'Years later my daughter and I talk about how bad we were treated at this wedding, it was that bad.'
"Years later my daughter and I talk about how bad we were treated at this wedding, it was that bad."
It was my SD’s wedding out of state. My daughter was asked to be in the wedding and she didn’t want to but I pushed her to because it was for family. I always treated my SD equally, even though she probably wouldn’t agree. I was the bad guy because I wanted her to pick up after herself when she was young, you know the drill.
We get to the hotel, start helping out with decorations, food, etc. My husband and I get on fine with his ex wife and her husband so there were no issues, we’re all pitching in to make this a great wedding for SD and her fiancé.
The first incident and signs for things to come was the day of the wedding. My SD offers to pick me and DD up to get ready with the wedding party. There was a bridesmaid in the car already and SD introduced us to her but SD needed to get something and got out of the car, alone in the car I try to chitchat with her friend.
She wouldn’t look or talk to me when I was asking direct questions. Ok, weird and rude and I kind of sat there confused. I blew it off thinking she was probably tired and excited about the upcoming wedding which was that evening.
We get to the house to get ready. I get out of the car, arms full, I have my bag full of makeup, hair stuff, clothes, shoes as well as all my daughter’s stuff. I have my purse and basically my arms are full. I start following everyone into the house.
I get in the house and wait for directions because I’m not sure where to put my stuff and like a bat out of hell, one of the bridesmaids starts screaming at me, she looks directly at me “don’t help bring in anything on your way into the house, just walk on by, thanks for the help!”
She looks absolutely disgusted by my behavior. This person is a stranger, I don’t know who she is, I didn’t see anything that needed to be carried into the house, there were about 6 or 7 other bridesmaids that walked in with me that didn't get yelled at.
Plus, my arms were full of my own crap! I’ll name her Karen going forward to hide her name. I stood there thinking “that did not just happen “ and I didn’t even say anything, I walked away. So at this point, I’m getting the message that SD has been bad mouthing me to her friends and they hate me.
I never wanted to remove myself from someplace so much in my life. I wanted to leave but was stuck there. I remember looking at my daughter thinking “why did I put her in this situation, I want to just leave “.
The saving grace was not all of SDs friends hated me, keep in mind, these are Christians! I know! One came up to me and my daughter shortly after and she was asking us questions and she was so sweet. “Ok, I can do this” I thought. Not all of them hate us.
We find a little corner of the house to get ready and stay there, avoiding everyone. I want to add I didn’t want to ruin my SDs day (funny, right?) so I kept my mouth shut, it was like an out of body experience just going through the motions to get through this day.
We head to the venue. The plan was to get our dresses on at the venue. Hair and makeup was at the house. SD bought all the bridesmaids and flower girls personalized hangers that the dresses were to be placed on so the photographer could photograph them.
My daughter and I are the first ones there. The room was upstairs and it was a large room to get pictures taken, you know the drill. So I place my daughter’s dress on the hanger on one of the hooks. Here comes Karen.
She comes over and with attitude and asks why we put her dress on the hook? Takes it down and shoves it in my hands and said that’s for the bridesmaids! I’m so over this petty crap and Karen, I thought “fine, we’re not welcome here, we’re leaving “.
We find our table and put all our bags in the empty chairs like hillbillies lol. Btw, my husband and son were helping at SDs house, they were helping moving and cleaning and were meeting us at the venue.
SD never asked where we were and why weren’t up in the getting ready room, I think she didn’t care or want us there. It’s time to get ready. We go into a bathroom stall and get our dresses on. Everyone is up in the room, no one is asking why we weren’t up there. If someone had asked, we would have gone up but no one cared. (More on this later).
Now for the ceremony. We were placed in our seats, SDs mother and husband got the cherry seats, then her two brothers. Then my husband and me and my son. I was upset for my husband. He was 5 people deep in the first row.
This is a father who helped pay for the wedding and has been the most incredible father to his daughter. Kept my mouth shut. I could barely see the ceremony without leaning but again, I didn’t care about me, I was upset for my husband.
Before the ceremony started, I see my SDs cousin. She’s sitting kitty corner to me and so I smile at her. She just glares at me. I look forward thinking “wtf? Maybe it was all in my head, smile at her again”. Again, she just glares at me like she HATES me. Whatever. At this point, I couldn’t wait for this whole disaster to be over.
Ceremony is over, we’re now in the reception. Everything is going fine until my daughter gets upset (she’s adolescent age) and tells me how Karen was ignoring her and when she would talk to her, she was rude and give her dirty looks. Karen was in charge of the flower girls. So apparently kids aren’t off limits and should be treated like crap.
I wasn’t surprised and there really wasn’t anything I could do at this point. I just wanted it to be over. As we left in our car to drive to our hotel, daughter and I gave my husband an earful of how bad we were treated all day.
Some time later, photos of the wedding are being posted all over Facebook. There was this beautiful shot of all the girls in the upstairs room that we were not a part of because we left because of Karen. There were other shots that we weren’t apart of. I think I was in one picture and my daughter was in 2? If that.
There were family shots we weren’t apart of, we were completely overlooked, my husband was barely in any pictures also, I think my son was in one, it felt bad but we didn’t want reminders of the awful day anyway. I never immediately said anything to SD, I didn’t want to ruin her honeymoon so I just sent her a text and highlights of the people who were so kind to us and left it at that.
I did ask her if she was still friends with Karen (years later) and she said yes and I told her how bad we were treated at her wedding but she blew it off and acted like she didn’t care and said something along the lines of “that’s how Karen is”.
Daughter and I reminisce about this awful experience from time to time. Daughter says it’s a “core memory“ that she’ll never forget. I honestly won’t either because I was never treated so badly in my entire life.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
JeanCerise
I need to have the SD's take on this. That you wrote such a lengthy, detailed post about this without really saying anything that anyone actually did to you. Dirty looks is about all I can detect. And posted it out of nowhere, after so many years (I assume?) is odd to me. I'm thinking there is more to your and the SD's relationship.
chrissie7324
So her father didn’t walk her down the aisle … yeah there is WAY MORE backstory to this. I want the bride's version.
lark1995
Yeah I dunno, this smells like a case of the “missing missing.” You gloss over why you SD may not feel you treated her equally, and rather than have a frank and loving conversation with her you write a rant on reddit years later.
Skips-mamma-llama
I was wondering this too, did the daughter live with her mom and her step dad and brothers If so then it makes sense they got the "primo seats" and then her dad and step mom and sister would be next to them. Being 5 whole seats away seems like an overreaction over nothing lol.
Where were OP and her husband when they were taking family photos? If they were standing around awkwardly waiting to be put in the picture that's one thing, if they were out enjoying the party and not around then if makes sense they were forgotten about or couldn't be tracked down.
It sounds like the bride didn't really want OP there and didn't do anything to include them and overprotective bitchy bridesmaid ran them off. Sucky situation for sure but I'd love to hear the other side of it.
ArgusRun
Wait. So you were in the front row with the mother and step dad and you’re complaining that they sat her brothers between you? Because that’s the pettiest complaint I’ve ever heard.