Guy Refuses Bride’s Bizarre Demand That Wedding Guests Stand In A River For Her Ceremony & Wonders If He Was Wrong
Some of the guests were in up to their thighs, and this guy just wasn't having it.
Modfos / Getty Images, Isai Hernandez, omelnytskyi via Canva Weddings have become so over-the-top in recent years that it's hard to even be shocked anymore, but one man on Reddit has had enough.
When his sister-in-law made a truly bizarre demand on her guests, he put his foot down and put it down hard. Now, he and his husband are barely speaking and the bride is furious, and he wonders if he took things a bit too far.
When his sister-in-law insisted all wedding guests stand in a rushing river, the man outright refused the bride's bizarre demand.
"The wedding happened in a little river - and I mean in the river, in the water," the man wrote in his post on Reddit. The wedding party was excluded from this insane idea, "but all attendants were expected to stand in knee-deep rushing water for the whole ceremony," he said.
Of all the things to ask of your wedding guests, this has got to be up there among the most bridezilla-esque demands of all time.
The man acknowledges that the wedding photos probably looked cool, but standing in a rushing river in formal attire was simply off-limits for him. "I personally really dislike mud, germs, insects and whatever diseases are found in that stream," he writes. This seems reasonable enough, but the bride, as well as his husband, disagreed.
Photo: Reddit
Some wedding guests were in water up to their thighs, and even kids had to watch the wedding from inside the river.
This is one of those stories where you keep expecting a reasonable explanation but none ever arrives. The man writes that while concessions were made for "kids who couldn't easily stand in water that might be as tall as their whole body," and were allowed to just wade into ankle-deep water, others were not so lucky.
"I could see women up to their knees or lower thighs...and taller guests, it reached their shins. I am 5 foot 2 so I would have been deeper than shin-level." Which honestly sounds kind of dangerous. What is this bride's deal?!
In any case, he "refused to remove my shoes, socks and pull up my dress pants" to go river-fording at a wedding, for God's sake. Despite that being the only reasonable response, it immediately sparked drama.
Photo: Reddit
"The ceremony could have easily moved forward with me standing on the shore," he writes, "but nooooOOOoo. The bride and groom apparently refused to start until every person was in the water." Which is actively insane! But not as insane as this poor man's husband "wad[ing] in the water back and forth between his sister and me to mediate." Is this an "SNL" sketch, or a wedding?
Before long, his husband was "visibly angry" and "kept acting like I was in the wrong," and at the reception, he felt like was "being avoided by everyone." For — this cannot be stressed enough — refusing to *enter a river in formal attire during a wedding.*
His in-laws are all angry at him, and he now feels like he made a scene, but people on Reddit were firmly on his side.
The man wrote that for a time his husband wouldn't speak to him and now insists that he "put it to rest," but the man can't help but feel like he's been "done dirty" and branded a "troublemaker," especially since he was the only wedding guest who refused to get in the river, which honestly makes this whole thing funnier.
"In retrospect," he writes, "the bride and groom wanted me in the water because I was the only person on the shore and it was not as picturesque." Sir if you're reading this? I will pay you one million American dollars for a copy of these wedding photos. In cash.
Anyway, "troublemaker" or not, people online were not even remotely on the family's side. People found this wedding next-level absurd, and they had no patience for the man's husband or his family chiding him for not wanting to go into a river at a wedding. As several Redditors pointed out, many rivers are famously full of creatures that kill you after all!
Photo: Reddit
Others mused that this wedding seemed tailor-made to "end up in the international news under the headline 'Wedding tragedy,'" but a woman on Twitter felt this bride's bizarre demand and other weird weddings like hers are signs of something on the darker side of human nature... or maybe even the apocalypse.
Photo: Reddit
Okay, maybe that's a little overwrought. But still — whatever happened to a simple dining hall with mediocre food and a DJ with entirely too much love for Kool & The Gang's "Celebration?" There's nothing wrong with wanting to up the ante but risking an attack by a water snake and bonking my head on a river rock while dressed in Sunday best?
Respectfully, bridezilla, I send my regrets.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social media and human interest topics.