Bridesmaid Tries To Bring The Bride's Ex To The Wedding As Her Plus One — 'I Don't Want Him There'
Why would she even think this would be okay?
Sean Locke Photography / Shutterstock Nothing brings out the worst in people like planning a wedding; for one bride on Reddit, it's not her bridezilla tendencies or even her meddling mother-in-law causing all the problems, however.
Rather, it's her cousin and bridesmaid who had a downright bizarre idea for the event that has caused so much drama it's threatening to end their relationship.
Her cousin and bridesmaid tried to bring the bride's ex to the wedding as her plus one.
If you're anything like me, you are now screaming, "In what world?!" at your screen in utter disbelief. Of all the men on the face of the Earth, she picks THIS one to be her date?
Because it's a double-whammy of bad vibes, right? Surely neither the bride nor her husband-to-be wants her ex mingling with the other guests around the reception chocolate fountain on the biggest day of their lives!
And yet, this is what her cousin chose because she is dating the bride's ex and in the flush of a new relationship. It's certainly not unreasonable to want to bring your new boyfriend to a wedding, of course, but under the circumstances, it has not gone over well AT ALL.
The bride and her ex are amicable, but she doesn't want him around and neither does her husband-to-be.
As absurd as this is, it could be so much worse. Thankfully, the bride and her ex ended things amicably, and she's long since over her feelings for him.
But, she wrote, "I do not want him at my wedding, a day that is incredibly important to me." Um, yeah, that's completely reasonable and seems like it should have been obvious to her cousin!
She's worried he will "potentially overshadow the happiness of the occasion." But she's also trying to look out for her cousin. "Their relationship is still quite new, and I worry that if they break up, my cousin will be glad that he is not in any of the photos."
As anyone who's made this mistake knows, this is not an unlikely outcome. A friend of mine was once so excited to have a new boyfriend she insisted on bringing him to our friend's wedding, even though he was… well, let's just say not boyfriend material.
He dumped her two weeks later, and now, every time we gather at our friend's house, she has to see his face in the wedding photos on her wall. Our friend group has run out of different ways to say, "Girl, we tried to tell you."
Antonio_Diaz / Getty Images / Canva Pro
Her cousin refused to find another date, so she cut her out of the wedding party. Now, she's furious.
Perhaps, based on her own relationship with him, this bride had inside information on the kind of boyfriend this guy is. Perhaps she was just trying to avoid a similar outcome like my friend — which, you know, follows you around for the rest of your life! (Or at least the duration of the marriage.)
But it did not go over well with her cousin at all. "I told her that she could not bring him," she wrote, and her cousin immediately protested. Finally, she'd had enough. "I finally told her that if she insisted on having him there, then I would rather she not be there at all. Now she is angry with me."
She understands why her cousin is upset, but she feels like she is totally ignoring the realities of the situation. "I feel that she is not considering my feelings and the feelings of my own partner, whom I also have to consider when planning the wedding," she wrote.
Andrey Sayfutdinov / Getty Images / Canva Pro
People agreed that she had absolutely nothing to feel bad about and that her cousin should respect her wishes.
"Your wedding, your guest list. End of discussion," one commenter wrote, and nearly everyone agreed.
"You are completely within your rights not to want your ex at your wedding, no matter how amicably you ended things," another person added. "Whoever is arguing this with you on here needs their head examined!"
Others felt that there was nothing inherently wrong with her cousin asking to bring the ex as her plus one. But once she got a firm no, they felt she should have immediately backed down.
In a comment, the bride elaborated on her position, saying that it actually made her uncomfortable to think of her ex being there. "We still have a lot of history," she wrote, "and I find it personally uncomfortable to remain friends with someone I've had a sexual/intimate relationship with."
It's hard to argue with any of this. Even if a bride is the bridezilla-est bride to ever bridezilla, it is still her day and her wedding, and unless she's being completely unreasonable, what she says goes.
For the rest of us, it's just a day. Leaving the ex at home isn't that big of an ask — and it isn't worth ruining the relationship with your cousin just to be in some wedding photos you'll probably hate 20 years down the road anyway!
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.