Even though weddings are supposed to be the best days of our lives, things can go wrong from time to time. Having a third party mess with the guest list or your partner keep big secrets from you can only make things worse. The wedding can end before it even starts if the groom sides with his family instead of his bride.
It was the bride who asked Reddit for help.
We’ve been engaged for a year and were planning to get married at the end of the summer. My name is Alex and I am 27 years old. Things were going well until a few weeks ago, when Alex’s family told him something shocking.
Alex’s family is very close, and they’ve always been a part of planning our wedding. I just recently learned that Sarah (29 f), Alex’s ex-girlfriend, was invited to the wedding. Alex and Sarah were together for five years before they broke up two years ago. Even though they’re still friendly, I never thought she should be at our wedding.
“When I told Alex about this, he said it was family tradition to invite ex-partners who are still friends and that it would be rude to leave her out.” He insisted that it wasn’t a big deal and that Sarah was just a friend of their other friends. I tried to explain that having Sarah at our wedding made me feel bad and took away from how important the event was to me.
Alex replied that I was selfish and unreasonable for not caring about how his family felt. He said that removing Sarah from the party would cause unnecessary drama and that we should just enjoy the day. I had a strong feeling that this wasn’t just about inviting an ex; it was also about my place in Alex’s life and whether I was really important to him.
“I finally decided that I couldn’t go through with the wedding after a lot of back and forth.” I told Alex and his family that I couldn’t marry someone who wasn’t willing to respect my feelings about such a big matter, so I canceled the venue and all the other plans we had made.
Alex and his family are now very angry with me. They think I’m being too sensitive and that I should have been more flexible. There are different opinions among my family and friends about whether I did the right thing or not.
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