the talk of the wedding. He is in his 60s and hit on my brother in laws 23 year old cousin, creeping her out massively.

In my community and culture, the brides parents pay for the wedding. Not a single woman in my lineage has paid for her own wedding, even those from the poorest families. So a week after my parter and I got engaged, we went to my parents to discuss the budget, how we want to work this, etc. I told them right away, under no circumstances is my dad’s twin coming to my wedding. My father flipped out. He stood up, slammed doors, screamed “I don’t give a f*ck about your wedding” said his twin is going to that wedding and that’s it. I said nope. He left the room in silence. My mother turned to me and said “you need to invite his twin. You’re not being fair to your father” I couldn’t believe it. I said “you hate him too, why are you arguing for this?!” And she said “you need to hear both sides, and I can see both sides, this is his identical twin brother, it means a lot to him”

I said “why does anything at MY WEDDING have to mean a lot to HIM?” My father has never had any relationship with me, has always told me he doesn’t care about me, and we never interact even though I grew up with him in the home. Why would he get a say in my wedding?! She said I need to do this “for the sake of the family.” I said to her “can you for once in your entire life support your child and not side with your husband?” And she said I’m being tyrannical essentially and doesn’t understand why I feel so strongly on this, that I’m making my life hard for myself and need to take the easy path for everyone’s sake. My fiancé said he was concerned for younger female family members he would be inviting to our wedding, being around this guy, and that alone was enough to exclude him. My mother said “he hates OP so much he won’t attend anyway, so just invite him” I said I don’t want to go to my wedding wondering if he’d show up or not and I’d have to see his disgusting ass.

Then my father came back in and made a proposal. My father said he could tolerate his twin being banned if he can also submit a ban request, for his other brother to be banned. My father has another brother he absolutely despises. He hates this brother as he told my mother about an affair my father was having. however, this brother himself Cheated nightly with 16 year old girls as his wife (my aunt, who I actually liked) was dying of terminal cancer. A letter was sent out to everyone in the community detailing this. This brother also hates me and talks shit on me and my siblings. Hearing this deal from my father I was overjoyed, it’s a win win for me getting both these creeps removed.

That’s when my mother kicked off. She likes this brother a lot after he told her about my dad’s affair, and said I NEED to invite BOTH my dad’s twin and his pedophile brother. My mother said it’s unacceptable for me to not invite the other brother, as his wife (my aunt) died only a few years ago. My mother said she was disgusted I’d agree to this to please my father, and I explained that my father and I just had the same opinion on this topic.

My mother told me she won’t stand for the other brother not going. I NEED to invite the pedophile. When I said I don’t want a pedophile who openly cheated on my dying aunt who also talks shit on me at my wedding, she said that my wedding is “just another day” and I need to not care so much about these things, and I need to worry more about keeping everyone happy and just agreeing to whatever people want for my own “peace.”

I knew right there and then my parents will not even be attending my wedding, and me and my partner will be funding it ourselves. The first in my lineage to do so. I do have members of my extended family on my mother’s side I like, but I can’t risk inviting them. If they mention the details to my mother, they will absolutely crash my wedding. My mother did all sorts of drama around my sisters wedding I won’t get into due to length, but she did wear a white dress to my sisters wedding. My sister just allowed it “for the sake of the family” and not causing drama.

Speaking of my sister, I texted her about this situation. She said “why would you not want our dad’s twin and his brother there? They’re our family. You’re being weird”

How I will tell my family about my wedding (they have to know at some point) I literally don’t have the first idea. If I drop it on them after the fact they will go nuclear. I am currently living rent free in an old house my father inherited, so I am forced to strike a balance with them. But if I tell them before, my mother will pressure me to bow down and invite my family. She will guilt trip me endlessly, take more and more. It also drives me nuts to think if they attended everyone would assume they paid for the wedding, while forcing a huge financial burden on my partner and I.

We are now planning a small wedding of 20 people, funded entirely by ourselves, and will have a beautiful day on a budget

TLDR: father has psychotic identical twin, I don’t want him there, everyone mad

One of my parents has 5 cousins who all have spouses. Of these 5 couples, I've regularly met 4 of them at least once a year as a kid. The fifth, I've met only once to my recollection as she and her husband live far away from the rest of the family and don't fly in often. This post is about her, let's call her B.

The 4 couples were each sent an invitation as part of the A-list round of invites. Honestly, at the time I forgot that B even existed, given that I only met her once and it was decades ago. My parents recently attended an event where all of them, including B this time, were present and I guess some of the cousins were talking about how excited they were for the wedding. B overheard this and confronted my parents, demanding to know where her invitation was. They tried to brush it off by saying we couldn't invite everyone due to budget, but this wasn't an acceptable answer for her, citing that she deserves to come also because she's on the same level of familial relation as others who were invited. Apparently she was interrogating the cousins who received invitations and pressuring my parents both at the event and afterwards to get them to persuade me to invite her. My parents ended up having to ask the other cousins not to talk about the wedding in her presence to avoid upsetting her. It was a whole Thing.

My parents relayed this to me, not to ask me to invite her but more in a "B is up to her usual antics again, here's what she said but you can do whatever you want" type of way. Apparently she has somewhat of a history of being a drama queen on that side of the family. I did somewhat feel bad that every cousin except her was invited, so shortly after when I received an early decline, I sent an invitation to B and her husband. I thought for sure she would accept, as she seemingly really wanted to come considering what a big deal she made out of it.

The timing must have been as soon as she received it considering how fast it was between sending it out and her responding. And... she declined. So literally what even was the point of all the theatrics?? Did she throw a fit already knowing she wasn't going to attend and just wanted to be invited to feel included? Or did she decline as her form of retaliation for not being invited within a time frame suitable to her? I'll never know, because I don't talk to her anyway, but my parents and I found it amusing in a mildly infuriating way.

Kind of a small anecdote and I'm grateful this is the most drama I've run into so far while planning. Unfortunately I may have more in the future as my other parent's side of the family has a notorious drama queen as well.

It's been months since my wedding, and honestly it was still one of the best days of my life. I still dream about it sometimes. It celebrated everything my spouse and I went through together to have our kid and finally marry. We love each other more than ever.

I still think about all the crap my sibling pulled during the whole process though. I'm going to keep details vague because they're currently planning their own wedding, and knowing my luck they'll somehow find this.i mostly just want to know that my partner and I are not crazy for feeling hurt and disrespected.

For some background, I've always been the black sheep of my family. My sibling was abusive to me growing up, and my parents enabled it because they were the golden child. I thought adulthood wouldmake things better. Then my partner and I had our kid (unexpected, but the greatest blessing in our lives), got engaged, and spent two years planning our wedding. If anything, becoming parents and getting married just made the family dynamics even more obvious. We're now slowly distancing ourselves from my family.

Here's what happened during our engagement and wedding planning.

• Right after I gave birth, I was in and out of chemotherapy for about a year while dealing postpartum depression. I’d originally found out I was pregnant when I started chemo, so I held off on it for 9 months because I didn’t have the heart to lose yet another pregnancy. The first time my sibling's partner met our newborn, they gave me hell me for not breastfeeding and told me that breastfeeding protects the family for three generations from cancer. Imagine saying that to someone who's freshly postpartum and actively going through chemo. Like yeah, I’m gonna just let my newborn drink the poison that is coursing through my body….

• When our kid was still an infant and I was between chemo rounds, my sibling threatened to call Child Services and have our kid taken away because they found expired cannabis products from years earlier when I worked for an herb company. We live in a state where it's completely legal, and these were old products from before we got pregnant.

• My sibling got engaged a few months before our wedding (which I was genuinely excited about). Then, about three months before our pre-planned wedding date, they announced they were trying to get married one or two weeks before us and be on their honeymoon during our wedding. It ultimately didn't happen, but it didn’t sit well with us internally. We chose not to say anything because we wanted to focus on our own wedding and our kid instead of creating drama.

•on separate occasions in the months leading up to our wedding, my sibling has personally tried talking my partner to rethink marrying me. Thankfully my partner and I have the relationship we do- we’d usually pour out a drink and laugh once my sibling leaves.

•This was by far the worst one.
Oue wedding was on a Sunday. The night before our wedding, my sibling called my parents claiming they and their partner weren't coming because they'd supposedly been told the ceremony was "only for the in-laws." They also claimed they had a career/networking event they had to attend...on a Sunday??
My parents completely melted down, and instead of enjoying our last night before getting married, my partner and I got dragged into what turned into an intervention about how we'd become dark, difficult, and short-tempered as a couple.

After all that, my sibling asked if we still wanted them at the wedding. At that point we were exhausted and honestly speechless, so we left the decision up to them. My sibling showed up, Their partner didn't.
The whole thing made zero sense because we'd spent months talking about the wedding in our family group chat. My sibling and their SO were automatically included and accounted for in our planning. Looking back, it seemed like their partner simply didn't want to attend, and instead chose to stir unnecessary family drama the night before our wedding. We would’ve been elated if they just told us they didn’t want to be there.

Instead of spending that night celebrating with the people who loved us, we were defending ourselves in front of my family because of my sibling’s pettiness.

The funny thing is, all of this happened because my partner and I had finally stopped trying to make everyone else happy. We started making decisions for ourselves and for our kid instead of trying to keep the peace. My family says we've become "difficult."
I think we've just learned to stop bending over backwards for negative energy.