Woman accused of 'stealing' her friend's wedding decorations; 'I had to. She COMPLETELY used me.' AITA? UPDATED 6X

"AITA for ‘stealing’ my friend’s wedding decorations?"

I (22F) met, let us call her Leah (23F), about 10 years ago at school. We were friends ever since, spend a lot of time together mostly in our friends group.

Last year she got engaged to her now fiancé Steve (25M) and started planning for their wedding right after. So she asked me to help her with her decorations.

We talked about different options and I spent hours and hours to make her all wishes to come true. All of the things are handmade. Some days ago our friend group and some of her other friends that helped with her wedding came together to talk about the upcoming wedding.

As we started discussing our outfits Leah started laughing saying I don’t need to worry about my dress since I am not invited. I thought it was a joke but later she came to my house and died me how I thought I was invited since I didn’t get an invitation.

I explained that because she said she is on a budget and I helped her crafting the invitations and the decorations for the whole wedding I considered being invited as all of our friends to (that are in fact invited).

She never told me I wasn’t before and that day was not the first time I talked about my dress because she is very specific on the dress code she wants.

Now that everything was prepared and ready she tells me I’m not going to be there at her wedding because quote: she feels we are not as close as we used to be and she doesn’t feel like spending money on me because of cause she has to pay per guest.

When I told my friend Sarah about everything we planned on getting the decorations that I made back. So today we went to the location took everything back and told Leah nothing about it, the wedding is tomorrow. Now I kinda feel bad for doing this but I am really hurt and upset by her behaviour.

She doesn’t want to pay for me to be in her wedding but was okay with me spending 100+ hours for her. So part of me feels guilty but on the other side I don’t want to be treated like that. So AITA?

Let's see what readers thought:

martinmujr writes:

This is the only answer!!!! If she wants them, send her invoice for them. Make sure to take into account supply costs and labor. She can only get them back when she pays in full BEFORE receiving them.

If she wants you to deliver them back, sure here is the delivery fee (if you want to be extra petty) She used you for labor and callously threw it in your face after getting what she wanted.

hungrybun writes:

Oooh, I'm so here for this story. NTA, really be ause this is hella justified and I love petty revenge. You didn't cause ANY trouble, lovely, she brought this on herself. You and the other 2 dropping put should have a damn fine day together, phones off. I'm glad your friends are upset on your behalf.

If she really thought 'you weren't that close' why did she turn to you to help with decorations in the first place? Not even mentioning something when you mentioned a dress first time around? She's a user and she deserves what she's gonna get. Spend time with your real friends and pleeease update. We all wanna know the reaction.

visog7 writes:

So let me get this straight. She made YOU pay for the materials you used to create her wedding decorations as a "wedding gift". You made them FOR FREE, because you care about her that much.

But it's only when it's almost time for the wedding that she rudely reveals that you're not invited, and gives the absolute worst reasons possible. If yall really arent as close as you used to be, then she exploited the fact that you still felt close to her for free labor.

And the fact that she didnt want to shell out money for her friend of 10 years who PAID FOR AND MADE THE WEDDING DECORATIONS makes her sound like she cares the most about cutting costs. NTA. She doesnt deserve those decorations. You deserve a better friend though.

aghr09 writes:

Commenting to check back later. NTA and amazing move. I mean, absolute jerk move, I would have said YTA but you paid for the materials, someone in another comment said she "ransomed" your labor and that's the perfect word. You get to be a jerk in this case.

This might sound paranoid but maybe crash at someone else's place for a couple days. Definitely bring the decorations with you. "Leah" seems like the type to spin this story so you look like crazy, jealous, vindictive (ehhh...) and every other terrible word.

People go absolutely batty over weddings and if she has any friends like her, they might come around to collect, maybe more, and you won't want to be there.

Update 1:

I helped placing everything just hours before so the staff from that place let me in and didn’t even question why I am there. I hope they don’t get in troubleTo answer some questions

• ⁠I’ll be definitely not attending the wedding • ⁠I actually got all the bills from what I bought for the decorations because I wanted to keep track on how much I spent • ⁠I am now at my friends place because I do think there is a possibility that Leah will show up at my as soon as she will find out • ⁠I don’t know yet how I will move on regarding the decorations

Update 2:

None of my friends knew I was not invited and are upset too. Three of them tried to talk to Leah and now she is angry with me for causing trouble the night before the wedding. Also 2 of them who are also bridesmaids plan on not showing up. I don’t know what to think about it…

Leah still has no clue the decorations are gone. So far Leah is blowing up my phone because one of my friends told Steve, her fiancé, about what she did and he is upset too and told her to find a solution to get a seat for me. Well, Steve seems to be a nice guy and I feel really sorry for him… I don’t know him that well but he was always kind to everyone. It’s not just her wedding but also his.

Still Sarah and I are the only ones to know that the decorations are gone

Update 3:

Probably the last one for now because I can’t deal with this atm. Leah’s friend wrote me because I blocked Leah. As it seems Steve and Leah got in a huge fight bacause of this whole issue… also Steve messaged me to apologise for Leah and offered to pay me since I don’t want to attend the wedding and her behaviour was trash.

Plus Leah did not just use me for free stuff but also other people. A friend [originally invited] made some of her accessories... but got a call yesterday that she is not invited anymore... after she got everything from her. I just got to know about it an hour ago. At this point I don’t even know if anyone of her friends is showing up because EVERYONE is so angry.

We have a friend group chat and almost everyone has a a story of Leah using us

Update 4:

So here is the update you were waiting for after the original post is gone. Yesterday Steve called me to ask in detail what happened and we talked for a short while. Also I told him the story about the accessories. He was shocked to say the least an the last thing he said was that he needs to think about everything.

Today Leah checkt on the location to find it empty an blows up my phone to call me names. She’s insane demanding me to refund HER for the stress an drama I caused… her whole family is after me.

As far as I know now the wedding is cancelled as Steve was not showing up checking on the location even it was promised. But well the cancellation is not official yet, as there is still some time to the wedding. But Sarah and I are trying to find out atm.

Update 5:

At this point all of our friends are not attending the wedding. In case it will still be celebrated.

The wedding is about to start in a little over an hour . I still don’t know what will happen and Leah wants me to compensate her for what I have done. She’s saying I’m the AH and is trying to convince everyone to hate on me. She also want to sue me.

To get started somewhere Leah’s wedding was never really on a budget. Steve’s family is kinda wealthy and payed for most of the expenses. She probably wanted to keep the money she saved for herself because she lied a lot about where she got all those things friends made from and how much she actually paid.

Also shortly before the wedding was about to start one friend sent us a [voice message] recording in which Leah reveals she was planning on using us and how dumb we all are. She said that we are all poor students with dept and she made the great move to marry into Steve’s family who always helped her with everything, including her expenses on uni stuff.

Actually some of us actually showed up and witnessed Leah throwing a tantrum. As Leah was already at the location Steve didn’t show up on time and some people received a text that everyone should take their presents back because he’s not coming to marry her. I’ll give more details later.

Update 6:

The wedding was cancelled. So Steve is really a nice person! We talked a lot and he asked me if I was interested in going on the honeymoon with a friend as he doesn’t want to go anymore. And yeah I’m there now