“They Were Furious”: Family Drama Ensues When A Couple Deny Fiancé’s Sister’s “Dying Wish”

Attitudes towards weddings can differ, but most people can probably agree that it’s ultimately down to the wishes (and budget) of the happy couple. From a quick stop at a courthouse to a multiday, destination affair, the ceremony and afterparty can be as varied as snowflakes in an avalanche. But there are people who see it less as two people starting to share a life and more as a party with a specific aesthetic.

A woman and her fiancé wondered if they were being ”selfish” for not wanting to comply with his possibly dying sister’s “last wishes,” which would completely change their wedding. Instead of accepting the answer, intense family drama ensued, so they turned to the internet for advice.

OP and her husband-to-be’s decision to exclude the sister from having a wedding-within-a-wedding might actually be a blessing in disguise. While we do not know the exact details, OP suggests that her diagnosis is not terminal and, despite no doubt a lot of struggles, she will probably recover. Should she actually get married in the future, as a person who values the ceremony so highly, it might cheapen the “real thing.” It’s also not important to shy away from reality, the wedding industry, as it were, has a lot of real, negative effects, particularly on women. Many brides-to-be develop eating disorders as the fear of not fitting into the generally expensive dress makes them overthink nutrition.

The cost of the dress is just one subset of the huge expenses many couples go through to have the ceremony they want. OP did already indicate that they needed some help covering the costs, as wedding expenses are often inflated because companies know, what are people going to do, not get married? In 2017, when basically everything was cheaper, the median wedding cost in the US was already $30’000, a massive, massive sum, for what is a party and an hour or two at a venue. The best solution to not spend five figures on a fake wedding for a child would simply be to have a separate, wedding-themed party for her. There is no reason they can’t rent a dress and have a fake walking down the aisle at a party.

The other, fringe, life lesson the sister may have learned, had her plan gotten the go-ahead, is that in most cases, the woman will end up doing the majority of planning. While at first, she might enjoy this new experience, the people who actually like managing projects are quite few and far between, particularly when one realizes that they will have to compromise with others, that budget constraints do exist, and that you will be blamed when things don’t always go as planned. It will also reveal the old marriage trap, where the bride has her dream wedding, so she refuses to allow anyone to help her to “maintain” her vision, then, inevitably, gets burnt out and ends up entering a marriage with a backlog of resentment.