A wedding may be ruined in a million different ways. Sure, some ways are more innovative than others, but there seems to be just too much possibility of making a wedding significantly less pleasurable for the bride or groom. You don’t tamper with somebody’s wedding day—even if you’re family, it doesn’t give you a pass, so be prepared to face the repercussions. A lady who has done this type of wedding-ruining-flipping recently revealed her story. Read the story to know what happened in this wedding and what would you do in such a situation.
Source: Reddit
I was looking at my wedding photos today and thought this community would appreciate my success. It’s a bit long with all the background, so go make a cuppa and settle in.
My mil hated me from the moment we met. Think evangelical catholic meets goth athiest. I moved in with her son and had a baby without getting married and she truly believed I was the devil incarnate sent to draw her baby boy into the depths of hell. There followed years of petty microaggressions, a constant barrage of manipulation and guilt tripping and doing things like offering to watch the kids then pulling out 1/2 hour before, or buying the kids a puppy when we expressly said no and then blaming us when she had to take the poor thing back. She pushed over my motorbike, turned up at my work, tried to rearrange the furniture in our house and constantly talked about God and Jesus in front of the kids and told them they were going to hell because they weren’t baptised. I went to VLC and things were quiet for a while.
I never cared about getting married. I felt weddings were a waste of money. I’d rather have a boat or a new motorbike, but it was important to hubby, so I agreed, on the condition that it was not a church wedding. Apart from the generally problematic nature of the church, I experienced religious trauma growing up and I wasn’t prepared to compromise. Hubby agreed and we started planning.
Two days after we announced our engagement (to much wailing, gnashing of teeth and general dismay), a priest arrived on our doorstep. He had been sent by MIL to schedule a date for our wedding and book us in for premarital counselling. I was very nice to him (after all, my issue was with the institution, not this poor guy) and thanked him for coming and told him we wouldn’t be requiring any catholic services for the wedding. He looked sad and expressed he was a bit nervous to let MIL know. I offered him coffee and sympathy and that was the start of an unlikely friendship.
I was fairly annoyed by this stunt. I talked to my hubby, who at that time was so far in the FOG that he couldn’t see a hand in front of his face. He didn’t see the big deal and asked me to just let it go. I thought about it for a day, then told him no. We had to address this immediately or it would escalate. I understood that he loved his mum and sisters, but that their obvious contempt for me was a problem. I don’t like ultimatums, but by this point I’d been putting up with it for about 6 years. I laid it out. We address it now, or no wedding.
It went about as well as you’d expect. We visited and hubby tried to talk to her about how inappropriate her actions were. She screamed at him and cried, and then his sisters started on us both. Standing there, watching my hubby’s heart break, my filter broke. I told them to stop, very loudly. Then, I told them that they were behaving like toddlers, that I was embarrassed by their antics and to consider this their first and only warning. If they tried anything like that again, or treated us with anything other than kindness and respect, not only would I cancel the wedding, I would tell their priest and all their friends about their disgusting behaviour. If they wanted to be part of the planning, I would welcome their participation but that Hubby and I had the final say. MIL tried to speak, but I shushed her like Dr Evil shushing Scott and we left.
Hubby was distraught and I felt bad for him, but we got into couple’s counselling and things got better.
Meanwhile MIL and the SILS seemed to have taken things on board and were maintaining a frosty civility (although I was banned from their house because I was scary. )
Fast forward about 12 months. Time for dress shopping. Ye gods, I HATED the idea of a wedding dress. I hate pale colours. I hate dressing up. I hate dresses. Just everything about the idea made me want to fake a coma to get out of it, but I’d promised my own very JYmum and brother that we could do this together. So Mum, Mil, Sil x 3, brother and his wife all travelled along with me to marvel at the sight of me in a dress. And it wasn’t a bad day. The IL’s behaved and I found a dress that I didn’t hate as much as the others. I paid for it and we left.
The next day, I got a call from the shop. MIL and the SIL’s had ordered themselves THE EXACT SAME DRESS AS ME!
I told hubby and he didn’t really believe it. I laughed about it for a bit, went back to the shop and ordered a new dress. This one was dark purple with black trim. And then I had The Idea. I don’t have a lot of female friends. But all my male friends have wives who had wedding dresses. And sometimes they say they feel sad that they spent all that money on a dress that they’ll never wear again. I talked to hubby and he agreed, so the invitations went out and every person who had ever worn a wedding dress was invited to wear it to our wedding.
Mil and the Sils got different invitations that specifically asked that they not wear white. Dress code was stated as “whatever you’re comfortable in.”
I wasn’t there for the initial confusion that swiftly turned to rage, but my mum and brother gleefully recounted the story later. All four of them turned up in their beautiful white dresses with their beautiful make up and hair – and were completely absorbed by the rest of the crowd. They didn’t stand out. They looked exactly like everyone else. Except for my mum and brother’s wife, who wore purple like me. They weren’t going to ruin my day by upstaging me. My hubby, who up to that point really didn’t think they would do something so vile, turned to stone that day. They had finally shown the depths that they would sink to and the last of the FOG was swept away.
I turned up in the side car of a Harley (I did experiment with riding in the dress but it didn’t end so well and the shop had to make a few emergency repairs the week before) and I walked down the aisle to the Imperial March by myself. My brother was my maid of honour and his wife was my hubby’s best man.
Remember the priest? Well, he wasn’t allowed to officiate outside a church as a priest, so he was our MC. This was the icing on the cake, because I saw MILs face light up when she saw him… until he introduced the marriage celebrant and handed her the microphone. We had a pagan handfasting, jumped over a broomstick and walked back down the aisle to “Sweet child o’ mine” while our two kids played air guitar and danced ahead of us… and ignored MIL and the SILs when they tried to get them to go over there.
I came face to face with my MIL at the door. She was incandescent with rage. She went to speak, but my hubby stepped forward…and he shushed her! Right in front of everyone! It was glorious.
She didn’t speak to either of us for the rest of the night. She didn’t speak to us for nearly a month. And then she called one day to ask to see the kids as if nothing had happened. So Iet it go, because my husband and I had Won. But every now and then I wear the purple dress when I know she’ll be at an event. Because I’m petty like that.
