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.
Brides can get kind of spooky as the big day gets closer. Like, if their flowers aren’t perfect, or their hair doesn’t look just like the Pinterest pic, or their bridesmaids don’t pay for a bachelorette rager… beware. It’s kind of like The Purge, but with more flowers and personalized gifts. In our case and with this story, we’ve got one out-of-control couple who is literally ready to charge their guests an additional fee if they don’t stay where Mr. and Mrs. Demandypants say. I’m skipping through the introductions here because I don’t want to give too much of the story away.
The Invite
Basically, the invitation in question, uploaded to the Reddit Trashy page, lays it all out for ya. The below was printed ON a couple’s wedding invitation.
So, okay, this sounds pretty rude when you look at it. Like, it’s one thing to have a hotel block somewhere, but to charge guests a fee if they don’t want to stay at the bride and groom’s probably expensive pick? That’s way harsh. Not to mention, how are they going to enforce that fee? An invoice? Small claims court? If you are charged the fee, can you factor that out of your gifts? The whole thing just feels tacky.
HOWEVER, if you just looked at this invitation and took it in a vacuum, you’d be missing on a key bit of background. According to one of the commenters, “Just so everyone is aware: Hotel Xcaret is an all-inclusive resort in the Mayan Riviera in Mexico. Resorts require you to pay for a day pass to use the facilities of the resort if you’re not staying there. That’s what the fee for the wedding is – it’s not something the bride and groom are charging to be dicks. They have no choice as per hotel rules.”
Right, okay, I hear that. However, I’m going to assume a few things here: First, the bride and groom are having a destination wedding. Second, a destination wedding is kind of already a dick move, considering that guests are expected to bring a gift, stay for multiple nights at an expensive resort or hotel, and either fly or drive a long way for what is, essentially, a four-hour party. Third, I can say all of this because I had a destination wedding. Don’t @ me.
Is It A Dick Move?
Based on exclusively the phrasing, which is literally printed in the wedding invitation, yes, the bride and groom are being dicks. HOWEVER, if they’re required to have a minimum number of people stay at this resort in order to qualify for their wedding, ceremony, reception, or whatever, it makes sense why they’d be so harsh in their wording. So, really, they are only being assholes because the resort is the bigger asshole and forcing the bride and groom’s hand. That sucks for everyone involved.
Regardless, though, this seems like something you’d want to communicate to your guests in person/via text/on your wedding website, and not printed in big bold letters on your actual invitation. Like, don’t you want to save one of those for posterity? Do you want the constant reminder of your insane wording that pissed every single one of your guests off?
On top of that, are the bride and groom pocketing that extra $120 “fee” for staying elsewhere to make up their losses? Or is that being collected by the hotel? Seems just insanely weird overall. Additionally, how dare you charge me to attend your wedding? I’m already bringing you that f*cking marble platter from your Crate & Barrel registry AND a $50 Restoration Hardware gift card (which we all know is a joke, since you can’t get a single thing at Restoration Hardware for $50). I would deny that Venmo request real quick, I’ll say that much.
Lastly, I spy grammatical errors, which makes this whole thing even funnier. It sucks that the resort is putting the bride and groom in this less-than-ideal situation, but there were probably classier ways to go about this. And at the very least, you should spell check your invitations.
Images: Mockaroon, Unsplash; Reddit; Giphy (2)
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.
Do you ever sometimes just want to be a bride for a day so you have the “excuse” to act like a batsh*t psycho, be mean to little kids, and tell everyone it’s YOUR SPECIAL DAY? Me too. I was already a bride, though, so my time has come and gone. So instead, I’ll have to stick to living vicariously through demanding internet brides, which is why we started a Crazy Wedding Story of the Week series. If you missed the inaugural Crazy Wedding Story, click here. If you’re caught up because you live for this stuff as much as I do, then get ready. The subject of today’s crazy bride story made little kids cry, which, #goals, and also, #respect. Let’s just dive right in, because I don’t have all day.
WTF Happened?
Posted in the AITA subreddit (Am I The Asshole, for those of you who don’t internet quite so hard as I do), a bride felt she had to “choose” between two flower girls and her methods for choosing were, in a word, shallow. Things spiraled from there.
She writes:
“Got married last weekend and had a lovely day, but had some commotion early on the wedding day.
For flower girl, we had a choice between my two nieces, Amber and Katie. They’re both eight and it was a tough decision. Unfortunately for my perfect day I felt shallow and since Amber has more of a typical angelic ”cute” appearance (very long hair, glasses, big smile) I picked her. Her parents also convinced me she deserved it because she got top marks in some assessment her school did.
During the wedding prep Katie and her dad (my brother) kept telling me that Amber had been bullying her about the fact she didn’t get the job. The girls have never liked each other for reasons I don’t know. I didn’t pay too much mind to it since I was too caught up in myself.”
Alright, this starts out tame enough. I mean, I’m not really grasping why this woman couldn’t just have two flower girls, but I guess we wouldn’t have a Reddit thread to make fun of then, would we? Also, I’m dying at the fact that the bride admits she was feeling shallow and that she actually pretended to give a f*ck about Amber getting good grades. We all know that didn’t even remotely affect your decision. Just say you were doing it for the pictures and keep it moving.
The Bully Battle
Because 8-year-old girls are some of the meanest creatures known to man, naturally, they start bullying each other and it takes a wild turn.
“On the wedding morning I got to witness the bullying myself and it was pretty cruel. Amber (and keep in mind this is an eight year old child) told Katie that she’d never get married because she’s too ugly. I could imagine how upsetting this would be for a child and I made Amber apologise and also took away the flower girl job and gave it to Katie. Amber was crying throughout the wedding day, and for the past days I haven’t heard anything from her dad my other brother.”
First off, jazz snaps for the classy Queen’s English spellings (I assume this epic Reddit thread was written from the UK, and like to imagine that Kate Middleton is actually the author). Secondly, LOL at switching flower girls ON THE DAY OF THE WEDDING. Like, could you not just say “hey, now we have two flower girls and you have to share because being an asshole gets you nowhere in life.”
Additionally, I have SO many questions related to hair, makeup, and dresses for these little monsters. Didn’t Amber already have a dress? Had she already rehearsed exactly how to walk down the aisle and use her cuteness to charm literally everyone? How would Katie know what to do? Did she have something acceptable to wear? Did she make Amber give her the dress? Are they even the same size??? *Takes deep, calming breaths* you’re right, I’m too deep into this story. But somebody has got to ask the important questions.
The Aftermath
Now everyone’s mad and nobody wins, except, I guess, the bride, who’s about to experience a super fun honeymoon without any (literal) middle school drama. OR SO WE THOUGHT:
“My husband and I are going away on our honeymoon on Thursday, and i was anxious to get in touch with my brother before we leave. He finally called me and was extremely angry at me for taking the job away from his daughter. He said Amber has been crying the past two days and felt really humiliated, and was really looking forward to the job.
As someone who was bullied myself growing up, it felt like the right thing to do after Amber’s behaviour towards Katie. I can’t imagine how upsetting those comments would be, and at that point Katie, who had never been anything other than well behaved deserved it more than Amber.”
OK, there’s a lot to unpack here. First of all, I get the brother being mad that his kid got shafted out of flower girl duties at the last minute. However, he needs to recognize that number one, this is not a big deal at all, but number two and more importantly, his kid was, without mincing words, a total asshole. I feel like this is a valuable parenting/teaching moment. I get the impulse to deflect responsibility, but your kid is not going to get anywhere in life if they never face consequences for sh*tty behavior.
Also, where are Katie’s parents in all this? I feel for this kid. Someone buy her a stuffed animal or some cotton candy!
The post author, our bride, has been voted an asshole, for those who are interested. I’m inclined to agree if ONLY for the fact that both girls should have been flower girls to begin with. (To her credit, and not to pile on her too much, the bride says that she just genuinely did not think to have two flower girls.) Also, she was kind of an asshole for picking a kid strictly based on cuteness instead of whether or not she was a mini Regina George. I do hope, though, that these third grade monsters and their parents don’t ruin this bride’s honeymoon. Nobody deserves that for a “job” that is just scattering some flower petals.
Images: Shutterstock.com / Unsplash; Giphy (2)
Bridezilla stories literally never get old. Don’t believe me? Read up on this one. A bride named Penny recently told Australian website, Whimn, that she tore a page out of Cady Heron’s playbook and “secretly fattened up” her bridesmaids with weight gain protein powder before her wedding. Coach Carr would be so proud.
While planning her wedding, Penny lived with her fiancé and two sisters, Maggie and Charlie. TBH, that sounds like a recipe for total disaster. If you have sisters, or have even watched a single episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians, you can probably imagine what a terrible f*cking environment that had the potential to be. Except, unlike Kris Jenner’s golden child, Kimmy K., Penny clearly suffers from tragic middle child syndrome.
“I always felt like Jan Brady in the middle,” Penny told Whimn. “I wasn’t as hot and popular as my older sister and I wasn’t as cute and fun as my younger sister. I was just Penny in the middle.”
Penny then went on to explain that having always felt like the plain, lame sis, she couldn’t stop thinking about the horror of having to stare at her wedding photos for the rest of her life if her sisters looked better than her in them. I mean, can you really blame her? One semester in college, two of my roommates got spray tan packages and taking photos with them every thirsty Thursday was literally soul-crushing, so I sort of get it. Except clearly Penny took this way too f*cking far.
Anyway, since Maggie and Charlie are blondes with fair skin, Penny made them wear f*cking yellow bridesmaid dresses, which would have been enough of a crime tbh, but get this. Then she set out on a plan to fatten them up. Yes. Really. Each morning, she’d whip up some “weight loss shakes” for them. Only she literally emptied a tub of weight loss supplement and filled it with bulking protein powder (or like phentermine or something), and then gave them three times the suggested serving size, just to be safe. Then, she’d sit and sip her own shake, which was made just of fresh fruit and coconut water, and watch them gain weight before her very eyes.
First of all, this is certifiably insane. Also I feel like it should be illegal? Tbh, I’m just going off my American Vandal viewing experience and extrapolating. But if feeding people laxatives without their knowledge is illegal, is feeding people weight-gaining stuff without telling them also against the law? Feels like it should be.
Whether her scheme was illegal, just plain evil, or both, it seems to have worked? “By the time my wedding rolled around, each of my sisters had to have their dress altered to accommodate their thickening waistlines,” said Penny. “The day went off without a hitch and everyone had a great time. I never thought for a moment on my wedding day that I wasn’t the center of attention, or the most important person in the room.”
Yeah, this is all kinds of f*cked. I mean, first of all, I’d imagine that when these bridesmaids read this story and put two and two together, Penny is going to have some serious problems. But I guess that doesn’t matter to her, because she says she still gets happy when she sees the photos, but doesn’t feel bad because they’ve both slimmed down since. Damn, this woman needs therapy.
Images: Giphy (2)
