r/weddingdrama

Last night, my fiancé and I had a really difficult conversation about my parents and how unstable things really are. It brought up so much grief and embarrassment. I hate having these conversations.

Both of my parents worked on Wall Street when I was growing up.

My mom still struggles with severe depression and alcohol, although she doesn’t drink the way she used to. My dad is a severe alcoholic. Growing up, drinking was just… normal.

My parents were drunk often, and nannies mostly raised us kids. I thought that was how everyone lived. In high school, I remember my dad saying he's “running to CVS,” but really, he was going to the liquor store. Then would drink outside, come inside drunk, and denied he was drunk.

Right before my grandparents' deaths, my dad went to rehab but then of course went AMA. After they passed, everything fell apart.

My dad received a large inheritance, but nobody really knows where the money went.

He is now living in a motel, drinking constantly, sleeping until the afternoon, and honestly drinking himself to death. My fiancé even pointed that out-- which I started bawling.

I never imagined this would be "my dad." My mother's dad did the same thing-- but lived in a shack.

My mom eventually divorced him and is now working incredibly hard as a nanny just to survive.

Now I’m planning a wedding that’s less than a year away, and it’s bringing up all the dysfunction in my family. It hurts. My fiancé is going to be able to pay for the wedding, which I'm grateful for.

My fiancé’s family is more traditional and believes the bride’s parents typically help pay for the wedding. My parents can’t. My dad isn’t capable of contributing.

My fiancé knows everything that’s going on, but talking openly about my dad living in a motel hurt SO MUCH. My parents haven’t even met his parents yet, and I feel so much fear and shame around all of it.

I honestly don’t even want to plan the wedding anymore because every conversation seems to force me to revisit how dysfunctional and unstable my family is.

Has anyone else experienced grief like this--especially around weddings? IT HURTS SO MUCH. It's embarrassing. I'm just trying to keep my head above water while wedding planning and dealing with fiancé being mad at my dad, while trying to be excited and happy.

I'm an alcoholic too but in recovery. Over 5 years sober. I'm grateful for my sobriety.

My cousin is getting married this weekend and the whole family is mad about her not letting kids come to the wedding.

Most of the family will have to travel across states just to attend this wedding. The wedding is in Tennessee, but a lot of the family lives in Florida, we’ve got another branch of the family in Colorado, and one of my cousins currently lives in a different country. One of my cousins had already bought plane tickets for her, her husband, and her 2 kids before she was told that the kids couldn’t come to the wedding.

Three of my cousins already have multiple children. One of my cousins is a single mom of two girls, another one has a boy and a girl and the third cousin has a two-year-old and six month old twins. I’m not sure at the moment if it’s just the littles that are not allowed because the oldest of my cousins’ combined children is 13 so he and the other two who are close in age with him won’t be disruptive like a toddler would potentially be.

If only the littles aren’t allowed, that means that the single mom will be able to bring one of her children, but not the other and my other cousin will either have to be separated from her twin babies who are still nursing or miss the wedding.

I don’t even have the bride’s phone number nor do I feel like I have a close enough relationship with her to question her decisions about her wedding. We’ve lived our whole lives in different states and I usually only see her once every couple of years.

I understand why some brides don’t want babies and toddlers at their wedding but it’s a huge inconvenience to our cousins with small children since they can’t just hire a babysitter for the day. I feel like since she’s making her cousins with children travel across state lines to attend her wedding, she should just give in and let them bring their children to the wedding especially since the whole family is upset about this decision she’s made.

Update: I have been told that anyone under 18 is not allowed at the wedding because the venue was more important to my cousin than having her family at her wedding and because of this, half of the family is not going to her wedding in order to look after all the kids. I was also told that children would not be allowed at the rehearsal dinner but I am at the rehearsal dinner as I am typing this and there are two infants that I have never met before and are not related to me or the bride in any way. Apparently only non family members are allowed to bring their children.

LT-Lurker, FT-poster, I guess. tl;dr Wedding planning is going well, but my already bad relationship with my mom is unsurprisingly depressing me.

My partner is from the western US, and I'm from NY. All my family is in FL, and our friends are all over. We decided to hold a quasi destination wedding in the western US (1 hour away from fiance's family).

My mom has been acting like she's planning this whole wedding top to bottom, and also is 0% involved. She keeps saying she wants to give us money and wants to help, but she refuses to even pick out her own dress when I ask her (with guidance attached, but literally she could pick whatever she wants I don't care). My fiance's mom graciously gave us a large sum of money, no questions asked or begging requested. My mom loves to feel needed and loves to play the martyr. She has been "offering" money since last year, and insisting that I tell my fiance's family that she and my dad are paying for things, and has not gifted us anything. I'd rather her not give us money (I make more than my parents combined), but I'd also like for her to stop pretending to offer and stop creating that impression to our families.

She had a fight with me last year about not having a gift registry (again, since this will be a destination wedding for many guests). Now she's telling everyone not to send gifts like it was her idea, i guess since she finally came to the same conclusion after our Trump supporting family was aghast at such high flight prices 🙃 She is already giving me the guilt treatment at "forcing guests to travel" (nevermind that I'm subsidizing their hotel rooms by 75% - which she hasn't put together lmao because she just thinks I got a good rate).

I asked her to come with me to try on the dress I was going to pick (which she offered to pay for lol). The shop was a block from her office in NYC. I picked a day she always comes into the office to make it convenient for her. She told me she was too busy at work and could not come. I was surprised at how hurt I felt, but fine. Fast forward to when my grandma (her mom) is visiting, and I showed her pictures of the dress. My mom then lied about how she was there with me for the fitting, and fought me when I contradicted her. Then she said "Well we saw a dress exactly like the one you picked a different day so I did see it I'm not lying". Lol whatever you want to tell grandma. Then she proceeded to say she hated the veil I picked, and I should've done something more simple. Dad was rolling his eyes. Grandma scolded her for saying this, and she was like "oh she doesn't care". I say nothing. In a way IDGAF fundamentally about what she thinks, but at the same time, I really can't imagine saying anything like this to a family member, friend, or future daughter. My take is that honest opinions can come out during the wedding dress process, but once it's chosen and paid for, everything is perfect and beautiful and you shouldn't tell the bride otherwise, unless there are dire circumstances :)

Anyway, nothing major, I just constantly mourn the fact that I don't think my mom is a good person, and that she really doesn't care about me or what I want or need. Layered onto this is the fact that she never calls me unless it's for a favor. She never asks how I am or how I'm doing. She called me 3 months back when I had a serious back issue to rant to me for 15 minutes about finding my brother a job. Never found out about my back. My friends in the car were amused and vaguely shocked at the phone call, and how little it seemed my mom was interested in me or my life.

Dealing with horrible groomsmen, which I know is a trend in general of groomsmen leaning toward useless for the most part at wedding and need to be told what to do. My fiancé already had to plan his own bachelor party for example.

The only thing that he asked groomsmen to do until recently is get a matching suit from indochino (2 of them flying in from out of town so there was no cohesive rental option).

I had posted in a shared chat some 3 weeks ago fyis on wedding day and the welcome party the night before and invited all of them to a fully paid wine country day including transportation the day after the wedding (we wanted to take them to a nice treat as a thank you but wanted the night before to spend with friends and family coming from out of town). I had mentioned that the main task we need help with is on this pre-wedding day welcome party. My bridal party will receive the catering and do some light decorating (provided by us) … and we wanted the groomsmen to help clean up (literally just throw away the remaining catering and put the decorations in a box and in a car.)

I guess 2 of the groomsmen didn’t read my note so my fiancé texted them separately yesterday to let them know this is where we really wanted help.

Apparently they both threw a GIANT fit about it. It was like the straw that broke the camel’s back… which is wild because their literal only ask was to come to the wedding, try to be at rehearsal & get a suit… which the ones picked were affordable. They sent my fiancé walls of text about how much of a burden this wedding is now on their lives and that they already dropped so much money in their last minute tickets and hotels (they’ve known this was coming since November) and that it was unconscionable that they would have to also be expected to help clean up.

One of these “friends” is the best man. And supposedly, my fiancé’s best friend, who he has never asked any favors from before and has known for 15 years. I never liked him as a friend for my fiancé, cause I always thought that my man was bending over backwards for this guy and actually nurturing the friendship and always on his team, and I never got the sense that the same effort was reciprocated, and here we are — true colors coming out bright as day.

We’re now stressed knowing we are 3 weeks out from the wedding and my poor fiance is reckoning with the fact that these assholes are way worse friends that he expected to be and is considering uninviting them entirely, leaving 2 groomsmen standing.

I’m just shook that it took a request of 20 minutes of clean up time from them to get such and outsized reaction, and I’m FURIOUS that they had to frame it in the most blaming and self involved way possible.

I fully suppose whatever decision he makes… but he knows that it will be nuclear for those relationships if he pulls the plug on their invites, which is for sure depressing him, especially against the “best friend”/best man (worst man in my opinion). I hate even more that the main thing these stupid ass dudes will regret is lost money on flights than their friendship with my fiance.

Now it feels like the actual wedding day is gonna suck for my fiancé no matter what — he’s gonna be reminded that 2 of his 4 close friends are pieces of shit wether they come or not.

I feel really badly that I potentially caused this shitstorm for my fiancé by suggesting that the guys could clean up if the girls were gonna decorate…..I know it goes deeper than that but Jesus, no matter what my darling husband chooses, these 2 men are pretty much dead to me now.

The above, basically.
I’ve not invited every single family member I have, because some of them I’m not close to and others have been unpleasant to me and I don’t like all of them.

Drama 1, I didn’t invite my aunt because she’s a nasty piece of work. When her youngest son found out he got really upset, kept asking why she isn’t invited (I told him why!) and said he couldn’t come to “any event she wasn’t welcome at”. He didn’t seem to have a problem coming to our engagement party and she wasn’t invited then either!!!
She has 2 other kids who are invited and coming and understand why their mum is not. She is really the worst.

Drama 2 was my cousin (different cousin) and her husband refusing to eat our food. They have made incessant fuss, they don’t want to eat anything with vegetables in it or any mushrooms.
We’re both vegetarian so having a vegetarian wedding, means their options are limited with those restrictions. They don’t seem to understand that getting food at a wedding isn’t like ordering from a restaurant because it’s made en mass. After much back and forth the conclusion has been they both want a kid’s meal. Ok, fine, since they have the palette of children they can have kid’s meals.

Drama 3, my uncle is invited but his kids aren’t invited because I have barely seen them in 10 years. One I haven’t seen at all in 10 years and he hasn’t even met my fiancé. They don’t show up to family events, and neither of them came to Christmas my parents hosted at their house in 2025. My uncle has used this as an excuse to send a series of manipulative messages to my mum and my grandma, talking about how upset he is his kids aren’t invited, how we think we are better than them and accusing them of playing mind games. My mum and my grandma are really upset, naturally. My grandma is 80 and dealing with health problems. As part of his shit fit, he has declared he is not coming (obviously, this is no great loss).

This is supposed to be a happy time in my life and I feel like my shitty, garbage extended family is creating so much drama and upset for everyone, or causing us extra stress with their stupid demands. Were it not for this bullshit, literally everything would be fine. We have had the most chill wedding planning experience, I’m not demanding my bridesmaids all wear hideous dresses, all of our friends and immediate family have been great and super supportive.

So my wedding day has come and gone, and it was amazing, other than the fact that the only thing I asked of my guest was to not wear white. Our theme was A Midsummer Nights Dream, so I asked our guests to wear lots of colors and florals... I was so excited. I’m a very type-B kind of person, so I didn’t really care about anything else… that was the ONLY thing I asked of our guests. I asked them to reserve that color out of respect for the bride and the groom because I wasn’t the only one wearing white, so was my fiancé.

I had about 10-15 people message me beforehand about white dresses and whether they were okay to wear to the wedding… I turned down all of them because I couldn’t fathom how they had the audacity to even ask THE BRIDE if wearing white was okay (and btw most of these texts were on THE WEEK of our wedding. I was stressed out enough). I’m just dumbfounded… mainly because I feel like nobody listened to our ONE WISH, but it’s also a respect thing as well.

Come to the day of the wedding, I still had prominent family members wearing majority white, or just plain white all together. I pride myself on being a very kind human being, so maybe that’s why they felt like they could take advantage of my personality, but I especially would never do this to a bride. I’ve always tried to wear solid colors to weddings so the bride has her moment… I thought that was a normal thought to have… because I know how important it is for the day.

I’ve just reached the point of “I don’t understand” and I feel as if I need some insight on how to handle the disrespect. I thought everyone I invited would respect us as a couple and that just did not happen… it’s been a bit sad. Like I’m paying for you to eat a great meal, even invited you in the first place, and they still took advantage of our kindness?? I know as a woman this may be over reactive to some, but it’s THE ONLY thing I asked of them. Help.

I was invited to wedding of what I thought was a best friend. I was invited to go dress shopping then she posted on sm that she had already done it without me. I was pretty understanding but, said to her you could have told be. I was invited to bachelorette party, but I am not in the wedding party, which is odd, and then they expected each of us that were invited to pay $1500 towards it without mentioning cost prior. I told her many months advance I could not do this plus travel and room expenses. She then bully shames everybody on the chat about not paying their share and that she is graciously covering her own room costs so they should pay their share. Ummm duh, you should be.

So, I told her I'm out. I didn't go to the wedding shower, bachelorette, or wedding after that. Besides travel, rooms were $500/night plus tthe bachelor/ette stuff. The day after the wedding she posts on FB pictures of her 1st wedding and that this was a "ceremony" wedding as they were married 6 months prior. Many felt duped. She had shamed me and others for not wanting to pay for an expensive fake bachelor/ette party, plus all the other expenses!!

It's an elaborate dupe. She could have had a reception party if she genuinely wanted to share the wedding news, without having others pay for things, and not lie to everyone.

Hi everyone, here’s a final update from my previous posts (Part 1 & Part 2).

TL;DR: My fiancé’s mom wanted a large, prestigious wedding and refused to support our small ceremony because she felt it would embarrass her socially. Things escalated far beyond what we ever expected — screaming, insults, destroyed belongings, and eventually my fiancé leaving home entirely. After everything that happened, we chose peace over approval.

In short….we’re married now!!

A few weeks ago, we officially became husband and wife. In the end, we decided to keep things small and intimate. We had a simple celebration with my extended family, good food, and lots of laughter.

Of course, not having his side of the family there was painful, especially for him. I know there’s still sadness underneath it all, and I don’t think anyone imagines their wedding turning out this way. But despite everything, we still had such a beautiful day together.

I’m incredibly proud of him. I know it wasn’t an easy decision for either of us to get married under these circumstances, especially in a Southeast Asian country where family expectations and approvals can be very strong. But I saw firsthand how difficult this entire situation was for him, and despite everything, he never stopped choosing kindness.

His family stopped contacting him for a while after calling him and my family horrible names, insulting my family for being “poor,” and even demanding that my family repay all the money they had spent raising him. We honestly don’t know what the future looks like with his family, and maybe that’s okay for now. Right now, we’re focusing on building a healthy and peaceful life together instead of chasing approval that may never come.

Thank you to everyone who showed us kindness and support on my previous posts. Your words genuinely helped us get through some very dark moments.

For now, we’re happy, and that's enough for us.

Hey everyone, this happened on Sunday. So one of my cousins (F27) recently got married to her high school boyfriend (M28) and his best friend/groomsman wore a white wedding dress to the wedding and tried to fake walk down the aisle before the actual wedding. My family is mostly first gen immigrants so they were all confused, but the groom's family was aghast and ashamed lmao.

Apparently it isn't the first time he's done something like this either, when they got engaged after my cousin proposed to her boyfriend last summer, the best friend got very upset when boyfriend said yes and they both took a boys trip to NYC in late June. During the groom's bachelor trip they didn't take my cousin's brother (the other groomsman) with them because they said he'd ruin "the vibe" since he doesn't go to raves or shares the same hobbies.

They were gonna have an Indian wedding and a reception in India a month after this White wedding, but I've heard from my mom that the groom didn't move into the condo my cousin's family gifted her and still lives with his best friend, and I've not received any information on flying to India for the wedding so people in family group chats are getting juicy with the annulment/divorce speculations.

My Fiance and I are getting married this fall. The wedding planning process started off simple, as we wanted to ease into things. We originally wanted something small, but with his mother suggesting that they have SO many family members - she told us that we should take that into consideration. So, we did. Our guest list continued to grow because she had more distant relatives and “friends” that she wanted to invite. We had to put a stop to it because she was getting out of hand, and trying to take control over the guest list. She demanded we send it to her and let her confirm who’s all coming.

Well, this is when we decided to put our foot down and take control over the list. Which we honestly been should have done. So she starts going around gossiping saying we are leaving her out and doing everything without her. My Fiance got annoyed by this and continued to let her know that we are making our own decisions with this wedding. Then she starts to get angry that we are booking vendors on our own and not going with her preferred vendors. Mind you, her preferred vendors are her “friends” or “friends of friends” or people that we don’t know. Haven’t even seen their work. Just her word of mouth. So of course, we didn’t consider that and went with our own choice of DJ, photographer, planner, etc. Well of course, she didn’t like that. Apparently she was then going around telling everyone in the family that I’m basically making him do all these things and he wouldn’t be acting this way if it wasn’t for me. Now, we get to the worse part.

About a month ago we move into our new place, she insists of flying in town to come and help us. Cool. She comes and starts complaining about how our old place is a mess and how I need to do better as a woman and take care of the house. She says alot more along those lines. Naturally he stands up for me and tells her she’s out of line. She said “oh you get so defensive everytime I say something to her” - well of course. He’s my Fiance.

Anyways, the whole time she was here she would just complain and say slick little remarks such as “you guys are being so secretive about the wedding planning” “maybe if you were trying to hide everything about the wedding then you wouldn’t be spending so much money and going broke” and things like that. I responded to this comment and said “we chose the vendors that we wanted because we wanted to go with them. We don’t want to just book random people.” She gets angry at this saying (in an aggressive tone) things like “my people aren’t just anybody, I know how to plan a damn wedding” and other nasty comments.

Then not too long after that, my Fiance and her get into a HUGE argument. It was over something so small (because he wanted to buy moving boxes and she preferred we try and get them for free on marketplace). Stupid, I know. But she got so angry with this. Don’t know why. Still don’t.

She then goes on about how messy our place is, how we can’t take criticism, how we are too sensitive, and then randomly starts talking about my weight and how I lost weight too fast and did it in an unhealthy way. Mind you, it took me two years to lose 80 pounds. Not sure where she got that from, or why she even said it in that moment.

We then take her back to her hotel because she claimed she was going to fly home. She texts our group chat thread and says since we don’t want her help she is leaving, and her new flight is tomorrow. We ignored it. Then she sends long messages of the same BS to the chat. And then she messages me individually saying most of the things above. But goes into detail about how her son was raised better then to have a messy home, that must have came from me. She also says things about how I must be taking medication for weight loss and how “we all know that’s not good” just weird stuff… and it also just isn’t true.

Well, after this mean message she sent me - I blocked her. On everything.

But guess what? She doesn’t leave. She lied about her flight being changed. She just wanted a reaction… she stayed the whole time and still got on our nerves.

You think this was my breaking point? Well; I have more.

Today my Fiance told me that his mom called his best friend’s mom and put him on three-way with her. So all three of them are on this phone call. His mother then tells her about how we are leaving her out, not letting her invite her friends, and not including her in the planning. My BF got so angry. This was so out of line. And just childish! At this point I want nothing to do with her.

My Fiance is such an amazing man, and he has changed my life for the better. I hate that this is what we are dealing with.

For context, my brother proposed to his now fiancée over the weekend, she said yes and I congratulated them. That was pretty much it, or so I thought…

Then comes Sunday night, the day after the proposal, my sister (who I have never had a good relationship with) apparently made a petty post online saying how excited she was to finally have a sister and I’m sure there was more to it judging by how upset my mom was, tbh I rather not know the full extent of what was posted. But the knowledge that it happened upset me as well nevertheless…

I get that not every sibling gets along and it happens in life sometimes. I’ve tried mending the relationship with her in the past only for her to remind me why I shouldn’t with her behaviors such as stealing from my home and my friends as well and lying about it when confronted, and spreading false information to other family members that I’m a drug addict when I’ve never been an addict in my life. She even went as far as to call cps on me in the past and told them I was beating her (another lie)

I’ve ran into people who went to school with her who also did not have very good things to say so…anyway the list goes on and on. I have some pretty wild stories about how she’s treated me over the years.

We have been no contact for almost 3 years now so for her to use his engagement as some sort of jab at me is just….wild. I have her blocked across all socials so I have no idea what she posted and I’m not gonna unblock her to see it. This all just validates my feelings towards her even more and I’m happy she’s not in my life anymore.

I just feel so bad she used my brother’s engagement announcement to make some post online about our estranged relationship. Hopefully she doesn’t do anything else to put a damper on things for my brother, as he doesn’t deserve that. I am also engaged and have been for 5 months now so I’m wondering if maybe she’s jealous or upset bc she knows she won’t be invited to my wedding.

Sad all around that things are this way but such as life I guess. I’m happy for my brother regardless of the family drama on our side and I’m not letting this ruin my time or my brothers! Just needed to vent on here lol thanks

Strap in, there is some back story and context so it all makes as much sense as possible so may be a long read.

I tried to answer all future questions that may arise in this to the best of my ability.

Hey all, so I 29 F am getting married to my 27M fiance in 5 months.

I wanted to say I LOVE this man with everything I have, but the environment has sucked the life out of me and I feel like a blob just floating through someone else’s life, trying to find a way out.

So for some context, my SIL and I have never been close, like ever. We tried once and then she lied about me and completely twisted everything I ever said to her, for an example I could say my favourite colour is purple, but she’d go around and tell everyone that I hate purple, that I think purple is the worse colour and whoever likes purple suck etc.

This context is important:

I extended an olive branch out and invited her to my wedding dress appointment a few months ago same with my MIL, but my MIL *forgot* about the appointment. We were in the car for hours on end with eachother and the topic of my Fiancé came up. I explained that I am so proud of how far he has come in life, he has his licence, had a job, stopped smoking and got his life together very quickly into our relationship. I explained that I don’t want our daughter to go down that same path, but if she ever was interested in trying w**d that we’d like her to try it at home where we knew she was safe, etc. SIL was very understanding and agreed on everything I was saying and even added that she was proud of how far her brother has come since being with me.

A few weeks passed after the appointment and my fiance and I get into a HUGE argument, like we were about to call off the wedding huge ( we didn’t we worked it out obviously ) but his sister came up into our home - MIL lives with us downstairs and SIL would regularly come over, and started to say some nasty things about me, calling me every single name under the sun, like she went in. My daughter was crying because she was scared of what was happening, my MIL also joined in on the attack of me too. My Fiancé grabbed our daughter to calm her down and told them to go back downstairs because our argument had nothing to do with them. He walked downstairs to try and get them away and then his sister turns around and goes “she doesn’t ever f**king love you Bro, She is so embarrassed by you, she told me in the car when we went down to dress shop!” I never said any of that. He turns around and goes “I know for a fact you’re a lying b**ch you always have been and *my name* told me everything she said in the car that day the second she came home!” SIL then proceeds to throw more insults about the way I looked and said that I don’t know how to do relationship properly. I did say some things back that really got to her about wanting to be with 3 people at the same time. - she did not like that. SIL then proceeded to threaten to kill my cat. My Fiancé lost it at her, I cannot exactly remember what was said but all I remember was that she turned around while he was speaking and spat in his face. SIL then told MIL and my Fiancé she is not coming to the wedding as she doesn’t want to see him make such a huge mistake.

We all stopped talking MIL, SIL, My fiance and I for 3 months. We have only just started to slowly talk again, and it’s only for the sake of that we live in the same home.

Before you ask: yes we are moving, we are moving to another state actually and going no contact.

Now while we were all not talking SIL still assumed she was coming to the wedding despite saying she wasn’t coming a few months prier. She was looking at dresses to wear and kennels to put her dog in while also simultaneously talking crap about me behind my back, saying that I’m a horrible mother, a horrible person, that I’ve gained weight, that I should just leave her brother and he deserves someone so much better. *sometimes I feel like that since having our daughter and she knew these insecurities I had because I was dumb enough to trust her* - I found this out through other family members that had nothing to do with this argument. Some of the family joined in and others called us up straight away and told us what they heard.

I finalised the invites and guest list last week and she is not on that list. My Fiancee has told SIL a few times over the last few weeks that she isn’t coming, and so has other family members, however she keeps bringing it up and keeps booking things and/or buying things. He even tonight told her she is not coming and she cried but apparently after he left the downstairs area and came back upstairs to play his Xbox, she went right back to discussing her plans on what she will do up there *where we are getting married* and the hair and makeup she wants for the wedding. ???? No matter how many times we tell her she is not coming, she brushes it off like it’s no big deal and completely ignores us. She doesn’t even have a wedding invite when others around her do.

I’ve already put things in place for both wedding and reception so she cannot be let in. But we both believe she will try her best to make an appearance. She is so desperate to go because one of the 3 boys she wants to be with, will be there.. WITH HIS LONG TERM GIRLFRIEND. She wanted to purposefully wear a *sexy* dress to try and catch his eye. Like dude what?

Anyway, my wedding is in 5 months and I’m sick of this drama but needed to vent because it’s weighing on me so much.

Also to note: MIL is on VERY thin ice too, she has become hostile towards us as a whole even before all this drama came about and was also saying nasty things about us, but this one is a bit harder to crack as my Fiancé really wants that relationship with his mother, and I’m not the one to stop that, but I will be going NC after the wedding with both SIL and MIL.

I've been having a Charlotte video marathon and most of the have been wedding videos and it reminded me of a wedding I went to when I was 15.

A little context that I promise is relevant. In 1993, my parents joined the Moose Lodge. Think Elks Lodge but different antlered animal. My dad is the kind of person that can just walk into a room and instantly have 12 new best friends without even trying. This is how, less than a year later, I ended up invited to and attending this wedding. My dad was best friends with the groom's father.

Now, to the wedding. The groom, who we will call R, was 24 years old. The bride, who we will call M, was 15 years old. Yes, you read that correctly. She was 15. The reason for the wedding? Her parents found out about the relationship and said you will either marry our daughter or we will file statutory r**e charges against you. Since R didn't want to go to jail, he agreed to the wedding.

M and her mother did most of the wedding planning. The venue? The Moose Lodge. She had this beautiful dress and a wonderful cake and the flowers were gorgeous. Let's forget the fact that it was taking place on the dance floor of the bar of the Moose Lodge for just a second.

Apparently R had a really big problem with the fact that M and her mother were doing most of the wedding planning. M, sadly, was the more mature of the two. The wedding day came and everything looked wonderful. Until R and his groomsmen came into the bar for the wedding.

They decided that in retaliation for not being included in the wedding planning that they would show up wearing white shorts with sneakers, teal short sleeve button up shirts, and pink panther ties. Yes, ties with the pink panther on them. On top of that, the groom's cake was literally a Walmart special with Donatello on it. Yes, that Donatello. Like I said, M was the more mature of the two.

When it came time for the wedding toast, the groom's father tried to make sure that I had a glass of champagne since I was fifteen and the bride was also fifteen and that would be only fair. That's when I learned I do not like the taste of champagne.

The last I heard about either of them was about fifteen years ago and the information given was that they were still together and had like three kids. I could be wrong. But yeah. I thought you guys would like to hear that wedding story.

My parents divorced when I was about 16 in a very messy divorce involving violent accusations that I won’t get into. I am now in my early 30’s and after the dust settled after their divorce, I have maintained a relationship with both of my parents. My dad has caused a lot of harm over the years, and I have been forgiving to a fault with him to try to maintain some kind of relationship with him. He has a long history of alcoholism. I have tried to be almost entirely independent of both of my parents since I was about 18 and left for university, because I didn’t want to be wrapped up in their drama and they were not able to emotionally support me. They rarely ever see each other, and generally do not speak. My dad has refused to pay any kind of support over the years to my mom.

My husband and I got married last summer. We had a full weekend wedding with about 100 people, where most people were staying in cabins on site. On Friday night before the wedding we had a campfire on the beach. My mom and her relatives were at the campfire enjoying some sing alongs. My dad and his relatives were hanging out together back at their cabins. I got a text from my Dad asking if he was welcome to join the campfire. I said sure. He arrived, said hello to me, and I could smell the alcohol on his breath immediately and I knew he was drunk. I was immediately very uncomfortable that he was so drunk, but he hadn’t done anything so I just let it be. His relatives had gone to bed and did not come down to the fire. It was getting late and my mom and her relatives decided to call it a night and head to bed. My dad left soon after.

The wedding itself as how I experienced it was beautiful, busy, exhausting, and lots of fun. I had put in a lot of work myself into so many parts of planning, the stationary, the decor, I made my own cake, my partner and I took dance lessons, I made a ton of pottery for the centerpieces. It was a ton of work to plan, because it was a full weekend and I needed to sort everyone into their cabin accommodations. I felt like I really poured myself into the entire thing. It was a ton of work.

With the complicated family situation, my dad was being a huge asshole in the months before the wedding, and making unreasonable demands, such as saying that my mom’s new husband should not be invited to the wedding. Over a few weeks, I kept receiving texts from him, to the point that I had to tell him that if he brought it up one more time, I would have to remove him from the wedding invite list. My partner also stepped in and told both of my parents they were causing me too much stress and any questions should go to him first.

My husband and I spent a couple of days together at a cottage after the wedding, and had a nice time decompressing and relaxing. Then I spent a couple of days with some extended family on both my mom and dad’s side who had travelled for th wedding, without my partner, as he had to go back to work. I didn‘t actually get home until a week after the wedding. My sister was driving me home on a long car ride back, and she seemed angry at my dad about something. She then asked me: “If something happened at your wedding, would you want to know?”. I was curious but was unsure what she meant. Then she basically said, you know what, nevermind, I don’t want to burst your bubble. She had already made other comments over the couple of days that had “burst my bubble” so I just basically ignored it, and we sat in silence for a couple hours as I was trying to get some work done on my laptop.

I got home that night and had so much cleaning up to do from the wedding. The next morning, I called my mom, as I was curious what my sister was referring to, and I felt like I needed to know. My mom was trying to focus on the positive side of things… how the wedding was beautiful and magical and so on…. eventually she told me that on the friday night before the wedding day, when her family left the campfire, they were walking back in the sand along the beach, and she felt someone push her hard in the dark as they were walking back with flashlights. The person ran ahead, and she realized it was my dad. She yelled saying “that man just pushed me!“, then there was some sort of altercation with my dad and my step-dad. My older brother happened to be nearby, and he pulled them apart. A few friends witnessed it and my 81 year old grandma was also present. My dad left, and then my mom and her family went towards their cabin. Apaprently my dad made a reappearance there and there was another altercation where other guests were also around and saw what was going on.

This news completely stunned me. I was so furious. I couldn’t believe how much of an idiot my dad was. After he already ruined so much of my wedding planning experience, I was just so done with his bullshit. Because even after all that happened before the wedding, I still had given him the honour to walk me down the aisle, do a father daughter dance, say a speech, and read something at the ceremony. I couldn’t believe he had pissed so many people off, assualted my mom, and caused such a fucking show, ruining the vibe for so many people. My mom was basically in distress cause she had to still see him for the entire rest of the wedding weekend, and she was scared that he would pull out a weapon or escalate further. My mom’s sister told my dad’s brother that he had to keep my dad under control the next morning. I was completely clueless to all this until I heard it from my mom a week after the wedding.

I was devastated when I found out. Honestly, for years, I worried about what could happen between my parents at my wedding. After I talked to my mom, I texted my dad saying ”I just found out about your actions last weekend and I am very upset. Thanks for ruining the moment for so many people. I can’t believe your lack of prudence.” He basically responded saying “I have no idea what you’re talking about sweetie, what are you referring to?” I was so pissed… after that I blocked him and left all the group chats with him. I was beyond exhausted from the months of wedding planning, the adrenaline from the wedding itself, etc…. I had no capacity to deal with his shit and his “cluelessness”. A couple weeks later, I get a letter in the mail from him. It’s 3 pages long, with pictures from the campfire, and he basically claimed that he ”tripped in the sand” fell into someone, and all of a sudden other people were attacking him. He was trying to absolve himself of any wrong doing. He sent this same later to my siblings as well.

How I would desperately want to believe that this was all a misunderstanding and an accident… but I know it‘s not. I chose to believe my mom, and have not spoken to my dad since. It’s been 10 months now. For the first few months, he tried to reach me by text or email, which I had blocked. He hasn’t tried to reach me in a while. My younger brother still lives with him. My sister talked through this situation with him, has gotten some kind of closure, has accepted he is who he is, and continues to see him every so often.

I don’t feel like I ever got a real apology. As the months go on, I feel like it really has been eating away at me. I really don’t have much family in this country other than my parents and siblings and my partner’s famy. Being entirely no contact was needed and has allowed me to have some space to figure out what I need, but honestly I don’t think I can do this forever. I also don’t think it’s my responsibility to figure this out for him but at this point, I think he is waiting for me to reach out. I’ve had enough of his crocodile tears” and fake apologies. I feel I have already given him too much empathy over the years for all his fuck ups, and there have been many. If it hasn’t been made clear, there is obviously something wrong with him, and he has refused to seek proper treatment for whatever condition he has. All of his children and ex-wife have had to have extensive therapy to cope with having him as a father.

At this point, I have replayed this situation over in my head so many times, that it has overshadowed the positive memories I initially had about the wedding. I try to focus on the positives and the moments I enjoyed, but it pisses me off that he made so many people uncomfortable at my wedding, when I specifically asked him not to not make people uncomfortable.

TLDR - I worried that my abusive alcoholic father would ruin my wedding, for most of my adult life, and he did.