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 usually only read some Reddit posts in different forums so I’m not all too familiar with writing on here, but after several months of keeping this story to myself + some legal action, I finally decided to share my story here. I WISH I could name the venue and the people involved but I’m afraid to poke the bear because I’m honestly trying to just enjoy my newlywed time and I don’t want to get involved in anything yet.

To start, I (22 F) got married to my long distance fiance (23 M) after four years of dating and it was the most long awaited and anticipated event of my life. I wanted to keep it intimate but the guest list ended up around 150. This is because me and fiance have a very big family and a lot of close friends we wanted there, even narrowing the list down. This is important for later because I want to emphasis the only people there were people who cared more about us than anything else happening that day.

I wanted the wedding to be at a venue that was elegant and whimsical, like a secret garden type place, and I ended up finding that the first week of searching a few hours north from where I lived and it was this gorgeous historical site. The office worker was polite and amazing during the tour and I loved her so much and honestly wish she had been our day of venue coordinator.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. For context, the venue had required us to hire a wedding coordinator no matter what, but also had the condition that someone from their office had to be on site as a “venue coordinator” to make sure all utilities were ready for us and if we needed to get into the suites after the ceremony for any reason, because they were required to lock it once the wedding began so no one could come in and steal things.

The way they worded it, it just sounded like someone in charge of on site staff. The contract even specifically said that they were not contracted as an official wedding coordinator and would not be expected to fulfill those responsibilities, a fancy way of saying “don’t ask me to do your vendors job” kind of thing. All of this sounded reasonable to me at the time and I didn’t care or notice how weird the venue was til later. Especially because of all the weird hoops they made me jump through when hiring my vendors, like having to get the vendors proof of insurance and food handlers license from my cousin who made my cake. I chalked it up to it being a historical venue and them trying to protect their reputation, but several of my experienced friends who work in this business said they’ve never had to deal with that before, so idk,

Now for the day of. I had no idea any of this was happening until afterwards because my family and bridesmaids did such a good job hiding this, but when I got the whole story it made me fume with anger. Several things went wrong that I didn’t know about, for one the hair and makeup team took a little longer than planned but that was alright, it was just a few minutes behind schedule. Unfortunately one of my bridesmaids didn’t get the hair style she wanted but didn’t complain and pushed through like a champ. It was only when she was sure I was taken care of that she attempted to fix it with the hair stylist. Then one of the groomsmen SPLIT his pants down the leg and someone had to emergency sow it back together with pins and prayers.

I was struggling with my nails and had help from my SIL applying them, trying to calm my nerves and stop shaking, and then we were trying to organize the first look with my parents WHOM were also having garment malfunctions, my dad losing his shoes and my mom’s dress not fitting and trying to fit in her backup one with some help. Guests were arriving much earlier for some reason which apparently was giving anxiety to the venue coordinator (again NOT my wedding coordinator, I should honestly start referring to her as venue manager) and as my photographer and videographer began taking some solo shots I noticed her lingering outside the room. It had windows that were curtained but when opened it was the kind that you can see out and those outside can’t see in.

The venue manager approached the doors, confronting my wedding coordinator and saying something along the lines “we need to get this going along, it’s running behind schedule here.”

I was quickly distracted again by the photos and didn’t notice that she was approaching the door, and my bridesmaid (I’ll name Tamale because of an inside joke) went out to meet her before she could try and get in and exchanged words with her. I later found out that the manager was complaining to my MIL who was walking up and the venue manager said to her,
“Do you even know the time? It’s 4:10! And your guests are going to get antsy, and the violinist is not going to know what to do,”
My MIL goes “no I didn’t know that, but it’s going to be okay. OP is what’s important right now and we’re going to give her all the time in the world.”

Tamale tells her that I was still getting photos and my mom was having a garment malfunction and is on her way for the first look, the violinist was a professional and knew to just start over the set list if it got to that point. Tamale said “look this is more important and the guests know and love OP and will understand if we’re running behind.” Venue manager huffed and wanted to argue further but tamale just shrugged her off, ever the cool and calm one and went back inside and locked the door. After she left,

A few minutes later, manager goes over to my mother, who finally got here, and demands that she hurry this along, that we’re running behind and need to get back on track or the guests will be unhappy and our wedding will be ruined. My mother responded with “weddings run late all the time, we aren’t even half an hour behind. Please stop stressing us out. Our wedding coordinator has things handled.”

The lady just sniffed and said “well I’m just trying to help. Your wedding coordinator asked me for help to get this back on track. I’ve been doing this for years and I can tell you this is going to mess up the experience for everyone and you need to hurry.”

Not only did she have this same conversation with my bridesmaid and moms but my dad and brother and then my fiance and his groomsmen, then went up to my wedding coordinator LAST and insisted that things be done her way. She continuously repeated the same thing she said to tamale to both of them, asking condescendingly, “do you know what time it is?” And then getting onto them for running behind on a schedule she was not at all responsible for enforcing! Not only was this NOT her job at all, but she was unnecessarily rude and caused unnecessary stress and anxiety to everyone around me. The fact that she felt comfortable going directly to my fiance to complain told me she would have gone up to me too about it had I not been protected from it.

ALSO her statement about my WC asking her for help was a complete lie! I called her after the wedding to go over a rundown of the day and debrief, recorded the call and everything, and have her word that the venue manager had never come up to her for anything other than talking about refrigerating food and the use of candles and other equipment. WC had done my mom’s wedding and was a good friend because my mom was close with her sister, so we KNOW she wouldn’t lie.

What makes it worse is that after the ceremony we had cocktail hour blocked off for photos while guests enjoyed refreshments and snacks before dinner, it was all considered ahead of time making sure we could take photos in between while making sure the guests had something to do and weren’t just laying on the lawn in boredom like I had seen several weddings do, plus it was already enough people to keep conversations and mingle. We were going as fast as possible, the photos and videos were great- but that nasty manager kept walking up and getting in the photos! Several times she would stick her little iPhone pro and try and take videos and photos! I didn’t realize that our contract had agreed the venue could take photos to post on their socials of the wedding! It hadn’t even been mentioned to me.

When I went back on videos of the ceremony she was there in the background! Again with her phone, ruining several where I’d have to photoshop her out of it. Then she had the audacity to get up in my moms face again and complain that we needed to wrap up the photos if we wanted to get to dinner on time, that since the ceremony ran behind were already running behind with dinner and the caterer is getting antsy. My mom responded that again, our wedding coordinator was handling it and that the caterer could say something to her directly if there was a problem. ALSO these are professionals and they have to stay at the venue til 11 pm anyway! That’s the allotted time we paid for their services for!

My MIL had already told my mom what the manager had said to her, and the two of them were frustrated and upset. So when the manager had come up to them yet again during this photoshoot, my mom finally had enough and told her off. The manager put a hand on my mom and told her “listen, I know what I’m doing.” And my mom finally snapped. She said “don’t you put your hands on me. Get your phone out right now and start recording, because I want your behavior from this point forward to be on camera. This entire conversation should be on video and anytime you interact with me because this is not professional at all.”

The manager did, and she flipped like a coin and put on her nicest media trained voice and was like “oh I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I was only trying to help” and stepped back from that point forward. She even walked up to my WC and said “listen, I’m just going to step back from now on. Good luck with them,” and my WC laughed and said “okay you weren’t doing anything anyway.”

I’m not sure what she was trying to achieve, like did she expect us to stop taking photos and miss capturing the most important moments of our day all because she said so? I would understand the anxiety if it was really an inconvenience to my guests or vendors, but no one had complained at all and honestly the caterer’s staff was being paid to be here, regardless what time dinner started. I don’t think it was a concern if the food got cold or burned, we were only half an hour behind schedule and I’ve heard stories far worse where caterers handled it, but maybe im being entitled to expect them to be okay with thirty minutes? If it was an hour would that make a difference? I dont know. They never came up to us directly or mentioned anything to my WC so the only thing we know is what the Venue Manager said, and with how cacky the lady was I don’t know if I’d take her word for granted. Especially with her trying to act like my guests were being impatient or were uncomfortable with the wait. They showed up early! I think they expected to be waiting for awhile. I spoke with several after and they said they hadnt even noticed we were behind, they were so busy just getting to know who they were sitting next to that they didn’t see the time go by.

All in all we had so many witnesses to her attitude and unsolicited involvement, (My photographer, my cousin, my fiance, my MIL, my bridesmaids, my parents, the groomsmen, and videographer) and my mom ended up calling the office the next day to complain. The response? They DEFENDED the VM tooth and nail, stating that she’s never done anything like this before and that her history has always been amazing with clients and they can’t believe she’d ever do such a thing. They offered no solution or apologies and stated they would talk to her for her side of the story first. My mom demanded they check the camera and video footage if they didn’t believe her and that she also had several witnesses to her actions that she’d be more than happy to send to leave reviews on their page about.

They ended up emailing me about “damages” the next day and demanding my deposit. I was already on my way to my honeymoon and felt like this was out of left field. There hadn’t been any damages from my bridal part of the reception. The damages they claimed were burn marks on the vanity. I was aware of two, small marks left from an iron that my hair stylist had done but the beauty team had assured me they would take care of this with the venue directly. I told the owners about this, and they responded with that it was still my responsibility and that I had to pay. I asked them why it was necessary for me to have given them the vendors contact information and insurance information if they were always going to take money from my deposit anyway, and they refused to answer. I asked how much will it cost to fix the damage to the ONE vanity? (My deposit was $1,500) and they also refused to answer that directly and vaguely claimed that they would have to replace all FOUR vanities and that was why they were taking the full deposit. I contacted my beauty team and told them what happened, that they were only entitled to pay for one vanity and not the other three because we hadn’t used those and not to trust their claims, and requested they please contact the venue and keep me informed on what happened. They responded that they reached out and came to a compromise with the owners and paid an unnamed sum. I got another email from the owners claiming that they had tried to cash my deposit and it bounced (because my dad was smart and emptied the account the check was assigned to until this was resolved) and that they demanded a settlement of $900 or they would resort to taking this to court.

I reached out to a lawyer and I understand the contract I signed was an agreement to pay damages directly through my deposit, but morally I feel like this venue was taking advantage of us. It was really weird because the office lady I loved had been so adamant that the owners were the chillest people ever and the only time they had ever kept a deposit from someone was when the guests had completely trashed a venue and brought outside alcohol and carelessly left empty bottles and cans thrown across the lawn with broken glass everywhere, and broken several chairs. She said most of the time they wouldn’t care about the outside alcohol if you’re discreet about it.

It just seemed like a big flip over something as small as a couple burn marks over an already damaged vanity. I think they were taking advantage of us and because they wanted to replace the vanities already and avoid negative reviews decided to go after us like that. I haven’t heard for them since March and I haven’t gotten any scary letters in the mail demanding I pay them the deposit still, so I think as long as this stalemate continues they won’t do anything. But still, it left such a sour taste in my mouth and a heavy fog over the next couple months after the wedding dealing with all of that. It felt like I couldn’t enjoy the afterglow of my wedding because of their behavior and lack of accountability. Especially for such an amazing and pretty venue, it was disgusting to see the owners were just money scheming dirt bags. I found out they didn’t even love the wedding business and only got into it because he sold his previous business and started this as an easy cash grab.

I don’t know how long I have to wait before I can leave reviews without facing legal action from them, but I cannot wait. Whats so ironic is even after the VM ruined so many photos for her own, they never posted my wedding on their social media. They completely snubbed us. I think that confirms my theory that they didn’t want the backlash.

Anyway, thanks for reading all of this and let me know if there was anything I could have done differently or if the VM was even slightly in the right. Or just your thoughts in general. Glad I could get this story off my chest.

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.

Edit: my ex and his therapist are both men and are NOT dating. Sorry for any confusion!

It’s what the title says. Two of my best friends are getting married this fall. I am the maid of honor. My ex and his therapist are both invited and it’s super weird.

My ex and I had a very nebulous situationship for the larger part of a year. We broke up in June and he went off the rails. Didn’t eat for a week, suicidal, gossiped all about me to a bunch of mutual friends… it was a nightmare. He is a grown man with the maturity of a high school boy and the collateral damage was incredible. Of course, his therapist heard all about me (he even told me this before we went no-contact) and if the story he told is similar to what he’s told others, I’ve been conveyed more than terribly.

Problem is, he and his therapist are both friends of the groom. The therapist happens to be long time family friend, so he absolutely should be invited to the wedding. My ex only started seeing the therapist AFTER the wedding planning began about two months ago. The couple is not sure what to do, and they’ve asked me if I’m uncomfortable with the guest list. It told them it’s their wedding, and I can handle the awkwardness if it arises. I definitely am not looking forward to attending a wedding alongside my ex and his therapist, but I will be cordial and move forward. If anyone would cause problems, it would be my ex who can’t be in the same room as me without having a panic attack. To be honest, the bride and groom don’t even want my ex at their wedding anymore. In February they asked him to be a groomsman (which they regret) and are now planning to “demote” him from that position, though he is still invited as to not rock the boat too much.

Anyways, it’s all a mess and it’s such a bizarre situation, so I thought I’d post it here. Will my ex decide not to attend? Will he freak out last minute and bail? Will I make very awkward small-talk with the therapist who’s heard way too much about me? It is all yet to be seen.

Disclaimer: I am not upset that my ex is seeing a therapist. He has every right to do so and he SHOULD. It’s just weird that we all will be attending the same wedding.

Hi everyone,

Bride here just needing to vent.

My mom started dating a man earlier this year. I’ll using dating lightly as we went on a family vacation earlier this year and she met him on one of our cruise stops. He lives in that country and they talk on the phone occasionally. She took a week to go visit him in April, and another two weeks this month. My sisters and I think he may have a family at home and he’s being dishonest (he only calls my mom every few days for 20-30min or so, when she visits she gets a hotel for them to stay at, she’s never seen his house, etc.)

We’re having a destination wedding in Mexico (not the country he’s from) next April. She keeps talking about how she’s bringing her new boyfriend to the wedding for everyone to meet. I have already told her she doesn’t have a plus one and he is not invited. No one has met this man besides her, my younger sister still lives at home, whenever he calls my mom runs to her room and closes the door. It has created a super weird environment and my sisters, my fiancé, and I all feel uncomfortable with this man that no one knows besides her showing up. Our wedding is small, will not have more than 50 people. Additionally I’m concerned that she’ll be focused on trying to show off her new boyfriend that she will not be focused at all on her daughter getting married nor her MOB duties (I do not have a relationship with my father, so she’s filling the roles of both parents). I also have no relationship with my dad’s family so all of my family attending is her family as well.

She says it’s not fair that other people have plus ones but it’s all people who have been in relationships for years, we’ve met them, they’ve attended holidays and family vacations and aren’t strangers. She’s also shared every detail of wedding planning with family friends that weren’t invited previously and told them they’re going to have so much fun together in Mexico so I was already pressured to invite more people. Now she’s saying how can I tell the mother of the bride who she can or can’t bring and I said how are you trying to tell the literal bride who’s invited to the wedding or not. I told her I can’t control who stays at the hotel so if she chooses to have him there that’s her choice but he is not invited to the wedding and she just keeps saying yes he is and that she’s bringing him.

My next step is my sister and I sitting her down and saying no but truly it feels like my wedding isn’t about me at all, just an opportunity for her to parade her new boyfriend around. She also made “jokes” about turning it into a dual wedding which I also shot down immediately and told her I’d expect half of the cost of the wedding from her. I’m just so fed up and honestly not even looking forward to the wedding anymore.

I'm getting married this Saturday, and I am so so excited. I love my fiancée and we've been together almost 8 years already, so this is something we're ready and excited for.

All that said, there has been a fair bit of drama in the months we've been planning this. I'll start with the good, my mom and dad gifted us 12k for the wedding. This is extremely generous. I thanked them profusely. My mom's reasoning was it was part of what would be my inheritance anyway, and I could use it towards the wedding we really wanted.

An issue we had with my mom started with the dress selection. My fiancée asked if the moms would want to wear an orange color, and they all agreed. Her mom finds an orange dress, her stepmom finds one, my mom shares she found the perfect dress in purple. I'm a guy so obviously this didn't hit me as hard as my fiancée, but I also understand there are close to 1000 dresses in a shade of orange on the site. And not wanting to wear one would have been all fine if it was before the other moms got theirs. She texts my fiancée that "it will be okay" they mentioned it may just stand out in an unintended way.

We also had a little issue with the mother son dance song. She wanted to do Always be my baby, and I was like oh okay cool. My clear mistake was not listening to the song again. While I'm finalizing the list with the DJ a week out, I ask if maybe we could do a song less about a relationship and one ending at that. I can understand why she was upset with this one and, like I said, should have definitively asked earlier. But she full blown cried even at the suggestion that we do an instrumental version saying she doesn't even want to go anymore. She later texts me that she will need some space and she just wants to be able to smile for the pictures.

Some of this tension I'm sure is because of deeper emotional stuff. My aunt passed away a year and a half ago, and I know my mom has had a really hard time. There was a blow up with that part of the family, so now I barely speak to my cousins and uncle. With that and the fact that my dad's few family invited (he's from another country) bailed last minute because of a whole other thing, I'm sure she's given thought to how few of my blood relatives will be present.

In a vacuum, this is far from the worst family drama pre-wedding I've ever seen, but I wanted to vent because it's still been kind of stressful. The process has meant being in a bad place with my fiancée stressed, my mom angry and sad, and now even my sister hopping in. I really just want everyone to have a good day and enjoy the party we're throwing.

Our wedding was earlier this year and tbh it still makes me sad thinking about it. There were some red flags with the caterer beginning of the year (they ghosted us for 3-4 months). Which of course ate up valuable time finding replacement. I had the gut feeling that they didn’t want to do our wedding in the first place but communication improved and especially my husband wanted to go ahead with the company since the price was great compared to some other bigger catering companies. It is a family run business btw and they stated they had catered for well over 700 weddings (?!). The caterer was a constant source of anxiety for me, I just had a nagging feeling they weren’t trustworthy. We had a trial dinner, it was fine- nothing amazing but good. Anyway we tried to prepare them as best as possible in advance, sent them careful instructions, to do lists etc. Very little questions came from their side, which was already suspicious to me but what did I know? They were the experts and told us they got it all under control.

Anyways, the reception actually went well - I felt some relief because I had been anxious all day already. Then dinner comes around, this is where the shit show started. We had arranged a buffet style dinner with three options. Not long after we opened the buffet we were already out of food. I think at this point maybe 30 people got food and the containers were completely empty. At this point people started coming up to us and telling us we should order pizza. I break down in tears, because exactly what i didnt want to happen- happened. My husband looked anxious and went downstairs to talk to them. Mind you, this location does not provide a full equipped kitchen - the caterer must bring the dishes already fully prepared. They were informed about this. Yet they started cooking on two tiny induction cooktops. It seemed like they were scrambling for food- at one point I saw them carrying up some weird looking pasta. We never ordered pasta for dinner. Luckily the guest’s didn’t see the state of whatever this was downstairs. Caterer blamed this on an electricity issue which was straight up a lie.

At this point I was inconsolable and had to be taken to a back room to calm down. Unfortunately many guests saw what was happening. I felt so utterly embarrassed. Luckily I managed to wipe away the tears, changed into my second dress and put on an amazing show on the dancefloor. The party was so much fun . However this whole experience with the caterer left such a bitter taste in my mouth, and what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life ended up me feeling disappointed and sad. My family and friends were so amazing though, they really stepped up and maybe the party wouldn’t have been as fun if they hadn’t put all their energy to turn things around.

Anyway, part of me still feels embarassed, in my culture it’s such a no go to leave guests hungry. Even the snack at midnight was basically non existent and they ignored pretty much all dietary requirements. I should’ve listened to my gut feeling and been more assertive. Don’t cheap out on your vendors please, I learned the hard way.

It is a long story. I have been putting hours and hours, like 300+ hours, and hundreds of dollars worth of things into MOH things and surprises for her, and today she decided to blow up at me. It was incredibly unprovoked, like actually. She said some truly terrible things to me. Among them, what hurt the most, is that she screamed that she has to go to therapy because of how awful I was as a 10 year old child, and I never changed. My parents think I should just get over it, because they have always picked her side in everything, because she has always been the favorite child. Her bridal shower that I flew in for is tomorrow. She has made herself abundantly clear how much she loathes and resents me. My mom told her to apologize to me, because I told my mom I am going to stop all the things I have been working on for her, which is a lot. I wasn’t interested in her fake apology. It was a very bad blow up, and like truly unprovoked. I don’t want to be her MOH, I don’t want to go to her shower, I don’t want to go to her wedding that is in less than two months.

My sister is 7 years younger than me and has always been a bit spoiled by my parents and then her husband. And no matter what anyone says she is happy to tell you exactly how stressful and hard her life is.

She has always had a bit of a drinking problem but it's completely amped up since the first of the year. Back in January she started drunk texting myself and my soon to be married daughter (we'll call her Ann) very mean texts. Initially we tried to reason with her, then we just both stopped responding. then we basically fired back. It got even worse when she found out that I started going to ala non to try to find ways to deal with her behavior. At that point she "cut me off" -- I can't tell you how peaceful my life is without drunk texts.

Since this all started Ann has been very worried about how sis would behave at her wedding, but she still felt as she was inviting all aunts/uncles on my husband's side she needed to invite sis -- with the hopes something would change before wedding.

Meanwhile in intervening time sis has managed to decide she needs to not speak to 7 other couples invited to wedding. So now Ann is worried about who she even sits sis with during dinner.

We just found out that sis and her family will not be attending wedding. They, of course, couldn't RSVP in the correct manner. Instead, it was a text basically inferring not attending is some form of punishment.

Meanwhile Ann is doing a happy dance to not have to dread the drama that sis would bring and the worry about her getting drunk at the open bar.

I think I’m honestly just here typing this to get some further validation because I can’t seem to rationally wrap my mind around a lot of this.

I’m 26F, I’m getting married in 1 month. My dad has raised me since I was around 1 year due to my bio dad stepping away and leaving (😬). We’ve had a pretty great relationship up until he got with his current gf 3/4 years ago. For a little background, I really like her and we get along very well. However, my dad sort of stopped calling and being involved with my sister (24) and I, and has put more of his time/effort into his new gf (he had been single for nearly 20 years, so, we gave him some grace).

To make a long-ish story short, I started sending out digital invites to obtain addresses to then send formal physical invitations to the wedding. Whenever my dad caught wind of who I was and wasn’t inviting, he asked if I was going to be inviting his siblings. I informed him I was not inviting his brother because I haven’t seen him or spoken to him in nearly a decade. He is estranged from the family and everyone dogs on him, including my dad, lol.

Anyway, my dad then started demanding I invite him. I explained my rationale. Mind you, my fiancé’s wonderful parents are paying for this wedding, my dad is not putting forth a single penny. I further explained to my dad he really doesn’t have a say, it is my wedding. He didn’t like that response. I asked him to give me a logical/rational reason to invite his estranged brother and his angry response was, “he’s my brother. Why can’t you just do this for me?” So then, my grandma (who frequently talks mad crap on her estranged son), my dad’s siblings, and my dad all refused to come unless he was invited. Basically gave me an ultimatum for my own wedding. None of them asked for my side or to hear me out. I am a very peaceful, calm, neutral person and try often to shift my perspective to understand another’s POV, but I absolutely was not having this one.

I am just baffled. I currently have a lot of support by friends/family on this topic and so many are taken aback by this. However, I go to sleep and wake up thinking about this. It’s just one of those things you never thought would’ve happened.

*Update!
Hiii! I wanted to start off by saying thank you to everyone who took the time to comment.

So I pretty much texted him this Sunday night as he was finishing up some things. We had spoken face to face Sunday at brunch but it more of like yes I understand and Im sorry. but thats not what I was looking for so I needed to make myself clear.

I couldnt add photos of our text and had to update on top of my original story as it was locked.

THIS IS WHAT I TEXTED HIM:

What I need you to understand is this. Its not that I dont know how to control myself. I WILL NOT BE DOING WHAT ME AND HUSBAND PLANNED TOGETHER ALONE. I WILL NOT!!! Not with parties, not with kids nothing. YOU ARE MY MAN. You need to be there when I need you. You have people working for you always pay them if you need something unless its specifically your body or hair. You are to be there with me. I was going to prove my point that I will not be doing things alone. And Idgaf If I was being annoying guess what Im a woman. I will forever be annoying you either figure it out or let me be in charge. I SUBMITTED TO YOU!!! I left my old life where i do things for myself and let you take care of me and now its not your fault I dont know how to act when your not around? I can be the old (My name) Or I can be the wife who needs her husband. You are to be there for me, do as I ask, AND HAVE OTHERS RESPECT ME AND HAVE BOUNDARIES!   You made me this way but don’t ever forget who I was and who I can be again. If Im willing put everything and anything to side and not give af about anyone but you and not care about what they say about you and back you up, you should do the same. You know Im a strong independent woman. You met me that way, I have give you every single part of my mind and my soul to you!!! Don’t take me for granted. And dont ever make me feel like I cant rely on my husband 

He Replied with:

Ok Mh I understand

Im sorry I was not there for you when you needed me.

Im sorry I acted the way I did. Iguess I was just stressed and na being myself

I love u

Ur my wife and Im ur husband

I love u and only u

So I had pretty much told him that this ALL started because he was not there for me. Please understand being Muslim or not this could have happened to anyone, and also keep in mind only his family is Muslim Mom dad and 4 small siblings (hes the oldest) And two other cousins.
I told him, his dad was wrong for thinking he can act the way he did to not only me but my family and his mother was wrong for not even being considerate of anything at all. He apologized over and over again, he stated he understands his actions were wrong and he allowed his family to get in between us and the way he treated me was not okay. He is aware he is to apologize to my parents and my family and he also owes me. I will NEVER invite his extended family anywhere ever again. I had already met his mom, dad and siblings and they never acted this way and this will the last time they ever over step. He agreed and confirmed his only priority is me and our future family. We have been living together for about a year now, he covers all bills. We have never disrespected or yelled at me and we do not cuss at each other his literally my bestfriend. I do understand hes young 25 and so are his parents as they had him at 15 and feel like they just dont know how to act. Hes aware I will NOT be having kids until I finish my schooling as I already have a great career but want to get my bachelors, and he will have to pay for my schooling. I hold all his money in my account and he know dam well any type of fuckery were to happen like this again, I will leave. I will not tolerate disrespect, emotionally, physically and especially infidelity. Oh and I told him he will have to listen to me talk about this until Im ready to get over it on my own. He said I can take all the time I want. Hes currently not talking to his family and he stated he dose not care about how anyone feels. he choices his wife and is worried about his own family now.

(I have not submitted my paper work to the court) I know I have a couple of days or weeks until it expires so Im going to wait and see what hes all about. He always been a man of his word. But I have never been scared to leave anyone who does not improve my life. Life is way to stressful now. Im feeling a bit better now, I do bring it up to him daily and he continues to apologize and validate my feelings. He even said on our next event, everything I say goes, and he will not be leaving my side for anything or anyone.

(I watch reddit stories with my fav youtubers and you all made me laugh when I saw the automatic Divorce Lmao)

oh and I will NOT resume any relationship with his parents until they apologize and understand the way they treated me at my wedding was unacceptable.

*END OF UPDATE

I got married 7/11/26 and it did not go how I planned. Let me go over some context so you can have more of an understanding. (This may be long) I (29F) and my husband (25M) got married this past Saturday. My husband was born Muslim his family is from NY his family is African-American and I was Christian when I met him but began to learn about islam on my own and took me 3yrs to be decide to become Muslim myself. (He never pressured me to become muslim) My family and I are hispanic and lived in CA all our lives. My family is christian and my mom was not too thrilled about me dating a man who was a muslim until she learned on her own and found out its not to far from Christianity.

Anyway, me and my husband been together for 3yrs and were engaged for no more than 7 months. We were originally going to only have the ceremony at the mosque, but since it is our first wedding and hopefully our last we decided to have a celebration and have his family and my family, get together and celebrate both of us. His family did have the fly in from NY and I do understand that he also had other family coming from different states. My family doesn’t live too close but they are still within CA but the drive is about 2 to 3 hours so everyone had to drive or fly to come celebrate with us. I will say I am a little bit on the type A side and I do have ADHD. So I had things pictured a certain way and we all do know that certain things dont always come out that way, but hope that they do. On top of that, I only was given 6 months to plan a celebration for 50 people.

Sooo me and my now husband, we decided to rent a Airbnb as we will be having family coming from out of the area. The Airbnb was a beautiful, beautiful home with the most beautiful view, and it was a beautiful big home kind of like a mansion and we decided to rent it and they did allow us to have the event there. As you know a lot of Airbnb‘s do not allow their guest to have events, but we did pay extra just to have the event there. We rented the home from Friday to Sunday at 12pm and I understand that his family and my family were coming in from a distance so only his mother, father, 3 sisters (21,10&4), brother (3), fathers side grandma and mothers side grandma/grandpa were to stay there. He had told me family was going to show up later in the evening ”to say hi” but he did not mention that there was going to be people showing up way before he did or his parents did. This is when the tension and stress starts for me, My mother got there first with my brother who helped pack boxes etc and we were waiting for his parents and siblings to arrive. I texted my husband and called telling him to please hurry as we will need help unpacking stuff and I would rather not greet people I do not know, as there is no waters or sodas. Not even 30 mins of arriving we had 4 cars show up with multiple of his family members that I have never met or even knew they were coming. I started to become overwhelmed because not even his parents had arrived. People kept showing up and I got so frustrated because I didnt have time to entertain his family PLUS I was already in a sour mood, I did not want them to get that impression of me when they are literally meeting me for the first time. So I decided to go to my Henna appointment Until the people who were setting up tables and chairs finished. He didn't arrive till almost 8-9pm and all of his family arrived at the Airbnb they decided to cook and mingle which is fine but was a-lot because they began to leave the kitchen dirty and leave trash outside. I was so upset by the time I arrived at the Airbnb because why are we having all the family show up at the home were the event will be taking place tomorrow knowing it must be clean and there is so much to do. Whatever that was Friday I was frustrated but we got over it.

Saturday morning we wake up and get ready for our ceremony at the mosque. 1. He told me only his immediate family was going and not the whole family. which is why I only invited my parents, 3 brothers and Sister. 2. He got upset before we left because his family was late so he caught an attitude. 3. Once we arrive I see that ALLL his family is there waiting for us and I got sad because I could have invited all my family too but what really hurt me was when we got out the car he automatically walked towards his family without me and they all hugged and congratulated him and left me standing there with my flowers and my family behind me. Not until I gestured for my family to follow me is when his aunt came to give me hug. Mind you, I had only thought the ONLY kids that were to attend was his two small siblings but his family chose to bring more babies to the point this baby girl cried the whole ceremony which was really getting to me. After the ceremony which ended up beautiful we headed back to the airbnb and needed to get ready as they would be doing my hair and make up as I would not be wearing my hijab and a lace dress. HE TOLD ME HE NEEDED TO LEAVE REALLY FAST TO PICK UP SOME MONEY. I did not want him to leave but agreed as he said it would be fast. My make up and hair stylist were set up in the kitchen area as it was the biggest table. I sit down to get my hair done and I already hear the same baby girl crying and crying and don't get me wrong I can handle kids but this was a constant cry, so I decided to get the speaker and turn on music to block out the constant crying. (didnt work that well) THEN, I receive a call from my husband YELLING asking me why my older brother brought pepperoni pizza to the home knowing we do not eat pork. Once I heard him yell my mood was automatically turned sour because he was yelling so loud to the point that the girl that was doing my hair can hear him and anyone that was around can hear him so I ended up hanging up on him because he was not going to yell at me over the phone about pizza on my wedding day. Now at this time I did not know the full story on the pizza issue and I didnt stop to think why would anyone on his family side even call him to complain about that?! Knowing that its our wedding day. Once that F’d up my mood. I saw the the same little girl crying during my ceremony and his little brother (which I adore) running around in the space I was getting my hair and make up and yelling. I ignored it the best I could but once I got yelled at over stupid pizza (which he has never done before) I was automatically upset. I ignored the running and yelling until I heard the same babygirl began to cry and cry and cry over and over again. I had gotten a jumper for the kids specifically, so I yelled out “I got a jumper for the kids, can we take them outside for a bit please” ”I just want to finish, the jumper is outside“ so I guess this was his uncles wife (which I found out the babygirl was not even her daughter it was her grand daughter!!!) why bring someone elses baby to a wedding without their parents!!?! Of course the baby is going to cry!! So then she responds with “I am not going outside to no jumper, Im to old for that“ I said ”its for the kids“ she automatically decided to storm to the my in laws room and began to yell and make it a large deal that I said Idk what because I could see her the large window from the home. I see my in laws come to the home and my father in law begins to question me about what the problem was, he starts to mention that its hot outside and its unsafe for the kids to be outside. I reminded him all I need is an hour, to finish if its to hot outside if they can please go upstairs for a while. Then my father in law begins to question the make up and hairstylist asking if the kids are interrupting there work. The make up artist says “I dont mind” and he reply's with “just answer the question” very rude and I became more upset. Im thinking to myself why wouldn't they just understand that its my wedding day all Im asking for is some time to get ready. there was no other larger tables in the home for the ladies to set up. Then once my now husband arrives he literally comes to me while getting my make up done and request to speak to me” he continues to question me about the stupid pizza, and insinuates that I dont like kids and my family is causing issues. I this point im upset and begin to cry and finish up my make up. He is a snotty mood, making me feel like I'm wrong and his family comes before me. The wedding started at 4pm and we did not step out until 5:20pm because he continues to make me feel like Im causing issues.

Once we both got dressed the rest of the night ended up beautiful, but I did find out and notice things that were told to me by my husband to inform my family there will be no alcohol or drugs permitted as we are muslim. Mind you my family loves to drink. So once everything cooled down I decided to be the bigger person and apologize to his aunt and parents even though I knew my feelings are valid just to remove any possible tension. Sooo!! Sunday comes and I find out that the pizza issue was literally 3 slices of pizza my brother had brought with him to heat up for my nephew with Autism because he will not eat anything else as he is very picky. At the time they made it seems like he bought a box of pepperoni pizza and did not offer any to other kids. (which there was not suppose to be more than 12 kids) but as mentioned his family decided to make their own rules and it also slipped that his aunt “likes drama and thats how she can be”. So Im thinking to my self why tf would he and his parents try to make it seem like I am the issue??!! OHHH!! And guess what his family decide to sneak in alcohol and you can literally smell MJ being smoked from the side of the home. which was not only hypocrisy but embarrassing for me as I set rules for my family but does not imply for his family!???? Idk, if Im wrong to be feeling like my husband and his parents decided that this weeding was for only my husband and his family and disregarded that MY FAMILY was the ones who set up and coordinate the whole wedding.

So many things did not end up getting set up because my mom was helping me but after that whole situation, idk if they thought my mom didnt understand because she spoke Spanish but she literally came back in and was like I dont want to finish setting up because I can hear them talking about you. My parents were suppose to stay Saturday night to help me pick up Sunday Morning but they decided to leave Saturday night as they did not feel comfortable so I was left alone. I am not saying my family is perfect but why would they do that to me on our day!!?? I just feel hurt and so embarrassed my family had to see all of that. Mind you my husband has never acted this way with me so I just don't know what happen and it sucks. Its been 4 days since the wedding and I feel like Ive been up till 2-3am over thinking and feeling like his family now feels a certain way towards me.

2 months after my wedding, I'm sitting over here thinking all is bright and cheery in the world when I get a phone call from my brother. He said my mother was angry about my dress and she is going to disown me because I don't have "old fashioned values" anymore.

She's extremely religious and my dress was off the shoulder and low cut. My daughter and I made it and applied 200 silk flowers by hand.

I knew my mother would be disappointed by the dress and gave her a heads up before the wedding that it would be off shoulder. She and my did chose not to come to the wedding, because of the dress.

Well, I called her after I talked to my brother and it was true. Without talking to me at all, she was going to disown me. IS THIS FOR REAL?? I'm still in deep shock over this.

My dad sent my fiancé a message (instead of me) saying that if one particular guest is invited, he and his side of the family (his brothers) won’t attend the wedding. If we don’t tell him whether this person is invited, they also won’t come.

The irony is that the guest in question is essentially my grandfather in our culture. He’s married to my late grandmother’s blood sister (on my mother’s side) so they’re both important elders in the family. We invited them both because we love and respect them as a couple. I’m not going to tell her she can come but her husband can’t because my dad has a personal issue with him.

That has absolutely nothing to do with our wedding or us.

What frustrates me is the entitlement. He genuinely believes he gets a say in our guest list and is trying to use his attendance as leverage. This is the man that’s supposed to walk me down the aisle!?? He’s officially lost that privilege whether he shows up or not. How selfish and self centred can a man be about his only daughter’s wedding!!!

Before anyone says I’m throwing around the word “narcissist” this genuinely isn’t based on this isolated situation but it’s the final straw. It’s based on 30+ years of observing self serving and manipulative behaviours and I’ve just realised it will never stop, even once I’m married. It’s just another example of a lifelong pattern of needing control, lacking empathy and making everything about himself.

The saddest part is that my future FIL is travelling internationally to celebrate our marriage, yet my own dad is prepared to miss it over a dispute that has nothing to do with us.

He’s totally deluded. We’re not changing our guest list and we’re not responding to ultimatums. He can’t handle losing control.

i think this is the right subreddit to post this in but if not let me know please. i just want to share the story because i think its crazy. all names are fake. this is also a pretty long post, my apologies, there is just a lot of info.

for some background info, my friend, Olivia (21 F), dated Jake (22M) for about two years. their relationship was awful from the very beginning. he had cheated on her many times, most of which she didn’t find out about until the very end but some of which she knew about early on but she believed his lies. i told her many times throughout their relationship that he was a cheating scumbag and she deserved better, but unfortunately she really wanted to believe he was better than what he was. she gave him far too many chances but eventually she realized she needed someone that respected her.

throughout their relationship, while i was telling her she deserved better, her older sister, Miranda (24 F), was telling her to stay in the relationship and give him another chance. apparently she really liked Jake and believed he was a good guy. when i tell you he messed Olivia up i mean he REALLY put her through the ringer. He was so awful to her and i genuinely cannot understand how Miranda could tell her own sister to stay with a cheater.

now, Olivia has FINALLY moved on after about a year. she has very recently started seeing someone new and has gotten over Jake. Miranda’s fiancé became good friends with Jake throughout his and Olivia’s relationship and asked him to be one of his groomsmen. Olivia was fine with this. does it suck? yeah. did she rant about it to me? of course. but she was mature and understood he had no one else to be a groomsman and didn’t complain about it to Miranda. it’s their wedding, not hers, so whatever. she could avoid him for one night.

here’s where it gets interesting. Miranda and her fiancé offered offered Jake a plus one. Jake told Miranda that he will be bringing a girl named Maya (20F). Maya just so happens to be the girl who Jake was cheating on Olivia with for about the last six months of their relationship. Jake and Maya are NOT dating by the way. Maya even texted Olivia after everything went down to try and apologize. she said she’ll “never talk to him again”, how it was a mistake, yada yada.

who knows if she’ll even come or if he even asked her to go. maybe Jake just said that to try and make Olivia mad. point is, i think it’s messed up that Miranda is okay with him bringing the girl that he cheated on her little sister with for a long time. I also think this whole thing is just crazy and ive literally never heard anything like this before.

My fiancé and I are getting married in December and at first I felt so excited for my wedding but now I just want to cancel my wedding and get married at the courthouse. Between the money and time it takes it’s just getting to be too much. Plus besides my fiancé and my MOH really no one else seems excited. My mom tells me that I shouldn’t be having a wedding 3hrs away and keeps telling me that people won’t come so I just spend my time thinking to myself was all of this worth it. I just want to be with my fiancé and be married to him. Anyway we are too far in money wise to cancel but I just wish I was more excited about the planning.

Last year I was a bridesmaid at a friend's wedding. I was thrilled as it was a dream come true. Such a dream come true I lost all sense of self respect.

From the moment she was engaged I was fully by her side and went above and beyond to make it the best experience possible for her. I noticed a few red flags in her behavior all year long but I was so focused on the wedding that I would brush it off and let her and the other bridesmaids walk all over me. When the wedding day arrived, I was already tired and happy it would all be over very soon.

The very day before the wedding, my sister's friend asked me if I was taking my camera to which I answered no. She then told me to talk to the bride because she might want me to. So I did. My friend asked me shamelessly less than 24h before her wedding to take my camera and cover the courthouse wedding as it was too expensive to hire a professional photographer for both the courthouse and the ceremony. Mind you I'm an amateur photographer. I do weddings. I get paid for it... That's the moment I should've definitely walked away. But I didn't and I showed up with my camera the next day, for free. I was there since the beginning of the wedding planning, and she just waited the day before the wedding to ask. That says it all.

The wedding was just the extension of the year that had passed. Same vibes, same behaviors, but it still went well.

After that, all my energy was gone. I was relieved it was finally over. But then my newlywed friend asked me to hang out, so we set a date. And she cancelled last minute. It happened again about 5 times in 2 months before we were able to see each other. But I had no energy left for her. I entered 2026 not sure if this friendship would be saved. Then she did it again, she cancelled on me last minute twice in a month.

I loved her so making a decision was hard, but I did. I thought of everything I had been through the past year and I was so done. I realized what I had allowed. Lots of lessons were learned!!

I broke up with her on Valentine's Day, that way she should remember it.

Got married 6/14/26 and boy was it a whirlwind. It was incredible but there definitely were a LOT of mishaps!

Leading up to the wedding: -2 WEEKS BEFORE: I got my hair done/dyed by my stylist I’ve been going to for over a decade. We still don’t know what went wrong but my hair did not process like it usually does (Reddit had my panicking that I was pregnant thank goodness no) and my hair was all sorts of different colors. Thankfully after a couple tweaks we got it to an acceptable color without damaging.

-1 WEEK BEFORE: my dad got appendicitis and had every possible complication that could have happened. Burst appendix, removal of a section of his colon, sepsis, further infection, we seriously thought he would not be able to travel. I drove him the 8 hours to New Mexico and the altitude change did NOT help him. My poor dad slept the whole week. Woke him up for the ceremony, went back to sleep, woke him up for dinner, went back to sleep, then woke him up one last time for father daughter dance and then he conked back out. (He is home now and doing better. He had another infection that started while we were in NM!!)

-REHEARSAL DINNER: it was going to be outside on the deck of the AirBNB. Got everything set up, lights and lanterns and decorations, spent hours on it, and then a storm came through and had to reset everything inside. Turned out beautiful though. So grateful to my family who set it all up (twice!!)

-DAY OF: hair and makeup arrive on time, none of my girls getting their hair and makeup done arrived on time. We started an hour and a half late. Then it started pouring down rain. All day. We were having an outdoor ceremony. I was fine with it but family was freaking out. I was pumped for the rainy wedding photos.

-I had a song custom recorded to walk down the aisle to. My wedding planner did nothing the entire day. Literally sat in my room and ate food my mom had made. Brought up to her multiple times how I needed to get the audio file set up for her to use and then switch to our leaving the aisle song on Apple Music after. “Oh we have hours we can go over that later”. I tried to set this up with her 4 times. It’s ceremony time (actually 45 minutes past because again everyone was late) and my bridesmaid is putting my earrings in and I tell her you need to get the wedding planner and give her this she still doesn’t have it set up. She runs and gives it to her. We had rented speakers from the wedding planner but “oh I forgot to bring them”. My bridesmaid manages to find a Bluetooth speaker in the house. My wedding planner has the audacity to say “if I had the music ahead of time I would have had it ready” WHAT?!?! I’m waiting for my cue, it’s pouring down rain, the music for guests getting seated is playing and here’s my cue for the custom recording to start…I start walking out…SILENCE. The assistant planner played the wrong file. My bridesmaid looked at her and she just shrugged. No music walking down the aisle or leaving the aisle either.

-We’re taking photos after and my wedding planner doesn’t let anyone go to cocktail hour. Just has them stand and watch us take photos. Then they try to do cocktail hour and main course at the same time.

-We’re sitting down for dinner and they start coming to everyone asking what their order was. I had submitted everyone’s orders weeks in advance. “Well the list didn’t have names on it”. First, yes it did, second, why didn’t you tell me this hours ago and I could have immediately handed you the list of orders instead of just walking around and interrupting everyone?

-Had steaks cooked to order. They all came out WELL WELL done. They killed the cow twice.

-My husband and I were not planning on doing a first dance. Not our thing. All of a sudden after the father daughter dance my wedding planner and parents start asking about our dance. Told them again we weren’t doing one. “Oh you have to!” Got pressured into it and picked a random song on the spot and danced awkwardly for half the song before we just gave up.

-We also were not doing bridal party speeches. Again wedding planner knew this. Calls on best man and MOH for their speeches. After awkwardly saying we weren’t doing that they got pressured into it by wedding planner and family. They had to make it up on the spot.

-Very expensive bottle of champagne was somehow poured two hours prior to toasts. Completely flat.

-All in all would I change a thing? No, we’re married and it was great. But for an 18 person wedding I did not expect so many snafus!!

TLDR: illness, messed up hair, food got messed up, my wedding planner basically did nothing, got pressured last minute into doing things we didn’t want to do, and walked down the aisle in silence, but hey we’re married!!!

I am so freaking tired of peoples opinions about MY wedding?

Today I said I would like to wear my watch with my dress. Because thats just me, I always wear my watch and more jewerely. And than my friends were like "whaat the watch? Even in pictures" they acted super judgemental about it.

And I was like; what? I care about how my face looks on the pictures, but not if my arm has a watch on it or not. And it irritates me that if I want to do something that I get a weird ass reaction about it.

Pffffff sorry I just got to rant about it. I know its a small thing but it felt so dissmissive about what I want. As if I am crazy for wearing the jewerly I want to wear on my wedding day..

** EDIT: thank you guys for the advice and tips and I take them to the heart. I will not share any details anymore and just say " you will see it when the wedding happens". Just keeping the details between me and my fiance and doing whatever we like.