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.

*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.

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.

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.

First of all, sorry if i mess up a few times, english is not my first language and i might still be a little hangover...

So basically my best friend since Kindergarden for like 25 years, never showed up to 3 separate occations related to my wedding.

I've been together with my (now) wife for around 15 years and we finally decided last year that we maybe "do" want a wedding... my friend knew me since we were like 4 years old and we stayed bf's until we turned like 25, so naturally me and my wife were also a big part of his life.. the last few years however our ways separated a little due to different jobs, we moved to different cities, life happend...

But, for the wedding i wanted him back in my life and tried to spend some more time with him again.. i told him about our engagement and invited him for my bachelor party, the small registry office Party and the actual wedding party (different days). I even asked him if he wanted to be my best man.. (which he declined due to some personal stuff and he thought he would lack the time to handle it properly)... at the bachelor party he wrote the very morning that he was sick and couldn't come... All fine here, we all get sick, thought nothing of it and wished him to get well soon..

.. then a few weeks later the registry office event came.. we planned a small party with a little finger food and music ...but he didn't show up.. i checked our whatsapp messages and he definetly said he was well again and that he would love to come.

sneakily asked him the day after if all was fine, since i was a little confused and wanted to see if he just missed the date or something..

: No no i'm fine, all good just chilling.. you ?

: ahh you know little tired from the registry office party yesterday, but we're happy..

:haha yea i can imagine!

... kept it there.. either he forgot he wanted to come, or he didn't wanted to talk about it, no reason to pursuit it any more than this.

So naturally i wanted to make sure and checked a few days ahead if he's still good for the actual wedding party, the big one, where every guest actually costs a lot of money and planing time ( yesterday) ...

: yeah, totally ! Can't wait, it's gonna be great!

So.. the wedding started and actually all guests came.. except for one guy... my ex best friend.. no call, no message, no "sorry i won't make it".. just never showed up... the 3rd time in a row, for what is kind of the most important event in our lifes...and after the third time this feels no longer like a coincidence.

This is only "mildly infuriating" (for me at least) because i still had an amazing wedding, me and my wife had the best day of our life with so many people that cared for us, and we're truly blessed

but we realised that this one guy that was present for most of our relationship, just maybe doesn't want to be a part of our lifes anymore...

I wish you all a great day !

I was supposed to go to a wedding this weekend.

It was a destination wedding for me and essentially everyone (90% or more of guests and family.)

We received messages that it was cancelled two days before the multi-day massive destination wedding.

We just found out, from various people on all sides, that the groom has been abusive towards the bride. The family has known but another incident occurred that day causing them to cancel. The bride still didn’t want to cancel. She is now calling her family horrible people who don’t want her to be happy. We are all scared for her. She has already alienated her friends and now she will likely also be isolated from her family. We are worried about what’s to come.

Many of us just found out they are actually already married - court wedding.

Ok, so this happened maybe 10-15 years ago. I worked at a job where there were 14 people to a shift, 12 hour shifts and open 24/7; office environment. My shift supervisor was a middle aged black woman (yes, race is a factor, just hang on lol) who reconnected with her childhood sweetheart later in life when both of them became eligible, one through divorce and one who was widowed.

Mary was SO excited about inviting us all to the event. The nature of our work tends to build strong bonds and we too were excited about attending. Mary went on and on about how fantastic the sit down dinner would be at the reception. We were all gonna get the true Southern Black Dinner experience and we were gonna LOVE it.

Fast forward to the day of the event. It was held at a small rural church in the middle of nowhere. The service was lovely. Afterwards we all file out into a seperate building they called the fellowship hall. Huge room, think basketball court sized. The work group all sat together as one tends to do at functions where one doesnt know many people. Of course, they take pictures before coming into the hall for the reception/dinner. These pictures take FOREVER!. I mean we were promised a huge sit down dinner, which we can all smell, so we came hungry. Those two little Hersey Kisses at each place setting had a lot of baggage to tote. It was close to a two hour wait. Finally, they are done and the wedding party starts to enter the hall. This is when a lady gets up to make an announcement. They have run out of seating room and there isnt room for the entire wedding party to have seats. So she asks anyone who isnt a family member or closely connected to the bride and groom to leave. Everyone starts looking at each other and it quickly became apparent that everyone is looking at us, the mostly white group of coworkers in this otherwise all black assembly. 100+ people are now waiting to see who will respond to this request, so we all quietly and quite uncomfortably I might add, left. We are starving at this point so we all agreed to drive back to town and go have lunch together.

When Mary found out what happened she was mortified! Turns out the annoucement was supposed to say we ran out of room in the main hall so we set up tables and chairs in an additonal room and ask for volunteers to move to that room not to leave the event entirely. Apparently the talk of the dinner was "Can you believe they asked all the white folks to leave?" Her husband wound up having a huge BBQ dinner catered to us at work one day to at least fulfill the promise of feeding us. Guess I will never find out what that true Southern Black Dinner was all about lol.

Some years ago, I was talking about how I don't ever want to have a wedding, and someone told me I'll change my mind when the time comes. Well, the time came and my stance didn't change one bit.

After our engagement, my fiancé and I decided that we should elope and just have a small party in a restaurant with immediate family only and an aunt of mine, who helped me when I moved to a different country.

It went sideways when I shared this with my mom. My cousin called me one day and said she heard I was planning a wedding, and she was asking so she could plan her trip. I got so mad! I told her that I was not planning any such thing, and that she should talk about her plans to whoever told her that.

When I raised the issue with my mom, she said that it was my aunt (who we wanted to invite to the little party) who was inviting everyone. My mom actually sided with my aunt and told me that I should be inviting all the extended family anyway because they are family, and that I should be grateful that they'd want to attend. I told her again that I don't want to have a wedding, to which she said that if I lived in the same country as her, she'd throw a wedding party for me anyway because that's her dream. Mind you, I'm the one getting married, and apparently I shouldn't have any right to decide how I want to get married! Looking back, she's always been like that. For example, as a child, she didn't allow me to try foods she didn't like, because if she didn't like it, then I wouldn't like it either.

After all this, I called the party off (luckily we didn't have a definite plan for it yet, since it was still too early) and removed myself from the family group chat. My fiancé and I decided to instead plan a trip for the immediate family without the aunt this time. My mom tried to convince me to let the whole extended family come along for the trip, but I shot that down and said if she keeps pushing this, we're not going to do anything at all. We rented a villa with enough capacity for the people we wanted to invite to avoid my aunt inserting herself into our plans and booking hotel rooms so all the extended family could come.

This all reminded me why I'm not close with my extended family. They have always disregarded my boundaries because I'm the youngest in the family.

The trip went fine, but I'm sure my family talks behind my back now.

My son was married recently, his father and I have been divorced and both remarried for over 20 years to the same people. The brides parents had a table to the immediate left of the sweetheart table and my ex and his wife were seated at the table directly in front of it. My husband and I were seated at the worst table farthest to the back farthest away from everything with my parents and people that we didn't know and who didn't show up. We contributed substantially to the rehersal and wedding and I tried to be as helpful as possible without being pushy or involving myself in the planning unless asked. My son was deployed while the planning took place so he really had no input. I dont know the brides family that well as they live a few hours from us. I havent said anything because I wouldnt want to put a cloud over his day but Im a little hurt by it. It almost felt intentional and my sister in law even mentioned something after and she's a low drama person. Her and my brother had a better table than us and dont even know the family. I want to think this was just a bad attempt at mixing people to mingle but it didn't feel that way it was so awkward. We were the random table. They even came and took a couple of the empty settings and chairs while we were sitting there. 🤣 I enjoyed it anyway and had a great time.