Thanksgiving Special: Gratitude, Growth & Empowering Moments
What have weddings taught me after 45 episodes? More than I ever expected.
From runaway brides to mothers-in-law who weaponize place cards, this past year has been filled with stories that cracked me open, lifted me up, and changed the way I see relationships entirely. In today’s special Thanksgiving episode, I’m bringing you the most heartfelt, jaw-dropping, empowering moments from the show — the ones that made me pause, tear up, rethink, and laugh out loud. These are the stories that reminded me why I started HCTD in the first place.
Whether it’s choosing yourself, challenging tradition, or surviving the wildly unexpected, these moments will stick with you the way they stuck with me.
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My new book Here Comes the Drama: A Ferris and Sloan Story is live!
Check out the full featured episodes here:
- Education Hot Seats, Reality Checks & a Red Flag Romance — with Colleen Borgert
- Hired Bridesmaids, Fake Weddings, and a Parking Lot Party with Jen Glantz
- Baby Bumps, Brawls & Breaking the System with Payal Desai
- Sister Betrayal, Blood on the Dress & Wedding Regrets with My Best Friend, Ivette Bracken
- Queer Fashion, Wedding Etiquette and a SIL Showdown with Kati Kons
- Dress Codes, Divided Families & Day-Of Disasters With Lisa Pontius
- Career Pivots, Friendship Red Flags, and a Trashed Groomsuite — with Rebecca Rogers
- The Mental Load, Modern Motherhood & Drama That Sent Someone Packing — with Paige Connell
- Relationship Red Flags, Family Dynamics, and a Shocking ICU Revelation with Kate Gray, LMFT
Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
06:47 A Wedding Day Disaster
09:45 The Role of a Professional Bridesmaid
13:25 Challenging Traditional Gender Roles in Marriage
20:06 The Importance of Valuing Stay-at-Home Moms
21:33 A Wedding Dress Fitting Gone Wrong
33:06 Starting in Wedding Fashion
33:37 Non-Traditional Wedding Attire
34:26 Queer Wedding Fashion
36:13 Wedding Planning Challenges
39:10 Marriage and Personal Timelines
51:20 A Life-Changing Event
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
- The Real-Life Rom-Com – A wedding party meet-cute turns into a love story that proves fate sometimes shows up exactly when it should.
- The “I Don’t Want to Do This” Bride – Minutes before walking down the aisle, a bride confesses she hates the groom… and the solution is unlike anything you’ve heard.
- Internalized Misogyny in Marriage – A candid conversation about gender roles, cooking, and the pressure women still feel to “perform” domestic duties.
- The Dress Fitting Disaster – My own wedding dress nightmare involving blood, chaos, and an unexpectedly emotional hug.
- Fighting for Nontraditional Fashion – How one stylist is helping brides and grooms redefine what wedding attire should look like.
- Listener Story: When “Next of Kin” Turns Toxic – A partner is shut out of the ICU by her boyfriend’s mother after a tragic accident — and the fallout is heartbreaking.
- Listener Story: MIL Wedding Takeover – A mother-in-law forces half the guest list to be cut… for her tennis buddies. Yes, really.
- Listener Story: The Pocket Money Getaway – When a bride jokes about needing “escape cash,” the truth behind the humor becomes painfully real.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
- “If you’re wearing white to a wedding and you’re not the bride, you KNOW what you’re doing.” – Christa
- “Cutting someone from your guest list isn’t personal—it’s practical. It’s your day, not a family reunion.” – Christa
- “Traditions are great, but they shouldn’t hold you hostage. Your wedding should feel like YOU.” – Christa
- “Weddings are about celebrating love, not throwing a party to impress people you barely talk to.” – Ivette
- “If you have to choose between keeping the peace and keeping your boundaries—choose YOU.” – Ivette
*This conversation is for entertainment and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. Please seek a licensed professional for your specific situation.
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A Team Dklutr Production
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 we’ve got a kind of different episode for you today as today is Thanksgiving. I kind of wanted to use this time as a little reflection back on the last year. It’s been about a year since I started prepping for and recording podcast episodes, which is just. Wild to think. I feel like I just blinked and here we are. Um, this is episode 45, which I just, I truly can’t believe, you know, when I first set out to do this podcast, my goal was to have 25,000 downloads for the whole year. And as of recording today, which is. Two weeks prior to it coming out, we have officially hit 200,000 downloads, which still just blows my mind to think about.
Um, so I just wanna say how grateful I am for this journey for you guys to listen. And it’s just been so fun to. Be able to share and chat with you guys in just a completely different way than I do in my skits. You know, a lot of times in my skits I play these characters and it’s funny ’cause people comment sometimes.
They’re like, I don’t know if like, when I were to meet you in, if I were to meet you in person, which version I would get? And hopefully none of those. Um, but. This allows me, this podcast allows me to kind of open up to you guys a little bit more, have more conversations with other people, chat about things in a different way that I don’t always get to or don’t find the time to, um, on social media. So I just appreciate you guys for. Listening for downloading, for sharing with friends, and I just feel so much gratitude today. So, um, I really wanted to take the time, you know, it being Thanksgiving, um, to just express that to you. Um, it’s been a lot of work putting this podcast together and. You know, in the beginning I wasn’t really sure what to expect.
And so being able to look now, look back now and see how far it’s come, all the amazing guests we’ve had on the show, the people I’ve met through just creating content, the messages you guys have sent me has truly just been unbelievable. And, um, I tend to get emotional when I like sit back and like let it all soak in. But I’m gonna try my best not to. I, I. I fly by the seat of my pants a lot of the times. I, I am a planner by heart. I love to organize and I love to get things, you know, where they need to be. But I move pretty fast and sometimes I just move, like with the, the, sometimes I just move with the motions. Um, meaning I don’t always put meaning, I don’t always take time to sit back and be like, whoa, what is, what is happening here?
Or, wow, this is really cool. Um, even last night I was like sitting and I’m like. I published a book that’s always been a goal of mine to publish a book and I just like, was like, okay, onto the next. And so, um. I, I was reminded by when I had, um, Lisandra Vasquez on here, she talked about how, um, it’s really good to, you know, when bad things happen, we’re taught to say this too shall pass. But she said, also, with good things, reminding yourself, this too shall pass. Meaning. To really soak it in while it’s there and to really soak it in while things are good. And just allow yourself to really feel the gratitude and to feel, um, the excitement from that part of the journey. So, I know that was a long tangent, but.
I just want you guys to know what this truly means to me. Um, it’s been so great and I have so many more exciting things coming for you both on the podcast with book number two coming out and other things up my sleeve that I cannot wait to share. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you guys so much for being here. And of course, happy Thanksgiving. I hope you guys have a great day with your friends, your family, and you find things to truly be grateful for. Um. So, yeah, we are doing things a little different this week. Um, as I am reflecting back on this past year, instead of a full new episode, we are gonna be sharing some segments from some of our best episodes, some shocking stories, some impactful moments, and I can’t wait for you guys to listen to ’em all. So we’re gonna, we put something fun together for you and I can’t wait to, and I can’t wait to. And I can’t wait for you to listen and enjoy. That’s all I got for you guys this week. Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Enjoy. That’s all I got for you guys this week, and I’ll see you next time.
So without further ado, please enjoy this week’s episode.
Christa Innis: You said you have a story of how you met your husband at a wedding, so let’s get into that.
Meeting Mr. Borgert
Colleen Borgert: Okay, so I met Mr. Borgert. we were both in the same wedding party for my cousin almost 16 years ago.
And, he clocked me right away and was that’s the girl I wanna marry. So we got to the reception, danced a little bit. there was definite connection early on. We both went our own ways. the next week he called my cousin, old school, got my number, called me on the telephone. I heard this man’s voice who does that anymore?
So un heard of these days. I know. And he asked me out on a date and we have been together ever since. But yeah, he went up to my cousin who was the bride, and said, I just want you to know I’m gonna marry that girl. And
Christa Innis: oh my gosh, that’s like a romantic story.
Colleen Borgert: I know I love.
Christa Innis: Oh my God. So how is he connected to the wedding?
was he like a groomsmen or He was I guess your cousin’s husband.
Colleen Borgert: Yes, friend. He was, a longtime childhood friend of the groom. Okay. So now they get to be at family functions together and we’re like pretty our kids together. So it’s. wonderful.
Christa Innis: I love that when they’re already like connected, so there’s likeno extra introduction.
you got an in, he’s got an in. and then for you, it was a family wedding, so your family was probably already there. did he like meet your parents then at the wedding and everything?
Colleen Borgert: I don’t know if he necessarily like, them at the wedding.
Yeah. But was invested in the fun that my family can have for sure. We are in good time, so I love that. Yeah, he was there for it.
Christa Innis: Oh, that’s awesome. I love that story. ’cause usually when I ask people crazy stories, they’re like, I try to not put people on the spot, but,
I love that it was like a positive good story. Yes. Because people just remember these crazy moments. That’s why I share them. But like for the most part, there are so many great wedding stories and like fun moments and wild moments about, yes.
Things hanging out. Awesome. I love that.
Professional Bridesmaid or Emotional Support Human?
So when you’re thinking back of all the weddings, I’m sure you’ve all these like flooded memories that come up. What’s likeone of the craziest or like out there things that you either witnessed or you heard about or you saw at a wedding?
Jen Glantz: I worked a wedding one in Staten Island. I got to know the bride and the groom for about three to four months. Everything checked out. Everything seemed normal. I get to the wedding, we get her dressed. We have a great morning. Everything is going really well. All of a sudden, five minutes before the ceremony, all her guests are seated.
The wedding officiants there. Five minutes before the wedding, she grabs my arm, pulls me in a room and locks the door and she says, Jen, I hate the groom. I don’t wanna do this. that was the first time that this has happened to me. you see this in movies, the bride who’s I don’t wanna do this, let’s go.
But this was happening in real life, and I think this was like two or three years the job where I never experienced this. So I basically said to her look, I will call us an Uber. I’ll sneak you out the back door. Like we will go, I don’t care. I’ve been paid. I don’t care. But I personally can’t sleep at night unless you sit down with the groom and tell him you’re leaving because that just doesn’t seem right to me. this isn’t a rom-com. This isn’t a movie. This is people’s real life. So I basically put the groom in the room with her. I put a timer on my phone for 10 minutes and I was like, you guys talk for 10 minutes and then I will come back and whatever is decided I will help you with.
So in that 10 minute time, they basically hashed it out and they realized, okay, like they actually don’t wanna marry each other. They don’t like each other, they don’t wanna do this. But the weddings now and. My, the wedding should have started. So basically what they decided was that they were gonna go through with the wedding.
They never signed the marriage license, and it was just gonna be fake because the truth is like nobody actually knows if you sign your marriage license. And that’s what marriage actually is that legal document. So honestly, at a lot of weddings, they just don’t sign the the marriage license, and they’re not really married.
So the wedding starts, they don’t sign the marriage license, they’re like miles away from each other. The first dance, they’re like high schoolers who like won’t touch each other. It’s an outdoor wedding. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day. It starts storming torrential downpour. Everyone’s soaking wet.
They go to move the cake on the dance floor, the cake falls off the table. Like literally everything goes wrong. It was as if the universe was like, this shouldn’t happen. And I just remember leaving that wedding thinking like, wow, like this is
Christa Innis: crazy. It was crazy. like you mentioned, it’s not like a romcom, but it kind oflike it sounds so Crazy they’re like together this whole time playing this wedding and then the day of, they’re just both yeah, you know,I don’t really care. Let’s just go through this fake wedding. And did anyone else know?
Jen Glantz: No, because, all her friends were just like, why, what’s going on? And I was like, oh, they just have to talk about something before they go do their vows.
So likenobody really knew. But then I think during the wedding there was obviously a sense of like distance and hatred between them. But a lot of people don’t really pick up on that. nobody really questioned it. And yeah, I think like after the wedding ended, a couple months later, they just went their separate ways.
And that happens. not a lot of people, but people will break up or get divorced a couple months or a year after they get married because they felt this way on their wedding day, but they just didn’t admit it.
I do bachelor parties, rehearsal dinners, engagement parties, bridal showers.
I think the most interesting part is that I don’t drink, I just don’t like to drink. I haven’t drank in so many years, so I go to all these things completely sober. And it’s interesting because a lot of these environments are meant to be you, and people are more rowdy and drinking. So when you’re the sober one, you see it in such a different light.
Like you see the drama in a really different light. But also like I need to be sober because my job is not to party with them, it’s to fake party with them, but be there for them and you really need to have a clear mind. lot of people who want to work this job are like, I’d be so good at it.
I love to party, I love to drink. I’m like, but that’s not the job. The job is to be like an emotional support animal for these people and really just be there with all the twists and turns. And I think that it’s less glamorous than people think it is.
Christa Innis: Yeah. okay, so you said like in the beginning you weren’t really a fan of being a bridesmaid, but then through making this your business and then being in so many different weddings, is it like something that you find joy in and what are your favorite parts of it all?
because I’m sure it’s so different. I’m sure you meet like very organized brides that like tell you like this and this. And other times you’re probably helping them organize a little bit more. So has that shifted or changed since you’ve done it?
Jen Glantz: You
Christa Innis: know,
Jen Glantz: I’ve said this publicly from day one that I don’t love weddings.
I don’t understand them. I did not have one. I’m not wedding obsessed. I never was the little girl who cared about weddings. I still feel that way. I don’t necessarily love the wedding environment. I absolutely have this deep love for strangers and helping people. I don’t know. I’ve always been like that.
It’s just part of my personality. I find it harder to connect with people in my life. I find it easier to connect strangers, and that’s why I do it. That’s why I love it. I do think my favorite part of the job is being able to help a person during a difficult time in their lives. People don’t label weddings as that, but they actually are.
It’s really tough for people to have a wedding, especially ’cause most people have a tough family dynamic. They have secrets they have. Problems that surface during the wedding and they don’t really have anyone to turn to. ’cause your friends, they’re busy or you feel scared to tell them this information ’cause it will live with them forever.
So being able to enter a person’s life and help them process what should be a good time in their life, but is often a stressful time. Is the reason why I really love this job. I am not qualified to be a therapist, nothing like that. But I do feel like a little bit of my job is therapy for people, or at least it’s like a secret keeper.
Like I hold onto their secrets for them. and to be able to help them get through that is what keeps me going. It just happens to be in a wedding setting.
Christa Innis: Yeah. And I’m sure like you were saying earlier, like having an unbiased opinion from someone or just an open ear is helpful. ’cause you think like all your closest people at a party or wedding or something, they’re all gonna have some kind of bias around you.
Like whether that’s good or bad. And so just having someone there that’s there to help you and listen, like I’m sure just feels good to be like, just be on my side for this. I just need to tell you about this crazy thing my aunt did, or know, whatever it is. and I’m
not gonna lie to you because I have no stakes in the game.
So if you want my honest opinion, I’m gonna be honest. If you want unbiased advice, I’m going to do that because I don’t have to ever see you again. So I’m not gonna say things because I need to tiptoe around you. I’m gonna say what you want because. That’s the relationship is I am completely going to be unbiased for you.
I’m not going to lie to you. I’m gonna try to help you and do what’s I think is best for you because I have no stakes in the game where your best friend might be like, oh, Jen, like you’re just having cold feet. go through with it go through with it because they don’t want you to be embarrassed and they have all these like other agendas.
I have no agenda except that my job is to be there for you like a true friend would.
Weddings: Where Chaos Meets Champagne
Payal Desai: I’ve been thinking about how everyone really has internalized misogyny within us, especially like the way that I grew up and what I saw as in front of me modeled.
Everyone has internalized misogyny. And one way that it showed up in my marriage is that my husband loves to cook and he always has. And so when we got married, that was the role that he just naturally took. so we would meal plan together and everything, but then he would really execute the dish.
And I did not want like anyone to know about this. I did not want his parents to know, like I didn’t wanna make it a topic. I didn’t wanna tell my mom because every time it came up socially, like it made me feel like I. It made me look bad. Like I wasn’t fulfilling my duty. And there was even one time we hosted his family over and I made him tell them that I come to the lasagna and he was like, okay.
Christa Innis: Like I’ll tell them that’s okay. Like I’ll tell them that you made it. And I had not, I had assisted, I had sous chef. I was not doing it. And it still counts, but like,yeah. I was so worried about how people view traditional roles oh my gosh, I feel so
Payal Desai: seen right now.
Christa Innis: I still, yeah.
Payal Desai: It’s taken me a really long time to just now proudly be like, yeah, and it comes from women a lot of times, like women will make snide remarks and be like, he’s the one that cooks. Yes. Okay. if I bring a dish to a potluck with friends, they’ll be like, what did he make? This is my husband.
What did he make? He made a buffalo chicken dip and it’s really good. Yes. So the way, the tone in which it’s shared or like just giving him credit, I’m like, What are we doing? Like,there’s internalized misogyny in us.
Christa Innis: Yeah. I think it’s too, couples that maybe haven’t, you know, openly have that conversation of maybe the woman does everything.
They almost feel like. I don’t know the right word to say, but like, when they hear like someone’s husband does do some cooking, they’re like, oh, my husband can do that. And so it’s like an instant, like they’re angry that it’s not working out for them. ‘I’m not gonna say who, but there was someone close to me that like, when they found out my husband like cooked dinner for us one night, to their husband.
They were like, oh, you never cook for me. And it was just this like awkward moment. ’cause I was like. Okay. I don’t know. Yeah. that’s the same, my husband really enjoys cooking. And cooking for me has always been like second nature. Like I do okay if I like focus, I don’t find complete joy in it.
Payal Desai: I don’t find joy. I’ve never really found joy in it. And I think that when you are in a partnership like we’ve been talking about, like when one person has a strength and they take it on, it’s not as though he’s in the kitchen doing everything on his, I’m like, behind, I’m cleaning.
I’m sure you do dishes. I’m sure you’re like part of it because you both have to be part of it. Yeah. So I think that when people know he cooks, they just picture me laying on the couch. We have two children. Somebody’s giving them baths, like somebody’s doing something. There’s always something. My hands are never just idle,
but whenever we know that a man is taking on a very traditional role, Society is, wants to criticize that. I don’t understand it. I really don’t get it
Christa Innis: 100%. I feel like there’s so much more discourse about that now and the older generations that almost didn’t really have a choice where it was just like the man goes to work, he comes home, dinner should be ready on the table, maybe even like older.
’cause I. I don’t know. I think my parents’ generation was starting to equal a little bit, but it’s like grandparents’ generation for sure. It was like dinner on the table when you get home. Mom takes care of the kids so now that they’re seeing this conversation, people that I feel like.
It worked for them, and they’re like, why can’t the wife just be cooking? Why can’t this happen? It’s
Payal Desai: you gotta question who was it really working for? who remained extremely comfortable in the way that it was. if we wanna sit here and assume or make the, statements about how happy our grandmas were Cross culture, they were not. were oftentimes burdened without a choice. Yes. There’s not a lot of happiness in that. Okay. So you gotta just be able to critically talk about these things and not just be like, why can’t it just be like traditional?
Christa Innis: Yeah. a hundred percent.
yeah, I don’t share a lot of my personal. Life on out here. But I’ve had two different, molds when it came to my grandparents. And like my grandmother I’m really close to, I don’t even know when it was, I was a kid when she got divorced, but she’s always taught like such independence, like she’s done everything for herself.
And I feel like I learned a lot from her. Yeah. She was like, women can do everything. Like she was an ER nurse and she’s I knew more than the doctors. Doctors would try to come in and they would try to, these men would try to tell me what I knew, and she’s I knew more than them.
Yeah. And I was like, yeah, you go girl. And she was like, brought a lot of that, out of me, because I’m like, yes, not she’s not traditional in that way. So I was like. Yes, we need that. That’s amazing.
Payal Desai: And rare, right? Like I’m sure for her generation that was a little rare and maybe even getting divorced was not accepted by society.
’cause it, wasn’t as common for her generation, the next generation. Yes. It became like more common Women were no longer tolerating and like joining the work for like full-time. You have two parents who are working full-time and if the domestic labor is not, if there is an equity in that, then it’s going to cause conflict as it should.
Christa Innis: Yes. definitely. Oh my gosh, I feel like we could talk about this forever. I love it. Oh my God. Yeah. I’m so like, passionate about it just because I feel like it makes such a difference in the way like. I’m able to parent because my husband’s an equal part. Mm-hmm. I feel like so many women can’t speak up about that or they’re just, we’re pushed into the role of
Payal Desai: I feel like stay-at-home moms are amazing and I think that is your passion and goal and like,do it. Yes. But so many are pushed into that role without asking if that’s what they want or if they want. More. And I know I can get on a whole topic
from that. I really could too, because I think that a stay at home mom, we need to start looking at that a literal job with duties.
And you would never be working somebody around the clock, right? Like you would never give them 24 7 tasks like they, they’re working overtime constantly. Other jobs do have boundaries. Usually, or you can put in place healthy boundaries. And I’m just reflecting on like my job as a teacher, which oftentimes can have no boundaries, but I had to really work to do that.
So you’ve gotta be with somebody who also understands what you’re doing is a service. It’s a job and you may not be getting a paycheck for it, but you’re saving your family money. Yeah. So there is, like a financial aspect of being a stay at home mom and we need to be talking about that a lot more than we do.
Christa Innis: Yeah. We need to be valuing it as Yeah. The full job that just talking about because, I used to work for like a mommy brand and I worked in a mom group and so many of these women were just Almost put in a spot where it’s like their husband controlled every single thing.
And so it’s like they wanted that stay at home job, mom role, but then they weren’t able to have a certain amount of money and it’s No, we like value because. By her doing this, you’re allowed more time at work or you’re allowed more time to do this. and so yeah, that’s one of the many issues in our society right now.
Payal Desai: Yeah. Yeah,
Christa Innis: Wait, I’m laughing because I just realized we never talked about my dress fitting. Should we talk about it?
Ivette Bracken: I just thought about that. Yes. Tell the story please.
Because I immediately thought about that.
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I can believe I’ve never shared this before. was it my first dress fitting? No, I think it was your second. So it was to try it on. So I went into my dress fitting and I think for that one it was no ’cause
you had already been
Ivette Bracken: there before.
Christa Innis: Yeah, this was,
Ivette Bracken: yeah. So this is your second time. So I must have gone, did I go by myself? I think Jordan went with you the first time, didn’t she? And then I went with you the second time.
Christa Innis: Okay. Jordan and my mother-in-law, I think went the first time maybe.
Yeah,pretty sure. Yeah. Yeah. And so I go and first okay me, you and my mom pull up, or no, you are maybe behind us or something. We pull up and I called the woman and she was like, I don’t have any appointments today. And I’m like, yeah, you have an appointment. we’re outside. and she’s Nope, I’m looking at the books.
I don’t have anything. She’s can you come back? And I was like, my maid of honor and my mom or are here and they live an hour away. we can’t really just reschedule today. And she’s oh, okay, be there in 30 minutes. Can you just go to the local coffee shop?
Which ended up being really cool. That’s a great experience. It was really great ’cause it was friends theme and we’re big fans of friends around here, so that was really cute. But we go back and she’s still not there. And then she like. Quickly comes around the front lets us in. No, she doesn’t even let us in.
I think we let ourselves in. She’s in the back, doesn’t even come out to say anything. And you can just hear her back there and she’s like, yeah,be out in a second. And I was like, okay. It was like another, what, 20 minutes? Yeah.
Ivette Bracken: We were waiting for a while. Yeah. she was a grandma, right?
So she had, was it one grand baby or two? Just the one, I think one was there and she was like, toddler, she was a toddler. this woman is stressed out, sweating. I can hear like in the back, things falling down, being knocked over. I feel
Christa Innis: the
Ivette Bracken: tense, like tension? Yes.
So then she was like, what was your name? I was like, Krista. And she was like flipping through pages back there in this room in the back. And she’s like,yeah, okay, we’ve got your dress. we’ll get it on. And she comes rushing out and puts it in the room. And I like go in there by myself.
Christa Innis: I like, shut the door or did I go in there by myself? No, I can’t remember. And then I like slowly open it or something. And I was like, Eva, come here. And you’re like, what? And so you and my mom came in and I was like, there’s blood all over the dress. it wasn’t just like a couple spots, it was all over, underneath the layers.
Ivette Bracken: Like a trail of everywhere she was touching, which is the whole. Dress, she was leaving blood everywhere.
Christa Innis: Yes. And I feel like she like overheard me say that and then like came back and she’s oh, it’s just a spot. And then just quickly sprayed and wiped. And I was like, internally panicking because like in that point of course, sure most things can come out, but it’s just like a kind of a weird thing to be like there’s someone else’s blood on your dress when you’re like here to try it on.
Yeah. I think she was like panicked doing it fast. Like really fast. And I was like, okay, you know what? They said something’s gonna happen wrong during your wedding planning. And I said, this is the thing. And I’m just glad it’s my dress and it’s early. I was internally panicking, but I think at that point you took the lead and you were just like, okay, what’s going on here? And you were like, just, kind, but you were very like, firm with her. Like,okay, what are we doing here? And she’s like,I don’t know. And then she held her hands up and her hands had cuts all over them, almost like she was just moving really fast.
So I think what happened is she had me down for the wrong date. And then when I called and said I was outside, she panicked and was like, I have to do this right now. Which if she just said, I forgot, I would’ve been like, don’t worry. Yes. If we
Ivette Bracken: would’ve known, like it wasn’t just, oh, I don’t have, anything booked, but it’s actually not done.
even after that, you are so understanding. I was shocked. I saw everything happen. okay, late stress is going up. she’s. In the bath, you can feel the tension. Your stress level’s going up. Oh my gosh. Your dress, your wedding dress is covered in blood stress is like up at the top.
But then once I like talked to her, you talked to her. I think your mom too maybe. I can’t really remember, but I feel like your stress level was going down and then I feel like at the end of it, did you hug her or is that my imagination?
Christa Innis: Yeah. So you hugged
Ivette Bracken: her?
Christa Innis: I could tell she was so like embarrassed cause I feel like there’s people on the internet that like here, oh, you’re an empath, blah, blah, blah.
But like I can sense, and some people out there might agree, they might call me weird, whatever. But when there’s tension or I can tell someone’s trying to hold in. if they’re upset, I can sense it. I swear to God it’s like a sixth sense. I just felt like I believe that. Yeah. So even when she got like the spots, she got most of the spots out.
She was spraying it and then I finally tried it on, right? So I’m staying in the mirror and she’s doing her normal thing. But you can tell like she’s holding back tears. Like I could tell and this poor woman, like you could tell she does not do this normally. She kept saying, I’ve never done this before.
I’ve been in business for this long, I’ve never done this before. I’m so sorry. Kept saying sorry. we’ve all been in shitty positions where like we either forget something or we mess up something, we’re late to something. we’ve all done that. And so like I could tell even when she was looking at the dress and I was standing on the podium or whatever you wanna call it, she was like holding back tears.
And I think she felt so embarrassed. And so then when we were booking the next appointment, she was like shaking. I remember seeing her hand shake ’cause she was so embarrassed. And I go, Hey, it’s okay. I was like, it’s fine. we are good. You did a great job. And I was like, can I hug you? And I was like, I remember that.
Ivette Bracken: I don’t even know what she said, I was like teary-eyed I feel like the tears coming right now because no bride does that. just says so much about your character and not to like, whatever, kiss your butt.
But no, seriously, It’s your wedding dress. Every little girl dreams about getting married and like having the perfect dress and you have a situation and at the end of it, instead of, taking your dress, going somewhere else, you’re being like, I better get this for free. none of that. It was, Hey, you did a great job.
And I remember you asked her for a hug and she was like, yes. And I saw you guys hugging and I remember looking at your mom and we were both like, just so moved by that. And it was just so sweet to see and yeah, such a good story. And when we left, there was still blood on the dress. Like you said that she cleaned it all up.
She didn’t get it all off. there was still blood on the dress. Do you remember that? A lot of spots, I think. Yes.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I think ’cause I was just like. Why, and I don’t know where this comes from, but I’m like, why make someone feel worse? she probably feels terrible right now that she like messed up or forgot or, she’s so embarrassed because I read these stories with these bridezillas and honestly, most stories that get sent to me aren’t bridezilla stories.
They’re mostly like family related, whatever. but you read them and you’re like, why make someone feel bad for a mistake or an accident or I’ve worked in the restaurant industry, I know you have two and it’s like you’ve seed stuff like that too. People are terrible to people in the service industry.
People are terrible to anyone that’s just trying to help them out. And I’m like, I would feel awful leaving knowing that she was crying because of that situation. I want her to be like, no. I’m still your customer. you’re busy. You do a great job. I obviously came to you because you were recommended by me.
I’m not gonna leave like a bad review or anything. The dress ended up looking gorgeous. I loved that dress. I still love it. there’s so many heightened emotions around weddings and I feel like it’s so easy to lose your cool. Of course, like you hear about it all the time, but you to remember like the people you’re working with are human too.
Like they’re allowed to make this. Yeah, absolutely.
Ivette Bracken: Yeah. I’ll never forget it. Yeah, I knew, I was like, no, she hugged her. I remember she asked for a hug,
Christa Innis: and honestly, that’s I shouldn’t say out of my character to ask someone for a hug, like a stranger. I know Something came over me and I was just like, she really needs a hug right now.
cause I just, I remember just seeing her handshake as she was like writing the next appointment and I go, Hey, it’s okay. We’re fine. yeah. Wedding day will be great. honestly. And she was like so sweet and she was like, send me pictures of the dress and, all that.
yeah, I don’t know.
Ivette Bracken: I just, she probably went home that day to liketell her family and then she probably said how great you were. And I can’t believe it. She hugged me at the I felt so bad. And, thank God she was a good bride, like a sweet person. yeah,
Christa Innis: I don’t know.
she was great. I mean, I feel like there’s a few groomsmen in her wedding that went to her and Bridesmaids. ’cause I was like, go to her. She’s great. She’s local for some of us and yeah, she was awesome.
Serving Looks & Shaking Up Tradition
I am Katie. I am a queer fashion stylist, and I mostly do weddings and non-traditional weddings, because there’s no process for finding non-traditional wedding attire, or wedding attire that isn’t like a suit or a dress. I got started because I got engaged and I identify as somewhere in between, female and non-binary. It just depends on the moment. 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,
Katie Kons: but in my day to day, I love wearing dresses and skirts, so when I got engaged I was like really into wedding dresses and I got really into the whole wedding fashion scene. But what became super apparent to me was there is. Nothing outside of wedding dresses for anyone outside of white wedding dresses for anyone that was non-traditional at all.
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 to find the non-traditional white wedding dresses, they were like, on Etsy that you had to order 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 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 in between and there was no color anywhere mostly. And it was just like nothing. And so I loved the wedding dress situation. And I just started learning about wedding dresses a lot.
But I started posting on TikTok because I started to get into like content creation at the time. and so I started, wanting to help people find their non-traditional wedding attire. And so that’s how I got into it, is I got into it myself and then I got into wanting to help people ’cause I realized that they didn’t have it.
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. And so that’s how I started is I started in wedding fashion and now I do 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 the side, and I do some red carpet styling, event styling as well, just like to a much smaller scale than the other two things. and yeah, I do a lot of things because I just take on things that I wanna do and I don’t really say no unless I really don’t wanna do it.
Christa Innis: yeah. When you say non-traditional wedding dress, and you’re talking about like jumpsuits, I remember. was engaged and I was like starting to plan into my wedding, my friends all know me. Like when I was a bridesmaid, I love a good jumpsuit. Like, so for like three weddings I was in, I wore a jumpsuit.
Good. Because looked like kind of dresses. So it looked like uniform, especially like a palazzo pant or something where the wide leg was flowy. Yes. I loved it. and then you’re on the dance floor and you’re like, I can do my thing. 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 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. So when you say untraditional wedding dress, what kind are you looking for personally or do you look for brides or couples getting married, that come to you for that kind of unique look?
Katie Kons: Yeah. So the reason I say I’m like a queer wedding fashion stylist is because there’s 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, actually tailors their services to the queer community.
And I think that’s important, especially in this time, day and age, when queer people are just being targeted left and right, to take a step back, I think the attire that is non-traditional is more like the drama of a dress, but the comfort of pants,
Like you just described, a jumpsuit is gonna give you the mobility and the freedom to do what you want but you get the, the prettiness of make a dress, 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 princess or prince or something where it’s I want the grandeur of that.
Christa Innis: but I don’t want to be in that level of femininity of a dress.
Yeah. Because
Katie Kons: they feel secure in pants.
Christa Innis: Yeah. love, and I think
Katie Kons: a lot more people do feel secure in pants than dresses.
Yeah. But suits are just out of the fucking question for a lot of people,
yes. Especially ’cause the options for suits or Traditional man suits, which are like, fucking boxy as shit. And then there’s like women’s suits, which are like business suits that you wear to corporate events.
And then there’s the other accessible suits you find out fast fashion places, there’s no like good accessible suits for women that are like quality shit 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.
Christa Innis: this says I had to uninvite half of my friends to make room for my mother-in-law’s tennis buddies. No. What? Whose wedding is it?
Lisa P: Oh my God. I call it they’re gonna stop talking to the mother-in-law like five years down the road.
Yeah. Like altogether. No way. That’s insane.
Christa Innis: That sounds and I’m obviously reading between the lines, but that sounds like a mother-in-law that was maybe paying for part of it or something, and she used that as a way to control the wedding because I see the make room like you had to, who said
Lisa P: you had to.
Yeah, that’s definitely, that’s a manipulation like that. I don’t love that. I don’t either. I feel like is probably gonna go bye-bye for a little while.
Christa Innis: Yeah. we need to say no. Set some boundaries with that mother-in-law. okay. This last one says, I joked I wanted pockets on my wedding dress for getaway money.
Deep down, I think I knew it was true. Oh. The number of times people have confessed to me like, I had a feeling, before the wedding. I told my dad I didn’t wanna get married before the wedding, and I still did. I’ve gotten so many of those.
Lisa P: I had a
Christa Innis: friend do that to me. Really?
Lisa P: Yes. I knew before they got married that she did not really want to start all over is like how she put it.
I don’t know. I took that to my grave. We don’t really speak anymore, and that is not my business. And they’re still married, so sometimes
Christa Innis: it works out. Oh, see, I was gonna say the opposite happened to me. and I’ve talked about this before, but I was in a wedding years ago and every wedding event there was some kind of thing, and it was with him, every kind of thing.
she like cried in the car after the bachelorette party. She cried in the car. Oh, yeah. After the rehearsal. All these different things. And I was just like. Hey, should we rethink this? Oh, I, we already paid the vendors. I’m like, yeah, but divorce is way more expensive.
Lisa P: Oh God no. Yeah, no.
If there’s a doubt in your mind on the person, I feel like I. You’ve gotta cut and run. getting divorced is so much more traumatic. It’s so much more expensive. God forbid you like, have a bunch of kids. no. If it’s not right so on my page I talk a lot about, and I’m very happily married, that like marriage should not be this like.
Default standard that people are trying to hit. Because when you get 12 years in a marriage and you’re, most people my age got married somewhere around the same time I did. You see a lot of divorces by now. Okay. We’re starting to have that first round of divorce A is coming through and it’s God, what a wait.
Not a lot of waste because a lot of them have children and that’s like the wonderful thing that came out of it. you don’t have to get married You could end up really miserable like in so many ways. And that’s it’s just not something that, if you can in any way, imagine your life without that person, not without a spouse, but without that specific person.
Don’t do it. a hundred percent. Especially if you’re a woman.
Christa Innis: Oh yeah, totally. And I always have this too, like I’ve been with my husband, I think we’re going on 11 years this year. But we’ve been married three. And so like for us it I totally agree with you what you just said about you don’t have to get married, you don’t have to follow a certain timeline.
So many people were constantly like, when are you getting married? When are you getting married? And I was like, we do things on our own timeline and I just feel So many people have their own expectations on everyone else, and especially as women, I feel like we have the expectations of okay, I need to do this, then I need to get married.
I need to have a baby. you feel like you have to follow this timeline.
Lisa P: Yeah. And it feels like a rushed timeline at the moment. and I feel pre to that too. I was like, oh, I wanna have two by 30 and like I did, but. now looking back at it, I’m like, you idiot. you should have just been like, find the right person and then figure it out.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I know. I remember if it were just like my then boyfriend, but husband and I,doing our own thing.we’d be like totally fine and then someone would bring up oh, are you guys gonna get married? And I would be like, do I wait? Are we doing something wrong?
And it almost puts us like, not like guilt, but this feeling of you of like.Wait, are we doing something wrong? Is our relationship, because we’re just dating right now, is that wrong? And you start getting this no, because half
Lisa P: of the men in divorces anyway, so Yeah.
Marriage isn’t the great indicator of like lifelong companionship anymore. and like
Christa Innis: too our, like our parents’ generation, I feel like they were so committed to like marriage that like they stayed. unhappily married for so long without actually admitting I actually hate this.
Oh, they wrong
Lisa P: gold stars for it too. They’re like, we’ve been married 35 years. I hate Jeff, but he lives in the other bedroom, but we’ve been married this long. And I’m like, but why? What kind of award are you winning here? I know some people have the whole like, divorce is a sin thing, but like you’re already in hell.
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t see the point in that like a relationship should only be there to enhance your already wonderful life. And if it doesn’t do that, then it’s not worth it. And feel the same way about kids too. I feel like the relationships that I see with people who don’t have kids by choice, obviously there’s People who have extenuating circumstances where they can’t have children, but people who choose not to have kids, I feel like they have this like gift of time to like really find their perfect partner.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Lisa P: they usually choose better.
Mm-hmm.They get to choose somebody that they truly just wanna spend all their time with, as opposed to people who do the musical chairs type of marriage, where they’re like,it’s been three years since college.
Like,I guess you’re the guy.
Christa Innis: Yes.
Lisa P: Yeah. Yeah. I guess you’re the person I’m with right now. So musical chairs, let’s do it. let’s get married. Timelines are ticking, I feel like it saddles us down. yeah. In a.
Christa Innis: Yeah, that’s definitely another thing as women we’re like told that the biological clock is ticking, you need to have kids hurry up.
My husband and I since year, one of dating, when are you guys gonna have kids? And I was like, I’m not even thinking about kids. Or what are you talking about? and I like look back and I’m like, if I had kids when we had started dating, I was like, I would’ve been a completely different.
Ma Um, I would’ve been in completely different financial point in my life and I and not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying everyone’s timeline is different. ‘ cause I know people had kids at in their early twenties and they are thriving and they were meant to be moms at that point.
But I just feel like it’s so important to listen to your own timeline. ‘ cause I have friends now that are like,
Lisa P: this new generation is doing a lot better than like we were as millennials. Yeah. I feel like the younger girls are like, really? Coming to the table with the head on the shoulders a little bit more without the fairytale movie, prince Princess aspect that we were sold.
Christa Innis: Yes. I love that. Yeah. I’ve noticed like the shift in the movies, especially with my daughter being she’s two and I feel like.The movies have shifted. Obviously there’s still the fairytale, but I’m like, let’s watch Moana because she’s like brave and or Meredith, she doesn’t need a man. I try to show her some different things because of course we still love the classics, but it’s good to open the horizons up a little bit.
Lisa P: Yeah, definitely. I mean, my daughtershe still very much knows she wants to get married and have kids like I knew from a young age. So I don’t like balk at that. some people just really have that desire. but she still is like,maybe I’ll be president and a dance teacher.
And I’m like, you go, you do both. I love that. Yes, you both.
Christa Innis: Stop you, girl. I love that.
Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: going back to what you said early at the beginning, like COVID in general I think changed how I view everything, whether it be myself, whether it be, the world people, because in reality, like I’ve always been an extrovert, but I used to be much more reserved and self-conscious and social media, the classroom was really where I could be silly and be myself and just, whatever.
And then when social media accidentally took off, I learned, oh, I can be myself. And people don’t hate it. That’s cool. And that’s where I found my voice, not just with myself, but with people also. being able to step into my true skin really helped me. I. Advocate for myself, set boundaries, all be more picky about who I allowed in my life and not.
and of course we’re all works in progress. We all have ways to go. I’m still a people pleaser. I’m still a doormat, but I’m definitely not as bad as I used to be.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I know, I totally agree with you. Yeah. The people pleaser the thing where I’m better at saying no. Now if something, if I like don’t have time or I just can’t do it, I still have that guilt though.
I’ll be like, are they gonna think I’m a bad person or a bad friend? And then my husband will be like, no, They literallys not a second thought. it’s okay. yeah, it’s interesting how you’re ingrained in that. But I always call myself a recovering people pleaser.
‘ cause I’m like, I’m actively working against it and telling myself exactly. But I think my like immediate filter is better at reading people now. I had a thing happen where, someone that I had met years ago, and I wanna be very vague.
Someone I had met years ago, and the time that I met her, she was not very friendly or kind. Okay. Okay. But since she had seen videos of mine on TikTok and when she bumped into me immediately asking how I could help her and was like, oh, my thing like over here and asking me all these questions, she’s I’ll send you a message on TikTok right now because I’d really like to know how I can do this.
I was at an appointment, I was somewhere and I was like, okay. And I came home and my husband, I was like, I have no intention of messaging her back. Because I could tell it was for all the wrong reasons. She Yeah, exactly. Just I felt like very used and like icky after it.
And she’s yes. So loudly so people could hear and like being like asking about personal things and I was just like, I sorry. M’s. Not interested in that. I know people are gonna be like listening and being like, Christa’s all over the place today.
Rebecca Rogers: Longest episode ever. No, I love this ’cause I’m all over the place and so she’s really just mirroring me.
It’s my fault guys. It’s fine. I
Christa Innis: love it. actually no, people have said I wish the episodes were longer, so it’s okay if it’s a little bit longer.
Oh,you brought the right guest. Yeah. Yeah. Me. we really could sit and just talk forever. We could. that’s my favorite thing. Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead. go ahead. No, you’re good. I was just gonna say, I barely, other than my husband and my daughter, and then if we randomly go do things, like they are who I see, like I work from home, so if I have a call, I see someone. So that’s why I’m like, the podcast is a great way to chat with people.
Rebecca Rogers: ’cause I’m like, yeah, it really is this job. People don’t realize how isolating this job really is. ’cause in reality, we’re like sitting at home alone, talking to ourselves and yeah, we post it for a lot of people, but we don’t have that human interaction. I always say, and I think I probably said this to you when we were together in Chicago, is that.
There’s so many different types of personalities that do well on social media. and when you find the people that have the similar one to yours, it’s like the most validating and wonderful feeling. And I’m like, I wanna talk to them all day long. It’s, and it’s it’s the best feeling because even in days or moments where you feel self-conscious, it’s like, But I found the people who get me and yeah, it’s beautiful and it feels good.
Christa Innis: It’s like the best feeling ever. Yeah. No, definitely. an industry and heart and hard to explain sometimes. For sure.
Rebecca Rogers: Yeah. Yeah.
Generational Reflections on Relationships
Paige Connell: I think a lot of people say couple things, that I hate men, which I don’t hate men.
I just want men to show up in a more meaningful way and. I think most of them want to do that, which I know not everybody believes that. Like I actually am a person on the internet who says, I actually think most dads wanna be good people and good parents. they’re not doing it necessarily, but I think they want to.
And so it’s worth trying to get them there. but most people say, I hate men, or, that my husband must hate me. those are two top comments, because I’ve talked about my own experience in marriage and motherhood with my partner and what that journey’s been like. And this mostly comes from men.
Obviously it’s not coming from women. I would say the vast majority of women. Feel understood or at least relate to something that I’m saying, even if not everything. but those tend to be the top comments, which is because I’m pushing for gender equity that yeah. I don’t like men and then men in my life don’t like me.
Christa Innis: I feel like too, it’s like people that say that kind of thing, in their family. It’s if it’s not, broke, don’t fix it kind of thing. Yeah. It works for them, but does it actually work for them? Maybe it works for them as the male partner, but have they actually sat down with their partner and asked, does this work for you?
But I think are probably afraid to ask that question because they don’t wanna get the pushback or have to carry more of that mental load.
Paige Connell: Yeah, I think it’s, layered. I think it depends on the person, obviously. And.
one I hear from women in their sixties, seventies, all the time who are like, I wish I’d had this when I was younger.
’cause I just suffered through it. And I spent 40 years of my life catering to somebody who never helped me at all. And I hear that constantly. And then I’m lucky enough to hear from young women who are learning about what they do and don’t want in a relationship. But I think for men, some of it’s, what did I see growing up?
What did my dad do? What did my mom do? I think to your point of happiness, one of the comments that I see often, which is always so surprising to me, and I think comes from a very specific subset of men, is that men will sacrifice their happiness for their family, and women will sacrifice their family for their happiness.
So insinuating that women who expect more from their partner or choose divorce because they’re unhappy, are choosing their own happiness above their families, and men are willing to suffer. For their families. and it’s this very specific talking point that I find so interesting. But I think it’s, again, trying to position women in this bad light the same way we do as single moms.
Single moms are bad. Where are the dads? the moms are there. we talk about that.
Christa Innis: yes,
Paige Connell: the impact that being raised by a single mother has. And we never say okay, the impact of a father being absent has, right? we never talk about that. So I think it’s a branding thing, but essentially Whenever women do something that remotely prioritizes themselves, we position it as selfish. When women have a career, they’re selfish, right? looking to make a ton of money. They’re letting somebody else raise their kid. When men do it, they’re providers, they’re family men, right? They’re putting food in the table.
We, very different narratives for men and women in our society. So much so that. we would never call a mom a hands-on mom or a present mom. Mm-hmm.so many women will be like, I have the best husband. He’s such a present dad. He is so hands-on. yeah,have to be hands-on with the toddler.
Likethere’s no other version of parenthood. For women. And so it’s just so interesting. I think some of it is just, yeah, the status quo, what we’re used to, and then other parts of it are yeah, what we think about men and women at their time and whose time we
truly value.
Christa Innis: That’s such a good point.
Yeah. It’s like I’ve seen videos about where it’s like a mom could be juggling like a few kids at the store and they’re like, that’s a mom. The kid might be like throwing a tantrum or something and they’re just like, okay, whatever. She’s doing her mom thing. But if a dad does it, he’s such a good dad.
Paige Connell: The best
Christa Innis: dad. She’s such a good dad. And I remember like people will say stuff about my husband, they’ll be like, oh, he changes the diapers. Oh, he takes her places by himself. I’m like. he’s her father. Like why wouldn’t he? Yeah. But I feel like it’s also generational, at least my parents’ generation, I feel like a lot of times it was Stayat home mom, so she was with the kids a lot, the dad was at work and you saw them for dinner time.
the older generations are like, what’s happening here? Like,something’s shifting.
Paige Connell: Totally. I think things are shifting. I think in the millennial generation you’re seeing more egalitarian relationships, which is amazing. you’re seeing a little bit more polarization in the younger generations between men and women and what they expect from one another.
And I think. There’s many reasons for that, but it is interesting how different millennial men are compared to their fathers. And I think that’s a good thing. I think it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t come without pushback. Obviously, when you’re talking about deeply ingrained expectations of men and women, when you push back on those people, it gets uncomfortable.
Christa Innis: Yeah, definitely. it’s for the better good everyone. For sure.
Paige Connell: I agree.
Plot Twist: When Life Says ‘Let’s Add Drama’
Christa Innis: You know how people say you don’t need a piece of paper to prove your love? That was us until life taught us otherwise. We met in the mid nineties, in our early twenties and clicked instantly. Within a few months, we were living together.
The next year we experienced a miscarriage, and not long after I was pregnant again, our Rainbow baby was born the following spring. By the end of that year, we bought a house together, and still we had no plans to marry. We were anti traditional and didn’t think a marriage certificate mattered. Then everything changed.
In the summer of 2000, my partner was riding his motorcycle and was hit at full speed while making a legal turn. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for three weeks. Oh my gosh. His helmet saved his life, but it was a long road ahead because we weren’t legally married.
His mother stepped in and told the doctors she was next of kin. This is, oh my gosh. Wow. Oh my God, this is so bad. This is terrible. she explicitly told them not to speak to me. this is like something that’s so complicated that I never would’ve even thought about.
Kate Gray: Wow. yeah, we just
Christa Innis: automatically assume your partner for that long.
Having kids together, That’s your person you like
Kate Gray: earned your right? Yeah. In all in their eyes too. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. she said I understood she was heartbroken, but I had been his partner for years. We shared a home, we were raising a toddler, and yet I was completely shut out. Wow. Oh my gosh. She even looked me dead in the eye and said, you’re just the mother of his child.
Oh. This is probably one of the tragic stories I’ve read on here. that sentence has never left me. Yeah. A single piece of paper would’ve spared me so much pain. Thankfully we had an incredible nurse who saw what was really going on. I showed proof that we lived together and she let me sneak our son into the ICU to see his dad.
So the grandma was even keeping son away sounds like,
Kate Gray: oh my gosh.
Christa Innis: Within four days, he woke up. I truly believe that visit made a difference. The bond between them has only grown stronger since. Eventually he came home and made an incredible recovery. About 95% of who he was before the accident.
I didn’t tell him what happened while he was in the hospital. I just wanted him to heal. Oh. So this is interesting ’cause it relates to what we were talking about, about like protecting your partner. But this is like the opposite way. So she’s almost protecting him from his own mother.
What’s her take on that? cause I am, I’m also wondering how involved this grandma is in their life. Yeah.
Kate Gray: For
Christa Innis: and be like, no, I’m the next of kin.
Kate Gray: Yeah, exactly. My, I have a lot of questions. I’m like, If they didn’t get married, then there wasn’t a wedding and there wasn’t this family event.
This I don’t know how much that matters, but like basically she wasn’t necessarily included in their formal relationship.
Christa Innis: And I’m wondering what their relationship was like before, How involved she was, how not involved, what her relationship was like with her son. so that’s what I have just context.
Kate Gray: I want context to that. But you wanna demonize the mother-in-law in these situations, like it’s easy to say, oh my gosh, what a terrible person. How could she do this and disrespect me like this?
And I wonder, again, that’s like zooming out. Is this a pattern where she like the.
partner doesn’t share things with him to protect him. And is this just another thing, part of that, when this is something that he definitely needs to know?
they definitely need to figure out together.
Christa Innis: Yeah, because I feel like that would be my thought. Like I understand her concern with being like, you know what, let’s just focus on him healing.
But yeah, then I would also be like, what if something happens? Like where,
Kate Gray: yeah,
Christa Innis: he has a stroke. I don’t know. Just you think like something happens where like another life altering event. course you would hope like nothing happens after that, but like things happen and then you’d be like, okay, how can I protect myself now I wanna talk to him because.
I wanna make sure we’re like on the same page moving forward or something.
Kate Gray: Yeah. Wait, did she say that she didn’t tell him any of this? Is that what she said?
Christa Innis: So there’s still a little bit more, but she said so far, I didn’t tell him what happened while he was in the hospital. I just wanted him to heal.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Wait. And then right after it says, so I didn’t read this yet, but once he was well enough to return to work, we started making secret wedding plans. Oh. Oh, okay. okay, let’s see where this goes. Okay. It says, we hosted a backyard barbecue that December. A few close friends and family knew it was more than just a cookout, but most didn’t.
Okay. So they did a surprise, oh my gosh. Wedding. Most didn’t including his mother.
Kate Gray: I, oh wait, his, so his mom didn’t know. Didn’t know that it was a secret wedding.
Christa Innis: Okay. I have so many thoughts now because I’m like, okay, was their relationship with the mom always bad or if the mom always made it clear that she did not like her, because now it’s I’m not gonna tell you what happened.
So you talk to your mom, we’re gonna have this wedding.
Kate Gray: Oh my gosh. I didn’t even think retaliation basically, which like,
Christa Innis: obviously they’re gonna get married anyway, so I don’t want ’em to think I’m thinking that, but I’m just like, oh. She’s you did that to me while my husband watch
Kate Gray: this.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Watch this. I’ll prove you. How much he’s my partner.
Kate Gray: or or she just learned from that. this woman is not safe for us to tell anything to, and we need her in a group of people so she’s not acting crazy that when it’s our moment. That’s such a good, that’s who. you can’t make this up.
Like you cannot make this up. It’s wild. This is a wow
Christa Innis: story. Yeah. I’m like picturing it now. And that was such a good point about being aware of okay, how could she act out if it was just us?
This way she’s gonna maybe, hopefully be on her best behavior. ‘ cause certain people like that aren’t gonna put on a show.
they might, some people might.
Kate Gray: But if they did, there’s witnesses now.
Christa Innis: Yes,
Kate Gray: man. we’re
Christa Innis: not the crazy ones. It’s not us. Yeah, exactly. Like now you see Yeah. Yeah. This is what we’re dealing with. Oh my gosh. oh, here we go. Okay. She had no idea it was a wedding until the cake came out.
She was livid. Oh my gosh. Oh. A year or so later, we paid off all of her debts and helped her move out. Move out. Wait. Was the mom living with them? Did I miss something? Oh,
Kate Gray: because that would be crazy if the mom was living with them and she didn’t know they were getting married.
Christa Innis: Yeah. if the mom was living with them, how long was she living with them for that she then blocked out.
I’m so confused. Oh my gosh. because it says best decision we ever made because they paid off her debts and helped her move out, so she was living with them.
Kate Gray: Oh wait. Helped her move out, wait. Paid off her debts and helped her move out. Yeah. Moved out of where? That’s the question.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It says our relationship with her stayed strained for over a decade.
She passed away in 2014, and since then life has been calm, happy, and drama free. Now we’re planning our 25th wedding anniversary, and this time it won’t be a surprise to anyone. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. That is
Kate Gray: a wild story. Wow. I’m feeling a lot of things about that.
Career Pivots, Friendship Red Flags, and a Trashed Groomsuite — with Rebecca Rogers
My new book Here Comes the Drama: A Ferris and Sloan Story is live!
What would you do if a random wedding guest ate your lunch, faked an emergency, and trashed the groom suite? Rebecca Rogers joins Christa for one of the most unhinged stories HCTD has ever featured.
They also get real about toxic friendships, the loneliness of online work, and the importance of recognizing red flags—at weddings and in life. Rebecca opens up about her teaching-to-TikTok pivot, setting boundaries, and why she’ll never apologize for using her voice.
This one’s part comedy, part therapy, and all chaos. (Also: how not to propose during a graduation.)
Join me on Patreon and get bonus content every month!
Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
01:17 Rebecca’s Journey from Teacher to TikTok Star
02:46 Challenges and Changes During COVID
05:11 Navigating Social Media and Teaching
08:09 The Reality of Being a Teacher
12:24 Misconceptions About Teachers and Schools
19:29 Personal Growth and Social Media
36:03 Wedding Stories and Friendships
50:21 Wedding Etiquette and Responsibilities
50:46 Groomsmen and Laid-Back Attitudes
51:21 Unexpected Wedding Drama
53:36 The Bridal Suite Incident
55:11 The Aftermath and Confrontation
55:47 Parents’ Involvement and Shocking Revelations
57:34 Reflections on Relationships and Behavior
01:10:02 Confessions and Personal Stories
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
- The Infamous Wedding Crasher – A guest of a groomsman eats the bride’s lunch, causes chaos in the suites, and ends the night with a shocking twist.
- Toxic Friendships in Bridesmaid Dresses – Rebecca shares the wild story of a bridesmaid sulking at her bachelorette—and why she later disappeared from everyone’s lives.
- From Classroom to Camera – How Rebecca accidentally became a viral voice for teachers and learned to advocate through storytelling and humor.
- “That’s Not a Prank” – Christa and Rebecca dissect prank culture, consent, and why shock-value content often crosses ethical lines.
- Finding Your Voice Online – They talk about isolation as creators, building authentic community, and what it means to be truly seen.
- The Timeline Trap – Pressure to hit life milestones—marriage, kids, careers—gets called out hard, especially for women navigating societal expectations.
- Real Talk About Boundaries – From people-pleasing to politely saying “no thanks,” both women share what they’ve learned about protecting their energy.
- Wedding Proposals… at Graduations? – Christa opens a discussion about hijacked milestones, and Rebecca does not hold back.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
- “Recovering people-pleaser here—still learning to say no without guilt.” – Christa Innis
- “The bride is the star—this isn’t daycare, happy hour, or guest speed dating.” – Christa Innis
- “Rules exist because of people who pull stunts like this.” – Christa Innis
- “I don’t share wedding stories to spread hate—I share them so people can learn and feel seen.” – Christa Innis
- “Sometimes a skit is exactly what someone needed to realize they’re not crazy.” – Christa Innis
- “If you’re gonna be a professional, be a professional—don’t eat the bride’s lunch and trash the suite.” – Rebecca Rogers
- “I used to be a doormat. I still struggle, but I’ve definitely found my voice.” – Rebecca Rogers
- “Most parents and teachers are great. They just don’t make good stories.” – Rebecca Rogers
- “You never know what you don’t know—but you can always learn as you go.” – Rebecca Rogers
- “The behavior might be explainable, but that doesn’t make it justifiable.” – Rebecca Rogers
About Rebecca
Rebecca Rogers is a former high school teacher based in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a BA in History and a licensure in Social Studies Education. She first turned to social media during remote learning as a creative way to connect with her students—and quickly found her voice online. Since then, she has grown her presence into a full-fledged brand, with over 2 million followers across TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Widely recognized as a “teacher influencer,” Rebecca uses her platform to educate, entertain, and inspire, all with the goal of making the world a better place—one smile at a time.
Follow Rebecca Rogers
Join the Drama with Christa Innis:
- Website
- Tiktok
- Youtube
- Get ‘Here Comes the Drama: A Ferris & Sloan Story’ on Amazon
Got Wedding Drama? We Want to Hear It!
Your stories make Here Comes the Drama what it is! Share your unforgettable wedding tales, hilarious mishaps, or unbelievable moments with us. Whether it’s a wild confession or a story worth a skit, we can’t wait to hear it.
Submit your story today: Story Submission Form
Follow us on social media for updates and sneak peeks at upcoming episodes. Your stories inspire the drama, the laughs, and the lessons we love to share!
A Team Dklutr Production
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Christa Innis: Hi Rebecca. Hi. Oh my gosh, I missed you so much for coming on. I know. For anyone who to know. So Rebecca was just, I was just, we met up in Chicago and we gotta do a fun little podcast for you. So if you guys haven’t listen, you have to listen to that one. Maybe we’ll get, put that in the show notes so they can listen to it too.
Yeah, I’ll put the link in the
Rebecca Rogers: description. I haven’t even gotten to make clips for that yet ’cause I’ve been so sick, but I know they’re gonna be good.
Christa Innis: We talked a lot. It was so fun. I feel like we could have talked for like hours. Like
Rebecca Rogers: I literally told my mom, I was like, I have to make another trip to Chicago just so we can go get dinner and keep talking.
Yes,
Christa Innis: yes. Oh my gosh, I loved it. Yeah, no, that was so much fun. But to start off, for anyone that doesn’t know you, can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and all that good stuff?
How COVID Changed Everything
Rebecca Rogers: Yeah, so my name is Rebecca Rogers. I originally started as a high school social studies teacher, and during COVID Lockdowns I was just trying to make the kids laugh in the best way that I could, you know, everyone was really struggling in that time.
And, uh, I made a, a TikTok as a way, as just like an inside joke for my kids. And I figured if previous students thought whatever, who cares? Um, but it was supposed to be an inside joke, and they picked appropriate, silly trends for me to do. And I started making skits about silly things they would do in class.
And then more teachers kind of really liked it. Parents liked it, kids liked it, teachers liked it. Whether they felt seen as a parent dealing with silly kids or a teacher dealing with education or kids just, oh yeah, I, I, I did that. Or, uh, my poor teacher is, what do they have to deal with? And it kind of turned into like a.
Advocacy kind of form of like using comedy and storytelling to raise awareness about issues and education. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I still do that, but when I left the classroom, I kind of tried to pivot and do the same thing with other, other occupations and other ways of life just to kind of, when I taught my, I taught social studies and I would always tell my kids that the first step to accepting each other is understanding each other.
Mm-hmm. So that’s kind of the my reason and my why behind everything that I do.
Christa Innis: I love that. I find it so interesting. So many people I’ve talked to COVID like 2020, so much happened, right. But I feel like it was such a, yeah. Little time for so many people. Like a lot of people made pivots in their career, pivots in their lifestyle pivots.
And like, it kind of made you look at life a different way of like, how am I going to, um, approach my career? How am I gonna approach my family? Like the next kind of stages? So I find interesting, I can only imagine the stress. Being a teacher during that time?
Rebecca Rogers: Oh yeah, it’s, I left, so, so I worked at a school where the community was very strong.
Um, there, there’s even a term for it, but like the school name’s in it, so I don’t wanna like say it, like dos the plays or anything. Um, but people who, like kids went to school in that little community from elementary through high school. Mm-hmm. Teachers didn’t really leave. Um, so there was me, my best friend at the time, well, we’re still very close, but we just don’t see each other all the time now that I’m not teaching.
Um, he was a few years older than me and I think the next oldest teacher was like 10 years older than us, and the next year tea, next oldest was 10 years older than them. Right. And then like everyone is in the, oh, in the next 10 years, all these people are gonna retire. So I got designated as the youngest, um, the virtual teacher, and my oldest colleague who I loved, he was a amazing human being.
He was 75. And they put all the virtual only teachers in a trailer. So I really didn’t even at work in person, I was in a empty classroom in an empty trailer building all day. Oh my. Um, and it, the only interaction I really got was when my 75-year-old colleague who adored, would come and say, Hey, can you, can you show me these, the sty to our laptops?
And I’m, yes. I would happily show you Oh my it human interaction. Yes. Literally. It was crazy. It was, it was interesting. But I do agree that it changed everything about my life For sure. Just COVID in general, I think. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. It’s interesting to like, think, and I dunno if you think about this a lot, I feel like that didn’t happen.
Like would you still be teaching? Was that that moment for you that you were like, you know what, I can reach so many more people this way or, um, you know, kind of speak to a larger audience or kind of that find your true passion.
Rebecca Rogers: I think, I think even more than just occupation wise, I think COVID really changed my entire outlook on not just life, but even not in my, in myself and I, it’s actually funny, I didn’t even know that you could make a living doing social media.
’cause at the time I. I was not monetized. Mm-hmm. Um, I think it wasn’t even until, like, I started in October and it wasn’t until that summer that I even got my first brand deal. They didn’t even really have monetization for short term, short term content like that. Yeah. Or short form content like that. And, um, I remember like the brand deal I got, I was like, oh my God, this is so cool.
I can make money doing brand stuff. And those I would do at home, I wouldn’t do those at school. Yeah. Um, and my county was so interesting in that we had multiple viral TikTok teachers in the county. We had four. Oh, wow. Just in our county, all in the millions. Um, there was me, one of my best friends, uh, we taught at the same school.
Okay. She was in Spanish. I was in social studies and our classrooms were like right above each other.
Christa Innis: Yeah. And
“Those Are School Materials”
Rebecca Rogers: then there was a, a gym teacher who was at the middle school that fed into our high school. And then there was an elementary school teacher who I thought was on the, I think it was on the other side of the county.
And so there was a lot of us. And different, like we each were given different rules. Like my principal told my friend at my school, yeah, you can record whatever, I don’t care, as long as it’s not during school hours. And then turned around and told me you can’t record anything at school. And I was like, that doesn’t make sense.
Oh. Um, and then when I, HR started like contacting the social media teachers and HR told me, and I, I even have, I have the screen recorded meeting one day, maybe. I don’t know. I You always keep it just in case. Yeah. You never wanna get rid of that stuff. Um, but they told me, we don’t care that you record anything at school.
You can do whatever you want at school as long as like minors aren’t in it, of course safety anyways. Um, but you can’t monetize, you can’t use, you can’t monetize using school materials. And I said, I don’t know what that means ’cause I’m not using school materials in the videos. And they see, you see that brick behind you in the wall.
Those are school materials. And I was like, whoa,
Christa Innis: whoa,
Rebecca Rogers: okay. All right. And I’m like, well, regardless, I’m not monetized. Like anything I do with a brand deal is I, I think at the time, I, I worked with Sam’s Club and I recorded it at Sam’s Club.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Uh, but anything that I’m getting paid for, I’m not doing it at school anyways.
And they said, well, we’ve seen your YouTube, uh, I just started posting shorts. We’ve seen your YouTube and we see the ads. And I said, but I’m not getting paid for those. And they’re like, well, we know how this works. And I said, I, I don’t think that you do. And they just weren’t list. Like they, they thought they knew, they thought they were so smart.
They didn’t know anything they were talking about. And that’s when I put in my two weeks, I was like, look, even just with these brand deals, if I can find a brand deal once a month, I. I’m still making more than my teacher’s salary. Mm. Like, which is crazy. Which is should not be a thing for public teachers.
Right. Public school teachers, yeah. Should not be reality. Um, but even just with this small, this brand deal that I would consider, like now at this point, a small amount, I was like, this is more than my teacher’s salary. And so I came to the conclusion that, well, maybe I’ll find something in EdTech. And until then, if I just can get a brand deal a month, I’ll be golden.
And then about a week after I put in my, I, it wasn’t even two weeks, it was 30 days notice. A week after I put in my 30 days, I received an email from YouTube saying that I was eligible for monetization and they were doing this new thing called the shorts bonus, and that I qualified. Mm-hmm. And here was what I was making for my first month in the shorts bonus.
And I looked at that number and I was like, oh. That’s double my teacher salary. I don’t need another job then I’m gonna do this all the time. Are you kidding? I can stay home with my cats and do this all the time. Yeah, yeah. I’m gonna do that for sure. Oh,
Christa Innis: and that’s the story. Wow. Oh my gosh. I love that. I, I hate that.
It’s like how our, our society does not value teachers and does not value like what they’re worth and their time. Like that’s obviously, it’s crazy. Oh, it’s such a big, not
Rebecca Rogers: only that, to think the bone, but to think of the bone the county was trying to pick when there was such a tea. There still is such a teacher shortage.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. And
Rebecca Rogers: I even asked, because I know there’s gonna be people listening that were like, well, if people were complaining, I asked them straight up, has anyone complained at all? Well, no. Okay, so what’s the issue? Well, what if someone does complain? Which was weird ’cause someone already did complain about my friend claiming that her video was about her child.
And that’s when the principal was like, we know it was a very general, broad video about teachers catching students cheating.
Christa Innis: And I
Rebecca Rogers: guess this mom’s daughter cheated, got caught and was like, well, it’s about my kid. Well, maybe they should be shamed a little bit. I don’t know. Um, but I said, so no one’s complained about my content.
No, but what if someone does complain? I said, well, I don’t make content about anyone who I’m actively teaching without their permission. Of course. Yeah. So who cares if some lady in Nebraska calls and says, I don’t like this video. It’s about a child. They don’t know. No one locally here is going to complain because it’s not about their kids.
Right. Well, people outta state don’t know that. Who cares? Who cares? You and I, I even said to them, I remember saying. I’m trying to remember the stats that I gave them. ’cause I knew ’em back then, and I don’t know them now. I said there are elementary school kids who got home at 6:00 PM because we don’t have enough bus drivers.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: We currently, I think we had at the time, 2000 teacher listings in our county. We’re a very large county. We have 17 high schools alone. 2000 teacher spots open on the, why are you picking this fight? What is the issue? And they couldn’t give me an answer.
Christa Innis: Yeah. That kinda stuff. I, I have friends that are teachers that I hear from like, hear about and I’m just like, it is like such a shame and I feel like social, like teachers that create social media content really like that do it the right way.
Like you’re talking about like they don’t put students in or anything like that really bring awareness to a lot of issues that are out there. They show encouraging, empowering content. I’ve seen like a large array of content with teachers and educators and I think it’s amazing to see like things like within the classroom, whether it’s like how you can like teach at home or how you can, or what your kid should be learning at home while Yeah.
Before they go to, you know, elementary school or just different things like that I think is like really helpful how teachers are using social media now, all kinds of professions are using social media as a way to educate and inform and um,
Rebecca Rogers: absolutely, yeah.
Christa Innis: It’s a shame that some districts haven’t like, kept up with that.
Rebecca Rogers: I think I, I really love the idea of teachers on social media, and I know there’s a lot of people that disagree, but in reality, I’ve seen so many people in comment sections just genuinely, oh, I had no idea that this is how things worked, or, I had no idea that teachers didn’t have control of this. Like, even just with recent times, and I don’t know if you talk about the stuff on, uh, I, I don’t usually talk politics or anything like that, but just as an example, I, when, when different parts of the Department of Education were getting defunded, um, not that long ago, I just remember seeing so many thread post about, oh, yay, now the states will finally get to make decisions about curriculum.
And I’m like, they’ve done that the whole time. It has always been with What do you mean? What do you, not what? Well, now, now the states can pay the teachers. They already do. And they don’t pay them crap. Yeah. What, what do you mean like. The number of, of the amount of misinformation that is out there about, not just like how our school system works, but how our government works, how, just in general.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. The
Rebecca Rogers: fact that people aren’t aware of the system that they send their kids to every day baffles me. Mm-hmm. I don’t understand why people who, especially who like to play the act of overprotective parent, but don’t actually wanna do the work or the research to actually play the part, you won’t take the 10 minutes to Google what, how this institution you send your child to every day actually runs.
You don’t know who’s in charge of what. Like I, we had a rule at my school. It was the 10 minute rule. So the first 10, in the last 10 minutes in class, um, kids were not allowed to go to the restroom. And the reason was because we had a lot of kids skip. And so the goal was to figure out, well, like we can’t figure out who’s going to the bathroom and who’s skipping.
So the goal was if we keep kids in the classroom, we know who’s running late, who’s skipping, who’s not where they’re supposed to be, those kinds of things. And it helped administrators kind of grab the kids that need to be somewhere else.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. The
Rebecca Rogers: number of parents who tried to accuse me of like withholding bathroom privileges, but you can’t do that.
This is a jail. It’s not a, first of all, I don’t even make this rule. If it’s an emergency, obviously we’re gonna make an exception. Right. Obviously, no one’s gonna allow your child to like pee on themselves. Yep. W what do you mean? This is not my rule. I don’t get to de decide the rules that go on in the school.
I’m like the lowest on the totem pole at this point. Right? Like, I don’t, I don’t know what they think. It’s just crazy to me.
Christa Innis: It’s like, yeah, they hear like one thing without actually talking to a real life teacher and ask them how it is. Because I think if you talk to most teachers, they’re gonna be there, right there with you and under, and, and agree with you of everything you’re saying, right?
And instead they’re just getting their information from someone that’s not a teacher, never been a teacher, or not in the school system,
Rebecca Rogers: or not only that. Like they’ll take one example. And I, I wish I remembered the stats for this too, because I looked them up for this comment. So many people, I, I have two points that just blow my mind.
I will never understand. People will see like one crazy individual who happens to be a teacher and who makes bad choices, and they’re like, oh my God, all teachers do this. Mm-hmm. And I don’t understand, because we all go to work every day. We all have jobs and we all have colleagues where we’re like, we don’t know how you got this job.
There are always, there’s someone in every profession, in every workplace that just blatantly shouldn’t be there. Yeah. And I don’t understand why teaching has become the profession. Why, when there are millions and millions and millions of educators out there, why is this like one person who clearly is just a crazy person who happens to be a teacher?
Why are you letting that identify everybody? Mm-hmm. And it’s interesting because it’s the, it’s a lot of times it’s the same people who are like, well, not all police officers, okay, but why can’t you have the same energy for teachers? You know? Mm-hmm. Yep. I don’t underst, I don’t, I don’t understand why are they the enemy?
Yeah. Right. And I, I remember someone was arguing in a comment section, and I don’t usually check like bad comments, but every now and then I have time. Yeah. Every now and then I’m looking for something to give me adrenaline and then I like to antagonize and then remind them that their tantrum is funding my lifestyle and move on.
Um, but, but I remember someone was like. I read an article about two different public school teachers last week who ended up being pedophiles, and I was like, that’s crazy and unfortunate. You know what? I found two teachers just in my state, in private schools who also ended up being pedophiles. Not only that, the statistic in the percentage of public school teachers that that encompasses is much smaller than the number of private school teachers that encompasses.
Now, that doesn’t mean I have an issue with private school teachers at all, but y’all, every people have gotta stop saying, well, I saw something crazy happen with two public school teachers, and that’s why private’s better. First of all, I. Incorrect because you can find the same number of people who are awful, people who happen to be private school teachers as well, or happen to be homeschool teachers, or happen to be nurses, or happen to be, um, gardeners.
Um, as I look into my garden, yeah. Anything, right? Oh yeah. That doesn’t mean that doesn’t mean anything. And I’ve said this before and a lot of people, for whatever reason, like jump down my throat because they don’t understand the point. When people say like, private school is better, you can send your kids to wherever you want.
I don’t care. No one, no educator actually cares where you send your school, whether it your kid to school, whether it’s homeschool or private school or charter school, public school, whatever. But the reality is the only place that you are guaranteed to only get certified licensed educators is public school.
Not to say that there aren’t private schools that have licensed teachers and public or private schools that require licensing, but private schools are not required to hire licensed teachers as a general rule. Now, a specific private school might have that as a requirement, but private schools in general don’t.
Charter schools in general don’t people, a lot of people don’t seem to understand the difference between a charter school and a public school. There is a difference on schooling not required to have a license. Um, and again, no one cares where you send your kids, but stop, stop with this. Well, the teachers are better.
They’re not, not always. They’re not even licensed teachers who teach in private. Or public, if they’re licensed, they get the same license from the same school. They’re not going to a special private school teacher’s college in a public school, teacher’s college. It’s the same education. I don’t know why they think it’s different.
Yeah. I’m rambling. I’m sorry. I didn’t look at her all today. I’m like ranting. You got me in my like
Christa Innis: my feelings. Yeah, I’m like talking about, yeah. Well it just shows like how passionate you are and I feel like there’s definitely overlap with what you’re talking about and like people, I tend, I see it like even in my content too, that’s not related to education at all, but in my content too, people like to label very quickly and they like to group people very quickly.
Um, yes. And so even I find, you know, when I do like, and I’ve talked about this before when I do like mother-in-law skits and I, and I try to always preface it with, most people that follow me are brides or have been brides so that I just happen to get more mother-in-law stories. But I try to focus on other things too.
There’s cousin stories, there’s brothers stories, there’s uncle stories. Um, but if people message me that be like, well, not all mother-in-laws are like this. And I’m like, I agree. I have an amazing mother-in-law. I love my mother-in-law. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I just happen to get more stories about mother-in-laws Exactly.
Hides right to me. So, well,
Rebecca Rogers: not like, I get the same thing about substitute teachers when people are like, all your stories are about bad sub teachers. Which first of all, the amount of stories I have about subs in general is like a very small percentage. That’s always a funny comment to me. But also I’m like, people aren’t gonna send me stories about the best sub they ever had.
Yeah. They send you stories about the worst sub they ever had. Yeah. They’re gonna send stories about the worst mother-in-law they ever had. They’re gonna send stories about this crazy situation you wouldn’t believe you wouldn’t believe about. Yes. That’s just the reality of what people send us. I don’t understand why people don’t under like a regular, a person who’s doing their job, though great and loved in the community.
We love that. That’s not it. It’s like the people who use the, the scary examples in the news. Like, this is why teachers are bad. Yeah, no, that’s just, that’s what gets people’s attention.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: The crazy parents are what’s gonna get people’s attention. Those few bad teachers, the few bad parents. I say this all the time, most parents that I interacted with as a teacher, great.
Loved them. They don’t make good stories. I don’t tell stories about them. The, I dealt with a hundred kids every semester. I taught for five years. That’s a lot of kids and a lot of parents. I think maybe I might have had 30 of my own situations and stories. Right. Most happening like within the same semester.
Mm-hmm. That’s a very small percentage. Right. I had, I experienced myself. Two substitute teachers because I, I didn’t know what a sick day was. I’ve always been a workaholic. Yeah. I, I can’t, two substitute teachers one time, one sub was actually my ex-husband. He was the first sub I ever had. ’cause he was subbing while, while ta studying for the bar exam.
And I was so sick. And he’s like, I’ll just be your sub and I’ll do exactly what you need me to do. And if I’m doing it wrong, you can FaceTime me at school. And I was like, okay, fair, valid. I’ll trust that. And then the last, the only other time I ever had a sub was when I already put in my notice and I was like, I got so many vacation days.
They’re telling me I can’t get paid out for them anyways. I’m gonna take some time off. Yeah. And I actually had a, the sub apparently never left my rollie chair. And just rolled around the room and broke the chair. Oh. And one of my students laughed at him. So in my sub note, my sub blamed that kid and said that my kid broke.
My student broke the chair. Oh no. And I, so like, I just got to school the next day and I looked at the note and I was like, oh my gosh, Timmy, what did you do? And he was so confused. He had no idea. I’m like sitting there scolding him for breaking my chair. He had no idea what I was talking about. And then he, I, I’ll never forget his face.
And he, he goes, wait, did the sub say I broke the chair? And I was like, yes. And he, we, I obviously was speaking to him in private, in the hallway, and he like, flings open my classroom door. And he goes, guys, the sub told her I broke the chair. And they all just start bursting out laughing. And I was like, what happened?
What, what, what’s going on here? What am I missing here? I don’t understand. It was crazy. It was crazy. So like, yeah, no one tells stories about people that just keep
Christa Innis: their head down and do their job. That’s just the reality. Right? We love a good learning moment. We love a good entertainment moment. Uh, exactly.
I feel like a lot of ’em, I get a lot of messages from, um, moms now, or they’re kind of in that next stage where they’re son or daughter is dating someone and they’re like, I know, like, we’re now to like, not cross these boundaries or to respect boundaries. Um, and so I feel like those are really cool messages to see.
’cause I’m like, okay, I’m not like, you know, just spreading negativity. I feel like it’s really good to see different conversations play out too, and how to handle different things. And of course there’s always a hinge of just extra drama because, you know, why not? It’s fun.
Rebecca Rogers: We love it. We love it. We’re human beings love drama.
We don’t like when it happens to us, but we like, like watching it from a distance. Yeah.
Christa Innis: And I feel like it like allows people to like, which this is gonna sound really weird, but like. Bond over the drama. So like in the comments? Yes. Like trauma bonding, you’re each other. Yeah. Like, right. Exactly. And it’s like, it allows you to like talk amongst each other about this situation.
How would you handle it? Um, I don’t know. It, it creates good dialogue. So not
Rebecca Rogers: only that, something that I, and it coming from social studies background, I’ve always loved like psychology and sociology as well. Like I studied that a lot. I just wish I had the opportunity to teach it. Um, I think there’s a lot of people who grow up in environments where a lot of the behaviors that we put in skits is deemed normal and they don’t always understand that it’s not.
And then when they see these kinds of behaviors in. Skits and online, and they’re seeing people say, this isn’t okay. It also provides a learning moment and a teachable moment. Mm-hmm. And they can either be receptive to it or they can, they can get up. And you can always tell in the comments whether this is dumb.
Okay, well you’re not receptive to it. Okay. You’ll just keep acting like that. That’s fine. Um, but there’s plenty of people who are kind of unlearning bad behavior that they either grew up with or watched someone else exhibit and just thought it was normal. And it, it’s like a teachable moment of, oh, okay.
I know not to do that anymore. Great. That’s my bad. And I think that allow, it allows so much, it allows so much growth and I think that’s so valuable.
The People Pleaser’s Wake-Up Call
Christa Innis: Yeah. Um, like I’ll share something like I learned from a skit years ago. I dunno if it was like a skit or like how they shared it, but like, I, so I’m always been, I’ve always been like a people pleaser and like, I always try, I don’t know if the, what the term is.
Mm-hmm. But like if a friend came to me saying, this is what’s going, what’s going on? I wanna fix, like, I want to help. That’s like my, I call that mom friend. We’ve already decided, we’ve already established have process. Correct. We, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that was always my thing. So I always thought if someone was coming to me saying, I have this issue, it’s up to me now to fix it.
No one ever told me that. I just feel like through different context clues through my life, I was like, yep, that’s my job. So I started thinking like, I have to give them advice. I have to do this. And then if they didn’t take my advice, I’d be mad about it. Or not be like mad, but I’d be like, oh, why do they keep doing this if they like are coming to me?
And I saw a thing where it was basically like, some people just want to vent. Some people just like getting it off their chest. They don’t want advice. And then I was like. Oh my gosh. I’m assuming they want advice how, like overstepping of my like their boundary. Yeah. And so I would start just being like, do you want advice or you want me to listen?
And then you can just ask them and just take a step back. And I was like, and it’s been freeing. It’s been so freeing because I’m like, everyone does not need me to fix them. ’cause I don’t even know what I’m doing half the time. You know,
Rebecca Rogers: literally, oh, I’ll, I even learned something from one of my own videos that I did something wrong and I had, I had no idea and I had no, I, and that’s been a couple times with that.
Um, and I’m trying to, there’s one I know I said on my podcast before, but I don’t remember who was your episode or not. So I’ll tell a different one. I did one video about a parent who came to meet the teacher and said, Hey, my student has, um, an IEP, meaning that they need accommodations. And the accommodations is that they have a mini horse.
And where are you gonna put the door in the classroom for the mini horse to leave and use the restroom? Which obviously like, that is a crazy thing to ask a teacher. How is a teacher supposed to put a, like, do construction in the classroom? Yeah. Put a door like I once taught on the second floor of a building.
How do you want that to work?
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: I didn’t actually know that a mini horse was like a legitimate accommodation for some people with some disabilities. And it’s rare, it’s not common, but it is a thing. And I thought it was just a parent being ridiculous. Mm-hmm. And so I was, obviously, her behavior and her expectations was ridiculous, but the accommodation itself was not, and I didn’t know that.
And so I’m sitting there making fun and then I was like, oh. Oh, I’m so sorry. Oh, you’re so it, we are all learning. That’s my bad apologies. Um, even another one, you know, and I, I’m trying to think of even how to describe it. And this might’ve been one that I told you, I told somebody I don’t know where our listeners can, we can always learn.
Yeah. Um, we’re in a day and age where lingo in words that are and are not appropriate is constantly changing. And I learned in a, another video about accommodations and disabilities. Um, I, in the skit, I had a parent come in asking about accommodations and I told them they needed to go check out the.
Specific department, but I said the word like SPED because that is what it’s called. And verbalize that at the schools that I worked for. And there are some parts of the country that that’s already sat established that is an unacceptable term to use. I had no idea. ’cause it’s the term that my school at I was still working at Used.
Yeah. Um, but some people felt it was a very inappropriate label and very offensive. And I had no idea, I had no way to know that. Because even professionally today, they still use that term in the schools, in the emails, in the meetings. Um, so I, I always say that you never know what you don’t know. But you can always learn as you go, and it’s just about whether you’re going to be receptive to
Christa Innis: it or not.
Right. It’s like are, yeah. Are you gonna be defensive over it or be like, oh, I didn’t know that. Let me look into it and let me change my speech, or, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Definitely. And I think that’s the beautiful thing about this, kind of like next generation too, is that we can always like learn.
And we’re not, I mean, some, some people, I mean, we’re always, we’re always learning, you know, adapting and changing, but like, yeah. To it with the different skits and stuff is like being able to see it and being like, okay, how can I learn from this? Um, look inside myself and see like, okay, I’m not perfect, we’re all flawed.
Um, how can we mm-hmm. You know, how can I take this and Exactly. And move with that. Okay. So that being said, I know we’re kind of, we can, like I said in the beginning, like we could talk forever.
Rebecca Rogers: I know we just, I just love you so much. I know. Oh my God. We’re gonna have to do multiple episodes. That’s crazy.
We didn’t even really talk about like wedding things.
Christa Innis: I know. I’m like, Hey guys, is this bonus episode, because it’s not about weddings yet. Yeah. Um, we can do another one about weddings. We’ll just have different topics
Rebecca Rogers: eventually. Eventually. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah,
Rebecca Rogers: yeah. Yeah. Why not?
Christa Innis: Why
Rebecca Rogers: not? We could just, I love that.
It’s so
Christa Innis: fun. Um, I know. It was funny, like right away we’re like, we could talk, we haven’t even started recording yet. Um, I think what’s so
Rebecca Rogers: funny is we went into my, the episode for my podcast is like, Hey, we’re not gonna talk wedding stuff. And then we only talked wedding stuff and then we went into yours like, we’re gonna talk wedding stuff.
And we have not talked about wedding stuff.
Christa Innis: Well, and it’s funny too, I was just saying to my husband, like the other day, I was like, I kind of wanna change my, and I might have said this to you too, when we. Got together last time. But I kind of wanna change my name from Party Planning by Krista because it just, to just my name, because obviously like, I love talking about events and weddings and all the drama around them, but I feel like it’s very confusing for people.
And like we talked about this, like, so many people think I’m a current wedding ev and events planner. Mm-hmm. And I’ve said a million times, but like, people don’t see everything. I’m, I’m not a professional wedding planner. I’ve just been to a lot of events. I’ve been in a lot of weddings and I helped do Day of Coordinating here and there.
And so I’m like, I kind of just like talking. I mean, it talks, we talk about relationships, we talk about boundaries, we talk about events and, and just life. So, you know what it’s, here comes the drama. ’cause there’s always, I would change your name. I would
Rebecca Rogers: here, I, I definitely would change your name because, not because of other people, but because it’s what you want and because it reflects like the brand that you want to put out into the world.
Um, I’ll, I’ve been out of the classroom for, so a. Four years at this point and people, you left the classroom. Mm-hmm. I have a whole hour long video about why I quit teaching pinned to the top of my YouTube. Yeah. You wait. You’re not a teacher anymore. Nope, I’m not. Not for a while. Yeah. You’ll never escape it.
You just won’t. Yeah. That’s what, even since getting divorced, so many people have asked, are you going to change your name? And I said, why would I? No one, everyone’s still gonna call me Rogers, so at least professionally, why would I change it? Yeah. It makes no sense. Seems like more work go back on me personally.
I might. And so I, I think that you should, like, for your branding for like, I think that you should, um. People will still call you the wedding planner even though you weren’t one.
Christa Innis: I know, I know. Yeah. We’ll, we’ll play around with it. Okay. So that being said, do you have any crazy stories that come to mind when it, uh, comes to weddings, events?
Um, I have so
“May These Friends Never Find Me”
Rebecca Rogers: many. I have so many. Do you, do you want a theme? Like you, you’ve gotta pick in-laws bridesmaids, like what do you want? Let’s go bridesmaid. I
Christa Innis: feel like we hear some in-law stories. Okay, let’s go bridesmaids.
Rebecca Rogers: I, I might’ve told this on ours, but that’s also okay. Yeah. That’s awesome. Um, but this was the moment in, in this moment, I realized, may these friends never find me.
Like truly, yeah. I was in a wedding. And one of the bridesmaids was talking about her best friend’s wedding that she was also just in.
Christa Innis: Okay.
Rebecca Rogers: And it was a few weeks before, and first of all, she was talking about how everyone assumed that the bridal dressed colors were going to be terrible because everyone basically got, they were all able to get different dresses in their style.
As long as they were like pinky tan, that was the description they were given. And for whatever reason, all the bridesmaids thought it was gonna look terrible. They actually looked pretty cute, in my opinion. Everyone had pinky tan dresses. I thought it looked like a cute little ombre, whatever. Um, and the bride was kind of panicking a little bit, and this bridesmaid said, don’t worry, no matter what happens, it can’t be worse than my best friend’s wedding.
And went on about the pinky tan dresses and then was kind of making fun of the fact, you know, her wedding venue was two stories, and so you had. What I assume were considered like the A list guests down at the bottom and the B list guests up at the top and the venue didn’t order enough food, so they made sure to feed everyone at the bottom layer.
Everyone in the a group, the no, a group guests. And then everyone at the top, no one ate, no one received any food. No one told the bride. ’cause they didn’t want her to panic. No. And instead her bridesmaids just started making fun of it, uh, at other people’s weddings, talking about, Hey, at least can’t be as bad as my best friend. And I thought, may these friends never find me, may these friends never find me. Like just the tone and the just sheer snobbiness of the entire conversation. I’m like, this was your best friend. Okay.
Christa Innis: Oh, so cool. And I just, oh, they, so she was like talking about how like the, the other guests didn’t get fed at the wedding.
Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Yeah. And it, it’s, I think it, I think there’s a difference between being like, oh my gosh, this was awful. And being like, oh my God, her wedding sucked. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, there’s totally a difference. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. It’s like, it’s like the friend that’s like waiting for something bad to happen behind their back.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I was just talking about this with someone where it’s like, those are the friends that can’t. Allow someone else to shine on their day. They’re waiting for their moment to like fail that I’ve been like secretly waiting. Um, and I, I like to think that there’s been signs all along that that friend is like that.
I would hope so. And you’re just like, oh yeah, I always have that friend. Because looking back in my, like early twenties, even like high school, I had a couple friends that were all like, I was called them my first bullies. You know? They would like Yeah. Down. They would make fun of me. And I was like, oh, that’s what friends do.
And then you get real friends and you’re like, oh, that person was never my friend. They were always wishing for my downfall.
Rebecca Rogers: You, you just unlocked a memory of mine.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Okay. I have a story, I have another story for you. I don’t think I’ve ever told this anywhere.
Christa Innis: Okay.
The Bridesmaid Who Made It About Herself
Rebecca Rogers: So when I got married, um, I had six or eight bridesmaids.
I had a, I had a larger bridal party and one of my biggest flexes is, uh, most of them I’m still the best of friends with. Mm-hmm. Um, I think the only ones that I don’t really talk to are people that were like, associated in my ex’s family, like obviously, you know. Right. And one other person who kind of dropped off the face of the earth from everybody af kinda after.
And this is, this is who this story is about is very Oh, okay. Okay. Um, at my bachelorette party, um, one of my best friends, Lauren was my maid of honor and she put together, of course, some games and one of them was like, what is your favorite memory with Becca and this girl, for whatever reason, we all, we all cheered together in college.
Most of us told the story about how when we were competing. She literally, like we, we were both very tiny and so we were on top of the pyramids together. Yeah. And I basically held her and did a trick and she like kicked me in the face while we were competing, which is normal. And cheerleading, you know, like you get hit, it happens.
Okay. But like, that was her favorite memory was kicking me in the face competing. And it was just so funny and like, and I didn’t know, like she ended up with, and I never apologized and I just remember thinking Okay. And I didn’t know at the time, but apparently she spent the next hour sulking in the other room.
I was told she was doing hair and makeup. Mm-hmm. Sulking in the other room because her ex-boyfriend that she was stalking was coaching cheer down the road in Myrtle Beach and she wanted to leave to go talk to him and hang out with him. Oh. And wanted just go figure out why they broke up and was so angry. ’cause I don’t think Becca would care. I don’t think Rebecca would mind, I don’t think, I don’t see why I can’t just leave and go talk to. And I didn’t know it at the time, but everyone apparently, like all my really good friends were like, you, you can’t do that. We’re no, no one’s driving. You don’t, don’t do not leave to go chase your ex-boyfriend.
That is a bad decision. Oh
Christa Innis: my gosh. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is, yeah. That’s one of those things where that person could not allow you to have your time and it was weird do about her. That’s that is she eventually
Rebecca Rogers: just, Ooh, I just spilled my drink everywhere. She eventually just kind of dropped off the face of the earth.
Like even Lauren was like, have you heard from her? Nope. No one knows. She just kind of started a new life at the other end of the state and no one ever heard from her again.
Christa Innis: Interesting. Wow. Very strange. That is, yeah. That’s interesting. Yeah. I like, like I was saying, it’s like those kind of moments. I think like, I wonder if you like, look back if you’re just like, oh, there’s other things where like, I realize now like she never like fully supported me or was kind of backhanded compliments or, you know, stuff like that, that I feel like with age we kind of start now.
Like, like weeding away. Weeding out those kind of people. Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: No. Yes. Well, I kind of even going back to what you said early at the beginning, like COVID in general I think changed how I view everything, whether it be myself, whether it be, um, the world people, because in reality, like I used to be, I’ve always been an extrovert, but I used to be much more reserved and self-conscious and social media, well the classroom was really where I could be silly and be myself and just, you know, whatever.
Mm-hmm. And then when social media accidentally took off, I learned, oh, I can be myself. And people don’t hate it. That’s cool. And that’s kind of where I found my voice, not just with myself, but with people also. Um, being able to kind of step into my true skin really helped me. I. Advocate for myself, set boundaries, like all, like all be more picky about who I allowed in my life and not.
Um, and of course we’re all works in progress. We all have ways to go. I’m still a people pleaser. I’m still a doormat, but I’m definitely not as bad as I used to be.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I, I know, I totally agree with you. Yeah. The people pleaser the thing where I’m better at saying no. Now if something, if I like don’t have time or I just can’t do it, I still have that guilt though.
I’ll be like, are they gonna think I’m a bad person or a bad friend? Mm-hmm. And then my husband will be like, no, they’re not. They literallys not a second thought. Like, it’s okay. But um, yeah, it’s interesting how you like, how you’re kind of like ingrained in that. But I always recall call myself a recovering people pleaser.
’cause I’m like, I’m actively working against it and like telling myself exactly. But I think my like immediate filter is better at reading people now. Um. Like I had a, I dunno if I call it a situation. I don’t know. I had a thing happen where, um, someone that I had met years ago, and I wanna be very vague.
Someone I had met years ago, and the time that I met her, she was not very friendly or kind. Okay. Okay. But since she had seen videos of mine on TikTok and when she bumped into me immediately asking how I could help her and was like, oh, mm-hmm. My, my thing like over here and asking me all these questions, she’s like, I’ll send you a message on TikTok right now because I’d really like to like know how I can do this.
And I was just like. Okay. And I was like, literally I was at an appointment, I was somewhere and I was like, okay. And I came home and my husband, I was like, I have no intention of messaging her back. Mm-hmm. Because I could tell it was for all the wrong reasons. She Yeah, exactly. Just I felt like very like used and like icky after it.
And she’s like, yes. So loudly so people could hear and like being like asking about personal things and I was just like, I sorry. Mm-hmm. M’s. Not interested in that. Um, okay, let’s get into, I know people are gonna be like listening and being like, Krista’s all over the place today.
Rebecca Rogers: Longest episode ever. No, I love this ’cause I’m all over the place and so she’s really just mirroring me.
It’s my fault guys. It’s fine. I
Christa Innis: love it. Well, actually no, people have said like, I wish the episodes were longer, so it’s okay if it’s a little bit longer.
Rebecca Rogers: Oh, you, you, you brought the right guest. Yeah. Yeah. Me. Like we really could sit and just talk forever. We could. That’s, and I,
Christa Innis: that’s my favorite thing. Oh, go ahead.
Go ahead. Go ahead, go ahead. No, you’re good. I was just gonna say, I barely, like, other than my husband and my daughter, like, and then if we randomly go do things, like they are who I see, like I work from home, so like if I have a call, I see someone. So that’s why I’m like, the podcast is a great way to like chat with people.
Rebecca Rogers: ’cause I’m like, yeah, it really is this job. People don’t realize how isolating this job really is. ’cause in reality, we’re like sitting at home alone, talking to ourselves and like, yeah, we post it for a lot of people, but we, we don’t have that human interaction. Yeah, but what I, I always say, and I think I, I probably said this to you when we were together in Chicago, is that.
There’s so many different types of personalities that do well on social media. Um, and when you find the people that have the similar one to yours, it’s like the most validating and wonderful feeling. And I’m like, I wanna talk to them all day long. It’s, and it’s like, it’s the best feeling because even in, in days or moments where you feel self-conscious, it’s like, but I found the people who get me.
I’m like, sliding off on my cushion right now. Don’t mind me. But I found the people who get me and yeah, it’s beautiful and it feels good.
Christa Innis: It’s like the best feeling ever. Yeah. No, definitely. Yeah. It’s, it’s definitely a, an industry and heart and hard to explain sometimes. For sure.
Rebecca Rogers: Yeah. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Always. And a lot of misconceptions.
Yes. Yes. Oh my gosh. Okay, let’s get into this week’s wedding story submission. As always, I have not met yet. I’m ready, but we’re gonna see what we got. Uh, feel free to stop me at any time, or I’ll make pauses as we kinda go. All right. Okay. Okay. This wedding is in Texas at a rustic but upscale venue that doubles as a winery.
It has no tones of Old Western, just rustic think wood tones. A large reception space that looks similar to a barn, but glass doors. Mm-hmm. This person gave a lot of details that we don’t normally get. Yeah, I like that. I can visualize. Yeah. Um, the ceremony space looked very like a very small church from the outside.
On the morning of my wedding, the bridal party was getting ready in the bridal suite and the groom was getting ready in the groom suite. One of the groomsmen didn’t follow instructions and showed up two hours late with a different girl than who we RSVPed for. Okay. This, this girl had a very strong Russian accent.
Uh, went into the groom suite and started talking to the groom and asking questions. For example, is this a yee-haw wedding and will you be doing square dancing? Okay. Interesting. I mean, I guess like switching, I get it. Like, girl, it doesn’t really matter, but it’s interesting. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead.
Um, the boys kicked her out and told her to wait somewhere else, and she came then to the bridal suite. She came in and started acting faint and sat at a table demanding attention from all the bridesmaids. They were taking care of her because they were worried and had a hard time understanding her because of her accent.
When they turned away to the, to finish getting ready for the day, she ate my lunch, the bride’s lunch, the audacity. There was no more food left until after the ceremony, so I went to my wedding Hungary. I see I’m a big, like weddings that I’ve been in and like helped coordinate. I am big into like no one other than the wedding party be in the room.
Like, yeah, why was she in there? Yeah. I feel like it’s like, it’s probably the groomsmen that wasn’t paying attention. Being like, oh, just go in there. You’re fine. You’re one of the girls. ’cause I’ve seen that. Yes. That’s what I can see that,
Rebecca Rogers: yeah. One, see, okay. I could give her the benefit of the doubt in the, in the, in the groomsman suite.
I could give her the benefit of the doubt and I’m like, ah. She’s just, you know, I think there are such stereotypical views of Americans in different parts of Europe. Mm-hmm. Europe. I can see her, like I can see her like genuinely getting excited. Is this a yha yha wedding? Because like everywhere is Texas.
Yes. People in Europe don’t understand that, you know, they see, they think cowboys, they think McDonald’s. They think, you know, they have very specific ideas of what they think America is. Yeah. And. Sometimes when they’re like, oh my God, am I going to be able to experience this American like thing that I only see on tv?
Like, they can get excited and even though it comes, can come off as, uh, it can come off as rude because I feel like, especially in, uh, Eastern Europe, sometimes people are much more blunt than we’re used to here in the us. Mm-hmm. Um, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just different. But then the going into like weddings or weddings, wherever you go, the bride is the star.
Why are you, why are you demanding attention as a guest? That should be common sense. Yes. Why are you going and bothering people you’ve never met before? Like if, right. I can even maybe see like a, Hey, we don’t want you to mess up with the setup. Stay in the groom suite. Why are you sending her? I can see. I can see why a man, I love men.
Some men are dumb. Not all men. Always a man. Not all men, always a man. Yeah. Why is some man being like, yeah.
This is not babysit your girlfriend time, Tinder, chick of the week. Like Right. You could have been just, she could have even been established as a new serious girlfriend. It’s not everyone else’s job to babysit her. That’s weird. That’s strange.
Christa Innis: Well, and
Rebecca Rogers: I feel like it, and you should know,
Christa Innis: oh,
Rebecca Rogers: go ahead.
Christa Innis: Yeah, no, I was gonna say, I feel like it’s such like a guy thing too, like weddings, like the women, like, you know, typically, right.
We’re talking traditionally women have like a schedule. We start early, we get hair and makeup Right. Champagne, whatever. They exactly. Up a much more structured day up. Yeah. Groomsmen just show up, they put a suit on, take a couple pictures, drink whiskey, you know what they get to like hang out and obviously like we gotta hang out too as girls, but like, I just feel like the guys are more just like laid back about it and that’s society.
I’m not blaming that on the guys. That’s how it’s, you know. Right. Exactly. So I could totally see the guy being like, just, just
Rebecca Rogers: not even thinking about it, which is not necessarily his fault, but what is his fault is assuming that everyone else is gonna babysit his date and for the date, she’s a grown woman who invites herself into a space and just eats everybody’s food.
Do you even know the bride’s name? Probably not. That to me is crazy. Holy moly.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Holy moly. I would’ve been so upset.
Christa Innis: I know. And like, I like, I’ve, like I’ve said, I’ve been a part of weddings where like, it seems like a, what’s the word I’m looking for? Like Grand Central Station. Like people just constantly come in and out.
Like there’s big families, they wanna see the bride. Mm-hmm. But I, I don’t know if that’s me just being like a more private or like type A person, but I’m like, lets keep it to the wedding party if you’re coming in to say hi. Sure. But like, I kind of want like my own wedding. And then weddings I’m a part of, I’m like, okay, if you’re not like in the wedding, let’s kind of like, yeah.
Not come in literal. Literally. Literally. It’s almost like a play, it’s a performance. Right? So like, let’s not look at the actors before they walk out. I know some people are gonna like laugh. Yeah. But you know, it’s a little bit, it’s kind of like that let’s not reveal before, like you wanna
Rebecca Rogers: show the finished product.
You know, people, they, they sit and they get ready all day long. And I think it’s different when you have like a close family member or a close friend coming to, Hey, do you need anything? Hey, how are you doing? Hey, X, y, Z. But like, this isn’t happy hour, this is not friend speed dating. This isn’t daycare.
Why? Who like, okay, you, you broke up with your girlfriend, you have a different date to the wedding. Okay, that’s fine. She has nowhere else to go. She’s hanging out. Okay. But it’s not, why is it everyone else’s job to entertain her?
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Why is. Why, why did you ha, did you have to bring someone? Like if she had
Christa Innis: nowhere else to go, why did you just, why did you bring her?
Have to, yeah. Especially being a groomsman. I feel like you’ve got, you’ve got your guys there, you got other stuff to, to do. All right, let’s, right, let’s see what, what happens next? So she goes to the wedding hungry at that point. Oh, wait, that’s not all. Oh my God. Okay. Sorry. I’m sorry. Oh my gosh. You there was the whole story, girl.
We’ve got lots.
Rebecca Rogers: Okay. Okay. Okay. Continue. Continue. So Molly, okay. Okay.
They Did WHAT in the Groom Suite?!
Christa Innis: At that point, she got kicked out and was told to wait in the ceremony space wedding, and sues with no other problems until the reception. During the reception, the girl tries to enter, enter the bridal suite and the groom suite where the wedding planner catches her and tells her that it’s locked until after the wedding.
No one is allowed in except for the bridal party. Okay, good. I’m glad the wedding party planner is there now. Right? The girl on top of this Exactly. The girl retrieved her groomsmen and they tried picking the lock to the groom suite. What, what? For what? Why does she need to get in there? Yeah. A friend of the groom went and found the planner to let them know the girl was trying to break in the groom suite because the groomsmen was with her this time.
They unlocked it for them and was told they were changing. So the planner left to take care of the couple. Wait. They told them they had to get in there and go change. I’m so confused. They
Rebecca Rogers: pro i, I, they, they told the planner, Hey, I need to get in the grooms. I’m a groomsman. I need to get into the grooms in a suite.
I have to change my clothes so that Okay. And they unlocked it and left.
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. So, oh my gosh. That’s stressful. I’m sweating. Okay. It says they did the deed, if you know. Mm-hmm. That’s where I thought this was going. That’s where I thought this was going and left the place in absolute disarray.
Disarray. A huge mess. They then left the wedding early, and we didn’t find out about the mess until after our families went in to clean up the suites and pack everything up. We felt very disrespected by this, so I personally texted the groomsman the next day to ask him why he brought a stranger. First of all, without talking to us about it, the girl RS that he RSVP’d for was his girlfriend of a year that we knew.
So there we go too. And why? He left her to wreck havoc upon the bride and then disrespected the place by basically destroying it. He brushed it off and didn’t mention oh, so he brushed off the communication and mentioned that he barely knew her, but that she was a family friend. No apology whatsoever. I was then talking to my bridesmaid about everything that happened with her, and we found out the groomsman par parents paid her to be his escort and get him to break up with his girlfriend.
That is not where I thought this was going. Wait, what? His parents paid her to be his escort, so she was a hooker. I,
The Escort, the Lies, and a Wedding Fallout
Rebecca Rogers: that’s, I mean, it says his, first of all. First of all, if he first, I have, if you are a man who is easily swayed to break up with your girlfriend of a year, ’cause of a fancy accent and some excitement, throw the whole man away. Throw the whole man away. In my opinion, full stop. That’s just a bad, okay. Okay.
Obviously we don’t know like what kind of issues were going on in his relationship. Right, right. We have no idea. Yeah. She could have been a toxic girlfriend. We don’t know. Right. The whole thing just screams gross to me. Why?
I’m so shocked that I’m like, I can’t even find my words.
Christa Innis: I,
Rebecca Rogers: the last sentence, I
Christa Innis: just, the last sentence says, they also paid for her expensive designer clothes for the wedding, then paid them to have an expensive hotel that night. So the parents literally just wanted this. Like, but why the parents getting involved?
Like, we need to get rid of this. Well, not only that, if they, if they had this fancy hotel, why can’t they wait till they get to the hotel? That’s what I’m confused about. So they just like had to do it. That’s just
Rebecca Rogers: so inconsiderate. Who’s this like that? When you’re dealing with relationship issues, I am so mad at him for a lot of reasons, because when you’re dealing with relationship issues or the, the downfall of a relationship, I don’t, I can’t think of a word I’m looking for right now.
So that’s what we’re gonna go with. The downfall of relationship. It can really mess with you mentally. Okay. Like I know that, I get that. I spent the last year getting divorced actually. In fact. So, fun fact, in North Carolina you have to be separated for a year and a day. That’s tomorrow for me. Literally tomorrow.
Congratulations. I’m excited. Thank you. Thank you. I’m excited. Um, it’s a celebration. Yeah. But I understand better than anyone, that message that can bring you down and you can really struggle. That doesn’t mean you just get to blow up everyone else’s stuff that they have going on that doesn’t give you the right to just.
Bash and trash other people’s exciting moments if you’re not able to handle that kind of celebration. Like we’re all adults, right? We’re all adults. You know, right from wrong. If you cannot handle being at that kind of celebration, you, you need to speak up. You need, I’m trying to think of how to phrase this ’cause I know there’s gonna be there.
From my bad Apple videos, I always know, there’s always people like, well you have no heart ’cause you’re not thinking of the other side. And I’m like, ju, when people go through a really difficult time, whether it be emotional turmoil, mental spirals, addiction issues, their behavior can be explainable. That doesn’t make it justifiable.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: You don’t get to do that to people. You don’t get to do that to people and call yourself their friend. Yeah. That’s just bad behavior. That’s bad friend behavior. Your friend’s wedding is not about you. Your friend’s wedding is not about your recovery or your breakup or you trying to get back at your ex.
It’s just not, no matter how badly you were treated, no matter how badly you’re hurting, it’s not always about you.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: Period.
Christa Innis: A hundred percent. The fact, like the fact that his parents did all this and tried to get involved is gross, and I feel like Yes, yes. We don’t know. I mean, he sound, I mean, he must be very easily manipulated, but it sounds like he doesn’t really come from a good background.
If the parents are like, you know what? If we need him get to break up with this girl, so we’re gonna hire an escort for him to come to the wedding with him, pay for everything. It’s like, so did he not know or was he just like, oh, okay, cool. Like this girl seems better. I don’t know. Which is the
Rebecca Rogers: whole thing’s.
Everything about it is just weird. And it’s hard to know like what the truth is with those things. Like did he know, did he not? We don’t know. Right? Is that the first time he ever met her? We don’t know. Was he struggling ’cause he was mentally abused by the girlfriend? We don’t know. But what we, what we do know, like at the end of the day, your best, your friend is getting married, one of your best friends getting is getting married.
You know, you’re not gonna be asked to be a groomsman in a stranger’s wedding. More than likely, nine times out of 10 you’re gonna be asked by someone you’re very close to.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: For you to just blatantly not care about one of your best friend’s. Weddings like that. And even if he was in such emotional turmoil that in the moment he didn’t realize, and that’s possible, but then to be confronted with that and not care, that’s just a bad friend.
Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. I think that’s, that’s a bad friend. An issue is that he couldn’t even look back at his behavior and be like, you know what? I’m sorry. Like, my bad. Yeah. That is like, it makes me wonder like what the aftermath was. Like, are they still friends with this guy? Who is this guy? Like, was he just like a old high school friend that they rarely kept in touch?
You know, like there’s that friend where you’re like, you’re hanging on by a thread and you’re like, we still kiss three. Nice. The thread. Yeah. Red is, that has been snip now. Mm-hmm. So I’m just like, that is so like, you know what, like in the beginning when they’re like, oh, she, he brought someone else, whatever, fine.
Right? But at the end of the day, when it comes out to be all this, it’s like, no, you were blatantly disrespectful. You then when someone confronted you about it, you just, no apology. You cut off communication. Like so you know you were in the wrong. And also
Rebecca Rogers: if even another side I just thought about, and I don’t know what her exact profession is, I’m not sure.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: But like, if you’re professional, be a professional. You know? Mm-hmm. No matter what it was like, I’m, I’m never gonna be someone that’s sex shames, like sex or sex shames or, uh, shame sex workers or anything like that. You know, people do what they do. Their job is their job. That’s none of my business.
But if you’re gonna be a professional, be a professional. That doesn’t mean go in like, you know what you’re doing. You know that you’re eating other people’s food, you know, you’re bothering people on their wedding. You know that you’re getting into somewhere that you’re not supposed to be.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: What are you doing?
That’s, that’s crazy to me. And the fact that he tried to pass her off as a family friend is hysterical to me.
Christa Innis: Yeah. If you mean family friend, because your parents. Got found her first, paid her in. I mean, sure. That’s wild to me. That is really wild. Wow. And this is why, and so many people are like, when I share like videos about like plus ones or bringing a guest and stuff, people are like, oh, there’s so many brides stills.
It’s like, and not saying this is gonna happen at weddings. ’cause I’m sure this has not happened at a lot of weddings, but, but you never know. Rules happen. Rules are because of things like this happening, like, or people wanting to bring random tinder dates. I just read a story about that or like, oh yeah.
It’s like people do this because there people don’t understand boundaries or they you get Exactly. And that’s like whatever. It’s just another day. Like, I’m just gonna go hook up with this girl I just met in the groom suite. Like, why not? Like, because it’s
Rebecca Rogers: inappropriate. No, it’s the same reason that you don’t propose to someone at someone else’s wedding. It’s not your wedding. It’s not about you. Yeah, it doesn’t, you don’t have to get exactly what you want, the moment that you want it
Christa Innis: at someone else’s wedding. Oh my gosh. Speaking of that, so I’ve talked about that so many times, how it’s so tacky to do at someone else’s wedding and people have their own opinions.
Like if you are, if you’re asked ahead of time, sure. Whatever. But I just saw a video where a guy did it at his girlfriend’s, uh, college graduation. Literally as she’s walking up to grab her diploma, he walks up, cuts the teacher off, or the professor off from talking and proposes. And I was like, no. I was whoa, cringing so hard, such
Rebecca Rogers: a side story, but Oh, I don’t like that.
I don’t like that at all. No. There’s so many reasons that I don’t like that because I went to a high school that had a few thousand kids in the student body, like our class size was huge. We’re there all day long. You’re telling me you’re trying to add another 15 min, like you’re holding everybody else up?
Yes. Because you want, this is not about you. This is about all of us.
Christa Innis: We’re all here. We all graduated red flags. I saw red flags. Everyone was like, he couldn’t her have her moment of grabbing, you know, had to get back to him. Yes, that too. That’s how I saw that. Yes. And
Rebecca Rogers: yeah. Well, even like who, I feel like, I’m trying to think of how to phrase this.
I think that the effort someone puts into surprising their significant other for anything, a proposal included, says a lot about them and the relationship and things like that. Oh, this is already an event and everyone’s gonna be dressed up. I. Yeah. You, you didn’t wanna put forth any other, some of my cat’s climbing the screened in porch.
I’m like, please stop. Please don’t do that. Um, you like, unless the there is there a chance that there’s some big like emotional meaning behind this? Yeah, sure. We don’t know the context.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: But you couldn’t find anything more meaningful or significant or put forth a little bit more effort or not interrupt everybody else’s day.
Yeah. What?
Christa Innis: Yeah. That’s crazy to me. I was like, I had to talk about it, so I’m so glad you like, said that. It was like an opener. ’cause I’ve been dying to talk to someone about it. I saw it and I was like, oh my gosh. Oh my God. I don’t like that. I don’t like that at all. But that was a crazy story. I cannot,
Rebecca Rogers: yeah.
Christa Innis: This was insane.
Rebecca Rogers: I, my head’s just reeling and I’m thinking about like, what would I have done in that moment? I know I had a friend who, one of my best friends got married and I was her maid of honor, and there was a guest who was like, Hey, I see that the dress code says no jeans, but I’m going to come in a Hawaiian shirt to be funny.
And she was like, please don’t do that. And he did. He just came to this wedding, this beautiful mountain wedding in a Hawaiian shirt, in shorts to be funny. To be funny. See, to me that’s, I know I will, they want it to be more about them. They can’t just, exactly. Exactly. And like I understand there are people who are, who go a little overboard and put like very specific dress codes, and I don’t agree with that either.
Right. But you know, you cannot wear jeans for a day, or why do you have to do people always say, oh, it’s a prank. I think today, nowadays. People have lost what the actual meaning of a prank is. Yes. I don’t think it’s funny to upset somebody or to actually like ruin someone’s day or event or whatever. That’s not a prank.
Christa Innis: Yeah. If you
Rebecca Rogers: think it’s funny to like genuinely upset people or ruin someone’s time or ruin someone’s day that says more about you, like that’s not a prank. Oh yeah. A funny, it shouldn’t be funny to actually cause. Genuine upsetness or emotional harm that Oh yeah, it’s not cute. It’s not funny.
Christa Innis: The things that drive me nuts is the pranks where they like go out in public and like prank random people, like in a store or like kids. There was like a literally a woman that was, I think I wanna say she was pregnant and they like put a bucket on her head. Have you seen this? No, I don’t. No, don’t touch strangers.
Rebecca Rogers: No. Why are we touching
Christa Innis: strangers? And they like film it. They film their reaction and they’re like, they’re just, no one was just not a store shopping by herself. And like, she had, she had like a, a medical attention. She needed some medical attention because of it. And I’m like, no. Like, let’s, that’s not a prank.
That is like actually like No, that’s not cute. Yeah, that’s not,
Rebecca Rogers: it’s so crazy to me because especially in today, in today when you know, everyone talks, consent is key. Well, it doesn’t apply to me. ’cause it’s funny. It’s not sexual. It doesn’t matter. No. Why are we touching strangers? Why are we putting our hands on them?
Why are what, who raised you? Yeah. I don’t understand. Yeah, I don’t understand. That drives me cr I would not be happy. I would not be happy. And also like you never know. For example, like you never know what people are going through. You don’t know who has PTSD. You don’t know who suffers from anxiety or panic attacks.
You don’t understand who’s claustrophobia.
Christa Innis: Why, why no, why are we doing that? Yeah. If you have to prank someone like that, you need to come up with better content. Sorry.
Rebecca Rogers: You just, yes. Yeah. They’re looking for the shock factor. And I’m like, you don’t have good content. You just are shocking people. That’s why they’re, that’s why you’re getting views.
Yes. I don’t, and I, I don’t like being mean to people. I will never say someone’s content sucks or anything like that. I would never say that. That’s not content. Yeah. That’s inconveniencing people and going viral. ’cause people are so shocked this happened. They can’t look away. Yeah.
Christa Innis: It’s wrong, it’s bad behavior, how they react to something without their consent, you know?
So, I don’t know, I don’t even know how we got on that topic, but I love it. I love that. We, we, I love
Rebecca Rogers: it. No, I love it. I think it’s
Christa Innis: important. It’s a good thing to talk about. It’s like food for thought, you know? Yeah. We can, we can all think about all, yeah. Um, okay. We usually like to end these with confessions.
People send me confessions. Okay. So I’m gonna read a couple confessions and we’ll just react to them. Um, I know we’re okay and we’re a little over time, so hopefully No, that’s okay. I don’t, I don’t mind. If you don’t mind. I don’t mind. I don’t mind. Let’s do it. Okay. Yeah. Um, this says. Resent. Okay. I resent that out of the 300.
My eyes, I don’t know. I’m like, I need glasses or something. No, you’re good. You’re fine. I resent that out of the 365 days. My sister had to pick the same day as me to get married. Oh, the same day. Same day. I would kind of be weird about that too, I think. Yeah. Like why? Because like,
Rebecca Rogers: I, I, I know not every, I’ve learned recently that not everyone has the same kind of relationship with their sibling that I have with my brother.
My brother and I are so close. I love my brother. Like we travel together. We have, we’re the best of friends. Yeah. I love my soon to be sister-in-law. They’re not even engaged. I, they’re just perfect. You’ve just adapted her as that. I just love her so much. Um, like he, uh, he had to go to a wedding in Mexico and.
This is a, this is a tangent side note story. I’m so sorry. I love it.
Christa Innis: Hey, my list some stories
Rebecca Rogers: so it’s perfect. Oh, good, good. I, my, so my brother’s friend, very close friend got engaged. They were planning a wedding in Mexico and you have to plan accommodations and travel stuff for that very far in advance, like a year in advance.
And he had not met his now girlfriend at the time, but he assumed, yeah, I’m sure by then I’ll be seeing someone. God, I hope by then I’m seeing somebody. Yeah. Um, and he was the most perfect girl in the entire world for him, but she’s also a girl boss getting her PhD and she had doctorate exams the day after the wedding, so she wasn’t gonna be able to go.
So I graciously accompanied my brother on this wonderful trip. Had to chaperone to make sure he didn’t get kidnapped, of course. Right. Yeah. ’cause I’m such a good sister. Um. But I, I learned when I was there, like so many people were like, I could never go on that trip with my sibling. We’d rip each other’s throats out.
We don’t like each other enough to do that. Yeah. And that makes me sad because I, I’m so thankful for the relationship with my brother and if he wasn’t, like when I get, whenever I get remarried, whenever that may be. If it may be, I would be devastated if he wasn’t at my wedding. You can’t be at my wedding if we’re getting married on the same day.
Yeah. Whatcha
Christa Innis: doing well, whatcha doing? My thought is that not the same, my thought it wasn’t the same year, but I’m guessing like the same date. I don’t know, maybe, maybe I’m reading into it, but maybe, oh, I read same day
Rebecca Rogers: day. You might be right. Or I heard, I might have heard that if I could be wrong. You know what I mean?
I guess it could be either way. Yeah. Same year. I think that’s dumb to be mad at. Personally, not everyone has that opinion. I don’t When, like, when people get married, you don’t own a year, you don’t
Christa Innis: own No.
Rebecca Rogers: A season
Christa Innis: What I’m thinking is like if I got married today, like May 21st, 2025, the sister got married May 21st, 2026.
That’s what I was thinking. So like the same, their their anniversary is the same. Oh, they just have the
Rebecca Rogers: same anniversary? Yeah,
Christa Innis: that’s what I think.
Rebecca Rogers: Oh, why does that matter? You’re not hanging out with your sibling on your anniversary. Yeah. Why, why does that
Christa Innis: matter? Yeah. I don’t know. I, I could see where, that’d be kind of weird though.
Like, and maybe it’s the only date available. I don’t think it’s something that I would be like hold, like holding a grudge about, but I would be like. I don’t know. It’s kind of weird. I think everyone
Rebecca Rogers: is everyone’s of of feelings. If like, if that were to create emotion that’s valid. Like your feelings are your feelings, you can’t control your feelings.
Um, I, I don’t think I would get upset about that. Yeah. And I don’t think it’s something worth holding a grudge over. ’cause again, your anniversary is about your partner. Like when you go on anniversary trips, you’re going with your partner, you’re not going with your sister.
Christa Innis: Yeah. You’re not
Rebecca Rogers: going as a, it’s not a family trip.
It’s an anniversary.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Now I really wanna message this person and be like, okay, same. And like ask clarification. Yeah, yeah. Like you’re getting married at the same time. Because now that I’m reading it again, I’m like, okay, you might be right. And where, who’s the parents gonna go to? Right, right. Where are the parents gonna go?
She’s like, okay, we’re getting married at 5:00 PM on May 21st. And the sister’s like, cool. We’re getting married at 11:00 AM So no. Oh, my, okay. I need
Rebecca Rogers: to know, I need to know this clarification.
Christa Innis: I need to know. Okay. I, well, I’m gonna message this girl, girl or guy. I don’t know. I didn’t, I didn’t read the, I don’t know the, there’s sex.
Okay. Um, next one. We broke up the day after his aunt’s wedding. I was in the middle of all the family photos. This is, I think, a lot of people’s fears with like dates and plus ones. They always try to put them on like the sides. I never thought about that at my own wedding, and I don’t think we had that issue.
I think most people we invited were long-term relationships or married. Right. But you also never know someone could get a divorce, someone could break up. I don’t know exactly. That’s the, that’s just what happens. I don’t know.
Rebecca Rogers: I know somebody who. Had a family member bring a plus one and it, it was a long-term partners, they’re like, of course.
Yeah. Bring your long-term partner. Yeah, absolutely. The family member never revealed that they actually broke up and not only still brought them as like, I don’t wanna go alone, come with me. But like kept when they did family photos and the bride was like, oh, it’s a long-term partner, I don’t wanna leave him out.
Come on. Didn’t tell him to sit out of the family photos, like had him go be in everything. So were they st they, they completely had broken up. Oh, they broke? Yeah, they completely broke up. Were they like just good terms? She’s now completely married to a completely different person. Oh,
Christa Innis: weird. He is like, just come along please.
I don’t wanna be alone or have.
Rebecca Rogers: Right. Or Well, well, they, they had like, there was tension between her and her dad, and it was the bride’s family members. So it was like cousins, right? Yeah. And she didn’t want to go to the wedding with her father there alone, I suppose. Okay. So she asked the ex-boyfriend to pretend to still be the boyfriend.
Oh. But still included him in all the family photos.
Christa Innis: Oh my
Rebecca Rogers: God. Didn’t
Christa Innis: tell anybody. Didn’t give anyone a heads up. Yeah. And then like a week later they see, he’s like engaged to someone else. They’re like, wait, what? Well, I think, I think the
Rebecca Rogers: worst part about it is her mother knew and
Christa Innis: still didn’t
Rebecca Rogers: warn anybody, didn’t.
Christa Innis: She’s like, we’ll, leave it to them. It’s fine. Oh my gosh. Can you imagine though then like you’re in your ex’s like aunt’s photos for the rest of this, that’s their life. So I mean, I, you know, I really love that
Rebecca Rogers: about. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I was in my ex sister-in-law’s bridal party.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: I’ve been thinking about that a lot actually. So you’re, you’re forever a part of it. I, I think I’m on the end in a lot, which is great for them. I hope, I feel really bad. Oh, I, I, I like actually have been actively thinking about it for the last month. I’m like, I feel awful because they got married in September.
Yeah. And we separated in March. Oh. Or no, ma May, sorry. May. So, like it wasn’t even that long after. It wasn’t that long after. Mm-hmm. Oh my gosh. You’re like, well, mm-hmm. It’s all the memories. Yeah, when I saw an anniversary post, I like felt guilty for like a week. I was like, I know I had, I, I mean, how was I supposed to know?
You know, you don’t know what you don’t know, don’t know what you, but I still felt so bad about it.
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. It’s fine. Everything’s fine. There’s nothing wrong. That’s all good. Okay. This last confession says, I have gone no contact with my mother-in-law for two years, but I still see my father-in-law and they are married.
How does that work?
Rebecca Rogers: I,
Christa Innis: well, I would, well, I, I Is the father-in-law, mother-in-law divorced? No, it says they’re
Rebecca Rogers: married. Oh. Oh.
Christa Innis: We ended with that. They’re still married.
Rebecca Rogers: So do you watch that content creator that Shauna the mom? Yes. I love her. That makes me think of like, not associating with Barb, but going to painting class with Frank.
Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yes. It’s the, um, it’s the strong personality mother with the very passive dad that just wants to keep everyone, you know, involved with each other, like however. Yeah. But I feel like the barb though is very like, nosy, so it makes me wonder Yeah. Like, have they gone No contact. They blocked her Because if typ
Rebecca Rogers: like, think of personality types like Barb.
Barb is so self-absorbed. She doesn’t even know what Frank’s doing. Yeah. He doesn’t know or care. So why would she, why would she ever assume he was doing anything interesting? She takes no interest in his life. Yep.
Christa Innis: Oh, a hundred. That makes
Rebecca Rogers: sense to me. Yeah, that makes sense to me. If she can’t see what the son’s
Christa Innis: doing, she has no idea.
It makes me wonder if the father-in-law’s like lying. He’s like, I’m just gonna run out to the store. And then he is like, at their house, like hanging out and she’s like, have you heard from Jimmy? She, he probably,
Rebecca Rogers: I’m going out. Okay. And like, that’s it. Yeah. It’s that. I don’t even think people, people like that wouldn’t even ask, where are you going?
Yeah. Like they have the people that they care and they’re super extra nosy and anyone else, they don’t care. Yeah. Like with the sun. Super. Wanna be in the know. Super nosy.
Christa Innis: Anyone else? Doesn’t matter. Sorry, go ahead. I ied you. No. Oh my gosh. No, you’re good. Um, no, this is what we did. What did we say? This is like two and I’m, I’m not.
Diagnosed, but I’m like pretty sure I’m like a DHD of something. We’re the same person. I’m telling you. You
Rebecca Rogers: have a DH adhd. Yeah. So I
Christa Innis: don’t ever get offended. Yeah. I’m like, I don’t ever get offended when people try to talk over me. This is how feel teachers, adhd, communicate. This is what we do. Oh, we do.
This is how
Rebecca Rogers: we first
Christa Innis: or mean. Yeah. But I totally picture that like nineties sitcom where it’s the mom is like, or the wife is like doing everything around the house. She’s like, you know, busy body, naggy, whatever. That’s how they make them in the nineties or early two thousands. And then the husband’s just like on his lounger, he’s like running out.
You know? It’s just very like that dynamic. That’s exactly how I
Rebecca Rogers: picture Frank. Exactly how I picture Frank’s.
Christa Innis: That is so funny. I love that. Like the sick, oh, I love that vibes. Do you have any
Rebecca Rogers: confessions?
Christa Innis: Like personal confessions? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. I don’t know. I have, I, I could I, could I, oh, do you have, do you have some?
Let me think. Yeah. Yeah. I got some. I guess some. I never had a guest ask me if I have a confession.
Rebecca Rogers: Oh,
Christa Innis: ooh. If the
Rebecca Rogers: teacher in me, what are you bringing to the class?
Christa Innis: Well, I was, it’s funny because I was, I was just thinking like, I’m like, sometimes when, like I have certain, like, guests on and I’m just like, we’re just like vibing so well, I like kind of forget I’m recording sometimes and I’m like, did I say anything like that?
I should, like, earlier I was like, did I do a good job of masking who I was talking about? Um, so I’m like, I probably, I feel like I already kind of said some confessions. Um,
um, that’s okay. I, I can go. I’m so bad on the spot. I,
Rebecca Rogers: I think, hold on. I’m trying to think of how to word this.
I already know based off of. The wedding that I had with my ex-husband, I already have a list of things that I either don’t want or don’t care about or won’t waste any energy or emotion or anything on. Mm-hmm. In the slightest bit. I like, for example, I think, I’m trying to think of how to phrase this. I think looking back there were always signs and I think that there were things that I was worried about in regards to the wedding that now that I know myself better, I will not be worried about in my next wedding or will not be stressed about because the why will be different.
Christa Innis: Mm. Yeah. If that makes sense. No, totally. Um, I was just talking to someone how I feel like at different like stages of your life, and we might have talked about this before, but. You like, if I had gotten married in my early twenties, it would’ve been a completely different vibe. Like, I feel like, again, way more of a people pleaser, inviting every single person I know.
Mm-hmm. Of course though, like personal finances would’ve been way different, so I would’ve had to rely more on help. Yes. Um, but inviting everyone I knew I would had a different bridal party, probably not friends that were really there for me. And doing more of that, like people pleasing type, like what do you guys want for the wedding?
What do you guys picture for the wedding? Um, and I just feel like now, like my husband and I had been together for many years before we got married, that like we both kind of knew what we wanted. We were kind of over the people pleasing when it came to the wedding. Um, and it was easier for me to be like, no, I’m not gonna invite this person’s, you know?
Yes. That I barely see. No, I don’t care. Like we’re gonna make the cut right here, because I haven’t talked to them the whole time I’ve been engaged, you know, that kind of thing. Exactly. I’ve never met them. I think
Rebecca Rogers: that for me, I’ve, I, I’ve, I’ve really changed a lot of my outlook on a life and love and relationships in general.
Um, I used to be like a, well when, you know, when you know kind of person and love, you know, I think that there are some people who meet at a young age and they just find their person and it’s just a match made in heaven forever. I know I’m, I’m almost 30 years old and I have friends who have been dating since I know people who have been dating since they were eight years old.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Like
Rebecca Rogers: actually, wow. Um, and I, uh, other friends, their first date was the eighth grade dance, still married with kids and That’s beautiful. Wow. And that’s great. And I love that for them, that is not the normal. Yeah. And I actually. Not that I would ever force my opinion on anyone without asking, because if someone is like, oh my gosh, I think I wanna get engaged and they’re 22, I’m not gonna follow it up with, oh, I wouldn’t because Right, right.
But when people ask me, there’s so much that I learned about myself and I like, again, I told you in, in 2020, I really came into my own skin that I, I personally love the idea of getting married a little later when you’ve really become your true self, and I, I say this pretty often. I think everyone in general, when they finish school or trade school, whatever, whether it’s high school, college, grad school, whatever it is, when you establish yourself as as an adult and get your job, job and like really settle into adulthood, you settle into your adult.
Self.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: And it is not always what you think your life is going to look like at 22 when you’re finishing school, or 18 when you’re about to graduate, is not always what you will settle into by the time you are in your mid to late twenties.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Rebecca Rogers: And I think that’s when you really find yourself and figure out what you, not only what you want in life, but what you want your future family to look like and what you value in a partner.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Rogers: That’s so important. Yeah. Because as people either grow together or apart, and you can’t always control that, and people are still growing so much in their early twenties that. You, you don’t always know that early if it’s going to be apart or together.
Christa Innis: Yeah, no, I, I totally agree with that because like I said, like my husband and I were together many years before we got married, but like, I remember like week one, first few months people were already asking like, are you gonna get married?
Are you getting married? And like, I, we always felt these external pressures and I would always be like, are we behind schedule? We’d be dating for two years. He’d be like, oh, you’re, he hasn’t proposed yet. What’s he waiting for? And like making me feel like, oh, does he not love me? ’cause he hasn’t proposed yet.
This is like really deep stuff. And I was, and we would be perfectly fine. Like if it was just the two of us, we’d be great. And then that conversation would happen and I’d be like, I’d feel like I was like, wait, is something wrong? Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I’m like, wait, we were literally just fine. Why am I mad?
Because of what someone else said. I’m like, we are good in the same way with having kids. Like I didn’t have my daughter until I was 32 and I was like. That was perfect timing for me because I was a little more established in my career. Obviously I’ve made a pivot since then. Mm-hmm. But like I was more established in my career.
Like I, there’s no way, and I’ve always said I didn’t want kids in my twenties. I thought for me, and this is not anyone doing, yeah, everyone’s journey’s different, but it was just like, that would not have been the right time for me. It’s hard now in my thirties, but I feel like way more levelheaded now than I think I would’ve been.
And so I just feel like you have to listen to your own plan and what not necessarily a plan. Exactly. Your own thing. And like take out the external pressures, um, because it’s so easy to fall into of like, you know, oh, follow this timeline. I need to be married by this age and I need to have a baby by this age.
I, or you know, whatever. It’s just like you need to like realize like we’re all on our own timeline. Get to know yourself a little bit. Um. Yeah. No, I think that’s, that’s such a, such a good point of what you said. Good. I love that. Oh, I like that. A, I love words. Yeah, I love that. I love when it turns into that.
Well, thank you so much for coming on. Oh, of course. Thank you for having me. It was so fun. Like, like we said, like we could chat forever. Um, and I’m sure when I hang this up, we’ll chat a little bit more, but can you again, where they can find you, um, and anything fun you’re, you’re working on? Yes. Um, I’m working on my garden.
Rebecca Rogers: I’ve actually, that sounds fun. I, in, in, in reality, I’ve been so sick for the last two months that I’m so behind on work, so I’m just exci. I need to catch up. So that’s what I’m working on currently. But I’m Rebecca Rogers on all platforms, on YouTube, on Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram. Too many, too many places.
I need to calm down.
Christa Innis: I was like, you were like, you told me, you were like, you need to get on Snapchat. And I was like, girl, one more platform sounds So I, I’m gonna show
Rebecca Rogers: you we’re, we’re gonna, we’re, I’m gonna call you and I’m gonna show you how to easily integrate Snapchat with like the, the software stuff.
Yay. Yeah. Alright. Cool. We got, I got you. I got, I just need to get my head on straight first. All right. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Of course, of course. And thank you again for having me.
