Weddings these days -- and in earlier times, too -- are associated with considerable nerves. And preparing for a wedding sometimes causes no less hassle for all the people involved. Guests, relatives, and even service personnel.
Today, we are going to tell you a story. The author of said story got engaged the month before her stepsister -- and this, in turn, caused a whole series of events, which resulted in our heroine being accused of trying to steal her stepsister's thunder... However, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
More info: Reddit
The author of the post got engaged last December, and her engagement ring is both large and beautiful
Image credits: Thomas Bird (not the actual photo)
Christmas time was coming, and the author's stepsister also got proposed to at a family gathering
Image credits: u/[deleted]
Image credits: Leah Newhouse (not the actual photo)
However, the women shared the guests' attention and elation, mostly because of the author's flashy ring
Image credits: u/[deleted]
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
So, the very next day, the stepsister and her now-fiance lashed out at the woman, accusing her of stealing their thunder
Image credits: u/[deleted]
The author was adamant that she didn't do anything wrong, and her stepdad and stepbrother sided with her, too
So, the heroine of today’s tale, aka the original poster (or OP), is a 28-year-old woman who got engaged last December. The woman says that her engagement ring is quite large and very beautiful, and she wears it with joy and pride. So, of course, she wore it at the Christmas family gathering, too.
And at the Christmas event, another joyful event happened, as the author's stepsister, who is a year older than her, let's call her 'Rachel,' got engaged to her now-fiancé, 'Matt.' If you thought that yet another story about proposing without notifying the hosts would follow, then you’re definitely mistaken.
Matt asked in advance whether the hosts (the OP’s mom and stepdad) wouldn’t be against it, and only after receiving approval did he move on to the action. But many guests, some of whom hadn’t seen the author for a long time, were interested in the engagement of not only Rachel but also the OP. Moreover, her posh ring clearly attracted everyone’s attention.
In general, both stepsisters divided the attention of the relatives and guests by about half, and Matt clearly did not like this. The author even admits that he was very cold with her that evening, but she didn’t pay attention to this, thinking it was just nerves.
But no -- literally the next day, Rachel and Matt blew up at the author, accusing her of stealing their thunder. In their opinion, our heroine, knowing that an engagement was coming, should simply not have put on her own ring. But the original poster, in turn, didn’t see anything reprehensible in her actions.
Neither did her stepdad nor her stepbrother, by the way. The former called Rachel and Matt stupid for their emotional outburst. And only our heroine’s own mother said that she could partly understand the reason for her stepdaughter’s reaction. According to the woman, the OP really does have a very flashy ring, and she could see how it could cause a lot of elation among the guests.
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
"For some reason, when it comes to weddings and everything connected with it, many people pay much more attention to external paraphernalia than to the actual content of the marriage," says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch with for their comments on this case. "In the end, the success of your family life doesn’t depend on how luxurious your ceremony is."
"And you shouldn’t be jealous because someone has a more beautiful or spectacular engagement ring, either. In the end, that’s not the essence of an engagement. I can only admit that there may have been some kind of omissions between the stepsisters before and tension in the relationship, so this situation was just icing on the cake."
"Be that as it may, I'm glad that both this woman's stepdad and her stepbrother sided with her -- after all, she clearly didn’t intend to outshine the heroine of the occasion. I suppose another frank conversation with the stepsister would also not hurt. When they both calm down a little, of course," Irins states.
Well, the commenters on the original post also completely sided with the author, literally claiming that she didn't do anything wrong here. "I feel like it would be more odd if you recently got engaged and didn't wear your ring out," one of the responders wrote. "NTA and I like your stepdad," another one summarized.
Some people in the comments also allowed themselves to be ironic about future events in the family. "Will you be allowed to wear your wedding ring to their wedding or will it embarrass Matt when people compare it to Rachel's?" someone commented wittily.
“So Rachel is more concerned with the size of her ring than [with] her boyfriend [who] wants to marry her? NTA and she probably isn’t mature to survive marriage,” here’s another commenter’s point of view. And do you, our dear readers, agree with this interpretation of the events? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments of this post.
The commenters were unanimous here as well, claiming that the author's stepsister and her fiance were entitled here, not the author herself
