Rogue Maid of Honor, a Stolen $2,000 Veil, and DIY Wedding Confessions

“How does a seven-day wedding turn into disappearing bridesmaids, stolen wedding items, and a maid of honor who controls everything?”

This week, I reflect on the fast pace of life in 2026 and share my personal goal for the year: finding pockets of presence amidst the chaos. Also, this week’s story is pure chaos: a wedding planned in one impossibly long week, a maid of honor sabotaging dresses, crushes, timelines, and even the bride’s veil, plus last-minute drama that left everyone questioning why she was chosen at all. In this episode, I break down the red flags, the boundaries, and why wedding parties should not be unpaid labor.

Plus! New Year Giveaway: Win 1 of 4 $50 Amazon gift cards! Share a photo or screenshot of you listening, tag me @heychristainnis, and you’re entered. Winners will be announced on February 12!

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Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

• A Wedding Planned in Seven Days – The couple caves to outside pressure and plans a full wedding in one impossibly chaotic week.
• The Maid of Honor’s Jealous Control – Emily dictates outfits, decisions, and even the wedding party lineup, manipulating the bride at every turn.
• Drama at Hair & Makeup – Emily confronts the bridesmaids, accuses them of betrayal, and storms off with half the bridal party.
• Addiction Secrets Revealed – A bridesmaid confides Emily’s struggles to the bride, igniting emotional fallout at the worst possible moment.
• Stolen Luxury Items – From shoplifting expensive décor to gifting a stolen $2,000 veil, the maid of honor’s behavior escalates fast.
• Setup Chaos & Missing Support – The bride is forced to hammer tent stakes and manage heavy labor while her wedding party disappears.
• Crush Drama & Vanishing Acts – Emily leaves the wedding to chase her crush—while also flirting with the bridesmaid’s crush out of pure chaos.
• Lice, Lies, and Last-Minute Regrets – The bridesmaid catches lice from Emily twice, and the bride later admits she wishes she’d chosen a different maid of honor.

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

• “How long is this week? This is the longest week I’ve ever heard of.” – Christa Innis
• “We cannot assume that being in your wedding party means unpaid labor.” – Christa Innis
• “Keep the bride out of the drama—especially the week of the wedding.” – Christa Innis
• “At some point, we have to take responsibility for ourselves.” – Christa Innis
• “If you’re planning a wedding in seven days, keep it stupid simple.” – Christa Innis

*This conversation is for entertainment and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. Please seek a licensed professional for your specific situation.

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Blog Transcript:

Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Christa Innis: Hi guys. Welcome back to another episode of Here Comes The Drama. I’m your host, Christa Innis, and it is officially 2026, which is wild to think about. I feel like every year goes faster and faster the older I get, and especially with being a mom now. Well. Almost going on three years. Um, I feel like it goes even faster.

And it’s just, it’s unfair how, uh, they always say time is a thief and I didn’t really believe it. And then I got older and I had my daughter and I’m like, oh my gosh, where does the time go? So I feel like even more so, I’ve become more of a planner because I’m like, if I don’t plan things, like I lose track of time and it just gets like taken from me.

It’s like the beginning of the summer, my husband and I had all these plans for our daughter. Like, we’re like, okay, we wanna go take her to the beach, we wanna take her to this museum. And we’re like, oh, we have so much time. And then all of a sudden you like realize, you’re like, I have a week left. Um, and so I feel like I’ve become more of a planner, which is great in some ways.

But one of the things I really struggle with is then being fully present, because you’re always thinking of the next thing. And I don’t know if that comes with like the mental load of motherhood or parenthood, but it’s like I’m always thinking about what’s next. Like I plan things out when it comes to my social media content.

I plan things out when it comes to, uh, family activities, what we’re doing in the next week, and it just makes everything move so fast. So. My goal for this year, and maybe you guys can relate to this or not, but uh, my goal for this year is to find more pockets of presence. And I’m kind of like talking through it as I’m figuring it out, but just those moments of quiet to just be still and really like soak in everything that’s happening.

And I think I brought this up before where it’s like, um, you, we tend to dwell when things aren’t going great and we just wanna get through them, right? But when things are going well, we don’t take a moment to just like soak it in and be like, wow, this is awesome. Or Wow, how am I feeling about this? Um, so I feel like it’s good just to account our emotions and how we’re feeling about things.Um, I feel like a therapist right now. Um, this is like, these are the things that go through my head is just kinda like bounces all over the place.

Small Pockets of Happiness and Personal Growth

Um, anyway, I had notes for today, but I’m just kinda like going off on a whim. I kind of talked about last week how I’m not really a New Year’s resolution type person.

I love goals and I love, you know, the idea of a resolution, but I don’t think it has to be necessarily the, in the new year, I think everyone has their kind of their. Personal best times to set goals, whether that’s your birthday month, your, um, you know, the new year or, um, the next week. You know, some people just have to like do what works best for ’em, right?

I’m someone that always sets weekly goals, monthly goals, and I just. I’m always, like I said, always thinking about the next thing. But there’s something fun and exciting about a fresh year. Um, like, I’m gonna get a little boo here, so just bear with me. But I just love the idea of like a clean slate, trying something new, setting a goal of like, something that’s like kind of wild and being like, oh, you know, I’ve never done this before.

Let’s try it this year. Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I’ll love it. Maybe I’ll hate it. You know? Um, I think like when we’re really young, we’re encouraged to try all these different things. And then we get to a point, and maybe it’s like teenage years or young adulthood, like twenties, where we’re like, this is who I am.

I just have to check the boxes. I can’t all of a sudden be that person because I’m, I’m a poser then, or I’m, you know, we get all these ideas in our head of like, we can’t go a different direction. Right? And so when I was like 25. Gosh, I don’t even remember the age. I wanna say like 20, maybe 26, 27. I was at this really toxic job and I was just looking for an out, like the beginning.

I was just running through the emotion, the emotions I’d wake up at like the last minute that I had to, to rush around and get ready. I was always late for work. I hated being there. So like miserable there. The boss was so toxic. I would come home crying every day. It was just awful, right? And I was like, there’s gotta be more, like there’s gotta be something else.

I know this is not what I’m meant to do. And it started by like finding some, like more like encouraging podcasts. And then I read a book called Better Than Before, and this book I had had on my shelf for so long. It’s not like a promoted thing or anything. I’m just trying to share some encouragement in the new year.

I had this book book on my shelf for so long, and I was like, I just wanna read it. I wanna read this book. And I kept finding excuses to not read this book. And I would always just tell people, oh, I’m not a reader. I’m not a reader. Like I, I only, you know, read here and there, right? And one day I was like, I’m gonna read this book.

This is my goal to read this book. I’m gonna read it. And it started off talking about how this guy wanted to wake up earlier and he just started slowly, like waking up 15 minute increments earlier and earlier. And I started doing that and then before I knew it, this is gonna sound crazy to a lot of people out there, um, but I would just wake up at five 30 for joy.

It, it completely changed my days and again, this is a while ago. I don’t do that now, so I’m not like trying to say like, and be like me ’cause I don’t, I don’t do that completely anymore. But I would wake up five 30 or six and I would just read. And having that control in the morning made me realize like, I can do so much more with my time.

That brings me joy. And I think it’s really important to listen to that voice. ’cause I think so many times we just move through the motions and we don’t really ask ourselves like, do I do something to bring my joy today? What do I feel today? And if your whole day is spent, you know, like struggling or unhappy, we just go through the motions and we’re never actually fulfilling something in us.

I know that was like a long spiel, so I hope I didn’t lose you guys on that. But what I’m trying to say is I’m just gonna encourage you, like, if there’s something that’s been weighing on you or something you’re like, I wanna try that. Or, when I was 10 years old, I love drawing. I don’t draw anymore. Pick it up and just try it.

Buy a, buy an adult coloring book, get some markers. Um, you don’t to spend a lot of money. You can spend $2 at the, at the Dollar store. You know, find something that brings you joy this year and, and it sounds kind of crazy and woo woo, but. Even finding 30 minute pockets out of the day to just do something that brings you joy can completely change your day.

Again, I know that was like a long spiel and not how I normally start these, but I’m just feeling, I’m recording this before the new year, but I’m just feeling very hopeful and excited about the new year, and if I can spread a little encouragement to those out there that are struggling or just feel a little hopeless, I know there’s a lot of things that aren’t great in the world right now and.

What’s, you know, on our political climate and all that. Um, not to get into politics, but you know, there’s a lot that’s not great and there’s a lot of change I wish to see. Um, but I think if we can, you know, find joy in like little pockets of our day, I think it will make a difference. And then we can kind of reach out and fill other people’s cups too. Anyway, that was a long spiel. I’m sorry guys. I hope that was okay. Um, so I hope that. That helped someone out there.

Um, before I get to today’s episode, just for a little quick reminder to do my new year giveaway, um, I’m giving away four $50 Amazon gift cards. All you have to do is share a photo of yourself listening to the podcast, a screenshot of your phone listening, a screenshot of your review, and then tag me on social media tag hey christainnis and that’s it. So I will select four winners. The winners will be announced February 12th episode.

Wedding Dilemmas: Navigating Registry Drama & Friend Photographers

All right. Next up we are going to do wedding dilemmas. Um, you guys sent me these in. That was a weird way to say that. You guys sent me these in. Um, so let’s see what we got here.

Okay, this first one says, “my fiance’s aunt told me that our registry is rude because we included higher price items. She said, it makes us look greedy. I’m embarrassed, but also annoyed ’cause it’s a registry, not a demand list.“ Here’s the thing about registries that I find so interesting. People have so many opinions about them. Um, I remember talking to friends years before I was even engaged and. The, the thing they say to do is put anything and everything on there.

There are gonna be some people that can only afford or want to spend under 50 bucks. There are gonna be some people that have a higher price point and they want to buy something really nice for a couple hundred bucks. There’s no expectations. Um, I’ve never looked at someone’s registry and been offended by it because I’m like, I know either that’s outta my price range, or they’ll get that from their parents or.

I’d rather get them blank, you know? Um, so if she’s gonna, I think it’s kind of rude for her to tell you that your registry is rude. She doesn’t need to, you know, pay for that. I think it’s maybe her feeling a little offended, or, I don’t know, maybe her own, maybe she didn’t have a registry. So she just thinks in general they’re selfish.

Um. I also find it’s interesting, and this is like a hill I will die on. I think it’s interesting when people get so mad about like the honeymoon registry, because I’m like, whether I put plates or bedsheets or, um, a new, a new couch on my registry. That money or however you spend that money is coming to me.

So if I decide to return those sheets and I use those $50 towards dinner on my honeymoon, why does it matter? And if you, and I think I, it was Suzanne Lambert that was in the podcast that was like, and if you care about that person, it shouldn’t matter what they use the money for. People still get up in arms in it.

I posted a thing recently about honeymoons and someone was like, I’m not paying for someone’s honeymoon. And it’s like, you’re not paying for it. Like if it’s a honeymoon registry, it’s usually alongside of a wedding registry. So it’s not like you’re buying them a wedding gift and a honeymoon thing. It’s, you can pick and choose.

Um, like a lot of my friends already lived with their partners, had all the pots and pans and all that stuff. So they didn’t need extra pots and pans that they weren’t going to use. Right? So for those people I was like, oh, I would love to buy you dinner and drinks on the beach. I would love to buy you your plane ticket.

You know, whatever that was. Um, and that was kind of a, kind of a cool thing. Maybe it’s just ’cause it’s like a newer thing, but whatever. I wanna let your fiance’s aunt’s comments get to you. Just let him roll off. Be like, you know what, aunt Susie, thank you for your feedback. Um, you don’t need to get us anything. It’s not a big deal. We just kind of wanna put a couple different price ranges on there and if you wanna get us something you can, but no pressure.

Okay, next one. Oh gosh, “my friend offered to do our wedding photos as a gift. But her work is not good. I don’t know how to decline without hurting her feelings or ruining the friendship.”

I have talked about this so many times, and this is something I’m so passionate about. It doesn’t matter if her work is good or not, because either way, I wouldn’t mention that to her, her quality of work. Right. I would just say, especially if it’s gonna be someone you want there as a guest. Say thank you so much for offering.

I really, really appreciate it. However, I just want you there as a guest. I want you there fully immersed in the guest experience, hanging out with us on the dance floor, taking advantage of the open bar, um, being with us for photos, whatever that looks like. Instead of it, if she keeps pushing, just. You gotta repeat and just say, Hey, you know what?

We actually already found a photographer. If someone like that is already is offended that you found a different photographer, they’re not in it for the right reasons anyway, because they’re either looking for more business like they wanna be paid or they want other people to miss their business and that’s not really a good friend anyways.

So, um, just be clear and upfront. It doesn’t matter again if it works good or not. I personally think like a vendor like that. If they’re your friend, you want them there as a guest. Right. Obviously there’s some like vendors, like for instance, I had my sister-in-law make our cake. That’s something where like, she was still a bridesmaid.

So she was a bridesmaid. She could make the cake and she could put the cake, like she didn’t need to like be a part of the cake the whole time. You know what I mean? Like a DJ or a, um, a photographer, a videographer. Those kind of vendors, they need to be their job the whole night. So this friend, if she’s a photographer, she’s not gonna be able to actually hang out, enjoy the wedding.

So just really accentuate how much you want her there as a guest, and you want her to be in photos. You wanna hang out with her and just say, it’s just not possible to have her as a photographer. But thank you.

Would You Rather: Wedding Edition

Okay. All right, onto the next segment. Would you rather, here we go. These are completely random. I have not read any of these, so here we go. “Would you rather deal with a pushy mother-in-law or a bridesmaid who thinks she’s the bride?” Oh gosh. Um, I think I’m very lucky. I’m very lucky that I never had to deal with either of these. I’ve heard stories of. Nightmares on both sides. So I’m trying to think of like the worst scenario.

If I had to deal with either of these. Gosh, I think I’m gonna say a bridesmaid who thinks she’s the bride. I don’t know. I might go back on that just because like at the end of the day. Something’s not working with a bridesmaid, you can just like kick ’em out of the wedding, right?

A mother-in-law is still your fiance’s mom or your partner’s mom, right? So you can’t, you can kick them out of coming to the wedding, but there’s still that blood relationship. So if a bridesmaid is going to be terrible and do all those things, you can just be like, thanks, but no thanks. Mother-in-law has a little more, um, pull in the game, I guess.

“Would you rather have someone wear white to your wedding or someone give an unapproved speech?” Um, wear white. I’ve talked about this before. White does not bother me in the slightest. Yes, for like family photos, it’s nice to like stand out, but like everyone knows you’re the bride like. I don’t know. That does not bother me really.

Um, yeah, I don’t wanna Unapprove speech. Sorry. “Would you rather have a wedding crasher or a vendor who shows up an hour late?” Depends on who the wedding crasher is. If it’s like at the end of the night and we’re all just dancing, having fun and it’s like funny, like older ladies, I’d be like, yeah, come on in.

Sure. If it’s like an ex of someone, someone that we purposely didn’t invite because of like toxic behavior, I would not want that. Um, I’m so bad at these ’cause I like think about things like too, like analytically and like logically. Or a vendor who shows up an hour late, gosh, I’m gonna go with, ’cause I’m such a timely person, I’d be like stressed. I think I’m gonna go with a vendor that shows up an hour late. No, I’d be stressed. I wanna go with a wedding crusher. Yeah, let’s go with wedding crusher. Okay.

“Would you rather have a bridesmaid dropout last minute or add herself back in last minute?” How would she add herself back in? Uh, we don’t just add ourselves back in. Um. That sounds like something that’s really pushy. So I’m gonna go with a bridesmaid dropping out last minute. Honestly, I don’t see the big deal. Um, like, yeah, I’d be sad. Like if I’m thinking about my own wedding, if one of my friends did that, I’d be like, oh my gosh, why are you dropping out?

I’m so sad. But when I read stories about it, it’s not, it’s more of the like, emotional part of it that’s sad, right? If you like think about them on your day, that’s what’s sad. But if we’re just thinking about people. If one person can’t make it, all of a sudden the wedding’s still gonna go fine. Um, it’s still gonna flow, like you’re gonna get everything you need.

Um, so it’s more of the emotional aspect of it. So that would be really sad to deal with, especially if it’s a close friend. But, um, if it was for a right reason, I would go with that. Dunno what that means, add herself back in last minute. Just like show like she drops out. Then is like, surprise. I’m actually still here. Then that’s it. Sounds more like an issue.

All right. “Would you rather your maid of honor forget the rings or forget the speech?” Oh, I think I would say forget the rings, because while the rings are more meaningful, I think in the whole thing, you can forget something like. The day of, right. Um, and it would hopefully just be for the ceremony so someone could like, maybe bring them, but if, if someone’s forgetting a speech, that means they completely forgot the whole time to even write one or do one or spend any time on it. And that shows me that more so that they just don’t care. Yeah.

Okay. “Would you rather spend extra on the venue or extra on the photographer?” Um, photographer. Okay. Um, you, you cannot beat a good photographer. Um, obviously, like all in all, I think our venue costs a little more, but like we had, I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but we got married in an old mattress factory and it was just completely like, um, rustic is the wrong word. It was not rustic. I can’t even think of what it’s called, but it was just such a cool vibe.

And I didn’t need like a really fancy venue. I was, that was not like number one on my list. I just want good photos. And if you could have good, a good photographer, you can get good photos like almost anywhere. And that’s what I wanted. I just wanted a good vibe. Good photos. Yeah.

“Would you rather cut your guest list by 20 people or cut your decor budget in half?” Decor budget in half. I’m all about the people. I did have like, I don’t know, I guess you’d call it medium sized wedding. I think I had 140 people, which years ago. I was like, oh, I’ll have like 250 people. And then the older you get just more people like dwindle away. Right. But when it came time for planning the wedding, if that were, if that’s what I was assigned between, I would cut decor budget, because at the end of the day, if you’re in a cool place.

You don’t need a ton. We, the place we got married, like down the street, had a lot of stuff you could rent, so we rented some stuff from there. They also had candles that we could rent from them. And then I made a lot of stuff, so I didn’t really spend a lot on, on decor anyways. I even re, I even used my friend made handmade bouquets with fake flowers and she let us use all those. So I spent like nothing on decor.

“Would you rather splurge on the honeymoon or splurge on the dress?” Honeymoon all the way. I talked about this before too. My dress was under $1,500. I think it was, I think, wanna say it was like 1200. I didn’t even look at the price tag. So I went because it was like a direct kind of bridal shop.

And plus, because my venue was connected to it, um, I got like an extra 20% off discount or something. Um. And don’t get me wrong, I love the dress, but I was not a bride that went to like five bridal shops to find the dress. I went to one bridal shop. I tried on five or six dresses, and I knew that first day. I was like, this is my favorite. Let’s go with it. I don’t need to try on a million things. I just kind of was like this, this is good. This is good. Um, yeah. For me, I would rather splurge on a honeymoon. My honeymoon was definitely more than the dress.

“Would you rather DIY all decor or have zero decor at all?”

I personally would rather DIY. Like I said, I did a lot of my own wedding. All the signs, um, all the, my friend did the, the bouquets, all the decor. I kind of thought of myself and I’ve been a part of a lot of DIY weddings. You need a little something. I’ve seen them go overboard, so it’s not necessarily go to go crazy, but, um, yeah, I would do DIY.

All right, last one. “Would you rather a surprise, honeymoon plan by your partner or plan every detail yourself?” You guys know me? I’m a planner. I am okay with surprises, but it makes me feel itchy, like I need to like. I need to get in there. I need know what’s going, need to know what’s going on. Um, so I would rather plan all the details myself.

Luckily for us though, like we planned it together, I used sandals. Um, again, this is not sponsored, this is just, they were the most budget friendly. We were gonna, we were looked at Hawaii and it was so expensive. Sandals at least like we were able to like. Pick the location. We looked at all the different ones to see like what was most affordable.

And it was nice. It was all inclusive, so with the price you paid include all the food. All the drinks, and I think we even were able to include flights in all that. So that was really nice to be able to do that. And then, um, we could plan stuff when we got there. So we didn’t have like a strict itinerary, but when we got there, we could pick extra excursions and I would do it a hundred times over.

The Seven-Day Wedding Disaster

It was so much fun. Okay, now to the real, real story here. This week’s story submission, “I was a bridesmaid in a wedding that came together in just one week. The couple had originally had planned a private ceremony, and when some people found out, they created so much drama that the couple felt pressured to plan a full wedding in seven days.”

No, that is like ultimate like people pleaser, like, okay, we’ll just do it in seven days. Like I was a part of a DIY wedding where they, they had a three month engagement and I thought that was like really hard to do. Like it was fast and seven days. I’m like, what did you do in those seven days? ’cause that’s a lot.

“They also had to change venues because one church refused to host due to the drama. So we had an all intensity of a year long engagement squeezed into a single week. And because of the chaos, the wedding party changed several times before the big day.” How long is this week? This seems like an impossibly long week.

“The maid of honor, let’s call her, Emily, had been the bride’s best friend since fifth grade. But she had always been jealous of the bride’s relationship for years. She tried to sabotage them, creating tension, trying to break them up, and constantly forcing the bride to choose, choose between her and the groom.”

So why are we making her the maid of honor? When I see like Frida, all these friendships, I’m like, why? Why? Unless like from this bridesmaid perspective, she could always see it and then the bride was just kind of blind to it, which, which happens of course.

Okay. “On the wedding day, Emily confronted the bridesmaids, including me, and called us all fake friends while we were trying to get hair and makeup done.” What? Okay, so this is the maid of honor. “She was furious because she learned that I confided some of her private struggles, including her addiction issues and another crush she had to the bride.”

Whoa. “I only did this because I cared about her and believed she needed help. I had suffered a stroke the month before and couldn’t do much myself, so I turned to the bride hoping we could figure out how to support her.”

Okay, so here’s where I’m gonna disagree. I mean, of course, I don’t know how severe or what’s going on with this person’s addiction. I’m not a therapist or an addictions counselor. So this is just my own perspective as I’m learning this story right now. Little, um, disclaimer, but my number, one of the number one things I say is do not, I don’t wanna say bother, but do not get the bride involved in drama right before her wedding and not saying like someone’s issue, someone’s addiction issues is drama necessarily. But if that person confided in you and is telling you something, the best time to tell the bride is probably not right before her wedding es even, like especially knowing that it’s already like there’s already drama happening around this wedding. There’s already like a lot of stress. It’s happening in a week. Again, how long is this week? There’s a lot happening right? I would be waiting until after the wedding and be like, ‘Hey, by the way, blank came to me, or I guess we know her name’s Emily, or her changed name is Emily came to me and said, this is what’s going on. I’m very concerned of, uh, very concerned. The timing seems a little like sketchy to me, and I, I don’t wanna come on this, like, I don’t know. I don’t wanna be. Put down this person that sent in the story. But the timing seems a little weird, especially if, you know, things are already kind of like iffy. This could set someone off like this.

“The other bridesmaid knew none of this, and I wasn’t about to share Emily’s personal business in front of everyone we genuinely cared for.” And I, I do believe you cared for her. I do believe this person cared for her, but however, but it’s just the timing thing. Like we need to make sure, like the bride’s not brought into like crazy drama, right?

Right before right. “Emily then took off with two bridesmaids and disappeared for hours. They did the bare minimum for the wedding and then left to eat out, never bringing back anything for the bride who hadn’t eaten and was stuck doing tests emily should have been doing. Whatever Emily told the other bridesmaids must have been bad because one of them, someone I had been close to, barely speaks to me to this day.

The other bridesmaid who left with her, stayed friends with us afterward, though, she told us that she caught Emily shoplifting items for the wedding and not small items, expensive ones. I later learned that the $2,000 veil Emily gave the bride was stolen.” That’s wild. Okay. “Even though Emily had access to plenty of money, a wealthy friend had loaned her cash for the wedding. She still shoplifted.” Well, I mean, if she’s going through a serious addiction, we don’t know. I mean.

I don’t know the whole story, so I don’t wanna judge this person. Again, I don’t have background in this, so this seems like a very serious matter. Um, I’m also like, why is this maid of honor? Why is it put on the maid of honor to buy all these things for the wedding? Um, why should it matter that a friend loaned her cash for the wedding if I was in a wedding? And I was told, okay, it’s in a week. You have to pay for all these things. Like, and if I couldn’t afford it, I would step down. Um, the fact that like a friend had to loan her all this money, that’s a, a little odd. Like going back to being at a seven day planning of this wedding, I would be like, okay, we’re gonna keep it really simple.

We’re not spending money on like pointless things. Not saying veil’s pointless, but like it sounds like they’re spending a lot of like money on stuff and like putting all these things together. Like keep it stupid simple. If you’re having a one week planning time.

“Emily heavily controlled what she thought everyone should wear throwing fits anytime She didn’t get her way and celebrating when she did, I found a $65 dress that was more appropriate for the church ceremony compared to the $200 one she demanded I wear.”

Why is the maid of Honor? Okay. Am I confused? No. The maid of honor is Emily. Why is the maid of honor controlling what dresses they wear? And also, again, they’re getting married in seven days. Why are we spending all this time finding this super expensive dress? Let’s just find one. Let’s just find one. All the girls can wear and be done with it. But again, this should be the bride controlling this.

“She was furious when I asked to return it. She pressured the bride into choosing a dress she never actually wanted.” Okay. At some point we have to take responsibilities for ourselves though, like, like how? How is this made of honor pressuring the bridesmaid, the bride, and the bridesmaids?

“She says not the bride, not the groom. The bride still says she wished she could redo her entire wedding because of how much Emily influenced and manipulated everything.” We need to get rid of this person. “The bride was an hour and a half late to her own wedding because she had to hammer tent stakes and do heavy setup work. Test the maid of honor, should have helped.” With this is again where, and I talked about this on my episode with Bethy. This is when like there’s an overlap of like paid work help in your wedding party. We cannot assume that just because someone’s in your wedding party that they are going to do all the work for setup.

You are then hiring your friends for unpaid labor. And some people like myself, I love doing that stuff. I love being involved. Like if I’m in your wedding, expect me to help you with something, I, I will do that. But it should not be an expectation. The expectation of a bridesmaid is that they get the dress that you want, they stand up by your side, and they’re there at the wedding day.

Like honest to God. That should be the minimum, like that should be their expectation. The fact that you’re expecting your maid of honor to get your tent set up. You have to hammer in tent stakes and do the heavy setup? No, like can we get someone else? Do that. Where are the groomsmen? Let’s get the groomsmen in there.

“I tried to help after my stroke. I was extremely slow and weak. Emily also insisted the groom choose a best man she wasn’t close to because she had a crush on him and wanted to walk down the aisle with him. Shockingly, both men agreed.” Okay. How, how does this woman have such an impact on all these people to change their whole wedding? Who’s the best man? Who’s walking down with who, what dresses we’re wearing? Like at some point we need to say like, no. Or if you say like, yeah, fine, we’ll do it. Don’t know. I don’t know guys like I. We gotta take a little responsibility on both sides.

“Before the reception, Emily disappeared entirely. The bride and I panicked knowing her history of destructive behavior. Eventually we found Emily had gone to another gathering to see the guy she was crushing on.” I thought the guy she crushed on was a groomsman.

“She confronted him about his feelings and he wasn’t interested. To make things worse, the guy I had a crush on and usher also ended up at that gathering.” Where’s this other gathering? I thought they were all at a wedding together. “Emily spent time with him too, and this wasn’t the first time she had gone behind my back to flirt with him or hang out with him. She didn’t actually want him. She just liked the drama.” I don’t know. I think, I think you guys all liked the drama. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but why lie? She told you like this in confidence and then you went and told the bride, I’m just confused by this little event.

“Before the wedding, Emily had lice and I caught it from her.” This is the longest week I’ve ever heard of. Why are all these things happening this week? “I managed to treat it before the wedding and showed up lice free only to discover afterward that I had caught it again. Emily hadn’t treated at all.” Guys, this is a mess. This is like why so is Emily girl had lice. They’re just like going around. Are you friends with Emily? Because I feel like the way you’re talking about her, she’s not your friend. Is she friends with the bride more? How’d you guys get lice if you’re not friends? Did this happen in the prior week to the wedding? I.

“Despite all this, the wedding day still turned out beautiful. It’s amazing what can be accomplished in a week with determination and love The bride and I became best friends afterward. She told me many times she wished she’d chosen me as her maid of honor instead. As for Emily, I hope one day she gets the help she clearly needs.”

Okay. I mean, I know I shared a lot of my thoughts, but I feel like this is. There’s a lot of things here. One is a communication error, like why is this Emily girl, the maid of honor, when she’s done all these horrible things apparently, and it seems like there’s a lot of bad talk about her behind her back. So there’s that one, two, I’m confused, like, okay, when you decide to have a quick engagement, you can’t just assume all these people are gonna do things for your day, right?

Like. Yes, if you have a crafty family, if you have people there, there that can help. But why is it again, the maid of honors duty to set up tents for you? That’s not her job. Get a bunch of the guys, get some extra, you know, hire some people to help set up. Um, but I don’t think she’s completely wrong for that.

Again, we are talking. You decided, not you, the bride decided. That they were gonna throw together a wedding in one week. Why should everyone stop everything they’re doing? They probably all have jobs. They probably all have families. Why should they have to stop everything they’re doing to put together your wedding?

That’s where I just don’t agree with it. Like, I’m like a very like do it yourself kind of person. Um. I could never imagine being like, okay, in one week from now I’m gonna do this thing and have all, all my friends are gonna help me. Um, this is my wedding day. You know, like it just seems very, like, that seems a little bridezilla to expect all your friends to just set up a wedding for you.

Um, the little drama here about like telling. The bride about her crush and her addiction again, did it need to happen before the wedding? I don’t think so. I think we need to keep the bride out of the wedding drama as much as possible if we’re really trying to stay focused on like making this day as beautiful as possible.

1. Keep the bride outta the drama. Let’s get all hands together. Why am I not hearing about family members, the groom, groomsmen, anyone else helping? It seems like it. Emily is just to blame this Emily girl. She didn’t do this. She was supposed to do this. She didn’t do like, let’s slow down. We always knew.

She was jealous of the relationship, or that’s what we, that’s what she says. She was jealous of the relationship. Tried to sabotage them, create tension. Try get them to try to get them to break up. Forcing the bride to choose between him and her. So there’s already issues there. So now we’re gonna push her in and be like, Hey, you need to put together this wedding, not her problem.

This might be a hot take, but it’s not her problem. This should be the bride and groom putting everything together, and then if people offer to help and wanna come in, they can help. It is not the maid of honor, best man, groomsmen or, or bridesmaid’s responsibility to make this happen. If they want to, they can.

If they wanna ask, they can, but it’s, it’s not anyone’s responsibility. We’re talking seven days. God, like I said, I, I’ve been a part of like really quick engagements, really quick DIY weddings, and even then it took multiple weeks to get everything together. So I can only imagine the stress that this put on everyone.

And I feel like this was just kind of calling out like some toxic to toxicity between the friends, right? No one really seems innocent in this. I don’t know. You guys have to let me know what you think. Sometimes I get like, like I have to look at it from all sides, so I’m not trying to call it this person.

I just have to look for it from all sides. And I feel like this is very like putting Emily down. We know she’s got some issues. We know there’s some different things going on, so let’s not have. Put that huge level of responsibility on someone when we know they can’t hold up to it. Or like I said, if you’re like, I need this person as my maid of honor, we’re getting married in seven days.

Keep it stupid simple. We found a place, set up some chairs, have an arch, have someone read your vows, have a party, go to a bar. You can do things really simply. Um. And yeah, that’s, that’s what I think you guys tell me what you guys think about this. ’cause the idea that your wedding party is hired, labor is just, no, it’s just old news to me.

Again, there’s a lot of people out there that really do like doing that stuff, and I think that’s great. I enjoy doing it. But not everyone’s like that. Not everyone has the time. If you’ve got kids, a spouse, a job, a full-time job, like. You have to remember, that’s their priority. Your wedding day is not their priority.

So we need to give a little more grace and understanding for things like that.

Wedding Stress Confessions: DIY Disasters and Lessons Learned

Alright, that’s what we got today. All right, let’s end with some confessions here. I don’t know why I said here like that. All right. “I ended up looking like a zombie on my wedding day due to stress.” Uh, you know what? I think that’s one of those things.

I heard so many people talk about wedding stress before I got married and while I was, yeah, I was a little stressed here and there. I knew of people that like couldn’t eat towards the end that had lost so much weight because they were just like so stressed about getting things checked off. Um, that would be in tears multiple times because of different things and, and it’s hard.

There’s a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of external pressures, family pressures. Um, people that got married during COVID right, or were engaged during COVID, I heard of venues getting canceled. I heard of family members not being able to come in. Um, just different things like that, like stressors that you can’t plan for.

So it’s really important to just understand, and I’m not trying to belittle wedding days or anything ’cause they’re amazing. But remember, it’s just a day. As long as you have your close friends and family there, it’s gonna be beautiful. You gotta remember that it’s not gonna be a hundred percent perfect.

Um, and stress. Stress is like, stress can kill you, right? We all let stress get to us from depending on different things. We all stress about different things. Um. I’ve heard of brides being so stressed that their wedding day comes and they can’t even enjoy it. ’cause their body is just like so tense still from all the stress buildup.

Like I said, they, they don’t eat. They don’t sleep, and it’s just like their day’s there and then it’s over and they get like a wedding hangover, not like an alcohol hangover, a wedding hangover where they’re sad because the day came and went and they didn’t actually fully enjoy it. Or they had all these months of stress and planning and then it was just gone. Right. So it’s sad when that happens.

Um, okay. “Made my own centerpieces. Half of them fell apart when the guest touched ’em.” That’s hard with DIY stuff. It happens, but at the end of the day, as long as you get a couple photos of them, you just have to, it’s one of those things you have to let go.

“I let my sister be the dj. Our first dance had a short ad in the middle of the song.” What? Okay, I wanna know what platform puts ads in the middle of a song. Um, and that’s just. It’s the price you pay. I mean you, if it’s probably free. So that’s, that’s the gamble you take. You, you have someone that’s not a licensed business. Be a vendor you, you give and take. Right? I’m sure everyone was able to laugh it off.

All right. “Tried to sew my own veil and it ended up looking like a mosquito netting.” Yeah, know your talents. Know your strengths, know your weaknesses. Know where it’s better to pay someone to do it or ask for help. Alright, last one. “I DIYed my bouquet. It wilted before the ceremony even started.” I, yeah, again, it’s like you gotta know what, there’s certain things that you have to know, like.

What’s gonna work and what won’t. There’s certain things you gotta be willing to negotiate on. Like where, where are your strengths and where are we gonna be? Like, I’m gonna hire for that. Like I said, never thought I would have fake flowers, but my friends fake flowers at her wedding looked beautiful and she got married six months before me and she’s like, do you want these? And I was like, $4,000 or flowers from her. I’ll take those. So I did that.

Okay. That’s all I’ve got for this week. Thanks for joining me on. Here comes the drama. Um, lots of exciting things coming this year. So many exciting episodes coming up and things with the book. Um. I know I’m, I sound like a broken record, but here comes a drama affairs and Sloan story has been out since June and there’s been so many great reviews.

So if you guys had a chance to read the book. It would really help me out to, if you share it on social media, leave a review, share it with a friend, um, ask your library to order it, whatever that looks like for you. It just helps more people get their hands on the book. It’s just been so much fun to read and I still can’t believe.

I wrote a book, it’s Wild. Um, and I wrote book number two, um, more details on that. That’s been a lot of fun to write. Um, I will keep you guys posted on when that will become available. Manifesting some big things for this year and I hope you guys are as well. Again, don’t forget to enter the 2026. Episode 50 giveaway that I announced last week.

Um, just share something in your story on social media about the podcast. Gimme a screenshot of the podcast. It can be a screenshot of you listening. Tag me at @@heychristainnis, and we’ll select four winners, four $50 Amazon gift card. All right guys, that’s all I’ve got. Thanks for hanging out with me and I’ll see you next time.

Bye now.