For better or for worse, wedding ceremonies can seem like a monumental event where everything has to be ideal, as, hopefully, you only ever have one wedding. The decorations, flowers, venue, weather, and, of course, the dress has to all be just perfect.
Recently a person asked the internet if he was in the wrong for refusing to hand over a wedding dress to his bride-to-be sister. The dress was handmade over half a year by his son with frequent input from his sister. Problems arose when she sent out wedding invitations - and he wasn’t invited.
Weddings, like any major event, require planning, good taste, sense, and a lot of patience
Image credits: Lobachad (not the actual photo)
When his sister asked if her brother’s son could make her wedding dress, all parties thought it would be a great idea
The son was a skilled tailor and worked for months to make something beautiful
Image credits: metod_ma (not the actual photo)_
But when the invitations began coming in, his son received a nasty surprise
Image credits: Rawpixel (not the actual photo)
Credits: ThrowAway5291926
Wedding parties sometimes go overboard with all the things they request and demand
Image credits: mstandret (not the actual photo)
The perceived pressures and stress of organizing a wedding can lead to comical moments, at least for those of us who can view from a safe distance. We reached out to the wedding planning team at Lisa Pleasant Events to ask about what sort of things the wedding party will start to demand and organizers are forced to go along with. Some examples included “requesting FILTERED water from the catering water station for her 4 pound, half blind, half deaf, 10-year-old toy poodle (then proceeded to cause an absolute scene & had a meltdown when her dog's bowl was filled with tap water)” and “requesting 'BETTER adult chicken tenders'? Not sure what that even meant (she cried for a solid 5 minutes).”
Sometimes the stress of planning creates a bond with the planner, leading to other comical issues. “I have had other bizarre requests like when a mother surprised me by bringing an entire U-Haul full of furniture and expected me to set it up (with a broken foot). I had one very drunk bride (now a friend) who asked me to sing 'All I Want for Christmas is You' while she threw up in the bathroom. (Yes, I obliged.) One of my former planners had a bride who expected her to go on her morning jog with her so that she was by her side the entire day. So many fun stories. I actually started naming clauses in my contract that I never thought I would have to specify after the clients who made them necessary. It always gets a laugh out of people, but still warns them 'please do not become a clause.'”
The costs and stress of the event can make people shortsighted and downright unbearable
Image credits: nualaimages (not the actual photo)
The actual price of the dress in the story was considerable, so it is shocking that the sister would be so stubborn. The average American wedding still costs $38,700, explaining some of the stress. After all, If I spent that much money on a single event, I would also want it to be completely perfect. In general, Americans spend about $72 billion annually on weddings. Add in the constant socialization, possible pressure from in-laws, and general difficulty of organizing people and you get a recipe for a mental health disaster.
This in no way excuses the sister’s behavior; after all, her nephew was doing the entire project for free and being perfectly cooperative. Having to collaborate with a committed volunteer seems like a dream scenario, but some people are so conceited, they will throw away such an opportunity instead of admitting their own shortcomings. After all, if her, at this point, pretty annoyed own family is valuing the dress at around $20-25 thousand, and it took five months of work, it seems unlikely that she is going to get a better deal anywhere else.
Some commenters asked for more details while others gave some suggestions for how OP could proceed
But most agreed, he was NTA for sticking up for his son
