Weddings can be a pretty big f*cking deal—I mean, they don’t say it’s the biggest day of your life for nothing. It takes about a year to plan, an average of $36,000 to put on, and determining the place seatings alone is a strategic maneuver requiring a level of diplomacy that rivals the formation of many political alliances. Between pressures and conflicting desires from family, friends, in-laws, and the bride and grooms themselves, what is supposed to be the celebration of a newlywed couple can end up turning into a never-ending sh*tstorm of people to please, to not disappoint. So imagine planning your wedding for over a year, having a great time, thinking you’d pulled off a classy affair that still managed to showcase your personality, and then finding out that you’d become internet famous… for how bad it was.
That actually happened to Juliette Brandman, a New York-based bride. An avid Betches fan and listener of the Betches Brides podcast, she sent us an email: “So upon returning from my honeymoon, I see myself all over the Daily Mail Snapchat story shaming my wedding dress and shoe choices,” she wrote. The offender was, as Brandman explained, “an ex-girlfriend of a boy I knew in college” who had posted her wedding pictures to a Facebook group dedicated to talking sh*t about people’s weddings. Brandman had worn a short dress with feather details along the hem and sleeves for her reception, as well as sneakers, which were Christian Louboutin and, as members of the group pointed out in the comments, cost $1,000. But Facebook wasn’t where Brandman learned about it. She found out when The Sun picked up the post, and then the Daily Mail did a spin-off article (which has since been taken down). She saw it for herself when the Daily Mail put it on their Snapchat story and her friends started sending it to her.
At first, she thought one of her friend’s Snapchat had been hacked, and sending her her own wedding photos as part of the hack. “They’ve really gotten so advanced!” she initially thought. Then she Googled it, and found the story (which, for what it’s worth, was basically just a bunch of screenshots from the Facebook group, amounting to “People On The Internet Don’t Like This Woman’s Fashion Choices”. I know the Daily Mail is not exactly a bastion of investigative journalism, but come on). At that point, reality set in.
Image: Fred Marcus Studios
“I was like, ‘are you kidding me?’” she said. “It was shocking and I kind of couldn’t believe it. It was definitely hurtful, and you try not to read the comments, but curiosity got the better of me and I totally read them and was like, ‘okay, these are not super nice.’”
What made the Daily Mail and Sun articles especially shocking to her was how the internet’s opinion completely diverged from that of her friends and family. “Every single person at our wedding was obsessed with our shoes,” she said. “Like, people were taking pictures, they were like, ‘omg I can’t believe you are wearing these, these are so cool.’” So to see the internet take delight in having the opposite reaction was pretty jarring. “Those were my special wedding day shoes, and that was a fun part of something that I wanted to bring to my wedding. And I have now hundreds or thousands of people basically telling me I have terrible, hideous taste.” The girl who initially posted the photos to the group tried to qualify that when she initially met the bride, she loved her style—kind of the internet cyberbullying version of “you know I love you, but…”
The other factor that internet commenters didn’t think about when ripping Brandman’s fashion choices apart was the consideration that went into her choosing those items in the first place. “I am a plus sized bride, and, I’m a plus sized human being, so finding a dress, and finding something that I was comfortable in to wear for a second dress, was a big deal.” (The original poster to the group did clarify, “to be fair this was her second outfit,” as if that would help.) Umm yeah, I feel like if any of the commenters had considered that before slamming her, they might not have had as much ammo to rip her to shreds.
Image: Fred Marcus Studios
So, yeah. If you worked really hard on something and you found out that the internet was tearing it apart (while you were on your honeymoon, no less), you’d probably be pretty devastated. But actually, Brandman seemed surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal, and mainly just thinks it’s embarrassing. “It’s just uncomfortable because I spent over a year and a half dedicating my life to this wedding. I paid for that dress, I paid for those shoes, that was my gift to myself because I wanted to have something really fun at my wedding.” I, on the other hand, would either be scheming up petty ways to ruin the life of whoever posted me to that group in the first place, or orchestrating a relocation off the grid, so I admire her levelheadedness about the whole thing. She credits her friends and family, saying that since they were the ones who discovered the articles while she was on her honeymoon, they were able to come up with an action plan and support her the whole way.
Another wakeup call was the fact that Juliette barely even spoke to the girl who initially put her on blast. She’d added her back in college, but they hadn’t really been in touch since: “We don’t talk. We’re not friends, we don’t really have a lot of mutual friends.” She still doesn’t understand why the girl went to the trouble of sharing her pictures in the wedding shaming group, a concept she was also unaware even existed. (For the uninitiated, the gist is that you post photos sh*tting on someone else’s wedding, decor, fashion choices, or you can post stories about people who acted terribly at your wedding or a wedding you went to.) Talk about a rude awakening to the darker sides of Facebook. “I mean, it’s human nature to be judgemental,” she offered, “and especially with Instagram, you see everyone’s stuff. But like, you take things out and you privately message your friends about it. You don’t, like, put it on blast when you don’t know these people.” Now, Brandman is doing a Facebook purge, but she says she won’t let one salty girl deter her from posting pictures of her wedding.
“Looking back, I’m like, this girl literally spent the time from her day creeped through my photos and was like, ‘You know what? This would be great for the shaming group that I am a part of,’” she rationalized. “Like, I can’t even imagine.”
And as for whether she confronted the girl in question about putting her on blast? “Absolutely not.”
Images: Fred Marcus Studio
Whether you hate the wedding-industrial complex, are a bride planning a wedding and want to feel better about your own demands, or just need something to read, we’re doing a new series where we share the craziest, most out-of-touch wedding story we found on the internet that week. Submit your own crazy wedding stories to [email protected] with the subject line Crazy Wedding Story, and we just might feature yours. And make sure to follow @BetchesBrides on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast, Betches Brides.
Welcome back to another Crazy Wedding Story of the week. This one is especially crazy and convoluted. It has everything: a ridiculously demanding bride, angry family members threatening to sue, and a twist you definitely won’t see coming. You’re so welcome that I’ve brought you this juicy incident to brighten your Wednesday. I know, I know—I deserve a f*cking medal. Or, in lieu of a medal, I will also accept $30,000 in donations—you’ll see why in a sec. I can’t really give an introduction to this story without giving too much of it away, so let’s just cut right to the chase.
The Set-Up
Today’s crazy wedding story comes to us via the Choosing Beggars subreddit, which proves in and of itself to be gold. The premise of the subreddit is exposing choosy beggars, i.e., people who expect ridiculous freebies for no good reason. Highly recommend for your procrastinating-at-work pleasure. So when someone posted screenshots to r/choosingbeggars of a Facebook post in which a bride reveals she’s canceling her wedding after receiving a whopping $30,000 in donations, the post quickly went viral on the subreddit. Just in case we have some dirty deleting on our hands, here’s the screenshot of what went down:
HOLY SH*T. First of all, it’s nuts that this couple managed to raise $30,000 BEFORE the wedding. But that’s obviously not the real issue here. How in the actual sh*t does someone think it’s okay to collect tens of thousands of dollars from their friends and family, then pull a bait-and-switch? Then ask for MORE money and gifts?? The audacity of these people. I would be mildly impressed if I didn’t want to slap the sh*t out of them.
The thing with donating money to a cause is that you typically expect the money you give will, in fact, go to that cause. Sooooo flip-flopping and saying that you suddenly need to use that money for a lavish honeymoon BEFORE you’re even married (which, let’s be real, is simply a vacation) and to get yourselves financially stable, makes actually zero sense.
Here’s a hot tip: if you’re not financially stable, you probs shouldn’t be taking a $30k honeymoon. I’m no business insider, but that seems like pretty legit advice, right?
Also, you know that “rescheduled wedding” ain’t happenin’ and this is just a blatant cash grab. If I knew this person, not only would they not get another gift from me for their honeymoon, but they would never see another cent from me as long as we both shall live.
The Backlash
NATURALLY, every family member, guest, and wedding party member rightly freaked the f*ck out. The screenshots for you, my loves:
There’s so much more than even these, but can I get a rich uncle who just gives me like $12k? That’d be tight. Also, can we not with the one bridesmaid that’s like “I gave you $200 and I love you—I’m such a good friend”? Alright, Gretchen Wieners, take it easy.
The Plot Thickens
If the initial post and comments seemed a little wild even for the average psycho wedding story, you aren’t alone in being all, “hmmm.”
The detectives at Buzzfeed did some sleuthing and it looks as though this entire incident could have been a marketing ploy by some bullsh*t company. I mean, good job, marketing assholes. The post went up on Reddit on Monday and quickly was shared, like, everywhere because of how purely insane it is.
More screenshots of the family responses popped up on Monday night, but only via some f*cking website we’ve never heard of called CapturedIt.club, which seems a little weird. When it did go up, literally NOTHING ELSE was on the website. Sketch.
Any additional “comments” from family members had the Captured It Club watermark, which, like, again, seems a bit odd. If these are real screenshots, why are they watermarked with some rando website’s name? Damn, how did none of us pick up on this? I feel like a fool. Even more questionable, none of the Facebook posts had any reactions, which is pretty weird. You would think something of this caliber would be a sea of angry face emojis, wow faces, and dislike buttons. The nail in the coffin, though, is that GoFundMe has no record of a bride named Pam and her supposed fiancé, Edward. And despite mentioning an Amazon registry in her original post, no such Amazon registry for a Pam and Edward exists.
And, after Buzzfeed published their article exposing the fact that this whole story may have been a PR stunt, capturedit.club took everything down off their website and replaced it with this screenshot:
So… it looks like we’ve all been hustled, scammed, bamboozled, led astray. But now I have more questions than answers. Who/what is Ben Hobbs? What the f*ck is the point of this capturedit.club website in the first place? Why were we all so eager to believe that someone would scam their friends and family out of $30,000?
I guess I’ve got to hand it to the people behind this weird-ass website for fooling us all. But, honestly, I’m kind of sad this isn’t real. What does that say about me? Perhaps I’ll grapple with these existential dilemmas in next week’s crazy wedding story.
Images: Vitaliy Karimov / Shutterstock.com; Choosing Beggars / Reddit (6)
Reddit is the gift that keeps on giving. On a recent AITA subreddit (if you aren’t familiar, that stands for Am I The Asshole), a former bride sounded off about a bridesmaid who she feels went overboard in upstaging her at her wedding and, thus, ruined her big, special, perfect day. As a former bride and current day-to-day bitch, let me just say: every bride wants to be the absolute 100% center of attention on her wedding day, whether you’re an actual brat or just act like one during your wedding planning process. Everyone should be complimenting you. Everyone should be telling you how skinny you look. Everyone should be telling the groom how lucky he is and to not mess this up. Everyone should be dancing and raving about the food and crying because they’re just so f*cking happy to be there. You feel me? So I understand why a bride might feel upset if all eyes were not on her the entire duration of her wedding day… but even I think this Reddit bride took things more than a little too far. Because our Reddit bride was not the center of attention on her wedding day, she feels like her bridesmaid literally owes her a do-over. That in itself is pretty f*cking crazy considering the bride admits her wedding cost $30,000, but her reasons why she feels justified in asking for this re-do are, shall we say, completely f*cking unhinged. Let’s take a closer look.
The Setup
The Reddit post begins, “My now husband and I got married 1.5 months ago. We had 6 people on each side of the bridal party. This wedding took 3 full years to plan and prepare for. When I got engaged, most of the bridesmaids were very single, including Anna, the ‘star’ of this story. Two of them were in long-term relationships. I wanted to just give the two partnered bridesmaids plus-ones. Anna seemed offended by this, because my wedding was then years off, and she was actually dating her now husband at the time (though it was casual).”
Alright, this seems within the realm of normal so far. You usually draw the line for a plus-one at serious partners or spouses—especially if you’re a bride on a budget. Then again, this bride puts in the subject of her post that her wedding cost $30,000, which is not super extravagant, but also not a budget affair. However, if it did take her three years to plan, it’s safe to say they were keeping an eye on cost. I guess if you’re broke and mom and/or dad aren’t helping and you’re drowning in student loans, that makes sense. But still, three years is a little bit long to plan a wedding, and there are people who would bristle at not giving members of the bridal party a plus-one, even if they’re not in a serious relationship at the time of your engagement.
Mom Knows Best
The Reddit bride continues, “I eventually got pushed by my mother to give all of them plus-ones. Anna actually continued to date that guy, and married him four months before my wedding at two months pregnant. She brought her new husband as her plus one (who I never met prior) and convinced one of the other bridesmaids to take her friend as hers (when she KNEW we didn’t like him).”
Oh, moms—always peer pressuring us. So, Anna marries the guy she was casually dating, and, considering it took three years to plan this wedding, that is actually very normal! Plenty of people get engaged and even married within three years of meeting each other. Three years is a long time! And it’s actually kind of weird that she never even met her friend’s husband in the entire three years it took to plan her wedding. The only thing I will say is that it’s kind of sh*tty to get a friend invited to a wedding whom you know the bride and groom don’t like. But, given the way this Reddit bride has framed her entire post, I’m calling into question that Anna knew the bride didn’t like the friend. This detail will become important later, for reasons you probably don’t expect, so just keep it in the back of your mind.
The Wedding
Here is where things start to unravel. The bride says of Anna, “She was hugely pregnant, and didn’t refrain from showing it off. We’re both fairly young (25) and in my husband’s culture, getting pregnant before late 20s/30s, married or not, is basically a teenage pregnancy and drew ATTENTION. She also has a vibrant personality and has a way of eclipsing everyone around her. Her husband is also very tall and incredibly attractive, which drew a lot of attention.”
Wow. Grab a suitcase, everybody, because we have a lot to unpack. Ok, first of all, if she’s hugely pregnant (by my calculations, about six months along), how can you NOT show it off? Like, it’s very out there, literally. What really seems odd is the whole “practically a teenage pregnancy” thing. Anna is married at this point, lest we forget. She’s in her mid-20’s. What culture says that’s “basically a teenage pregnancy”??? Am I just extremely ignorant of all non-American cultures? Probably, but I still need to know either way. And what’s with the comment about her friend having a “vibrant personality”? Is she mad that her friend seems like a fun, positive person? Also, jazz snaps for the level of petty you need to be to be MAD that your friend’s husband is hot (and tall). Like, would it have been okay if he was hot and not tall, or tall and unattractive?
Apparently, this all was just too much for the wedding guests to handle. “All anyone spoke about of was Anna’s pregnancy and her attractive husband. Even in the line, people were asking about that ‘electric woman’ and of her pregnancy/marriage/life. When they got up to dance, all eyes were on them. Anna’s friend ended up hooking up with my brother, outing him as gay and causing a huge scandal.”
Is it honestly Anna’s fault if she’s the life of the party? I guess bridezilla was hoping she’d tone it down, which I would understand if Anna is the type of friend to purposefully cause a scene every time she goes out to get attention—but we have no indication of that from this post. And like, IDK, it sounds like the guests were more intrigued by Anna and her husband than offended at their presence. The best part of this part of the story is Anna’s friend hooking up with the bride’s brother and “outing” him. That was probably uncomfortable with possible negative consequences for the brother, I’ll give her that. But it feels like all the anger is misdirected at Anna when really the bigger scandal was the hookup. And maybe the real problem is not that Anna’s friend ended up hooking up with the brother, but that there were homophobes at the wedding who were so scandalized by two men making out that it supposedly ruined the day.
The Aftermath
It gets more insane, if you can believe it. Reddit bride says, “I ended up leaving midway through the reception in tears, and never attended the next morning’s brunch. Anna and her entourage left early the next morning and also didn’t attend. I can’t even look at the pictures without crying and desperately want a do over. I’m not a bridezilla, but this was beyond the pale. It felt like a celebration of Anna’s marriage. I’m sorry, but I put so much planning, effort, and money into this while someone that got pregnant without a thought and married spur of the moment reaped the benefits. I honestly feel like Anna owes me a wedding and did all of this as revenge for me offending her years ago. Am I wrong?”
What a brat. Just to recap: you complained about Anna making a scene, her friend hooking up with your brother and making a scene, then left your own reception crying, creating MORE of a scene? Isn’t that kind of a slap in the face to all of the other guests who came to see you and have a good time? The same can be said of skipping the next day’s brunch. Anna wasn’t even there! That was your big chance to get some one-on-one time with your guests! You don’t get to complain about Anna ruining your day when you created just as much of an issue by leaving and not even enjoying your own brunch that you also presumably planned and paid for!
To go so far as to type out that Anna “did all of this as revenge” is so ludicrous I can’t even see straight. Anna dated a guy, got married, got pregnant, then came to your wedding and had a good time…all for spite? Is it cold up there in your ivory tower? To claim she did all this scheming JUST to ruin your day is absurd.
The commenters on the thread were pretty quick to side-eye the Reddit bride, too. “The biggest clue to me was ‘the wedding took a full three years to plan’. … OP is overly obsessed with her own wedding. When you put something on a pedestal that high, it’s always a disappointment.” Preach, commenter on this thread. If it takes you three years to plan your PERFECT day, then you’re so detail-oriented that nothing will ever be perfect.
Overall, most, if not all of the commenters agree that yes, this bride was the asshole. Her main issues with Anna seem to be that she has a hot husband, got married, got pregnant, and is a social butterfly. I don’t want to pile on the Reddit bride by calling her a horrible person or anything like that, though. More than likely, this bridezilla is experiencing a huge downer after the wedding, which is understandable when for three years you lived and breathed planning and budgeting for it and, in a flash, it’s over. Naturally, you’re going to pick it apart and try to find what you could have done better. But where she took it way too far was asking if she is justified in demanding her friend help her throw another wedding. Girl, no! Like, what, you think your bridesmaid is just going to Venmo you thirty thousand dollars because she had the audacity to have fun at your wedding? Yeeeah. Let me know how that goes.
Images: betchesbrides / Instagram (2); Giphy
I’m not even being dramatic… the wedding dress code I’m about to drag is the craziest bridal sh*t I have ever seen. Seriously, this betch makes the woman who set a minimum price for gift giving look cheap, the bride who fattened up her bridesmaids pre-wedding seem ethically sound, and the chick who read her fiancé’s cheating texts in place of her vows seem tame. This bride that we’re talking about today set a $1,000 dress code for her guests. For her GUESTS. To be fair, there is a large chance someone made this entire story up for internet points, but in this day and age, you can just never tell. People are really f*cking nuts, if you haven’t noticed, so I’m just going to proceed as if this story is true.
In a Reddit post on my favorite subreddit, r/choosingbeggars, exposing an anonymous bride, a screenshot reveals a request for wedding guests to wear the most ridiculous dress code in all of history. “I am giving you a long notice of a year and a half so that you will have time to find and pick out something nice,” the bride wrote, in what is def a glaring red flag of an intro. “The dress code is very specific because it will be used to create an incredible visual effect. If done right, it will make our synchronized dancing along the beach really pop.”
The woman then goes on to break the dress code down for her guests BY WEIGHT. Yep, you read that correctly. She’s literally divided her guests up by gender and weight to tell them which $1,000 dress code “choices” they are obligated to make for her wedding. The only time it is even remotely acceptable to give someone dressing guidelines based on their weight is when they are graduating, and need to pick the 40 pound range they fall in to purchase a cap and tablecloth shaped gown.
Women who fall in the 100 to 160 pound range are required to wear a green velvet sweater, orange suede pants, “Loubotin heels (the famous RED heeled shoes. When we spin and lift our feet, the effect will amaze you),” and a Burberry scarf. First off, if you’re going to be extra enough to force your guests to wear bloody shoes, you gotta spell check Louboutin. Second, what the f*ck beach are you going to in a green sweater, orange suede pants, and stilettos? I’m having a difficult time visualizing a location outside of the world of Dr. Seuss.
Men who scale in around 100 to 200 pounds get to wear a purple fuzzy jacket (uh… ‘scuse me?), a “soda hat,” all white trainers and plain glow sticks. You know, I thought I was confused at the beginning of this story, but I could not have guessed how truly BAMBOOZLING this sh*t could get. I understand that I am potentially missing out on something culturally here—the woman did call sneakers “trainers,” so it’s probably safe to assume she’s not American—but I am at a loss for what a soda hat is. After an extensive Google search, the results across the board have been the drinking contraption pictured below, literally the one Spongebob bought at a yard sale. I refuse to believe that this is actually the headwear that the bride is requesting, and if anyone knows what a soda hat actually is, please educate me. Also, I do not know where you can get luxury glow sticks, but I doubt that the boxes your uncle gets from Party City for the Fourth of July are going to cut it for this luxury wedding.
Women above 160 pounds have a much more lenient dress code, and are asked to wear a black sweater (of any material), pants and heels. Although it’s nice to have dodged the orange suede pants bullet, there’s still the fact that you’re about to drop a grand on an all-black outfit for a bride who is making a thinly veiled attempt at body shaming. Also, again, this wedding is taking place ON A BEACH.
Men over 200 pounds must wear all camouflage with black sneakers. This bride’s entire message needs a rewrite, but if I could provide some editorial direction in regards to this specific point, I would advise her to specify what kind of camouflage she’s looking for. She sounds pretty particular, and camouflage can go bad FAST. Hunting and military camouflage are two very different vibes, lady!
Children must wear red from head to toe, as they will be forming the shape of a heart. Good luck getting a squad of bratty rich kids to follow your choreography, bridezilla. Reminder, “It needs to be true red, not blood orange or some bullsh*t!” I have never once purchased a garment in “blood orange”, but okay. A cocktail? Yes. A shirt? No.
AFTER the guests create this eyesore attempt this visual feat, they are asked to change into a formal outfit valued at at least $1,000. I would like to point out that money does not automatically correlate to a perfect outfit, and in the words of Cardi B, “I could buy designer but this Fashion Nova fit.”
So what happens if a guest doesn’t want to follow the dress code? It’s simple! In a follow-up post (which has also made its way around Reddit, bless up) in which the bride has discovered that someone leaked her requirements, she says that “instead of participating in the dance, you can help the crew clean up after dinner, volunteer to take videos of our dance, or even contribute to the honeymoon. Anything counts.”
Is this f*cking Fear Factor? Why are the only options a) something bad and b) something worse?
Obviously, when she started seeing her Facebook post pop up all over social media, she decided to take matters into her own hands, and purchase a polygraph test “for $99 on Amazon.” Sounds legit. She then announced a polygraph party in which they will gather around to find the leaker and enjoy appetizers. But don’t worry, she won’t do anything awful to him or her. (Plot spoiler: she will.)
In the post, she writes, “I won’t retaliate, I will simply cut all ties and communication with you (and talk sh*t about you for a long, long, time.)” Also… she warned that the culprit “will be paying,” at the beginning of the post, so I really am not confident in this woman’s understanding of the word “retaliate,” because retaliation sounds exactly like what she’s going to do.
The woman’s post also calls out people on the internet who have made comments about the dress code, pointing out that they should all return to their basements to play video games because they do not understand the reasoning behind her requirements. To that, I say, okay fair. I apologize for not seeing the creative vision behind men in purple fuzzy jackets and camo, but I stand by my claims that providing dress code requirements by weight is f*cked up and demanding guests spend a set dollar amount on their outfits is wrong, too. Again, I can only hope this is a troll post and we don’t live in a world where soda hats are considered appropriate wedding attire.
Perhaps the main takeaway here is, if you’re going to be crazy, don’t leave receipts behind that the victims of your craziness can make viral. Lesson number two is, if you are upset that your craziness has gone viral… maybe don’t take to social media to complain about it, because that, too will probably… go… viral.
Images: Giphy (4) , Walmart (1)
