Lawyers Share the Most Chaotic Divorces They’ve Ever Seen

Not all marriages are successful, with statistics showing that 40% to 50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce. When divorce does happen, it's often a messy process, especially when dealing with assets, custody, or property.

Lawyers, accountants, and family often witness the chaos all the way from the living room to the court room. Reddit users share stories of some of the most outrageous divorces they have witnessed, painting a disturbing picture of the aftermath of failed marriages.

Splitting Her Winnings

Not a lawyer, but my husband's uncle (they're close to the same age) was going through a divorce. It was messy and he got completely blindsided, but it’s still kind of a funny story.

Anyway, his wife had just packed up her stuff and their kids and moved out one day while he was at work. With no warning — she was just gone.

It came to light that a few weeks before she left, she'd won a “$5,000 per week for life” lottery ticket.

She hid it, and thought she could divorce him without splitting her winnings.

That didn't work out very well for her.

| jader88

Dog Custody

I was in a mediation where it took the couple an hour and a half to split their personal property, retirement accounts, real property and custody of their six month old son.

The rest of the day, about four hours, was spent arguing about how to split the time with the dog.

For the kid they just put "as agreed upon by the parties" but the dog had a strict calendar working out holidays and strict pickup/drop off times.

I was ashamed to be a part of that unbelievable display.

| FattyBinz

Ashes to Ashes

Not my case, but during my first year of law school, lawyers from different practices came to give us a peek behind the curtain of different areas.

The divorce lawyer told the story of a rather well-to-do couple that spent months and months and many tens of thousands of dollars fighting over absolutely everything all the way down to a single ceramic ashtray.

He couldn’t remember the significance, but somehow it had come through the husband’s family.

Even after everything else had been decided, they spent many more months and nearly $100,000 fighting over just this ashtray. Then, after a court hearing the wife finally won the ashtray.

She promptly strode out to the white courthouse steps and smashed the ceramic ashtray. Left the pieces all over for the husband to see on his way out.

Decided that day I would not be a divorce lawyer.

| 105degrees_andrising

Heart of Ice

Divorce lawyer here. Spouse had been out of the house for weeks.

She waited until he was on a business trip, came into the house, turned on all of the faucets, plugged the drains, turned off the furnace and left. It was -10 degrees F.

He came back five days later. The house was ruined. The water froze and cracked the foundation.

| Slagathar1

Nothing In Common

My parents divorce was pretty bad. As a side note, it really made no sense how my parents ever got married. Their backgrounds were very different, education was different, and they had nothing in common.

Anyway, it started with trouble when I was in 5th grade and it got around to the school, so my sister and I were thrown into counseling.

It came to a terrible breaking point when my mom decided to get our new dog neutered. It was a rational decision on her part but my dad didn't want it because of male nonsense.

As revenge for this he ran the lawn mower over her entire garden and other landscaping, took a baseball bat to all the garden decorations and basically destroyed her entire hobby and all the work she put into it.

She had to come home to that, and I got to sit at the dinner table and watch it happening. It was awful. If I remember right she packed up her things right there and then and left.

I don't blame her. My dad was a pretty nasty person, and hasn't gotten any better over the years either.

| FuffyKitty

The Milkman Keeps It All

When I was young my parents had milk delivered to the house each week. It was a good deal, the milk was from a local coop and the delivery routes were privately owned.

The owner of our route got divorced and told us the story of his mediation.

She and her lawyer had calculated the value of his milk delivery business to be $2.5 million (mind you, this was the mid '80s). She of course is seeking half that amount.

His lawyer begins to balk that their estimate is unfair (it was probably legitimate when you calculated assets, inventory, balance, lack of debit and revenue) and they would never agree to it, but he is cut short by his client.

Our milkman then looks across the table and says something to the effect of "I agree to your estimation. Go ahead and cut me a check, everybody shows up at six, you'll have to be there by five to have everything ready for them."

He then tosses the work keys across the table as he sits back down. They eventually agreed upon a more reasonable number.

| Valarmorghulis

No NASCAR For You

One guy had his wife served with the divorce papers while she was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. She had no idea he wanted a divorce.

One guy wanted a provision in his divorce that said his sons couldn't watch NASCAR because the wife's new boyfriend was into NASCAR.

In the same case, the property division was so contentious that the judge had the parties list every piece of furniture in the house and try to work through who would get what.

The guy made sure that he wanted everything she did, down to things like lace doilies her grandma made and some trophy she won in a women's shooting competition — "I bought her the gun so it's pretty much my trophy.”

Another guy wanted no custody and no visitation with his four sons until he learned how much child support would be. Then he wanted full custody with no visitation for the wife in the hope that she'd have to pay him child support.

I only did divorces for about a year before I moved on to mortgage foreclosures. Those are far less depressing.

| jennifer1911

Salt the Earth

One of my father's friends tried to salt the earth before getting divorced.

A rental house and a cabin were deeded to relatives, the cars they drove every day were sold to other relatives for tiny sums, stocks handed over to a trust “for the children” and so on and so forth.

He even vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife using phony invoices and stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead.

He learned that judges really, really hate when you try to hide or intentionally diminish assets, and they will absolutely refer you to prosecutors for fraud.

I don't think he did any jail time in the end, but his ex-wife got EVERYTHING, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.

| technos

Who Gets to Keep the Bear?

I work in civil litigation, so not divorce, but I had a case where part of the issue was the previous dangerous behavior of Plaintiff's dogs.

My client believed that part of Plaintiff's divorce involved not allowing the dogs around Plaintiff's kids, so we filed to unseal the divorce settlement agreement.

The divorce was between two lawyers and it was a doozy of a settlement. They had two single-spaced pages dedicated to splitting up family stuffed animals. It was pretty heartbreaking to read who would be getting things like Boots the Bear.

| chaiiya

Robot Woman

Finally my moment to shine.

A mother (U.S. citizen) who took her child from Argentina and ran back to the U.S. (child born in AR). I represented the Argentinean father/husband. Federal court and Argentina government got involved.

Made the news in Buenos Aires. We won and had the child returned to the father in Argentina.

Also represented a woman who was convinced that her husband had implanted micro robots into her brain and was trying to control her. She would bring us all these nano tech articles trying to convince us that it was possible.

She dragged the case out for four years convinced that he had done all kinds of illegal stuff (like destroying her car brakes so she would crash and putting poison into her tap water).

She was nuts, we almost had to get a conservator for her estate.

| Anonymous

Til Death Do Us Part

My grandparents' divorce — I refused to help them with it or get involved. I think my only advice was to burn all of their possessions.

It was truly awful. It went on for at least four years. My grandfather was a shopping addict and hoarder and my step grandmother left the minute that they ran out of cash.

They then proceeded to fight about every object they had all while both being in the middle of dying.

She was dying of cancer and alzheimers and he of diabetes and kidney failure, so it wasn't like they had some grand plan about how someone was going to use any of these objects.

They owned basically nothing of actual value.

My grandfather was just awful and wouldn't let her go (did she know she was leaving? Not sure...) and wrote her nasty letters weekly. After my grandfather died, my family threw away or donated virtually every last hammer, hat and book they fought over.

What a waste of time and energy their whole divorce fiasco was. I'm sure they greatly annoyed their respective attorneys greatly.

| Good_parabola

Years in the Making

My parents' divorce took an ungodly amount of time (and, therefore, money).

My mom found out about 10 years after the fact that her lawyer and my dad's lawyer were colluding to drag the case out as long as possible.

Mom didn't want to have to deal with dad, so she never went after the lawyer.

The judge didn’t take too kindly to the fact that they were wasting so much time, and ordered that an agreement be reached by such and such a time.

It was terrible watching them put each other through financial ruin.

I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone.

| Anonymous

Old Fashioned Divorce

An ex-friend of mine had to divorce his first wife via the newspaper. I say "had" because she was one of those "if I can't have you, no one can" kind of girls.

For example, she showed up at my work the day after their wedding with framed photos of their wedding, framed copies of their church and legal wedding certificates and told me “You better keep your hands off him!

He's mine, and if he tells you he's single, you know he's lying!"

Apparently, he ended up leaving to “visit relatives” out of state and had to post it in the paper to avoid her doing something dangerous to him.

I say ex-friend because he married someone else, pulled the same thing on her and then went on a screed on Facebook to tell us all off because he told us she was abusing him.

He went back to her, and blocked us all off Facebook.

| Anonymous

Devious divorce tactics

I work as a divorce lawyer in Australia.

I once saw a divorcing husband who hid $10 million by making an overpayment to the tax office.

Auditors thought it was a tax payment and processed it — you know, business as usual.

Six months later it was refunded — meaning he got the money back plus base interest rate.

He actually made money on his divorce.

I can’t believe it worked, it was so slimy and devious. He never faced any penalization for doing this.

Don’t try to pull this off nowadays, though.

Auditors have since caught on to this scheme, and you most definitely could face penalties or even jail time.

| Syidd

Custody karma

My mom's fiancé worked for a major company that delivers supplies/uniforms/etc. to other companies. He had gone through a nasty divorce with his ex, who is completely psychotic from what I have seen and researched in court docs.

They have shared custody.

Well one day she calls up his employer's corporate office and says that one of their employees is breaking the job code by taking pictures while on the job as he was driving (mostly from stuff like when the avengers were shooting and he was stuck in traffic going nowhere).

This on a corporate level means instant termination if true.

The pictures weren't even public to begin with, and she only was able to access them through their daughter's gmail account while the daughter was logged in. She copied them and sent them to corporate.

He then lost his job of 22 years. His boss couldn't do anything to help as it was a corporate firing.

Here is the kicker. She then sees him in court the next week since they were already scheduled to discuss custody (she is always trying to get full with supervised visitation).

In court she brings up how he doesn't have a job and then demands full custody since he is an unfit parent.

Judge then tells her that there is no way in hell she is getting custody and she is more of an unfit parent than he is. He continues to tell her that she just caused the main source of support for their child to become unemployed, based entirely off her decision to call in and report it.

This was the first time I ever left a courthouse with a grin on my face as she finally got what she deserved.

| xRehab

Get ready for round two

My parents got divorced when I was 12.

I am sketchy on the details but I remember it was drawn-out and acrimonious.

It took well over a year for the divorce to be finalized, and the whole process was a lot more complex than it needed to be.

My mom was awarded a massive settlement, my dad was basically left with a superannuation and nothing else.

After the ruling was handed down my mother’s own lawyer walked into my father and his lawyer’s meeting and said, “That ruling was total garbage. If I were you, I would appeal.”

Has to be pretty bad when a lawyer wants his own win overturned.

| justjayfornow

No more pizza

In the early ‘80s there was a really popular, non-chain pizza restaurant where I lived. Maybe not such a big deal today in the land of snazzy chains but at the time it was a really popular hangout in a small suburban town for the high school crowd and families, church groups, etc.

It had a real soda fountain and the owner/proprietor was a real showman behind the counter, mixing fancy soft drinks and telling jokes as he worked. He was a real personality in a good sense.

Anyway, the restaurant owner, who worked behind the counter every day, ended up divorcing his wife.

The wife never worked there that we knew of or even came into the place. Shortly after divorce was complete, the place became terrible — slow service, cold food, dirty dining room, etc.

The owner/divorced husband explained, she got the majority interest in the business that he built and she didn't have to work there.

He said it was like slavery to him, he had to work and she got the profits. So he decided to run the business into the ground. If she wanted to come in and work, she could have it, but she just wanted the profits.

It went under within six months and became a taco joint with different owners.

| hatheaded

Gold nugget girl

I had a crazy client once involved in a dissolution of domestic partnership (not married, but had been together 20 years). She had an insane amount of stories about the opposing party (drug dealer, he had killed a man and all sorts of other wild accusations).

No idea what was reality vs. what she made up. They had millions between them and were fighting over every last Native American artifact, household item, etc. At one point she offered me gold nuggets as a "gift" because she liked me so much (which I had to ethically refuse as a non de minimis gift from a current client).

I eventually got off the case when I changed jobs.

I think it's currently under appeal now so I can't give any further detail, but there was some pretty crazy stuff involved in this case, including accusations that the opposing party was sleeping with his attorney (which shockingly had some basis in reality when investigated, but I got off the case right around then).

| VegaDark541

This divorce is on fire

Day 58 of the 60 days it took for my parents’ divorce to be final, my dad called my mom at work and begged her to call it off and take him back.

She said no. He went from sad and crying to pissed, saying, "So this is how you want things?"

About an hour and a half later, my mom got another phone call from someone letting her know that our house was on fire. It was arson, of course. I wish that's the worst I could say about their divorce.

| Snowwhite88

Goodbye Earl

I know a couple who are recently divorced. They were together for 20 years, no kids, and worked their way up to become quite wealthy. However, she was the clear breadwinner and in a senior position in an excellent job.

He also has a good job, but will never make nearly what she earns or close to what her earning potential is. She spent about two years prior to leaving telling him she wanted out, but found it hard to make the move, he would always find some reason to get her to stay.

She met someone and literally walked out the door one day. I don't think he believed she would ever actually do it, so he was extremely angry, especially learning that she walked out the door into the arms of another man.

Her first offer on the table was 50/50 split. He would have come out way ahead on this deal, the house they shared had appreciated by several hundred thousand pounds, along with the flat they rented out.

But his anger got in the way and he spent the next three years insisting on more, at one point having some cockeyed views that he was entitled to 75%.

Even worse, some terrible things about their marriage would never have been forced to come out had he just signed straight away. I was glad she stood her ground, although the divorce went on for three years in the end.

At about the 18 month mark, I know he had spent £20k in lawyers so I imagine she was about the same. Lord knows what the final bills were for both.

At some point he was to hand over some of the furnishings and when she arrived to collect them, they had been cut up and urinated on, amongst other damage.

This guy was seriously shooting himself in the foot with these antics.

I was also pleased to hear that because he was being so difficult, she decided to go for the calculated financial contributions which meant when the divorce was finalized not long ago, she ended up with the lion's share, equitable to what they both put in based on earnings.

And he could have walked away at the beginning with a nice nest egg. He deserved what he got, but still, he’s a damned fool.

| homerBM

The coveted tuna casserole recipe

My father sued my mother for, among other things, a tuna noodle casserole recipe. She dropped off a can of cream of mushroom soup at his lawyers office, the recipe was on the back.

Nobody in our family even ate it, except during lent. He also wanted my 16 year old sister taken off his life insurance, saying he had to make his new wife his sole beneficiary.

And he asked if he could "run the divorce papers down to the court clerk to save time in getting them filed.”He had honeymoon reservations already made for a cruise, following his new wedding in a few days.

Class act!

| Fifi_the_bookseller

There’s no divorce in dream house

This is not strictly from a divorce lawyer, but my wife and I heard this story from one of the attorneys when we were closing on our house.

This couple had put an offer on a house and put down $20,000 in earnest money.

So, the day of the closing, in the lawyer's office, they have a huge blow up. Lots of screaming and shouting. The guy gets so fed up, he says "screw it” and leaves the closing.

They never closed on the house, ended up getting divorced, but the seller of the house got to keep the $20k.

| DrMonkeyLove

The big spoon problem

When I was in school, one of my law professors told us why he'll never work in family law. He called it the big spoon problem.

His coworker was acting as a divorce lawyer for a couple, but the reality was that he was the husband's attorney, so he asked my professor to stand in as an attorney for the wife to protect her interests.

Everything had been worked out and the settlement was ready to go, when the wife suddenly asked "Wait … what about the big wooden fork and spoon?"

See, the couple had one of those big fork and spoon sets you hang in your kitchen, and they hadn't included who got it in the settlement agreement. They exploded at each other, each arguing heatedly why they should get the pair and both agreeing that they couldn't be split up.

Eventually, they almost came to blows, my professors stepped in between and it got him punched in the face by the woman.

Settlement agreements broke down afterwards and it had to go to court. Obviously, the problems were more serious than who got the big wooden fork and spoon, but it's amazing how a catalyst like that can set some people off.

| BforBandanna

Condensed milk murder

I was a legal assistant a few years back and we had a divorce for a couple from Hong Kong.

The wife was irrational, demanding and was nothing but (understandably) contemptuous toward her husband, who had been cheating on her for a long time. We had to send our process server to his mistress' house at least three times.

The time it had gotten truly ridiculous was around Thanksgiving. The guy was quite a cook and liked to entertain. While the couple was not speaking to each other, they were still cohabitating.

He had been boiling up a tin of condensed milk, a traditional if dangerous way to make dulce de leche, and had forgotten about it and went to work. He had called the home landline, her cell and her work phone to tell her to turn off the burner but she ignored it.

She had gotten home and saw the mess it had made on the ceiling and called us to ask if we could sue him for attempted murder.

They were both just terrible people who shouldn't have been married to each other, let alone anyone else.

| Scarl0tHarl0t

What a gas

A married couple got their gas utility account turned on at their house back in 1972, but the gas company never finished the paperwork properly.

They had free gas service for about 40 years, because their account was active but the billing was never set up.

Later they divorce and the husband gets the house with the free gas service.

The gas company finally caught the problem sometime around 2014, and they sent him a bill for a decade’s worth of gas.

The guy told the company to send the bill to his ex-wife.

There was a clause in the divorce settlement that said that if the gas company ever was notified or discovered the free gas deal, the ex-wife would have to pay any past bill payments.

The arrangement was made so that the wife could never alert the company to their error without having to pay herself.

What was amazing was that two lawyers and a judge signed off on this while fully knowing what the guy was getting away with.

| inskeep1

Man’s best friend

I've worked on precisely two divorces. They were both awful. The first was just a terrible abusive situation, sadly too common, and not a good source for stories. The second, though, was a mid-40s, DINK situation.

Upper middle class engineers, nobody was gonna go hungry at the end of it. Of course, we presumed it'd be a quick, painless negotiation. Nobody told us the husband was a raging alcoholic with no social skills.

Nobody told us that the wife was very attached to the dog.

We divided up the house, all possessions, the bank accounts — everything— in under a week, except for possession of the dog. She was convinced he'd put the dog down.

He kept saying it was man’s best friend, not women's. This case got slated for trial over who got the dog. I mean, that's downright extraordinary — that a divorce goes to trial at all is weird.

That it goes to trial with no kids is weirder. That it goes to trial where both people are financially stable and well-off is, like, comet-hitting-you unlikely. That it goes to trial solely over the possession of a dog is, so far as I can tell from talking to other attorneys, unheard of.

So, pre-trial conference, and the judge is flabbergasted that any of this is going on. He orders a final attempt at mediation to begin after lunch. The husband sneaks away from his attorney to have a liquid lunch and comes back absolutely trashed.

Starts yelling about how he's going to go home and kill the dog to deny her it. Tries to jump over the table. Assaults a bailiff. Runs out through an in-session court, with the presiding judge on the bench.

I never did find out how that one ended as my internship ended before the case did. But I'll always remember it as the moment I decided that I didn't want to do family law.

Fortunately for me, my current boss doesn't take those cases whatsoever.

| ANewMachine615

Caught on camera

I know a man who was falsely accused of domestic violence during the separation from his wife.

She lived in the marital home and he paid for everything, despite her having a full time job. She got a boyfriend who didn’t work and allowed him to live in the house — while she was still married.

My friend went to meet her at the house for a final time to decide who would take what from the house.

He was recording everything on his phone without her knowledge, as he was afraid something would be said or happen that might be held against him.

He left and found out she had called 911 and reported that he had made death threats and assaulted her.

The divorce went downhill from there.

He spent $14,000 on lawyers to have the charges dismissed. During his criminal ordeal she sued him for $250,000 in alimony.

The recording saved him with the police and to this day she insists he assaulted her. An unbelievable mess.

| tinkthechi

A dog-eat-dog divorce

A man came into the family law firm and says his wife is cheating on him. He's extremely rich and wants to get divorced.

The lawyer proceeds to ask him about his assets and what he wants to keep. He says that she can have the house, the car, the boat and the kids.

The lawyer asks him what he wants to keep then, given that he doesn't seem to want anything.

The man angrily responds, “That woman only loves her dog. I want her to suffer, so I want the court to order that the dog be taken away from her and cremated.

She can have 50% of the ashes, and I'll have the other 50%."

At this point, I’m beginning to sympathize with the wife and think that this supposed “affair” may have been completely justified.

And despite the crazy, somehow I'm still interested in practising in family law.

| askkasan

Years down the drain

My 90 year old client (the husband) and his son retained me to initiate divorce proceedings with his 88 year old wife. They’d been married 60 years.

The wife had recently taken to beating him with his own cane, because their daughter poisoned her into thinking he was hiding money from them.

The battle came down to husband and son versus wife and daughter.

At their first court appearance, my client showed up in an old 1950s style pinstripe suit and fedora.

He was a farmer his whole life, and this was clearly the only suit he owned. He was such a meek and lovely old gentleman.

I had to pass my client onto a new lawyer midway through the proceedings because I accepted a job in a different country, but I understand the divorce was eventually granted.

| horrifiedwitness

Second life, second wife (or husband)

Lawyer here.

One of mine that sticks out is that the husband and wife both played some sort of online role-playing game, sort of like the Sims I think but a little more elaborate and adult.

The wife got heavily involved with the game, like 10 hours a day, and wouldn't reduce her time playing no matter how much he begged and pleaded.

What tipped things over the edge, however, was that he set up a fake profile and went online to stalk her in the game.

He found her avatar having an affair with some random guy's avatar.

Nothing ever happened in real life (they were both pretty awkward people) but that was enough for the guy to initiate a fairly bitter divorce.

| yeerkslayer

Jell-O, goodbye

I'm not a divorce lawyer, but one of my high school friends told me that his parents had a pretty ridiculous reason for getting divorce.

His dad was using the stove to make Jell-O. His mom said Jell-O is too fattening and tried to grab the pan out of his hand to dump it down the sink.

He pulled the pan back while she was trying to snatch it, and she called that act of refusing to throw out the Jell-O "spousal abuse."

He packed his bag and left that night — moved to a town 1,500 miles away where he knew literally no one, just to get away from her.

They had been married for over 20 years, and I think that was just the last straw.

Their divorce also ended up costing them thousands of dollars. It was the most expensive Jell-O I think anyone’s ever had.

| andrado

She needed to practice her calligraphy

I took my now ex-wife to court because she had used my Social Security number to sign up for cable.

I found out about it when she stopped paying for the service, and the debt collectors started calling me twice a day. She really didn’t think this one through, and I’ll explain how she messed up.

We show up to court, I turn in the contract from the cable company, showing that indeed my Social Security number was indeed on the contract, but her own name was signed on the dotted line.

She didn't even try to forge my signature! She signed her own name and then tried to deny that she had any part of it.

The judge tore her apart and it was extremely satisfying.

| hardlyatwork

Reality check

My friend is a lawyer that specializes in family law and divorce. I hate to be a party pooper, but many of the stories here are outliers.

Divorce is actually pretty easy, if both members are normal and even-keeled.

He said many people come in peacefully together. It's not necessarily the standard, but it happens, "way more than you'd expect."

Sometimes two people just want to get a quick divorce and move on with their lives.

He said that sometimes they'll devolve into a bit of a battle over assets, but not usually.

He said one couple, after their divorce, sent him a Christmas basket one year. Basically they wanted out and he helped navigate the legalities of it.

There was no fighting or long, drawn-out court battles. Everyone left happy.

| formalchicken

Deals with the devil

Failed exorcisms.

Client had an inner ear condition that caused chronic vertigo, but symptoms could be treated with medication. Husband was an evangelical who was convinced his wife:

1. Had become possessed, and that her vertigo were evidence of demonic possession.
2. The medications she was taking were enabling the devil to hide inside her .
3. The only proper recourse was exorcism. He would hide her meds until she got dizzy and then try various methods of exorcism.

This included:

1. Sweating it out — He put her under blankets while incapacitated and locked her in an overheated room.
2. Freezing it out — pretty much the reverse with AC, fans and bags of ice.
3. Surprising it out — he would jump out and scare her like it was the hiccups, but instead of yelling “Boo!” he would recite the Lord’s Prayer or Psalms.

The final straw was that he tried to “surprise it out of her” by pushing her down the stairs when they were heading out for dinner.

The final, final straw was when he spent thousands of dollars to have a priest come and try to do an exorcism for real.

| queequeg789

Goal digger

Unmarried woman comes in and asks, "So, what do I have to do to get his house?"

"Um, you really shouldn't be getting married if you're already planning to end the relationship."

"Yeah, but what do I have to do?"

"Well, if you're married and live in the home, it become a matrimonial home and you have an equal right to possession upon divorce."

"Thanks."

Client calls again: "He wants me to sign a prenup."

"Well, this would limit what you would be able to get in a divorce, and it doesn't really give you anything. Why are you getting married if both you and he know that you're only in it to get his house?"

"Okay so I shouldn't sign it?"

Client calls again a month later: "Okay, we're married now, but he won't let me move in."

|wpaattempts

Surprise, I’m your wife

I live in Brazil, and my fiancée is an assistant to the judge. She was telling me [about] this case, and it made me really, really sad. Some dude was driving a truck that was over weight capacity and poorly maintained.

[The] truck malfunctioned somehow, he crashed, went into a coma.

Dude woke up a couple days later in the hospital and found an ex-girlfriend by his side. She said she'd heard about the accident, and that she was there to take care of him.

Dude was in the hospital for a really long time, and wasn't quite himself in the first couple of weeks — not sure if due to drugs or due to some injury from the accident.

Since he was restrained to the hospital, someone had to take care of his business. He had to apply for 'paid disease absence' with the INSS (which is the equivalent to U.S.

social security) amongst other things. So, he gave his ex power of attorney.

She took care of all those things for him. She even got an actual attorney to sue the truck owner (his employer) on his behalf. Dude got stuck in a wheelchair after the accident.

When he left the hospital, they parted ways on good terms. Then he found some girl, fell in love [and they] moved in together. A year later, his lawsuit ended, he won a small amount as restitution (US$30,000, Brazil doesn't have punitive damages) plus a lifetime pension.

Not a week later, he was surprised by divorce papers.

The ex-girlfriend that took care of him used her power of attorney to marry him without his knowledge. She heard he had won the lawsuit and asked for half the restitution and half his lifetime pension.

The marriage had been conceived under obviously fraudulent means, and thus would be easily voided. Had the dude's lawyer realized that and requested the marriage to be voided. He didn't and the judge is forbidden by law to grant something that wasn't requested.

So, the marriage remained valid, which means she was entitled to half his earnings.

| Anonymous

Why did you get married?

Not strictly divorces, but my family law professor had some good stories: In one, the client calls:

"Hi, can I kick my pregnant girlfriend out of the house?"

"You really shouldn't do that."

"But can I? Legally speaking?"

"Since you never married, and the home is in your name, yes, you can legally exclude her, but you really shouldn't."

"Thanks — I need you to explain that to someone."

Client opens the door, where police are getting ready with a ram, and hands the cell phone to a police officer.

Another story:

Unmarried mom comes in and asks: "So, what do I have to do to get his house?"

"Um, you really shouldn't be getting married if you're already planning to end the relationship."

"Yeah, but what do I have to do?"

"Well, if you're married and live in the home, it becomes a matrimonial home and you have an equal right to possession upon divorce."

"Thanks.”

Client calls again: "He wants me to sign a prenup."

"Well, this would limit what you would be able to get in a divorce, and it doesn't really give you anything. Why are you getting married if both you and he know that you're only in it to get his house?"

"OK, so I shouldn't sign it?"

Client calls again: "Okay, we're married now, but he won't let me move in." Family law is crazy.

| WPAttempts

Um, he’s crazy

I’m getting my counseling license and taking legal/ethics classes. One crazy story is while a lady is in her counseling session, her husband comes in and says to the receptionist that he's her husband and he won't be able to pick up the kids because he has to go into work right then and [asks if] the receptionist [could] let the client know when she gets out of the appointment.

The receptionist says yes.

When the client comes out of her appointment, the receptionist passes along the message and the client says, "Are you serious? He isn't supposed to know I'm here … we're in the middle of a divorce and he's crazy." TLDR: Train receptionists to say, "I can neither confirm or deny that person is a client."

| Every_of_the_time11

He really rigged it

The husband in a very high stakes divorce managed to hide two apartment complexes, an ocean-front penthouse in a very expensive city. Oh, and an offshore oil rig.

He was a high rolling business executive-type that really knew his way around the law. It was practically criminal what he got away with.

All his assets were held in two offshore companies that the wife did not know about.

It only came out very recently, about two decades later, when the husband died and left some of that property to their two sons (who were able to see the property histories).

Still no word on who inherited the oil rig.

| andyjams

Double agent, triple crossed

This wealthy husband had a listed income of $1.5 million. He made most of his money here on the East Coast.

At the end of the divorce process, it was revealed that the husband had another family in Seattle. He went by a different name, and had an additional $14 million salary.

How was he discovered living the double life?

Seattle wife posted a picture on Facebook and tagged him with his West Coast name. East Coast wife posted a similar photograph of him — the facial recognition software tagged him as his West Coast name.

But wait, there's more! Turns out he has a third wife and two children in the Czech Republic. He had moved to the United States to avoid family court and is still being pursued for extradition.

| coldzero

Keeping it in the family

During my dad's last divorce, it came out that his wife had been having an affair.

The thing is, her last three marriages had ended because of her infidelity. Yes, she cheated throughout her last three marriages, and they all ended acrimoniously.

It was with her first boyfriend.

Who was also her step-brother.

Neither her nor my dad wanted to settle, and it ended up coming out in a hearing or trial in front of the court.

The look on the judge’s face was absolutely priceless. Why go through three marriages just to end up with the same guy?

| attheeolian

I pronounce you man and wife, or not...

I’m not a lawyer, but this happened to a friend-of-a-friend of mine and boy is it a doozy.

Girl keeps nagging her boyfriend about marriage, but he doesn't want to marry her. The thing is, he doesn’t want to break up either.

So he tells her they'll have a “destination wedding” on a tropical island with a local ceremony. Says it will be very romantic.

They fly out there to tie the knot.

Here’s the kicker: there was no legally binding ceremony.

He just hired some resort staff to pretend to officiate a fake marriage ceremony and no marriage contract was ever drawn up.

The guy then dies years later, and that’s when his “wife” finds out she was never married and is not in the will.

| Anonymous

Pay your taxes

Buddy of mine got divorced. He had a contracting business and was doing quite well.

During the divorce proceedings they decided to sell the business and divide the proceeds. They sold it for over $2 million, and she got 60% in lieu of alimony.

Well, the selling of the business triggered a tax audit and when all was said and done they owed over $700,000 in back taxes and penalties.

Back to court they go.

He claims, "Since she took 60% off the business she should take 60% of the debt. The judge agreed with him.

Unfortunately for her, she had pretty much spent all the proceeds from the divorce and now owed $420,000 to the government, plus accumulating interest.

| Anonymous

Bring down the house

My mother divorced my dad when I was around two years old.

My parents had bought a house together, and my dad’s family offered her fair value to buy the house from her.

She denied the offer and put it up for sale publicly.

My dad’s family bought it for 40% less than what they offered my mom in a public bidding auction.

Twenty years later and my mom absolutely hates this story, but my dad still jokes about it to this day.

They’re still friends, but it’s a bit of a sore spot.

| sterone2

Justice was served

I’ve worked as a legal assistant for two family law attorneys for the last eight years.

One of the cases that made me the angriest was a man who cheated on his wife when she had cancer.

He then leaves his wife and attempts to hide all his assets while she’s undergoing chemotherapy.

Fortunately, my boss is an absolutely ruthless lawyer.

She teamed up with a forensic accountant and they took him to the cleaners. Found everything, all his receipts and assets he tried to hide.

He wound up paying out the nose for the divorce. He even had to pay the forensic accountant’s bill and attorney’s fees.

Let’s just say, make sure you think twice before cheating on a lady with cancer.

| crepesuzette

Bad taste in women

I’m an accountant, not a lawyer, but I’ve still seen some pretty messy divorces in my time. The messiest divorce happened to a friend of mine.

He divorced one woman and then quickly fell into a relationship with another girl half his age. She messed around on him.

They had started a business together but all the designs were his. She wanted the designs.

I went in as his witness and testified about the amount of money they had invested and that yes, the designs had all existed before the marriage.

Well, they spent months fighting about it.It ended up costing them $35,000 each in legal bills. Both ended up filing for bankruptcy.

Luckily, he got the designs and business. Not so luckily, he had to sell his house and leave town.

| Anonymous

Lawyer up

Not a lawyer, but I remember my friend’s mom’s divorce from her second marriage.

I guess there is a rule where if an attorney has interacted with Party A while on the clock, they can’t offer services to Party B.

I suppose it’s a conflict of interest thing.

So, my friend’s mom called every divorce lawyer within a 100-mile radius and essentially boxed her ex out of a lot of decent representation within a reasonable distance.

If you’re going through a divorce, definitely don’t do this. The judge was not happy when he discovered the little stunt she pulled.

I’m not sure what happened during the divorce proceedings, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

| threadbare_penitence

Motorhome mystery

Here we go — law student here.

I worked for a semester for my county counsel's office representing the Public Administrator, which is probate.

A woman married a wealthy doctor in Santa Monica (Californians know where I'm talking about). After a few years of marriage, she runs off with her boyfriend to my county and steals the motorhome in the process.

Not only that, but she changed the mailing address of every bill the couple was responsible for. Doctor files for divorce. But two weeks before the divorce trial, she was hit by a car in a parking lot and was killed.

Her estate is suing the driver for wrongful death. There is a heavy dispute between her mother and the doctor about what (if anything) the estate is owed with regards to the doctor's money.

When she changed the mailing address to the bills, her step son's car insurance stopped being paid and he got in an accident. So the doctor is suing her estate for an insurance tort.

And for the missing motorhome. Which we still can't find.

| Anonymous

Fifth time’s the charm

My first divorce case was the most memorable. My client was a nice looking, 50-ish waitress who was breaking hearts at the local small town cafe. She was on divorce number 5.

I had a little lawyer kit of things she should do — clean out the joint accounts, change the car title, etc. She had done all of them, plus a few things neither I nor the professional list-maker had thought of.

Husband No. 5 came into my office to cry and concede everything. Now that was a guy who needed a lawyer with a list. No such luck, — she screwed him over gently, professionally (I thought) and didn't overreach too much, but got everything she was or might have been entitled to, plus a little more.

Was easy peasy for me. Helps if your first time is with an experienced woman. I learned a lot

| AnathemaMaranatha

My dad’s novela

My parents divorced was finalized September of 2014, but the separation of assets is still opened. The short of it is that my dad has always been really jealous. About two years ago my dad got it in his head that my mom was cheating with a baker/police officer in our home town (Mexico).

He hired two guys to watch her 24/7, they confirmed that she was cheating and said they had a video. Well $8k and my dad's sanity later, there's no video and my dad is mentally ill.

He hired someone else to kill this baker/police officer, thankfully they too just took his money and did not kill him.

He started going to brothels. He said he would leave my mom on the streets and has attempted to pay off judges. My dad was always a good hard working man, now he is someone I don't know.

Some say it's a mid-life crisis, but the guy is 65 years old. I feel if it was a crisis it should've happened years ago.

My dad thinks he lives in a Colombian Novela.

| warriorapple

These divorces are so brutal, you’d think the spouses would have seen the red flags early on and ended the relationship before it got this far.

Then again, plenty of people see the worst of their partner and carry on with the wedding anyway. For instance, all of these people experienced horrific tales of a bridezilla … and still the weddings went forward.

Penguin suit

Tuxedo salesman here.

Bride and groom came into the store to get tuxedos. She said "I need a penguin suit for my fiance." Now I don’t give this too much thought, as that's not a particularly uncommon phrase.

But then she pulled out a picture of a penguin and I had to match that.

She made him get a tails jacket and black vest, spent over an hour figuring out what shoes looked like the most like flippers, and then made me special order a shade of orange bow tie that most closely matched the penguin's little scruff thing.

The seven shades of orange we had were not acceptable.

| Arusso64

Champagne taste on a beer budget

I’m best friends with the groom but not as close with the bride. In the past year, I started becoming close with the bride. She asked me to be a bridesmaid, I got excited and said yes — not knowing how much it would be.

I was under the impression that because the bride and groom don’t have much money, myself and our friends don’t have much money, that the wedding events would not cost that much

The bride is really obsessed with fairy tales and princesses (which is really cute) but she wants the wedding and bridal shower/bachelorette party to be this huge fairytale that she can’t afford.

She planned the bridal shower herself but gave each of us roles.

She assigned one decor item and one food item to each of us — which is fine. But each “item” she wants is A LOT of money so the price is a little high for our budget.

Everyone that knows her keeps saying she has champagne taste on a beer budget. I was thinking of telling her I can’t afford all of that but this happened: her best friend chose desserts and pictures for the bridal shower.

She was thinking she could make cupcakes or something like that. But the bride texted her saying she wanted certain desserts and this would cost $400 alone. The girl said I can’t afford to spend $400 on bridal shower desserts (because we still have a huge list of other things to buy).

The bride texted her back and said “I understand you work hard for your money and it’s yours but you just got your nails done and bought a pet fish.

I really thought you’d spend the next two months on my wedding and then go back to buying things you want after.”

This is making me want to drop out of the wedding.

| Comfortable-Fig6874

No makeup allowed

My best friend is getting married this summer and she’s been a bit of a bridezilla but I figured it has just been stressful having to cancel and reschedule her wedding and such with COVID. She ended up cutting people out of her wedding party and now it’s just me and her maid of honor.

Since the wedding party is small she asked if we would be okay with doing our hair and makeup (yes). Except today she told me that she and her maid of honor were going to be getting their hair done at the salon and then having a makeup artist come in to do their makeup the day of.

I’m pretty hurt, but I don’t mind doing my own hair and makeup. To be honest I’d rather just do my own makeup since I don’t like people touching my face.

After I mentioned that to her she replied to me with “well if it’s okay with you, I’d rather you not wear makeup to the wedding since you will look way better than me if you do.” I was shocked.

I laughed because I thought she was joking but she said she was serious and told me I could wear mascara and that’s all. She doesn’t want me to “outshine her because I know you will” on her day.

This hurt a lot and put some other things into perspective for me such as her ordering me the wrong size dress and having it look like a potato sack on me and her saying “no you look great!” Or her intentionally leaving me out of getting my hair and makeup done.

I feel really upset and I’m not sure what to tell her.

| universalstarseed

Pricey princess

Me and my childhood bestie have always been friends and she got engaged five months ago to her boyfriend of six months. We’ve been planning our weddings since we were 14 and she always wanted a castle wedding with a ballgown.

Two months ago she found her dream castle in which she booked the wedding in four months. She just asked us for a $280 dress and for us to pay 1/10 of a $2000 wedding dress.

There's six bridesmaids which is $200 plus a $14,000 bachelorette party — which is $2333.34 per person, plus a $600 bridal shower.

The total is $2,913.34 which I can't afford. I am still in university and finish a few months before the wedding but I am $100,000 in debt. I told her I can't pay for her wedding dress and bachelorette party — not even including the flight.

She wanted us to also pay for makeup and hair and wanted me to dye my hair dirty blonde. I am a redhead and can't dye it back. She also wants us to get her wedding gifts from the registry and pay for our own dinner.

I told her at this point I can't afford that and she freaked out saying I am an A-hole cause it's her big day and I helped her plan it at 14.

I told her I am not in a financial situation to do this but I can try to work my butt off to afford it.

| erktx

Backup bridesmaid

One of my boyfriend's best friends got engaged about a year ago. His fiance and I were pretty close. When the time came for her to ask people to be in her bridal party I was not asked and also not super off put by it — I understand that you can't have everyone.

The part that upsets me is that she kept telling me if there is anyone in the bridal party that causes drama she will get rid of them and I can be the honorary bridesmaid.

Well fast forward about three months ago and I went out for supper with her and the maid of honor. They had been arguing about problems with the wedding for a while.

Then they start drinking. This causes them to get emotional and the bride asks the maid of honor if she even wants to be part of the wedding, to which she replies yes.

So the bride is happy then, she turns to me and says "I know you're not a part of the wedding but if you want you can come hang out with us in the morning and get ready.

You can also pay to get your hair and makeup done."

They continue to drink and get into a heated argument about how the bride wants her there but the maid of honor doesn't want to be there. I'm just sitting there watching it all play out.

Any time I have hung out with her since then all she talks about is the drama in the bridal party and honestly it feels like a chore to hangout with her when I used to genuinely enjoy it. Two weeks ago she asked the maid of honor to leave the bridal party because of the drama and now I am being asked to be the "honorary bridesmaid.” I honestly feel like this is the same as being chosen last in gym class.

| graphixgurl747

Something blue, something stolen

My friend, we’ll call her Mary, got married last week and I was in her bridal party.

I was supposed to attend the wedding with my own fiancé but he contracted COVID five days before we were supposed to leave and made the choice to stay home for everyone’s safety.

Our 5th anniversary of our first date was two months ago and he got me a beautiful opal necklace on a gold chain specifically to wear to the wedding because it complimented my bridesmaid dress.

I asked Mary in our bridal party group chat if she was alright with us wearing our own jewelry to the wedding, she said no problem. Day of the wedding comes, all of us bridesmaids and Mary meet early in the morning for pictures outside the chapel.

Mary sees my necklace and loves it and actually asked if she could switch her necklace with mine.

Some other bridesmaids chime in and say that it would be her “something borrowed.” I tried as politely as I could to tell her that my fiancé got this for me to wear to the wedding and especially since he can’t be here, I’d like to keep it on.

Mary and the other bridesmaids were persistent, saying it was her wedding and her pictures and I wasn’t being accommodating, but I firmly told them no. Mary then said if I could at least take it off since it looked nicer than her own jewelry.

Again, I told her I’d rather not. She was not happy, neither were the bridesmaids. I received a lot of cold shoulders and dirty looks at the ceremony and reception.

After the first dance, Mary’s sister came up to me to tell me just how upset Mary was and how rude it was that I upset her on her big day.

| BlueRoses95

Shallow bridezilla

I am a 27-year-old woman and my fiance Emily and I have been engaged for the last two months. Everyone important knows about us and is happy for us to be finally engaged.

At least that's what I thought. Emily has been battling cancer the last few months and because of chemo, is bald. She has really bad self-esteem and confidence because of it (among other things) and hasn’t really left the house since finding out about her diagnosis.

A mutual friend of ours was engaged when Emily found out about her diagnosis and was originally asked to be a maid of honor but now that she's bald was asked “to wear a wig to cover her bald head" because it didn't suit her style of photography for her wedding.

Emily came home crying after looking for bridesmaid dresses after she was demanded which wigs to wear by the bride and told me she felt uncomfortable about attending the wedding. I felt like this was rude and said to the bride that Emily was uncomfortable with her treatment and her reply back was that "she felt uncomfortable about a bald bridesmaid and that if she didn't wear the wig she wasn't allowed to attend the wedding.

I told her that we both wouldn't be attending, but now we have left her two bridesmaids short a week before the wedding.

| Anonymous

Blindsided with a blind date

My friend Mary and I have known each other since we were children. We’ve grown apart over the past few years but she still considers me important enough to make me a bridesmaid.

One reason why I distanced myself from her was because of her treatment of my relationship. My boyfriend Jack and I have been together for 3 and ½ years. He’s a wonderful person, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is the man I want to marry, but Mary is under the impression that Jack is “too good for me.”

Jack comes from a very wealthy background — this is in stark contrast to my childhood. Jack’s good looks and background have led Mary to believe that Jack deserves better than me.

According to her, there’s no way I could have pulled someone so attractive and rich.

Mary invited me for lunch with her fiancé and his friend Gary. He asked me why I was single, and I told him that I was in a happy committed relationship.

He was taken aback by my answer. He told me that Mary had set up a blind, double-date of sorts for the both of us. I was very confused. Luckily Gary wasn’t upset and ended up making a few jokes about the whole ordeal.

I called Mary later on in the day and asked her a ton of questions about why she thought it was okay to do that. At first she tried to deny it, but then she tried to justify it by saying that “Gary is a man who’s more in my league,” and since he was also a groomsman we needed to get to know each other better.

I was shocked by her bluntness, so I just told her that I didn’t want to be her bridesmaid anymore. Mary didn’t take it well — trying to apologize and saying that it was a mistake.

It’s been a few days and her fiancé has been texting me, asking me to suck it up for the wedding.

| notreallyadoubledate

Sorry you can’t make it

A few years ago a very close friend got engaged and wanted to throw a conventional engagement party for around 40-50 people. I was her bridesmaid and had a nice party room in my condo that I kindly offered to her for the party, plus all my help in decorating the place and paying the deposit fees.

While we were planning the date she said she wanted it in April. I told her that any day in April would be fine, except for one Saturday of the month that I would be away for work.

And all that she said was "yeah, it's such a shame that you can't go to my party.” This happened in the very early stages of organizing the party, so it's not like she had hired caterers or any other services.

At the time I was shocked with her answer but didn't say anything.

I thought that she was going to at least consider moving the party to the next weekend to have me there since it was happening at my home and there was literally no reason for her to choose that date.

Yet she was willing to throw the party without her only bridesmaid there.

When I was paying for the $300 non refundable rental deposit fee for the party room they walked me through my responsibility as a host and I realized that I couldn't just have 50 unsupervised strangers using my party room without my presence there.

I told her and after throwing a tantrum she moved the date one weekend up.

| sudokueggs

The trouble with twins

My twin sister, May, and I are identical. At the end of our first year of college I was in a car accident and I ended up with a facial scar and major trauma.

I also got a physical, started working with a dietician to fix my diet and the smorgasbord of vitamin deficiencies it caused. I started working out with our older sister.

By the end of our first year of college, we had each gained about 30 lbs. By the end of the next year, I had lost half of it. I found a new beautician and she gave me long layers and I stopped spray tanning.

I live in a rural area and the internet isn't great. Things like Facetime just aren't options, and I can't post a lot of pictures on social media because of it.

This is relevant because a big issue is that May didn't see me over the quarantine.

We talked on the phone a couple times a week, but it mostly revolved around her wedding planning (she got engaged before the COVID lockdown). I wasn't her maid of honor, so mostly I was being told decisions, not involved in the process.

When it came to the bridesmaids' dresses, May sent our sister, sister-in-law and me a link and told us to get it in our size. May didn't see any of us until the start of the wedding.

She was livid. Apparently, she thought we would have stopped working out because of COVID or that we would have stopped when she announced her engagement, so we didn't upstage her.

She was mad because I didn't try to hide my scar and didn't tan and thought it "would be implied."

She made several snide remarks before throwing a drunk temper tantrum at the reception, basically accusing us of trying to upstage her.

| Anonymous

Going broke for the bride

I am the maid of honor for Julia’s wedding.

Julia has always had selfish tendencies, but friends kept her grounded. She has always expected people to pay for her, but is frankly non-reciprocal when the tables are turned. Since moving to a new city and meeting her fiancé, it’s been hard to manage her expectations.

Julia’s fiancé is great, but he has enabled her selfishness because he is financially well off. To paint a picture, he pays for everything — $12k a month on rent, $10k a month on gifts, vacations and a $200k wedding.

They are having a destination wedding. I spoke with everyone about their budget for her bachelorette. Most said 1-3 days and $200-$500. I thought this was really generous. Myself and one other bridesmaid could max afford $1000.

Julia wants to go somewhere “epic” for her bachelorette for a week. When I priced out what she wanted, it was $2000-5000 per person. When I told Julia this was “too big of an ask” she cried, called me selfish and made comments like “I would do this for you!”

I explained that spending money is a big sacrifice because we don’t have the same financial freedom as her and we would not expect our loved ones to take a financial risk for our benefit. This was met with spite.

Now I’m being called out for being cheap and not supporting her special moment — I’m stunned at how everyone is behaving.

Is it really fair to expect others to spend that much for wedding events? Is it fair to expect a maid of honor to pay for other people's costs to meet the bride's expectations?

Am I missing something?

| ThrowItAway7199

The Great Gatsby: bride edition

My best friend since the day I was born is finally getting married. This past summer she asked me to be part of her wedding as a bridesmaid.

We had a dress try on party which was exciting and expected but found out the only type of dress she wanted would be over $200. This was the first time we were all expected to bring gifts for the occasion and throw a party for the bride which we were all happy to do.

At the party she decided to tell us all that we will also be required to pay for hair and make-up if we want it and find a specific shoe for the big day.

Not a big deal but wondering what she will be chipping in for.

Now moving on to the bridal showers — bridesmaids are expected to provide all the liquor for a 300 person event, come a day in advance to make all the party decorations and provide a gift off the registry for the shower.

Last but not least the bachelorette parties. We are expected to spend $1,000 just to attend the events. This is not including food and drinks. The second party will be more low key at her parents house for the people that aren't invited to the first one.

We are expected to get at least one registry gift for this event. Plus, can't forget we need to get one more registry gift for the wedding!

I am feeling a little put out for this wedding cost wise as we are all in our 20's and two bridesmaids just turned 18. I have mentioned things are getting a bit over the top but as she and her parents are fairly wealthy she doesn't see how this could be seen as expensive.

It's honestly stressing me out that my friend would think this is normal to spend all this.

| tryndye-1

Replaceable bridesmaid

I was thinking about bridezillas and I was reminded of an experience a friend of mine, we will call her Daphne, had with a bridezilla, who we will call Tara.

Daphne and Tara had been friends since they were young. They lived about an hour apart, attended the same church, talked frequently on the phone and got together for sleepovers.

As they got older, Tara’s family stopped attending church but Daphne and Tara still talked occasionally.

Daphne got married and due to her husband’s inability to pick among his friends, ended up with a larger complementary bridal party which included Tara. Tara bought the dress Daphne selected (a modest red dress with cap sleeves for less than $80) and Daphne bought her jewelry.

Tara already had shoes to wear. All went well.

Fast forward a year. Tara asks Daphne to be in her wedding party. Daphne reluctantly agrees. Tara selects a form fitting strapless bridesmaid dress for her party. Daphne is mortified as she is overweight and the dress is very unflattering.

Tara brushes her concerns aside and pushes on. Daphne reluctantly bought the $200+ dress, leaving it with Tara.

Months before the wedding, Daphne finds out she is pregnant. She will be almost six months pregnant when the wedding is scheduled to take place. She contacts Tara and asks to be removed from the bridal party.

Her dress would be too small, and she had been feeling uncomfortable in the dress anyway.

Tara was enraged, but she quickly found a substitute bridesmaid. Daphne was relieved and asked about repayment for the dress — Tara refused.

Ultimately, Daphne was never paid back for the dress that her replacement wore. She ended up not attending the wedding. Daphne did not speak to Tara for years after this.

| Vindwyn

How much is too much?

I’m the maid of honor at one of my best friend's weddings coming up this spring. I love her like a sister and it is an honor to be a part of her special day.

However, the costs she expects me to cover are really adding up.

The costs include — bridesmaid dress ($250), alterations costs ($200) and shoes ($50). The bachelorette also had some specific requests — it is two hours away from where we live and she wanted a two night stay.

My cost is going to be around $500. She also requested that I host the bridal shower for about 35 people and wanted a few things like a mimosa bar and some fancy treats.

Roughly this will cost $350 or more potentially. We also need to cover the costs for our hair and makeup which is $250. So in total I will be spending $1,850.

That doesn’t include the two gifts either — one for the bridal shower and the other for the wedding.

We are both financially stable, but I feel really stressed about the costs. I definitely expected to pay for certain things like the bachelorette and my dress, but when she asked me I had no idea she was expecting us to spend this much on everything.

| Comfortable_Desk_138

The last straw

I have been friends with the bride for more than 15 years. But in the last four years I have been feeling disconnected from her. We have such different hobbies, interests and friends.

Most of the time, she is not able to relate to any of my interests and she barely listens and ignores what I say.

When she got engaged, it made me extremely happy and I boasted about it everywhere. They started to plan their wedding and I was the one who was expected to help them and be the main bridesmaid.

I was happy to help — I didn’t mind staying up late after midnight to be on the phone with her and help them choose a dream destination.

Day by day, she voiced ridiculous requests that made me feel really uncomfortable. The wedding place must have a big dining room for 150 people and cannot be separated because everybody must be able to hear the speeches and cry.

She got mad at one of her friends because she hesitated on going to Thailand for her bachelorette party due to her job and the upcoming peak season. I wasn’t thrilled either, because I know not everyone would be able to go due to each one’s financial, occupational or family reasons.

I tried to be diplomatic and persuade her that we can have it as an option and come up with an alternative solution, since I believe she would be happier if all of her friends could come instead of choosing a destination where half of them wouldn't be able to make it.

The last straw, however, was when she boasted that her fiance allowed her to spend all of his money on the wedding and that she is sorry that my boyfriend doesn’t do something like that for me.

From that moment, I didn't want to spend time with her anymore and distanced myself from her. It has been almost three months.

| Daybeforetmw

Breaking vases

I went to my cousin's wedding — let's call his fiance, Beth. The ceremony was gorgeous, in a garde with the couple under a vine-covered pergola. While the gentiles were having their pictures taken, I noticed the maid of honor having strong words with the bride.

The groom's sister, a bridesmaid, let's call her Claire, told me that Beth was freaking out on the maid of honor to put back on the earrings that all the bridesmaids were wearing or she would ruin the pictures.

The maid of honor was having a reaction to them. Claire said her earlobes were so swollen she couldn't put the backs on.

Dinner was inside, buffet style. I was in the ladies room when I heard yelling in the hallway. The bride was freaking out on her planner and the catering manager because there wasn't enough food, even though BOTH of them had advised to up the amount because at a buffet you can't control portion sizes.

The chef says he can add more sides and salads for a fee, but she's basically screwed on the prime rib and chicken.

Somehow Beth had found out that in another dining room there was a 50th wedding dinner for a couple, and they were having prime rib too. She demanded he give her any remaining roast.

He says no, so she then screams at her planner to get it for her or she's fired. I leave the ladies room because I want to see faces.

The chef is clearly astounded and the planner says there is no way that she's going to ruin her reputation or working relationship with the venue over a situation that Beth created by not following their advice.

Beth grabs a vase of flowers off the side table between the restroom doors, smashes it to the floor and screams “you’re fired!”

| More_Hold4833

My big fat vegan wedding

So my brother got married last weekend. He and my new sister in law had known each other for a few years now. She had been vegan since she was 12 and had also converted my brother in recent years, so they decided to make the wedding vegan.

Basically, this meant that all the food was vegan and they used petals from their garden instead of plastic confetti to make the wedding as eco-friendly as possible.

The problem I often have with eating anywhere is that I have multiple allergies: peanuts, soy, sesame and a mild shellfish allergy as well. The first three are very serious and have landed me in hospital in the past because of cross contamination.

I talked to my brother about if there would be anything safe for me to eat at the event, but because they're using a local lady’s business as the catering service instead of something professional I did not feel comfortable enough that there was absolutely zero chance of me having a reaction, especially because the allergens were ingredients in many of the dishes.

It felt too risky, so I said I'd bring my own food and he agreed that was the best option.

The wedding day arrives and it comes time to eat. Everyone is digging into the food, and I pull out my tupperware quite happily and dig in when I see the bride staring at me with horror on her face.

I had bought a homemade salad box which had two eggs on top and she literally just stared at me in disgust the entire time we ate without saying anything.

After the meal was finished, she pulled me to the side and said I ruined her meal, her appetite and her day and that I'm clearly "a selfish person because I can't even go one meal without animal secretions in a vegan wedding.”

| landofsunshine1

Bridezilla as match maker

My fiancé and I have been together for seven years. He has a best friend, John, who is now getting married to his fiancé, Kim.

Kim is a very possessive and controlling person and has been this way since I first met her seven years ago. She came into my fiancé's friend group as John's girlfriend but she always tried to dictate who anyone was allowed to invite and she claimed she and her own best friend are the only "females" allowed around the guys.

She wanted to set up her best friend with either my fiancée or another guy from the group who was single. The other guy moved away for some family business and my fiancée stayed in our hometown so Kim was trying to set him up with her bff.

My fiancée wasn't interested at all. When he got with me Kim was very bitter and would take it out on me by insulting me and trying to dictate whether I can join them in outings and all that.

She said she and John are allowed to hang out together because they're the "main couple" but not us. She always tried to exclude me in order to pair my fiancée with her bff.

We got engaged a year ago and Kim was bitter about that and even my fiancé's best friend said how Kim hates hearing of our engagement because "there goes her plan.”

Now they're getting married and my fiancé is a groomsman and Kim's best friend is a bridesmaid. She wants to pair them together, sit them together, have them share intimate, romantic dances together and she said random guests like me will be sat in the back of the room.

I'm like yeah, I’m out.

I had enough of that disrespect. My fiancé was also offended by all this and said he'll attend as a guest but he cannot be a pawn in someone's wedding because the bride tries to plan something shady.

| That_Climate2632

Stag and dough

This is about my friend’s upcoming wedding this fall and her stag and doe. Isn’t the purpose of a stag and doe to raise money for the wedding? My friend is having a tiny wedding just over state lines and calling it a destination wedding (1.5 hour drive) and only inviting 20 guests.

They’re most likely doing it in a hotel conference room but the ceremony is on the beach, so that will be pretty. It’s not going to be a big traditional expensive wedding.

My husband wasn’t invited. Her friends aren’t except me and one other person. However, she texts me asking me to Venmo her $80 from both of us for stag tickets.

My husband can’t even go because he’ll be traveling for work.

I will be giving her a wedding gift and paying to stay overnight, doing the bachelorette stuff and OBVIOUSLY was going to get a ticket and go to the stag and doe.

It just struck me as rude to text me “hi can you Venmo me now? I’ll put the tickets in your mailbox.” The stag is two months away and I would think I’d be seeing her before then but we haven’t hung out since March.

| bearsywearsy

How dare you get robbed?

Went on a bachelorette trip with my cousin. Destination: Austin, Texas. I was the maid of honor. The trip was going great — we stopped to do some sight seeing.

I had to use the bathroom so I ran down the street to a hotel. After relieving myself, I headed back to the group.

On the way I was attacked by a homeless person. He tried to rob me. I made it away with only some scratches and a bruise. When I made it back to my group, I tried to explain what just occurred but they cut me off quickly saying “it’s the bride’s day it’s not about you.” I was very confused.

The bridesmaids got in my face — not going to lie I got verbally defensive because I was still in fight or flight mode. But I never said anything to the bride.

To make a long story short the bride texted me after the trip to tell me I could no longer be in her wedding and neither could my kids who were supposed to be flower girls.

Proceeded to tell me I wanted her life and she lives “the rich life.” Her parents are middle class and she still lives at home. She told me I would have to tell my daughters they can’t be flower girls and it’s all my fault because I almost got robbed.

| Swimming_Excuse5690

Accidental gender reveal

I am not close with my family. I live in a different state, so I don't have much contact with them. My brother got married last weekend and invited me.

I told him I'll come and not have a plus one. My husband and I recently separated, and after that I found out I was pregnant.

My extended family didn't know about the separation or about the pregnancy. I told my brother I was pregnant when we spoke on the phone before the wedding. My family knew my marriage was very rocky and my parents knew about the pregnancy.

So I am 7 months pregnant right now and getting a divorce. When I showed up to the wedding, everyone was super shocked to see me be pregnant and alone there.

During the ceremony, the priest mentioned my pregnancy to make a joke or whatever about what is next for the bride and groom — babies, something like "and after your baby, hopefully many more will join this beautiful family of the bride and groom.”

Bride was pissed off, because now EVERYONE knew I was pregnant. During the picture taking part of the reception, my brother says "okay and now I want to take a pic with my favorite sister and my FIRST nephew.” I laughed and said "niece, actually" and he was super happy.

We took a picture.

Bride came to me later and called me out for up-staging her wedding with not just my pregnancy but also the "baby gender announcement.” Her family is obviously on her side, my brother thinks she is acting crazy and I did nothing wrong and my parents think I should have informed people I was pregnant before coming to the wedding and should have kept quiet about gender.

| Breakmyheart94

It’s bride o’clock

My friend is getting married this summer. I have just been advised that we are required to be at her venue for 7 a.m. for hair and make up. She is not having a ceremony this day and the reception is in the evening.

I have two small children and their preschool does not open until 7a.m. and I am an hour away — I would be an hour late. I have asked the bride what the time slot is for hair and make up and if I can be a little late so I can get my kids to school and be one of the last people to go.

There are about eight people doing hair and make up, but she refuses to tell me the time slot. I have asked her to simply ask the hair and make-up company if it would be an issue and she also refuses to do this.

I am just told “you’re to be there at 7 a.m, so the time slot doesn’t matter.”

She also said “you were sent a save the date a year ago” and “you are the only one causing me stress and making your problems my problems.” I have brought up the point that if I am just sitting there for hours does this need to be such a big deal?

She basically told me if I’m not there for 7 a.m. I don’t need to be in her wedding. I have already purchased the dress. I just feel this is extremely unreasonable — you spend so much money to be in someone’s wedding and there is no appreciation and they deem it acceptable to treat you with demands and ultimatums?

| Inevitable_Ad_6998

Princess bride and her frogs

So my cousin has a wedding in less than two months. At first she sent everyone invites with some leafy design and told us to choose our dresses and costumes according to those leaves' colors.

There were a whole bunch of different greens, so fine, whatever. I looked more at minty shades, it’s a summer wedding and I wouldn’t want to blend with trees and grass and all of that.

But no. Next thing I know, the bride sends new invites with a new dress code. Green grass and lemon yellow. Sheesh. Good thing I didn’t buy a dress by then.

So my relatives and I discussed the colors and figured we could choose different shades of grass or something, so we wouldn’t blend together in a one big naked Shrek.

Some time later she sends new invites.

Yep, you guessed it. She added pictures of exactly two shades of green and one yellow we are allowed to wear. We will look like one big frog and she’ll be like a Thumbelina in her white wedding gown.

| Annelieze

Ring toss

I've been a wedding vendor (hair and makeup) for over 10 years now and I can probably start my own subreddit with the stories that I have. One that comes to mind happened a little over a year ago.

My team and I were on location at the hotel where the bride was staying, getting her all done up for her reception event. She had a big gap between the ceremony and reception and opted for an entirely different hair and makeup look than her ceremony.

After we were done, we started packing up, at least my team members did. I typically stick around for any last minute touch ups. Big mistake. This bride's husband walks in, they start chatting, she looks at his finger and asks where his ring is.

He said something along the lines that it didn't fit right and he was afraid he would lose it.

This girl starts screaming, crying and shaking, saying things like, “if you don't want to wear the ring then I'm not wearing mine either” and “what's the point of being married — should just annul this wedding.” She takes off her ring and flings it at him.

The groom walks out. At this point, I didn't know what to do — her makeup was running, I had to either leave quickly or stick around and clean her up — but she was like a ticking time bomb.

Her mom was in the room and went up to her to console her. She lashed out on her mom.

Finally, her father comes in and whispers a few things to her, calming her down. And then I was asked to fix her up. I did my job, and then ran the hell out of there before another meltdown occurred.

| bridalmakeupgalny

The wedding DJ

I worked as a caterer and a wedding DJ for about 15 years.

I was DJ-ing a wedding in a shabby little reception hall out in the middle of the sticks for a redneck bride and groom.

The bride was wasted by the time I started playing my set (around 8 p.m.) She came up to me right away and told me that I need to play the song “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy)” like every four songs, and I try to tell her that it's a bad idea but she insisted, so I agreed.

About an hour into the night I play the song for the 10th time and people in the crowd started to boo. Please note that everytime I played the song I passed it off onto the bride by saying something like "it’s time for a special request from the bride," so as to not destroy my reputation.

So people boo and start walking off the dance floor. Bride sees this and loses it.

She runs up to the stage and demands the mic. "Get back on the dance floor, or this thing is done!" Her guests ignore her. She yells again and no one pays her any attention.

She then marches over to the cake and gift table and flips it over, yelling "EVERYONE GET OUT OF MY WEDDING."

Her guests who did not seem all that surprised end up leaving. I still got paid so in the end it did not matter too much from my end but wow… Just wow.

| itsalltruesteve

The toilet tantrum

She slapped me during the reception.

Her dress had this massive organza skirt. It was beautiful but utterly impractically designed. It took at least three of us to hold up her skirt so she could use the restroom.

On the second trip to the restroom, with all of us holding this dress up while she hovered over the toilet, she ordered me to wipe her.

She. Ordered. Me. To. Wipe. Her.

I declined.

So she slapped me.

The skirt was dropped by all parties while I shouted obscenities at her. She screamed that if I didn't do this for her, this friendship was over.

She tried to apologize years later, and seemed surprised when I was not interested in rekindling our friendship.

| isstronglikebull

Loose lips sink (relation)ships

Planner here — I’ve seen everything.

Bride invited her ex-boyfriend to the wedding because “he’s just a really good friend.”

During the reception, her husband of two hours went to the bathroom, and she plants a kiss on her ex. She notices that I saw and promptly reminds me to mind my own business.

Two days later I get a call from the groom who informs me that the bride is extremely upset with my “unprofessionalism” and wants a refund. She wasn’t happy that I “made a scene” by running outside to tell them about the bill, in an effort to save them from additional charges.

I asked him if he was aware of the scene she made when she kissed her ex-boyfriend on the dance floor while he went to the bathroom. He hung up.

| imabigdiva

The FBI got involved

The bride had me charged for fraud.

I'll explain. I was a bridesmaid for a pretty laid-back bridezilla. Her only request was that she had asked me to order items on her behalf from Amazon. I would place the order using her account, and have the items shipped to my house for storage.

I stored a giant pile of her wedding goods in my apartment for months. It was a huge inconvenience.

After the wedding was over she called Amazon and said that someone had hacked her account and used it to order wedding items. She got a chargeback on all the items on her credit card, and I got a call from the FBI.

Tina if you're reading this, that was rude. I thought we were friends?

(I had written proof, thank goodness.)

| carlywithak

Heart attack

The father of the bride had a heart attack.

As he was being carried out on the stretcher to the ambulance, the sobbing bride yells, "How could you ruin my wedding like this?!"

Really?

| Remberzz

Every rose has its thorn

My wife's best friend is a florist by trade. She gifts her services to decorate her friend’s wedding. Big cost savings. Wedding goes as planned and all is good.

Afterwards, the bride and her mom get annoyed at florist friend who didn't give a gift in the wedding card: "She didn't even cover her/husband's plate."

Let's conveniently forget the $1,000 in floral products gifted to the wedding. It's a rift that's never healed between them since.

| Hardatit

Liar, liar

The short story is that she lied.

She lied to the venue about the number of guests that were attending, effectively packing us like sardines.

She lied about having a "day-of" staff. That meant that all the groomsmen spent the day hanging flowers, running to get kegs and waters, pouring the champagne for guests, and setting up the entire venue the day before.

She lied to the hair and makeup personnel about the number of people who were obtaining services in order to get them to come to the site. This forced guests to get hair and makeup done in order for "the bride not to have to be charged extra."

She lied to the catering about the number of guests — this caused them to run out of food and alcohol.

All in all, I think her lies saved her $1,500, but cost her close friendships since her attitude toward the whole situation was indignation instead of being apologetic.

| yelloworchid

No blondes allowed

Bride was blonde. All bridesmaids except for me were brunette. She asked me to dye my hair brown for the wedding because she “wanted to be the only blonde.”

I suggested that instead I just give up my bridesmaid spot.

Thankful to this day that I said that. I heard the dresses and bachelorette party cost all the other girls more money than I make in a month.

| kmmurky

Meddling momzilla

How about momzilla? I was the planner for a wedding and had been working with the bride and groom. A few months into planning, the groom’s mom calls me to change the date of the wedding.

I thought it was kind of weird and called the couple to confirm the change. NOPE! Couple did not know anything about the date change and said to completely ignore the groom’s mom and call them if she tried to get in contact.

| girlfridayfail

My boss's wedding

My first job out of college, my boss got engaged and asked me and three colleagues to be her bridesmaids. I had only known her for a short time, but I didn't feel comfortable saying no because ...

well she was my boss.

In addition to being in a wedding for someone I barely knew, there were so many horrible things about this nightmare bridezilla wedding.

First, I ended up hosting both her bachelorette and her shower because no one in her life planned anything.

She showed up to her own shower an hour late, hungover, and wearing pajamas when she demanded that everyone dress for a luncheon.

She ordered our dresses from Etsy and they looked like seafoam green raw silk pillowcases with holes cut for the arms and head. They tied in giant bows at the back and we all looked like literal infants.

She wouldn't let us wear heels with said "dresses" because the groom was kinda short and we all had to buy new flats in a specific shade of gold.

She wanted us to wear our hair in a really ugly, extremely complicated updo — and said we would have to pay to have one of the hairstylists to do our hair (we refused).

The wedding was on a Sunday and the venue was far and inconvenient. No, it wasn't a long weekend.

The rehearsal dinner for this Sunday wedding was Thursday and started at 4 p.m., requiring everyone to leave work in the middle of the day.

She forced us to stay at an expensive hotel in the area the night before the wedding for no apparent reason and refused to pay for our hotel room.

| gabygygax

Bride's big day(s)

Bride had two weddings. Pretty different financial backgrounds between us.

She had one wedding in the local state where she grew up and one destination wedding a month later.

She couldn't decide which dress to get, so she bought three.

I was maid of honor at the local event and was supposed to be part of the destination wedding. Had to overdraw my bank account to attend and cover expenses; I was really in awe at all the extravagances.

It was a three-hour ceremony with two venue changes. "I want what I want!" and "It's my day!" still ringing in my ears just thinking of it.

She went into $60K of credit card debt for her perfect day(s) — she told me the day before that she had not informed the groom.

| gigatroness

With friends like these

My best friend just got kicked out of being a bridesmaid because she couldn't spend the $1,500 to go to the bachelorette party — all the other costs were killing her.

The bride told her to take out a credit card to pay for it.

One of our friends made the best comment over the situation: "She (the bride) just did you the best favor ever kicking you out of the bridal party."

| awayfrommymind

'Til death do us part

I worked as a bridal fitting assistant in a wedding dress shop.

Probably the worst I ever saw was a woman who claimed her fiancé had died so she wanted a refund. Then she came back in demanding the same dress back because they'd made up.

Turns out he wasn't dead after all.

| hippiebanana

Destination wedding

Went to a wedding in Cuba once (live in Canada) and after paying to fly and stay there and getting a suit (wasn’t wedding party, just a close friend), I only gave a $100 cash present (since the rest of the trip easily cost me $1,300).

The bride’s family had the nerve to email me asking why I only gave $100 as a present, especially since I had the privilege of seeing the wedding in person (was a guy just out of school at his first job less than a year).

| orswich

Call me 'Mom'

I recently attended my father’s fifth wedding in August of this year, of which I was not asked but required to be a bridesmaid. About 24 hours after the wedding, my new “stepmother” was screaming at me in front of the entire wedding party for not referring to her as my mother.

Keep in mind, my real mother is very much alive and we are very close.

| ConspiracyBarbie

I do (but I don't want to)

When my friend was a bridesmaid, she received an astonishingly detailed itinerary of how to behave on the wedding day, with notes like "9:52 a.m.: Compliment the bride on how she looks on the most important day of her life."

On the actual wedding day, the bride repeatedly got angry with my friend for not adhering to the itinerary. This was after several months of the bride expecting my friend to be available at a moment's notice to take care of any wedding chores.

They haven't spoken since the wedding day.

| chestnutmoss

Clean freak

Caterer. Mother of bride found a single spot on a knife on a single setting. Demanded that the entire reception ($60K) be free.

She was not writing the check so she was shot down pretty quickly. But there was much rage.

| remorsefulsurvivor

Expensive taste

Picked $400 bridesmaid dresses. Destination bachelorette that cost over $1,200. Insisted on a super expensive spot for the bridal shower. Registered at William Sonoma.

I was a broke college student, but managed to pay for all this junk and give a gift.

| notatumor1990

Makeup your mind

She said from the start she was going to pay for makeup to be done on the day.

Two weeks before the wedding, said I needed to drive two hours to go buy a really expensive makeup brand for myself to wear, which I did, even though I was broke from Christmas shopping.

Then I was criticized for not giving a gift, despite being told “being a bridesmaid was gift enough.”

| ajlawford

The band played on

I'm a violinist who plays in quartets at weddings.

One October, my group was to play at an outdoor wedding.

It was 45 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The bride refused to move the ceremony inside (there was a very nice facility to do so; this was at a fancy hunt club), even though we and her guests were freezing.

Her poor bridesmaids wore strapless dresses with no shawls or anything to keep them warm! It was awful, and my group actually had to put in our contract that we will not play an outdoor wedding if it is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit, as it can ruin our instruments.

On top of that, the bride never thanked us, and apparently everyone got so drunk at the reception, the venue kicked everyone out early.

This is a venue that probably cost close to $10K to rent out for the day/night.

| breannabalaam

She didn't plan for this

My brother's girlfriend works with a well-known local wedding planner, and had been working many weddings with this planner. She finally worked solo one day with this massive bridezilla (she found out that day).

The couple had hired her a couple weeks before the wedding and clearly had no clue what the job is supposed to be. When she showed up early in the morning on the wedding day (for an outdoor wedding down a hill from the house that was locked for hours), she was met with essentially an entire antiques market.

The bride wanted a rustic Pinterest look, but had gone overboard and bought way too many tacky items.

The entire day was horrendous, with this planner working without eating until about 11:00 p.m. The bride had wanted a wedding planner AND a decorator.

After the wedding, she complained to get her money back.

| Anonymous

Bride's special ... year?

A bride once called having a meltdown because her friend got engaged as well and was planning to get married in the same year as she was ... Apparently it was her special year and not just a day.

She threw a huge fit that this girl was only getting married to "steal her thunder."

Yes, because no one else can have a life at the same time as you. Her friend's date wasn't even in the same month or season. Hers was in October and her friend’s was in June.

| sillykitty1990

A total knockout

Friend is a photographer. Does weddings. Got punched in the face by the groom because the groom decided that the photographer was "taking too many photos of the bride."

Weddings seem to bring out the worst in humanity.

| Anonymous

Callous and catty

My dad had the audacity to die six weeks before the wedding, and she couldn't understand why that superseded her wedding details for me. I met my husband at her wedding, haven't spoken to her since.

| Anonymous

Evil stepmom

My Dad remarried. Come the wedding day, his (soon to be ex-) bride stepped out of the limo, and pushed me away from her when I tried to give her a congratulatory hug (I was 11).

That part of the wedding threw me off, and sure enough six months later they were divorced.

| wishery

Seeing green (beans)

This was the most expensive wedding I had catered up to that point. Around $100K. The bride went absolutely crazy because she was given cut green beans as opposed to French-style cut green beans.

She was rude to everyone and spent the entire reception screaming at her new spouse. He looked miserable and beaten down at his own wedding.

Three months later, she never made the final payment on the food or the venue. Why? Because she couldn’t afford it — her divorce lawyers were costing her a fortune.

| Rachernobyl

Grotesque groomzilla

Late to the party, but my ex-husband was the groomzilla. I didn't mind him being more involved than most men because it was my second wedding, but he ended up taking total control.

I chose my dress and that was it. The rest was him.

The one thing I really really wanted was live music at the ceremony; I had to beg for months. He finally relented, and then changed his mind during the ceremony.

It set the tone for the rest of our marriage, which only lasted a couple of years.

| countryblumpkin

Sassy sorority sisters

My sister had 10 bridesmaids. Most of them were her sorority sisters from college.

They wanted to plan an elaborate weekend for the summer, but most of them were still in school and unemployed.

When I asked “Hey, who will pay for this?” my sister got annoyed that I even asked.

| SashWhitGrabby

That makes saying the vows complicated

We weren’t allowed to talk directly to the bride ... like at all.

Her mom and maid of honor were the only ones allowed to talk to her.

| specialendeavor

Drunk in love

Wedding starts late because groom hit the bar during the day.

Bride is mad that her new husband is slammed before dinner, so instead of helping him sober up ... she proceeds to get super inebriated as payback.

It was a Tuesday.

| wasteddingo

The bridesmaid contract

We had to sign a contract vowing things like:

1. We wouldn't get any fake tans because no one was allowed to be tanner than her.
2. No false lashes, her lashes were to be the longest.
3. No teeth whitening done. Her "smile was to shine the brightest" (exact from quote from the contract).
4. $400 bridesmaid dress, $100 shoes and $250 rented jewelry we had to buy on our own, despite the fact her family was loaded and I was broke.

Looking back, I wish I would've had the courage to just decline. It was awful.

| accomplishedolive

Extending the guestlist

My best friend’s wedding shower was a nightmare.

Originally, she wanted to host a wedding shower for just 10 guests. My parents aren’t well off, but they offered to host it for her, since she had been a longtime friend of mine.

Three days before the shower, she told us that the guest list was actually going to be 45 people. When we told her that we couldn’t accommodate that many, she asked us if we were purposely trying to ruin her big day.

I dropped out of being a bridesmaid for her wedding and we never spoke again.

| Anonymous

Labor pains

I work with a man who was married a few years ago. He and his wife-to-be spent a year planning their lavish wedding.

A few months into the engagement, they found out that the bride’s cousin, a bridesmaid, was going to start IVF (in-vitro fertilization) to hopefully become pregnant. She and her husband had long struggled with infertility, and could finally afford to begin IVF.

The engaged couple was furious with the cousin for not waiting to start her family, because they didn't want her to be hugely pregnant on their big day.

What ended up happening? The cousin made it to the wedding, and ended up going into labor the next day.

No problem, right? Wrong.

As my co-worker was telling me this story, years later, he was still bitter about it, telling me how selfish they had been to not wait, and how much the nine-month pregnant woman at the wedding and the excitement of the birth the next day had taken away from their “special day.”

| Anonymous

Love, honor and o-beige

My friend was a bridesmaid at her college friend’s wedding. One day when I visited her, I saw her fuming over a beige gown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

“That’s what I’m wearing to K’s wedding.”

“Umm, okay. What’s wrong with it?”

“When we went bridesmaid dress shopping, she asked me what color I should pick for the bridesmaids. I told her to pick anything but a nude or a beige color because it would look really dull on us.”

I bet you can already see where this is going.

On the night of the wedding, K’s husband told my friend that K purposely picked a dull colour for her bridesmaids, as she wanted to look the prettiest that day.

| Sindhu Satish

Drink it in

After the ceremony we headed to the cocktail hour, and the wedding party stayed behind to take pictures. We had to wait for almost two hours for the bride and groom to show up (so that the reception could start).

Fortunately, there was an open bar. All of the guests (I’d say around 50 or 60) went to the bar and got a drink. One drink. (This is important.)

When the bride and groom finally arrived, one of the waiters approached her father and let him know that his deposit on the open bar had been met — did he want to close the bar or put more money down?

The bride overheard this and LOST IT.

She proceeded to stand up on a chair and start screaming at everyone there about how rude and selfish we were for taking advantage of the open bar.

Her dad tried to hush her by telling her it was okay, but she wasn’t having any of it. She picked up a bowl, threw it on the table, and yelled that each of us were going to chip in and pay for the drinks we had had.

So, we joined the majority of the guests — we walked up to the bowl, dropped a few bills in, walked over to the gift table, picked up what we had brought and left.

| Rhoda Engelauf-Allen

Skinny love

Between the time I agreed to be a bridesmaid and a couple of months before the wedding I lost some weight. She got angry at me because she wanted to be the skinny one and threw me out of the wedding party.

| Anonymous

A real piece of work

Groomzilla story here.

During toasts, the groom took the mic and jokingly said, “Welcome to my first wedding!”

It was a cringeworthy moment and didn’t get a lot of laughs. Mostly awkward silence. I didn’t get a look at the bride’s face, but she must have been mortified.

Anyway, the groom was a real piece of work in other ways, too. They divorced after a few years.

| Dan Rosenberg

Toss the bouquet (and your hands in the air)

I work in a flower shop.

We had a bride and her mother show up at 9 a.m. They wanted to order a full set of flowers for the wedding party, and the wedding was scheduled for noon.

Yep, three hours from then, and they wanted them ready by the time they were done with their makeup appointment at the beauty parlor a few doors down.

All the flowers she wanted require at least three weeks to ship from our suppliers. The bride was absolutely gobsmacked that we didn't carry extremely expensive and highly perishable flowers at all times.

My boss told them that they would be limited to what we had in stock. The bride and her mom kept arguing that we should have those specific flowers in stock.

The bride started whining that we were going to “ruin” her big day. My boss told her she had ruined her own day by not ordering her flowers before her actual wedding day.

The mom tried chewing out my boss for her lack of customer service skills. My boss told her that she was welcome to try the shop down the street.

The mom said she'd do just that, and reassured the bride that she'd have her flowers done by the time her appointment was over. Both women stormed out.

I figured that was that, but my boss told me and the other girl to start on six simple boutonnières. Meanwhile she threw together a ribbon-wrapped bridal bouquet with some white roses that were nearly past their prime.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later the bride slunk back in and meekly asked if we were still able to assemble what they needed. We did. We also charged her a very large bridezilla tax — ahem, “rush fee.”

| Haceldama

Dress rehearsal

My mom and I saw a great bridezilla freak out while shopping for my wedding dress a few years back. We were in a small, local shop when another mother-daughter duo came in.

The mother said they were here to pick up her daughter's dress, so the attendant looks her name up in the computer, frowns, and says, "Ma'am, you never bought the dress."

"What are you talking about?"

The attendant shows the lady the notes on her computer screen. "You said you wanted to think about it, and asked if we could hold the dress. We held it for two weeks, but when we didn't hear back from you, we assumed you didn't want it."

"Well, we want it now."

"It's been over eight months," the attendant explained, "We sold the dress a long time ago. But I can order you another one, and have it expedited here in a few weeks."

And like a volcano of entitlement, the eruption began.

"This is unacceptable!" The mother shrieked. "We have her alterations scheduled in two hours! The wedding is a week away! I can't believe you sold her dress!"

The bride, meanwhile, is slumped against the desk and sobbing.

My mom and I are just open-mouthed staring at this point. The attendant was trying to be diplomatic, but is clearly as baffled as we are. "Ma'am, we had no way to know you wanted it.

You never called. You never put down a deposit. The dress isn't yours until you pay for it."

After some more screaming from the mother and wailing from the bride, they left. The shop attendant came back over to us and I asked her, "Does that kind of thing happen a lot?"

The poor lady was just deflated. "All the time," she said.

It baffles me to this day.

| Atomic_tango

Color clash

Wedding band member here.

Had a bride flip her lid on me and my bandmates because our instruments weren't white or salmon colored to fit in with the decorations, and she was saying we would ruin the photographs.

Even though I was playing during the reception and all the photos were already taken.

| OrbitalCheese

Cake face

I once worked in a bakery and we had this bride freak out that her cake wasn't right, and proceeded to smash it to bits with her fists. The thing is, it was another couple’s cake.

She smashed the wrong cake.

The cops allowed her to wash her hands before placing her in handcuffs.

| foxlust

No love for old blue eyes

The groom had planned and practiced singing a Frank Sinatra song to his new wife. During the reception, he took the mic and, with the band backing him up, began singing the song.

His new wife suddenly stomped across the dance floor and up on the stage, grabbed the mic from him and said, "I hate that song. I don't want to hear it." They divorced a year later.

| AverageJoe5555

Totally fabricated

When I worked at a fabric store, if I heard someone mention the word “wedding,” I would intentionally go to another department to work.

Without fail, every bride to walk in needed 25 yards of a discontinued fabric, she wouldn’t have the SKU (just a little sample piece), and it would take hours to resolve.

If you couldn't magically summon an identical product out of thin air, she'd flip out because her wedding was in three days and now there were no table runners.

After a while, you just stop feeling sorry for them.

| standbyyourmantis

T.M.I. bride

I was supposed to be a bridesmaid in a wedding of a male friend. I had tried to befriend the bride because the groom was a childhood friend.

She was a total drama queen.

She used our wedding chat to constantly discuss all of her problems with the groom — the ring was too small, they never talked about finances before getting engaged and now she's not sure he makes enough, can you get a prenuptial agreement for children you don't have yet?

I could write a novel about it.

Keep in mind that we were all friends with the groom long before we met her, but if we didn’t back her up, she’d say that we were "bad friends."

Eventually I was replaced as a bridesmaid, did not attend the wedding and do not speak to either of them anymore.

| notplus8

Don't rain on their parade

Bride and groomzilla story here.

They had an outdoor wedding with no back-up plan (in case of rain) on the shores of Lake Michigan.

It poured rain that day, but the happy couple requested no umbrellas because they wanted to be able to see the faces in the crowd.

Well, they were able to see the very wet and angry faces of people whose clothes were ruined while the bride and groom stayed dry under the gazebo.

| MajorMustard

It's not a competition

I was a bridesmaid and my husband was a groomsman.

The bride banned us from looking at, speaking to or dancing with each other for fear of “out-cute-ing” the happy couple. We'd been married for 5 years at this point.

We complied with her wishes, but the request alone was outrageous.

| themackeroll

Totally tan

She demanded that I grow my bangs out months before because, "I don't want anyone's hair blowing in the wind, it all has to stay perfectly still."

Also, I'm quite pale so she insisted I had to get a fake tan.

I originally bought a pale tan color to look more natural, but on the morning of the wedding she made me pile it on. It was pretty hot that day so subsequently, it stained my pale pink dress.

| gooperchickenface

Blonde ambition

I was a bridesmaid for a high school friend.

At the time, I had bleached my hair blonde, and it didn't turn out well. Before the wedding I had it changed back to my original color — the color I’ve had all my life (except for the awful month or so of bleach).

I showed up for the wedding ceremony, and the bride had an epic meltdown, because, “now all her bridesmaids wouldn't be blonde!”

Apparently, I wasn't asked to be a bridesmaid because she wanted me, just my blonde hair.

| rusty0123

Maid of honor, made to do chores

I was the maid of honor.

She demanded that I come pull weeds out of her parents’ yard a day or two before the wedding because the reception was at her parents’ house.

I had already gone through multiple ridiculous requests the week leading up to the wedding, so this one I put my foot down and said no.

Got through the wedding. No longer friends. She did send a gift when I got married. A centerpiece from her wedding, that I had helped make.

| radiolyss

Shave the date

My sister-in-law insisted that I shave off my beard for the photos — a beard I've had for over 10 years, and will probably have on my dying day (I look like a toddler clean-shaven).

She was eventually talked down by my brother, who pointed out that in a year it would look like they had a complete stranger in all their wedding photos.

| nowadaykid

Pucker up

She was a typical bridezilla, but it was during the photos that it all went real crazy.

During one picture, her and the groom were taking a kissing pic and decided that all the bridesmaids and groomsmen needed to be doing the same.

Despite much objection, we all had to kiss these girls we didn't really know, and the whole thing was super awkward.

| sbashe5

Her goose was cooked

The hotel brought the wrong main meal during the reception, and rather than just shrug it off and get compensation later, the bride insisted they re-cook the whole thing from scratch.

For 100 people.

This essentially brings the reception to an end as now all the guests have to wait an extra three hours to get dinner, pushing back the speeches to the end of the night.

The evening guests waited in the bar all night, then went home without ever seeing the happy couple. There was no time for dancing.

| sizemattersnot

An epic meltdown

Last weekend, a bride walked into the church four hours early. 30 people were in the middle of prayer.

In her super short makeup robe, she freaked out because the church wasn’t set up for the wedding yet, so she picked up a chair and threw it at a trash can.

Don't step on my shoes

My cousin married a vapid dolt.

The night before the wedding, she found out the flower girl had the same shoes as her, in a much smaller size. She flipped her lid and made the mother of the flower girl buy different shoes for her before the ceremony.

Bogey bride

I worked at a golf course that did a lot of weddings.

By far the worst thing that a bride did was send her guests to the reception venue with no food or drinks, while she drove around after the ceremony to take pictures.

People from out of town had nowhere else to go, so they would bring their kids or elderly relatives to a golf course clubhouse. Meanwhile, the wedding party didn’t show up for at least two hours.

One time, a bride and groom drove around for almost five hours after the ceremony and showed up inebriated, then threw a fit that roughly half their guests had left.

| soundslikesally

A spooky ceremony

My sister got married last year.

First, she got married on Halloween for no reason other than she got a discount on the venue.

So even though it's my favorite holiday, and our kids wanted to trick or treat, we all had to haul ourselves to her wedding — which was more than two hours away.

I am one of four sisters. She initially asked all of us to be bridesmaids, but ended up with one bridesmaid, because only one of us could afford it.

She wanted us to buy $4,000 dresses, with custom-made jackets and wanted us to throw her a bachelorette in Las Vegas.

| Anonymous

Turtle bride

In her religion or culture or family (I don't really know) turtles were a symbol of good luck, and mere weeks before the wedding she came up with the idea to have turtles at the reception.

How you ask?

She wanted live turtles walking around the reception hall with lit candles glued to their backs. Lit flaming candles.

She saw no issues with this plan.

We tried to explain that the turtles could get crushed or stepped on, that it was cruel to glue candles to their backs and most importantly that a lit candle at ground level could start a fire.

She threw a fit of epic proportions.

We finally came to a solution of adding turtle themed things to the table decorations.

Because that wasn't good enough for our bridezilla, we teamed up with some local reptile wranglers to line the walls with giant aquariums that had live turtles swimming in them.

We had to have a staff for the turtles and extra insurance for the hall. But we pulled it off for the turtle bride.

| sarabeth616

A never-ending to-do list

Six years ago my childhood friend got married.

Her requests:

• Refused to "approve" any shoe I picked, after claiming I could, "pick any shoe I wanted."
• Dis-invited my parents after sending invitations.
• Required we buy expensive makeup to cover up our visible tattoos.
• No up-dos (I have long hair, this does not ever work out well. Ever.)
• No pedicures or full sets of acrylic nails.
• Demanded $3,000 in cash gifts for her honeymoon to Walt Disney World. She was offended when she realized no one was going to pay for that.

I ended up pulling out of the wedding and ended the friendship.

Their marriage lasted two years.

| rtasoiaa

Flustered photographer

I was a wedding photographer and encountered a momzilla.

The bride's mom comes up to me at the beginning and tells me not to take any pictures of the groom's family. She said that they didn't help pay for the pictures, so they shouldn't have any pictures taken of them.

I told her that's not how it works and that I didn't feel comfortable doing that. She bickered with me a bit, and then left in a huff. Then she came back and said, "Well, just don't take pictures of his mother."

I ignored her request, and after a few drinks they were all dancing together.

| zohso

Bride in the bush

The bride wanted an unconventional wedding.

As in, a three-day-long campground potluck wedding for which the whole family was expected to fly cross-country, from New York to California.

We had to bring our own tents, sleeping bags and a hot homemade dish that you'd have to haul across 3,000 miles.

We respectfully declined to attend.

Another happened at a wedding I was blissfully not invited to, but my boyfriend was.

The bride forced the groomsmen to buy $4,000 Armani suits, but "couldn't afford" a traditional reception. Everyone who wasn't immediate family got kicked out right after the ceremony.

It's incredibly tacky to be so inconsiderate to your guests.

| Anonymous

It's my party and I'll pay if I want to

My sister-in-law was a bridezilla.

She wanted both a bachelorette party and a bridesmaids' weekend at the spa with multiple activities (chocolate making, fancy champagne bar and dinner) for which we were expected to foot the entire bill.

I was a poor graduate student at the time and couldn't afford to attend. Ended up getting fired as bridesmaid a week before the wedding.

| dahliafluffy

I'm going to a wedding this summer. Not only is it a three-day event that involves camping and staying at the site for that long, the bride is asking for help setting up and bringing stuff.

I will only be driving down for the ceremony.

I think it's pretty tacky to force your guests to provide free labor for your wedding.

| abqat

She wanted a free wedding planner

The bride wanted her bridesmaids (of which there were nearly a dozen) to not only plan her a shower and bachelorette, but also plan the wedding. Seriously.

Each person was given a task like, "narrow down and present top three photographers." Others were tasked with arranging the flowers, calling DJs and so on.

I was on the verge of tears about how stressed I was planning a wedding that wasn't even mine. None of my florists were acceptable. We live in a suburban area — there aren't that many to pick from.

Needless to say, the majority of us are no longer friends with this bridezilla.

| beachy5313

In sickness and in debt

The bridesmaid dress she picked out for me was $2,400.

I couldn't afford it and gently told her so. I found a similar dress with fabric that was the same color, so I asked her if it was okay if I wore that instead.

She cussed me out, told me I was ruining her wedding, that her "vision" required me to wear that dress. She asked if I couldn't just open a credit card to charge the dress on.

When I told her no, she cut off all contact with me, claiming that if I was a "true friend" I would make the finances work. She's never spoken to me again.

| Anonymous

Not the time or place

The bride stormed out of her parents' house (wedding was on her parents' farm), in her underwear screaming about how the groom had ruined her life, she hated him, hated her dress, hated her hair, hated the whole wedding and how she was in love with Jeff (the groom's best man and cousin).

The wedding party just stood back and watched while the whole thing went down.

After a few minutes, I took a pizza box, rounded up my boyfriend and his sister and we decided it was probably a good time to head out.

We drove back to the hotel and stuffed our face with pizza.

| canadianmaplesyrup

What a keeper

I saw a marriage fall apart before it even started. It was the most embarrassing moment I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing.

The bride arrived at the wedding — which was a huge event. Massive church. 300 guests. Everyone was seated and waiting for the bride’s grand entrance.

Suddenly the wedding music starts and everyone stands. By unhappy chance, I was seated behind the groom.

He turns around and as the bride is within earshot he said, “What the heck are you wearing?” The bride looked at him, understandably annoyed, and they started to bicker.

The priest had to intervene. Nobody knew where to look.

The bride suddenly took off her veil and threw it on the floor yelling, “Well if that’s the way you feel, this is over!” and marched out screaming, “It’s off!

It’s off!” The groom was left standing there with a red face.

For a brief moment everyone just stood there motionless. The groom disappeared momentarily. He returned looking disheveled and announced the wedding was off. We all left utterly shocked.

The reception went ahead however. It had been paid for and the bride’s mother, who said it would be a shame for all the food and drink to go to waste as it had already been paid for.

Quietest dinner I’ve ever attended.

| Rhys Hoffmann

A dress for every day of the week

One of my oldest friends turned out to be kind of a crazy bride.

The bridal party was twenty people — ten bridesmaids, ten groomsmen.

We were basically the unpaid wedding staff. We set up and completely decorated the venue for a 200-guest wedding.

The bride and her mother didn't want to pay the venue staff who would normally do this. What did they spend the budget on instead?

Seven wedding dresses.

Yes, throughout the course of the very long wedding ceremony and reception, the bride changed into all seven dresses. No, it wasn't a cultural thing.

They were seven nearly identical white satin dresses.

| kochirachira

An impromptu cookout

I was one of ten bridesmaids.

We were at a fancy venue, and it was a requirement that you use the catering staff in place. That didn't stop the mother of the bride from micromanaging in the kitchen.

We walk in, and she is yelling at the kitchen staff, telling them how they should be doing things. She sees us, and starts giving us tasks.

"Peel, chop!"

So there we are, sweating profusely, peeling and chopping.

Quick mental picture — I'm wearing a bridesmaids dress, with a fully open back and extremely deep V down the front. It was a garish purple color with a neon bustier underneath.

Impractical, unflattering and the absolute last thing I wanted to be cooking in.

| Anonymous

Unfashionably late

The bride was two hours late to her own rehearsal. This was very aggravating to all of the professional staff at the church who were required to be there.

It was equally aggravating to the restaurant staff who were expecting a large party at 7:30 p.m., that didn't show up until 9:30 p.m., at a place that closed at 10 p.m.

And then when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the bride was 90 minutes late for her own wedding because she was getting her hair done.

A full church, everyone waiting.

She finally arrives. Doesn't even apologize. Just interrupts everyone trying to talk to her to say, "Excuse me, but this is my wedding! I needed my hair to be perfect!"

| theicecapsaremelting

Sash and hustle

One of my "best" friends was getting married, I was to be a bridesmaid.

I was between jobs at the time so I ended up taking a temporary position at the company she worked for.

About halfway through the job, I got a great opportunity for a full time, permanent position in my field.

I couldn't afford to not take it, so I ended my temporary position with her company as gracefully as I could.

She took this as an insult and dumped me as a bridesmaid.

To spite her, I showed up to the wedding in a fabulous dress with a hot date. We went to the reception and drank/ate as much free stuff as we could fill ourselves with.

| rheabs

Pink-slipped

Bride told me what color dress she wanted me to wear — cotton candy pink (ugh). So I buy an ankle-length, chiffon cotton candy pink dress. Before I bought it, I sent her pics to confirm this dress was acceptable.

She gives me the okay.

The day before the wedding, I'm helping decorate and I see the other bridesmaids' dresses.

They are above the knee, empire waisted and black with fuchsia waistbands (like what a tween girl would buy for a school dance).

The bride had no intention of telling me I had the wrong dress. She was just going to let me show up and look completely out of place.

Thank goodness the store had more of the black/fuchsia dresses in stock. Even though I am totally the wrong body type for such a dress — I'm 5'8 and very curvy, squeezing into a dress intended for a 15 year old.

It was bad.

| riversong42

Party animal

The bride wanted two bachelorette parties. One that was raunchy and a secret from her mother, and another that was family appropriate.

We were to provide presents for her at both parties.

Then we were told that we needed to also bring her gifts for the bridal shower, and help pay for the cost of food and decorations for all three parties.

This was all on top of buying the bridesmaid dress, shoes and accessories. I had to tell her that I couldn't afford to put on all of her parties and supply a gift for each of them.

She then decided to cuss me out, call me selfish and ended our friendship.

It was horrible.

| Anonymous

Duking it out over digs

The bride wanted us to have that whole "mismatched bridesmaid dress" aesthetic without giving the bridesmaids (there’s seven of us) the option of actually choosing our own dresses.

What she did was choose seven dresses, send a photo collage of the dresses in a group chat and have us duke it out via text as to who would get what dress.

It was so awkward and hostile. I only know a few of the other bridesmaids, and I had no interest in arguing with strangers over text as to what dress I was going to wear.

So I just kept quiet and took whatever was assigned to me.

Luckily I liked the dress I got, but the whole thing was like a bizarre social experiment gone wrong.

| catbiscuit

Nashville, Chicago, oh no...

She wanted to have two bachelorette parties.

The first was in Nashville.

She cried and missed her fiancé the whole time, decided she hated country music and therefore Nashville, was upset that it snowed and finally sobbed and laid down in the middle of the street after finding out that her fiancé and groomsmen went to a casino for the weekend.

So we plan a second bachelorette weekend, this time to Chicago a month later.

We get there ... and she spends the whole time crying and missing her fiancé, deciding she hates snow and therefore Chicago and finally sobbing and laying down in the middle of the street because no one told our waiter it was "her special weekend."

| catsintinyshoes

Martyr of honor

I helped her plan her whole wedding, on a budget of around $3,000 for the entire thing.

• I made 120 lavender vanilla votive candles with custom lace and ribbon accents.
• I made all the bouquets/floral arrangements. She ordered about 500 red and white roses. None of them were de-thorned or trimmed down properly.
• I made the centrepieces.
• I hemmed all three of the bridesmaids outfits.
• I spent 60% of the weekend keeping her family from killing each other over petty arguments.
• And I took photos at the reception.

I saw her maybe three times after the wedding, and she hasn't called me in almost a year.

| jsqueaks

All that glitters is tacky and overpriced

She wanted us to purchase matching necklaces and jewelry.

Sounded just fine and normal, until we found out it was tacky, overpriced garbage from her sister’s jewelry business (she was one of the bridesmaids too).

The sister had convinced the bride to wear her jewelry on her wedding day in order to promote the business — which included promoting it to us, of course.

I didn’t buy anything from her, but she really turned on the sales pressure. It was an awkward thirty minutes of her trying every sales tactic in the book.

Thankfully, the bride completely forgot about the idea and I found a similar necklace from Forever 21. Wore that to the wedding instead.

| horsetailfeathers

Beauty was a beast

I was a bridesmaid for a friend who was a consultant for one of those multi-level marketing beauty companies.

So on top of having to buy a very expensive dress, shoes and jewelry, and having to pay for all my own hair and nail appointments, she made us buy our own “beauty kits” through her company.

This included moisturizer, face wash, as well as an entire face of makeup for the big day and the brush kit to apply it!

We still had to pay her friend to actually do our makeup on wedding day, with this makeup we bought.

Oh, and did I forget to mention this was a destination wedding?

Yeah, needless to say I re-evaluated our friendship after the wedding.

| 1radgirl

The micromanaging mom

I was maid of honor. I planned a modest bridal shower since the bride specified that she didn't want anything too extravagant.

Then one day I get a message from her mother, saying how rude it was that I didn't invite her extended family. She then invited about 12 extra people.

I was kind of annoyed, but whatever. I let her know that it was going to cost about $25 per person.

She then sends me a long Facebook message, saying that I was a horrible maid of honor because I wasn't footing the bill for everyone.

I explained that I was still a university student, and it just wasn't within my means. She wouldn't cut me a break, saying that I "didn't know basic etiquette."

It was such a nightmare, I never want to be a bridesmaid ever again.

| startissue

Spoiled rotten

Bride had three showers!

One for groom’s side, one for her side and one couples shower. Attendance and gift was mandatory for each.

Registered at top-of-the-line store only, with all designer items on list, nothing under $200.

Had to buy an expensive dress, dyed shoes to match and specific hair ornaments.

Wedding was at 4:00 p.m., bridesmaids had to be at her house at 8:00 a.m. so the photographer could get shots of every moment of prep for the day.

Bridesmaids got no lunch, no dinner. We had to wait on her, hand and foot. It was miserable.

Her and her husband are now divorced.

| whereeveriwander

Seeing red

I have red hair, I’ve been a redhead my whole life.

When I was a bridesmaid I was accused of deliberately being a redhead "just to be difficult," because all the dress colors the bride wanted looked great on her blonde bridesmaids, but terrible on me.

Then she got upset because my tattoos were going to be visible, despite the fact that her sister (and maid of honor) also had a large visible tattoo that no one ever said anything about.

Also, kinda like being a redhead, the whole time I’d known her I had visible tattoos.

I’m not quite sure why she asked me to be a bridesmaid.

| disloyalmouse

Jekyll and Hyde bride

I was so excited to be a bridesmaid for my best friend of 15 years, but the wedding process brought to light every negative quality she possessed.

Everything we did for her was never enough. Duplicates of parties that weren’t good enough, spending more and more money to bring her “vision” to life, accusing us of "ruining" her wedding.

I wish I dropped out. I regret it so much. I spent so much money I truly didn’t have because I wanted to give her a good experience and make her feel loved, but she was just so nasty about it.

It’s been nearly a year and we haven’t spoken. I never received a "thank you."

| vivagypsy

Held hostage

At my coworker's 400-guest wedding, she had the officiant make an announcement that no one was allowed to leave before the first dance (planned for five hours into the 15-hour-long wedding event).

She had an attendant stationed in the parking lot to note who did not comply, so that their friendship could be terminated.

| soundlife

My best friend's coworker is getting married later this year, and oh, man, this girl's got some problems.

She's very religious and "pure," which, if that's your thing, is fine. Whatever.

However, she told my friend last week that she doesn't want anyone at her wedding who was born out of wedlock. Which includes my friend, who is the daughter of a teen mom.

| babblepedia

Shake it off

Bride and groomzilla.

They had demands for specific gifts, followed by repeated online admonishments to "not buy gifts off the registry."

Apparently, the groom has expensive tastes, and any gift you tried to buy him would essentially be garbage compared to the stuff he prefers.

They selected completely inappropriate songs to play too early in the evening (when kids and older adults were still there).

While I get that they both wanted to get down and dirty at some point, you save the more mature songs for the end of the night.

You may love Dr. Dre, but Grandma doesn’t want to hear gangster rap.

| attheeolian

Not so in love

I was best man at my best friend's wedding. I was standing next to the couple at the reception and the bride was a bit loaded (groom was sober).

She said really loudly, "I'm not really that in love with you, but I think you'll be a good husband." The look on his face sucked all the joy out of me.

He tried to laugh it off and told her to hush, but he was tearing up as they walked away.

I was so sad for my friend. They are still married after five years, but I never know what to think about them and I've never spoken to him about it.

| winkers

The return of the nerd

I bartend weddings so I get to see like about thirty a year, and probably the craziest thing I've ever seen happened just a few weeks ago.

It was the end of the night, the bar was closed and the bride is leaning against the bar.

Some really dorky guy comes up to her and starts telling her how he thought they always were more than friends, and how he always felt they had a deep connection.

As if to just shut this guy up, the bride pulls his face toward her, plants a big kiss on him, says, "There." And then walks away.

| philmorrisjunkie

Sick sister

My sister was sort of a bridesmaid-zilla. She was totally inappropriate at the wedding, at least.

For starters, she got completely loaded in front of her two young kids.

Then, she spent the night flirting with one of the groomsmen who had a girlfriend.

Somehow, it became my responsibility to drive her home. At the beginning of the hour-long drive from the reception hall to home, she got sick and threw up on herself.

The kicker? This wedding was in December, so I had to sit with the smell of throw-up for an hour because it was too cold to roll down the windows.

| khulling

Clear out your savings

It was a best friend of mine who was very frugal, so I figured she was going to have a reasonable wedding and bachelorette party. I had shared my monetary concerns with her too — that I worked and went to school and couldn’t take off much time.

She didn’t have that many friends so it was only me and one other girl as bridesmaids.

She asked us to hand-make all her decorations for the wedding (I put in 15 hours a week hand-making decorations, all outside of working and going to school full time).

Then she planned a week long bachelorette party out of town, also asking us to foot the bill, not to mention our dresses. I wanted to find something affordable, but she picked designer dresses that we had to pay for ...

never worn it again.

I spent nearly $1K on the whole ordeal, not to mention I did her hair and makeup for free for the wedding.

I just felt largely taken advantage of and unappreciated.

| SpectralShifter

She didn't want to marry down

Her wedding invitation was a big, heavy thing.

I RSVP'd via text, because I didn't know how long it would take for a mailed parcel to get to her. She freaked out that I wasn't doing it properly.

It cost me $5 to mail it, but okay, fine.

I ended up getting a call shortly after she got my response telling me only my son and I were invited, not my husband. I asked why and she refused to answer.

I found out through a bridesmaid that the bride was embarrassed to be "marrying down." She was always the "hot one" of our friend group, and she thought her husband wasn't good looking enough.

She decided to not invite any of the good looking husbands of her female friends.

| 2345pk

Bring your own flask

Went to a dry wedding because it went against the bride and groom's supposed "religious values."

The bride refused to let anyone bring alcohol, and the wedding was in the middle of nowhere.

The ceremony took place, and the reception was several hours later. There was absolutely nothing to do.

There was no entertainment, no food and no drinks. There weren't even tables set up so people could sit down.

It felt endless.

Five hours later, the bridal party stumbles in. They're completely loaded. They had alcohol for themselves. I guess those religious values only applied to her guests.

I grabbed my wife by the arm and we left.

| vlaed

A floral fiasco

I used to work at a bakery that did custom wedding cakes.

This bride's cake design included fresh flowers, so the day before the wedding, she drops off a bouquet and walks out.

My supervisor quickly noticed that her flowers were dying and looked terrible. The bride wasn't answering her phone, so we were at a loss. We use the flowers, but take pictures just in case she decides to complain.

The bride arrives to pick it up the next day. She literally screams in disgust upon seeing the cake. She yells at my supervisor saying that he ruined the flowers on purpose.

My supervisor tried to show her the photos he took, but it just made her even angrier.

She tried to pick up the cake and throw it on the ground, but thankfully her sister stopped her.

Tony who?

I attended a wedding in Las Vegas, and the bride really wasn’t handling the day well. Afterwards, we were all supposed to go to dinner at a restaurant in the Paris casino.

The bride was walking through the casino in her wedding gown when a man standing near the bar congratulated her and offered to buy her and her new hubby a drink.

She gave him an angry, “No!” Then kept marching along.

My jaw dropped. I asked her if she knew who that was. She didn’t.

“That was Tony Bennett,” I said.

She blinked at me.

“The singer?!” I said incredulously. “He’s headlining the casino tonight!”

She was really embarrassed after that and she finally started to loosen up and be nicer for the rest of the evening.

| markdraws

Covered up

My mother in law is crazy.

Her favorite thing to do is make people deeply uncomfortable, and hardly anyone talks to her for that reason.

Anyhow, her one daughter had an outdoor wedding in 2002 — the summer when West Nile virus was all over the news.

So, to get attention, she threw a giant fit, and showed up to the wedding wearing a pith helmet she had brought back from Australia, in camouflage, with mosquito netting and refused to take any of it off.

She is in all the wedding photos like this, the mother of the bride, looking entirely pleased with herself.

| Anonymous

Kicked out of the picture

At my cousin's wedding, the bride's brother's girlfriend was a bridesmaid. The rest of the bridal party were either close friends or family.

When it came time to take the wedding pictures, she made us take two of every one: One with the girlfriend and another exactly the same, except without the girlfriend.

She wanted those extra photos as insurance, in case her brother and his girlfriend broke up. In her words, she "didn't want to look at pictures years down and see a stranger in all of them."

The girlfriend played along, but you easily could tell she felt really upset about it.

| Anonymous

The bride wants it to be "her year"

I am currently in the throes of bridezilla trauma with my sister who is getting married in October. Here are just a few of things she has done:

• Told me over text that my younger sister and I were no longer allowed to be her bridesmaids because we weren't "enthusiastic" enough, referring to the fact that we have yet to buy her something from her outrageously expensive registry.
• Told my sister that she had to dye her purple hair back to blonde, because it'll "take away the attention that's supposed to be on me."
• I'm bisexual, and was ordered to bring a "normal" date or none at all — normal meaning a guy only.

She does all of this because it is "her year" and it's supposed to be all about her.

| syzgytooms

A glass half full kind of gal

A couple of years ago I attended a wedding of an old buddy. Wedding went fine, but the reception is where it went downhill.

The bride has a full glass of beer in her hand. She screams at her husband, "Get me another beer!"

He quietly says to her, "You have one already, so just finish that."

She gives him the most deathly-evil-wife-glare I'd ever seen, takes her full beer, holds it up in front of her face, turns over the glass and dumps the full pint out on to the carpet.

She stares at him and then says, "Now I don't have a beer, so get me another beer."

| doctorhypothesis

Living well is the best revenge

I was a bridesmaid in a bridal party and attended the wedding with my fiancé.

The bride refused to allow him to be in any of the informal friend and family photos, because, "Well, these things don't always work out, and I don't want to have guess who this person is ten years from now."

Well, it has been ten years and I am still happily married to that fiancé.

The bridezilla, on the other hand, has had repeated separations and is on her second divorce after an ugly breakup and a nasty custody battle. But hey, "these things don't always work out."

| randumname

Plot Twist

My now-ex-wife drained me dry during the divorce proceedings. She took the house, car, savings, and almost everything we had. She was determined to leave me dry, and I did not even contest her.

As we were walking out of the courtroom, I looked at her and smirked.

Her: Why are you smirking? You just lost.

Me: Oh, did I? You should have read everything closely. Her: What are you talking about?

Me: You probably didn’t read through my stipulations. I should have known better than to sign everything.

I had made several stipulations that she would get everything on the condition that all those things would be remitted to my children the moment they turned 18.

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