Everyone wants something different for their wedding day, but it’s hard to make a special day come together when the bride and groom want essentially opposite things.
Wanting different flowers is one thing, but wanting a drastically different location or number of guests is another, admitted the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
But Redditor chikkycheese234 didn’t understand why his bride wasn’t more onboard with his plans for their wedding.
But when she didn’t want to talk about it anymore, the Original Poster (OP) realized he may have done something wrong.
He asked the sub:
“AITA for refusing to have a smaller wedding?”
The OP and his future bride couldn’t agree on a wedding size.
“So I (30 [male]) and my fiance (28 [female]) have been engaged for about 1 month now.”
“We have been trying to plan our wedding but simply can’t see eye to eye.”
“My fiance wants a small, low-key type of wedding while I want a big wedding with a lot of people.”
“My family always has big weddings. It’s part of our culture and I have a big family, my fiance can’t seen to understand that.”
“She just wants a small wedding and is refusing to budge and agree to a big wedding.”
“She says she has always dreamed of having a small intimate wedding.”
“While I can see where she is coming from, this just isn’t how things are done in my family.”
This recently came up at a family dinner.
“A day ago, we were at dinner with my family and my mom was talking about renting the venue for us.”
“She listed of some places she thought we would like and asked my fiance what she thinks of them.”
“My fiance replied that she daught they were too big, seeing as we might have a small wedding.”
“My mom then said that our family doesn’t do small weddings and that we have to have a big wedding.”
“My fiance replied saying that even though she respects our traditions, she doesn’t feel comfortable having a big wedding and that at the end of the day, she and I have the final say in what wedding we will have.”
“At hearing this, my mom turned to me and said, ‘You can’t seriously be considering this.'”
“I was caught off-guard and just said no.”
“The rest of the dinner was spent in an awkward silence.”
The couple got in an argument back at home.
“When my fiance and I got home, she was angry with me, saying I didn’t back her up and how it left her feeling embarrassed.”
“I also got angry and said that she should have brought up the size of our wedding at dinner.”
“Here is where I might be the a**hole: I also said that just because she grew up poor, that doesn’t mean she should still live like she is poor, and that the type of wedding she wants is tacky.”
“(My fiance grew up poor and I come from a very rich family.)”
“After that, she just burst into tears and ran up to our room and has been there ever since.”
“She is refusing to talk or open the door.”
“I spoke to some friends about this and I keep getting mixed reactions.”
“Most of my female friends have said that I was being an a**hole.”
“My male friends say I wasn’t being an a**hole.”
“I just want to know what some strangers think about this because i am starting to feel really guilty.”
The OP also added a clarification:
“I see a lot people asking this, so I am just going to post it here:”
“My fiance isn’t willing to compromise on the size of the wedding.”
“The only comprise she is willing to make is to let me have control of planning the wedding, but with the rule that there would be no more than 150 guests.”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some had an endless list of reasons why the OP was wrong.
“YTA for:”
“Making her feel insecure about her very reasonable preference by attacking her background, and”
“Acting as though compromise is ‘she does what I want.’ Not ‘small ceremony, big reception’ or something else where you attempt to find a solution that satisfies both your dreams, but just steamroller over her dreams completely.” – Jazmadoodle
“OP also thinks because all of his male friends agree with him and the women don’t that obviously he isn’t the A because the men said he isn’t! What do women know anyway! (ends sarcasm)”
“YTA. I’d say E S H if you were both just refusing to compromise, but you’re refusing and you’re insulting her AND being misogynistic. You’re a triple threat of red flags! Quadruple threat if you add in taking your mom’s side over your fiancee’s…” – SilverHeart1990
“She: I’ve always dreamed of a small intimate wedding! (looks lovingly at her fiance)”
“OP: Ugh, that’s tacky! It must be because you grew up poor that you have terrible taste!”
“(Door slams)”
“OP: I don’t get it. Why is she upset with me?”
“YTA” – ParsimoniousSalad
Others questioned who the OP was actually marrying.
“Who’s wedding is it, anyway? Your fiancée’s or your mom’s?”
“Because you’ve just shown your fiancée that:”
“You value your mom’s opinion over hers regarding her own wedding, and”
“You will happily insult her deeply to bulldoze your mom’s opinion over hers.”
“YTA.”
“I hope either you get your head in the game (your fiancée outranks your mom regarding your wedding, marriage, kids and all related decision-making from here on in), or you don’t marry her at all, because you don’t respect her any where near enough.”
“You do realize that after marriage, your next of kin is your wife. When you say your family the default meaning should be your wife and any kids. Not your parents and other members of your family of origin any more.”
“I think your mom set a trap for you, and you walked right into it.” – anonymous_for_this
“YTA. You didn’t back up your fiancé at dinner, you’re refusing to compromise or find any kind of middle ground, and the comment about ‘growing up poor but stop acting like it’ is a very hurtful and disgustingly privileged thing to say to her.”
“Without being married to her, you’re showing her what her life will be like as your wife with the way you’re treating her.” – silentsaturn91
“YTA”
“Do you want to marry her?”
“Is she who you want to spend the rest of your life with?”
“Is she the one when you have a catastrophic illness , will be there pushing you to get better and does she encourage you to be a better man?”
“My dude, if you can’t compromise on this, end it.”
“You are marrying her, not your frickin family. She’s the one you will spend each and every day with until you die. Not your family.”
“Yes, they are there but she is the one you live for. Unless you just want to crawl back up your mother’s birth canal.”
“Culturally, I get what your saying. But the bride has a huge say in this and you do her a grave injustice to not try and work this out. If you can’t. They don’t marry her.” – MissMurderpants
Some said the OP’s bride had already compromised.
“I was gonna say N A H but the second he didn’t stand up for his fiance, then had the gall to call her dream wedding tacky because of money… solid YTA territory bro” – GothSpite
“For a minute, I thought there might be a little wiggle room for E S H, because the fiancee didn’t seem to be giving much consideration to OP’s cultural background. But then…..”
“OP, you took something she has no control over, that clearly still causes her pain, and weaponized it against her after siding with your mother against her. Were you planning to marry your fiancee or your mother? Because you put mom first over the wishes of the woman you claim to love, so you could have a big fancy party without actually talking to your fiancee about why a smaller wedding is important to her.”
“You want her to budge, but you threw her under the bus for your mom to disrespect because you won’t budge. And then you took her past – something she could not possibly have any responsibility for – and threw it in her face like it was something she should be ashamed of.”
“YTA x10000, and I hope she throws your rich a** out.”
“Did it ever occur to you that maybe she finds your big splashy wedding plans tacky, and she’s been trying to deflect without denigrating your background? Probably not, since you went right for the pain in your comment to her.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want a big wedding because she prefers to spend the most important day she’s had with people close to her, not a huge pile of extended relatives she barely knows.”
“Maybe she wants to use that money for a house down payment.”
“Maybe she doesn’t want to subject her family to the condescending and snobby attitude yours seems keen to display. Whatever her reasons, you certainly don’t seem to respect them or her. YTA.” – DillyCat622
“I read it like, ‘Oh, well, I can understand a little if OP has a huge family and his fiance only wants a dozen people there… they’ll need to talk this through for sure.'”
“Come to find out, she wants a perfectly normal-sized wedding. How many people is he wanting to invite??” – Lindsaydoodles
It was lost on the OP what he could have possibly said or done that was so wrong, it would cause his future wife to stay away from him for so long, but the subReddit saw it differently. Not only did the OP not stand with his bride in a crucial moment, but he also used something from her past that she had no control over.
The subReddit agreed, this is far from the behavior that earns someone a place on the path to a happy marriage.