Love. Trust. Respect. Common decency. Those are all things you expect from your significant other’s family when you’re about to get married. However, some in-laws are so nightmarishly entitled and toxic that they border on cartoonish levels of evil.
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Take, for example, internet user u/learn_o_phile’s experience with her sisters-in-law. The bride spilled the tea about how the two of them tried to ruin her Big Day by wearing the same dresses as her. However, she came up with a cunning plan to trick them. Check out how she saved her wedding.
People who love and respect you will find ways to support you on your wedding day, instead of trying to steal your spotlight
This bride revealed how she got revenge against her sisters-in-law who tried to ruin her Big Day and steal her thunder. Here's how the dress drama started
The most important thing is to enjoy your wedding and not let any guest ruin your happiness
Let’s be real, if you try to upstage the bride and steal her thunder, you probably have personal issues and insecurities that you need to work on. At this point, you need to try to be a better human being ASAP. Entitlement, narcissism, arrogance, toxicity—all of these things need to be addressed so that you stop damaging your relationships.
The happy couple’s Big Day is meant to be all about them. Set your ego aside and be supportive, instead of trying to stand in the spotlight yourself. Unless the couple specifically asks you to wear something, or there are family and cultural traditions you need to follow, a good rule of thumb is to avoid wearing white or anything similar to the bride's. It’s common sense. But alas, common sense isn’t all that common.
According to veteran etiquette expert Lisa Mirza Grotts, there are a few things you can do if you find that your wedding guests aren’t following your dress code guidelines. The most important thing is that you stay calm. “There is only one bride and it’s you,” she explained to Brides magazine.
Your special day is meant to revolve all around you, so it is not worth stressing yourself out. Your time and energy are better spent on enjoying your wedding instead of worrying about someone’s attire. However, if you do want to address the issue, your best strategy is to be discreet. Talk to a trusted family member or friend so that they can subtly talk to the problematic guest without making them feel uncomfortable.
“Avoid creating a scene which will only make a public spectacle of you. If a guest doesn’t have enough sense to know not to compete with the bride, it will be clear to the other guests. It’s simply not done unless a guest wants to draw attention to themselves,” Grotts says. “Don’t let a minor wardrobe mishap overshadow your day.”
Revenge, while satisfying, is not the best use of your time and energy
Even if you’re completely in the right, it’s unhealthy to obsess over revenge. Especially around your wedding day. Letting go is the healthy thing to do: it does not excuse anyone else’s behavior, but it helps redirect your energy toward more productive pursuits.
Anger management expert and psychologist Bernard Golden, Ph.D., who authored Overcoming Destructive Anger: Strategies That Work, notes that it can be challenging to reduce behavioral tendencies for revenge.
“It entails consciously mourning and grieving our pain with the intention that we can move on in our lives even though we’ve experienced a wound,” he writes on Psychology Today.
“Letting go of the desire for revenge requires strengthening our rational brain to override our emotional brain, an ability to show restraint even while we may wish for revenge. It calls for strengthening our capacity for forgiveness—of ourselves and others,” he says.
“This requires ongoing self-monitoring and commitment to change and, by doing so, developing a new default reaction to experiencing wounds. Additionally, channeling our attention toward the satisfaction of our personal core goals and aspirations frees us from bearing the weight of revenge. It helps us to move on in our lives—in spite of our wounds.”
What’s your take, Pandas? What would you do if someone from your or your partner’s family tried to make your wedding day all about them? How do you deal with over-the-top entitlement from your relatives? How successful are you at setting and then protecting your boundaries? Drop by the comments section and share your perspective.
The bride's post went viral, and she shared more details in the comments
The internet loved the petty revenge story. Here's what some readers had to say about the dress drama
