I see more than a few posts about people ending relationships with friends and relatives over excluding someone from a wedding party for “aesthetic reasons.”
This is bizarre to me.
A wedding is (usually) a one day affair (looking at you, India) that most successfully married couples barely remember because of nerves, excitement, the fact that the wedding ceremony is (usually) less than an hour long and receptions only a few hours more.
The only people I know still complaining about some minor nonsense at their wedding are miserable and divorced.
Is ditching a lifelong friend or fracturing a family worth a couple hours? And, newsflash folks, no one is going to be obsessed over your wedding photos or the clothes people wore unless you’re a member of the British royal family.
Why burn bridges for something no one else cares about that doesn’t matter in the slightest to anyone but you‽‽
It’s baffling.
A man whose fiancée threatened to cancel their wedding over his sister not looking picture perfect for their wedding photos—apparently she doesn’t know any idiot with a smartphone can alter a photo now—turned to the “Am I The A**Hole” (AITAH) subReddit for feedback.
Similar to AITA, the AITAH subReddit allows posters to ask for advice and post about ending romantic relationships—both things that are banned on AITA. However there are no official voting acronyms and no final judgment given.
TA_Sib_Wedding asked:
“AITAH for not wanting to remove my sister from the wedding party over a broken nose?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“I (44, male) and getting married to Amber (35, female, fake name) next weekend. On Friday, I got a call from my youngest sister Luna (34, female, fake name) asking if I could pick her up from the hospital as her husband was away with work.”
“Her job can be really physical and she’s extremely outdoorsy and active, so her calling to be picked up from the hospital isn’t unusual. When I arrived to pick up Luna, she was a bit of a mess, covered in blood, and when she smiled she was missing a tooth at the front.”
“Turns out she’d come off her bike and smashed her face on the pavement. She’s knocked out a tooth, got a fracture to her wrist, grazes and cuts all over including her face, and had broken her nose with some awful looking bruising around her eyes which has now come up.”
“Luna’s fine, just annoyed she can’t ride her bike, and needs to rest. She did ask me not to tell Amber, which I thought was weird.”
“When I told Amber that Luna was hurt, she asked if any of Luna’s injuries would affect the wedding. I said Luna had a fracture to her wrist, so might have to carry her flowers differently and might find having makeup applied uncomfortable as she had broken her nose.”
“Amber told me that I needed to tell Luna she couldn’t be a bridesmaid anymore. I disagreed, as I don’t want Luna to be the only sibling excluded, especially over a broken nose.”
“Amber said that she didn’t want wedding pictures like Luna’s, she wanted pictures she could be proud of.”
“In Luna’s wedding pictures, she’s got a busted lip because she got punched at work a couple days before her wedding and her husband had a cut on his forehead from headbutting a table during his bachelor party the weekend before the wedding.”
“In those pictures, you don’t see the injuries straight away, you see how happy they are. Amber then told me that she’d told Luna that if she had any injuries to her face in the run up to the wedding, then Amber was going to make Luna just a guest.”
“I told her that I wasn’t going to tell Luna that she couldn’t be in the wedding party over a broken nose.”
Amber’s gone to stay at her sister’s as she’s mad at me choosing Luna over her and our wedding.”
“Her sister has messaged me saying that Amber’s considering cancelling the wedding because I’m not onboard with her vision for our wedding and said that I’m being an a**hole for not prioritising Amber and her feelings. She also said that Luna knew what the consequences of getting hurt so close to the wedding would be.”
“AITAH for not wanting to remove my sister from the wedding party over a broken nose?”
The OP later added:
“This has gotten so many more responses than I ever thought it would. I’ve been reading the comments and it’s been mentioned a few times about Luna’s injuries and been speculated about how she gets them.”
“My brother-in-law is not hurting her, nor is she doing it for attention. She works in private security, she got punched before her wedding day breaking up a fight.
“I was there when my BIL cut his forehead. I saw him headbutt the table and went with him to the hospital.”
“When she had her cycling accident, she was wearing her gear, had her helmet on, but she hit a steep curb after swerving because someone opened their car door into the road without looking.”
“Before this, her last hospital trip and accident was just before Christmas last year when she broke her foot after dropping a kettlebell on it.
“That accident should have made me realize about Amber, as she was upset that in all the pictures that had Luna in them from our family Christmas, Luna had a boot on her foot.”
“According to Amber, it was distracting in her pictures, and there were a few comments on it on Amber’s Instagram when she posted the pictures.”
Some Redditors weighed in by using the AITA voting acronyms:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP wwasnot wrong to want his sister in his wedding (NTA).
“Tell her, ‘Sorry, but I’m considering canceling the wedding because your vision of how we treat family does not align with mine’.” ~ bookeroobanza1
“Notice she asked if her injuries would affect the wedding before asking about her future SILs wellbeing. 🚩“ ~ MelanisticMermaid
“And a good photographer will fix any blemishes you want in editing.” ~ aluminum_jockey54634
“No matter how good the photographer is they can’t fix the spouse. They can give the spouse a makeover for days, but they can’t turn a red flag green.” ~ recursive_arg
“I’m still in shock at the lack of ‘oh my goodness, is she okay, does she need anything? I’ll drop by her place, etc…’ from OP’s soon-to-be ex.” ~ cakivalue
“This was my thought. Luna can be edited to look bruise-free, but you’ll never get that moment back with your family. I’m sure Amber plans to have herself touched up in pictures.” ~ Reddit
“A decent photographer could turn Luna into a giraffe. Bruises are nothing.”
“Amber is way too image-obsessed, and if this isn’t unusual behavior for her, I’d certainly be rethinking if OP wants that to be their life from now on.”
“Maybe telling Amber not to come back (or to the venue) until she corrects her attitude might be the wake-up call she needs.” ~ Beth21286
“Woman is casting an episode of her soap opera idea of what a wedding should look like. DUDE, YOU’RE MARRYING A WOMAN WHO TREATS YOU AND YOUR FAMILY LIKE ACCESSORIES.”
“RUN LIKE THE WIND!” ~ the_lewitt
“NTA, have to ask though, if you fell over the day before the wedding, would she remove or replace you, too?” ~ StealthyPiku
“NTA. At least Amber showed how superficial she is before the wedding.”
“People like Amber seem to prefer Instagram perfection over reality—and that would be an exhausting way to live.”
“OP now gets to make an informed decision regarding his future.” ~ Fantastic_Quarter_79
“For real! My response to that would be ‘I’m considering canceling the wedding because she is not onboard with my vision of a marriage where superficial things like this don’t matter cuz we love each other’.”
“It’s crazy how quickly people forget weddings aren’t the important part, the important part is the marriage. You know, the reason for the wedding.” ~ Professional_Deer952
“Exactly! I’ve never been one to dream of my dream wedding or even marriage per se. My ultimate goal was to find a partner in life. Aesthetics be damned.”
“We did eventually have a wedding we both wanted and could not have cared less what other people wore.”
“It’s the support and love from our nearest and dearest that we wanted. Not some fairytale.” ~ PonderWhoIAm
“If your sister not looking the way Amber wants her to is a reason to call off your wedding, Amber is clearly not committed to this marriage.”
“As soon as that threat was made, I’d be done with her. Id have just told her, ‘OK, I’ll start canceling things since the wedding photos are more important to you than me, my family, and what I want for my wedding’.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard given as a reason to decide not to get married. It’s clearly a manipulative bluff to get her way, but I’d call her on it.”
“Save yourself from years of misery or from legal fees for the divorce.” ~ MohawMais
The OP provided an update:
“I’ve messaged Amber, and she’s coming around this afternoon, and we are going to have a talk.”
Reddit didn’t have high hopes for this union.
Hopefully the OP finds a resolution that makes him happy, whether Amber is in his future or not.