bachelorette party drama

MOH Betrayal, Secrets Uncovered, & a Full Bridezilla Meltdown with Jubilee Dawn

My new book Here Comes the Drama: A Ferris and Sloan Story is live!

This bride didn’t want a friend, she wanted free labor.

This week’s listener submission delivers peak bridezilla chaos: free bridesmaid dresses turned into unpaid labor, public bridesmaid demotions, and a cold cutoff once the wedding was over. A painful reminder that pleasing people can invite the wrong kind of power.

This week, Christa sits down with Jubilee Dawn to unpack a story that cuts even deeper. A 17-year friendship that unraveled after a wedding alcohol “reimbursement” exposed money scams, blind loyalty, and manipulation buried for years. From betrayal to boundaries, this episode proves weddings don’t change people, they reveal them.

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Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

Maid of Honor Betrayal – A 17-year friendship collapses after a wedding alcohol “reimbursement” exposes manipulation and gaslighting.
The Receipt That Changed Everything – Credit card statements uncover a pattern of financial abuse far bigger than one wedding.
Forced Forgiveness & Gaslighting – Confrontation is met with defensiveness, religious pressure, and zero accountability.
Losing Half the Bridal Party – Setting boundaries reveals enablers unwilling to face the truth.
Bridezilla & Free Labor – A listener story exposes kindness exploited for unpaid dresses and wedding work.
Public Humiliation on Display – Bridesmaids are demoted, helpers yelled at, and friends treated like staff.
When Weddings Reveal Character – Weddings don’t create drama, they expose power, patterns, and priorities.

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

“ Weddings bring out people’s true colors. How people are people.” – Christa Innis
“Being sensitive doesn’t make you weak—it means you notice when something’s wrong.” – Christa Innis
“ I think learning to put up boundaries in a healthy way has been a big part of my healing.” – Jubilee Dawn
“You don’t owe anyone access to you just because you’ve known them a long time.” – Christa Innis
“Forgiveness without accountability isn’t healing, it’s just more harm.” – Jubilee Dawn
“Being a bridesmaid is not payment for free labor.” – Christa Innis
“If everyone’s ex is ‘crazy,’ maybe it’s not the exes.” – Christa Innis
“I spent years believing everyone was good. Healing taught me that boundaries matter more than optimism.” – Jubilee Dawn
“After 17 years, I realized I never actually knew her.” – Jubilee Dawn
“You’re not dramatic for noticing patterns, you’re paying attention.” – Christa Innis
“Walking away was the hardest and healthiest choice I’ve ever made.” – Jubilee Dawn
“Losing half my bridal party hurt, but losing my peace would’ve hurt more.” – Jubilee Dawn
“Being kind doesn’t mean being available for exploitation.” –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.

About Jubilee

Jubilee Dawn is a prominent content creator, advocate, and storyteller known for sharing raw, honest conversations about religious deconstruction, purity culture, and healing from toxic systems. Through her platforms on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, Jubilee opens up about personal experiences, survivor stories, and the complicated realities of setting boundaries, especially when it comes to relationships, faith, and family dynamics. She hosts two podcasts entitled “Healed-ish” and “The Overshare Hour”, where she blends vulnerability, humor, and hard truths to help others feel less alone and more empowered.

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Blog Transcript:

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

Christa Innis: Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of, Here Comes The Drama. I’m your host, Christa Innis, and starting off today, I wanna ask you guys a question just to set the scene, get the mood right. How would you feel if someone you had trusted, someone you had known for over 17 years and ask to be a part of your wedding day if you found out that they conned you?

How would you feel? Because that’s exactly what happened to today’s guest. I have Jubilee Dawn here and she’s gonna share her own wedding story of how her maid of honor, who she knew for over 17 years conned her on her wedding day. And it is just a very shocking story. Um, jaws were dropped many times. My, uh.

I just couldn’t, I couldn’t contain what I was feeling inside. Um, so I’m gonna allow her, allow her, I’m gonna have her tell her story. Um, starting off, we’re just gonna jump right into it because it is very drama filled, very shocking, and a lot of details you wanna pay attention to. Um, of course, in addition to that, we are gonna share some, uh, red flag, green flag kind of scenarios.

And then of course. A wild wedding story from one of my followers here. So we are gonna get into it today. Enjoy this very detailed, very shocking episode. Um, yeah, without further ado, enjoy this episode. Bye guys. Oh, take that part.

So without further ado, here’s that very wild episode. Enjoy.

Christa Innis: Hi Jubilee. Thank you so much for coming on.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Christa Innis: I’m so excited to have you on. I follow your content pretty regularly, and someone had sent me your wild. Maid of honor story. But before we get to that, I want you just to introduce yourself, talk about what you share on social media, all that good stuff, and then we’ll get into, uh, your wild story.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. I am Jubilee Dawn. I share on TikTok and Instagram, and I have two podcasts and I share a lot about religious deconstruction, so I talk a lot about purity culture. Crazy youth pastor stories. And then also I’ve done many story times about the maid of honor situations.

Christa Innis: Okay. I love it. Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: All healing stuff.

Christa Innis: How do you, okay, so what are your two podcasts and how do you find the time to do two podcasts? I’m like, with one, I’m just like, oh my God. It’s, a lot of times

Jubilee Dawn: I honestly don’t even know how I’m doing it. I just went part-time, thank goodness. Um, at, ’cause I still have a job. Job Okay. On top of doing content.

But, uh, my podcast that I do like, my main podcast, I would say is Heel Dish, and that’s where I do any survivor stories. And yeah, I have an editor, so that helps for that one. And then my other podcast is the Overshare Hour. And on that one we do advice. So it’s an advice column podcast, and it’s with my best friend.

We both joined religious cults at the age of 17 and 18 and she actually married my brother and they are have since divorced, but her and I are still best friends, so Wow. Yeah, she’s also a content creator, so we have a lot of fun on that one as well. And then we like switch off editing those, but yes, I feel very busy.

Christa Innis: I love that. So were you guys friends before she married your brother or that kind of made you guys connect?

Jubilee Dawn: I knew her from youth group, so I met her when I was 14 and I think she was 15 and she started to date my brother, but we became friends through their relationship, so they were together for about 10 years and she is the mother to my two nieces.

So I mean, she’s family, she’s

Christa Innis: always involved. Yes. Yeah, she’ll always be there. I love that. I love when you like get connected, like through marriage, whether it works out or not, and then you just like find your person and you’re like your best friend, so that’s awesome that. You have that outlet too, to be able to like, give advice and share stories.

I love that you’re using your platform for that because it’s such an important thing to highlight. So many people have, um, stories of youth group or how, you know, they grew up, I guess you wanna say. But um, yeah, I think it’s really important.

Jubilee Dawn: Thank you. Yeah, I’m always shocked by the stories, so that’s like one of the main things I do is just read stories and, uh, they’re wild.

So that’s why I love what you do here too. I’m obsessed with wild stories

Christa Innis: and I feel like we can relate. It’s funny because people will comment on these stories that I share on YouTube and you know, of course, like there’s no way to triple check, like if everything’s a hundred percent true, right? It’s through the eyes of the person that sent it to me.

But I’ll get comments sometimes when people are like, there’s no way this can be real. This sounds made up. This is, and I’m like. These maybe, maybe part is exaggerated, we don’t really know. But the fact of the matter is these things happen and we, if we don’t allow people to share their stories, then it, it creates a space, like an unsafe space.

So I feel like opening the doors up to be like, Hey, this happened to me. And it allows other people to share their stories, to relate or be like, wow, that was really weird because someone did that to me too, and now I can stand up for myself. And I think it’s, there’s so much power in storytelling.

Jubilee Dawn: No, absolutely.

And I get comments like that too, where people will be like, there’s no way these stories are real. And I’m like, well go to the comments and see the five other people that said that the exact same thing happened in their, uh, church or wherever they grew up. I mean, no, it’s real for sure. Yes. Crazy things do happen.

The Maid of Honor You Thought You Knew

Christa Innis: It’s so wild. So jumping into wild stories, you, and this is like the first time I think I saw your content was when you were talking about your maid of honor conned you at your own wedding, which is just shocking in that sentence alone. Um, so let’s just dive in. What happened, and I’ll probably just ask questions along the way.

’cause this is just shocking for many people to like, comprehend.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. I, I feel like a lot of questions that people have when I say that is, oh, she must have been someone new in your life. ’cause you know, sometimes you hit it off with somebody and you ask them to be in your wedding after like a year, you know, uh, that was not the case.

So I was actually close with her for 17 years and 15. Wow. Yeah. So we became best friends when I was 12 and she was 19. Uh, which is weird in hindsight, but. At the time, I just thought I was mature for my age and, uh, basically we’re connected. I try to be vague because, uh, I just try to be vague about how I know her, but yes.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I knew her for 17 years. She was always my best friend. I am divorced, so I also got divorced because of a Walt Disney World Burger. That’s like another crazy story

Christa Innis: because of a Walt Disney burger.

Jubilee Dawn: Yes. My, my ex got, he was very abusive and okay. He got very mad when I shared a bite of my burger with my cousin at Disney World.

Um, and I didn’t even give him the burger to buy it. I took a fork and gave him a bite of it, and my ex said that that was disrespectful to him as the man at the table. Um, it was so crazy. Was this the

Christa Innis: first red flag or the final red flag?

Jubilee Dawn: The final red flag. And thankfully I think it made me. Address the situation for the first time because family members witnessed it and he ended up threatening to strain me in Florida and it was like a huge fight in the middle of Disney World.

Like those viral videos that you see of people fighting in Disney, it’s like so cringey. That was absolutely the case. Oh my god. Um, so yeah, after he was abusive, after that I finally ended up leaving. So this best friend who I call Crystal, she was my maid of honor for that wedding as well. So I just really didn’t think that there was anything I needed to be worried about with her.

Obviously after 17 years you really think you know someone, but mm-hmm. Um, all that to say on the wedding day, there was a situation where her husband had said, I want to be the bartender for the wedding. Uh, he said, this will be our gift to you. I really want to bartend, because he was like a very big drinker and he was always.

Making drinks. And um, it was also gonna be at a family member’s house. So it’s not like we were at a venue, it was at my grandma’s house.

Christa Innis: Right.

Jubilee Dawn: So as the night is going on, he had told me how much alcohol to buy and it seemed like the right amount of alcohol. I mean, I bought a lot of wine, a lot of tequila, and it wasn’t a huge wedding, it was maybe 80 people.

Mm-hmm. So throughout the night, my maid of honor crystal ended up coming up to me and she was like, Hey, this is, I’m so sorry, but we are running out of alcohol. There is no more alcohol left and um, I can send my husband to go get some more. And I was like, oh, well, um, yeah, definitely like go and do that.

Thank you so much. I so appreciate that you guys are willing to go and do that. Because it was on New Year’s Eve too. I wasn’t even sure what would be open. Right. You know? Um, so yeah, I told them that I would reimburse them for whatever they spent on this alcohol. So he came back, he had all of the alcohol and it was great.

Like, I had a great time on the wedding day and I didn’t know that anything weird had happened. Mm-hmm.

The Wedding Alcohol Scam

Jubilee Dawn: So the next day it, it, we are at the airport on the way to our honeymoon, and I get this text from her and she said, Hey, I just wanted to let you know you owe us $373. I think it was, and I, that surprised me that it was that much because I knew I had bought so much alcohol, uh, for this wedding.

But I was like, okay, sure. Um, I don’t know. What do you think about this, like texting the day after the wedding? Like I feel like personally I wouldn’t have

Christa Innis: no, like, that’s like, Hey, send me the

Jubilee Dawn: money.

Christa Innis: Yes. That’s like their time. Like I feel like I wouldn’t bother the couple right after the wedding.

Jubilee Dawn: Right. I know.

And I’m like very good about paying people back. So, I mean, I probably would’ve texted her on my own, but I. I think if it was just that it wouldn’t have mattered. But given everything I know, I feel like that was odd. So I ended up ven mowing her husband, the money, we went on our honeymoon. It was great.

And when I came back I was working for a family business and one of the things that my family had delegated to me was just to pay this family member who had dementia pay their mortgage. So, um, on top of that I was also supposed to somewhat look at the credit card statements just to make sure the balance didn’t get too high.

Mm-hmm. I wasn’t told to look through it or verify purchases or anything like that. They just said make sure that it doesn’t get too high to the, the credit limit. Mm-hmm. So I’m going through it and I noticed that the balance seemed kind of high that month. I was like, okay, well let me look at what is on here.

So as I’m looking over this family member’s Bill, I see that there was an alcohol charge on our wedding day for $373, and that is the exact amount that I had paid my maid of honor. And I was like, wait, that doesn’t make any sense because I reimbursed her husband. But it looks like, I mean, there’s like my family member with dementia, they do not drive, they did not go buy this alcohol themselves.

Right. Obviously someone took their card. Mm-hmm. And people would often use this person’s card to go pick up their groceries and stuff like that. So it would not be without like outside of the realm of possibility that Crystal or her husband would have known where the card was to find this card. Mm-hmm.

Because there was just a lot of trust in these circles that people would do the right thing. Yeah. Like,

Christa Innis: here, take my card and get groceries or, yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah, exactly. Because I mean, they were relying on people to take care of them and pay their bills, and we all kind of had our own responsibilities. So mine was the mortgage and that, but all sorts of people were helping with their care.

So I was really confused about that. And I ended up going and speaking with another family member, the one who had tasked me with going through the sheet. And that is when he noticed, he ended up going through their checkbook, the family members who has dementia’s checkbook, and seeing that a check was written the day after the wedding for $500.

And in the memo line it said wedding alcohol.

Christa Innis: So there’s another check,

Jubilee Dawn: another check, oh, for wedding alcohol. And I’m like, wait, what? Why? Why would they have? And it was to my maid of honors husband. It was

Christa Innis: directly to him?

Jubilee Dawn: Yes.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Did they know, sorry if this is a jump in the gun, but did they know this couple that you managed or like looked at this person’s money?

They, so they kind of, they didn’t think you would ever see it?

Jubilee Dawn: I don’t think that they knew that I was getting the statements. No. I think they knew that I helped a bit with the family. Like I would coordinate the, um, lawnmower to go out there and, you know, take care of their home. But I don’t think that they knew that I had access to these statements and then they definitely didn’t know that I would go and talk to another family member and be able to see that this check was written to Crystal’s husband.

Christa Innis: And what was their connection? Crystal and her husband to this family member? Anything or just they just knew them through you?

Jubilee Dawn: I try to be vague.

Christa Innis: Okay.

Jubilee Dawn: Um, yeah. But you can put two and two together.

Christa Innis: Yes. Yes. Okay.

Jubilee Dawn: Mm-hmm. So, um, yeah, so I was kind of very confused at that point because I did not know how else to see it because I, it very much seemed like they had gotten reimbursed for something that they didn’t pay for.

Mm-hmm. So I ended up texting her and I said, Hey, um, this is what I found. Can you help me understand what this is? Mm-hmm. And she ended up freaking out. She like, started blowing up my phone. How dare you after everything I have done for you, after everything I have done for this wedding, um, like, how dare you question me, essentially.

And, uh, like, you think we need money. We don’t need money. You think that we care enough about $300 to do something like this? And. I kept asking, but you’re not explaining. Yeah. Why are you so defensive? You’re very defensive and you’re also not explaining how that happened. Um, so it was just this big blow up fight and then all of a sudden I get a Venmo from her husband and he sent me $500 over Venmo.

Christa Innis: Oh. So he took it because if you’re not guilty, you’re not gonna send it back.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. He, which I’m like, I never even gave him the 500, but I think he was just trying to make a point. So he ended up sending it and was like, uh, here, here’s this money. How dare you? You’re horrible. And he was just very mad that I would dare question them.

So at that point I was just fuming and I don’t want their money at this point ’cause I’m like, Ugh, this is just gross. I don’t understand what’s going on. So I Venmo him the $500 back and then I blocked him on Venmo so that he wouldn’t keep sending me money. Um, they did end up paying me back a little bit later on, which I’ll get to, but.

Um, yeah, I was very confused by that and I started to talk to other family members to see what they thought and some people who were closer to her were kind of defensive and they didn’t wanna see and they didn’t wanna hear about it. And that was strange to me that they were not interested in looking at the facts.

’cause I, I said if you guys have another way to see it, let me know because I just don’t know how else to take this other than it seems like they kind of scammed to get money. And one thing that she did say was that he had used some of his personal alcohol on the wedding day. Um, I never asked them to do that though, ever.

Right. So basically he said, well, I used some of my personal alcohol and that’s why she gave me $500. So

Christa Innis: a lot of alcohol to like, yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. And there there was only maybe 80 people there. A a lot of people, it was a New Year’s Eve wedding. A lot of people didn’t stay till midnight. And a lot of my family members don’t drink.

And also, there were a lot of children at this wedding, so it’s not like we were dealing with a ton of heavy, like 80 heavy drinkers. That’s not what the situation was. So, um, later on I ended up finding that there were over 15 bottles of unopened wine, which is insane. Um, at my family member’s house, it was in the, the pantry.

And I, I don’t know. ’cause she had told me that we had run out of alcohol. So I said, Hey, we didn’t even run out of alcohol. Why, why did you send people off? And she said, well, people didn’t want that alcohol. Um, and I kind of get that, but I also feel like we’re not rich. And I do think that sometimes at weddings, you know, you see people, they’ll just have red wine, white wine and beer and there was tons of beer and wine leftover.

So it’s almost like, well we just, in theory, I don’t even know if this is true, we ran out of tequila and then he wanted to go buy $370 worth of other alcohol. Um, I wish they would’ve asked me and said, Hey, we only have wine left. Do you want us to go get more liquor or should we just tell the guests that there’s wine and beer?

Um, right. But anyway, I mean, it wouldn’t have mattered that much if it wasn’t for the scam. Yeah. So it’s like they

Christa Innis: wanted you to reimburse them for money. They put on someone else’s credit card in addition to another $500. So we’re talking over $1,100 Now if I’m doing the quick math Right. ’cause everything was added up and they didn’t actually pay out of pocket for anything.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah, exactly. They didn’t pay out of pocket for anything. So this whole thing blew up. And then this is when things got really crazy. Um, one of the family members who worked at the business who found the $500 payment, I was just in shock and wheeling and didn’t know how to handle this and was kind of just wondering.

A Pattern Buried for Years

I mean, this is my best friend in theory and this is my wedding day. I can’t imagine that she would do this. And that is when he decided to let me in on the fact that this was not the first time that something like this had happened with Crystal.

Christa Innis: Oh.

Jubilee Dawn: And it had gotten buried. So basically there was a time where I was living in Atlanta with my ex, and I was not around the family during the time that this all blew up.

But basically Crystal had been living with this family member with dementia. And she had been taking care of her along with her husband, and they were living in the house. But my, my, uh, family members, they were very wealthy, you know, so it’s not like they were suffering, you know, they’re living in this giant mansion, rent free and taking care of them, which really just meant, I don’t know, bringing them take out sometimes.

You know, I, it wasn’t that hard of a job. And apparently during a span of three, maybe three to four years, they had spent, um, around 300 to $400,000 of my family members’ money. I know. And it, it’s absolute insanity. And okay. To this day, when I confronted Crystal about all of this, she says, well, they wanted me to spend it.

They, they wanted me to spend this money. They told me to go buy whatever I wanted, and absolutely not. There’s no way. On top of that, she had drained every single one of their bank accounts. So my, my family member had had a good amount of money and it, I mean, crystal absolutely knew what she was doing because she would take every account to zero and then we have record that the checks were bouncing and then she would switch to the next account.

What? And to the next account. And during this time she was going on extravagant trips. Um, they were, yeah, going on cruises. They were going to DC doing whale watching. He was getting new tires on his car. They even used my family member’s card to pay around $7,000 in taxes to the IRS.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh.

Jubilee Dawn: I know.

And the thing that I’m like, this is nail in the coffin. The same day that they put those taxes on the card, they also got a, um, in. A check for almost the exact same amount from the family member. Uh, so they got paid for it twice and mm-hmm. I guarantee what happened was Crystal went to this person and said, oh, we owe this money.

I’m so stressed, would you please pay it? And so not only did she kind of like manipulate somebody who has dementia, she ended up actually putting it on the card and then taking the check and making money off of that. Um, that’s wild. Yeah, it was horrible. So the, the reason I didn’t find out about this was there was a huge blowup where it, it caused a lot of drift in the family at the time.

And when I was in Atlanta, I received this call from Crystal and she was crying and I mean, this is my best friend, you know, and you, you feel like you always want to have your best friend’s back, so mm-hmm. She called me crying saying, I’m being accused of stealing. And I didn’t do this. And they’re, they just see that a lot of money has been spent, but they don’t realize that the reason that the credit card is so high is because I’m paying all of the bills.

I’m paying the energy bill, I’m paying the mortgage, I’m doing all of this. This is why the bill seems so high, but nobody wants to listen to me. Mm-hmm. Um, and they just are want to misunderstand me. And she also said, and I did spend a little too much at Dillard’s one day. She said. She said, but you know how this family member is, they’ll tell you to go get anything you want sometimes.

And I just spent too much one day at the mall. Um, but she had told me that I could. And honestly, that kind of tracked my family member was like that. She was very giving. There would be times where before school would start, she would give me her card and say, I want you to go get at least $500 worth of school clothes.

You know, and she was just a very giving person. But that is very different than three to $400,000. Um,

Christa Innis: yeah. I can’t even comprehend that.

Jubilee Dawn: No, I’m like, that’s, that’s an outrageous amount of money. And I mean, it was honestly just crazy spending. It was daily Starbucks, uh, they had so many subscription, like chewy boxes.

They had clothing subscriptions, uh, getting mailed to them. Yeah. They were also getting a maid service get sent to their personal house. They eventually moved out and a maid was coming and cleaning their house on my family member’s card. Um, and they eventually moved to Baltimore for her husband’s work.

And while they were even living in a different state, they were still using her card and living off of her.

Christa Innis: So it was just like a matter of like, yeah, maybe a couple times. This family member, family member was like, yeah, you can use this to buy the car. Like, use my card for whatever. But then it started taking advantage of it and like really just like taking it for whatever they needed and.

Lying, esp knowing that this person has dementia. Like, oh, they’re, they’re not gonna realize they’re not gonna look at this and then completely blowing up in their face.

Jubilee Dawn: Absolutely. And the reason that it finally ever came out was, uh, somebody had, or my family member, her husband had asked, can you look into our money?

I feel like people keep telling us we’re broke. People keep telling us we need to be careful with our money, but we don’t leave the house. Why, why are we broke? So finally somebody looked into it and then they uncovered all of this theft and there was an hour long conversation that we actually have recorded.

That’s why I feel so safe talking about it too, is we have my family members recorded saying we never gave her permission to, to spend like that. We thought that she was only spending for us. We didn’t understand that she was spending like this on the card. So, um, yeah, realizing that I had been lied to that entire time.

I think because I was in, in Atlanta, people just didn’t wanna get involved and tell me, in hindsight, I wish people had told me, I had no idea that it was that bad. I was under the impression that, oh no, she went on a shopping spree and people are mad, but nobody told me, Hey, that’s not true. Actually, she stole a lot of money and mm-hmm Um, it ended up coming out okay.

Going back to the wedding. She also pulled another con on my bachelorette, so it’s so ridiculous. Like it’s just a pattern of behavior. So there was another situation where we went to Hell, the Moon, which is this really fun piano bar with Bachelorette and it’s always super packed and it’s hard to get a table on the weekends.

So we wanted to reserve two tables and I think it was around $260. Mm-hmm. And it was gonna be split between five girls. So my maid of honor Crystal had sent out a text saying, here is. How much it’s gonna cost if everybody can Venmo me. I think it was around $56. Everybody Venmo me $56, uh, for your portion of this.

And then once I found the wedding alcohol scam, I started going back to all these other statements and I saw that that was also on the card and that she had never paid for the hell at the moon. So she’s

Christa Innis: trying to make money off of it. Yeah. But she didn’t pay herself and she

Jubilee Dawn: did, she, she made money off of all of my friends and family because, uh, we, we sent her money for that and she pocketed it.

So, um, it was just a pattern of behavior. So then we started looking into it even more and found out that not only had she done that all those years before, but she was still doing it now, not to the same degree. Wow. Because she had been caught before. So I think she was trying to be a bit more careful, but there were so many times where.

For example, there was one where it was like zoo reimbursement and the receipts added up to $300 and she got a $400 check in reimbursement. So trying to get like little

Christa Innis: increments to like cover it up. Yes. And they were

Jubilee Dawn: buying gift cards that I, I went full investigator mode at this point. This was my entire personality for about six months because I was like, this is my friendship on the line.

Yes. I wanna know what type of person this is. So I, I, yeah. Went full investigator. I ended up going to Walmart. I went to Target, I went to Lowe’s, and I asked for receipts because I could see how much was being spent, but I didn’t know what was being spent. Mm-hmm. And when I did that, I found that they were buying Visa gift cards.

So it was a way for them to get cash and it looked like a legitimate purchase for groceries and it wasn’t so. They, they came up with all sorts of creative ways to scam pretty much.

Christa Innis: That is wild. I feel like someone like that is always looking at, at opportunities to like con or make money off of people.

Like as soon as you said the bachelorette thing, I was like, I’ve heard similar stories where people not quite like that where they have someone else’s card, but it’s like maybe they, um, it wasn’t as much as they said. It was like maybe it was only 30 a person, but they’re charging everyone 50 a person.

They’re like, oh, well they’re putting in tip and all this stuff. And that’s why it’s so hard to like trust people. And I’m sure that’s why you kind of then racked your brain and you’re like, wait, this is someone that’s been in my life for so long. What else have they lied about? Like, I feel like you probably would just go through all these memories and being like, okay, what can I trust with them?

Jubilee Dawn: I know, absolutely. That is what it was like. And honestly, the more I looked into it, like there, there’s so much more, and it’s darker, you know, um, that I did discover things about her that she had lied about for years and years. And yeah, just realizing I never knew her was really quite crazy. And she was just very defensive.

Losing Half the Bridal Party

Jubilee Dawn: She refused to apologize and I went to therapy. I wrote her, you know, ’cause at the time I was still a pretty strong Christian and I was trying to really believe in forgiveness. So I was like, okay, I’m gonna write her this letter with my therapist and I’m going to say, Hey, I could forgive you if you admitted all of this.

Like, maybe you feel backed into a corner. Maybe you feel ashamed, maybe you feel all of these things. So I wrote her a letter and I said, you know, the only way I could ever move forward because I am the godmother to her son too. I mean, it’s, wow. It’s very sad, you know? I would need you to admit all of these things and actually apologize for it and stop making excuses.

And she wrote back this very gas lighty letter saying, well, it’s not my fault that I was her favorite.

Christa Innis: Oh my God. It

Jubilee Dawn: was crazy. And it was like, oh, well you just don’t understand her like I do. And I’m like, I do actually. I, I do. So, yeah. Um, that’s, and we have her on tape saying that she had no idea, never AAL along with her husband who didn’t have dementia as severely as she did, you know?

Mm-hmm. So, um, yeah, it was crazy. So at that point we had to cut ties

Christa Innis: and it’s way different than like the, it’s all bad, but it’s like way different than like someone, you know, giving the, the, um. The credit card and she going to buy some stuff and sneak some stuff in for herself or whatever. But then also blatantly lying and trying to double up on that and being like, you owe me this for the, you know, so it’s like to never admit that.

’cause that’s, that was gonna be my next question is did she ever actually admit to like being wrong or doing something or she just in denial that she’s innocent?

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah, she basically said, well, she wanted me to have these things. And she also, she acts very, uh, I don’t know if you’ve ever met someone like this who acts kind of childlike.

They like kind of play dumb, like, oh my gosh. So she, she would just say, I’m just so bad with money. I’m so bad with money. And you know, I think when I knew that that was not true and I absolutely knew that she was being diabolical, was when I saw that every single bank account had been drained. Um, you know, ’cause she had kind of claimed, well, I just thought that they were super rich.

I, I thought that they were okay with me having this and that they wanted to spoil me. Um, but we know that that’s not the truth because every bank account was going to zero. And actually before they moved to Baltimore, they specifically drained every single account before their move. So that was the final account that got drained and it was timed to the week that they moved So, so calculated, obviously you knew what you were doing.

And then when they moved to Baltimore, they were still using, um, their income that would still come in, you know, for themselves. Wow. But yeah, no, she never, she never apologized for, for that. Just saying, you know, I’m sorry, I’m bad with money. I, I’m,

Christa Innis: yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: I’m like, I don’t think that’s good enough.

Christa Innis: You’re well into your thirties, I’m assuming, or something, you know, four, maybe forties.

But at that point, it’s like you can’t just use that as an excuse. You have to be able to own up to that. Like you can’t, you’re not like 15 years old or in elementary school, you know, whatever, where you’re like, oh, I really don’t understand how money works or how credit cards work. It’s like, no, take responsibility.

You know what you are doing.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. But I think a lot of it came down to the fact that there were so many enablers around her, because I lost, and that was what went viral in my post, was the fact that I lost half of my bridal party in this situation because they were closely connected to her and they didn’t even wanna hear it.

I said, you know, I have binders of evidence. I will break down for you every single thing. And if you look at this binder and you look at this evidence and you tell me that she did nothing wrong. We’ll agree to disagree, but they wouldn’t even look at it. They said, I’m not, I’m not interested in seeing what you have.

Christa Innis: That’s wild.

Jubilee Dawn: I know. And just be curious. Line loyalty, uh, was so crazy. And that’s when I started to realize that a lot of people had been profiting off of these family members for years. And it, it’s actually, this is a very depressing, I mean, it, it’s sad that it ended this way, but both of them have since passed.

Weddings and Funerals Reveal Everything

Jubilee Dawn: And, um, right before she passed away, they actually tried to get a fake will signed.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. They’re ruthless.

Jubilee Dawn: Ruthless. And it was a collaborative effort. It wasn’t just my maid of honor crystal, it was these other people who were in my bridal party. They all knew about it and they’re

Christa Innis: helping.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. I mean, yeah, it was, it was crazy.

And in this will, you know, they had written an original Will about 20 years ago, uh, because they have businesses and it’s a big deal, you know, and they had spent time with lawyers. This will was, oh my gosh, huge. Mm-hmm. Super thick. Will, uh, very detailed. And these people, and Crystal tried to go and find a will off of Google.

Like it looked so fake. And it was a couple pages long and it gave them the house and it gave them, I think, an extra $500,000. And they had her sign it when she was, so at that point, they actually had her sign

Christa Innis: it.

Jubilee Dawn: They did, they brought a notary to the house, like, and were there lawyers,

Christa Innis: like, no, this is bs. This isn’t a real thing.

Jubilee Dawn: I mean, they did have a notary go out there and do all that, but they thought about that in court. The, the siblings, you know, they thought about that in court and it got thrown out. The judge was like, that’s not a legitimate will, especially when we know she had dementia. And especially when we have a very legitimate, thick will over here that they obviously put a lot of time into.

Mm-hmm. And for you to have them sign it, you know, it, it was pretty much, you know, they really didn’t fight to have their will verified either. They kind of realized, okay, we tried, it didn’t work, nobody’s buying it. And yeah, they dropped it. But it just shows that so many people we’re willing to take advantage of these people.

And, um, yeah, so that’s how I lost half of my bridal party. That is so, um, including the person who married us, which was very sad. One of our groomsmen actually performed the wedding because he was my best friend and, uh. We don’t talk to him. So we have all of these wedding pictures and now half of these people I don’t even talk to anymore.

Christa Innis: That is crazy. So it’s like, it’s crazy to start off by like, the maid of honor did this and, but it’s, the other people are so easily convinced. ’cause it’s like, did she promise them money too? Did she promise all these things? So they’re like, they’re like, oh, what are you talking about? She’s great. I’m not even gonna like look at the evidence or the facts.

I feel like I’d have such a hard time, like trusting after that. You know, it’s like all these people that you’ve like, have memories with, you have relationships with and then they just like lie. And we always talk about on here, like how like, you know, the focus is like wedding stories and stuff like that.

But when you talked about how they had since passed, we talk about how weddings bring out, you know, people’s true colors. How people are people. The stress gets to people. People power over, like others, you know. But so do funerals. Death brings out the true colors in a lot of people too, because they see it as dollar signs or What am I gonna get from this person?

I think it’s so sad when fights happen at like funerals because it’s like, all they care about is what does, what did this person leave me? And it’s like, that’s not what we should be focusing on right now. But someone like that, that’s the first thing that comes to their mind.

Jubilee Dawn: Absolutely. And I mean, there were so many times this made me so upset.

Crystal would say, um, she told me that she wanted me to have the house. And I’m like, you’re not her child. I, you know, like, that’s so inappropriate. I don’t know why you think you’re, you’re owed this. But she really felt like she was owed all of their money. And she would say things to me like in hindsight, I think I was.

You know, that’s some of the darker stuff, but I was groomed by her. But there are things that she would say growing up that I start to realize were not okay. Where she would say, you know, I’ve realized if you spend time with this family member, they give you more money. She straight up said that to me when I was younger and I, I understand that that is her personality to, to do that.

So it was very hard going to the funeral. I agree that weddings and funerals really bring out that in people. I had to sit in the front row and watch her give a eulogy for this person

Christa Innis: knowing all this.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. We both gave eulogies and I had to sit there and you know, at this point, okay, well half of the people here are defending ’cause they’re also profiting and I just have to sit here and respect my family member’s funeral and.

Try to avoid this person as much as possible, but my hope is to never see her again. That, yeah,

Christa Innis: that was probably the last kind of event that you had to both be at, right? Hopefully.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. Yeah. We live in the same city though, so I get scared. I mean, when I go to Barnes and Noble or when I go to places where we all lived on the same side of town, so it doesn’t feel outrageous that I might run into some of them at some point.

And it does give me a lot of anxiety.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Because they’re not happy that I’ve shared on social media,

Christa Innis: I’m sure, because people like that wanna live in their, like delusions that it’s what they did isn’t wrong. Like they, and they’ll convince themselves till the day they die that they’re not wrong.

They, they deserve what they did. And um, it’s like you said, like they, they make up stories. They’re like, I deserve this house. They told me I deserve the house. And they’re gonna keep telling themselves that. ’cause that’s what’s gonna make them feel good about it.

Jubilee Dawn: And I’m like, she might believe it. I don’t know.

She’s so delusional. I, I don’t know. I don’t know what she really thinks, but it’s, it’s definitely wild.

Christa Innis: Wow. That that is one of the top

Jubilee Dawn: wild

Christa Innis: stories I have heard on here. Oh my gosh. Thanks for sharing that. Oh my gosh, that’s, that’s, yeah. Wild. It’s a

Jubilee Dawn: lot for sure.

Religious Manipulation & Forced Forgiveness

Christa Innis: Well, I’m glad to hear too that you’ve like gone to like therapy from it and like hopefully have like healed from some part of that.

I’m sure that’s like a lot because I can’t imagine like someone treating me like that, that you had so closely in your life. Um, and so I’m, I think talking about it too and sharing your story, I’m sure has helped many people relate and connect as well.

Jubilee Dawn: It has because. I think hearing so many of their excuses and them not even wanting to look at it, you feel like you’re going crazy.

I felt like I was being so gaslit like, you guys, this is insane. This is a lot of money. This is not okay. And sharing on TikTok and seeing people defend or I don’t know, back me up and say, no, you’re not crazy. That is wild. And um, there was like a lot of religious manipulation as well from them saying that I should just forgive and move on without her even like apologizing or admitting what she did.

Like we, we just need to move on. Jesus would not want us to fight, you know? Which, um, it’s just crazy, you know? Uh, the fact that they would like to use that. And I have nothing against Christians in Jesus. I actually don’t share what I believe personally, if anyone was wondering. Um, but. I don’t know. It was just crazy to see religion kind of weaponized in that way.

So it is nice going on social media and people telling me, Hey, that’s actually okay, that you never want to see her again. That is valid.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I feel like that’s, that people pleaser mentality too. Like, um, I, not to get like too deep, but like I, I grew up going to the Catholic church and stuff, and this, again, not shaming the Catholic church or anything, but, um, I grew up such a people pleaser because it was like, you want, like, you just have to forgive everybody no matter how they treat you.

Like, and, and it was like, you could never just be like, Nope, cut that person out. No. Like, they didn’t mean it that way. And so I would always try to see the good in every person. And I still, I believe in seeing the good in people, but there are just some people that are inherently like not good and we shouldn’t waste our time trying to.

Build them up when they’re just gonna be like, bad to us. You know what I mean? Like, I know I kind of said that kind of weird, but, um, no, I, I feel like so much of my like childhood was like, no, they’re good. They did this and this and this to me, but like, they’re still a good person. It’s like, no, you don’t have to like believe that.

Jubilee Dawn: No, there are bad people. I think growing up I always thought that too. I just thought everybody is a good person. Everybody’s doing their best. Sometimes people make mistakes and unfortunately I feel like the older I get, I realize, you know, there are wonderful people in this world. Most people are good people, I hope.

Um, but there definitely are people who just don’t care. They, they just really do not care. And nothing brings that out more than social media. Uh, seeing comments and stuff. I’m like, wow, there are some just crazy people in this world who, they just wanna hurt people. And I think learning to put up boundaries in a healthy way has been a big part of my healing.

Red Flag, Green Flag

Christa Innis: Yeah. I love that. That’s, that’s, um, boundaries has been huge. We talk about that a lot, a lot here. Okay. Let’s, let’s get into, um, I do have a story submission. Are we still okay on time? I know we’re going a little, yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. Um, sorry, I’m like losing my voice.

Jubilee Dawn: No, you’re good.

Christa Innis: Okay. Um, this is better than a couple weeks ago.

I like actually lost my voice and by the end of like recording a podcast with someone, I was like, I’m so sorry. I was like, straining my voice, so this is way better than that. Of course. Now I’m like, it’s gone. Okay. Hopefully.

Jubilee Dawn: No, I totally get it. I recorded, um, 10 and a half hours of podcast stuff in the last like six days.

I’m so tired. Oh my gosh. Because I think I was trying to prep because we’re going out of town for the cruise and then my interviews went three hours long with three different people. Um, like three hours each. And I was like, I’m so tired, girl. How do you do that? No. I was like, this is great. This is a short, a short podcast.

I love it. ’cause most of mine are like an hour and a half to three hours.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. I, I used to be able to like, listen to like longer podcasts and then like, I was like, I love being able to chat a long time, but now I’m just like, I, I can’t, I can’t squeeze it, squeeze it in. But I love that. Totally fair.

Okay, so before we get to this week’s follower submission, we’re gonna do a little, um, red flag, green flag. So I’m gonna read a statement, this is wedding party edition. And just say if it’s a red flag or a green flag. Okay. Ask if they can bring a plus one you’ve never met.

Jubilee Dawn: Ooh. Um, oh no. I’m gonna be like a yellow flag.

I think it depends on your relationship. I, I think if this was my best friend. I would probably say maybe we could have a game night in advance. That way you could meet them, you know, especially if you feel like it’s gonna be a long-term relationship. But I guess in theory, a red flag if you’re just a casual family member or a distant friend.

Yeah. I don’t think you should bring us one. Yeah. Or insist on it. Yeah.

Christa Innis: And I feel like I’ve always heard too, like I, I agree with the relationship thing ’cause you kind of know like how close you’re with someone. I’ve always heard like not to ask for one. ’cause like, I remember being invited to weddings like young, like early twenties, where like I wasn’t dating anybody and I didn’t get a plus one.

I never would’ve been like, Hey, can I bring a plus one? You know? And then other times I would be going to a wedding, not expecting one. I would get one. I was like, okay, I’ll ask a friend or something, you know? So, um, makes passive aggressive comments about the bachelorette cost.

Jubilee Dawn: Ooh. Red flag. Red flag. I, I think if you have issues with the cost or if you genuinely can’t afford it, there are ways to have like healthy communication as far as like, Hey, I’m actually broke.

Can I pick some of these activities? And not all of them, unless you know, somebody’s willing to help with the cost. But passive aggressive comments definitely a red flag.

Christa Innis: Yes. Let’s just communicate. Um, tries to change the vibe of the bachelorette weekend.

Jubilee Dawn: Ooh, red flag. Yeah. I think you have to go with what the bride wants, you know, whatever their vibe is.

There was that guy who pulled the con with the, uh, the wedding alcohol. He was at the Bachelorette. We did a joint one, and he ended up like doing this weird drinking game where he took a deck of cards and he would say, do you think it’s gonna be a red or a black card? And then we would do it and he’d say, wrong drink.

It was so weird, like the. We’re not, those kind of people we’re not like, take a shot kind of people. And he was trying to change the vibe and we were very uncomfortable. So red flag,

Christa Innis: you’re like immediate red flag. Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: I was like, this game isn’t even fun.

Christa Innis: Um, post wedding details before the couple does.

Jubilee Dawn: Ooh. Red flag. That is for the couple.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I just read a story where the, um, bride’s boss announced that they were, the girl was engaged before the, before the girl did and started like inviting herself to the wedding. I was like, I can’t wait to meet this

Jubilee Dawn: very presumptuous for like a coworker or boss to think that they’re invited because I don’t think I invited any of my coworkers to my wedding.

I do mind you, I have my own like office, so we don’t work that closely. I probably would if we, you know, work. I

Christa Innis: think it depends on the, on the job for sure. Because when, yeah, when I got married, like my husband I think only invited one person from his work because he at the time was a general manager of a restaurant.

And so like, he’s like, we have way too many people, some I never work with, some I work with, you know, different industry or different areas. So he only invited one. And then I worked in a small office where we were like all close knit like family. And so I invited like 20 with their plus ones. But yeah, I think it really just depends on your job and you should never feel like you are gonna automatically be invited to a coworker’s wedding.

’cause just depends on your relationship.

Jubilee Dawn: And micro weddings are a thing, you know, I feel like weddings are getting smaller and smaller because we’re all broke, you know? Um, yeah. So I would never assume that I’m being invited, even if we’re like decent friends, you know? Yes. Because who know?

Christa Innis: Yeah. And I, I feel like that’s one thing, like in my early twenties, again, when I wasn’t dating anyone seriously, that I did not understand, like, like I had friends that would just get like married with just family.

And I was like, I don’t, what? I don’t get it. Like, ’cause every wedding I’d been to were like these big weddings or like, a lot of people invited and you almost were like, you can’t take it personal ’cause you’re just like, no, like, like my one friend that did it. Like she was just never wanted to be like, all eyes on me.

Please do not, I just wanna get married and be on with it. And I was like, okay. That, looking back, I’m like, that makes sense. Um, it’s her personality. Yes. Um, Mrs. The, the rehearsal, but shows up hungover on the wedding day.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, red flag. That’s so mean. Yeah. I, I, I would understand if you had something going on, but if you were out partying instead of going to the rehearsal.

That’s not nice. And honestly, the rehearsal is such a beautiful time. ’cause a lot of the time that’s when they do the toast. It’s very heartfelt. And I would feel very sad if anybody in my bridal party missed my rehearsal. Yeah. If they didn’t have a reason.

Christa Innis: Right. Yeah. I think we had a couple that couldn’t, let’s see, I think we had a couple that couldn’t make the rehearsal because of like, one just had a new baby and then one’s flight was like delayed.

But other than that, yeah. I think most everyone came. And I just tell people too, I’m like, it’s not the end all be all, like if something came up. But yeah, you always try to be there. Um, every turns, every group chat convo back to themselves.

Jubilee Dawn: Ooh, red flag. I’ve known people like this where it just goes back to them.

It’s like you, you try so hard to involve everybody in like, let’s talk about this person now. And it’s like, no. It just somehow gets turned back into like their life or their drama 24 7.

Christa Innis: Yes. Yes. All right. Let’s see. Last one, um, says, I’m just being honest before being rude.

Jubilee Dawn: No, I hate that so much. Red flag.

That is not an excuse for, that reminds me of, uh, Taylor Swift, casually cruel in the name of being honest, you know? Yes. Not, okay.

Christa Innis: It’s that or the, I was just joking after saying something.

Jubilee Dawn: You’re so sensitive. Oh my goodness. Ugh. Gosh,

Christa Innis: I, that was probably like one of the most common things I’ve heard to me growing up.

You’re just sensitive. You’re so sensitive

Jubilee Dawn: to be fair. I am so,

Christa Innis: no, I’m like, but yeah. Then you learn later. You’re like, I’m proud of being sensitive. I’m, I’m, I’m path, I’m in tune with my doctors.

Jubilee Dawn: I would like to think I’m a good person because I’m very sensitive.

Christa Innis: Yes. I know. I’m like, why were we taught that?

It was like. A bad thing to be like emotional or sad. I feel like that’s just like one of those like patriarchal things where it’s like, where it’s like, oh, don’t show your emotions. Like you need to hide it. Don’t cry, don’t do this. So whenever like if my daughter like who’s almost three, like when she shows emotion, I’m like, it’s okay.

Be sad. Are you frustrated? Are you angry? Do you need space? Like trying to be that like overly like I think that’s one thing you feel your inner

Jubilee Dawn: child.

Christa Innis: Yes. I think that’s one thing. Millennial parents are like doing better than like the generation, again, not critiquing the previous one, but I feel like it was very just like, we always try to like improve the previous generation and I feel like we were told a lot like, don’t cry, don’t be emotional.

And I always try to like hide my tears if I was upset and I’m like, no, you own that emotion. It’s a fi, it’s fine. Let’s name it.

Jubilee Dawn: I know I was such an emotional kid. Um. I don’t even know why I was so emotional, but, uh, I think when I was in first grade, my teacher actually came up to me and said, I’m going to make a calendar and mark every day that you cry and show it to your mom.

Oh my God. To be fair, I was a very emotional kid. Um, but I was like, oh, okay. Don’t cry anymore. You know, or else she’s gonna go tell my mom.

Christa Innis: Was she saying it like in a mean way or like

Jubilee Dawn: Yes. Yes. In a mean way. Like, I’m gonna mark it down. Just to be fair, I was bullied because I had an afro when I was a kid and the kids used to call me cotton ball.

They were so mean. Kids are, they are ruthless. Yeah. But it’s okay. I forget that they were children, but, oh

Christa Innis: my gosh. I had a kid one time. Um. Tell someone that I looked like a chipmunk because of my big front teeth. Oh my gosh. No. But I was so proud of myself. ’cause looking back, so like in elementary, I was really shy and this was in high school and I was friends with a girl that was like cooler than me.

Like she was like, she was like friends with everybody. And I was just like, I was like, oh my gosh, I’m friends with her because I was like really like shy and she was talking to these boys and this boy said it to her, like something about like chipmunk. And she came and told me and I go, you think I look like a chipmunk?

And I like called him out and then he was embarrassed, so I was like, yeah, so don’t do that.

Jubilee Dawn: Good for you. That’s like the epitome of what an odd thing to say.

Christa Innis: Yes. Yeah. What a weird thing to say out loud.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. Repeat it.

Listener Submission: The Bridezilla Who Used Her Friends

Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay, let’s get into this week’s, uh, follower submission. So these are real stories people send me, so let’s just react as we go.

Okay. I met the bride through mutual friends, the kind of friendly magnetic girl who seemed to pull people into her orbit. She was newly engaged, excited, and quickly invited me to be in her inner circle. Her fiance and their two best guy friends, Matt and Bill, before long were all hanging out constantly.

Somehow, without realizing it, I became the person she relied on the most. She knew I sewed and weddings are expensive, so when she admitted she was stressed about her budget, I offered to make her bridesmaid dresses for free. I genuinely wanted to help. This is like the, the case of the people pleaser with the per like, like the, I don’t know what you would call the other person.

Like the energy, like vampires.

Jubilee Dawn: Thicker. Yes. Oh my gosh. That’s so much work. I can’t even imagine.

Christa Innis: I can’t even imagine making one, let alone however many bridesmaids she had

Jubilee Dawn: and tailoring all of those. To the bridesmaids. Wow. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. She must have brought it up a lot in front of this girl to be like, okay, I’ll make ’em, I’ll make all these dresses.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, you so, oh, well, I’m having the hardest time. Yes. What am I gonna do? You know, which, I mean, hey, that’s kind of how Crystal was. Crystal was the type of person where she would like, um, the, going back to like the, the theft and everything, she would say, well, she would offer, and it’s like, yeah, she has dementia and if you go up to her and say, oh my gosh, I have no money, I have no, whatever.

You know, it was very much that type of situation where if you go and like whine about your problems, like loud enough, then obviously her being like a good Christian woman, she was going to offer to give you,

Christa Innis: right. There’s those kinds of people that. That’s how they were raised is like, you help someone in need.

Right? And so like, then there’s the people that take advantage of those people. ’cause they’re like, oh, they’re not gonna tell me no. Like, yeah. Ugh.

Jubilee Dawn: I’ll have a convenient breakdown around the person who has something I want.

Christa Innis: Uhhuh. Oh yeah, she, um, okay. So then within days the warning signs started popping up.

Her aunt who had flown in from overseas suddenly decided she wanted to take over making the dresses, despite not knowing how to sew properly, shocked to absolutely no one, the dresses fell apart. How did that work? Like if the one girl’s like, I’m gonna sell these dresses, and the, and it’s like, jk, like, I’m gonna do it like.

Jubilee Dawn: It’s like, why would you volunteer for that? To me, that sounds like a nightmare. If I found out that somebody else was handling that, I’d be like, thank you for doing that. I don’t wanna do that. Like

Christa Innis: a control thing or something. But I’d also as a bride be like, no, my friend’s got it. Like, she knows what she’s doing.

Yeah. Oh, this is weird. Um, the bride came back to me in tears begging me to fix everything, and then came the kicker she said as a payment for making all the dresses. She’d make me a bridesmaid. Wait, she wasn’t even a bridesmaid at this point

Jubilee Dawn: because people are dying to be bridesmaids. Okay. I don’t know like that.

That’s the thing.

Christa Innis: I thought this whole time she was a bridesmaid.

Jubilee Dawn: I know. To do all of that work and not even be a bridesmaid.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Wow. I

Jubilee Dawn: feel like when you accept being a bridesmaid, you understand that you’re gonna get delegated something, a couple tasks, you know, or something like that. But to do all of that when she hasn’t known her that long.

Yeah. She’s an owner that looks all the bridesmaid. That’s like not even something I would ever be able to do. I, I would rather help pay Yeah. For the bridesmaids dresses than to make them myself. Oh,

Christa Innis: a hundred percent. You, yeah. You don’t want me making a bridesmaid dress. That thing would fall apart. Also, like the whole thing is kinda odd to me.

I mean, there’s, I’m, there’s more, but, um, the, like anyone that says as payment, you can be a bridesmaid is in my mind, already gonna be a bridezilla because they think it’s an honor to be a bridesmaid. And yes, like close friends of mine would say, you know, like, oh, I would love to be by yourself. Of course, like if that mutual relationship.

But if someone says it as like a gift, like you’re, I’m doing you a favor to be a bridesmaid in my royal wedding, that just says red flag to me.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. And it also implies that your relationship was not good enough in the first place for you to be a bridesmaid. And you’re getting this as. Payment. Like I don’t understand how that’s supposed to feel good.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Feels bad to me.

Christa Innis: Right. It’s like you can’t even pay her for the cost of the fabric. She’s getting her time. Like, I don’t know. That’s, yeah. Horrible. I told her that meant she, okay. I told her that meant she’d have to pick only one of her guides guy friends to be a groomsman, which I thought wasn’t fair, but she shrugged and said, I don’t know why that would be, but, um, she shrugged and said, oh, that’s fine.

I never wanted Matt in the wedding anyway. So you have to say yes. I should have run then, God, I should have run a few weeks later. She wouldn’t stop complaining about not having a venue for her bridal shower. She knew my parents lived on a one acre property and she dropped a hint after Hint after hint until I was uncomfortable.

I feel like I see a lot of similarities with the person that, you know, I just feel like trying to take advantage of somebody to get what they want.

Jubilee Dawn: No, that’s so uncomfortable. Like it, it sounds like she made her the bridesmaid so that she could get all this stuff from her. Mm-hmm. Honestly, you know. Okay.

Going back to Crystal. I mean, she, I wish I had picked up on it sooner, but she would often have friends for about a year or two, and then they would have a falling out and it was always, oh, she was crazy or, okay. I, I can’t believe I didn’t even get into how crazy Crystal was. Okay. She would also say that, um, everybody was in love with her.

She used to be very careful about like being around men because any man would cheat on their wife with her. Oh

Christa Innis: my gosh. She

Jubilee Dawn: also said that if she just tried, she would be able to be a Peloton instructor, which, uh, okay. Um, and then she was like, I would, I’ll be a little,

Christa Innis: a little D as d Lulu as Crystal.

Jubilee Dawn: I think we can, yeah, she would say, um, I would try out for American Idol, but I would win, you know, uh, so, but, and I don’t wanna be famous, you know, so she was just a very high sense of self and I think like growing up with her, after knowing somebody like that, since you’re 12 years old, you just kind of think that that’s normal.

And I honestly think that’s why I ended up with my crazy narcissistic ex was I was so used to grandiose, odd behavior, um, from people around me that it just, like, he was the same. He thought he was gonna own Disney. It’s a whole thing. Um. All of that to say like, these people, oh my gosh, they’re, they know how to get their way.

You know?

Christa Innis: Yeah. And it’s like, it’s that same kind of mentality of like, here’s this like week. She sees her as week over here. If I can make her a bridesmaid, make her feel included, she’ll gimme all the things I want for my day. And just seeing her as a dollar sign or seeing her as an opportunity. And you see that with like weddings and, and just friendships in general.

I’ve seen where it’s like, you know, they, they use you for when they, what they need you for, and then they move along to the next person and Oh, absolutely. And what you said too about Crystal saying like, all these friendships, oh, they were crazy. Same goes for like, if you ever meet a guy and all their exes were crazy, probably not the exes just saying

Jubilee Dawn: Absolutely.

My ex said the same thing. He told me his ex was absolutely insane. And when we got divorced, I mean this was just. I did a series, uh, did I marry a psychopath on TikTok? And throughout the series I ended up reaching out to his ex and I found out the true story and he was horrible to her and was abusive to her.

So like these people, they will lie. So, oh, that’s why I brought up Crystal saying that like her friendships would only last a year or two. I’m wondering if this bride is realizing that none of her friends are like coming through or if they’re helping her and she’s needing to recruit people to help her.

Yes, because I mean, she might not be that nice and maybe her friends don’t wanna help. They’re all and everybody else is fed up, but you’re new, so

Christa Innis: Yes,

Jubilee Dawn: she’s gonna try.

Christa Innis: They’re in the honeymoon friend stage where everything’s perfect and she’s great. Um. She said, I finally, finally offered to ask my parents, and they being lovely, said yes.

She was elated and even told me, you’re welcome to invite your family to the party at their own house. Can you imagine saying that to somebody?

Jubilee Dawn: Your, your parents, out of the goodness of my heart, don’t have to flee their home. Yeah. That’s crazy. That’s horrible. That is. That’s insane behavior. Bridezilla.

Christa Innis: Yeah. See, and that would give me a red flag right off the bat. But like, I, I don’t know. Just in general, I’d be like, no. Like, something’s up.

Jubilee Dawn: It’s like you’re in so deep at this point.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Um, that should tell you everything you need to know about her. The night before the shower, I was supposed to finish the dresses instead.

She and half the wedding party spent the night at my house decorating the yard. I didn’t sew a single stitch, and somehow she yelled at me for not finishing the dresses. I’d be like, do ’em yourself. Bye.

Jubilee Dawn: What? She’s your servant. This is so atrocious. This is, um, cut off the French. I assume that that’s where the story is going, but I hope

Christa Innis: so.

Jubilee Dawn: Wow. The audacity

Christa Innis: wild. The next day she forced Matt and Bill to act as waiters at her bridal shower, which was weird. Then in front of the entire room, she made an announcement. She was changing her maid of honor. Her sister was now her maid of honor. Her childhood best friend Sarah, who had already been asked, was moved to the very end of the bridesmaid lineup.

She’s doing this in public, in front of everybody. One that’s terrible. Two, I think the whole bridesmaid lineup thing is weird to be like, okay, you’re number four now. Like I just, I did mine by like height or how long I knew them for, like, I was not, like, I felt

Jubilee Dawn: very uncomfortable trying to line people up.

Luckily, a lot of my brides. Like my bridesmaids were family. So I felt kind of okay putting the family first, you know, because I thought my other friends would understand. But it is awkward trying to be like, it’s, and you here and sorry, or No,

Christa Innis: I feel like I ultimately went by like how long I knew them.

’cause like my maid of honor was first, then I had my sister, a cousin, and then yeah, it was like, and then I of course had my like husband, like sister-in-laws and you know, like towards the end just ’cause of like length of time plus like, we just wanted to like them to like walk with like their partner or their husband and yeah.

Yeah. I, but I have heard of that where people are like, okay, well I’m closer. I’m her best friend. Or I don’t know. That’s just, that’s to

Jubilee Dawn: demote somebody who was the maid of honor that’s so evil.

Christa Innis: Yeah. And publicly like.

Jubilee Dawn: Did I miss? Why do we know? Why?

Christa Innis: See, she didn’t say it yet.

Jubilee Dawn: Okay. She goes,

Christa Innis: and I, I was bumped to girl number three, so she’s like, basically like ranking them literally in front of them.

So Maid of honor moved to number four, I’m guessing number four. She just says at the end of the lineup. And then the girl that wrote in was bumped to girl number three. So weird.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, so strange.

Christa Innis: I watched Sarah’s face fall. She held it together until later when she called me sobbing. I listened, comforted her and texted her afterwards.

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. If things get too stressful, you can always talk to me. Harmless, supportive, kind. This is gonna backfire. I just know it except the bride somehow ended up with Sarah’s phone and saw my text message. She called me screaming of accusing me, of trying to steal her friend, demanding to know whose side I was on, saying she needed to reevaluate whether she even wanted me in the wedding.

I would be like, bye.

Jubilee Dawn: No. I mean, what am I getting out of this dynamic right now? Yeah. Like nothing at this point. This is so toxic. This feels like it’s, this is some Regina George stuff. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yes. Oh my gosh. Totally. I was like, this does sound familiar. It’s, it’s Regina George. You’re always on highway. It’s like, I’m always on your left.

Well now you’re on my last nerve. Get my, you know, whatever.

Jubilee Dawn: Yes. It’s like the calls, like the three-way calls where you’re trying to trick each other. It, that is so toxic.

Christa Innis: Oh my god. We should have changed the names to like mean girl names. Perfect. It really is. Oh my gosh, that’s wild. Um, unfortunately for me, she decided to keep me and even more unfortunately, I said yes.

On the big day, she transformed into a full diva, rude to everyone snapping at vendors, insulting bridesmaids. This is like, so this girl knew how to turn on the switch of like, I’m so fun. I’m your new friend, let’s hang out. Like I’m awesome. And then I feel like people like that can just,

Jubilee Dawn: yeah,

Christa Innis: flip.

Jubilee Dawn: I’m like transformed into a diva.

I feel like she’s been a diva, but I guess just turned up a ton. Like

Christa Innis: didn’t hide it anymore or even try to, yeah. Oh

Jubilee Dawn: my gosh, this groom. Can you imagine being married to this woman? I can’t.

Christa Innis: I always wonder like, ’cause I feel like we don’t hear about the grooms a lot in these stories unless it’s like focused on them.

So either, they usually either take the backseat, like they’re really like quiet or just like whatever their door thing. Or I wonder if they’re just as like terrible and they’re just like part of it. But I don’t know,

Jubilee Dawn: maybe.

Christa Innis: Um, her mother then informed us that we had to pay for our own hair and makeup, even though I had made all the dresses for free.

Um, after the ceremony, her gown ripped, guess who had to get down on her hands and knees and sew it? Me.

Jubilee Dawn: She should make the wedding dress right.

Christa Innis: Right. No, as far as I know. Oh,

Jubilee Dawn: gosh.

Christa Innis: And like I get like having, like, like most weddings I’ve been a part of, like, there’s hair and makeup there, and if you want it done, you pay for it.

But I feel like as the bride, if I knew my maid of honor or like a bridesmaid made all the dresses, I’d be like, let me pay for this. Let me, you know, how can I pay you? But it sounds like this woman just treats her as like a servant. Horrible. After, um, okay. Her sisters-in-law yelled at me to hurry up because I was holding up the reception.

It’s not her fault. The dress ripped. Holy cow. Be like,

Jubilee Dawn: fine. Go out there. Have fun. Yeah, go do

Christa Innis: it. Yeah. If you can do it faster, you go ahead. Like, my God. By the time evening fell, Sarah and I ended up locked in the bridal room crying in her speech. The bride didn’t mention Sarah at all, and all she said about me was she made the bridesmaid dresses.

I don’t know why the bridesmaids are in the speech, but, or what the speech is, but interesting. Yeah. Um, after the wedding, the invites to hang out, the invites to hang out with the group became fewer then non-existent. One night I literally ran into all of them out together without me. I’d be like, good.

When I finally confronted her, she screamed, I’m not married to you. I don’t have to invite you to anything. This lady, woman, like so evil. She knew what she was doing. She got what she wanted out of her, and that was dresses. That was it. Uh, she said, and that was it. Friendship. Over months later, I heard she ended up doing the same thing to Matt and Bill.

I have no idea if she and Sarah ever recovered their friendship but me. I walked away and honestly, that was the best decision I ever made.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh my gosh, what a blip in your life. I’m like, what a horrible, I cannot imagine like being around somebody who treats people like such dirt and the fact that nobody stood up to her or really said like, I feel like there is this vibe with weddings where the bride can just do whatever she wants because it’s her wedding.

But I feel like at a point I would like to think that people in my life or I would’ve. Stood up to this person because Yes, that is insane. You can’t treat people like that.

Christa Innis: Well, and the fact that the mom seemed to have like some attitude too on the wedding day sounds like that’s where she gets it from the entitlement.

But yeah, I just never get that. Like, it’s my day. Like it’s all about me. Like I just don’t get that. Like, I was just telling someone, I’m like, like for my wedding morning, I made sure my bridesmaids were taken care of. Like I had breakfast for them, mimosas. Like, I remember running around making sure like they were good.

Like, what do you need? Because I was like, I if, if you’re not here with like, I just want you here with me and I want you to enjoy yourself. Um, but I’ve definitely seen both sides of it where it’s like people, like there’s brides that wanna take care of their wedding party and there’s brides that are like, it’s my day.

You just, you just stand by my side.

Jubilee Dawn: Yes.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. That’s why they’re

Jubilee Dawn: pretty much props. I mean, she was a prop and a way to get. Dresses, which, I mean, those are so, like, that is so much work, you know, and it’s, it’s not even how much are bridesmaids dresses, like maybe 150 or however much, you know, on top of that, it’s handmade, you know?

So it’s worth so much more than that, you know, because of all of the hard work and the hours that she put in.

Christa Innis: Yeah. That

Jubilee Dawn: is, ugh. So toxic, so glad that she does not talk to her anymore.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I think I’d be the most mad about making the dresses, because I think if I were like a bridesmaid for a wedding where this happened, I would just look back and laugh at it.

I’d be like, that was wild. Okay, moving on. But the fact that she spent so much time and like really thought this person was like a friend of hers, she let her parents lent the house, you know, to them that’s just Got it. Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: It’s like she was trying to find ways to cut costs.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because

Jubilee Dawn: also, how do you not know where your bridal shower’s gonna be?

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Like leading up to it. You know what I mean? Like it feels like she was scoping out locations pretty much. Mm-hmm. How can I get somebody to gift this to me?

Christa Innis: Yeah. It’s like she had something planned somewhere else and then it was like she messed up that relationship or something.

Jubilee Dawn: Right. I wouldn’t be someone else.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: I feel like this so often though, where friendships don’t make it past the wedding or friendships just fizzle out. I was in, um, yeah, so I was in that religious cult. It was not just Christianity, it was called Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. It was super weird. People Okay. Thought they could raise people from the dead and it was like, oh, pro prophecy.

It was insanity. But I met a girl there and she invited me to be in her wedding and it was like I hadn’t seen her in person in over a year. We had gone back to our home states. We were not close. We would talk once every four months. I mean, we were not close, but I really feel like she just needed somebody else.

On her side. Mm-hmm. Um, so I literally flew to Utah and I, I went and I was in her wedding and during that time I ended up getting engaged to my ex. And I felt like I had to ask her to be in mine because I was in hers, but I didn’t view her as a friend, but I was in her wedding and we were engaged at the same time.

So it kind of felt like, well, I can’t be her bridesmaid and she not be in my wedding. So we literally were in each other’s weddings and we have never seen each other again. Like, like it’s so, it’s so random, you know, there’s no bad blood. She still follows me on social media, but it’s like we, I mean, it was very strange and there was really no reason to be in each other’s weddings.

Christa Innis: That is so funny. That is really like common, I feel like where you, where if like you’re in someone’s wedding, you feel like you have to ask them to be in yours. Yeah. Um. I know, like my husband and I had those talks like before getting married because we were, we were like considered like the wedding couple for so long.

’cause we were, we were both in so many weddings. I think we were each in like 10 weddings or something. And we both had that discussion about like, okay, should we have this person because we were in their wedding and vice versa. And the end of the day I was just like, I’m gonna have who I want on my side.

But again, like if I, I think if I would’ve gotten married like in my early twenties or something, I think it would’ve been way different. I think I would’ve been like, yes, yes. Include everybody have this person or, or if he’s having his friend, I should probably have his like wife or girlfriend in it or partner.

But like, at the end of the day, it’s just like, no, people understand. Yeah. But yeah, it’s, it’s awkward when you feel like obligated to like have someone in your wedding that you’re not that close with. I definitely feel like I’ve been asked to be in weddings where. And I’ve said yes. And then I’m like, later I’m like, was I just asked because of blank reason without giving away too much?

But, and I’m like, I just asked because of something. And then I’m like, I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t have said yes. But I don’t know, because I love, I love being a part of weddings. I find stuff to do. I’m very handy. I always offer to help. And so I feel like that’s seen, you know? Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: I’m like, I’m a good bridesmaid.

I’m I’m a good one. You know, I put in work, so I mean, yeah. I get that.

Christa Innis: Yeah, for sure. Awesome. Well that was a wild story. I always like to end these with, um, confessions that people send me on Instagram. So I’ll just read a couple of those and then we go, okay, these are our biggest wedding regrets people sent me.

Okay. Our photographer, he had a digital camera, but acted like he only had film, took forever to get pictures, and he missed so many. We wanted because he took forever to set up. Um, each shot ended up, oh, he would set up a shot, take forever for a shot and ended up taking only one photo each time. So frustrating.

I’d say time and time again. Your photographer is like one of the most important vendors. If you have a bad photographer, ugh. It just, it could ruin it.

Jubilee Dawn: I know. I’m like, to me, that is one of the most important things. I’m so thankful. I had, um, a friend who I had done photo shoots with out in Atlanta, and I actually flew her out and she gave us such a, a deal on it, but she’s a wedding photographer, so thankfully she was incredible.

But it’s like once you find a good photographer, stick with them. Just yes. Keep using them, you know?

Christa Innis: Yes. Don’t say don’t just like, agree to have someone, be it because they’re giving it to you for free or something, or, I’ve seen a lot of those too. It’s just go with your gut. For sure. Um, let’s see. Um, making my sister-in-law, my matron of honor years later, she said she never even liked me.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, ow. That would really hurt me.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah, that’s, yeah. Um, hiring the hairdresser I did, she made, she made me an hour and a half late for my own wedding.

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, that’s another one that is super important. I, I got my hairdresser. Yeah. I, I probably should have done more research on my hairdresser. I did a trial with her and it was okay.

And then on the wedding day, my hair looked completely different. And I had even, yeah, the back of it looked totally different. Like the way that it had was pinned and all of it. Um, so I showed she had to redo it, you know, and I kid you not, I looked like snooky, like I had a bump and I was horrified because that was not there in the original trial.

And I was like, I’m gonna walk down and look like so insane and not like myself. Yes. Literally. And I also look like a, a southern beauty queen a little bit. It was very weird vibes and thankfully they fixed it, but I was for sure panicking on my wedding day.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. I’ve definitely been a part of a lot of weddings where like, they just hired someone, like they didn’t do like the trial.

And when the person comes in, it’s just like, there was one wedding where I was in and I said no to hair and makeup. I was like, I’ll just do it myself. I was glad I did because everyone ended up washing off their makeup because it was like someone that had like, hardly any experience and like everyone’s hair kept falling off and their eyelashes were falling off and I had just done them myself and I’m no professional.

I’m like not great at makeup, but I just like, I don’t know, I just was like, I don’t wanna spend a lot of money. And um, everyone’s like, eyelashes were falling off. They’re like, it was not making it to the wedding at all. So it’s hard sometimes. You don’t know what you’re gonna get until wedding day. But yeah,

Jubilee Dawn: I prefer, especially my hair, I prefer to do it myself.

’cause I have like such thick, curly hair that Yeah. Uh, they botch it most of the time.

Christa Innis: Yes. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well thank you so much for coming on. It was so great chatting with you and sharing your story and just. Diving through this wedding drama.

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

It was like such a happier topic than what I’m used to,

Christa Innis: you know? Yes. Um, well for everyone listening, can you again share where they can find more of your content, anything fun you’re working on and, um, anything else that’s coming up?

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. I am at Jubilee Dawn on TikTok and on Instagram. I also have a YouTube and my two podcasts are Heald Dish and the Overshare Hour.

Christa Innis: Awesome. Well, thanks again for coming on.

Jubilee Dawn: All right. Thank you.

by Christa Innis

Queer Fashion, Wedding Etiquette and a SIL Showdown with Kati Kons

My new book Here Comes the Drama: A Ferris and Sloan Story is live!

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What happens when a bride’s sister demands the wedding photos be moved — because she’s pregnant? This episode dives into a real-life story filled with family tension, wedding day stress, and boundary crossing. Christa and Kati unpack the drama behind the scenes: from feelings of entitlement to unspoken rivalries and the pressure of making a wedding day perfect for everyone.

If you’ve ever wondered how far you should bend for family or what’s really acceptable at weddings, this episode is for you. Plus, they share honest reflections on friendship, jealousy, and the tricky art of RSVP etiquette.

Join me on Patreon and get bonus content every month!

Episode Chapter Markers

00:00 Introduction

01:18 Bridesmaid Experiences and Challenges

02:46 Bridesmaid Dress Shopping Stories

05:23 Financial Expectations for Bridesmaids

08:34 Non-Traditional Wedding Choices

10:48 Fashion and Color Theory

14:01 Growing Up in Chicago Suburbs

15:14 Privacy and Online Safety

16:37 Meet Kati: The Queer Fashion Stylist

19:48 Non-Traditional Wedding Attire

28:31 Kati’s Wedding Planning

34:25 Rapid Fire Questions

38:36 Diving into Wedding Stories

39:48 Rant on Formal Attire Norms

40:55 Queer Fashion at Weddings

44:13 Navigating Wedding Dress Codes

51:56 Wedding Story: Sibling Rivalry

55:31 Reacting to Wedding Drama

58:32 The Importance of Communication

01:04:48 Reflecting on Wedding Etiquette

Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

The Photo Location Drama — Should a bride accommodate a pregnant sister’s request to move photo shoots on the wedding day?
Family Tension and Silent Rivalry — Exploring possible jealousy and competition between siblings at weddings.
When Love Isn’t Transactional — Discussing the expectation of reciprocity in wedding roles and attendance.
The Importance of RSVP Etiquette — How a simple “yes” or “no” can save the bride and groom headaches.
Photographer vs. Planner Roles — Why having a dedicated wedding planner is crucial to avoid chaos.
Pregnancy and Wedding Participation — Respecting health and energy limits without guilt-tripping.
Friendship Boundaries Post-Wedding — Navigating hurt feelings when friends can’t attend your big day.
Legal Marriage vs. Long-Term Partnerships — When wedding guest lists exclude “non-married” partners, and why that’s problematic.

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

“Love is not transactional. If it feels that way, then maybe you shouldn’t go.” – Christa Innis
“It’s wild to ask a bride to change the logistics of her entire wedding day for someone else.” – Kati Kons
“Sometimes people feel like they’re owed something just for showing up.” – Kati Kons
“Weddings aren’t about competition — they’re about celebration.” – Kati Kons
“Marriage doesn’t change your life overnight; it’s more like a party you throw for yourself.” – Kati Kons
“The wedding day is about the couple, not anyone else’s agenda.” – Christa Innis
“RSVPs are important — they’re not just polite, they’re necessary.” – Christa Innis

About Kati:

Kati Kons is a queer wedding fashion stylist based in Washington, D.C. They specialize in helping queer individuals find affirming and non-traditional attire for weddings and other formal events. Kati works with nearlyweds, guests, and vendors, guiding them through the process of finding attire that reflects their personal style and identity. They are known for their inclusive and affirming approach to wedding fashion, particularly for those who may not find themselves represented in traditional wedding attire.

Follow Kati Kons:

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A Team Dklutr Production

Blog Transcript:

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

Christa Innis: Okay, so we were just talking like while before recording and so we’re like, you know, let’s just start. And of course here I am the planner. I have to start like introducing it even though we said like, let’s just start talking. Um, anyways, we were talking about bridesmaids being a bridesmaid because I said last week my person had a hot take that said, if you like your friends, don’t ask them to be a bridesmaid.

And I’ve been a bridesmaid like nine times. You said you’ve been one once and that was enough for you.

Kati Kons: Yeah, that was totally enough. Like I’m done. Yeah. Well, and it was for my sister. It was not even like a friend. So funny.

Christa Innis: All your friends listening are like, okay.

Bridesmaids, Budgets & Boundaries: Rethinking the Wedding Party

Kati Kons: I also got married two weeks ago and didn’t have a wedding party.

So,

Christa Innis: see, and I, it’s funny because like the older I get now, I’m like, there are certain things that like, I’m like, I would do so differently. Mm-hmm. I loved having my wedding party, but, but like, I feel like if I were to get married today, I’d be like, you know what? If you wanna be like, wear a certain color, but I’m not gonna have you guys do all that extra stuff.

I don’t know, I kind of just, it does complicate things a little bit.

Kati Kons: And like what, like what complicate, what does it complicate?

Christa Innis: I feel like not my own wedding. ’cause I feel like I, again, like I was one of the last, one of last of my friends to get married. So like, I had been in so many weddings over the years and I saw kind of like drama that happened with bridesmaids stress, with bridesmaid dress shopping.

Oh, I’ve, I got stories about that. Um, just crazy stuff where I was just like, I don’t wanna deal with this. So, for example, like the bridesmaid dress shopping, it was like. You’d go in with a bride that had no clue what she wanted. Right. And so like, everyone ha shares their opinion. Everyone picks their favorite dress.

It’s like bridesmaids the movie. Right? So it’s like everyone’s picking their own dress and like, this fits me the best. This color’s best for me. Too many opinions. As a bride, you need to know if we’re gonna have bridesmaid dresses. No. Kind of the vibe you want. So I was like, we’re going online. You have to set

Kati Kons: some boundaries.

Christa Innis: Yeah. So for me, I was like, we’re going online. I literally sent them a link to Birdie Gray and I was like, pick something in this color. Pick whatever style you like for your body. Do you?

Kati Kons: Yeah, no, that is, that is good. Um, I, um, one of my clients is a bridesmaid in someone else’s wedding and didn’t know what to wear and came to me asking me to style them and was like, oh, uh, the bride doesn’t have any parameters whatsoever.

And I said, not even color. And she goes, oh yeah, I guess she gave us green and blue. I said green or blue. Not even like, not even like a shade, either one. There was, there was absolutely no parameter and no dress type. It doesn’t have to be a dress even. It can be pants, it can be anything. Um, which is great.

I like, I love flexibility, but at the same time, it’s like, you know, she has an idea of what she wants to wear and she has an idea of what standing out means. But I feel like. Everyone’s interpretation of like standing out and like being interesting at the same time, which is what bridesmaids want to do is be interesting, but not stand out too much.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Is like

Kati Kons: different in everyone else’s heads. And I feel like that’s really challenging balance to, like, it’s a balancing act and it’s really hard to strike that balance when you don’t communicate that with the bride.

Christa Innis: Yeah. And the

Kati Kons: bride doesn’t communicate exactly what she wants. So I’m like trying really hard to help her with this task, especially when I’m not in communication with the bride myself.

Christa Innis: So, yeah, that’s hard when there’s a middle person. Yeah. I feel like a lot of the stories I hear or see it all comes down to communication too. ’cause it’s like if a bride, you know, maybe is like, maybe there’s a weird tension with one of the bridesmaids or something, and then the one bridesmaid like picks a dress that’s like a loud color or something, but they never really communicate what the expectations were of being a bridesmaid or vice versa.

It’s hard to like. Get on the same page if they don’t communicate, I don’t know. Or if it’s like a husband’s cousin or something, so they’re not close.

Kati Kons: I just also feel like it’s really hard when you’re like a bridesmaid and there’s like some people that are like, oh, I can afford to pay $400 for a dress, and other people can’t.

And it’s like, how do you shove the expectation on people to like pay for some things and not other people? I don’t know. It’s so challenging. So I had another client subsidize her bridesmaids where she was like, oh, I want them in like $600 dresses, so I’m gonna give them $500 each and they’re gonna have to pay the rest of the way, or whatever.

Okay. And I was like, that’s a really good idea. But then she was like. But I want them in $800 shoes. And I was like, girl, oh my gosh, that’s like a crime. You can’t do that. Um, and so we had to have a conversation about expectations. But anyways, um, that was, uh, it was, it was really nice on her end to be like, oh, I wanna subsidize part of the way because she wanted a certain look to like her, she wanted her bridesmaids to look a certain way and like have a certain aesthetic that she knew couldn’t be done with a smaller budget.

And so Right. That was definitely a great way to like ensure that at least it was there in some respect. Right,

Christa Innis: right. And

Kati Kons: I think not a lot of brides prioritize that. And I think they should.

Christa Innis: Well, yeah, and I feel like I’ve heard that a lot. It’s like they have all these expectations, but don’t kinda look at the budget of each individual person.

Mm-hmm. Um, I feel like, I look back at weddings I was in in my early twenties, and I think the first couple, they were pretty good. Like where it was like, okay, we were all just like right outta college. We were all pretty broke, you know? Mm-hmm. Exactly. And then as you kind of get a little bit older, like maybe you’re a little more in your career, but definitely mid twenties when I was in my wedding in weddings, I was still was spending way outta my budget because it was like bachelorette party, you’re, you’re paying for bridal shower, you’re buying gifts for each thing.

It all just adds up. And I was in weddings where brides wanted very specific. Most were, I would say most were laid back, but it was like very specific colors. Mm-hmm. And styles of shoes or something. Luckily not $800, so I couldn’t complain too much. But that’s why when it got time for mine, again, it was like a $99 dress.

I know on the website, I think my maid of honor, her dress was like 40 because they had like a sale. And I was like, buy yours now. Buy yours now. And so I was like, I want everyone to feel comfortable, like, yeah, wear shoes you already have, don’t spend extra money. I

Kati Kons: mean, like, we’re me and my friends, what’s so funny is like I’m, I’m 25, like we’re not, we’re not 22, 25 is like young, but like, I mean, we’re being the first being married out of our, all of the friends, you know, I feel like this responsibility to make everything cheap.

And we didn’t do bachelorette parties. We didn’t do any of, we didn’t do wedding parties. We didn’t make anyone pay for things. The only thing is we wanted people to be here. Yep. And, and, and, yeah. And we, they were here, you know? Yep. And that was awesome for us. We didn’t do a registry even, we didn’t ask people, we didn’t do bridal showers.

We didn’t do any of that. Um, which we didn’t. We’re non-traditional people, so that didn’t feel like we needed to do that at all. Um, but like, I don’t know, paying for things seems like such a big thing right now because of the economy, you know? But like, if I were, if I were like, I don’t know, I’m, I’m, I don’t feel like I’m millennial, but like if I were a millennial and I was like getting married in the time when all the millennials were getting married, like if I were my sister and like, I don’t know, everyone was doing those things.

And like I had the choice between like a $4,000 wedding dress and a $6,000 wedding dress and that $2,000 delta. Or I could take the $2,000 and subsidize my bridesmaid’s wedding or their dresses Yeah. To like get them to wear something much cooler. I would do that. I. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like people don’t do that and they should.

As a fashion stylist, I feel like if you’re gonna dictate what your wedding party is wearing, it better be something much higher fashion, you know? Mm-hmm.

Styling Weddings with Color Theory & Confidence

I had to wear, when I was a bridesmaid, a very boring dress. It was like just a plain sage green. How long

Christa Innis: ago? A plain sage green, you said?

Kati Kons: Yeah.

Christa Innis: How long ago was the

Kati Kons: wedding?

Uh, it was April, 2020. Uh, f*ck. 2022.

Christa Innis: Okay. So like three years ago. So I was thinking like when my, the first wedding I was in, which was, oh my God, I feel so old saying this. 14 years ago, like 13 years ago, I was a junior in college. Anyways, it was that everyone had the same bridesmaid dress style. Yeah. We all

Kati Kons: had the same one too, and that was three years ago.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I can you imagine? Yeah.

Kati Kons: Sorry.

Christa Innis: I love the individual going on. I love the individuality now. I love, I’ve been in a lot of weddings where we all wore the same dress and then it started moving to like wear the same color but different styles. Mm-hmm. Mine was like, pretty much wear the same color or same color, but there was like three color options in the same family.

It was like mauves, whatever. Yeah,

Kati Kons: yeah, yeah. That’s cool. But,

Christa Innis: but yeah, I was, but I see, the thing is, if I had a stylist, I feel like I would be one I love now where they have like different colors, but it just goes together. Mm-hmm. I’m not like, I don’t have the eye for that, so I’m just like, you know what, pick one off.

There’s,

Kati Kons: there’s a very easy way to do that. It’s so easy and all you have to do is play with the color wheel a little bit. Because like, you don’t wanna do something. Well, first of all, you have to do a bunch of different colors. Right. But you can’t use all of the colors. You have to take like two of them out.

So if you’re gonna do like a rainbow, like take out your reds and like any your reds and anything close to a red, uh, pinks are cute oranges if only if they’re bright. Right. Don’t do like a burnt orange. Right. Okay. Like what I’m wearing right now. Like, take out your red. Yeah, but it’s like, it’s like something super warm, like a red.

Don’t do that. Right. Okay.

Christa Innis: Okay. Okay.

Kati Kons: And then you have to maintain, it’s like kind of, it’s kind of like using color theory, but like I’ve never been trained in color theory. The only, so my experience using this color theory is what I’ve been taught as an 8-year-old in art class. So, love it. Literally just like keep that in the back of your mind as I tell you this.

Is that the way that I do it? Is like complimentary colors are like opposite colors on the color wheel.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: Um, and you would use like bright, you know how you would use bright colors with darker colors, right. And opposite colors.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: Um, you would just basically play with that and take away one color of all of ’em, like red I said, or whichever color you don’t like, red, blue, whatever.

Okay. Um, and then play with the rest of the, and make one of ’em, not neon, but really bright, um, as your accent color.

Christa Innis: Okay.

Kati Kons: I feel like we should, I feel like I should show you this as in real time, but um, here

Christa Innis: I’ll just show you my purse. You are like, let me just like whip something together.

Kati Kons: Yeah. Oh, this is a, is this a good example?

This doesn’t have any blues on it.

Christa Innis: Okay. So yeah, because it all goes together because you’re not take, you’re taking out one of the main Yeah. I wanna start like, noticing this and like looking around because so many fashion is all

Kati Kons: just observing if you Yeah, I was just having this conversation with someone today.

Oops. Fashion is just observing. Um, but yeah, color theory is interesting. It’s just like, um, like, you know how, you know, the, when I was young, they always taught in color class and art class. I used to talk about all the time, uh, the sports teams, uh, football team jerseys. Mm. Like if you think about marketing in, uh, sports, uh, like the Seattle Seahawks, the like neon green and the navy blue.

Mm-hmm. That’s like a very intentional marketing thing. Um. What else? I always thought that like the Vikings, the, the gold and the purple a very bad choice. And the Packers is now, it’s iconic, being gold and green, but I feel like is also a bad choice.

Christa Innis: That was my high school colors. Oh God. We were the Gators.

Where are you from? Uh, Chicago suburb.

Bridesmaid Drama & Digital Boundaries

Kati Kons: Oh really? Me too. Oh yeah. Well, let’s talk about that. I now I’m scared. Where, where are we from? Are we from the same suburb? Are are we neighbors? No. My God. Wait, who’s the Gators? Do I know? The Gators? Let me think. Me and also my partner. I might

Christa Innis: even pull this out ’cause I’m like so secretive about where

Kati Kons: I live.

I don’t, I don’t know if I know the Gators. So let me think about this for a minute.

Christa Innis: There’s the Florida Gators, you know,

Kati Kons: Stevenson?

Christa Innis: Stevenson.

Kati Kons: Oh, nevermind. I feel like Stevenson was green. That’s why I, oh, Stevenson

Christa Innis: High School. I’ve heard of that.

Kati Kons: Yeah.

Christa Innis: Who did I just meet? I just met someone that said they went to Stevenson.

Someone messaged me on. TikTok. So if you’re listening, Hey, uh, she messaged me, I think she said she went to Stevenson and she was like, you talk about being from Chicago on your podcast. And I was like, oh, I didn’t realize I did that, but yeah.

Kati Kons: What suburb is it?

Christa Innis: Huh?

Kati Kons: What suburb is it?

Christa Innis: I’ll tell you when we don’t record, or I guess I can take it out.

Oh, that’s

Kati Kons: fine. That’s so fair. I mean, I guess like, I don’t think, I’m never gonna live there again. I am in Washington DC right now, and yeah, I feel like, I don’t know. I got docs on the internet a couple months ago in which people found my old Instagram account and I deleted it by now. But like they found my old Instagram account, they found a bunch of old sh*t on the internet from me and like put my address on the internet.

Christa Innis: Oh my God. That’s like my nightmare.

Kati Kons: It was like kind of bad. Um, long story short, don’t, um. Do a lot of things that I did, which is actually, actually don’t, don’t be a right wing troll on the internet. How about that? Um, anyways, yeah. Um, I literally was about to do something anyways, don’t don docx people on the internet.

Thank you. Yes. And then, uh, so I feel like that’s fine. But I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, not yours though, because I think I would’ve known by now. Because I don’t know a gator in that area. But anyways,

Christa Innis: people are gonna be like searching like gators. I don’t live there now, so it doesn’t really matter.

But I’m like, I’m like very private online, and I’m like, if people seek No, you should be, no, I

Kati Kons: think

Christa Innis: that’s a really

Kati Kons: good thing

Christa Innis: because there’s just like, like what you just said. Um, I had a girl on here that said,

Kati Kons: I was like, the f*ck. But it, uh, it’s a good thing because I, uh, and you should know this for the future, if you ever get docs, you can request to scrub things from Google.

And so I did and it was gone. Oh,

Christa Innis: well, there you go. All right. Well that’s a, that’s a good lesson. Yeah.

Kati Kons: Yeah. And I’m so sorry for derailing the conversation like four times, but, um,

ADHD, Creativity & Queer Wedding Fashion

Christa Innis: oh my gosh. You’re, uh, let’s, let’s go back, well, since we kind of just jumped in, can we just like introduce who you are and what you do?

I know we kind of went backwards, but I, um, I feel like it would give more context to why we’re talking about styling so much. So tell us about your brand, who you are and all that good stuff.

Kati Kons: I am Kati. I am a queer fashion stylist, and I mostly do weddings and non-traditional weddings, um, because there’s no process for finding non-traditional wedding attire, um, or wedding attire that isn’t like a suit or a dress.

Um, to clarify. Um, and what were your other questions? I have a DHD. I just already lost it. Oh, good. I

Christa Innis: think that’s why we’re vibing so well. I haven’t, okay. I haven’t been officially diagnosed, but my whole life I’m like, I’m pretty sure I have a DD or a DHD. No. Then you probably do. It’s, I get like, either very focused or I’m just like, woo, where are we?

What are

Kati Kons: we talking about? Yes. That’s a DHD. It’s, it’s not the lack of focus, it’s the reregulation of it. Right? Yeah. If

Christa Innis: I don’t plan out my day. I’m all over it. That’s why I’m a planner. That’s why I love planning sh*t, because if I don’t, I am.

Kati Kons: That’s really good. I, I don’t, I really should plan out my day because when I do it, I’m so on, you know?

Yes, yes. That’s the thing.

Christa Innis: I think people don’t think we have the capabil, I say we now. I’m like, now I’m a part of the a d We don’t, people don’t get us. No. Um, yeah.

Kati Kons: It’s okay.

Christa Innis: No, it’s just like, I think like the

Kati Kons: diagnosis is just a label.

Christa Innis: Okay. It’s just a label. Yeah. No, I just feel like once I was really able to like get organized, that’s when I was like, okay, that’s my magic power.

I can get organized and I can get stuff done if I don’t, you able

Kati Kons: to like control your brain is just an unmatched thing. Yeah. It’s crazy. Once you be able to, once you’re able to like literally control, wield your power, it’s. I just feel like it’s your brain is actually able to do more than other people.

I can’t explain it, but yes, sometimes my

Christa Innis: husband’s like, like, I’ll like bring up something else I’m working on. And he’s like, aren’t you already doing this? And I’m like, I don’t even know what just happened. Like, I just get outta the, I full disclosure. Right. Right now we have a, we have a two bedroom, so I work from, I’m in my closet.

Fun fact. So we gotta make spaces work. Um, and so I will come out of our room and I’m like, I just, I just got so much done and like I’ll like show him. He’s like, how did you do that? And I’m like, I focus mode, but if I don’t have a plan and I waste like a couple hours, I’m like so hard on myself. I’m like, what?

Kati Kons: Yeah. I feel like it’s like, I don’t know if, if I’m on, I can like do more than most people and if I am just like, uh, so not focused. I like waste so much time. It’s so terrible. But yeah, I feel something. Um, what was your,

Reshaping Non-Traditional Wedding Fashion

what I, did I have to introduce?

Christa Innis: Yeah. So. So talk about portrait of a bride on Fire. How you got started, how you got into it.

Yeah, how I got started.

Kati Kons: Okay. Um, well, I got started because I got engaged and I identify as like somewhere in between, like female and non-binary. It just kind of depends on the moment. Um, and not like I wake up one day and I’m non-binary and I wake up one day and I’m a woman. It’s just like I don’t care to do the soul searching is the moment, I guess.

Uh, like, yeah. And so, but I, but in my day to day, I love wearing dresses and skirts, so when I got engaged I was like really, really into like wedding dresses and I got really into like the whole wedding fashion scene. But what became super apparent to me was like, there is. Nothing outside of wedding dresses for anyone outside of white wedding dresses for anyone that was non-traditional at all.

Right?

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: And there were just no options. None. And the thing is, all the wedding dresses were the same too. There were like 10 different styles and there were like 10 variations of those 10 styles and that’s it. And there were not even non-traditional white wedding dresses. It was so crazy to me.

’cause like to find the non-traditional white wedding dresses, they were like, I don’t know, like on Etsy that you had to order mm-hmm. From across the earth, like you couldn’t try them on. It’s just so weird. It was such a weird thing to me. Anyways, I got really frustrated because there were no like even pants or jumpsuits at the wedding shops in town, and.

Suit shops were obviously only for people who were like strictly traditional men. And there was like nothing in between and there was no color anywhere mostly. And it was just like nothing. And so I started like kind of, I wanted to get into like what I loved the wedding dress situation. And I just started learning about wedding dresses a lot.

But I wanted, I started posting on TikTok because I started to get into like content creation at the time. Um, and so I kind of started, um, wanting to help people find their non-traditional wedding attire. And so that’s kind of how I got into it, is like I got into it myself and then I got into wanting to help people ’cause I realized that they didn’t have it.

Um, you know, they didn’t have a means of finding it. And also there wasn’t a lot of it, so that made it. Twice as hard. Um mm-hmm. And so that’s how I started is I started in like wedding fashion and now I do like wedding fashion styling. So I help you throughout the journey of finding your wedding attire and also styling the accessories and all the little details of your wedding outfit.

And then I also do personal styling on the side, and I do some like. Like red carpet styling, event styling as well, just like to a much smaller scale than um, the other two things. Mm-hmm. Um, and yeah, I do kind of a lot of things because I just kind of take on things that I wanna do and I don’t, and I only, I don’t really say no unless I really don’t wanna do it.

So,

Christa Innis: yeah. When you say non-traditional wedding dress, and you’re talking about like jumpsuits, I, I remember. When I was engaged and I was like starting to plan into my wedding, I, um, I’m a, my friends all know me. Like when I was a bridesmaid, I was like, the jump, I love a good jumpsuit. Like, so for like three weddings I was in, I wore a jumpsuit.

Good. Because they like looked like kind of dresses. So it like, looked like uniform, especially like a palazzo pant or something where the wide leg was like flowy. Yes. I loved it. It was so, and then you’re on the dance floor and you’re like, I can do my thing. Like, you know, you can do the splits, you can do whatever you want.

Yeah. If I wanted to learn how to do the splits that night, I would be okay. But yeah, it was just like, so I loved, but I remember seeing a lot of the bridal jumpsuits starting to come out more and more. I wore one to my rehearsal dinner, but not the actual wedding.

Queer Wedding Fashion Beyond the Binary

So when you say untraditional wedding dress, what kind of, like, are you looking for personally or like, do you look for like for brides or couples getting married, um, that, that come to you for that kind of unique look?

Kati Kons: Yeah. So I feel like, um. I, the reason I say I’m like a queer wedding fashion stylist is because there’s like no one that tailors their services to the queer community. And I don’t want to be exclusive of other non-traditional people that want these kinds of services, but I know that there’s no one else that, that actually tailors their services to the queer community.

And I think that’s important, especially in pride month and like this time, day and age, when like queer people are like just being targeted left and right, right? Mm-hmm. So, but uh, to take a step back, I think like the attire that is non-traditional is more like the drama of a dress, but like the comfort of pants, right?

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: Mm-hmm. And like. Like you just described, a jumpsuit is like gonna give you the mobility and the freedom to do what you want when, but you get the, like, the prettiness of make a dress, you know, Uhhuh. Um, and I think a lot of people when they come to me is they’re like, I want the drama moment of a dress, meaning I want a train, meaning I want the details and I want the, like, I want the like princess or prince or something where it’s like, I want the grandeur of like that.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. But

Kati Kons: I don’t, but I don’t want to be in that level of femininity of a dress.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Because

Kati Kons: they feel secure in pants.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I love, and I think

Kati Kons: a lot more people do feel secure in pants than dresses.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: Yeah. But like suits are just like out of the f*cking question for a lot of people, so, you know.

Yes, yes. Especially ’cause like the there the options for like suits or like. Traditional man suits, which are like, you know, f*cking boxy as sh*t. And then there’s like women’s suits, which are like business suits that you wear to like corporate events. You know, there’s not like a, what does it feel like?

And then there’s like the other accessible suits you find out like fast fashion places, you know, there’s no like good accessible suits for women that are like quality sh*t that you can just find. Yeah. I don’t know, like where would you even look for that? I’m like, off the top of my head, I don’t even have an answer.

And I’m a fashion stylist that makes me so angry.

Redefining the Wedding Experience

Christa Innis: Do you ever like want to like work with a designer and like design like your own? I don’t know. I feel like you have such an eye for that stuff where you could like design. I do that for some

Kati Kons: clients.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: Some clients look for custom options. And I do work with designers to design custom attire when they have the budget for it.

It’s just way more expensive. Of course. So I

Christa Innis: bet. Yeah. Yeah.

Kati Kons: I love, I love that because it’s like really, really fun to go through the whole beginning to end process of being like, let’s formulate your vision. And like what’s so fun is being like being able to see where someone has a vision and being able to be like, okay, but we can make it so much cooler than that.

Like, yeah, so much cooler than what you have seen on these random Pinterest boards that are just like probably so limited. Mm-hmm. And like, let me show you some even cooler stuff. You know what I mean? Like Yeah, like let’s show you some stuff and then like, let’s draw and like, let’s do all this stuff with the designer.

Like it is so cool to watch everything develop and I’m not a designer so I can’t, like, I can’t sketch and I can’t, you know, make garments. But like seeing that chick from beginning to end is the coolest thing in the world. And then me being able to like. Pick out their shoes and like walk them through their hair and makeup and accessory.

Oh my God. It’s such a fun, it’s such a fun moment. Like putting together. Yeah. Okay. So

Christa Innis: you mentioned you just got married two weeks ago. Mm-hmm. Congratulations. So Thank you. When it came to planning or putting together your own wedding mm-hmm. Like what were things that were the bat you were like, this is what we want, and what were some things that you were like, we no, we’re definitely not doing that.

And you said no wedding party. Yeah, yeah. Sorry.

Kati Kons: Um, so we, uh, as young queer people, we were non-traditional in nature and we said, no florals. We did not spend any money on florals. And my, we did spend a lot of money on a photographer. Um, and my photographer is Lindsay Michelle in Boston, and she is amazing. Um, but I knew her way before because of what I do.

I knew her way before our wedding and she knows me well. So she was like, I need you to get a personal floral because I need you to have something in your hand. I need you to have a hand accessory. You’re gonna thank me later because she knows me. She knows I’m gonna want the whole look, right. Mm-hmm. I’m gonna want my whole look to be done.

And I was like, you’re right. I’m gonna want not a flo, a personal floral, I’m gonna want a purse. And so I got a purse with flowers in it. Oh, cute. Yeah. But we didn’t get any florals. And the other things that we did differently is. We did it in our apartment.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: We walked in together, no bridal party, uh, ceremony.

And then

we didn’t do like a, a dance situation. We just went to dinner afterwards. I love that. Yeah. It was pretty like chill and laid back. It was really nice.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah. I love when you go in like on the same page, knowing what you want. ’cause I think so many times couples get caught up with like, unsolicited advice coming in of like, you need this, do this.

And then you end up having this day where you don’t even enjoy it ’cause you’re like, I’m doing this for everybody else. Not yes. For us.

Kati Kons: And I think that’s tremendously challenging, but also I am, I said this to my partner, I don’t know if you can, uh uh. Like, if you relate to this, but I’m so lucky that I didn’t have a childhood dream of a wedding because I didn’t have to deal with any expectation around what I thought my wedding would look like.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: Uh, and I just feel as if a lot of people, especially a lot of young women, grow up with a dream of what their wedding would look like and like when you get to be in adulthood in terms of like finances and in terms of just like where you are in life and execution and, and so many different things.

Mm-hmm. It just like can turn out so different and I just, like, sometimes it’s a good thing and sometimes it’s not. And like, I’m just so glad I didn’t have any expectation because I had the best f*cking day in the world, you know? I love that. Yeah. And so

Christa Innis: I just,

Kati Kons: I’m so glad I

Christa Innis: had no expectations. That’s such like good advice too.

And I’m so glad you said that because a lot of people probably don’t know this. ’cause I don’t even know if I’ve said it before, but, and then I find it surprising ’cause I have a wedding podcast or mostly like wedding content. But I was never the girl that was like, I can’t wait to get, be a bride. I can’t wait to have my wedding.

I never visualized it either. And I don’t think it was until like, being in a bunch of weddings and then like, I met my husband and like, you know, at that time we, like, we were engaged for like a hundred years. So like, we were like, kind of like knew what things we wanted and didn’t want. And so I feel like, yeah, it was just like a way different, I didn’t want the big ballroom.

Mm-hmm. I didn’t want the big Cinderella dress. I, that just wasn’t my thing. Yeah. And my parents were also ones to, they never like pressured and were like, oh, when you get married, when you do this, like, they were just never like that. And I, I’m glad because I wasn’t like, oh, I’m gonna be a princess on my day.

And I was just, I just. Never had that vision. And I remember even my makeup artist being like, you’re like the most relaxed bride I’ve ever done makeup for. And I was like, well, I figure at this point everything’s done. If something goes wrong, like we’re all here, like, yeah, have a good time. Like what am I to worry about?

Kati Kons: We always wanted, we always wanted was like we, we didn’t want the like, big event situation, but we did want is like a smaller micro wedding, like around 50 people or less. Um, but we wanted to have everyone there for like a weekend, like wherever we did, just so like we had people there for longer. So it was like a longer experience, but like a smaller amount of people so that I wasn’t like super.

Overwhelming, but that we had more time to spend so that we could like, you know, um, have a lot more experience, which I feel like is now becoming more of a thing with like, welcome parties and brunch afterwards and like, which I totally get because I think it’s so fun to spend a whole weekend with your people.

Especially, it’s like the one time everyone’s in town for you, it’s like mm-hmm. You might as well make it worth it, you know?

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: People are

Christa Innis: flying in or driving in, like have like different things set up or like plan to like hang out. I think

Kati Kons: it’s so worth it. I, and I think like a week long might be a little extra, but I’m like, at least making it a weekend I feel like would be so fun.

Christa Innis: Yeah,

Kati Kons: it works fun, at least for us, so

Christa Innis: yeah. I love that. Okay, let’s get into, because I know we’re kind of, we’re running on our A DH ADHD time in a longer time. No. Um, okay. Let’s get, if you don’t, I hope you

Kati Kons: don’t have a, I hope you don’t have a 6:00 PM Um, no, I don’t. Okay, good. Okay. I’m good. We’re, we’re good?

We’re good. Let’s go.

Christa Innis: Just have my family where they’re fine. Okay. Rapid fire. This is just pick one or the other, whether it’s your own, I don’t know, as a, I don’t know why I’m like introducing it. Just rapid fire. Let’s just pick one. Okay. Okay. Classic ballroom wedding or outdoor garden party.

Kati Kons: Outdoor garden party.

Christa Innis: Minimalist. Chic or bold and colorful.

Kati Kons: Bold and colorful.

Christa Innis: Veil or no veil?

Kati Kons: No veil.

Christa Innis: Custom gown or off the rack.

Kati Kons: Oh sh*t.

Is this for me or a client? Either, I mean,

Christa Innis: just in general, I guess, custom gown, uh, one photographer or photography and video package, one photographer first look photos or traditional aisle reveal. First look match your wedding style or your to your home aesthetic. Yes or no? Yes. Bridesmaids. Same dress.

Different dress or totally mismatched. Mismatched statement. Shoes or statement earrings.

Kati Kons: Statement, shoes.

Christa Innis: And then what’s one style trend that you wish couples would leave behind? Like, or just, or just any trend. You’re just like sick of seeing. Oh. Um, not to put you

Kati Kons: on the spot,

I know this one’s supposed to be rapid fire and I feel like I’m blanking now. It’s okay if you don’t have one too. I feel like I don’t, which is pretty wild, but I definitely do. I’m just blanking.

Christa Innis: No, no, it’s all good. If I think

Kati Kons: about it later, we’ll bring it up.

Christa Innis: Yeah, yeah. Okay. Awesome. Um, I think, well, I feel like we talked a lot of that about the wedding hot takes as we were kind of just talking.

What does Steven earrings at weddings?

Kati Kons: I’m still, I think that’s why I am blocked is because I am literally no one wears statement earrings at weddings.

Christa Innis: Okay. This might be a dumb question. What is a statement earring? Just like a big, bold earring. Mm-hmm. Like as, like,

Kati Kons: I’m just thinking of like a statement necklace where they’re just like, chunky.

What’s a statement? Yeah. But like statement earing is like, is like Yeah. Really wild and big and people don’t really do that at weddings. Yeah. I,

I don’t know. It’s true. People don’t really wear necklaces at all at weddings anymore, though.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I wear like the mo I wore like the most simple, I I wore my mom’s. They do.

Kati Kons: It’s like a, it’s a very simple thing. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Because it’s like you’re wearing this like beautiful gown or whatever you’re wearing that you want most, most of the attention on.

Kati Kons: What’s the style thing that people should be, should leave it home. I feel like the answer is so many things, honestly.

Christa Innis: You said no veil quickly. Do you think veils are outdated?

Kati Kons: Well, like j in like the theory of it? Yeah, but like, oh yeah. Like, yeah, just like a garter, like in theory. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like it’s disgusting in theory, but it’s like, I mean, it’s like cute. I mean, like, you should not have, if you, even if you have a garter, you shouldn’t do a garter toss. Like that’s disgusting. You know what I mean? But like a garter’s kind of cutie if you have the right dress.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I just did one for a photo.

I don’t even know if they took a photo of it now. They might have just done it with like everything. Yeah. And veil was one thing. I was like, I’m not doing a veil. I don’t wanna a veil. But then I ended up up finding one for like down the aisle. I did not cover my face or anything. Yeah.

Kati Kons: But I was just like, it’s a very, very religious thing.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: And like, that’s, that’s fine. I just feel like if you’re gonna honor that tradition, honor that tradition. But if you’re like just wearing one to wear one, I just feel like we need to separate, I feel like we need to honor the tradition if we’re gonna wear a veil. I feel like we need to not be so nonchalant about wearing veils,

Christa Innis: in my opinion.

Kati Kons: Okay. Um, but I feel like there, I feel like I do have a very hot take about. Styles for weddings. Leave the white at home maybe. Um, I literally wore white to my wedding. Um, I don’t know.

Christa Innis: You Oh, like, you think like No. What? No. White at weddings.

Kati Kons: I just feel like it’s kind of, I would love to step away from it.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: Um, I don’t hate it. I just would love to step away from it. Do you ever

Christa Innis: consider wearing another color at your wedding?

Kati Kons: Yeah. Yeah. I just didn’t because, um, I didn’t wanna be too different from my partner and she wanted to, so I was like, I’m not gonna like, fight too much about it. Yeah. And I know that she, like, I wanted her to be super comfortable so I wasn’t gonna like, make it a thing, you know?

Right. I get that.

Christa Innis: Yeah. No, I’ve seen gorgeous black wedding dresses, never in person. I’ve just seen them on weddings and I was like, I love the look of that.

Kati Kons: Oh yeah. Well, we were both open to wearing either black or white, but. We found her dress that was in white first, and so we were like, okay, we’ll do that.

Christa Innis: Go along with the theme. I love it. Yeah. All right. Let’s get into this week’s wedding submission. So people send me these stories. I have not read it yet, so I don’t know what’s gonna happen and We’ll, please, I just

Why Dress Codes Need a Makeover

Kati Kons: thought of my thing. Can I tell you everything?

Christa Innis: Oh, yeah, please do.

Kati Kons: This is actually a long more of a long answer.

Um, this is not a rapid fire answer, and that’s probably why I didn’t think of it right away. Um, I have a hot take though in terms of a style thing that, okay. I leave at home. Um, and it’s just that I think formal attire, my definition of formal attire differs from the average person. Mm-hmm. But specifically at weddings.

Christa Innis: Okay.

Kati Kons: Uh, in that, like our wedding, our like dress codes at wedding, be it the guest dress code or just like what we were to, weddings in general needs to stay at home in general. Like we need to, those need to go die, um, because like they need to go to jail, like whatever, because they are so obnoxious and limiting for queer people specifically, or like any type of non-traditional person trying to feel themselves because like, how are you trying, how are you going to express yourself in a way that is outside of the social norm?

If you’re like not fitting into traditional standards of formal attire, if it’s not like a suit or a dress, right? Because if you think about it this way, people who don’t fit into the standard norms of traditional attire, suit or dress, if you’re a celebrity, all you do is wear something super chic, high-end fashion.

Maybe it’s a t-shirt and shorts, but it’s Balenciaga, and you still walk the runway and you still look chic as f*ck, and you’re still slaying. And that’s great because your name is Billie Eilish and it’s branded and it’s really cool, you know? Mm-hmm. And like, that’s awesome. But why do, why can you do that on the red carpet and not at a wedding?

Christa Innis: Hmm. Why

Kati Kons: are our, like, why is the decorum for a red carpet moment so different than the decorum at someone’s wedding? And I understand that the marketing moment is a little bit different than someone else’s wedding, but why is the formality of a red carpet event, which should be the most formal event. So different than the decorum of someone’s wedding, which should be your average Joe’s most formal event in your lifetime.

Right? So why does a celebrity’s red carpet like event have a different definition for formal than our, our average person’s definition Of formal? Because for queer people being something other than suit and dress is not acceptable. In our definitions of formal attire, there is no like, I’m gonna wear something outside of those norms that fits into formal, semi-formal black tie.

There’s nothing that fits into that. Experimenting into, into different things doesn’t fit into those categories because it’s not socially acceptable. Socially acceptable is what fits into those categories. Mm-hmm. And like there’s no way to like experiment with new things with those dress codes. It just doesn’t work.

Yeah. And so I’m like, my whole like goal, my purpose is to like try to change the definition to like align more with like the red carpet definition where like if you’re mo most comfortable in a t-shirt and shorts, like great, let’s f*cking elevate that. So it’s a red carpet t-shirt and shorts, you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Like, let’s get you a t-shirt. I know a lot of high-end t-shirt and shorts and it’ll look high-end as well. It’s not like it’s gonna look like Adam Sandler, like it’ll look high-end, you know what I mean? Like, uh. It’s like there are existing really, really nice and really, really cool embellishments on t-shirts and shorts.

So it’s like, we’ll get you there. But like, why isn’t that acceptable for a wedding? It wouldn’t be today, you know?

Christa Innis: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve never, so I’ve never been to a wedding where it’s like very specific, like, wear this. But I’ve seen more and more people do it where they’re like, only wear these three colors, or only wear this style of clothing.

And yeah, that’s, I feel like that’s, it’s a bit much sometimes like as the, like we’re talking to the planner, as the planner in me, sometimes I’m like, okay, here’s the vibe we’re going for. ’cause have you ever gone like invited to something and you’re like. What’s the, like, where are we getting married at?

What’s the style? Mm-hmm. Like, and you’re like, do I wear a formal dress? Do I wear a cocktail style dress? Am I wearing my jumpsuit? You know, that kind of thing. So I like some guidelines, but yeah, you’re, you make a really good point. No, direction is totally helpful.

Kati Kons: Mm-hmm. Like we talked about that with the wedding party.

It’s definitely true for the guests as well because like, I dunno, you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna be like the one that’s sticking out Yeah. At someone else’s wedding. Um, but like, you also, as a queer person, especially going to like a hetero wedding as a queer person, you don’t wanna stick out too much and like, you wanna also be yourself at the same time.

Christa Innis: Hmm. It’s

Kati Kons: like a really hard balance. Um, and like, I don’t know, I just feel like a lot of queer people have a hard time with formal attire and like weddings are just like one of the hardest places to be, I think. Um. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because like a lot of the options for like androgynous attire, I think are too adventurous for like a cape or like a, a scarf around your neck I feel like would be too flamboyant.

Um, because like if I said gender neutral, you, like, most people would think masculine, right? Yeah, that’s true. Um, ’cause like gender neutral in my head means like gender fluid or androgynous or something that’s like a mix of both. Um, but like that would mean it has to be somewhat feminine. Right? And most people would think it, it means like a suit, like masculine, something that’s like at least neutral and masculine.

So it’s acceptable to everyone, you know?

Christa Innis: I never thought about that. You’re right. Yeah. Yeah. Gender neutral. And so it’s like more masculine.

Kati Kons: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Christa Innis: And

Kati Kons: so it’s like. It’s really challenging to find something that is actually androgynous or like gender neutral or something that’s like acceptable for people to feel comfortable in, because that is oftentimes not the expectation of everyone else.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kati Kons: Yeah. It’s really hard. Um, but the only reason I say that is because I feel like there’s a lot of, like people whose expectations about formal attire are very different from like, um, queer people whose expectations for formal attire are like very different. Yeah. I just feel like we need to all dress ourselves in a way that makes us happy and walk away and that’s it.

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.

Kati Kons: I feel like, like we, somebody said to me once on TikTok, somebody said to me once on TikTok, I posted a video, I. They said what looks like non-traditional formula attire to you for someone’s wedding. And I posted a bunch of pictures that were of the wedding, the designer that designed my wedding attire and I love her.

Her name is Ophelia. She’s great. One of the pictures was of like a sheer silk organ organza hoodie, and it was a mini dress, a hoodie, mini dress. It was gorgeous. And it was like, like again, like silk organ organza, oversized hoodie. Like really cool. And they were like draw or uh, I’m sorry, draw strings.

Draw strings. Like on a hoodie.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: Are not, have no place in formal at tire. Why is that there? And I was like. Like you’re really telling me something like silk organza has no like place in formal attire. Like you have no idea what you’re talking about. You know what I mean? Right. This person like literally has no idea what they’re talking about, but like we are so twisted in what we think formal attire means and our like understanding of like suit and dress is all rooted in like white supremacy and patriarchy.

It’s so terrible. So it’s like something we really need to shift our understanding into.

Christa Innis: Mm,

Kati Kons: sorry. That was a, that was a rant, but it felt like that needed to be said.

Christa Innis: No, I loved it. I love, I love the hot takes. I love, ’cause I feel like it opens up good discussion for, you know, people listening too to be like, wait, I never thought about it that way.

Or, you know, I think you’re, I think you’re right about, you know, the weddings in general or events in general put a lot of pressure on people to fit a certain mold and, and there’s like expectations of like how to look, how to dress. And, um, and I feel like as a, you know, as a queer stylist, you’re sharing so much more from your perspective and what you see personally, and I think that brings a whole new, uh, whole new take on it.

No, I, I’m, I appreciate, I see.

Kati Kons: I’ll say one more thing about queer weddings versus hetero weddings. You see, you know, when people try to, uh, theme their weddings sometimes mm-hmm. Or themes or, oh, theme Yes. Dress codes

Christa Innis: mm-hmm. Or

Kati Kons: stuff like that. Um, the theme upstage the bride, um, more often you see that at queer weddings.

I don’t know why.

Christa Innis: Mm. That’s interesting. Yeah. I actually saw like a viral post about upstage the bride, and I loved it. And that was the first time I had seen it.

Kati Kons: I like, love that so much.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Do you think it like. I think about that. Yeah. I wonder if it’s like, it runs in because it’s like the traditional, like, you know, like hetero wedding, it’s like the traditional, like bride is the queen star of the

Kati Kons: show.

I don’t know. We talked about our dress code being like Met Gala themed for a long time. Uh, just so that everyone popped the f*ck off. Um, ’cause we wanted something like that. Uh, and then we realized we didn’t want people spending a ton of money, uh, just on the retirement. Yeah. Um, so we did do that. But, um, I don’t know.

I don’t know. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t know what it is about like the traditional culture that like does that, but it’s interesting.

Christa Innis: Yeah, because I’ve even heard people say like, don’t wear, oh, like. Bright red dress to my wedding dress. Yes. Where is this and where does that come from? I don’t know.

And see, I’m someone where I’m like, I don’t care What? I didn’t care what people wore in my wedding. One of my closest friends wore a bright, like a hot pink dress and looked amazing on her. I had five people wear hot pink to my wedding. Yes. It was like, good,

Kati Kons: thank

Christa Innis: you. You look great. Yeah. Someone could have showed up at White.

White in my wedding too, and I would not have cared. I’m not that. My

Kati Kons: sister had like a white cardigan and she was like, I didn’t wanna outshine you. And I said, honey, no one’s outshining me today. I was like, are you kidding? Not worried. Are you kidding? And she was like, she was like, did you really just say that?

And I was like, do you really think you’re outshining me today?

Whose Day Is It Anyway?

Christa Innis: I feel like I’m not, I’m not worried in the slightest. Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like it’s like let people be themselves. I mean. I don’t know. I was not the least of my concerns of what people were wearing to my wedding. Yeah. I didn’t really care.

Okay. Let’s get into this story thing. Yeah. We’ll just react as it as we read it. Um, or I’ll just, we’ll just kind of stop and share our thoughts. Okay. Here we go. My older brother got engaged six months after I did, which annoyed my mother a bit. She would have preferred my wedding to happen first, but it didn’t bother me.

I was close to my brother and happy for him. He’d only been dating his girlfriend for a short time compared to me and my now husband who’d been together for years. My brother said, wait,

Kati Kons: wait, stop.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: He got engaged six months after she got engaged, or six months after she got married, I’m

Christa Innis: guessing, after she got engaged.

Kati Kons: Okay. So what’s the problem? Because the mom got upset.

Christa Innis: I think it’s like the mom thing of like, yeah. I get so many stories sent to me where parents or siblings get mad if like they’re not engaged or married first.

Kati Kons: That’s weird.

Christa Innis: It’s weird. And it’s like this rivalry or like sister-in-laws if like the younger one gets engaged first or married.

Yeah. There’s like so many stories like that. So like she doesn’t care, but it’s like the mom seems like annoyed by it.

Kati Kons: Okay. Okay.

Christa Innis: Weird. Okay. Sorry. Continue. Yeah. No, you’re good. Um, my brother set his wedding date for exactly one year after mine. I was pregnant at at his wedding due just a few weeks after the big day.

It was very warm day, which isn’t ideal when you’re heavily pregnant. My sister-in-law had booked their wedding in a local church right after a large parish event. The car park parking lot was packed when we arrived. And we are, we were nearly reversed into, oh my gosh, my reading skills. Here we go. Let’s try this again.

The car parking lot was packed when we arrived and we were nearly reversing into, oh my gosh, why is this? Just pretend like that didn’t happen. Okay. The car parking lot was packed when we arrived and we were nearly reversed into, on my side of the car. Not a great start. Then the bridal car broke down, so everything started late, which would obviously stress out even the calmest bride.

Before the wedding, my brother asked if we could make it to family photos, which were scheduled in a location that was out of our way, not because the church and the not between the church and the reception. I asked if they could take family photos at the church and do bridal party photos at the other location, but they said no.

So after the ceremony, which was only 10 minutes from my house, we went home so I could briefly rest and eat by that stage. I was very warm and very tired having been up early. Then my sister calls in a panic asking where we were saying that the photos were starting and we needed to hurry. We were 25 minutes away from the photo location.

Everything was running late due to the ceremony’s delay. We rushed there wondering why they couldn’t take photos. In the meantime, they were waiting on the bride’s, two brothers who were notoriously late. When we finally got to the wedding, uh, to take photos, my husband wasn’t the main, wasn’t in the main sibling shot, as in it was just my brother and his siblings.

After that, the bride approached my husband and complained that we were late saying it wouldn’t have happened at our wedding. I could see the anger in my husband’s face, but I didn’t know what was wrong until I, he told me later I was livid. It sounds like a lot of like, again, like the communication and just like people.

Wanting it their own way. Uh, for the rest of the day. I kept my distance from them and honestly, it ruined the day for the side of the family. For comparison, my own ceremony had been just five minutes from where we took family photos and the reception was only 20 minutes away. All minimal travel and on the same route.

Also, no one at my family was heavily pregnant. Her own sister was,

you can’t help that girl. I’m sorry. Uh, sorry. Can’t I, people get, um, or have gotten on me before when I like critique the story a little bit, but it sounds like she’s wanting to be catered to.

Kati Kons: A little bit, uh, a little bit. If,

Christa Innis: if they found a setting they really like for photos on their wedding day, they should be able to have it.

Kati Kons: Uh, and yes, her comparing the, um, the route being only five minutes away, like, I don’t know, we literally walked a mile from our apartment to the national Mall to go like, get food. And that’s like a 20 minute walk. Like, and we just did that for Fonzie.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: Like it’s, I dunno. And it was, it was cool and it was fine.

If it was 30 minute walk, we probably still would’ve done it. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, here’s the thing, like I, it sounds like a lot of people like were late and maybe, maybe they also got yelled at, you don’t know, right. Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten yelled at, but.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I mean, yeah, I’m sure. I mean, I’ve, I wasn’t maid of honor pregnant at a wedding.

I don’t, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t say heavily. I was like, well, I was, I was seven months, so I was pretty big. But like, I wouldn’t never have expected them to cater things to me, and I, I

Kati Kons: didn’t, yeah, that part of the story was kind of wild when she was like, I called to see if they could do photos at a different location.

Yeah. I was like, changed. I, I literally, I was like, was I supposed to react to that? ’cause I was like,

Christa Innis: I know. I was like waiting for the punchline. And I’m like, I’m not trying to come out hard on this ride, but like. Like we, the wedding I was in was like in December, we’re talking Chica, like this was downtown Chicago.

Cold. Yeah, cold. We’re outside. I’m not gonna be like, you know what? I’m pregnant. I’d rather not be outside right now. ’cause No, you just skip the photos. You’re not in ’em If you just skip it, just skip it. Yeah. It’s not, not, you’re just not

Kati Kons: in ’em. And like you say, sorry, I just can’t do it today. I’m pregnant as f*ck.

And like you walk away and like they do their thing and you do yours and that kind of sucks. But it is what it is. But you know.

Christa Innis: Yeah. We can’t, we can’t have our own expectations for other people’s weddings.

Kati Kons: No, no, no, no. That’s where you

Christa Innis: start getting irritated because it’s like. Let them have their day.

If you don’t agree with it, you don’t have to be a part of certain

Kati Kons: No. And I think that conversation probably should have happened before even she asked, can you move the pictures? Because if the bride was like, I’m so heartbroken that you couldn’t be here, let’s move the photos for you. That should have been a ball in her court decision rather than a I’m gonna ask you to move them,

Christa Innis: you know?

Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. Oh my

Kati Kons: God.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. Okay, so this says her own sister was heavily pregnant at her wedding too, so she should have understood, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a problem with the sister.

Kati Kons: I thought she said no one was heavily pregnant at her wedding,

Christa Innis: um, at her own wedding. So this is at her brother’s wedding.

Kati Kons: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah.

Christa Innis: And she said, so no one was pregnant at her wedding.

Kati Kons: Okay.

Christa Innis: But at this wedding, she’s pregnant as well as the bride sister. She couldn’t stand.

Um, a few days later when my brother and his now wife stopped by my mother’s house, she said to me when my brother was out of earshot that she should have had a word with me about everything. My mom shut that down and said she absolutely would not say anything to upset me, especially just weeks before I was due to give birth.

I mean, saying you’re gonna have a word with someone sounds very like, like, I don’t know, like older, like I’m gonna have a word with you. I don’t know. That sounds like someone trying to like, put you down. Like I feel like they maybe should communicate, but to say you’re gonna have a word with someone, I don’t know.

Um, I’d gone outta my way. Oh see, I’m already reading like, okay, this bride just want, or not bride. The sister wants to complain and I hate that it’s coming from the person that sent the story. ’cause it’s normally not. This way, but I feel like she feels like she was owed something. It says I’d gone out of my way to attend her bachelorette party, even though her own sister who was pregnant didn’t feel up to it.

So like she feel like, feels like she deserves a pat on the back, but I’m like, you didn’t have to go if you feel like she owed you. Um, and I was further along than she was the whole situation. Yeah. That

Kati Kons: doesn’t, yeah, girl, she could have been having like health issues with her pregnancy, right? Like you don’t know.

Christa Innis: Yeah. And it’s not like, well I did this for you, so you should move your photo shoot. That’s the thing

Kati Kons: is love is not transactional. Yes, yes.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: And if it feels transactional, then don’t go

Christa Innis: right. I feel like we see that so many times, like especially with weddings. Yeah. People think if I do this for you, then you owe me.

It’s like the parents paying for the wedding, you know, you hear so many, they’re like, well, I’m paying for it so I can invite my college friend who I, you’ve never met. It’s like,

Kati Kons: yeah, it’s how it works. I will actually, I’ll say a hot take on here. One of my best friends from high school, um, didn’t come to my wedding.

Um, she moved to Italy, uh, like five or six months ago. Okay. Um, to be with her fiance who like lives there. Um, and so he’s like from there and she just like couldn’t, she started a new job recently and she just like couldn’t make it back for the wedding. Like, I mean, very reasonable. Yeah. Um, and is also planning her wedding for September and like she liked to, didn’t confront me or tell me that she couldn’t make it.

She just like, a couple days before the wedding was like, I’m so sorry, I can’t come. And I was like, I wish you would’ve told me sooner.

Christa Innis: Oh yeah. And

Kati Kons: I was like, that sucks. ’cause I just like didn’t know. And I asked her a few times and she just like wouldn’t respond. And I was like, I wish she wouldn’t have ghosted me about it.

Yes. But like, that’s the problem is, and now I’m like, expected to go to her wedding in Spain in the fall. Um, but I’m gonna go, and I thought about this for so long because I was like, oh, I’m kind of upset that she did that. But I’m also like, she probably just like, feels bad and didn’t know how to handle it.

And like, like I just said, it’s not about transactional. Like, I’m not just not gonna go because she just like couldn’t come to mind.

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Kati Kons: And she would’ve, but she could’ve, you know?

Christa Innis: Right. You’re such a good friend. No, I feel like, no, that’s. That’s really hard to pull yourself out of and be like, okay, would I not go because she did this?

Or, you know, because this happened, or it feels

Kati Kons: so sh*tty of me, right. To just not go to her wedding, you know? Yeah. That feels like so dumb. And I feel like, I don’t know, I feel so

Christa Innis: good. I, I catch that so many times with people and I think we do it like, and I’ve done it too, being like, oh, they didn’t come to this.

And it’s like, well wait, it’s not, they didn’t come to this, so I go to that or don’t go to that. It’s kind. I go to it and do I want to go to it? Like, yeah. And I

Kati Kons: do wanna go. Yeah. I’m like, even if she couldn’t be here, even if she could have handled it better, I’m like, she still like my friend, I still love her.

I like flew to Italy and I picked out her f*cking wedding dress. I wanna be there. I wanna see it on her. You know?

Christa Innis: Oh, that’s amazing.

Kati Kons: Yeah. So I’m like, that was kind of weird. And I forgive her and I haven’t talked to her. She actually sent me a gift. I should open it. But anyways.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Um, anyways, yeah. But RSVPs are important.

Like I, I. Hate

Kati Kons: response. I hate, yeah. Rss. VP people. Yes.

Christa Innis: I hate when like, you have to reach out to people and be like, Hey, I haven’t heard from you. Or when people give you a maybe or like, they’re just like, we, we had, we had that, we didn’t have to deal with it too much. But I’ve heard of that. That happens all the time where people just, it slips their mind or they’re like, oh, maybe like, I’ll get off work.

Or, you know, little things like that where they just kinda like keep you on on a tentative, I guess.

Kati Kons: Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Um, it says the whole thing caused friction between me and my brother. And we had always gotten along well, honestly, I think she was just, oh, just jealous that we got married first and that I was pregnant at her wedding as if I was stealing her limelight.

I don’t, I hate that. I just, girl, I don’t

Kati Kons: know if that’s the case.

Christa Innis: I

Kati Kons: know. That makes me so

Christa Innis: sad. I know. ’cause I normally. I wouldn’t say side. I don’t wanna, I don’t pick sides, it’s just when I read it, I just respond, right? Mm-hmm. I’d say most of the time when whoever sends it to me, like they witness whatever happens, and I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s terrible.

This is the first time. I’m like, no, I think you’re reading. And is

Kati Kons: this really the first time that this has happened to you?

Christa Innis: Like this bad? I would say yeah. There’s been a few times, I shouldn’t say bad, but there’s been a few times, like I’ve done like YouTube readings of stories. Yeah. I like say like, I come hard on the bride a little bit, and I’m like, Ooh, but this didn’t happen.

Or you assumed that she was doing this. And the people in the comments are like, you’re coming up on this, coming hard on this bride. I’m like, well, I’m just trying to be levelheaded

Kati Kons: if I can. No, it, it felt, I don’t know. Changing the, changing the location of the pictures was wild to me because like, can you imagine if you were the planner?

Yeah. I’m expecting that they didn’t have a planner. The fact that she called to ask to move, I, they probably didn’t have a planner. Right. Right. ’cause can you imagine the planner’s f*cking face when she says your sister wants to move the location?

Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my God, she’s pregnant. Like, what? What? Um, that’s bonkers to me.

That is wild. I would never ask a bride to change a location no matter who I want. Change the logistics of your day, of your whole wedding day. And we’re talking 20 minutes. It’s not like an hour away. No, no, no. And even so, you don’t have to go. I know, like for one of my friend’s weddings, we, downtown Chicago, we took buses all around the city and we just took Yeah.

Pictures in different places. And that was like a, and I think, I wanna say she had a couple pregnant bridesmaids and mm-hmm. There was food and drink on the bus. Like, we were fine. She took care of us. I would never be like, Hey, you know what, can you, that’s wild because remember everyone listening, like you can say no to bachelorette party.

You can say no to being in a wedding. They don’t have to cater to you.

Kati Kons: I hate,

Christa Innis: I

Kati Kons: hate to, the whole bachelorette thing also gets me because I’m like, you could have said no. Yeah. I went and she didn’t. Is wild to me.

Christa Innis: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Kati Kons: I feel bad for this girly though. I know. I feel bad because it, I just, uh, I want, I want her to just be like.

Christa Innis: I feel like there must have been some kind of animosity before, because if this all happened and then she’s getting the vibe that like, oh, she’s doing these things and purposely,

Kati Kons: I feel like maybe she’s bad at telling stories and we missed some key detail about this in that there’s like some childhood trauma or something that we’re missing because I feel like there, I don’t know.

I feel like this story is like way too transparently against her for Yeah,

Christa Innis: like what I like, gotta go back and make, make sure I didn’t miss like a first paragraph or something. I, I don’t know. I think it all started when here’s my, okay, here’s my take. And again, I might be reading into it, but it’s, it’s my job here, right?

So when she said, my mom seemed to be bothered by it, but I wasn’t, I think she was bothered by it. So I think like in her mind, this whole thing, she’s like thinking about the whole time like, oh, they’ve only been dating this long. Oh, they’re getting married right after me. And so I think then everything just kind of becomes a, like a silent competition.

Yeah. Oh, that’s how I’m reading it, because like

Kati Kons: Oh, and so yourself. Because, because it’s a competition. She’s like, I went to the bachelor party

Christa Innis: and I did this,

Kati Kons: and I I went to your wedding pregnant, and so you have to change the thing because of me. Yeah.

Christa Innis: And I planned out my schedule like this. But you did it like this and you weren’t thinking about me the pregnant one.

Oh. So that’s how I’m reading

Kati Kons: it. You’re right. Uhhuh. But

Christa Innis: I’m

Kati Kons: sorry. You’re right.

Christa Innis: You’re listening. And, sorry, I’m not trying to come hard on you. Um, so she said, okay, so she said that honestly, I think she was just jealous that we got married first and I was pregnant at her wedding as if I was stealing her limelight.

But how did. How would she make you feel that way? ’cause she wanted you in the wedding, in a part of the photos. So I don’t know. We’d been together much longer and I feel like she took out her frustrations on me because her wedding didn’t go as planned.

Kati Kons: I feel like maybe it’s just the other way around. I feel like sometimes people, um, I don’t know.

I feel like I’ve seen that sometimes where people who have been together for a long time and then people get married who have not known each other, who have not known each other for very long, get married and there’s like a weird competition between those two types of relationships because they’re like, oh, well you haven’t been together for very long.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? And they’re like, well, you don’t have to have known each other for very long. You know what

Christa Innis: I mean? Yes. They try to like belittle it. Yes. Yeah. I remember. Okay. So like I was saying earlier, like my husband and I have, we were engaged for. No, not engaged for, we were together for six years before we got engaged.

Just ’cause like, I never wanted to be like a super young married, we were, I was 23 when we got together. So anyways, that’s besides the point. But like couples that like met after us or started dating after us, but got married before us would make comments like, oh, like, like married comments. Like, they’d be like, oh, when you’re married you’ll get it.

And I’m like, we already live together. I’ve like, what do you mean? Like, oh, just something’s magically gonna happen when we get married. And I’m like, oh, now I understand. Like there was just so many comments of like almost belittling our relationship because we weren’t legally married. That’s so weird.

That’s so weird. Yeah, it happened more times I could count, I would just learn to just like shut my mouth because I was just like, that’s so

Kati Kons: weird.

Christa Innis: Because

Kati Kons: people are always like, oh, like do you feel different now that you got married? And I was like, no. I mean, we’ve lived together for how many years? Like, we literally, our life goes on and nothing changes the f*ck.

Christa Innis: You’re just like solidifying for yourself. Like Yeah, like

Kati Kons: we, we just decided to have a party for fun. I don’t know.

Christa Innis: Exactly. Yeah. I feel like once you like already like live together and like have your stuff all in a place together, it doesn’t really change much. No. But legally we get to save money on taxes, so that is,

Kati Kons: that is a plus.

Honestly, that’s so rude of the legal system. Like why sh*t on singles like that? It’s crazy. This, but they literally have to support themselves with one person’s income. That is so hard nowadays. And not only that, you’re gonna deprive them of tax benefits.

Christa Innis: I, yeah, it blows my mind. Speaking of crazy wedding stories that someone sent me about like.

Married versus like long-term partner. This girl sent me a story and she’s like, she’s a young adult, so she’s probably in her twenties, right. She said an aunt of hers got married and said, only married couples. She goes, my parents never got married, never got legally married, so they’ve been together 30, 40 years.

Right. My math might be off, but she’s like, my mom wasn’t invited because they’re not legally married. I thought, wait, they’re inviting the dad, they’re inviting his kids, but not the wife, or not the long-term partner because they’re not legally married. I thought, what a weird wedding rule.

Kati Kons: Am I lost?

What do you mean they’re not inviting the wi, they’re not inviting the wife. She’s, well, she’s not technically a wife.

Christa Innis: Right, right, right. But the Like the wife figure. The wife figure, yeah.

Kati Kons: Sot a wedding. It was like a wedding. It was like a fake wedding per se. Without the wife figure.

Christa Innis: Yeah. It was her dad’s sister.

So her aunt, and she was like, yeah, my mom wasn’t invited. ’cause they’re, it was married, couple couples only. Oh my God. When everyone’s document what? Oh, that’s great. I’m like, that blows my mind. Anyways, there’s one last paragraph here. Okay.

Kati Kons: Oh, here we go.

Christa Innis: I didn’t say much about it afterwards, but when my brother asked what she had said to my husband, it really stuck with me.

For years, the photographer didn’t want to deviate from the list of planned shots, but surely a professional. Okay, wait. So he said the photographer didn’t wanna deviate from his list of planned shots, which I agree with, but surely a professional could have worked around people being late. Plenty of other photos could have been taken while they waited.

I had to drive 30 extra minutes outta my way to the reception just to be in three photos, photos that could have been easily taken at the ceremony.

Kati Kons: I really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Christa Innis: I’m trying, I really tried. This is, this isn’t, I hate to say this, but this is entitled, this is really entitled, Uhhuh. Oh, that sucks. But maybe this is a wake up call. I mean, I’m no therapist. I, I’m just literally just reading a story, reading a story. So maybe I’m understanding wrong.

If you’re listening and you’ve got more context, send it my way.

Kati Kons: Yeah. Please, please send a response. Yes, chime in. But yeah,

Christa Innis: that’s the lesson is, uh, if you are a part of a wedding, I mean, you can say no.

Kati Kons: Also, let’s, let’s also, another thing to take from that is get a planner. Because your photographer shouldn’t be your planner.

Christa Innis: Yeah. 100%.

Kati Kons: We hate that for planners or for photographers. That’s really rude. But, um, it like happens to a lot of photographers that they have to like, take over as planners when you don’t have one or a day of coordinator or something. But yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I got that vibe from my, my photographer literally was the best ever.

She had a full on timeline. Mm-hmm. And I talked to other brides, they’re like. They’re like, I don’t have one from my photographer. I was like, maybe mine’s like used to like people not having planners or something. Mm-hmm. Little does she know I’m very anal. I think

Kati Kons: that’s what the photographer for my sister’s wedding was like.

’cause she had everything planned out. Yeah. And I was like, afraid of that. I was like, wow. I was like, my photographer was like just much more type B creative. Okay. And I was like, I don’t, I don’t want her to be like worried about things. And she was still really, and I was like, I just don’t want to be like, I don’t know, worried about things.

I wanted the most laid back wedding you could imagine. And we did have that, so that was good. But

Christa Innis: yeah, when it’s down to the minute, that’s a lot. But I, I’m someone I like to know what’s gonna happen and like, even like something about like, Krista eat was on there. ’cause like if I get distracted by other things, I’ll forget.

So it was like that. Yeah. Ours was

Kati Kons: not down to the minute. We had like a lot of like, time in between things, so for us it was like really, really relaxed. That’s good. Yeah. So it was like, not like most weddings, which is awesome.

Christa Innis: Yeah, I like that.

Kati Kons: Okay. Um, did you get these people’s names or do I that was crazy or No, for this story?

Christa Innis: Um, yeah, they usually send like their,

Kati Kons: yeah, I don’t know if I get their name, but to this anonymous person, I’m so sorry, but please reflect. Yeah. Um, that’s all I have to say. Um, I, and you know what? The best is yet to come for you. Okay. It gets better.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think we’re either missing a lot of the story or I think there needs to like, need to figure out some, uh, there might be some like animosity that’s happening.

And so like every little thing is, it’s not against you, you’re not a victim, is what I am kind of getting from.

Kati Kons: I would just remind yourself that when you’re at someone else’s wedding, the wedding is about them for sure. Mm-hmm. For f*cking sure.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Every time. A hundred

Kati Kons: percent.

Christa Innis: Yeah. I think so many times we hear these stories and we’re like, that’s crazy.

And then like, we don’t see ourselves in them. And so my guess is she probably was like, oh yeah, they’re gonna for sure read this and be like, that’s crazy that she didn’t do that. But it’s like we need to like, like take a step back and be like, wait, you’re asking a bride and groom take out that it’s your brother and his wife?

Would you do this at any wedding you’re a part of?

Kati Kons: Mm-hmm.

Christa Innis: And if you wouldn’t, then don’t do it at your brother’s wedding.

Kati Kons: No. I feel like I couldn’t even ask my sister to do something like that. Same,

Christa Innis: yeah. I’d be

Kati Kons: mortified. I would be mortified. Oh my gosh, I don’t even both because I would, is would I, is it, would it be easier to ask my sister or harder?

I don’t even know.

Christa Innis: Right. Yeah. I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. All right. Well that’s a crazy story. Thanks for reacting with me. Um, well thanks for coming out and hanging out with me today. Yeah, of course. Can you, um, tell everyone again where they can follow you, find all your content and anything exciting that you’re working on right now?

Kati Kons: Yeah. You can find me at Portrait of a Bride on fire on Instagram and TikTok and I am always working on fun things on. Styling things. If you ever need to be styled or if you want to revamp your wardrobe or if you have a wedding coming up that you need to be styled for, let me know.

Christa Innis: Awesome. Well, thank you so much.

Kati Kons: All

Christa Innis: right.

Figure out how to stop this. Oh my gosh. Why am I, oh my God. There we go.

by Christa Innis

Blog Transcript:

The Maid of Honor You Thought You Knew

The Wedding Alcohol Scam

A Pattern Buried for Years

Weddings and Funerals Reveal Everything

Religious Manipulation & Forced Forgiveness

Red Flag, Green Flag

Listener Submission: The Bridezilla Who Used Her Friends

Blog Transcript:

Bridesmaids, Budgets & Boundaries: Rethinking the Wedding Party

Styling Weddings with Color Theory & Confidence

Bridesmaid Drama & Digital Boundaries

ADHD, Creativity & Queer Wedding Fashion

Reshaping Non-Traditional Wedding Fashion

Queer Wedding Fashion Beyond the Binary

Redefining the Wedding Experience

Why Dress Codes Need a Makeover

Whose Day Is It Anyway?

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