Bride curses out flower girl at wedding; sends her away sobbing. AITA? UPDATED
The Runaway Flower Girl.
One woman was shocked when she was screamed at upon arrival at her sister's wedding. She had been told that her daughter was requested to be the flower girl. Her daughter was very excited and the family was happy to celebrate. But, when the bride saw her daughter there she lost it, screaming curse words and throwing a massive fit. Her sister was confused and her daughter was very upset.
'Sister cusses out my daughter at her wedding.'
So my daughter (we’ll call her T) came over to the house to do some laundry and she was asking “What the hell is Aunt Liz’s problem?” I asked what she meant and she explained how my sister had posted on Facebook that she and her husband were going away for their 15th wedding anniversary. T said that she had sent Aunt Liz a congrats post and Liz responded back with “Very fucking funny.”
So I sat her down and I told her what I’m about to tell you.
When T was four, Liz had called us and said that she was getting married in a few months. She and I were doing the typical girly “Squee!” sounds and “Oh that’s wonderful” stuff that sisters usually do. When we calmed down she asked if T would be willing to be the flower girl.
I asked her and she said yes and chanted “Imma be flower girl” and started running around and pretend flying like she was a new member of the Justice League or something. I told Liz “We need to work on it, but she’s in.”
About a month later, the invites came in. In them it was stated that Liz did not want any children under the age of seventeen there and explained why. The reasons were sound (bored children, potential disruptions, etc) so I understood them. I did however have one concern.
I called her and asked “Hey. Just got the invites, Me and the boys will be there but Hubs has a business trip that month and can’t make it. Do you still want T as your flower girl? Liz replied “Oh god yes. She’s too cute to not have her.” I shrugged and said “Well it’ll be the four of us, consider this your RSVP.” She said “Great! See you there.”
We hung up and I went online and made the reservations. A room for me and T, and an adjoining room for the boys, Ron (19) and Carl (17). Names changed and all that.
Fast Forward to the weekend of the wedding. The venue is a six hour drive for me and I had to get out there on a Friday for the Saturday wedding. Since I had to wait for Carl to get out of school, we got a late start on Friday and we got there around 10pm.
I got out and checked into the hotel room and I texted Liz. They were still at the venue and would be there at least another hour or two taking care of details so we drove over.
We got there and it was the usual pre-wedding chaos. Liz was getting things to her liking and honestly going a bit Bridezilla. She saw us first, beamed and came over. However when she got closer and saw who was in my party…she blew up.
“WHY DID YOU BRING HER!” she screamed. I said “But you wanted her for…” I was cut off and Liz went into a complete screaming meltdown about how this was her day, she didn’t want children there and “How dare you bring a F*CKING CHILD TO MY WEDDING!?!?” while looking right at T, and then stormed off screeching curses into the night.
I was done, T was crying and saying “But I wanted to be flower girl” in between sobs, and Ron and Carl looked like they wanted to kill their aunt and at that moment I wasn’t sure I wanted to stop them. I picked up T and tried to comfort her and herded the crew back to the car and we drove back to the hotel.
I was seriously considering just packing up the car and heading home. I told the boys that and Ron was being the level headed one.
“Mom, it’s a six hour drive and we’re all too tired and pissed to make that drive right now. We’d get in around 5-6 in the morning depending on rest stops and bathroom breaks. Do you really want to do that since we have a nice hotel room for the night? How about we go back to the hotel, get a night’s sleep and head back in the morning?”
I grudgingly admitted that he had a point. Carl piped up “Mom. I’ve got another idea.” I was waspish and I kinda snapped “What is it?” Carl looked up from his phone and sheepishly said “Well, T’s pretty upset.”
Which was true, it’s been fifteen minutes and she’s still sobbing “I wanna be flower girl” over and over in the back seat. Carl continued “There's a county fair that just started tonight. Carnival rides, petting zoo, games…that sort of thing.” I snapped “So?”
Carl is made of sterner stuff. He didn’t wither under my anger and continued on. “We have the hotel until Sunday morning. Why not spend the night here, go to the fair tomorrow and then go home on Sunday like we planned. Give T something to think about other than Aunt Liz’s freakout, let her have some fun, and we all could use a Mom and the gang outing right about now.”
I calmed down a bit and said “An idea not without merit.” I looked at T in the rearview and said “What about it T? You want to go to the fair instead of the wedding?” She sobbed “I wanna be flower girl!” Carl piped up “They’re going to have cotton candy and deep fried Oreos.” The crying stopped, there was one last sniffle and an exhausted but determined “I wanna go to the fair.”
So that’s what we did and we had fun. Liz could have her Bridezilla day and that was that. Except that it wasn’t. We had all turned our phones off since we knew some calls would be coming in and we just could not be bothered to deal with it.
When we got back to the hotel, My mom and dad were there. They lit into me about how T was supposed to be there as Flower Girl and we just blew my sister and her special day off.
“Mom, Dad…” I said. “You know how the invites said no children? I called Liz when we got ours and I asked if she still wanted T as a flower girl. She said that she did. So I brought T to the venue last night and Liz flipped out about how dare I bring a child to her special day.” Carl bless his “I can’t function without an iPhone in his hand” heart pulled up the video.
I didn’t know he had recorded it but he was able to catch the final “How dare you bring a F*CKING CHILD TO MY WEDDING!?!?” I lit into them back.
“So if T’s supposed to be there as flower girl but not be there because she’s a child, how am I supposed to pull that off? We went to the fair to calm T down and so she’d have something happy to remember and hopefully forget that Liz cussed her out. To. Her. Face!”
Mom and Dad went quiet then apologized. They said that they were going to have a word with Liz when she got back from the honeymoon and then had a nice chat with T about the things she saw and did. We drove home Sunday morning and that was that.
Story over, back to the present. T was blown away. “Mom, would I be a bad person for unfriending her and blocking her a**?” I said no and we went back to enjoying some Mom and Daughter time.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
Your sister is a crazy one. Did she expect your daughter to only be there specifically for the couple minutes of going down the aisle as the flower girl?
Um, yes! What do you think, she wanted a kid there to pull all the attention away from her? No, the kid should only be there for the necessary few minutes and then fuck off to whatever kid-land that’s far away from the wedding and party, duh.
(Imagine that said with an entitled Valley-girl accent)
Def want an update.
Request recieved, the OP provided an update at the end of the day.
'Update 2 - The Aftermath.'
Wish I had some juicy details and cringe worthy gossip to divulge. It's pretty bland really.
T - I created a monster. The plan to distract her and to give her something to focus on other than Liz having a meltdown worked a little too well. Since then she's been a fan of fairs State, County and the one town fair near us.
She'd get all excited when they'd announce one and begged and pleaded to go. Even when she grew too old for it to be cool to hang with Mom, she'd drag her friends and they'd eat junk food, check out boys, and play bingo for the junky 'prizes'. She'd come home with a haul, take the one or two things she wanted and the rest would go to Goodwill.
Liz - We have a state best described as 'Cold War'. Polite (if curt) civility and that's about it. We'd mail each other Christmas and Birthday cards. I'd mail my nephews Xbox cards and she'd mail T pre-paid Visa gift cards and we'd call it quits. Beyond that we've never really talked.
I did find out what the problem was. What triggered it was the post before T made hers. When I looked at Liz's announcement, our uncle posted 'That was a lovely wedding. T was pretty as the flower girl. Does anyone have any pictures of her? I can't seem to find any.'
T's congrats post was the very next one so Liz thought that T was being an a**. I've sent her a message, but haven't heard back yet.
My parents did talk to her when she came back from her honeymoon. It didn't go well since Liz does not take criticism well. She bridezilla'd at the wedding setup, apparently she did more at the wedding and the reception and she raised shields when Mom and Dad tried to talk to her.
So...nothing ever happened with that. No apologies, no 'I'm sorry, I was stressed and flipped my sh*t', no lame excusee. Didn't even try to make it my fault. Just told my parents 'Are you done?' when they finished their say. They shrugged and dropped the subject.
I'm not holding my breath.
Beyond that...it's been quiet. We're not 'no contact' but we're not as close as once we were. I'm willing to bury the hatchet, she's willing to bury the hatchet into my spine.