Groom secretly tricks parents at wedding; cousin accidentally reveals the truth. AITA? UPDATED 3X OVER 2 YEARS

When this man upsets his parents by tricking them at his wedding, he asks the internet:

"AITA For tricking my parents into being on time for my wedding. + 2 year update"

My (M33) parents are late for everything. Like everything. Both of my sister's and myself have been disappointed so many times.

Graduation ceremonies, birthday parties, even my father's retirement dinner. It is completely my mother's fault. She is a wonderful mother and I love her dearly, she just does not understand the concept of punctuality.

I have seen her talking to her sister on the phone and reminded her she needed to be at my baby sister's dance recital. She waved me off and arrived after my sister had danced.

We are all used to it. My dad is just done trying to get her to be on time for anything. My now wife (F28) told me in no uncertain terms that if my mother was late for our wedding she would do terrible things to me. She was only half joking. But she was a witness to my mom and dad arriving halfway through my cousin's quinceañera.

So here is what I did. It is completely on me. Me wife was not involved. If there is a dick move it was completely mine.

When we were getting samples for the wedding I talked to the printer and had one special invitation printed with the time on it stated s being one hour earlier than the actual start time of the ceremony.

My mother was beside herself apparently when they left the house and thought they were going to miss the wedding since she was a part of it with her and my MIL lighting the candles we would use to light the unity candle and stuff.

When she arrived and noticed other people were also just arriving and parking she was so relieved that we were starting late that she just went with it.

The ceremony went off beautifully. And so did the wedding pictures and the reception.

The problem came last Sunday. My parents came over for a big family dinner and we didn't bother starting the grill until they showed up. She asked why everyone wasn't eating and we just said we knew we would be waiting for them since they are always late.

She said that she was not always late and had been on time for my wedding. She hadn't been. They arrived 45 minutes AFTER the time on their invitation.

My idiot cousin John, real name because it's common and he deserves people to know he is a dolt, snorted at her statement. A few other people giggled or smiled at this and she picked up and asked what was so funny.

I came clean and told her about the "special" invitation. She is pissed at me for not trusting her and making her look foolish in front of everyone. If my cousin had just controlled himself she never would have known. AITA?

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

nicala writes:

NTA but I don't understand why everyone is catering to someone who is consistently VERY late for everything. You have a time to light the grill, then light the damned grill, why should everyone sit around hungry because ONE person is inconsiderate.

She shows up after everyone has eaten, show mom where the leftover food is stored. She is late for a dinner, dance, movie, whatever...proceed without her. She has trained all of you that she is the most important person ever.

Now I do understand about the wedding, even tho I am gritting my teeth about that, lol. But WHY does everyone think her time is more important than their own?

I was months-married, (he was not late in 2 years of dating) and he made us late for my nephew's wedding vows. That was IT. Never again. He wasn't ready? I left on time, told everyone "He's late so I told him to not show up".

Not ready for Christmas at my parents' house? Tough noogies, I enjoyed Christmas Day and didn't bring home his Christmas gifts. "If you are going to be late, don't bother showing up" and I meant it. My husband caught on fast and after only a few incidents of being left out (and banned from showing up late), he's been on time or even early the past 37 years, lol.

EDIT: I mean he made us late within the 10 months of marriage (weddings, doctor appts, getting to work, holidays, dinners with others, vacation departure times). AFTER THE FIRST 10 MONTHS, is when I told him NO MORE of making me late. I did not mean I was that harsh over the course of 37 years.

cray8 writes:

NTA. I married someone like this. (He was late to our first date, but I didn't know it was a habit!). The night before the wedding, I made sure she stayed at the hotel that we were using for the wedding so it was less likely he'd be late.

He was even late to his dad's wake. We arrived to see a bunch of your friends already there. So I started telling him that whatever event we were going to, it started half an hour earlier than it did.

After a while he caught on to this, but I still kept doing it, and he kept being ready on time.

As for your MIL, tell her that it was a problem because you were concerned she'd miss her daughter's wedding (which she would have if you gave her the correct time since she was 15 minutes late for what she thought was the correct time). You came up with a creative solution to the problem, and she'll just have to get over it.

swillshop writes:

NTA. You found a funny and clever way to help achieve what she SHOULD WANT to achieve - being on time for an important event. Your family showed humor and grace and love in dealing with INTENTIONAL lateness - even in your plan to heist the counterfeit invitation :)

Don't be hard on your cousin. It's really high time your mom get some understanding that she is late on purpose, and that she is regularly, seriously hurting her loved ones.

Your mom actively needs to be late. No one can be late for everything without intentionally maintaining a mindset that supports being late. She either believes her time is more valuable than everyone else's or she enjoys the drama and attention that comes with being late, or... whatever she believes.

If she's embarrassed that everyone knows what to expect from her and that you used that knowledge to help her be on time, she should be embarrassed. Kudos to you and your family for all the grace you've given her and your great sense of humor in dealing with her. Frankly, I'm not sure I could, given the degree to which she does this.

glitteringpirate writes:

NTA and for the love of all that is holy, keep doing this. My mother and grandmother are similar. It's caused a lot of issues, including several times where I've had to personally miss my own doctors appointments or show up with 3-4 of my kids because her babysitting just wasn't happening on time.

We had a courthouse wedding. She was late to it. I didn't start that one without her but fully plan on starting vow renewal without her if need be. It's not fair to literally everyone else. It's self centered. And egotistical. It's not that hard to be on time especially when it's just you or just you and a singular other adult going.

copapac writes:

NTA. I’ve got severe ADHD, and because I’m older and female, I wasn’t diagnosed in childhood like my younger male cousin was. Back then, the prevailing thinking was girls didn’t get ADHD because it manifests differently in most females and so went unrecognized.

My husband regularly gave me the wrong time so I could be on time. I always appreciated it because I’d think I was massively late and be happy to find out I was on time.

He didn’t do this all the time, because otherwise I’d just assume I was given the wrong time and had more time to be my usual unfocused self. So since I never knew when he was giving me the wrong time, I always made the effort to hustle towards the targeted time. If it turns out I was early, I had time to just chill out.

I’m now at the point I can be early on my own. A lot of coping with my ADHD is recognizing when I’m affected by it and learning tricks to compensate.

I wonder if that’s what’s wrong with your mother, she’s got a brain that just can’t stay on track without her putting in extra effort other people don’t have to. If I were her, I’d be grateful for the deception because it meant for once she didn’t miss something important. When she’s calmer sit down and talk with her about the possibility in a way that doesn’t make her feel defensive.

When I finally recognized why I am the way I am it was very liberating. I don’t use it to make excuses for my mess up’s but to help me strategize so I mess up less.

Congratulations on your wedding. I wish you much happiness and good health and prosperity.

Update 1:

Part of the reason she is mad is because she had her invitation framed. To be honest I was already planning a heist with my sisters to replace it with the real one in case she ever noticed the discrepancy between hers and the one we have framed in our home.

Yeah we are Latinos. And no I do not in any way consider it racist how many of you guessed that. I have been to Spain and it's an issue there too. And the Philippines. Basically anywhere those guys were in charge.

Stop defending John. He and I have spent thirty years messing with each other. I have an AITA story that ends with me getting an offensive tattoo ($5,000 for removal) and him getting a body cavity search at the Mexican border. I would post it but it happened like ten years ago.

Update 2:

Fine you win here is the relevant part of the story. I grew up with my older cousin John. We constantly fight like in a cartoon. I also know I can trust him with my life. And he knows I will always have his back.

We do however try and fuck each other over as much as possible. Because it's funny. So he and I went on vacation to Mexico. Things happened. I got a tattoo. Different story.

Anyways since we have relatives all over I can always find anything I need. In this particular case what I needed was some of the substance that cops use to train drug sniffing dogs.

It is not an illegal or controlled substance in Mexico. But the dogs will hit on you if they smell it. So I have to stay in Mexico a few extra days to deal with some of the situation he created.

I was kind enough to take him to the border in TJ so our other cousin could pick him up on the American side. I was just hoping he would get the shot scared out of him when the drug dogs hit on his luggage.

We learned from a young age never to carry anything illegal over international borders because we are almost always selected for screening. I knew for a fact he was clean. Just hung over.

Anyways it turns out that when a kid born in a certain South American country, carrying.a Canadian passport, and only a backpack crosses the border and the drug dogs indicate he should be searched, he gets very thoroughly searched. And when they don't find anything. Well let's just look at the title of this post. He thinks I went too far. AITA?

Yes I'm fully aware it was overkill. Can I defend my actions? Not really. Taken as a totality of our lives though I still probably owe him for the stuff he has done to me. Like a lot. For the record I did apologize.

Update 3:

My parents have been embarrassed for two years now because of how I tricked them into being on time for my wedding. Pretty much every time I see them they say I was a d&ck not to trust them.

Our church is very busy and full of young people. So lots of weddings. To the point where there are three weddings every Saturday all summer long. One at 10, one at noon, and one at 3. Sometimes, but not often there is also an evening wedding.

My little sister just got married. She snagged the noon slot. My mom got super involved in planning the wedding to prove that I'm just an immature asshole. She said that she would be on time and not miss anything.

Side note. I personally hate when people clink glasses to get the bride and groom to kiss. At our wedding people had to sing a song. My cousin John has no shame and sang like ten times. I think people were bribing him with alcohol.

I set up a betting pool for kisses depending on how late my parents were. It cost $10 and if you guessed within five minutes you got a free pass to make my sister and her husband kiss.

Almost everyone bet "on time" because of the shitstravaganza at my wedding. The correct answer was 25 minutes. Only me, my dick cousin John, and his sister Yvonne got free passes for the kissing. And I bet $100. I was confident.

We raised almost $1,500 for the honeymoon with my stupid idea. And I got to interrupt my sister's from eating with my ten passes. Win win. Except for my mom who thinks I did it to embarrass her.

She literally helped plan the wedding and was still late. By over half an hour. We were literally cleaning up the decorations in my sisters colors while the next wedding was decorating after us.

So that's that. My mom will never change. But I have harnessed her inability to give a sh& about punctuality for the good of humanity. See you whenever my littlest sister gets married. Later.