'AITA for cancelling my sister's wedding since she took over my wedding venue?' UPDATED

'WIBTA for cancelling my sister's wedding because it was my wedding first?'

I was meant to get married on the 1st of February, which was mine and my ex-fiance's anniversary. We ended the engagement shortly after the new year because he cheated on me.

The wedding was initially planned with just my money but was very low key, and my parents asked if they could put up some additional money to make the whole thing a bit bigger. By the end about 60% of the wedding was paid for by me and 40% my parent's contribution. My ex and I had agreed that I would pay for the wedding while he covered the honeymoon.

My ex left me to deal with cancelling the wedding as his money wasn't involved, and I turned to my mother and sister for help because I didn't have the mental or emotional capacity to call vendors and venues and whatever else and cancel everything.

My sister is engaged, and helped me with a lot of wedding planning. Next thing I know, my mother and sister are asking me if I wouldn't mind my sister just.... taking my wedding. Every part of it, from the venue to the cake, and everything in between. The sole difference will be the wedding dress, and even then she's said if she can't buy off the rack she might have to get mine tailored to fit her instead.

I called off my engagement less than 3 weeks ago. I am a mess. I reached out to my family to help me cancel the wedding, and my sister is planning to take it over instead.

My sister has rung round our family explaining that she's taking over before she told me this. They are all attending. Her fiance has contacted his family and given them the date he will be getting married. I found all this out TODAY. She asked me if I was okay with this, like she hadn't already arranged everything. I told her to go screw herself.

I have until the 23rd to cancel things and get the money back. There's a couple of things where I won't get money back at this stage but over 2/3 of it is still refundable. The money will be refunded to the card it was paid by, so both me and my parents will get the correct amounts back.

Everything is shut right now but it's the 21st tomorrow. As I've not been in contact with these companies and it's my name on all the contracts, I have full power over this wedding. My sister said she'd pay me back eventually but knowing her I'll never see that money again. WIBTA if I rung round everything and cancelled?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

moongirl12 said:

NTA. Wtf is wrong with them? I kind of understand the logic, but FFS there was a way to do this without being a total asshole to you. Depending on your relationship with them I don’t know what your course of action should be, but you would be totally justified based purely on how insensitive they were about this whole mess.

throwaway1975764 said:

NTA. But to prevent a total family freak out, I would give her until end of tomorrow to pay you back, then cancel everything on the 22. Yes its cutting it very close, but at least that way you can say "not only was this emotionally horrific to me, it was a tremendous personal expense.

I gave you the opportunity to at least ease one of those two burdens, you chose not to. It is unreasonable for me to shoulder the expense on top of my emotional devastation, and YOU need to accept your role in this without casting blame on me." And if by some miracle she does pay, you are 100% justified in not showing up and disowning your sister. At least you'll have your money back.

Edited to add: and don't feel guilty about canceling. Your sister, parents, etc have no ground to stand on even they try to pull "but we already told people!" because EVERY ONE OF YOUR VENDORS WILL NOW HAVE AVAILABILITY FOR THAT DATE. Sorry to internet yell but its so important for you to know, you cancelling your plans will in no way shape or form prevent your sister from taking over the same vendors.

All it will do, solely, is get your money back. The vendors in fact, will likely be thrilled to take on your sister as a last minute order, because they won't want to lose out on business for that date.

c-est-magnifique said:

NTA. She has jumped on a free wedding. Tell them you can't handle it emotionally and need to cancel it.

FreedomDragon01 said:

Christ. NTA- So like, you would be footing the bill for that, yes? Presumably 60%? Call the places, all of them, and explain your wedding has been canceled and you need your refunds- go to the places (venue, bakery, florist) in person if necessary.

I feel your family is being beyond insensitive to your situation. Absolutely cancel it all, and then tell them about it. I’m not sure I would do it before as they might try to guilt you into keeping the plans. I’m so incredibly sorry, OP.

Update:

I talked to my sister and explained how upset I was and how hurt this made me feel and she said that this was a good thing, and it would be therapeutic for me to see good come from bad.

I said that is really not what it's feeling like on my end, and to me it feels like I got cheated on a month before my wedding and my sister said she would cancel everything for me and then decided that getting married in my dress in the venue my ex and I picked out together on my anniversary date, and this did not feel good.

I said if she wanted to buy the wedding off me then I needed payment in full for my 60% by the 23rd, and I wanted to switch out our names on the contracts. She said she was hoping for closer to a payment plan, where she paid me back 50% of the 60% I put down in monthly installments over the next TEN MONTHS.

She wanted to pay me back 5% PER MONTH for 10 MONTHS. AND I STILL WOULDN'T GET ALL MY MONEY BACK. I've made calls and cancelled everything. Everything was paid for by me and my parent's money paid primarily for upgrades to the things I'd already bought.

The money will be refunded to whoever paid for it, so myself and my parents will all get the correct money back, however, with some, like the caterer, we've lost the deposit entirely, with some, like the venue, they kept part of the money (average 50% but some kept more and some kept less) and with some, like the baker who was a family friend and hadn't started on the cake yet, they completely refunded it.

I think the fact that I was open that the wedding was off because he cheated made them feel bad for me and probably made a few of them more lenient on refunds (didn't just bring it up for the sake of it, most of them asked if I'd wanted to reschedule). On the whole, I've gotten a little over half back, which is not as much as I thought.

Really annoying thing is that I put these cancellations through on the 21st, and if I'd done it on the 18th (2 full weeks notice) I'd have gotten more, but they waited until the 20th to tell me.

The dates are now open, the plans are now there, if she wants to rebook everything in her name she is welcome to. She helped me with a ton of planning, knows the details better than I do, and she can easily rebook the exact same thing and will probably be doing the vendors a favour considering how close we are to the big day.

Some refunds will be instant, some will take a bit of time (longest is 2 weeks), and I'm no longer going on my honeymoon so once all the refunds have come through I might book a week away somewhere. Not sure what's happening with my sister/mother/family at large.

In total, I would have gotten more back from my sister than I would from the venues, but it would be a year wait on her repaying me vs a few weeks on the venues. Currently drafting a facebook post to tell the family what happened without me looking like a total bitch. I have a feeling they've already guessed what went on but only one way to make sure.