MOH spends $25K groom gave her for Bachelorette party to pay off her own debt. + UPDATE
"AITA for kicking my maid of honor out of my wedding with 5 days notice?"
kayelle-99
I’m (23F) getting married in a couple days. Most of this is in the last two weeks. My MOH (26F), Mara, was in charge of planning my Bachelorette party, which I wanted to be a surprise. We live in a city, but none of us live downtown, so I was hoping for a hotel room downtown and having a fun night out with friends, maybe a brunch. Most of the bridal party live locally, but two girls flew in for it.
When Mara picked me up 2 weeks ago on Friday , I was excited to see where we were going and what we were doing. We ended up going to Mara’s 1 bedroom townhouse and spent the whole weekend there. There are 8 of us, so it was cramped and we kept running into issues with only 1 bathroom.
On Friday night we had games and ordered pizza, Saturday we had a mimosa bar, went shopping, ordered food, and watched a movie, before parting ways on Sunday. It wasn’t the Bachelorette party of my dreams, or a particularly fun weekend, but it was ok, and I appreciated it.
Last weekend, my fiancé (32m), James, had just returned from a work trip. I hadn’t caught him up to speed on the party, because there wasn’t much to report. But when he returned, we were chatting and I told him about the party. He looked confused but said nothing else that evening.
The next day, I got a message from Mara asking to meet up to talk about “something.” Mara revealed that James had given her a significant amount of money over a year ago, with the intention that it was used to pay for a Bachelorette party. It would have been enough to pay for the entire bridal party to do a week long vacation out of town, including airfare, hotel, food, drinks, and fun.
I wasn’t expecting this type of event; a weekend downtown would have been wonderful, and even though the party at her home wasn’t what I hoped for, I was fine with it because I got to be with all of my friends. She, instead, used the money to pay off credit card debt and hoped that no one would notice.
I told her I needed some time to process and went home. After talking with James about it, I decided, that the best action would be to remove her from the wedding. I came to this decision because I don’t feel I can trust her and don’t want her to be standing next to me at my wedding. I slept on it overnight and sent her a text saying this on Monday.
Since then, I have been getting texts from her mom and boyfriend telling me how awful I am for doing this since I didn’t need a big party and Mara was able to financially benefit . My mom is also against removing her from the wedding, as she’s like a sister to our family and it would be tragic for me to get married without Mara there.
The rest of the bridal party is split, with half saying I shouldn’t have kicked her out and the other half agreeing with me. Mara has called me crying because she already has her dress (James and I paid for all dresses) and she can’t wear it anywhere else.
At this point, I want the wedding to be over with so I can be on my honeymoon and not have to deal with these people. So, was my action too extreme? AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's initial post:
dunks615
NTA. She STOLE MONEY from you and it sounds like it was a decent chunk of money too. I would honestly have a stern talking to with your mom and maybe cut off people that are taking her side.
This is ridiculous that anyone wouldn’t immediately be on your side after she misappropriated money meant for your Bachelorette. She also obviously knew it was wrong because she told you out of guilt.
ETA: Stealing $25,000 is insane. Put her on blast to everyone and file a police report. She also only told you because she was pressured. Cut contact and let the law handle it at this point.
The OP responded here:
kayelle-99
She didn’t tell me out of guilt. After he found out what my Bachelorette party was, my fiancé told her either she needed to sit down and tell me or he would.
Nodramallama18
I can’t believe her mother saying forgive her because M FINANCIALLY BENEFITED FROM IT. Yes, when you steal money, you financially benefit in the short term. But those chickens have come home to roost.
Tell her if she pays back every cent to J before the wedding, then she can be in it. She;s a freaking thief and a terrible friend. She didn’t even plan the bare minimum and got paid for a week vacation for 8.
My_Poor_Nerves
That's the wildest part - "You should be happy she stole from your fiance because it benefited her!" Like, yeah, crime usually does benefit the criminal, but, umm, that doesn't make it not a crime.
Rhypskallion
NTA. Make sure your family understands that this 'beloved sister' has become a conniving thief. You can't trust her as she's already proven to be a betrayer of trust. I'm sorry you lost a dear friend over this. You could choose to forgive her. But you can wait as long as you need to do so and it's not required. I hope you have a great wedding! Good luck.
Two months later, the OP returned with an update.
"Update: AITA for kicking my maid of honor out of my wedding?"
kayelle-99
First, thank you all so much for being so nice on my previous post. I know this is delayed, but I hope it answers any lingering questions you may have, and I was somewhat waiting to have an update that would answer questions. I had no idea my previous post would get so much attention and so many people would be interested.
To answer the most pressing question, I removed my MOH from my wedding along and disinvited those who continued to support her after I shared the amount she stole.
My husband and I had a lovely wedding and honeymoon, and when we got back we got in contact with his lawyer to begin compiling information and prepare to file a civil suit. This is still in the early stages, but as so many did point out, we do have a responsibility to ensure she faces some kind of consequence to prevent this from happening to someone else.
While we won’t be pressing criminal charges, we’ll cooperate with law enforcement should the DA wish to bring charges after information is brought forth in our civil suit.
I honestly don’t think believe my ex-friend has money to repay us, but we will be donating anything we receive from the trial. I’ll try to respond to comments below if there are any other questions!
Here were the top rated comments from readers after the OP's latest update:
G1Gestalt
To be honest, the question that this update answers for me is whether or not you and you husband (congrats!) were people pleasers (i.e. pushovers, doormats). Please don't take this the wrong way.
But it blows my mind that ANYBODY thought you were going too far by booting M out of your life and out of the bridal party, especially you. It concerned me that you might be letting people steamroll you or manipulate your POV on this.
I used to be a people pleaser before I got treatment, and back then if I had the money to spare, I might actually let a friend get away with something like this. But FFS, it's $25k!!! That's a hardcore felony! Good on you for standing up for what's right, no matter who you have whining in your ear.
sakura_kisskiss
25k for a Bachelorette weekend?!?!?! Time to log off of reddit before I stare at my bank account and wonder what it's like not to sneeze at 25 f'#g grand.
LucyAriaRose
RIGHT??? The absolute GASP I let out at that.
Fallen_Hawker
It’s so insane that some people are on her side after she STOLE 25k. Like WTF???
elsathenerdfighter
Before donating it to charity, which is a very good use of money, I hope OP repays her friends who spent money on this weekend but weren’t supposed to need to.
So flights and anything spent during the weekend in my opinion should be paid to those friends as that is what the money was originally intended for. Your MOH didn’t just steal from OP and her husband in my opinion. She stole from every attendee of that weekend.