Am I the Bridezilla? Drama at a Funeral and Reception Interrogations

“Am I still the most important woman in your life?”

In this week’s jaw-dropping submission, I dive into a bride’s story of boundary-crossing chaos that exploded during wedding week, from hospital drama and rehearsal dinner meltdowns to ceremony-day tantrums and reception sabotage. This MIL is all about being the “most important woman” in her son’s life, and trust me, it’s WILD.

I react in real time, call out the red flags, and give my unfiltered advice on how to protect your peace and set boundaries.

Plus, don’t forget to enter the anniversary giveaway! Subscribe to the HCTD podcast and YouTube channel, drop a comment saying “entered” on this episode, and you could win. Buckle up, this one’s a long ride.

Here are the winners from the last giveaway:
@charlynestyles
@itsjhonagurl
@partisgoingsomewhere
@alliyahdennisse

JOIN ME IN GREECE OCTOBER 2026!

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

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Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

  • Anniversary Giveaway Celebration – I kick things off by celebrating one year of Here Comes The Drama and share how you can enter to win gift cards.
  • “Am I Being a Bridezilla?” Dilemma – A bride reached out asking if she was being controlling as her bridesmaids pushed back on dresses, budgets, and bachelorette party expectations. I break it all down.
  • Bachelorette Budget Blowups – Money tension flares when expectations weren’t clearly communicated. I weigh in on fairness, financial boundaries, and how to handle these sticky situations.
  • Hair & Makeup Control Debate – I get real about when it’s reasonable to set appearance guidelines for your bridal party… and when it’s straight-up micromanaging.
  • Mother-in-Law Wedding Horror Story – A jaw-dropping submission shows years of boundary violations that spiral into full-blown chaos during wedding week.
  • The “Most Important Woman” Moment – At a funeral lunch, the MIL asks the groom if she’s still the most important woman in his life. I break down why this is a huge red flag and how to handle it.
  • Wedding Day Meltdowns – From rehearsal dinner drama to groom suite invasions and family photo hijacking, I walk through the wedding-day disasters and what could’ve been done differently.
  • Boundary Advice & Protecting Your Peace – I close the episode with actionable advice on standing up for your partner, setting limits with toxic relatives, and keeping your emotional well-being front and center.

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

  • “When you agree to be a bridesmaid, you’re agreeing to the bride’s vision.” 
  • “Communication would’ve saved about 80% of this wedding stress.” 
  • “Your wedding gifts are gifts — not emotional leverage.” 
  • “You don’t get unlimited access to someone’s life just because you share DNA.”
  • “If someone is competing with their child’s spouse, that’s not love, that’s control.” 
  • “Protecting your peace is more important than keeping toxic people comfortable.”
  • “Your wedding is not the place for someone else’s emotional meltdown.” 
  • “Being family doesn’t excuse toxic behavior.” 

*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.

Join the Drama with Christa Innis:

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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!

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. Thanks for being here. If it’s your first time, welcome, you are in for a drama filled episode as always,

But this week we have two long stories because we have our regular follower submission at the very end. But in the beginning we have a wedding dilemma and typically those are shorter segments where people just wanna get some quick advice for something that’s going on right now with their wedding planning or event planning.

But this one’s a little bit longer, but I decided it was a good podcast story to take on. you guys will see why, but I thought it was a good one to discuss on here. Before we dive into that, our new year giveaway has ended. So we did a new year giveaway, just to give back to you guys.

I’m excited for what’s to come this year with the podcast. so the names of our four winners have been announced on social media and then there’ll also be in our show notes below. So make sure you check down below. If you shared the podcast in any way to enter, you might be one of the winners.

Anniversary Giveaway Celebration

Now don’t worry if you missed the giveaway. If you didn’t enter or you didn’t win because we currently have our anniversary giveaway going on. that was kind of bad planning on my part, but maybe it’s good planning ’cause there’s extra winners now. So one winner will get a $150 Visa gift card, and two listeners will win a $25 Amazon gift card.

And to enter, just make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and then comment, enter on this video, for the episode. So if you guys aren’t aware, all of our podcast episodes are also put on YouTube in full video. and if you just comment below, enter just needs to be in your, comment at some point so you can say, Hey, I love the color purple, my favorite food spaghetti.

That bride was crazy. And then just put entered at some point. winners will be announced on March 12th, and we will reach out to you directly, and kind of let you know the next steps to claim your prize. And of course, just to cover all my bases, I just wanna say the giveaway is not affiliated with or sponsored by YouTube, apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon, or this is just purely outta the kindness of my heart.

No, but, just a way to give back to you guys. We’ve had an amazing year of episodes and I just can’t believe it’s already been the first year. I’m just blown away by your support and your excitement. and it just makes my day. So thank you guys so much for being here with me and listening to the episode.

Today I am drinking coffee out of my wicked mug. If you guys don’t know, if you don’t follow me on socials or see my stories on Instagram, I think I update stories a little bit more on Instagram, but you’ll see me post about my mugs. my husband got me this for Christmas this year. It’s so cute. If you’re watching the video, you can see it, but it’s like wicked.

It’s alpha on one side and Glenda on the other as I splash. Coffee in my eye. Yeah. Um, okay. Anyway, if I’m not waking up by drinking this coffee, it’ll surely wake me up by splashing it in my eye. Anyway, that was interesting. 

Wedding Dilemma Begins: “Am I Being a Bridezilla?”

Okay, let’s get into the episode. Um, okay. We’re gonna start with the wedding dilemma and the title of it.

If this doesn’t pull you in, I don’t know what will is. Am I being a bridezilla? So I thought this was interesting. I have not read through the whole thing. I did a quick little glance and I was like, Ooh, this is a podcast one. Let’s get into it. Okay. So this is a long dilemma, like I said. So we’re gonna dive into some different parts of this.

I am gonna pause at certain parts because I feel like if I wait completely to the end to respond, I’m gonna forget many of my points and I’m gonna forget what happens. So let’s dive into this together. All right. She says. All right, so I need some advice on wedding planning.

I’m getting married in 2026. I have three bridesmaids, including my maid of honor. My maid of honor is my sister. Let’s call her Anna Bridesmaid. One is Sarah and bridesmaid two is Laura. During the bridesmaids dinner, when I asked the girls to be in my bridal party, they immediately asked about dresses and if I’d been looking yet.

I told them yes and showed them what my maid of honor would be wearing. I’ll attach the photos later. They said it was beautiful and would look great on Anna. Okay, so they liked the maid of honor dress. Then they asked what their dresses would look like, so I showed them an option for the bridesmaid dresses.

Sarah completely freaked out. She told me the dress wasn’t beautiful, that it was ugly, and that it would make her look like a nun. She said she would feel uncomfortable in it and wanted to keep looking, okay, I’m gonna pause there before knowing anything. I would never react in that way. If, the bride came to me and said, what’s your opinion?

Do you like this dress? I could be like, you know what? It’s not my favorite. That’s not my style. I don’t like blank about the dress, but if it was me that said, Hey, have you started looking? And she showed me a dress and was like, here, this is what I’m kind of thinking. I’m not gonna be like, oh, I hate it.

That’s disgusting. I would look like a nun. I’d feel blah, blah, blah. And you need to keep looking like. When you are agreeing to be a bridesmaid, you have to agree to their vision, right? Yes. We don’t want you to be uncomfortable. You should wear something that makes you feel comfortable. you don’t want like a super tight dress where you can’t walk in or you don’t want something that’s gonna show cleavage if you don’t feel comfortable in that, right?

 it’s about what you are comfortable in. Yes. But ultimately you are agreeing to fit the vision for the wedding. So there’s a little bit of push and pull here. okay, so she says two days later I came up with two more dress options and showed them to the bridesmaids. So now that you’re giving them options, now you’re kind of agreeing to let them give their full opinion when you are a bride and you’re like, this is the option.

This is what we’re doing. They kind have less wiggle room. if you’re like, I haven’t really decided yet, so tell me what you like. Then you’re letting them give their opinions. Laura said she didn’t love any of the dresses, but she loved me enough to wear them for the day. She said it might not be her style, but it’s ultimately my wedding for the day.

That is the right response. That is the right response. ‘ cause let me tell you, I’ve been in tons of weddings. some I loved some, I absolutely adored and loved some. I was like, nah, I don’t think there were any at the time of wearing them that I completely hated. Looking back, I’m like, whoa, what were we doing?

But it was probably more the style. at the time of wearing them, I don’t think any of ’em I hated. but again, it’s what you kind of agreed to as being a bridesmaid. That being said, and I’ve talked about this before too, I’ve been in some weddings where the bride had no clue what she wanted.

She didn’t know the color or the style. So we all went blindly to a shop together and we kind of chose together. was it always peaceful or was it always unanimous? No, many times it was picking favorites or it was whoever’s voice was the loudest or it was voting. Right. Those are more tricky because you’re getting so many opinions.

And that’s my one piece of advice I would say to brides is before you talk to your bridesmaids, have an idea of what you want, the color, the general style, maybe a couple places, because when you don’t have an idea and you open it up to all these opinions, then it looks like you’re picking favorites.

Right. And then you have to be the. Mean person and say, no, no, no. so that’s my advice is before asking, say, these are the dresses, right? Like for me, and I’ve talked about this before, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself, but for me, I knew I liked Birdy Grey. Again, not sponsored, I’ve just worn them for so many weddings.

I liked Birdy Grey. I liked that you could order them online. I liked that it was all under a hundred dollars. So I said, I like all the mauve versions. I don’t care if you get light mauve, medium mauve, dark mauve, there’s even a patterned one. I was like, any of those are fine. Any style dress in the mauve family. So I knew this before even telling any of my bridesmaids.

Now again, if one of my bridesmaids came to me and said, ah, I hate the color mauve, I, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I guess it just depends on the situation. it looked great on everyone. And generally I think everyone liked their dress. So it gets tricky when you kind of open people up to that.

Right. Um, okay. Sarah, however, so this is bridesmaid one said the dress was absolutely hideous and that she would not wear it. She insisted we needed to keep looking. So now I have a problem with Sarah. Okay. I get, again, being, wanting to be comfortable in a dress, but to go off the deep end and say the dress is hideous.

We need to keep looking. It’s not your day girlfriend. Like the bride has an idea. She’s now shown you three different dresses. I think you just need to say, like, suck it up and say you’re gonna, do it for her wedding day because this is supposed to be like one of her best friends, right. After that dinner, Sarah called both Laura and my sister Anna, and tried to convince them that the dress I chose wasn’t a good option.

She wanted them to join her in pushing me to keep looking and convince me to change my mind. So she realizes the other two are easier to like get along with. So she’s like, okay, if I can convince them to tell her, then she’ll change the dress. Sorry that I keep touching my hair if anyone’s watching.

Someone commented once, like, can you not touch your hair? And I’m like, I wish. I don’t even realize I’m doing it sometimes. So sorry. anyway, so I sat the girls down and asked them what kind of dress they were hoping for. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now you’re giving them full reins. Now you’re giving them full reins.

And maybe this is the type A, I don’t know if I was a Type A bride, I probably was, I don’t know, type A B, I think I was B. I think I was a type B in some ways. Now you’re opening up all the opinions. So like, doesn’t matter what you say, they’re gonna tell you what they want. I was asking what kind of dress they were hoping for because the options I chose were normal bridesmaid dresses.

Sarah told me she wanted a dress where she could show more cleavage. She wanted it short and tight, and if it was long, she wanted it very tight. Okay.

I have no issues with a tight dress. Obviously it’s up to the bride. Right. But you want it short and tight. Typically, a bridesmaid dress is gonna be floor length. I’ve worn a lot of jumpsuits in weddings, floor length. even as a guest at a wedding, I’m not wearing a super short dress. I think maybe a couple times I have shorter.

It just depends. Everyone has their own, whatever they’re comfortable in, right? But to specifically say the bride, I want a short and tight dress. I want my cleavage showing.

Do it outta your wedding. She says, I’ve tried explaining to her, my family is very conservative and I’m trying to choose something that fits the vibe and is appropriate for the wedding. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a short, tight dress. again, when you are a bridesmaid and you are agreeing to be a bridesmaid in someone else’s wedding, you are fitting their vision.

You are fitting what they want for the wedding, right? You don’t get to just pick a short and tight dress for the club because you wanna look hot up there. everyone deserves to look beautiful and great. But again, we have to kind of fit what we agreed. We agreed to be in someone else’s wedding.

It’s not your wedding. 

Bridesmaid Behavior + Bachelorette Budget Chaos

All right, fast forward to planning the bachelorette party. we started sending prices in the group chat to make sure everyone could afford the trip and the activities we were discussing. Everyone agreed the prices were reasonable and we were planning to have our money in by the deposit date.

I’m guessing for like an Airbnb or something. But Sarah waited until two weeks before the deposit date was due to tell me she wouldn’t have her money until the week before the trip. She also expected me to cover her cost, even though I’m the bride. So this is a two part thing. So she waited to say she didn’t have the money, or she wouldn’t have it until a week before, but then she expected the bride to cover her cost.

So what does her not having the money have anything to do with it? If she thinks this whole time the bride’s gonna cover her cost, that’s where I’m kind of lost and confused. This is something that has to be established before all of this. You need to make it clear. ‘ cause like I said, pretty much all the bachelorette parties I’ve been a part of, we pay for the bride.

All the girls split it, so we don’t want the bride to have to pay for her own drinks or all this, but you gotta talk to your people, right? If it’s just the four of them, that can be pretty expensive, right? Whereas if you have 10 girls and you evenly split it, then they’re all not paying as much. Right. so I don’t know if there’s other people there as well.

She said when I told her normally everyone pays for their own way to the bachelorette party and the bridesmaids split the cost for the bride. She flipped out. Why is the bridesmaid just finding out about this? Because if she’s never been in a wedding before, I can’t really blame her for not knowing. And again, this is gonna differ for different friend groups.

For where you’re located country-wise, where in US or otherwise? it’s different. My friend group, like when we even go out for a birthday dinner, we’re not letting the birthday person pay birthday person birthday girl. We are splitting it. The three friends that came, we’re gonna split their meal.

That’s just how our friend group is. We do a bachelorette party trip. I’ve been on bachelorette party trips where there’s five girls. I’ve been on bachelorette parties where there’s 30 girls. get into that another time. 30 women I should say. And that was probably my first, no, that’s why my second bachelorette party and I planned the whole thing with two other people and that was probably the most stressful thing I ever planned.

But anyway, when you do that, when you have different amounts of people, it’s going to differ. But anyway, you need to let people know all of those. We always paid for the bride. We split it all. We did not want the bride paying for drinks, how to get there. any of that. My own bachelorette party, I think I was able to sneak in one round of drinks for my friends, but other than that, they took care of everything for me.

That again, you should never, as the bride, you should never assume that they’re going to pay for you, especially if you’re flying somewhere. Like you need to know your friend’s budgets. when I went on these more expensive bachelorette party trips, I was already like, mm, somewhere late twenties, somewhere.

Early thirties. Yeah. Late twenties, early thirties were the more expensive ones where I could afford a little bit more. Right. if I were in my early twenties, I don’t think I’d be able to afford these longer, longer trips. So you really have to know your audience. You have to know if they can afford it, and we can’t get mad at people when they say they can’t afford it.

She said she wouldn’t be able to afford it and that my wedding was costing her around a thousand dollars, which wasn’t fair. Full stop before I keep going and I know some people don’t like when I keep stopping, but there’s a lot to say about this. That’s a lot of money to a lot of people. A thousand dollars to put into a wedding is a lot.

And she is now communicating to you, I can’t afford this. So at it’s our job at that point as the bride to say, do we need to tone back the bachelorette party? Can I help cover some of her? I don’t think it’s completely like black and white. I don’t think it’s like, well, she’s a bridesmaid so she has to pay her way.

I’ve talked about this before. When I was a bridesmaid, I had a couple bridesmaids reach out to me, or it was a maid of honor. I had a couple bridesmaids reach out to me and say, I don’t think I can afford this. and it was a local one ’cause they had other bachelorette parties, they had other vacations planned and I said, what can you afford?

I’ll cover the rest. I said, maybe don’t come one of the nights. maybe, we’ll, let me see what discount I can get at the hotel. So I tried as the maid of honor to do other things. Okay, so she says, what I wanna point out is that I, the bride have already purchased a lot for them, including their wedding shoes, their jewelry, the pajamas we get ready in.

All the bachelorette party favors, all the decorations. Okay? This is where I’m gonna get, like think I am a against the bride in this, You purchasing bachelorette party decorations and favors is not their problem. That is a gift, Pajamas for them to get ready in is not their problem. That is also a gift.

I got gifts for my bridesmaids. I would never be like, I did this for you, so you owe me, you can spend more money at my bachelorette party because I did this for you. No, those were gifts. You don’t need matching pajamas. You don’t need bachelorette party favors and you don’t need decorations. Are they great?

Are they nice? Yes. Did I have ’em at mine? Yes. Did I have them at most of the perpetual art parties I went to? Yes, absolutely. But it’s not the bridesmaids problem if you spent more Right? That does not take away from the fact that she is still spending around a thousand dollars to be a a part of your wedding.

 I absolutely don’t think you are the bridezilla, when it comes to the dress situation. So far what I’ve read, but this part, if she’s coming to you and saying, I can’t afford it, she have waited until two weeks before? Of course not. But it seems like there’s some communication issue between the two of you guys.

She didn’t realize that she was expected to cover her way, and also that you were expecting all the bridesmaids to chip in and pay for her. So this needs to be established. She said, I’m also basically planning my own bachelorette party because my maid of honor lives in Miami and won’t be there for the first night.

During all of this, Sarah and Laura also texted in the bachelorette group chat that they wanted to go skydiving, which would be $359 per person. Okay. I might have to take back some of what I said, but at the same time, they didn’t have enough money to pay for the trip deposit on time, so now wait. So they both didn’t have enough money, and they said they couldn’t even put aside $10 for one of my meals because the stress is becoming so overwhelming.

I eventually stopped bringing up the bachelorette party bridesmaids dresses and other wedding related details. Here’s the thing, if I was hearing from multiple people in my wedding party, they couldn’t afford the deposit or they couldn’t afford certain things, I would tone it back. I don’t know if they’re flying anywhere.

I don’t know if they’re renting a house, but it sounds like, okay, maid of honor can’t make it there the first night. Maybe we just take out the first night. Maybe we make it two nights instead of three or whatever they’re doing. Right. Maybe we take out something, let’s work together to see how we can make it work.

I am typically, the bride is not involved in planning, but it sounds like, I’m not hearing any of their names or any of their bridesmaids. So it sounds like it’s just the four of them. So I get why she’s very involved. but there’s again, a lot of communication. Um, it’s hard. It’s, it’s like we have to remember when people are going to our bachelorette, they’re also taking off vacation days.

They’re taking time away from their families. They’re spending money away, so they also are gonna wanna do things they enjoy. This is where I think. Bridesmaids plan away from the bride and then they surprise you. But we also need to, work together on the budget. Okay, guys, this is still going.

Hair & Makeup Debate

There’s, there’s a lot. There’s a lot going on. So I’m saying like this is the longest dilemma, but I feel like it was one that really needed to be discussed. Okay. Later hair and makeup came up. The bridesmaids asked if I was going to pay for them to get their hair and makeup done. I told them no. If they would like to hire the makeup artist, they are welcome to pay for it themselves, but I won’t be paying for everyone.

I told them I want the bridesmaids to have minimal makeup and curled hair while I, the bride will have more extravagant makeup and hair. When I explained this to Sarah, she told me she wanted to do her own hair however she wanted, and wear her makeup however she wanted. I understand. Wanting to feel comfortable and I’m.

Really not trying to be selfish, but at the same time, it’s my wedding. All right? I need a sip of coffee for this one.

I’m not gonna lie in reading this alone, I kept moving side to side of like whose side or whose team I was on. Okay? First and foremost, if you are not requiring hair and makeup to be done, you do not have to pay for it as the bride. this is my own personal take. You do not need to pay for it. If you are saying everyone needs their hair and makeup done, you should be paying for it.

 I recommend brides, even if they’re not gonna be paying for everyone to get their hair and makeup done. Reach out to all your brides and bridesmaids and groomsmen, whoever would want hair and makeup, whatever parents. See who all wants it. Done. If you have a good chunk of people that want it done, you should hire a makeup artist and a hair person.

That’s not saying you’re paying for it, but that’s saying you have someone there on site. if you’re not requiring it and no one wants to pay for it, then they should be able to do it themselves how they want to. if you are telling them a certain way to do their hair and their makeup, you should be paying for it.

I don’t know. Is that a hot take? Because now you’re telling them that they have to either tone it down or tone it up from what they normally do. Maybe they don’t know how to curl their hair, so they need someone hired. So you’re telling them You want it a specific way. So I think in that case in point, you should probably pay for it.

Sarah is saying, I’m willing to do my hair and makeup, but I wanna do it how I’m comfortable doing it. I’m sorry, I’m with Sarah in this moment. If I’m a part of a wedding and I’m being told, Hey, you have to do your hair this way and your makeup this way, I’ll try my best. Sure. I’m not gonna be like rude about it, but, everyone has their own like talents and how they’re comfortable with doing hair and makeup, so I kind of go back and forth on this one.

I don’t think you’re being a bridezilla of course, but I don’t think we can control too much about how people do their hair and makeup. You can say like, oh, I don’t want bright red lipstick. Sure. but to say minimal makeup. Then you get extravagant. it’s kinda lost on me. ‘ cause I think you should want your bridesmaid to look just as beautiful.

Have them do full glam if they want, have them do their hair how they want. It’s not like she’s, I mean, maybe she is, but it’s not like she’s trying to like do space buns with like, glitter all over it. I mean, I’m sure, hopefully not, but unless that’s her vibe. so I get having some, hey, like, I really want everyone to do an updo.

Sure. I really want everyone to do loose curls. Okay, sure. But when you get too specific about what everyone should look like, that’s when I gets kind of lost on me. Okay. Next one. This is the last little issue. About a week later, the dress conversation came back up again. Sarah told me her budget for the dress and her daughter’s dress is $200 total.

I guess her daughter’s in the wedding or coming to the wedding. This is the first I’m hearing of the daughter. Her daughter’s dress is $35, meaning the remaining budget for her own dress would be around 165. The dress I found for her is $90. She told me it was too expensive, so I showed her another option for 65, but she said there was quote, no way in hell she would wear that dress to my wedding because it would make her uncomfortable.

So I’m guessing that was the first one. Sarah has been my best friend for seven years, but at this point I don’t know what to do. Wouldn’t a best friend be willing to wear a dress for six hours for my wedding, even if it’s not their favorite style Or am I being extra and selfish?

Also, am I being selfish about the hair and makeup expectations? Is that me being too controlling? it’s not that I’m worried she’s going to take the spotlight, but Sarah likes being the center of attention and the day isn’t about her. Do I sound selfish? Am I being a bridezilla?

All right. So obviously I’ve shared my points throughout this, but let me do the dress budget thing. this is gonna depend if Sarah’s daughter is in the wedding as the bride, I would be paying for the daughter’s dress. We paid for any of the kids that were in our wedding, we paid for them. if not, I mean, you can say your budget is a certain amount, but if like you wanna stick a little bit lower, that’s her own choice.

Right. Okay. So let me ask, answer your questions. Wouldn’t a best friend be willing to wear a dress for six hours for my wedding, even if it’s not their favorite style? Yes, absolutely. You are not being extra or selfish about that. I think you need to tell ’em straight up, this is the dress I chose, wear it or don’t.

I don’t know. I would wear it for my best friends. They could tell me to put on a brown paper bag and I would wear it, because it’s their day, right? So, I don’t know. I do not think you’re being extra selfish or bridezilla for that. Am I being selfish about the hair and makeup expectations? Is that me being too controlling?

I would say yes a little bit. I think you are being a little too controlling about that. Like I said, if you are hiring a makeup artist and paying for it, then you can control how the hair and makeup is done. If you are hiring a makeup artist and they are paying for it, or they are doing it themselves, you gotta just let them do it.

That is my own personal opinion. someone else may have a different one, but I think you’ve gotta let them do what they’re gonna do. You can again, give guidelines, but that’s it. she says, it’s not that I’m worried she’s gonna take the spotlight, but Sarah lives being the center of attention.

Here is my problem about that statement. You already see an issue here. Why are we worried our friend is going to take attention away from us? It says, I’m not worried, but she likes being the center of attention.

No matter how she gets her hair and makeup done, she will not be the center of attention. And that’s not gonna add to it. Someone trying to be the center of attention is gonna be louder or, move around a certain way. I don’t know. Right? Trying to take away from you. And if you’re worried about that, she’s probably already not a good friend to you.

‘ cause most friends are gonna wanna lift you up. Either supporting you, help you in any way, right? allowing her to do her hair and makeup, how she wants it to. Giving her full glam how she wants it to, that’s not going to take away from you. Everyone’s gonna know you’re the bride. So I would say pull back the reins a little bit on that.

Let them do what they want, but be more firm with the dresses. Say the next time the dresses come up, say, okay, you know what, gimme a week guys. I’m gonna finalize it and then I will let you know what dress we need to order, okay? and just be clear on that. Now, I think the wedding is coming up pretty soon, so if you haven’t already ordered the dresses, you’re probably gonna wanna order them soon.

I will message you that, because by the time this comes out, it might be a little bit closer to the date. I think it’s gonna come out a month from recording this. So I’m gonna let you know my points directly. I would be very clear, all right, I looked over all these dresses, this is what I decided.

Because right now you’re giving them too many options and you’re allowing them to give their opinions. So if you don’t want them to give their opinions, tell them this is the option. here’s the website you can choose from A, B, or C. By next week. Let me know what you picked. If by next week they haven’t picked the dress, or they haven’t ordered the dress, you say like, Hey, we need to order it by this date.

Do you still wanna be a part of this wedding? then let them know. And for anyone listening now, that is like in these beginning stages of planning their wedding, communication, communication, communication. In the very beginning when you ask to be a part of the wedding, tell them what the expectations are.

Say hi. Just letting you guys know. we are gonna have a bachelorette party. Typically, that means like bridesmaids cover it. Please let me know your budget. we can talk about it, at a later date, but I just wanna make sure like you guys know, this is the expectation. It’s really important to be clear.

 especially when friends are from different groups, they might all do it differently, and I don’t think it should ever be an expectation without communicating that they’re gonna pay for you. For me personally, it was more important that a certain friend could make it to my bachelorette party or to my wedding than being able to afford something.

So if someone came to me and they were like, I can’t afford to get my dress, I’d be like, well, Can I pay for it? How can I help? And again, your gifts that you got, the bridesmaids as extra or the bachelorette party decorations or gift bags. Has nothing to do with their own personal budget.

That’s something extra that you wanted to give them as a gift. So that has to remain as a gift. That’s not a string attached. All right. I hope that helps. I know that was a lot, but I really hope that helps and I hope you guys have an amazing rest of your wedding experience and wedding planning. And, I’ll be sure to reach out my direct comments to you, she did send me pictures of the dresses, but for her own privacy, I’m not gonna share them on here because I don’t want her, bridesmaids to know.

 but yeah, that’s my own personal take. I mean, looking at the dresses myself, I think they look, yeah, maybe they’re a little more conservative, but I don’t see anything wrong with them. I think they’re perfectly acceptable and beautiful dresses. and.

I take that back. No, they’re gorgeous dresses. I would absolutely wear these as a bridesmaid. the first one looks a little more conservative, but I think it’s still gorgeous. It’s very cute. It’s without showing the picture. It’s like an off the shoulder. sure it’s up a little higher, but it’s off the shoulder, which is sexy.

 and it’s a perfectly good length. It’s like a little longer. The other one is off the shoulder and shows a little leg. So totally sexy. Totally a cute dress. I think I would wear it. So there’s that. Again, I’m not the end all be all when it comes to, Opinions and dresses. That’s just my own personal opinion.

All right, guys, that was just the wedding dilemma. We’ve still got a lot more drama to dive into. All right. Again, if you have a wedding 911 or a wedding dilemma you want me to, talk about on the podcast, which I do these on my solo episodes, you can email me at hello@christainnis.com. Use the subject line wedding 911.

Would You Rather: Wedding Edition

All right. Before we get to this week’s line reaction, we’re gonna do a little would you rather,

all right. Would you rather a relative live stream, your ceremony or post unapproved photos immediately? as long as it’s after the ceremony. I would say post unapproved photos. I don’t need to approve every photo livestream. The ceremony feels a little invasive to me because if you weren’t invited to be a part of the ceremony, I don’t want everybody seeing that, and I don’t know where that is or that is on Facebook.

Do people live stream weddings on Facebook? No. No, thank you. would you rather be guilt tripped into inviting someone or deal with the fallout for not inviting them? Deal with the fallout if they were not on my original list to invite, that’s because they weren’t close enough to me. Oh. I would will say a couple years later, I do have some regrets of people I did not invite, but no one ever guilt tripped me for inviting them or not.

I just thought about it later and I was like, I kinda wish I would’ve invited them. But what can you now, okay. Would you rather have an empty dance floor or dance floor chaos with injuries? Ooh, what kind of injuries are we talking about? I hate an empty dance floor. I despise an empty dance floor.

Why have a dance floor if no one is on it? The best weddings I’ve ever been to is when there’s a packed dance floor. Maybe some people fall. I don’t know. We got heels on, so that’s why you take ’em off. I’m gonna say injuries, praying and hoping they are minor injuries. Like maybe someone just falls in their butt and they have to like sit down and sit out for a little bit.

Empty dance floor. No thank you. I don’t wanna be to an event where there’s an empty dance floor. when my husband and I went to our first wedding together, I knew he was the one because no, this is just me being, funny. my family, when we were at weddings, we were all on the dance floor all night long.

You can see my mom, my parents are on the dance floor. my cousin, like we aunts and uncles, we are all on the dance floor. So, when I went to the first wedding with my husband and his family, they were the same way. I was like, yes, I have a fun. Fun in-law, like family to go into at that point we’d only been dating like six months, so I wasn’t thinking about weddings yet, but, you need a crowded dance floor.

Anyway, that was a long side story. Would you rather seat exes together or seat feuding relatives together?

This sounds like a familiar one I did before, but whatever. I think I’d rather seat exes together because I think in general, and this might be just my own perspective, i think relatives that are feuding goes a little bit deeper, right? That’s gonna hurt a little bit more. Someone knows how to get under their skin.

Exes. I think it goes one of two ways. They either know how to completely ignore each other at that point ’cause they’re just done. or they can just like banter and just be like, you’re an idiot. I don’t know. Or if you read enough romance, comedy, romantic comedy books, maybe they’ll just vibe that night and have like a little, little fling for the night.

 Okay. Would you rather a guest bring someone you hate or not show up at all? Not show up at all. I don’t want someone I hate at my wedding. Would you rather have people RUP yes and not show or RUP no and show up?

Professionally speaking, I would say yes and not show up. But as a bride, if it’s someone I invited that I was like kind of bummed that they weren’t coming and then they just showed up, I’d be like, oh my God, you’re here. What a nice surprise. After the fact, after we eat dinner and stuff, would you rather cut decor or cut the open bar?

Cut decor. We need the open bar. Thank you. Would you rather go cheap on flowers or go cheap on food? Cheap on flowers. I used a friend’s, I don’t know, silk flowers and they looked great. I would not go cheap on food, but we did go cheap or on food. I did not do a full plated thing that was like $200 a plate.

We did a taco buffet, taco bar, and then we had late night snack of pizza. Yes, and I got married in my thirties. 

The Mother-in-Law Red Flags

All right, here we go guys. Who is ready? Holy macaroni. This is a long, all right, let’s get comfortable guys. Pour a glass of wine, get a cup of coffee, whatever time of day it is. Whatever you drink, buckle your seat belts.

Let’s dive in. Let me start by saying that overall the wedding was absolutely beautiful, truly something out of a storybook. I had an incredible support system that worked hard to keep almost all the chaos away from my husband and me on the day itself. We started dating about five years ago, and the very first time I met his mother, just one month into our relationship, she talked extensively about her pregnancy and about me eventually carrying his kids.

Whoa. One month in I’d be like, okay, it’s a little, a little much. That would’ve scared me away. It was a strange thing to say to someone you’ve just met, but it didn’t stop from there. She continued to bring it up every chance she got when we decided to move in together, she invited herself to stay with us for a week.

How, how does that happen a week? Who is not talking to her? Your husband is not telling her, no mom, this is ridiculous. Get out. How does that happen? That week caused so much chaos between my husband and me. That was their first place living together and she ruined it. Your first week living together is like so exciting, but also scary ’cause you’re like, okay, am I gonna learn these weird habits?

Are we gonna like mesh well? And then you’re like, this is like a fun, well at least for me it was, it was like a fun sleepover. I’m like, oh my gosh, we never have to leave. Oh my gosh, this is so fun. imagine if their mom was there. That would kill the vibe. Okay. Why did he say no? I have so many questions.

I ended up breaking down crying in a target parking lot because of her antics. Later that same evening, she had him crawling inside a trash compactor and refused to let us back into the car until he did it. What? For the next three years, it was an exhausting and toxic cycle. She terrorized my husband, my family, and me.

Eventually we bought our home and decided to host Thanksgiving instead of splitting the holidays among four sets of divorced parents. Both of our parents are divorced, but only mine get along something his mother despises and frequently comments on because she can’t do it herself.

Oh my gosh. I still have so many questions about that first week of her just moving in and welcoming herself. Why did your husband not say anything? I’m just very like my space kind of thing. So like when I invite people, I want more the merrier. I love combining friends and groups. Like just all come one, come on and come all, but don’t show up unannounced.

And don’t expect you can like, make, stay and don’t extend that. Stay. Like if you ask me, I’m like, yeah, we’re, I’m more than willing to help. But like when I read stuff like that, I’m like, oh my gosh, it’s terrible. The first Thanksgiving was manageable despite a few fits. A year later, we decided to host again.

This time we were engaged. The FaceTime call to tell her about the engagement was memorable. So was the mom not at. Oh, she was saying she FaceTimed before this. Okay. She spent the entire call showing us the shoes she had picked out for the wedding, and repeatedly saying that she was the first to know he was going to propose.

In reality, I was with him when we picked out and bought the ring and he called my parents first to ask for their permission, then his dad and finally his mom to let her know he was planning to propose. He proposed in May and by Thanksgiving we already had the venue dress photographer and possibly catering booked.

You go girl. When Thanksgiving rolled around, she arrived in a foul mood, furious that my parents were already there and complaining that she wanted alone time with us. We had explicitly told her a month prior that Thanksgiving would be a family affair, and that if she wanted alone time, she should come by after the holiday.

Completely respectable. Completely normal. She has a huge fear of missing out and insisted on coming anyway, and then demanded alone time. Once she arrived to accommodate her, I took my parents to visit the wedding venue the next day so she could spend alone time with her son. Despite this, she spent the entire week throwing tantrums, so she stayed with them again a week for Thanksgiving.

What’s going on here? On Thanksgiving Day, she packed her bags and threatened to leave. The following day, she attacked my mother so badly that my parents ended up getting in their car and leaving shees. Once my parents were gone, we sat down and had a long conversation agreeing to a clean slate and a fresh start.

Ooh. Despite finally having alone time, she claimed to want to move her flight up an entire day and left early after that, unless we reached out. There was complete radio silence until her husband went to the hospital and had his leg amputated. Wow. Okay. We flew out as soon as we could, but by then he was in hospice and she was actively planning his funeral while sitting beside him.

Wait, I wanna pause for a second before I get into that. Why was she so mad about Thanksgiving? They said it was a family thing, but she wanted alone time, but she refused to come early or stay late, so then she wanted to leave early. I think I’m missing something here. Okay.

Back at the hospital. Now while we were there, so my husband could say goodbye to his stepfather, who played a huge role in his life. She brought friends into the room to question us about the wedding. What now is the time when her husband is dying? She brings friends to question you about your wedding.

We repeatedly told them this wasn’t the time or the place, but they wouldn’t stop. Who are these people she hired? Because I don’t believe this woman has friends that would do this. I mean, maybe, I don’t know, but that’s just so odd to me. He passed later that week and the funeral was scheduled for a month later at the service.

Countless people, many of whom my husband didn’t even know, came up to congratulate us and said they couldn’t wait to attend the wedding. What you do this like create a bulletin board or post it on Facebook and tell all her friends the date. This is wild.

She also invited his ex-girlfriend and her now husband to the funeral and spent most of her time with them. I thought she was gonna say she invited the ex-girlfriend to the wedding, but still, despite previously insisting they hadn’t spoken in years. That’s weird for the ex-girlfriend. Why are you showing up?

Like it’s good to pay your respects but also like maybe you can just like send a card to the mail, send flowers. I don’t know. We later found out they’d also been visiting the hospice, but only when we weren’t there at the lunch afterward. It was just us, his mother, his step sibling, and their spouse. his mother used that moment to ask my husband if she was still the most important woman in his life.

No. Why are we doing this? why are we doing this? Do you feel like there’s a competition between your son’s fiance, Lord have mercy. You are in two different brackets, not even in the same field. Why? Why? When he said no, that I was, she launched into attacking him. Don’t we want our kids to be happy?

This is just like mind blowing to me. When he told her it wasn’t the time or the place she turned on me. I told her the same thing. This wasn’t appropriate. We had already addressed things before and she was the one continuing the behavior. We got up and left. Good for you. That’s setting a boundary saying I’m not, I’m not gonna entertain this tantrum right now.

Wedding Week Meltdowns

Five months later, wedding week arrived. Oh my gosh. Or just already wedding week. I don’t know if I could invite someone like that, but again, I’ve never been in a position where I had a toxic parent or in-law like that, throws tantrums and asks their son if they’re the most important woman still in their life.

Her dress had already been a battle. She chose every color except the one we asked for. So she would match the family even after being told she stand out negatively. She ultimately chose a dress nearly identical to my bridesmaid.

See, and again, I don’t think there’s a problem. I don’t think most parents of the brighter groom would do that if you get along with them, if they have a similar color or style. I don’t think that’s a problem, but you can tell she probably did it. As a way to be like, look at me. I’m in the wedding party.

She and another family member spent the three days leading up to the wedding, calling and harassing my husband. why are they be invited still? I would have security out front. Have you seen this woman? She’s not allowed in here demanding alone time and more involvement. Why does she need to demand alone time?

If you need to demand alone time with anybody, you’re not, as important to them as you think. You don’t have to demand alone time. We had already offered them the rehearsal dinner at a sendoff brunch, but they complained they couldn’t afford it. We canceled the brunch and his father stepped in to plan and pay for the rehearsal.

At the rehearsal, they harassed my bridesmaid by repeatedly asking which groomsmen had been inside her.

What? This is so inappropriate.

This mom seems like a creep. I’m sorry. That is so weird to me. And we’re saying they, so it’s her and another family member. Who is this other family member? Is it a sister? Is it a uncle, a brother, a cousin. Like this is so weird and pestering her. Pestering the bridesmaid about who she should go home with.

It got so bad she moved tables, but they followed her and continued I’d be kicking ’em out during my father-in-law’s speech interruptions and shouting continued because they were upset. Certain people weren’t mentioned. That’s at the rehearsal Dinner. Lord have mercy. On the wedding day, she asked his family to arrive when the chapel opened and reserved front row seats.

So they’re there hours early putting their coats down. This is my seat. It’s reserved. His mother threw a fit when the usher offered to show her to her seat, shouting that she wasn’t being allowed to see her son. My mother stepped in, calmly to explain things, but his mother complained about sitting near her ex and demanded a different row.

Come on, if you can’t sit for 30 minutes during a ceremony, you shouldn’t be there. When my husband went to greet her before returning to get ready, she followed him into the groom suite and slammed the barn door so hard. She broke the shelves next to it. I was supposed to be escorted into that suite for lineup, but when the door opened, she was standing there.

I immediately turned around and went back to my room as I would too. This is insane. Holy cow. This is a grown toddler. This is what happens when people aren’t told no. When they’re kids, they become entitled, rude and mean adults that don’t understand boundaries. This is it. This is wild. The ceremony itself was beautiful.

During family photos, she repeatedly pulled my husband, wait, I wanna stop. The ceremony itself was beautiful. Okay. I’m glad she was able to like, hold her shit for a minute and not do anything wild. so we’re gonna pause on that. I’m really glad she, the bride in the groom were able to have a beautiful ceremony and enjoy themselves.

All right, back to the drama. During family photos, she repeatedly pulled my husband away from me, and the photographer had to stop her multiple times. She also followed the other family members demanding to be included in their photos and made an extremely inappropriate comment to one of them. where’s the line?

Because it’s been crossed so many times. It’s gotta be like, we’re at 20 times now. at what point do we kick someone out like this?this is literally just a energy sucker like this. She’s a vampire. She’s literally just taking all the positive vibes and energy outta the room. I feel so bad for couples that get married with someone like this because they’re quite literally taking all the joy outta the day.

Like, I’m glad they had their beautiful ceremony, but this woman is exhausting to just read about. I can’t even imagine having to witness her in person complaining about everything, making everything about herself. Nothing is good enough. she’s competing with the new wife. Like, come on.

Throughout the reception, she shot us dirty looks and interrogated guests about why they were invited when we were leaving, she approached me not to apologize, but to discuss gift logistics. Gift logistics. What does that mean? I told her it was a tomorrow problem and walked away. Early in our relationship, I had no backbone.

That changed after she attacked my mother. Since then, I had no issue standing up to her. I later learned she deliberately blocked doors during cleanup, refusing to help because she said she’d been told she wasn’t needed. 

Post-Wedding Fallout and Boundary Advice

A few days later, I posted sneak peeks photos of my husband and me, my parents, my bridesmaids, and one with his dad.

The next morning, another family member sent my husband vicious messages saying we shouldn’t have invited them at all. We had debated revoking their imitations, but decided to give them one last chance.

So why is a family member sending the husband mean things, saying they shouldn’t have been invited?

Are we talking about the mom and her? Whatever family member is being awful. Okay. It’s been a month since the wedding and people are still telling me new stories about their behavior. Since those messages, we haven’t heard from them at all.

Okay. I don’t know who his other family member is. I’m guessing it’s the one that was like teaming up with the mom being rude to the bridesmaid. they were just saying, oh, we shouldn’t have been invited because she didn’t post pictures with them. That’s what I’m kind of getting from it. This was longer than I intended, but honestly it was cathartic.

There’s so much more that’s happened, but those were the major highlights, especially leading up to the wedding. Here’s hoping there’s a lot less contact by the time we try for kids. I would say no contact. I’m not a no contact person, obviously, like I can only speak from my own personal experience, I shouldn’t say I’m not a no contact person.

I believe if you and your gut are fully uncomfortable or people seem dangerous around you, or people are constantly putting you down and you don’t be around them, no contact, absolutely low or no contact. What I meant is like, I’m not always just telling people like, no contact, no contact. This story. If you are bringing kids into the mix, it’s only gonna get worse.

It’s gonna get 10 times worse because people like this feel like kids are not people. They feel like they also have more of a right to them because it’s their DNA, right? So it’s her son’s DNA in this child. So they feel like they have more of a right to them. I’ve heard so many horror stories about grandparents.

Again, I’m very lucky that my in-laws and my parents are not like this. so I’m gonna keep reiterating like I’m not speaking from personal experience. But before this, before what I do now, I worked for a mom and baby company and I managed a Facebook group of moms over 50,000 moms. And I would hear wild stories of how toxic in-laws or toxic parents would come in and say things to their grandkids.

They would try to show up at the hospital room. They would just be aggressive. So think all these things, but worse with kids. so I would definitely get on the same page with your husband. It sounds like he is now, but early on I’m like, why is he letting the mom stay with you guys for a week? What’s going on here?

 and get on the same page about boundaries with kids. Okay? If we’re gonna have kids, are we gonna let people in the hospital room? Are we gonna let visitors come by the first couple weeks? Are we gonna let your mom watch the baby? I would say no. and you need to follow some accounts that are really good about showcasing this and showcasing boundaries.

But, hey, it’s Janelle Marie is a really good one. She talks about like toxic, in-laws when you have kids and like setting up those boundaries. But one thing that she said, I’m gonna butcher how she exactly said it, but she said something about, if you can’t respect me as a person, why should I allow my child near you?

Grandparents like that trying to get rights to the kids. And it’s like, well if you’re not gonna respect me, their mother or you talk badly about the mother, you have no access to this child. So hoping you guys are able to maybe even get therapy though, the two of you guys to kind of figure out what boundaries you need to set.

But I can say from personally, someone talking to me like this and acting this way on my wedding day would have very low, if not no contact with me. ‘ cause she just took all this joy. She cannot stand that you are more important to your husband than she is. And so she was seeing what she could do to take from that joy.

So the best thing to do. Show her how happy you guys are. Show that you pay no mind to her drama and keep that contact low, but your husband has to be on the same page because if you say no contact, and then he’s still sneaking off and seeing her. I don’t know if he was, I’m not trying to make stuff up, but that can cause an issue, right?

So you need to be on the same page, especially if you want to have kids together. Alright guys, that was a lot. If there’s updates, I’m gonna reach out to her and see if there’s any updates and we can kind of talk more about that. But you guys just, I cannot say this enough, get on the same page with your partner.

So many times I feel like it’s hard because when it is that person’s parent, they see them from a different viewpoint. but it also helps when their spouse or their partner is like, Hey, they acted this way towards me. They treated me this way because you now need to stand up for your partner. you chose to marry them, right?

So you need to. Stand up for that partner and set healthy boundaries. If someone keeps crossing the line, we don’t have to invite them to the wedding. she sounds very toxic, very hurtful. and just kind of gross. That’s gross behavior. That’s all I have to say about that. All right. Lemme know what you guys think in the comments.

All right, here we go. Now let’s get into some weekly confessions and then that’s all we got for you this week. this was a long episode you guys, I kinda lose track of when I started recording. Okay. Confessions, DIY confessions editions. What went wrong? What fell apart? What do you wish you hired out instead?

I remember the years of DIY weddings. I mean, I think they’re still kind of there, but I was a part of, and I helped with a lot of DIY weddings. Some were turned out great, some turned out actually absolutely beautiful. We were so exhausted by the actual wedding day. and you don’t always save a lot of money.

You think you’re gonna save a lot of money, but you don’t always. Alright. I did flowers for my brother. They were beautiful, but now I want to do more. Oh, that’s a good one. I love that. Hey, maybe you can start a side business. Maybe you should do that. If you enjoy doing flowers, so many brides would hire out for that.

 the flowers that I borrowed from a friend, she, I think spent, I don’t know, we both were talking about like, she got married six months before me. Her quote was like four or $5,000 per flowers. My quote that I got was like three or four, and I was like, I just can’t. Uh, flowers are not that important to me.

So she made these silk flowers. She ordered silk flowers, and then she made the bouquets and they were gorgeous. I’ll try sharing a picture on social media at some point. never thought I would do fake flowers in a million years. in fact, when my mom brought up fake flowers, I rolled my eyes. I rolled my eyes, and now I’m eating my words because they turned out great and I saved $4,000.

So you should start a business. I let my sister be the dj. Our first dance had a short ad in the middle of the song. Yeah. I didn’t know.

 ads played in the middle of the song. That’s when it’s worth, if you’re saving money on a dj, at least pay for ad free music.

Our DJ was the worst. He showed up an hour late and didn’t bring a microphone and played music like the Thriller. I don’t even like Michael Jackson. We should have just used a playlist. yeah. Was this actually a DJ or did you just find someone like on Craigslist? No offenses to Craigslist, DJs just saying, yeah, let’s make sure they’re in actual like business before hiring them.

I ended up looking like a zombie on my wedding day due to stress. This is what I was just talking about. I’ve done a couple of DIY weddings where it’s like all hands on deck. We’re up super early in the morning, super late at night. I was a bridesmaid for a couple of them. By the time the wedding comes, you are just exhausted and you wanna be in bed by 9:00 PM but it’s not possible.

So that was one thing, like when I got married, I was like, I don’t want my bridesmaid to feel like they’re working for me. I want them to be up there as like royalty, part of the squad, So that’s hard. You kind of have a, do your checks and balances of what’s most important for you.

Okay. last one made my own invitations. And looking back it looked hideous invitations. There’s such a span of invitations. I know people that spent thousands on invitations and I was like, that’s not my thing. You can literally go to Canva again, not sponsored. You can go to Canva and there’s like pre-designed ones and you can like change out names and stuff and just get them printed.

I think I did, uh, not Zola, Zola, Zola. You can order invitations through. I did that. They beautifully designed ones and you just kinda like type it in. And then I just moved stuff around. You can save money invitations and just do one of those. You can do Zazzle for invitations. I’ve done Zazzle for a lot of things.

 yeah, you just have to like be really know your strengths and know your talents and then things that you’re not the best at either hire out, ask a friend for advice. There’s a lot of helpful things out there. It’s just a quick little Google search.

 All right. That’s all we got for this week. Thank you guys for hanging out with me. I know this was a long episode, but you guys love the drama. I wanna know what your guys’ take is on the first episode or first story for sure. I mean, just gimme your take on everything, but especially that first one with Bridezilla.

I wanna help this bride. Is she being a bridezilla? What things would you tone back? What do you agree with? What do you disagree with? are her bridesmaids being a little too much? Are they being a little too picky? Sharing the comments below. if you are listening to the podcast on your phone, you can go to YouTube.

We always post the full episode. We do post highlights as well. Um, and don’t forget, we are doing our big anniversary giveaway as well. So all you need to do is comment on this episode or last week’s and comment entered. We’re gonna check all of them during the giveaway as long as you say entered. we will enter you into the giveaway.

Make sure you subscribe to YouTube. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen. And, you’ll be entered. Hi guys, thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Bye now.


Follow-up Story: My Future MIL Confronted Me in a Pantry

What happens when your future mother-in-law corners you in the pantry to accuse you of ruining her son’s life? That’s exactly what went down in today’s jaw-dropping episode.

We reconnect with an anonymous guest, who now returns to share how her wedding journey unraveled into a powder keg of emotion, betrayal, and a confrontation she’ll never forget.

If you’ve ever questioned a wedding’s red flags, this story will stay with you. From a fiancé caught in the middle to a mother-in-law determined to divide, this episode is a must-listen.

Join me on Patreon and get bonus content every month! 

Episode Chapter Markers

00:00 Introduction

03:13 Engagement and Initial Red Flags

03:45 Mother-in-Law’s Demands Begin

04:52 First Major Incident: Venue Address

08:13 Boundary Issues and Kitchen Confrontation

11:56 Fiance’s Call and Silent Treatment

16:55 4th of July Weekend Tensions

20:43 Handling Emotional Conflict

22:11 The Pantry Confrontation

28:19 Post-Confrontation Reflections

31:22 Dress Shopping and Relationship Dynamics

33:25 Premarital Counseling and Lessons Learned

Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

  • Pantry Blowup – A quiet moment at the rehearsal dinner turns into a private ambush from the mother-in-law.
  • Caught in the Middle – The fiancé’s struggle to balance loyalty between partner and parent creates more chaos.
  • Crossing the Line – The mother-in-law’s accusations include controlling her son’s life and “changing him.”
  • Silent Treatment Strategy – Post-fight, the MIL goes silent, leaving tension boiling under the surface.
  • A New Kind of Wedding Day – Despite everything, the couple finds their own way to move forward—with boundaries.
  • Delayed Fallout – A honeymoon doesn’t stop the drama. The emotional scars show up weeks later.
  • The Support That Mattered – The groom’s eventual stand for his partner offers a moment of healing.
  • Telling the Story – The power of sharing your experience and being heard, even years later.

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

  • “If you’re scared to speak up at your own wedding, that’s a red flag.”Christa Innis
  • “Respecting boundaries doesn’t make you difficult—it makes you self-aware.”Christa Innis
  • “A wedding should never be the battleground for someone else’s unresolved issues.”Christa Innis
  • “Silence doesn’t mean peace—it just means someone’s swallowing their feelings.”Christa Innis
  • “Just because it’s tradition doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”Christa Innis
  • “I knew the moment she opened that pantry, something was going to explode.”Anonymous Guest
  • “It wasn’t just about the wedding—it was about control.” Anonymous Guest
  • “She made me feel like I was stealing her son, not marrying him.”Anonymous Guest
  • “I kept waiting for someone to stand up for me, but no one did.”Anonymous Guest
  • “You think family drama will die down after the wedding, but it only gets louder.”Anonymous Guest

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Team Dklutr Production

Blog Transcript:

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

Christa Innis: Hi there. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. I’m so excited. All right, so before we started recording, we said we are gonna keep you anonymous today because we have a kind of crazy story to dive into today. for those of you guys listening, they’re like, what is she talking about?

 I think it was episode, I wrote notes down here, episode seven. I had Suzanne Lambert on and we read was one of the craziest stories. I think one of the kind of intense mother-in-law story. It involved, a lot of, anguish, a debate and a pantry on 4th of July and a lot of drama that went up, from there and.

This was such an interesting story to us, and we were like, I think you ended it with part two coming soon because you’re about to do your bridesmaid or no, your wedding dress shopping. So I was like, I have so many questions, let’s reach out to her and see if she wants to come on the podcast. So here you are.

So I appreciate you for being vulnerable and coming on and sharing.

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, no, uh, thanks. I mean. Honestly, like it was such a crazy story and I just think, I was just like, well, someone’s gotta hear this, whether it’s for entertainment purposes or therapeutic for me, I was just like, someone’s gotta hear this, so it’s good.

Yeah. Yeah.

Christa Innis: So if you guys have not listened to the full episode, I would recommend you guys go back to episode seven and give it a listen. but let’s just do some quick bullet points here. We’ll kinda walk through it together. I might also put a little, audio clip from it so you guys can hear some of the crazy moments there.

But starting off, you said, my fiance and I got engaged in April. We were excited to plan our wedding for next September, and his mother has always been supportive, often teasing him about proposing. So when we called to share the news. She barely finished saying congratulations before asking if she could go dress shopping because she only has two sons, so I’m not gonna read the whole thing, obviously.

But then getting into it, the red flags started appearing when you guys all got together. At, I think, was it an engagement party?

Anonymous Guest: It was at our house with Father’s Day weekends. Okay. We were hosting all the men in our lives. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Okay. And so at that point was when she started to demand to know the venue, address.

So tell us what went down here and oh, actually I wanna know first before all of this, did you guys consider her like a good relationship? Like have a good relationship with her?

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, no, we had a great relationship and like it, my fiance’s relationship with his mom was always good.

Ours was good. She was very supportive of us. And I even noted, but his grandma was pa in the process of passing away and on her deathbed was like, you have to marry this girl in two months. And he is like, you’re nuts. And of course we wanted to get engaged, but there was like a lot of family support including his dying grandma, his mother, like all these people.

And so there was never really any signs of any like, anguish as you said, like, or upset feelings. really until. Like the wedding started coming to fruition and that like maybe we were making decisions that were for us and nobody else. So I think that’s kind of maybe where that happened or. Maybe her perception of how that was starting to unfold was different than the reality.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Okay, so let’s go to that first moment. Yeah. Where she starts pressuring you to tell the address, even though the month was still like a year out, and you said this is the name of it. We actually haven’t even been there yet. So what happened? What all went down?

The Text Message Debacle

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, it was crazy. It was like, so we were sitting in our living room just having like normal Father’s Day watching golf kind of thing.

And we had told her where we were getting married. we kind of had left out details from the beginning just as we were figuring them out, told her. And then, you know, she was like, can you send me the address? And I was like, well, I already shared it with you. And she’s like, well, I delete my text messages, which is something that I know you guys noted the first time.

Yeah. We were like, what is she saying? They were like, who does this? And I was like, no, she’s just somebody that’s just like, just delete. Them? I don’t know. I don’t know. She actually

Christa Innis: does. She wasn’t just saying

Anonymous Guest: that goes through and she just like deletes all, every thread. It gets deleted like every day kind of thing.

So she doesn’t keep anything. Oh. And she doesn’t have a, you know, she just doesn’t keep anything. So I knew that originally she was asking ’cause like she didn’t have it. but then, you know, as time went on, she started like, and I said, well, why do you need it? I told you we were getting married.

And she’s like, well, because I wanna go and I wanna go see where the hotels are in p. And because it’s not so far from where she lives, all this stuff. And I was just like, oh, no, no, no, no. You know? And I, I was just like, no, that’s like really not necessary. We have it all figured out. It. April and our wedding is the following September.

So we were so far away time I couldn’t even open a room block if I wanted to. And so my fiance and I were just like, what? So, this is kind of happening and this is like starting that conversation again. We’re just very casual and she’s just like, no, like, just send me it. And I was like, well, it seems as though you wanna go there.

And like that’s not, we haven’t even been, and I’m trying to like bridge and bridge and understand and like. Really press this down kind of quickly and as amicably as possible because I’m just, she keeps pressing and then I keep trying to bridge it. and so that was like the first of what I,thought were like three major incidents within this incident of a day was her pestering about the venue.

And it was just so shocking to us. ’cause we were like. why are you pressing on this so hard right now at this time and this day? Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. It’s like, where is this all coming from? All of a sudden you have to go see it and it’s like, how can she not see that this is a special moment for you and your fiance at the time of being able to like go to the venue together, see together for the first time before people coming in, in with their opinions.

Anonymous Guest: Yeah. and we, to this day, still have not seen it, which is hilarious because I planned our whole wedding around a venue I’ve literally never seen. but that’s the thing is I was just like, I don’t know when I’m gonna go. I don’t have plans to go. As of right now, it’s four hours away from where we live.

Like this is just the reality of it. And just because you were closer, let’s not like prioritize You’re needing this to go. Also, I was expressing it to private property. Like it’s not like you can just show up like a ballroom or a hotel. You can’t just show up. And then, my fear was that like, as she was pressing, I started to realize, well maybe she would go and, go to the property and start talking to these people and having conversations that I was not a part of.

And so I kind of started spiraling myself and that’s where I think I started getting more worked up by the thoughts of it. of what could happen. Mm-hmm. And just try, like I said, just trying to shut it down in that moment, really. Yeah. as kindly as possible.

Christa Innis: Yeah. ’cause it’s totally understandable to be like excited be like, if you want me included, I would love to be a part of it, but to then press, especially after you’re like, well, we haven’t even seen it ourselves.

It’s a private property. You can’t just show up. And she’s still pushing for it. So then she corners you. In the kitchen. How does that all happen? And does this kind of fizzle out first and you guys are like, just kinda like moving up past it? like what are other people doing during this time? Like are they looking at this like.

Is this still happening?

“Aren’t You Just So Happy?”

Anonymous Guest: well, we have a kind of open concept floor, so like our kitchen’s connected to our living room and connected, and we were kind of outside, so we had a group outside, like no one was really in the house anymore, and she’d kind of come inside and we were in the kitchen together and everyone else was kind of outside, which is a very similar, like kind of set up as it was when we were in the pantry situation, which don’t get to, but, and she was just, expressing that she was like.

Are you just so happy? I’m gonna be your mother-in-law. And I was just like, in the moment, I was taken aback because I’m like. Why are you asking this? Like, is this something you’re really concerned about? Like, am I so happy? Am I so not? Because I’ve obviously been maybe giving off some energy that, I was not as excited by your excitement to go to the venue and I was kinda shutting that down and then I shut down the conversation with my bachelorette party, and so I’m like, are you kind of getting the vibe that my energy is coming back to you in a different way and now you’re trying to get validation through me by saying, aren’t you just so happy?

 I tried to like, address it as head on as possible and just say like, yeah, of course I am, but here’s what’s happening right now, is that like, I feel as though you’re kind of, you’re trying to step on this, what I would call a boundary and saying like, my boundary is that you don’t go to the venue and you don’t, like this is the situation and I would just appreciate that you kind of let us handle it.

And, I didn’t again realize at the time the weight of the words I was saying. Again, I was trying to be as amicable as possible, be very choosy with my words and being kind. And ultimately like I wanted to be kind to her and, just express clearly how I was feeling. And I did not realize the weight of the word boundary.

 and how like significant it would play into the rest of.

Christa Innis: She’s held onto that grip on it. They don’t do boundaries in this family. Gorilla

Anonymous Guest: Grip, gorilla Gripp onto it. Yeah, it’s crazy. and I think that like it maybe was the first time being put in a, like to be held back from something or maybe to be really put into that box.

But at the same time, like it’s funny because you guys noted like, where’s your fiance and this whole thing, he is outside having a drink, has no idea. We’re, you know, in the kitchen kind of thing together. And I think in the most of the story, like he and I and, the sentiment really is he was just as stunned as I was through the whole thing and.

I think his reaction in the fight or flight minus fight his is kind of take a step back and process. And so whereas I maybe was more communicative with my feelings and clear up front later in the story, he was much more like nervous and surprised and then had to find a way to then speak and speak up about it, which is after the situation when we were in the kitchen when he ended up calling her, but.

I mean, we were by ourselves in the kitchen. And then as I said, this is my boundary. She, I don’t really remember her exact kind of feelings about it, but we ended up, walking away and having the rest of the day kinda be fine. And we thought the day went kind of weird after that and we were just like, man, that was like such odd energy in front of everyone, not just at least the three of us.

And. That’s when he ended up calling her, which came after that.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Okay. So we have an issue with the word boundaries. I’m glad you said the thing about like you and your fiance. ’cause I think a lot of times, like stories like this are written by the brides and they experience it firsthand because of that kind of like, turmoil, I dunno if that’s even the right word, but it’s like.

The fiance we to remember too, is in a difficult position, right? It’s like, obviously they’re choosing you, but at the same time it’s like, I’ve never seen this side of my mom before. I’m really sorry. But also what’s happening, but also I love you, I promise. they’re like dealing with all these like different so of like emotions and things they’re going through.

so that’s important to say as well. okay, so these red flags are showing, you’re like, okay, we’re gonna move on from this like boundary day. Yeah. then your fiance calls her. Mm-hmm.

Anonymous Guest: yeah. so we decompressed, we talked about the day.

We were like, wow, that was really weird. Never had an interaction like that. just seemed as though like she was really pressing and feeling anxious or worked up about the details. And so we called her and was just like, Hey, like. I kind of told him, I said like, if you feel this way, say it on behalf of you.

Like, I don’t want you to speak on behalf of me. in any way, giving anybody ammunition as to saying, well, she feels this way, she feels that way. I said, just speak on behalf of you and leave it at that. So he said, you know, like, I feel like the other day was weird and the energy was weird, and it essentially like maybe being more.

Clear with how he was feeling. I think it really upset her and she ended up getting so upset with his confrontation of the behavior and just saying like, and I forget along the lines of what he said, but he was just like, talking about this and talking about that. She goes, well, that was a joke.

And like, I can’t, I was just teasing. And he was just like, yeah, it really wasn’t, a joke or whatever. You know, he kind of addressed like things. Clearly and she just had different perception of it. and then I think that being as though he was so clear with her and like how he felt, she felt very attacked by that and very like hurt by that.

And the only way I think that she knew how to process that was to literal hang up on him and not talk to him for three weeks. Yeah. Which was crazy. Do the silent

Christa Innis: treatment. Yeah. I find that so interesting because it’s like, okay, respect your elders, communicate and he did just that. Yeah. He literally called her in an appropriate way, did not out her in front of a bunch of people saying, Hey, you’re being rude.

You know, like literally the most respectful thing. But there’s a certain, I feel like certain people cannot handle being told they did something wrong, or, someone was hurt by the way they acted.

Birthday Silence Treatment

Anonymous Guest: No, that’s exactly, right. and I think again, their relationship was so fine, but why did this instance of confronting behavior, and maybe he never did, and what I’ve come to realize in the last year about him and his relationship growing up and stuff like that, like he is so unbothered by everything.

Like the man could not be bothered by a single thing. And it is what a peaceful life my fiance lives because he just does not get worked up about anything and. It takes so much for him to even feel worked up. And so when coming at situations like this, he can so easily take it in and brush it out and it’s like.

Most people cannot do that or you internalize a little bit. And so I think that in interactions with her previously or growing up, like he certainly has never felt the need to address anything head on and or felt heard enough. But I think when it came down to us discussing how we felt and how I expressed to him how that made me feel, he then felt ownership and saying like, okay, well this is something that obviously we need to talk about and I need to address, but maybe she had never.

Had that be addressed before or been told to your point Like, this was wrong or your behavior upset me in any way. So it definitely stunned her. And you said she hung off the phone and didn’t talk to him for three weeks. didn’t talk to either one of us for three weeks, which was a notable three weeks because his birthday fell during that time.

And, there wasn’t like a. Come back together kind of moment. And it was a little hard. I mean, she expressed after that in the story that that was hard for her. And it’s hard for us, like, to have such a normal, good relationship with somebody and then to know there is tension and to know what is present for that whole time, like.

It was definitely difficult for us too. Mm-hmm. Because like we’re just trying to process how we feel about the situation in general and celebrate our engagement. And then also there’s this like massive tension that’s like building and then kind of being expanded in the family as like more people were obviously present and then seeing what’s happening and hearing what’s happening and it’s kind of expanding it felt like.

So that was, it was hard. Yeah. And then of course it’s birthday, so it felt, it just felt terrible. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. I find it all so interesting because it’s like she can. Beret is probably a heavy word, but she can like, call you out in front of everybody, make you feel a certain way, even though you were like constantly putting your boundary down, saying, no, no, no.

She gets contacted in private by herself. Mm-hmm. And that’s disrespectful. It’s not okay. And she goes into silent treatment mode. She goes into like victim mode of like, oh my gosh, you guys are attacking me. And it’s just kind of funny to see like the opposites and from different point of views like, how she can’t even see like past her own like lens.

Anonymous Guest: Yeah. And that’s like a lot of the work that I’ve done in therapy and personal therapy like is just understanding. Yeah, of course. Like you have two sides to every story, but like. The information that we had to your point, was in private, in a calm way and trying to be clear and communicative and it wasn’t receptive.

 she wasn’t receptive at all of it. So I think that’s a piece of, I. Getting feedback and then being able to process at the time, at least in the situation, she just did not handle like super well and then ended up, my fiance and then extended party, like ended up suffering in those, three-ish weeks to that before the next, major incident.

So it was crazy. Yeah.

Christa Innis: Yeah. So let’s get into a Father’s Day weekend. This was the part that 4th of July. This is

Anonymous Guest: 4th of

Christa Innis: July weekend. weeks. Year. Oh, fourth. Oh yeah. Father’s Day weekend was the first dinner. So we’re talking Yeah. 4th of July weekend. This was still over the, not talking to you stage.

Mm-hmm. Completely like blocking you guys out. Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, okay, let’s talk about 4th of July then. So you guys don’t hear from her. You guys have a 4th of July party at this house with a really big pantry. Yes. Yes. This is the part that Suzanne and I were just like, wait, what is happening here?

She’s in the pantry now. This doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. I’m like visualizing this like beautiful, like huge pantry.

Anonymous Guest: It is. Yeah. Um,

Christa Innis: so you guys had like a rented house?

Anonymous Guest: Well, yeah. So without giving too many details my fiance’s family has like a larger, lodge of sorts, very much like the Hallmark esque make big lodges that they spend their Christmases in kind of thing.

They have one in their family. it’s also like a hunting lodge kind of thing. Okay. So just very large. and the kitchen is like an industrial kitchen, so you imagine like the big industrial stoves and stuff like that. And so there’s just this larger like wraparound kind of pantry type of situation that’s adjacent to off of it, but yes.

Where at their family’s house. lodge for, better words, but yeah.

Christa Innis: So it’s his family’s house. Everyone’s there, but his mom just hasn’t shown up yet. She shows up late, right?

The Lodge and the Cold Shoulder

Anonymous Guest: Yeah. So she doesn’t live too far from there. and so my fiance has like, family ownership of the lodge.

So we go up, we bring my family, my parents are there, that we all join the lodge for the weekend. So we’re there for like the long weekend and it’s her family’s place. and his grandpa. Owns it and he’s there and then the aunt is there. So everyone that was at the original incident is also now, coincidentally at 4th of July weekend.

 so she had every right to be there and all the plans to be there. But it sounds as though like, obviously we were struggling with communication. We were obviously not talking and then, so it didn’t seem as though she was very excited about the idea of joining us as soon as possible. So we were there for a couple days before she ended up joining.

Yeah.

Christa Innis: Oh, and do you think that was her plan all along? Or do you think she was randomly was like, I’m gonna go and make my entrance, my grand entrance?

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, it’s, well, so there was up being a couple things that happened. So there was like this other party that we were going to within for the July weekend that was at a house very close, and we ended up seeing her there for the first time.

So she was also at this adjacent family party inside of 4th of July weekend. Oh my gosh. To give you the vibe, and that is where we first. saw her face to face since he had not speak to her, like been on the phone and she was very cold. Like, very much did not want anything to do with us. And at the time.

I was, I kind of saw her in the corner and I could see that she was talking to somebody. and I could see she was very heated about what she was talking about, and I could only imagine that, she was kind of recounting what has been going on in her life. and she said a couple things kind of verbatim that she repeated back to me in the pantry.

So I knew that’s ultimately what she was talking about and mm-hmm. So I could tell that, yeah, the vibes were a little intense and so he kind of went up to her and tried to embrace her in some way and she was very much not into it. I tried to do the same thing. She basically didn’t hug me probably the first time ever.

and so it was like a really cold interaction. and then my parents were at the house, you know, down the road kind of thing, and. Her whole point was to come there and to spend time with all of us. And she ended up leaving that house and never visited them. Never even stopped, like just kept going. So the plan was to be there kind of the whole weekend, and she kind of came in, did her thing, and left.

Left for a couple days, and then came back what would be ultimately like a couple days later. So,

Christa Innis: oh my gosh, very much.

Anonymous Guest: Not the plan. Not the plan

Christa Innis: at all. Yeah. Yeah. It’s so crazy. Like looking back, of course, like. I’m just like, she could have avoided all of this by just like responding to her fiance being like, I’m sorry I made her feel that way.

I would love to like, get lunch next week and just like, hear about your wedding plans or, just like, kind of just completely turn it over instead. have like a toddler blocking this out. We’ll have

Anonymous Guest: to, yeah. Yeah. I’ll have to cut this out, but she needs some serious therapy, so I’ll find something else to say.

But I mean, yeah, it definitely like. You could tell she was so upset and she just didn’t know how to process her feelings and or how to navigate the situation in general. And like, I get that. I totally get that. We were all in uncharted territory, so it’s like. We were all processing things and being in this interaction for the very first time.

And so I think it’s important that, we handled it how we felt we could defend and talk about and, be proud of. And, I don’t know if she felt the same way, but it seems as though like she was kind of. Operating on out of fear and like confusion and, we were really trying to make sure that we were clear and concise and kind, you know?

Mm-hmm. Like we didn’t want to create any animosity, but, a lot of it definitely could have been avoided. And especially this whole like buildup to not talking and to not, leaving and not coming and not embracing all this kinda stuff is like, well that’s just hard, you Like none of us really wanted to.

Start back up again after so many weeks kind of thing. But it’s like someone has to do it. That’s why the pantry situation happened was because I was like, we must like do this now. You know? Like it

Christa Innis: get rid of the tension.

Anonymous Guest: Yeah. We have to try. So try.

Christa Innis: Alright, so let’s, let’s talk the pantry moment. So the pantry moment,

Anonymous Guest: this large pantry.

Christa Innis: So. how did that all come about? So eventually she shows up at the house. On a day, like she kind of showed up later to everyone. Like you said, it was kind of weird. She kind of came in and out. Sorry, I’m kind of like looking back at the story. No, ahead. Tell how, tell me how that kind of like all started.

Because I think it started with your, fiance and her talking, right? And then you were kinda like listening in.

 The Pantry Confrontation

Anonymous Guest: I was like, we have to address this. And they had finally just exchanged his birthday gifts It was kind of okay, but we had no, that was in front of everybody and so we had had no, like, one-on-one time with her.

 and so she kind of went in inside and everybody again was sitting outside. And so I was like, well, we should go, we should gotta, we gotta do it. So I was like, go, I’ll be behind you. and. So again, the beginning of the conversation, she kind of thought she was having it with just him. And that’s why the detail about me coming into the pantry was kind of a note because she didn’t realize I was there because like he’s standing in the doorway, she’s inside the pantry and I’m on the outside behind him.

It’s tall, man. So it’s like, she didn’t know I was there. So he kind of says like, we gotta stop this. Like you gotta stop. And so then she starts explaining like how up upset she is and how this has been so upsetting for her she kind of starts venting a lot of her feelings.

And then the first thing that she kind of said that like threw me was she was like, and she said she would send me the address and like, she didn’t send me shit. And so then I was like, well, it’s my time to enter now. And so I hear my name, I’m being summed. Literally. I was like, well, you brought me into it.

Darn it. I’ll join now. So I kind of came around the corner and I was like, well, and I kind of said exactly that, like. Well, it’s not time to enter out. So, like I come in and I was just like,I didn’t even give any words out really before, she kind of came in and she got very close to me and got very aggressive as far as saying like, how dare you speak to me that way.

You know, how dare you talk about a boundary like that kind of referencing our, father’s Day weekend conversation and just essentially saying that like. She couldn’t imagine, speaking, having somebody speak to her that way. And, what the hell is a boundary kind of thing.

And it, what the hell

Christa Innis: is

Anonymous Guest: a

Christa Innis: boundary?

Anonymous Guest: Oh no. like she knows, but she lists like, what the hell, that has nothing to do with this kind of thing. Like, just not understanding the impact of really what I was saying. And she’s like in, you know, very close to my face and I was just like, are you really, like, is this really what you’re gonna do right now?

And my fiance. The man was stunned. The man’s mouth was probably a gate on the ground like, and he is again, he is definitely not a fighter and he’s not like a flight, but he’s definitely someone who just maybe a little bit freezes, especially in this moment. He’s a very like. Confident person. Like he knows how to handle stress really well.

But I think when it comes down to someone that you really didn’t expect it to be from, he just froze in that moment and he said nothing. and so it was just me, you know, me, Duke’s up, got my hands up, I’m so mentally prepared to handle this conversation. I’ve had so much therapy that I was like, I can do this.

and so I was just like. Are you really gonna, approach a conversation like that right now? Like, I am not being aggressive and I don’t have that tone. Like, I just don’t think that’s productive. And, her responses were very aggressive and trying to get her feelings across in a very, like, loud, big way.

 and then I. Lost every, all of my therapy in me and I started rising as well. Hard get to, to a point where you’re just like, whatever. My ears are bright red. I am just like my heart is beating outta my chest because I’m just, I’m trying so hard to contain my thoughts and be clear, but then I’m also being attacked when I’m trying to process that.

my fiance is obviously standing there. I know this is hurting him in some capacity, so it’s like a, culmination of quite a few things that I felt like were like, leaning on my shoulders and I just started apologizing and and I truly felt apologetic like I did, that my intentions maybe were not the result of like what I said or how she felt, and.

 those were just not received well at all either. So all I can do is apologize. All I can do is take ownership of what may have been unintended consequences and like it wasn’t being accepted. So at that point, like, what are we to do? we are not getting anywhere. and we went but I can go in circles for a while and we did.

So we went in circles for a while and then mm-hmm. Ultimately, it ended up kind of coming to a close in that moment, but, not without going on for quite a while before that point, and mind you we’re in a pantry that is extension of a kitchen, extension of a dining room that has got windows that are open to the outside.

So many people, I think, no real confirmation, this pantry has windows. So the pantry door was open. We were standing in the, literally, oh, we were standing in the door and then the kitchen’s open, and then there’s a doorway, and then the doorway goes straight outside. Stop. So did you see

Christa Innis: people walking by and like no one

Anonymous Guest: was in the house.

They knew what was going on, so they were like avoiding it, you know? Yeah, they, did your parents

Christa Innis: know what was going on? Like were they

Anonymous Guest: like everyone did? Yeah. It was sad. My mom actually ended up getting. Really drunk. She’s like so worked up. She was just drinking so much wine. She goes, I got so drunk. And I was just like, you’re crazy.

Like, because she was so worked up because she knows like, I certainly don’t need anybody to step in on my behalf. So she was like not worried about having to do that or. Isn’t really that personality type anyway. But she was just so stressed out by the confrontation and the attention that she like got accidentally drunk.

But I think that they could hear, so, what I know to be true is they could hear parts of it. So I think at that point, we ended up coming to kind of a, close and it didn’t really feel resolved though, at all. and it was just difficult to be like, well, this didn’t really do what we wanted, kind of thing.

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. Okay, so then the next morning she comes back to the cabin and that’s when you guys talked to her and everything like Yeah. Said that she felt disrespected. mm-hmm. And basically she just kinda leaves saying, I’m happy we talked.

Anonymous Guest: it was hard because. We’d gone kinda the whole day spending the day on the water and before this conversation even happened, and I felt so unresolved.

 It seems as though she kind of came into the day with a cleanish slate and was really trying to put everything behind, but not really, addressing it necessarily enough to put it behind. Mm-hmm. She kind of just said, well, that happened and now it’s over. and so as the day went on, I just kept.

Feeling so much more tension building up, because I was like, how are you going on? As if like, this did not happen yesterday and we had, this is not really resolved. and so I was like, I’m gonna say something. And I was like, I wanna say something. And I was like, I need to right here.

So we kind of, you know, approached it and I just said like, I felt very disrespected by the comments that were made and the way that you spoke to me and the tone that you spoke to me. And I said, essentially I felt like she was. Damaging the relationship that we did have and like to me as a person, like I felt like a wounded bird and somebody’s just like punching it, I just felt as though like I was already down and it just felt like I was getting punched. And so I tried to communicate that I didn’t really feel a lot of, again, apologetic energy from her. it was more so just like trying to find a means to an end or trying to get to the end. Mm-hmm.

Resolution—or Something Like It

And, it was hard. And then as I’m saying things, I’m more verbal processor, but as I’m saying things, I’m trying so hard to get off my chest to say it and to, feel it and to communicate it. And I just kept feeling like my blood pressure rising, like everything was just getting more. And she goes in for a hug and she’s like, I’m so happy.

We talked and I was just like. shaking. Mm-hmm. And like, I was just like, oh my God, I’m gonna die. So it was really hard because I felt like I was trying so hard to do everything the right way. And then finally I get it all out and I feel, no bit better. Like not even a single percent better.

 but we were having tension in the conversation. And then my fiance kind of stepped in and. be more clear and communicate from his perspective. Maybe someone she was more open to listening to. and, you know, he was just kind of shutting down some of the other things that she was saying.

And she, again, more, a little bit more receptive maybe to him. But, the problem definitely was coming from me and maybe my more outspokenness. in general about the situation. So it was, really hard and I was like, well, we, I wasn’t really happy. We talked, I’m happy I said what I said.

But yeah. You know, I don’t feel like immensely better because of it at all. Yeah. So,

Christa Innis: that’s how I, kind of understood it while I was reading it. Yeah, because it seemed very, like you were very open with her, you were very forward with how you felt, and then she was kind of just like.

Okay, happy we talked. Bye now. And I just picture that being like, oh, she’s trying to just brush it, put it under the rug, which I get to a certain extent. Yeah. Like let’s move on. But also like you did a lot, of hurt. You caused a lot of issues. Yeah. The way you acted is gonna create this little barrier now between.

Your son and his future wife. okay, so now let’s get to the new stuff for two part two. Yeah. Yeah. It’s been almost two months. You said since the incident, and you made an appointment to address shopping with your mom, your fiance’s aunt and his mom. When I read that, I was like, whoa. Okay. So she’s still invited, she’s still coming along.

Yeah. How did that go? what’s been going on since?

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, so. I felt as though it was still my responsibility to extend an olive branch or regardless of kind of where our relationship was, that that was something that I had to do, and ultimately it would’ve certainly caused more damage if I didn’t invite her, if she wasn’t a part of it.

and then giving her the opportunity to maybe make some adjustments as to how we’re handling, like wedding stuff. Like if she felt as though something really was wrong in the way she handled, like the venue conversation, stuff like that. Here’s your opportunity to handle it differently. so we did go dress shopping.

 the aunt, the mom, my friend, you guys obviously mentioned the first part like bringing, like a mean friend. I did have a friend there that was like. Prepared to potentially like, fend off any comments or any mm-hmm. attitude from really anybody, ultimately wasn’t needed.

The dress shopping actually went really, really well. She right, I think she just had, had a lot of, big feelings at the time and they’d kind of settled at that point up until then. and that was, you know, like in September. So that was like quite a few months ago now. But, we checked that box, like we did that, and then I continued to dress shop with who I, not who I wanted necessarily, but just like who other groups of people I wanted to go with.

So she kind of went the first time and then proceeded to them, check in and understand like how the process was going for me. ’cause I didn’t buy anything that day as I continued to shop. and that kind of went from there. since then I would say it’s been better. It’s definitely been hard because

it’s not the same as it was. And there’s pieces of me that just feels sad about that and like wondering, like, is it gonna be like this forever or is other situations gonna bring up more explosive feelings? Like, could this happen again essentially? Mm-hmm. and so.

My fiance and I started premarital counseling last end of last year, kind of as this was settling down much after the dress shopping. And we have learned a lot in there together about like this relationship, with us of course, but then with her and our families together and stuff. And so that’s provided us with a lot of like learnings.

And something I’d recommend to literally everyone, doing premarital counseling and then. Talking about like common issues that you guys face together, which this was one that we were facing kind of together. Mm-hmm. And it gave us a lot of clarity. It gave me a lot of clarity as to how like, you know, she was feeling and she was kinda operating out of a state of fear and maybe feeling as so like her son’s finally getting married, kind of feeling.

And so I was like, better. Understood. I think her perspective, and we never really had like a long conversation about like, let’s look back on this kind of thing and I don’t think we ever will. but I’m trying to, understand like what I learned from the situation and how I could take it forward into the future.

And I. If something else happens again with her or any one of our family members, like how, essentially I have the tools and that we have the tools to like get through something like that based on what we’ve learned. So we’re on improving that relationship, with her and, we have, gone up to their house and stayed with them and, spent time with them outside of that.

And it’s, Definitely like more positive than it was. I wouldn’t say it’s just the same as it was before, so. Mm-hmm. But at the same time, like maybe it’s a lesson learned that the, distance and like the separation of. Maybe we don’t need to talk every day, or maybe we don’t need to be involved in every decision was like a huge lesson learned for maybe her or on both sides of just like what this dynamic is now that, he does have a fiance and someone that he’s building a life with and to talk to every day.

And so maybe if you guys aren’t talking as much, it’s because we’re talking a little bit or whatever that looks like. it’s a lot of change, so I totally understand that. But. It’s definitely been more positive than it was then. Like we’re on a small, incline, kind of, like getting

Christa Innis: better, getting back to like how things were.

No, that’s good. And I think that will give a lot of people hope too through like communication and you make a good point too, about. It might never be back to how it was because sometimes when you see a certain side of people or you see how they treat you in a certain way, you’re like, okay, I have to tread these waters lightly because you’re afraid of like, okay, am I going to say the wrong thing or is my boundary going to offend them again?

And so I think it’s smart to like in those moments be like, okay, I am gonna like. Just tread lightly. Keep my distance a little bit. we’re gonna be respectful of each other. so I think your story can help people see that like communication can go far and you can only do so much. Like when someone’s being like, difficult like that.

And just like giving the silent treatment, that was probably her. Working through everything, like what’s happening here. I’ve never been told no like that before or I’ve never had a boundary set against me. Or they think like, oh, a boundary means I’m a terrible person. I’m not a terrible person. Yeah. And so they immediately get like defensive.

So I feel like you are so like gracious with her, like giving them like time and like space to like, I mean, not necessarily like you asked for time and space, but she just No.

Anonymous Guest: Yeah.

Christa Innis: But yeah, I think sharing these stories are good. Like we were kind of talking about before recording, it’s like sharing these stories are good because.

Anonymous Guest: People that are going through something similar can be like, oh, okay, I’m not crazy. I went through something like this. Or I am a mom and I was crossing the boundary for my son-in-law, or my daughter-in-law. yeah, I feel we learned a lot on how to tackle maybe quote unquote problems as a couple.

’cause I feel like most often people either. seek help in the relationship. ’cause they’re obviously fighting with each other. but this was kind of a common thing that we were going through together. And so it was something that was very difficult in terms of balancing, well, this is his mom and his relationship.

So a lot of what we’ve learned, I think, kind of moving forward is that like we each deal with our own families. and mine’s not, absolved to the drama. Like there’s stuff there too. And, I think that. I deal with that and he deals with his, and it’s not so much that we are individuals dealing with our, it’s just because what we’ve found or what I found is that like families can probably be more receptive coming from their own family members.

So, kind of crossing that communication, like me talking directly to her is not a problem, but could probably be, be better received. Potentially became from him. Mm-hmm. So we started kind of saying, well if as long as you feel the same way, if we feel the same way, and this is a situation that happened with both of us, like you can handle it.

or you can address it or what that looks like. it changes every situation. But that was a big lesson learned. And then. I’ve done a lot of like work and under justand understanding relationships, and there’s just like a path to expressing yourself and then letting it go that you kind of have to follow when you cannot change what people think.

You cannot change how people react. And so the best thing you can do is, be clear and say how you feel, focus on the outcome that you want to get out of it, but. If you want to change people’s emotions in a situation, like you have to stop That’s not something that you can change.

you can only focus on, if you want an apology or do you want to be listened to, but like, you cannot change, you cannot ask for empathy. You cannot ask for understanding. Like those things are not something that you can ask for. Mm-hmm. And then if, like those things are happening and the situation becomes reactive, you kind of have to walk away.

So again, learned a lot from the situation that in general I think it’s just good life advice and relationship advice. But I think there is hope, for other people dealing with this situation and or even dealing with conflict like this in general, it. I think it’s just all about like using those emotional intelligence tools in order to have, productive conversations on difficult topics and

Christa Innis: mm-hmm.

Strengthen

Anonymous Guest: your relationship from within. So when you deal with stuff like this, it’s not me versus you, or it’s not us versus anybody, it’s just, Kind of just more communication than this tension and this big, outburst or this big long situation.

Christa Innis: So, yeah. Yeah. No, I feel like those were such great like parting words that people can hold onto that advice.

’cause like we all could use a little therapy and I feel like that was like very helpful, like to just take to our own relationships. ’cause especially a lot of people that listen. Have either dealt with this kind of situation or similar situations, or they might in the future. so I think it’s helpful to know, you know, we can’t control other people’s emotions.

All we can do is control ourselves and how we can communicate essentially. So,

Anonymous Guest: Yeah, there’s hope. There’s hope. I mean, it’s gotten better and I assume it’s going to continue getting better. but I think at the end of the day, like this situation happens because somebody cares. So deeply and in some capacity it comes from a very good place.

So it’s difficult as it presents itself, either out of fear or anxiety or sadness, but ultimately like the core emotion is different, or just there’s a lot of change going on, stuff like that. So I feel as though like the intention is always. Mostly always good. and you kind of have to sink back into that and say, well, what can I do to best understand this person?

Knowing that they’re coming from a good place? And if you know they’re not coming from a good place, just don’t interact. Mm-hmm. Just take a step back, stay as far away as possible and until you feel as though that’s the situation, because it’s just probably won’t go anywhere. But yeah. 

Christa Innis: Don’t waste your energy on people like that, that are just trying to make you feel bad.

Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well thank you so much for coming on and being vulnerable and sharing. I really appreciate it and you speak so well and I feel like, we talked about, like there’s so much to learn from this situation, but I feel like you came out of it like stronger, you learned a lot and I feel like it’s great just seeing that you’re applying it now to like future things.

 so I really appreciate you coming on and sharing.

Anonymous Guest: No, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And honestly, like I just hope. This helps anyone, so just happy to be here.

Christa Innis: Yeah.


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