Recently I was invited to a wedding that lasted from 3pm to midnight. Since the invitation said dinner would be served, and we were also told there would be lots of appetizers, my husband and I ate a light lunch then went.

The first sign of trouble was when the waiters only brought out one or two trays of appetizers every 15 minutes or so to serve over 200 guests. The younger and more fit guests started congregating by the kitchen and swarming the waiters, so the food never made it the older and less fit guests. After a couple of hours of this, the guests started getting hangry and were practically fighting to get an occasional morsel of food. Sharp elbows were thrown!

I politely asked the bride’s mom what time dinner would be served. She said that the dinner turned out to be too expensive so they were just doing the appetizers, and repeated the claim there would be lots of them. Turned out not to be true, so around 7pm my husband, I, and about 30 other ravenous guests went to a pizza place across the street to eat.

Other guests started doing this too and the pizza place was amazed by the rush of elegantly dressed customers gobbling up rather mediocre pizza like starving wolverines. Although we tried to discreet about the trip to pizza place, when we got back, we were tartly informed by the bride’s mom that it was very rude to leave the wedding.

Later that night the groom’s grandmother actually fainted from hunger and an ambulance had to be called. Fortunately she was ok after a few hours of treatment in the ER. I felt we should have all gotten t-shirts saying that we’d survived the nearly food-less reception.

I figured I’d add some extra photos incase some thought this was Ai.

For context: my ex cheated on me some time ago with his now fiancé. His mom really liked me and sent me this dress after inviting me to his upcoming wedding. I have since respectfully declined the invitation and the dress.

A friend of mine is planning the Fyre Festival of weddings and I just need to have a vent.

It started with them deciding to have it on Christmas Eve, in her home town. The reasoning for this is that they have a pre-planned trip there for Christmas with her family and they can’t afford another one. Never mind that none of the groom’s family or friends are there, most of them have said this is going to be dreadfully expensive and difficult for them because Christmas, and 30% of their guests are from interstate. They’re inviting 80-100 people.

Then I find out that she’s costed the wedding at $13K but they only have a budget of $7K AUD ($5K USD) if they can even save up that much. When I asked how they intended to pay for things, she said “as we go” and that she’d organise payment plans so she can pay things off afterward. So they intend to find vendors, then save up for a deposits for them, then book them, then hope they can pay off the rest in time or get a subsequent payment plan.

She wants to put their limited budget entirely into the ceremony. She’s allocating thousands to venue, outfits, photographer, decorations. The groom wants a reception, however. So if they have any sort of slightly formal one they intend guests to pay for their food and drinks (not just alcohol but soft drinks as well). Alternatively they’re going to ask people to stop in at a grocery store and pick up a few things to bring to the ceremony for afterward. So fight the Christmas crowds, and then leave food sitting for hours in a hot and dry city in summer. They also want people to BYO chairs.

Another possible reception option is to defer it to Boxing Day and invite everyone to her cousin’s house for leftovers. She has not asked her cousin about this but assumes it will be OK because her cousin has an open door policy for friends on Boxing Day. Tell me you’ve never done Christmas without telling me you’ve never done Christmas. All the invited guests can just go without or fend for themselves on Christmas Day in anticipation of some leftover potato salad at the house of someone they don’t know. This includes the groom’s family.

To compensate for not having a reception or much of one she is going to have a 2 hour ceremony with 20 people doing readings etc. I say she because none of the groom’s people are included in this. He gets a best man to stand up with him and that’s it. She’s using ChatGPT to write her vows and she is going to do the groom’s vows for him so he gets them right. She told me that right in front of him when we were all having coffee.

To keep costs down, the decor will be all DIY. However they are not arriving in the city until the afternoon before the wedding. So everyone else is going to be allocated things to do such as collecting things, storing things, making the arch, making the other arrangements and making the bouquets. They will coordinate from where they are. On the day, others will be allocated set up tasks while they get ready. They will not even have seen the venue until they get there for their wedding.

According to her, asking people to do this is a way of including them in her wedding. I found out this interesting perspective when she informed me that the reason she had been waffling all this nonsense to me for hours and hours for the last couple of months and having me help her figure things out is because she is “including” me in the planning part. This means I don’t get an invite because I get to have all my fun and inclusion that way! The friend she has asked to host her hen’s night/bridal shower also doesn’t get an invite because she gets to have her fun planning and running and paying for that event! That friend doesn’t know this yet.

After carefully trying to suggest alternatives and highlight issues at various points, I finally expressed to her my concerns that this was not going to work and she was asking too much of people. She got incredibly upset with me and told me I was being unsupportive. When I suggested they take a minute and consider everything she told me that things have been booked and people invited and it’s full steam ahead and I could get on board or get off. I decided to get off.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

People have asked for the other details so I thought it might be easier if I just put them here:

At one point she looked at having the ceremony in a burlesque bar with burlesque dancers as entertainment during it. This would be in front of 95 year old Nanna, conservative family members, and kids. She eventually conceded that was inappropriate.

She wanted/wants to turn up on a Vespa. In a huge ballgown I can barely lift.

She put together a planning permit application in case she wanted to have the wedding in a park. She has asked them to close off roads so her guests can have parking. I tried to explain this was not what that was for but she’s adamant. The application is still not approved.

She is going to give an itinerary for anyone who is stuck there on Christmas Day so they have things to do. She’s not actually going to spend Christmas with them or invite them to anything.

She is planning to purchase a whole lot of crockery and cups etc from Shein for the decor. She intends to give these to a couple of local family members afterward, as a gift for their help during the wedding, because they do a lot of entertaining. I call this offloading junk onto people.

All the Annes and Bobs at one table… All the Joes and Katies at another. Regardless of whether or not any of them knew each other.

If you came as a plus one and didn’t know anybody besides your date? Too bad! No exceptions! Strictly alphabetical! (…except for my one friend Catelynn, who was seated at the K table, for some reason. No, we still don’t know why.)

There was one table that was pretty much just women named Sue/Susan/Suzanne who didn’t know each other at all. There was one table where a guy I know, his current girlfriend, and his ex all got seated together.

Basically everybody ended up standing around the edges of the room all night.

EDIT because I’ve answered this ten thousand times already: Catelynn’s name was spelled correctly on the seating chart and on her place card. That’s why it’s funny that she was seated at the K table. No, it wasn’t a hastily corrected spelling error— the seating chart was hand-inked calligraphy without any awkward cross-outs. They wrote Catelynn, on purpose, in the middle of a bunch of K names. That’s why it was worth commenting on! Thank you for coming to my Ted talk :)

EDIT 2: Can we all please chill out a little? Nobody died, nobody cried, some people swapped seats around, and it made for a good story. At the end of the day, it was a nice wedding.

Also… we all know the only thing that REALLY matters at a reception is that the food was damn good!

Mom just filmed, dad conspicuously absent from whole affair

I used the iPhone clean up feature to try and censor the faces but it didn’t register all of them as faces so instead we got manmade horrors behind my comprehension

This wedding between my coworker Cindy and her husband Matt (both in their 30s, fake names) happened a few years back, but it still feels like a fever dream. Matt, who worked for another company in our building, and Cindy had been dating for MAYBE a year, and it was toxic as hell. Cindy had come crying to the other girls in the office multiple times about how possessive, controlling, jealous, and angry Matt was. He got a tattoo of her name within a few weeks of dating. He had a tracker app on her phone and would get mad at her if she so much as left our office suite to go to the bathrooms. He was jealous of her sons from her previous marriage. She definitely saw the red flags, so we were shocked when she announced they were engaged.

I was even more surprised when my partner and I received an invitation to her wedding.  Cindy and I definitely weren’t close, and I had made no secret of my distaste for Matt when Cindy had come seeking comfort after they would fight.  The invite was very clearly DIY'ed, which was odd, since Cindy was a very glam, high-fashion, expensive tastes kind of woman. In Word Art font it announced, "Marilyn Monroe and Scarface presents: A Night to Remember with Matt & Cindy". We think, maybe it's an inside joke between them? Cindy has never had a particular thing for Marilyn Monroe that we know of, and though Matt does like Scarface, it didn’t seem to be to the extent to implement into their wedding. Obviously the wedding itself isn't going to be themed around Monroe (a real person) and Scarface (a fictional character)… right?

Wrong.

We get to the venue, and there are maybe 50 guests? It’s a decently sized place, and we immediately get the impression that there were supposed to be a LOT more people there. We take our seats in the ceremony area, and as the bridal party lines up at the front, my partner leans over to me, gestures to the best man, and whispers “that kid has a gun!”  I assumed he was joking until I leaned over into the aisle to get a better look and… nope, that child is definitely holding a machine gun. Okay then.

The speaker system then starts playing a sound clip of the “Say hello to my little friend” scene from Scarface as Matt walks down the aisle, wearing a suit that is covered in fake newspaper articles using lorem-ipsum style text. The bride follows, wearing a dress covered in big plastic rhinestones (think Cece’s wedding dress from New Girl) and accompanied by the song “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend”.

After the ceremony, we’re all ushered into another area for the cocktail hour while the happy (?) couple went off to take photos.  The bar is already lined up with pre-made cocktails, so I ask the bartender what each one is. The response: virgin strawberry daiquiris, virgin pina coladas, virgin mint juleps, or frozen strawberry lemonade. I inquire about alcohol, and am told the couple opted for a limited, non-alcoholic selection. Another surprise; Cindy isn't much of a drinker, but Matt definitely likes to indulge.

My partner spots a little table in the corner, covered in what looks like thosr little dollar bottles you get at the checkout counter at the liquor store. Okay, alcohol is expensive, I get it: have the venue serve virgin drinks, and then add your own liquor using dollar bottles, cool. My partner goes off to grab us a few and returns with… little bottles of blowing bubbles designed to look like champagne bottles. It’s a dry wedding, which was not mentioned on the invite, the wedding website, or brought up in any pre-wedding convos with Cindy.  I nurse my lemonade while we sign our names in the guest book (an old marble notebook that’s already been half-filled with doodles from Cindy’s kids).

After 2.5 hours of virgin cocktail hour, we’re led into the reception area. Again, big space, set up for about 4 times the guests that were actually there, so there were quite a few empty chairs. The tables are strewn with plastic diamonds, chocolate cigars, fake dollar bills and playing cards. The cake table is set up nearby, containing a small single-tier circular cake, covered in a layer of plain white frosting, and decorated only with a single fake $100 bill laid on top. There are glasses of champagne at each place setting- just kidding, it’s sparkling apple juice for the toasts.

Cindy and Matt make their entrance, and the DJ announces their first dance: Lollipop by Lil Wayne. Cindy's parents watch on in horror, stone sober, as their new son-in-law grinds on their daughter to a song about sucking dick.

After that came the speeches. Well, actually there ended up only being one speech, by Matt, who used it to shit all over Cindy, saying how now that they were married "she had better lose her little attitude" or he'd "have to show her what a real man of the house looks like", since "obviously her late husband didn't train her properly".

At this point the DJ cuts off the mic, but it's too late. Cindy's dad is up and swinging. A fist fight breaks out, and my partner and I decide that it's time to call it a night via Irish goodbye, and swing by a liquor store on the way home for some much-needed booze.

Matt got fired about 2 weeks later, after he yelled at and threatened his manager over a poor performance evaluation. Cindy quit maybe a week after that, because Matt didn't trust her to work in an office building with other men while he wasn't there to keep an eye on her.

Cindy filed for divorce a little less than 2 years later, after Matt trashed their house in a fit of rage when she caught him cheating with a 19-year-old.

My brother's wedding took place at my parents regular middle class home in south Florida. The goal was to be married elsewhere but they spent all their wedding money on cigarettes and lottery tickets and trips to Disney. (These are two men in their 30s.) This story happened several years ago but it still occupies an outsized space in my brain.)

So, because of the financial mismanagement, a free venue was necessary.

I very intentionally live on the other side of the country and had not been to Florida in months. Well in that time my brother and his fiance had moved in and trashed the home (my parents) where they planned to have their wedding.

I (wrongly) assumed they have it all under control. They rented folding chairs and had a friend officiating and got a cake. It gave the IMPRESSION of forethought and planning. I show up the morning of to see if they need help. Nothing. is. ready. The house is filthy. Dirty bathroom, overflowing cat box and a porch (where the reception will be) is covered in cigarette butts and ash and just...grime. And no plans to clean or setup or make people welcome. I'm stunned. And it is end of May and already hot and humid so I'm cleaning in my wedding attire in the Florida heat. I'm also dealing with the fact that my parents once tidy home has quickly turned into a pit.

My brother's fiance got all excited about the decor... but didn't plan anything else. Just boxes of unopened napkins in a specific shade of purple and a wedding cake serving set.

People are supposed to arrive in 4 hours. This is an 8 hour cleaning job, at minimum. I clean and scrub and shovel the mess as best I can.

I set up the chairs and put out plates and the cake and go to publix to grab deli food and drinks...It is the best I can do in the 1 hour I have left and I spent hundreds of my own money on not only food and drink but several fans at the lowes next to publix for the hot porch.

I'm a sweaty mess doing my best. Parents are disabled so no help there. And only 10 (they expected 35) people show up. And those that do show are the inlaws who look like they crawled straight out of the everglades... one has a community control bracelet on his ankle and wasnt supposed to leave his county...he did. My future brother-in-law's sister brought a pot of rice and beans which she placed on burner and walked away from. She neglected to put water in the pot. It scorched and smoked and set off alarms. She was unbothered and left me to deal with it. I'm opening windows wasting precious AC to blow smoke out of a home that was hosting a swamp wedding.

My future brother in law did manage to put out a guest book. Well his white family proceeded to use the N word several times throughout the book. Exact wording of one note that lives in my brain: "congrats N words on your wedding and sh%t." As I was flipping through the book I just about had a stroke. How could this get any worse. WHO ARE THESE SWAMP CREATURES IN MY PARENTS DIRTY HOME??

Then someone proceeded to shove a bunch of potato salad down the garbage disposal and totally clogged it. I guess they thought they were helping. The sink was unusable so i had to watch a YouTube video on how to disassemble a disposal so I could clean up.

They are still together as far as I know but I no longer talk to him for so many reason... the wedding was just the tip of the trashy iceburg.

I switched flights to the next day and treated myself to an upgrade and drank my way back to the other side on the continent. But I guess at least I know how to fix a garbage disosal, and got to eat some Publix fried chicken. It is so good cold.

Some extra Florida color that has nothing to do with the wedding, in case you are interested....

I did learn his late grandfather successfully sued the local greyhound track when he fell out of a seat drunk and broke his foot. They settled for a low four figure number and the family all quit their jobs.

His sister worked at a place that raised small monkeys to rent for parties and bar mitzvahs and stuff. She was bit by one during a hurricane. That is all I know. That is the story.

In the years since the wedding the gentlemen with the community control bracelet has been placed in a prison for MURDER.

Thanks for reading my tale! Please don't rent monkeys. (Who knows what they caught from the sister. teehee.) And, most importantly, it just isn't something we should be encouraging as a society, ya know?

I was a wedding planner assistant and I have so many stories I could tell, but this is my worst. It’s so bad it sounds like I’m making it up but I STG this all happened.

I have a groom go MIA 4 weeks (edit 2 weeks) before the wedding. None of his friends or family could get a hold of him. The only reason I know he’s missing is because we’re trying to get a hold of the couple to iron out last minute details and finalize payment.

The day of the wedding comes and people still haven’t heard from him and have no idea if he’s coming. I asked his parents, his best man, no one had heard from him. The ceremony was set to start at 10 am. The bride and bridal party show up at 9 am to finish getting ready. While I’m doing up her corset she’s sobbing and telling me she doesn’t know if he’s coming. I have NEVER told a bride this before but after an hour of waiting and her crying I said, “you know you don’t have to do this, right?” She responded that she still loved him and wanted to.

Guests are leaving. The parents are fighting. At 11:30, the groom shows up, absolutely shitfaced gets angry with the bride for being upset. They both insist on getting married still.

I help the bride fix her hair and makeup and they got married.

I heard rumors that they got divorced 3 months later.

Edit: The bridal party just had to FINISH getting ready at the venue. Putting their dresses on and some touch ups to hair and makeup.

The officiant was the grooms friend.

Only about 15-20 people showed up to the wedding. Half of which left after 30 minutes.

I did not handle communication with the couple or family prior to the wedding day. I have no clue what, if anything, was being done about him being missing. The family made it seem like it isn’t uncommon for him to go on benders. I have no idea what anyone’s thought process was. I do not know anything about the couple or families. I only handled things the day of.

I’ll also concede that maybe I’m remembering wrong and it was only 2 weeks? Y’all are making me doubt myself.

Another edit: I just texted my mother, who also worked there at the time. She can’t remember exactly how long he was missing but thinks it may have been 2 weeks.

Text says: Me after saying "What could possibly go wrong on my wedding day?"

It has been a fairly rainy June in our area (this is from our area's location wedding FB group). Absolutely flabbergasted at the willingness to gamble up to the last minute. Makes me feel a lot better about my own contingency planning for August!

Edit: Unreal update: a banquet centre with some bad reviews has reached out as they're open Saturday. They're open to allowing outside catering (fair as at this point they have no contract so wouldn't have placed orders for food or scheduled staff). The bad reviews focused on bland and boring food, so this might actually work out. Colour me amazed and in anticipation of a hefty venue bill.

Update 2: Unfortunately I'm guessing there won't be further updates. It's not even sure that they were able to afford the venue that reached out vs if they just messaged them. The group did have a new post from a stressed bride because Moore's lost the rental tuxes for the groomsmen and they aren't certain what will be available for pickup tomorrow morning. That wedding had placed the order ages ago and has been calling weekly for a while only to just hear the bad news. Not wedding shaming, but still frustrating last minute scrambling!

My husband (then fiancé) and I attend a wedding of some friends of mine in a small Iowa town. It was at the church the bride grew up in and the pastor had known the bride since she was in elementary school. The church and all in attendance were beautiful. Then we got to the part of the service where the pastor gets to give a little sermon.

He starts with talking about the church bells that rang before the service and how the couple will never hear church bells again without thinking of their wedding day. (Awwwww) Then he slides into how some couples don’t like to hear the church bells because they’re divorced and expounds on divorce rates. My husband and I cringed but I thought maybe he’d circle around and talk about how this couple will make it.

Spoiler alert - he did not. Instead, he switched to telling about how some small fishing village on Lake Michigan (can’t remember the name) associates the bells with the death of their loved ones. One day there was a horrible storm that swamped a good chunk of the village’s fleet, killing 36 men. The church rang the bell 36 times to honor them. My husband and I looked at each other in horror.

Fast forward to the two of us meeting with the minister at my husband’s church. I’m grilling him about how he runs his wedding ceremonies. He gently quips, “Do you just want to write it for me?” I immediately respond with, “Yes.” He looks startled and then my husband tells him about my friend’s wedding. The pastor is horrified and turned to his filling cabinet. He pulled out three past wedding services, hands them to me and says this is the style he prefers and the format he wants the service written in.

And that, my friends, is how I wrote every single word that came out of the pastor’s mouth at my wedding.

A few years ago, my parents and I were invited to a wedding in a city almost 6 hours away. Virtually all of the guests had to travel to get there, and the ceremony itself was a 2-hour mass entirely in Latin. No hate to anyone who has a religious wedding; it was just very, VERY long and no one could fully understand because most of it was incomprehensible. We were given “follow-along” pamphlets, but I guess my Latin is piss-poor because I was still completely lost in the sauce.

At least the reception to follow was going to be filled with good food, right? Well… when we got to the reception hall, the cocktail hour had ONE appetizer: a giant pile of chips and a bowl of salsa. That was it. No canapés, nobody walking around with little hot dogs… just a table of chips. Which was immediately depleted by throngs of starving guests who had spent the entire morning traveling to get there. And look, I’m not a snobby person. I wasn’t expecting gold-encrusted steak on a platter. I just wanted FOOD. For about an hour, all I had in my system were the few chips I could snag from the rabid crowd and several glasses of wine.

Then, dinner was served… if one could call it that. I swear to god, this was the smallest “buffet” I’ve ever seen at a wedding. And there were at least 100 people there. All we were offered was a mini taco buffet with a few tins of meat, rice, beans, and sides. This food was very quickly eaten by the first tables to be called, and the buffet was not refilled for another half hour. So half of the room essentially went hungry until another paltry serving was placed in the vats. There was almost no food to go around. My parents and I were devastated (and drunk at this point). I managed to make myself a taco with a little rice, and I was lucky.

Oh well, if anything at least there’ll be cake… right? NOPE. The bride and groom cut a slice out of a wedding cake in front of everyone… and then the cake was wheeled away. No one was served a slice. The cake was just… for them? I guess? Granted, it was a single-layer sheet cake so there wouldn’t have been enough for everyone anyway, but it was just strange to have us applaud the cake cutting and then not have any cake afterwards. Instead, each guest was given a single chocolate ice pop. That was it. Again, I’m not trying to sound like I demand tons of food at events. I just didn’t expect so little to be served to what was essentially a destination wedding for 100+ guests. We ended up getting food in the city afterwards because we were still starving by the end of the night.

That’s my wedding horror story. My parents have also been to a wedding that was catered by Boston Market, but hey, at least there was plenty of food for everyone.

I attended a disaster of a wedding this evening. From start to not-even-finish because I left early, it was a mess. I knew nothing coming into this wedding aside from the time and place. That was the only information given on the invitation, and there was no wedding website to get more information. Turns out, it was an outdoor wedding on a humid 95° and sunny afternoon (thought it was indoor because I looked up the venue). People were in shorts, tees, and slip-ons, and others were in floor-length gowns. One lady was in a full white dress.

Ceremony started, at least I thought. I couldn’t hear much over the 8 children there that screamed through the entire thing. Parents, of course, didn’t intervene. The ceremony went fairly smooth, although the personal vows were oddly disturbing. Pronounce you husband and wife- YAY, done.

Cocktail hour starts. No direction on what to do, so I follow the herd to the bar line. At this point, I am drowning in my own sweat, and all I want is water. I’m not paying attention to the people in front of me because I’m busy trying to fight off flies. My turn in line and I ask for water. “You got it, $2.” I look up and I see the sign. No free beverages- period. Not even water. I take a second to internalize and pull out my card. The man says, “Oh I’m so sorry, we operate with cash-only.” Thank GOD I had some cash in my purse from a FB Marketplace sale.

I sit and wait for dinner. I have little interest in socializing because I feel sick from the heat. Eventually, dinner starts. Tables are dismissed as usual, and I get to the buffet line. This looks like such homey food, yum! Then I realize it is in fact, homemade. No problem, who doesn’t love a home cooked meal? Me when there’s FLIES ALL OVER THE FOOD. Seriously, all up in the food. I take the smallest amount possible to be polite. I was so hungry and desperate that I did take a few bites. Within hours, I was creating jobs for local plumbers.

I sit and wait some more. I barely know bride and groom (EDIT: I knew the bride about 4 years ago, but we were more acquaintances, and I went to the same school as the groom, not sure why I made the list but there were a lot of people there), let alone anyone else there. Next, dessert! Can’t mess up dessert, right?

Wrong. So wrong.

Flies on the dessert, as expected by now. But how am I supposed to eat the dessert? There are no plates, napkins, forks, nothing. The buffet equipment has been cleared. So I watched as people walked around holding dessert in their hands.

All throughout this time- drunken family drama, kids still screaming and making ginormous messes.

Next was speeches. At this point, I just start taking notes for this post. 6 speeches in total, one of them actually good! Sweet, heartfelt, funny. I forgot where I was for a second. The rest… roasts, angry bride, brother started a fight with the groom. And I mean a literal fight. I couldn’t hear what it was about above the screaming kids, and the groom’s lack of front teeth. All I gathered was that it had something to do with the bride. The fight got taken to the lawn, and when people gathered to assist, I slipped out and came home.

I truly don’t feel like this was real life. Like this had to be a practical joke, right?? I may politely decline invitations I have no information about moving forward.

“Dear Prudence,

I got married just before Christmas and am hoping to be divorced or annulled by the end of January. Obviously, that wasn’t the plan originally, but …

I never cared about getting married, but I wasn’t opposed to it. So when my boyfriend proposed in 2020, we decided to go for it. We each took on about half the responsibility for organizing the wedding, but I think I was pretty reasonable about compromise when he really wanted something. My only hard-and-fast rule was that he would not rub cake in my face at the reception.

Being a reasonable man who knows me well, he didn’t. Instead, he grabbed me by the back of the head and shoved my head down into it. It was planned since the cake was DESTROYED, and he had a bunch of cupcakes as backup.

I left. Next day I told him we were done. I am standing by that. The thing is that over the holidays EVERYONE has gotten together to tell me I should give him a second chance. That I am overreacting because of my issues (I am VERY claustrophobic after a car accident years ago, and I absolutely panicked at being shoved into a cake and held there). That I love him (even though right now I don’t feel that at all), he loves me, and that means not giving up at the first hurdle. I don’t want to, but everyone is so united and confident in their assurance I am making a terrible mistake that I wonder if they are right.

—Give Him Till February?

Dear Till February,

Everyone’s sure you’re making a mistake, but they’re not the ones who have to wake up every day with a man whose behavior massively turns them off. You are. So you only have to listen to yourself. I think what he did was a red flag about not respecting you and your wishes—to say nothing of the physical aggression—but even if it wasn’t, the fact that you really didn’t like it is enough. Make a mental note about which of your loved ones don’t seem to value your happiness, and continue with your divorce.”

I was having doubts about posting this, but now that it's turned into a Twitter thread and there's IG reels about it, I feel like it's fair game.

This poor girl (I don't know her but she's from my mom's hometown and news has spread) was hated by her MIL, as well as SIL and BIL, since the beginning. They threatened her repeatedly, made multiple SM accounts to harass her, and when confronted by the husband, they denied everything. BIL offered her a blank check to leave her husband and the family for good (boyfriend at the time).

Now, as I said I don't know her, but what I have heard is that she is a lovely person and wouldn't hurt anyone. All of this hate comes purely from her socioeconomic status. Apparently husband's family wanted him to marry someone rich. She was so graceful throughout the entire ordeal.

When MIL heard that the couple got engaged, she faked a heart attack and had to be hospitalized. She blamed her son and told him he'd have to cover all of her medical costs.

The day of the wedding, MIL, BIL, and SIL all refused to attend, which, fair enough, but apparently they hired someone to throw red paint on the bride's dress right before walking down the aisle. Three men ran up to her, two with cans of paint and another recording, and covered her dress in red. The photos are of the aftermath. At first, guests thought the red paint might be blood. I can't even imagine what that must've felt like. Bride said she initially felt as if it was water, but then saw everyone's shocked faces, and her friends were trying to reassure her that she still looked beautiful. She says the worst part of it was looking at her mother's face, because initially she thought she had been physically hurt.

The bride gracefully changed into another dress. She had to go home for this but all of the guests waited for her at the church. She changed into a lovely gold floor length gown and continued with her beautiful wedding.

The groom's family also found out where the photos would be taken and sent an anonymous tip to the police saying that they could find drugs there, and that the groom might be in possession of them. The police arrived and all of the guests present were searched. The groom was close to being taken away in handcuffs. There is suspicion that BIL bribed the police, but thankfully in the end that didn't happen. After that, the wedding went on without issues.

MIL's house has since been egged. She is hated by the whole town. SIL and BIL have been questioned by their friends and have denied everything, but do not deny that they loved hearing about it. FIL seems to just do whatever his wife says. He fired groom from the family business, but he was then given a job by his uncles who love him and support him. Groom's family all claim to be super religious.

Lastly, after the wedding and before the honeymoon, the groom's family stole his passport and visa. They also tried to bribe the travel agency to ruin the trip. Fortunately they didn't work and bride and groom went on their honeymoon successfully.

Animals in wedding.

I’ve seen dove thrown in the sky. I’ve seen the “horse carriage “ trend. I’ve seen decorative parrots.

But this summer, I’ve been disgusted by this new company that sells “quality wedding butterflies”

I was made aware that there would be a “butterfly release” when the couple would leave the church. In my head, there would be a big cage/aquarium full of butterfly and they would open it. But no.

Butterflies were kept in a cake box. Mother of the bride opened the cake box and smaller, butterfly shapes boxes were inside. The boxes were tiny, so it was clear the butterflies were trapped with no possibility of movement. How cruel. Mother of the bride gave one tiny box to every member of the wedding party.

Then it hit me. We’re in the south, it was burning out outside. It was impossible to survive in this heat and...well all the butterflies that were probably sitting in a box in the car since this morning were dead.

When everyone opened their butterfly box, they either fell on the ground or stayed lifeless in their boxes.

Seriously how is this thing even legal.

Edit: I don’t know who this Asia is so I’ve looked up the video and.. . Well yeah. That’s basically what happened.

The wedding was butterfly themed ( cupcake, colors, etc) and I thought the bride liked butterflies enough to know better.

I have worked at a catering hall for almost 20 years and have some stories, this is one of those wild ones.

I will do my best to keep this short.

The bride and groom (about 30 y.o.) had thier ceremony on site and as is tradition the pastor asked if there was any reason these two should not be wed when the sister (20ish) of the groom walked towards them both and announced "he has been sexually abusing me since I was 5, he can't marry her!"

This was an absolutely wild moment and I watched assuming it was full stop for the day, but instead the members of his side of the family grabbed her and carried her back to one of the suites where she sat with two of the aunts for the REMAINDER OF THE CEREMONY AND 5 HOUR RECEPTION THAT FOLLOWED!

Her parents started telling everyone that she was overtired and talking crazy and we continued on with the ceremony.

It was one of the craziest things we had seen and the only time in the hundreds of weddings I've worked that someone actually objected. When she left at the end of the night she was ushered put by the same two aunts and had clearly been crying the entire time.

Now it is entirely possible that she had an issue and fabricated the whole thing i do know these people buuuuut there was one other moment that made the whole staff take note... during the mother son dance the groom was slow dancing with his mother and they had a coordinated song change into something more fun to get people pumped and right as the song switched the groom hugged his mother close... let the bass drop and then grabbed her asscheeks in his hand and shook them like for the whole ballroom like the spirit of sir mix-a-lot had possessed him.

His own mother.. both hands.. all cheeks.. it was unhinged.

• My mom is the letter.

-My dad is the green text message.

• Then there is me getting ghosted by a MUA after driving for 2 hours and she still posts on her insta like nothing happened.

I hope the wedding is worth the therapy I will need

So my then boyfriend, now husband, was in a wedding, and the bride insisted the entire bridal party arrive sharp at 10:30am, even though the ceremony was scheduled for 3pm. He shows up, parks, and... crickets. 😅 He literally sat in his car until noon when the bridal party slowly started showing up. The groom (his brother) didn’t get there until almost 1pm, already drunk. The bride was late too because of hair and makeup delays.

I got there around 2:30pm and immediately ran into chaos with the seating chart. It was a mess. I and several other people kept getting moved around because we were at the wrong tables. The dress code? Non-existent. People wore tuxes, crop tops, ripped jeans, Jordans, flip-flops, white dresses, white suits, leggings, club dresses, and mini-skirts. Someone next to me whispered they couldn’t tell if we were at a wedding, a nightclub, a barbecue, or a funeral—and honestly, same. Lol

By 3:30pm, my boyfriend comes out like, “Everything’s behind schedule.” You don’t say. Lol The wedding didn’t actually start until 6:30pm, and I honestly think it only happened then because apparently the pastor was threatening to leave. Let me remind you, the original start time was 3pm. There were zero announcements about the delays or when things would start. I only knew anything because my boyfriend was texting me.

People were sprinting back in from the lobby while the bridal party was already walking down the aisle. Since they used the reception hall as the ceremony space, we were already at our dinner tables, and the room was huge, so no one past the first few tables could hear a thing. They had no microphones, and people were just talking over everything and snapping pictures with loud flashes. My boyfriend said it wasn’t even worth hearing anyway because his brother was drunk and slurring the whole time. Lol

The ceremony ended at 6:55pm. No cocktail hour, no appetizers—just a cash bar which was charging $10 for beer and $20 for cocktails. People started leaving to grab food and alcohol. One table ordered pizza, others brought in tacos and BK and plenty of folks were just drinking straight from bottles they picked up from the liquor store. Lol

The bride and groom came in around 8:30ish, again with no announcement. They had to walk out and come back in just to try and get the bridal party entrance right. The song kept skipping, and people were walking in and out and standing up, completely blocking the view for others.

Dinner didn’t start until about 9:00pm and it was so slow and chaotic. Also no announcement. My boyfriends table had already finished eating by the time mine got a bread roll. Lol I didn’t get my food until 9:45pm due to mixups with other tables and we were served just water. Oh, and there was no cake—just melted ice cream soup. I was told dinner was supposed to be served at 5:30pm. So it explains the cold food and melted ice cream.

We quietly left at 10pm—no dancing, no toasts, nothing. And good thing we left when we did because they only had the venue until 10pm. So around 10:15ish they were being kicked out, So anyone still there basically became part of the cleanup crew. Lol I told him that before we go to another one of his family’s weddings, I need to know all the logistics in advance. Lol

I’m in the bridal party for a wedding I honestly do not want to attend at this point. The entire planning process has been a complete mess.

When my friend first announced her engagement last year, I really tried to help her get organized because I know planning is not her strong suit. We even met for lunches with her mother in law, who was paying for the wedding, to try to get things moving. Unfortunately those meetings went nowhere and nothing ever actually got accomplished.

For months I kept asking her to start a group chat with the bridesmaids so we could all be in the loop and help plan things together. My thinking was that if we coordinated as a group, it would take pressure off of her. Instead I got a text at two in the morning on Valentine’s Day asking if it would be okay to start a group chat. At that point I just thought, why are you asking permission, just make the chat and move forward.

Now we are one week away from the wedding and only four out of the ten bridesmaids even have their dresses. The dress information was only sent out at the end of February, or at least that is when some of us heard about it. I also just received a text this weekend asking if we could donate money and attend a bachelorette party this Saturday and Sunday. It feels like new requests and decisions are still coming in constantly at the last minute.

The schedule is also confusing. The rehearsal dinner is Friday evening but the wedding is Sunday evening, with the reception not starting until seven. Normally that would not be a big deal, but the wedding is about three hours away in the middle of nowhere with nothing planned in between those days.

There are also unexpected expenses. We were originally told that hair and makeup would be covered because the bride wanted everyone to have the same hairstyle. Now we have to pay for it ourselves, which is apparently going to be about four hundred dollars. I would not have minded contributing if we had known earlier, but it is frustrating to find out about another large cost at the last minute.

The dresses are also extremely questionable. They are Barney purple and the hairstyle is this side swept Taylor Swift look from around 2011. The original dress idea was a short A line tutu. I told her that looked more like something for a junior prom. Keep in mind that most of the women in the bridal party are over thirty seven and have kids. Her daughter is twenty one and I am the next youngest at thirty two with an infant. Her response was that A line looks good on everyone. I think she received a lot of pushback because the dress changed, but the new one somehow looks even worse.

On top of that, I now have to buy a backup dress just in case the original one does not arrive in time. At this point it feels like I am hemorrhaging money for someone else’s event. This is not my wedding, my child, or my life event.

To make things even more complicated, my husband and I will have to leave the reception early because he has meetings on Monday that he absolutely cannot miss. The whole situation just feels chaotic and exhausting.

I’m not being dramatic on the chaos. She doesn’t even have a cake.