Uninvited Guests, Screaming Cousins & a Boozy Wedding Party with Janelle Riddell
What happens when a cousin wears white, ignores boundaries, and starts throwing punches? This episode dives into the chaos of a vineyard wedding gone completely off the rails.
Christa Innis sits down with guest Janelle Riddell—creator of relatable in-law content and skits—to unpack a jaw-dropping real wedding story involving fistfights, a crying bride, and a cousin who just wouldn’t quit.
Together, they reflect on boundary-setting, judgment from the internet, and how to survive family drama on the most important day of your life. This one’s part comedy, part cautionary tale—and totally unmissable.
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Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
00:57 Janelle’s Social Media Journey
01:58 Content Creation and Audience Reactions
02:46 Navigating Family Dynamics
13:34 Wedding Stories and Hot Takes
23:00 Unplugged Ceremonies: To Ban or Not to Ban?
25:30 Reacting to a Crazy Wedding Story
25:59 Starting YouTube and Podcasting
27:01 Wedding Coordinator’s Nightmare Begins
27:39 Chloe’s Drunken Antics
28:55 Pre-Ceremony Chaos
31:33 Ceremony and Reception Meltdown
34:56 Post-Wedding Reflections
47:39 Weekly Confessions
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
- The Viral Cousin Named Chloe – A guest shows up wearing white and impersonates the bridal party, leading to chaos no one could’ve predicted.
- The Drama of Setting Boundaries – Christa and Janelle discuss how brides get labeled as bridezillas for simply having standards.
- Skits That Start Conversations – Janelle shares why she uses storytelling and skits to reflect the complex dynamics of family relationships.
- Fact-Checking Wedding Stories? – A hilarious discussion on social media critics and why no one’s got time to play journalist on DMs.
- Fistfight at the Reception – A real wedding brawl breaks out, complete with alcohol, family yelling, and a screaming bride.
- Intention vs. Impact in Wedding Etiquette – When wearing white or skipping a gift becomes a symptom of something deeper.
- Grace vs. Guilt in Family Expectations – Why navigating in-laws and milestone events requires more than just saying “no.”
- Confessions & Hot Takes – From uninvited guests to baby shower tantrums, Christa and Janelle react to listener submissions.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
- “If she has a boundary, she’s a bridezilla. But if she doesn’t, she’s just naive. You can’t win.” – Christa Innis
- “It’s not always about the white dress—it’s about what it represents in that moment.” – Christa Innis
- “I’m not here to fact-check your trauma. I’m just here to tell your story.” – Christa Innis
- “People say ‘just say no,’ but when it’s your in-laws, it’s never that simple.” – Christa Innis
- “Sometimes a missing seat turns into a full-blown vendetta.” – Christa Innis
- “Yes, relationships are a two-way street… but who broke the road?” – Janelle Riddell
- “I’m not a journalist—I’m a storyteller. There’s a difference.” – Janelle Riddell
- “Some daughters-in-law are just trying to live, not plot against their in-laws at church.” – Janelle Riddell
- “Wearing white wasn’t the problem—it was the years of tension behind it.” – Janelle Riddell
- “People don’t realize what ‘no’ actually looks like in families like these.” – Janelle Riddell
About Janelle
Janelle Riddell is a writer and storyteller who shares real-life wedding chaos and family drama. She spends time collecting stories about in-law tension, etiquette fails, and tough relationship moments. In this episode, she talks about her own experiences and why setting boundaries matters—even when it’s hard. Janelle brings honesty, humor, and insight that every bride (and anyone close to one) will relate to.
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A Team Dklutr Production
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Christa Innis: Hi, Janelle. Thank you so much for coming on. Hi. Thank you for having me. I’m so glad we got to do this. Yes. for anyone that doesn’t know you or doesn’t see your content, can you just tell ’em a little bit about yourself and what you do on social media, and then we’ll kind of get into it?
Janelle Riddell: Sure. so my name’s Janelle.
My account is. @heyjanellemarie, I’m sure you’ll tag it in the show notes or wherever you do that, but, yeah, so I’m a mom of two, a wife, a full-time working mom, and I also make content primarily for people who have a challenging relationship with their mother-in-law, with their in-laws in general. I’ve been doing it for about two years now.
It’s evolved over time. It started as just like primarily just. Like a lot of relatable mother-in-law type content. whereas now I have a lot of mothers-in-law who follow me, who are learning to see if future mother-in-laws are following me. And I, so anyway, I have a lot of fun with it.
I do skits, I do vlog style content, and I’ve just built a really great community of. Women who are kind of going through the same thing. And the key is though, that we’re hoping not to repeat that cycle. We’re hoping to break the monster in-law, stereotype, for our kids.
The Complexity of Boundaries
Christa Innis: Yeah, I love that. I feel like that ties in a lot to some of the content I put out because while I do have a mother-in-law.
Stories I share. it’s all over the place. Sister-in-laws, brother-in-law, whatever, what have you. All around weddings. Right? But I think it’s really important what you say about learning from it and like these kinds of skits and content. Not always like pointing the finger.
Sometimes it’s like a reflection too, because I have moms who comment and say, thank you so much for sharing this, because now I see that I’m like overstepping my son’s boundaries or my child’s boundaries. And so I think important to be like, not just be the victim in some of these,
Because I also have other people that are like, you’re only targeting mother-in-laws. Yeah. What do you have against ’em? Yeah. And I’m like, I love my mother-in-law. I actually get along with her really well. I just get some crazy stories sent to me that I’m like, this is insane. Let’s talk about it. do you get that same kind of thing where people kind of come for you from different angles
Janelle Riddell: like.
Surprisingly, not very often. from different angles. Yes. I get surprisingly few hate messages in my dms. I get a ton of crazy comments to the point where like, Facebook, I don’t even read my Facebook comments as a dumpster fire over there. But, I get a ton of, I mean, we’re social media creators, right?
So a lot of my stories. my skits, I was finding the skits. It’s the crazy stories that perform. but it also sometimes isn’t. Sometimes it is the more nuanced examples and when you’re able to portray something that I. Like when you were, if you were to tell the story of, oh, I don’t get along with my mother-in-law for whatever reason, it’s like, seems kind of minor.
But when you see how those interactions play out in a skit, that’s where I feel like has really helped build my community in the true sense of the word is because those are the stories that people see that they’re like, yes, this, this is what I, you know, and so, but it’s still, it’s a balance as a social media creator.
So people, sometimes people accuse me of. Oh, you built a whole page to complain about your mother-in-law and like truthfully, I don’t even talk about my own mother-in-law and my own stories. It’s mostly follower submissions, but it’s also more so like themes. That’s why I’ve started integrating more lifestyle and vlog style content, almost just like a metaphor to show like.
Daughters-in-law that don’t get along with their mother-in-law, like they’re literally just pe, they’re just moms and women living their life. they’re not sitting at home scheming and plotting to see how they can, like, they didn’t intend on ruining their mother-in-law’s life despite what she’s told you at the grocery store, at the church group.
Like they’re literally just existing and the reasons why the relationship has fallen apart. is often a function of both parties, but not in the way that you would expect. that’s a key note that people love. I don’t know if they’ve like, commented that on your videos too necessarily, but always, if it’s ever relationship focused and the story or the skit or whatever really portrays one person as the protagonist and one person is the antagonist you always get.
Relationships are a two-way street And my catchphrase response to that is, yes, but like, who broke the road? Like two people can’t travel down a two-way street if it’s broken. And that’s where I am trying to bring awareness and visibility.
But also, yeah, like also it’s cathartic for people who have gone through it to watch my content and be like, yes. That’s exactly how I feel. But yeah, the broken road doesn’t always come from stories that are portrayed in, say, your skits or some of my skits. The broken road also comes from. More minor things that just build up over time too, so.
Christa Innis: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think that feeling of like wanting to be seen that you’re like not crazy. Like someone can like, relate to you. and that’s the thing too, is like when I get those, I shouldn’t even say like hate comments. They’re not really hate comments, but like there’s some people that will comment and be like, this is just terrible that you would portray a person this way when you don’t understand the full story.
And I’m like. I’m just, someone sent me this story, so I’m only able to portray what this person sent me in their own words, and I’m gonna do my best to like get it out there if I can. So yes, if a bride sent me a story, then I’m gonna do it from the bride’s perspective. Sometimes, sometimes I’ll do it from another perspective, but if a mother-in-law wants to send me her story, I’ll absolutely share it, you know, so like, because most of the stories that are sent to me are from brides.
I’m gonna, you have their version and. Someone was like, do you ever fact check these? I’m like, what am I supposed to do? Call each person up and like interview them. I’m like, no, I don’t fact check.
Janelle Riddell: No, I’m not CNN. Like, what was the comment Once someone gave me and I replied with like, I’m not a journalist.
Like I don’t have any sort of like legal obligation
Christa Innis: Yeah. To
Janelle Riddell: right, like. No, and that doesn’t mean that I wanna like,catastrophize or like perpetuate negative stereotypes that aren’t true. Like I don’t wanna be part of the problem. Right. But also like, sorry, people aren’t in my dms.
Like the stories that I’m portraying and I know, I know it’s the same for you. The stories that I’m portraying are truly the tip of the iceberg. when it comes to data, like you could plot the trends. If we were to plot the number of stories I’ve been sent where someone feels. Based on their details, like they’re justified and feeling the way that they do about their wedding or the birth of their baby is another big one.
Like the data, right? It’s not mm-hmm.
Christa Innis: Like, yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah, no, for sure. I think that’s a really great point. And I think too, it’s like people need to see these conversations and I think, like we said earlier, it helps people on both sides kind of see like, okay, here’s where a boundary needs to be set, or here’s where I need to like.
Limit contact or here’s where, okay, there was miscommunication, let’s work this out. Or whatever that looks like. I think it’s good to have these examples and of course, yeah, it’s part entertainment. I mean, so many people follow for entertainment. Like I know the reason I started doing like content like this is because like I loved seeing content like this.
I love the conversations seeing how things play out, and I think it helps us kind of see ourselves in conversations and be like, oh, how would I react? Or, oh, that’s really crazy. I’ve never seen something like that before. That’s how we roll.
Janelle Riddell: Totally. Like the skit I shared yesterday was a follower submission.
for those who don’t follow my content, the gist of the skit is a follower of mine sent to me. They traveled to her in-law’s house for Easter recently. They brought their. Three, four, like a newborn baby. Not fresh, fresh, but like really newborn baby and 2-year-old to their in-laws house.
They had specifically said when the baby was born, we don’t want anything shared on Facebook. They get to their in-laws house and there’s newspaper clippings of the in-laws had put in a birth announcement in the local paper. No. And, to make matters worse, hadn’t remarked the daughter-in-law’s existence.
Just proud parent and their son’s name. No. Stop the story. It was literally like 10:00 PM like two days ago I guess. ’cause I got it and I was like, it now. Need to it. I’m cackling in bed to my husband reading this. So bad, but the layers to it, which I led with. ’cause she’s like, we’ve went to my in-laws for Easter because she was a whole big, that beginning piece is the part where people start to comment because I talked about and portrayed some of the details she had shared about her husband saying to his mom, like, okay, like.
When she asked how the drive was, like, I mean we traveled five hours with a five month with a four month old, whatever. The old, the baby was a newborn and a 2-year-old. Like it was rough. But you said We had to come for Easter and the mother-in-law feels like, well, of course, like grandparents.
Like if they kids should come to us. Yeah. And so already you get comments on the video of, when you’re talking about like the back, oh, you need to share the backstory. You need to whatever. Like, people don’t understand that the, I think what is helpful to see played out is ideas. Like someone saying, well, no, that’s their fault for going, you just should say no to going.
And it’s people who aren’t in these situations don’t realize what. No. Looks like, and that’s gonna be my follow up skit portraying the, no, I’ll show you what this looks like. What this looks like is the mother-in-law saying, Like you guys should come to us for Easter and the son, in a lot of cases, it’s two ways.
It’s either the son’s saying, we gotta go to my mom’s for Easter, otherwise she’s gonna be mad at me. And That’s more of a marriage issue than a mother-in-law issue, quite honestly. Right. Or it’s the husband saying, I don’t wanna go five hours with the kids. Like that’s crazy. And the daughter-in-law is saying, no, then your mom’s gonna be mad.
Your mom’s gonna say, it’s my fault. We have to go. Whatever. And then maybe the mother-in-law throws in some comments like, well, you guys moved away because of her job, or You guys moved away. It’s not my fault that you moved away, so you should come to me. And there’s other so many like guilt and layers and all these things.
it’s not as simple as like say no, it should be for sure. Right? It should be. But then that when it is as simple as say no. then there’s an impasse. That’s that two-way street I referenced. Mm-hmm. Right? Like quite literally in this case, who’s, it’s gotta be a two-way street.
or maybe it isn’t depending on the phase of life that people are in, and maybe that’s okay. but anyway, that beginning of that story is the more like. What actually goes into setting a boundary saying, no, we’re not gonna travel five hours with the baby. Like,
Christa Innis: yeah. I find it interesting.
The Importance of Saying No
So many times when I share skits, people comment like, oh, I would’ve said no right away. it’s like, it’s so much easier. And I even, you know, myself, like, you can look from the outside and like, I’m so great at telling other people how to set boundaries and say no and like. But in your own life, it’s so much more difficult, so much more nuanced because it’s like you have a different relationship with each person and you have other people involved and you know, a history, and you’re always like, am I gonna be the bad person?
You know, and there’s all these different things as opposed to just like saying no. And I think we should ideally all get there. Like if someone’s treating us poorly, but we can’t always see it. Sometimes it’s a disguise, sometimes it’s like talked to nicely first and then it’s, you know.
Totally.
Janelle Riddell: I actually feel like it’s the people who are saying, oh, just say no. I often think that maybe they’re coming from a place. Of like, they’ve had really fortunate relationships with family in their life because I could see, had I not lived what I’ve lived now with my in-laws, I would potentially feel that way because if there’s something I don’t wanna do that my mom asked me, I just say, no, mom, I don’t wanna do that.
And she doesn’t think that my husband forced me to say no. She doesn’t think that it’s unfair that, oh well you said yes to so and so the other day, so why are you saying no to me today? No. I literally say, no, I don’t wanna do that. And then if. whatever the situation is, it doesn’t happen very often.
Again, this is like gets into the, what I try to dive into with my content, which is just the, like what goes into relationships, which is my mom knows me, we’ve built a relationship, so she generally doesn’t ask me things. That she knows I’m gonna say no to. Like she knows me and my husband is people, so it doesn’t get to a point where we really need to say no.
She reads the room or it’s not even, she reads the room. She’s built relationships with us. And that is fundamentally, I think often the root cause in a lot of these situations is they haven’t taken the time, energy, effort again, two-way street. I don’t know who’s gotta build the road.
We can split hairs on that, but, to cultivate and build a relationship with their daughter-in-law or their adult child. Quite honestly, sometimes comparatively to how the daughter-in-law’s, parents have built a relationship with her, so they’re asking for things that like. Why are you asking for something that you know is gonna put them in a position that they’re not comfortable with and different people are comfortable with different things.
That’s another huge source of comments. Like, good for you, that’s what you’re comfortable with. Not everyone’s comfortable with that. And that doesn’t mean they’re entitled or wrong, or. Yeah, sometimes it does, but not always, you know? Yes. people are people. We gotta meet people where they’re at, but people don’t wanna meet you where, where you’re at if you’ve been habitually a jerk to them.
Exactly.
Christa Innis: No, that’s such a good point about like, if you haven’t had to really deal with those difficult things harder saying no just comes off as easy. Yeah, because like I’ve never had, like, they’re not thinking that way. But yeah. If they haven’t had a deal with that, it’s like, well, it’s black and white.
They do that then totally. No. But yeah, if you tend with the teeter-totter of relationships and you’re like, uh, I don’t know. Is this one of those where I say no, or how do I back down from this? Yeah, totally.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah. Completely. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Okay. Let’s get into, ’cause I feel like we could talk about this stuff forever and we could, we could, we could.
I love it. I feel like, ’cause we have probably have like an overlap of followers of like how people like the content and stuff. But let’s get into, ’cause some crazy stories and wedding hot takes. Do you have, when we talk about weddings, does anything come to mind for like a kind of crazy story or something that you either seen at weddings or had at your own wedding?
when it comes to interesting. Opinions, I guess.
The Wedding Seat Saga
Janelle Riddell: Yeah, I mean, reflecting on it, like relative to some of the stuff that you’ve shared? No, like relative to the story of yours that sticks out for me. Is that girlfriend of the groomsman who like brought her kid and like, no, I don’t.
That one always. I’m like, that is insane. anyway, yeah, no, I don’t have anything that crazy what did happen at my wedding. And so although it does involve my mother-in-law, I’m not, to this day, I’m not necessarily blaming her. And I only found out about it after the fact because my sister-in-law told me what happened after the fact.
But we had, okay, so some of it I guess I am blaming, but, We invited my husband’s cousin per the request of certain people who generally doesn’t come to stuff. He doesn’t come to family gatherings very often. I think I’ve seen him like in the 10 years my husband and I have been together maybe two times.
We invited him. He, our VPs Yes. Doesn’t show up to the wedding. I, again, it’s my wedding day. I had no idea that he didn’t show up, but in the meantime, my mother-in-law had invited her best friend from childhood or something, which again, like. my parents invited friends too, like, okay. and didn’t RSVP with a guest, RSVP’d for herself.
Brought a guest, brought her sister, I think it was, oh
Christa Innis: my gosh,
Janelle Riddell: sister. So the guest guest brought a sister. The guest brought an on, RSVP. Guest. and the cousin, R-S-V-P-D-S No. Showed. So you do the math, there’s seats for everybody. Right. But they weren’t planned seats. So I guess what happened is
my mother-in-law’s friend’s, sister didn’t have a seat at the friend’s table or whatever, but there was an extra seat, like I guess some put their heads together and found a chair friend, the friend’s sister. So that’s great and that’s good. But apparently my mother-in-law was deeply offended and obviously it was a, personal, I had done that intentionally, was personal, and then spent my entire wedding reception.
Complaining about me, complaining about where their seat was and their wedding and how she didn’t have a seat, and how rude that was, and how none of my parents’ friends didn’t have seats. And um, because they probably all are CPD the right way I guess. I don’t know. so you could say, oh, maybe you missed it, maybe whatever.
Like understand, I’ve a project manager, been a project manager for 10 years at this point, like a spreadsheet. And me, we are friends. So maybe I missed it, but. I’m saying it would be unlikely to me either way. it didn’t ruin my day. I had no idea. But after the fact, it still sucks to hear that, like, that was like
Christa Innis: the thing that, the
Janelle Riddell: conversation that was going on.
Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Because I feel like something like that, you can’t win. They’re gonna look for one thing to hold onto and be like, oh, she did this on purpose. But it’s like, how are you supposed to know that? Someone’s friend is gonna bring a friend. Which one? You shouldn’t be doing that at a wedding anyways.
Like, don’t just bring random people.
Janelle Riddell: I just assume maybe she RSVP’d. Incorrectly or something. And so then I, maybe people would say, oh, why didn’t you follow up? And it’s like, sorry, I’m planning at that specific point. Like I didn’t follow up with anyone else about their rsvp, someone RSVP’d.
I had lots of people who I gave a plus one to and didn’t bring APL cable alone. I didn’t confirm with them, Hey, you RSVP just for one. Are you sure? It’s, it’s just you. Like, no. And so we would’ve given her a guest like she’s, Was coming by her herself. Like I think there was a few friends of ours that were single at the time and were coming with lots of other friends that we knew.
Mm-hmm. we didn’t give maybe everyone in our friend group in RSVP if it was like very clearly. but I don’t even think there was that many people we had to do, which I know is a controversial, like to do that at all. But her, like my mother-in-law’s friend, we would’ve absolutely given her an RSVP. so maybe she just filled out the RSVP card incorrectly.
I don’t know. It was a website. We had a wedding website, so maybe she just filled out the website wrong. But anyway, yeah.
Christa Innis: thing is too, like if for some reason, like if I went to a wedding and like there wasn’t a spot for my husband, so someone that clearly would’ve been invited or something, right?
I didn’t bring this one extra and there wasn’t a seat for him, I wouldn’t automatically be like the bride did this on purpose. You know? Like, that would never be my first, I’d be like, especially as a planner myself, like I’m a type A kind of person, I’d be like, oh, there was a misstep mistake or maybe mis.
Yeah, there’s so many people involved. There’s so many moving parts. maybe we’re at the wrong table, so there’s just that different mindset of like blaming people and I’m like, things happen. It’s fine. Like. Whatever.
Janelle Riddell: Totally. I do think, though, I do think this story is a perfect example of that kind of deeper level relationship building that I talk about because yes, my mom, mom and daughter, people are gonna have a hard time equating mother-in-law and future daughter-in-law with mom and daughter.
But trust me, for my followers, there’s tons of people who are very close with their mother-in-law and were close with their mother-in-law throughout the planning process of their wedding. Or their husband is very close with his mom and they liaise and talk and discuss on a regular basis. Neither of those two things are true in my case.
And so where I’m going with this is if either my husband or I had a like friendly chitchatting about regular stuff on a regular basis, mutual exchange of information, not like the mom who calls her son to talk Adam for two hours every. Once a month and thinks that that, oh, I’m so close with my son.
No, like have a real relationship. It probably would’ve got caught. It would’ve because there would’ve been a casual conversation, oh, my friend so-and-so is bringing so and so, and I would’ve been like, what? She didn’t RSVP with someone. Oh, let’s take a look at it. Oh, let’s, we would’ve caught it. Right.
Whereas like my mom, I knew who all of her friends were bringing and, or like whatever was going on there. I think one of her friends husbands couldn’t come because something had come up, so then I just went in and changed whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like. And those kinds of things get caught when you’re having regular conversation with people.
A hundred percent.
Christa Innis: Yeah. No, I totally agree with that. again, I think it’s just people wanna find a blame if they’re looking for one, there’s gonna be well and
Janelle Riddell: complain about. Totally. And I think it’s personality type too. Like there’s certain people that are like, their first instinct in a situation like that is to like.
be embarrassed. like, think that it’s about them or think that it’s, and so in, in a way, I could see how a person could feel like that. Like in this setting where you feel like, okay, well this is my friend and my nephew, so I am like. Hosting them but you’re not. But like I could see how you could feel that way.
So then you feel embarrassed ’cause the friend that you’ve brought, her sister doesn’t have a, like, I can see how you would feel embarrassed about that. And a lot of people are, would be keen to just like deflect that embarrassment in the form of blame. Which I think is a natural human response, but unfortunately, whether it’s a natural human response or not, the impact of that natural human response is people feeling like, I don’t know if that was reasonable to like completely blame the bride or, you know.
Yeah.
Christa Innis: I think we were saying this before recording, is if the bride, because stereotypically the bride plans majority of the wedding or she’s, yeah. It’s her vision. Right. Even if like, my husband and I were pretty like. Equal with what we like planned and like, I mean, I’m more the planner type, a kind of person, but like he was involved in every kind of thing.
Mm-hmm. But I think in general, people are like, oh, it’s the bride. And so if something goes wrong, it’s the bride’s fault. If something happens, it’s the bride’s fault. If she has a boundary, she’s a bridezilla. And so I think it’s just always like put on the bride for things like you don’t ever hear, like, I mean, maybe every once in a while you hear groomzilla, but very rarely.
it’s more of like a funny thing. But, I think it’s just like the, when women have boundaries or women say, no, there tend to be the problem. And it’s like, yeah. Yeah. it’s a common theme. I’ve noticed,
Janelle Riddell: I think another thing I’ve observed and a trend and a theme, if I’m looking at my content and then the comments that come of it is.
Women are accused in relationship context, like these ones where emotions are high, it’s a round a milestone event. Women are accused of not giving enough grace but then when there’s situations where someone gave grace or benefit the doubt, or maybe it’s not benefited the doubt, maybe someone just assumed that another person was gonna employ common sense.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. And
Janelle Riddell: they don’t. And there’s a reaction to it or a boundary because of it, or a negative experience because of it, that then I’m portraying in my skit. It’s like, well, why didn’t you just stop that thing from happening? It’s like, Sorry that I assumed you understood that when we say don’t post on Facebook, that doesn’t mean find another way to announce the birth of our baby without our permission.
and so anyway. Mm-hmm. That’s like, I find also a, takeaway I have is, yeah, women are accused they’re having boundaries in their bridezilla, they were asking like they didn’t do enough when they. Just like try to let things go as they’re like, the cards fall where they may and someone doesn’t have any common sense and they talk about it after the fact and it’s like, well, why didn’t you, put a boundary in place to prevent yourself from having, yeah.
X Why is that negative experience happened? It’s like, sorry, too much or not enough. There’s like, sorry, I didn’t know that, you didn’t realize talking negatively about the bride throughout her entire wedding was not. Inappropriate thing to do and was maybe gonna fake, make her feel negatively when she found out about it.
Like I didn’t know that. You didn’t know that, right? Sorry.
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh, yes. Okay. Let’s do a couple hot takes and then we’ll get into the main story that we’ll react to. Okay. So I’m gonna read a hot take so people send hot takes to me and social media and then we will react to it. So they said, should guests be banned from taking photos during the ceremony?
Janelle Riddell: I mean, we had a, what did we call it?
Christa Innis: you know, the weird wedding phrasing more than I do. Yeah. It was, is a thing that people said,
like a, basically like, put your phones
Janelle Riddell: Yeah.
Christa Innis: Keep your, and like,
Janelle Riddell: apparently the way my friend Dave, who officiated our wedding, read it, it was a little bit like.
Don do
Christa Innis: it.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah. And to the point where people are like, but yeah, if you don’t say that again. Common sense. This is a common sense thing. If you don’t say it then you end up with the person in the aisle with their iPad. Or
Christa Innis: iPad. It’s always the
Janelle Riddell: iPad, right? Or in front of the photographers or blocking things.
Or you have people with phones in the background of your photos. So. I don’t necessarily think you need to do no phones at a wedding ceremony. I think it’s really tough to tell a mixed group of people with mixed ages with mixed understanding of technology etiquette. It’s easier to say no phones than to say, in that moment, for those 15, 20 minutes of your life, an hour, if you’re really religious, whatever, like.
I think you mitigate the risk with no phones.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think like do what you want as a couple and if you don’t see a sign, then sure, take whatever, but just be aware of your surroundings. And if they have a sign and they make an announcement, you better put that phone away on airplane mode or whatever.
Because I’ve been to so many weddings where they announce it and there’s a sign and I’m that person where I notice. And so like I’ve seen people hold up their iPads, their phones, and I’m like. I’ve been a bridesmaid and I notice people and I’m like, they made an announcement. Please put your phone away.
They’re gonna have nicer photos later.
Janelle Riddell: my, officiant didn’t have to, he is like an outgoing, very like, professional and like. Tactful and respectful guy, but like, he’s not scared or nothing. Like he was ready to like fully embarrass people. He was gonna like stop the wedding and say, yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. You checking an important text over there. Yeah.
Janelle Riddell: Work calling. Oh, I don’t care if people pull out their phone and wanna Instagram, scroll my whole wedding don’t care. It’s, well, if they’re in the front two rows, I would care. But the front two rows are like my immediate family. No, it’s the people with their phones, like in front of the photographers.
Like Yeah. To me that’s the risk you’re trying to avoid is getting in the photographer shots.
Christa Innis: Yeah. It’s that person with the iPhone that thinks like their picture is gonna be better than any photographer. I’ve seen them like get in front of them. I’m like. It’s not gonna be that good. your thumb is in front of the, the lens.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let’s get into the story ’cause I know, I don’t wanna take too much of your time. Okay. So this week’s story, I’ve not read it yet, so I’m gonna read it and then I will, I’ll pause here and there, or feel free to stop me at any point to react and we’ll just, we’ll react together.
Janelle Riddell: So sorry.
Before, who preps these for you? Like if you’re reading them blind, like do you have, like someone vets them first and sends them to you? Yeah, so actually my husband does. Oh, Uhhuh. Okay. Love this camera. So there,
Christa Innis: there’s times where he’s like, this is a crazy story. And like he’ll just be like, yeah,
So I started, when I was doing YouTube videos, I would just like copy it, paste, and just start reading. And then sometimes I’d read ’em, I’d be like. Oh, okay. And then like that was my YouTube video though. Yeah. And so now I’m like, okay, for these podcasts, let’s get some really good ones. So I’m like, I don’t wanna read ’em.
You do the digging and, ’cause we just get tons of submission. So yeah, that’s what we do. Okay. It says. I was working as a wedding and event coordinator at a vineyard at the time. when we hosted weddings, the tasting room stayed open from 10:00 AM to 7:00 PM and then the wedding party had the vineyard to themselves for the rest of the night.
Rentals were 10 hours long, and this particular wedding had a 1:00 PM to 11:00 PM rental. The bridesmaids and groomsmen started showing up around 11:30 AM in the tasting room. They bought a couple of bottles of wine. Then a few more. We started to realize they were getting noticeably intoxicated. So I decided to cut them off help them make it through the entire wedding.
It sounds like a little before the wedding if they, she wanted to cut them off.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah. Yeah.
The Drama Unfolds Before the Wedding Begins
Christa Innis: Okay. There was one girl in particular, let’s call her Chloe, Who showed up a bit later than everyone else. She was wearing the same color as the bridesmaid dresses a white shawl.
Chloe was already clearly drunk when she arrived. Stumbling as she walked in, the bridesmaid started freaking out. Apparently Chloe was not a part of the bridal party and had specifically been told not to wear those colors. Oh my gosh. Anna White shawl. So she’s got like the bridal shawl on, what? Is she like an ex or something?
Oh my gosh. Okay. The bridesmaids start yelling at her right there in the middle of the tasting room. I quickly stepped in and told them to knock it off. They stopped and then Chloe went up to the counter and tried to buy a bottle of wine. So I’m wondering if she’s like there as a guest, like what is happening?
when my staff member told her no, she started screaming. I told her she needed to step outside and take a breather, or she would be asked to leave and wouldn’t be allowed to attend the wedding. I feel this is all happening before the wedding’s even. Sorry. They’re like popping bottles. Like this is insane.
the bridal party went off to its start decorating. They’re gonna have all these bottles of wine now. They’re gonna decorat. Right. I’m just picturing like a mess. Okay. And Chloe disappeared. I had a bad feeling, so I started walking around to try to find her. I spotted her in the garden with her boyfriend chugging a bottle of wine.
He had bought her. I made her hand it over and told her she could get it back after the wedding, but that she was not allowed to drink anything else on the property. She screamed at me. If it had been up to me, I would’ve kicked her out right then and there. But the vineyard owners were very particular and had already told me not to remove anyone unless absolutely necessary.
Chloe ended up sitting on the deck crying. Oh my gosh. I walked away and went to find the bridal party. I found them sitting at the picnic bench with bottles of beer and shooters, which we do not serve. They were all stumbling and obviously drunk, and it was only 3:00 PM Oh my gosh. It’s insane. The ceremony was supposed to start in an hour.
I took away all their outside alcohol and warned them they were risking our liquor license. I hid the contraband behind the venues bar and tried to find someone sober. I could talk to the bride and groom had put themselves as the emergency contacts, but the venue owners told me not to reach out to them and to find someone else.
Eventually I found the maid of honors dad who was helping decorate. He apologized and he didn’t know what to do and explained that he was from out of town and didn’t know anyone except his daughter who was also drunk. Everyone is just hammered at this wedding. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I cannot, I would be so stressed, but I guess everyone’s just too drunk to care.
I don’t know. Yeah, I guess so. I briefed the bartender who were on duty for the reception and asked them not to serve anyone who was clearly intoxicated. Then I heard yelling outside. I rushed out and saw Chloe and another guest in a full blown screaming match. The other guest was yelling at her for wearing a white shawl to someone else’s wedding.
Here we go. I watched the guests rip the shawl off of Chloe, Chloe lost it. I ran over and told them both that if this continued, they would have to leave. I can’t believe you’re getting so many chances. Ugh, they eventually calmed down and went to find their seats. We are now 15 minutes from the ceremony.
The bridesmaids were waiting inside, still obviously drunk. Finally, the bride arrived and we were ready to begin. As the maid of honor started walking down the aisle. She tripped and started crying. The other bridesmaids helped her up and stood beside her. The rest of the ceremony went smoothly while aside from the drunken swaying.
Yeah,
Janelle Riddell: I bet. Bet they were just like teetering over.
The Reception Meltdown
Christa Innis: They’re all, yeah, they’re all swaying, like holding onto each other. Oh my God. Okay, so that was the ceremony part. This is says the reception meltdown. Fast forward to the reception. I stepped out briefly to turn on the exterior lights since it was getting dark.
When I came back, I saw the bride running out of the barn sobbing and yelling that no one cared about her and everyone was making the day about themselves. Right then my bartender ran up to me yelling that there was a fist fight happening, and to call the police. I immediately got on the phone.
This is like a movie scene. I’m like, what? It’s crazy. right when I feel like I’m like, no. These weddings are not shocking to me. I’ve,heard it all. I’m like a fist fight at the wedding. Here we go. Okay. While I was on the call, Chloe came up to me screaming in my face, calling me horrible names. So she just works at the venue and she’s getting all these people screaming at her in one day and this is insane.
And mocking my, she must be like,
Janelle Riddell: yeah, the coordinator, like the
Christa Innis: Yeah. The manager of the wedding or something.
Janelle Riddell: Onsite planner or something. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. I would be like, this is my last day.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah. This is above my pay grade.
Christa Innis: Yeah. she came up to me screaming in my face, calling me horrible names and mocking my appearance.
Oh my gosh. Her mother came quickly and grabbed her and they left before the police arrived. So this Chloe girl was there as a guest, I’m guessing. And why would she? Okay. And her mom was there, so she had to be. Family or something? Close friends. Close friends, yeah. Yeah. My bartender, who happened to be friends with the bride, asked if I could go inside so she could talk to her privately while I was there.
Trying to fill out an incident report. A guest came over said he could explain what happened. Apparently, while everyone was getting up to go to the buffet, the bride’s ants, started yelling at each other. No one knows why. One of the aunts was Chloe’s mom. Okay, so Chloe’s a cousin. Chloe’s a cousin.
Here we go. Chloe ran over to defend her and a bridesmaid tried to stop her gently touching her shoulder and saying, please don’t do this. It’s not about you. Today, Chloe did not like that. She turned around and smacked the bridesmaid to the ground. Then she got on top of her and started hitting her in the face.
So this Chloe girl’s just a problem all around. And it, it sounds like they all kind of knew it if she showed up and they were all like telling her to get out. Like, don’t wear that color.
Janelle Riddell: That’s crazy.
Chloe’s Chaos and the Backstory
Christa Innis: I feel like there might be some backstory. I mean, maybe it’ll still come out, but I feel like she was maybe mad that she’s not a bridesmaid, then found out what the color was and I don’t know.
Mm. That sounds plausible. that’s my vibe I’m getting,
The maid of honor’s dad pulled Chloe off and told her to leave. That’s when the bride ran outside and Chloe turned her rage on me. After I got the full story. The other bartender told me he could handle things if I wanted to go check on the bride.
I brought her tissues and reassured her that Chloe and her mom were gone and that she deserves to enjoy the rest of the night. She pulled herself together and thankfully the rest of the wedding went beautifully. My gosh, I’d be traumatized after that. later I called the venue’s owner. to update them and they yelled at me for not removing Chloe earlier, even though I asked them multiple times throughout the day.
If I could imagine then being like, it’s your class classic. Yeah. Oh my God, that is insane. Oh, and of course this was the day the security cameras weren’t working. The bridesmaid who had been attacked asked if we could provide footage for a possible lawsuit. I felt terrible for not being able to help.
Janelle Riddell: Honestly, it was the most chaotic, insane wedding I’ve ever experienced, I’ve seen a lot. Hope you enjoyed the story. Let me know if you have questions that isn’t, that’s crazy, First, I feel like the first part of that story is a perfect example of what you just said, of if a bride has a boundary, she’s a bridezilla. I had a three drink maximum for the guys getting ready. I didn’t get married till four in the afternoon. actually, I didn’t know a three drink maximum for the groomsmen.
I had a three drink maximum for my husband, but like. anyone heard that, they’d be like, oh, you’re so controlling. He’s so whipped. You’re such a bridezilla. It’s like, no, because you don’t know. Emotions run high on a wedding. Like, yeah, as long as you have in your head. I’ve promised her I’m only gonna have, of course, there’s gonna be situations where people break that promise, but like if you don’t discuss it and just assume people know not to get hammered, all of a sudden they’re feeling it, they’re having fun, whatever.
Maybe drinks are free, like whatever’s happening, and then all of a sudden you have swaying. Fist fighting bridesmaids. Yeah. Like and groomsmen.
Christa Innis: Yeah. And that’s the thing too, it’s like groomsmen show up like at noon and they literally just like hang out and like poke tuxes on bridesmaids. Were like up early.
We’re like getting like food together. We’re like decorating. I feel like it’s just such different vibes. Like it’s like that viral thing where it’s like the groomsmen just hanging out and the bridesmaids are like going crazy, you know? And I feel like. if they’re with their like best friends, you know, it’s so easy just to like socially drink with them and not react.
Yeah. But yeah, bottle of wine is insane. I was just telling someone, I’m like, we had like champagne and stuff like the morning of my wedding and I feel like I. I remember thinking like, oh, I’ll have a couple, maybe like two glasses of wine. I don’t even think I finished one because I was just so busy. Just like busy.
Yeah. Just don’t think about it. but yeah, that’s stuff you have to think about. Like if you are walking down an aisle, if you are a part of a wedding, if you’re making a speech, speech, watch yourself. I’ve seen plenty where the bus man was too drunk to give his speech. Oh yeah, me
Janelle Riddell: too.
And it’s like, me too.
Christa Innis: Embarrassing.
Janelle Riddell: Like someone has to read it. Yeah. No, I haven’t seen that, but I’ve seen it where like their grandma filter comes off, so it’s just like, it’s a mixed crowd and it’s like FBO Central and it’s like, oh no. So embarrassing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. My other reaction to this is, this isn’t Chloe’s first time doing this kind of stuff.
That Chloe was a known liability, and that’s, again, references. What I talk about in a lot of my content is like, you got a risk manage as a bride, as a groom, as a person. If someone is a risk, a known liability. You gotta have a hard conversation with them beforehand and mitigate that risk.
And if that means they’re pissed off and upset with you, then sounds like there was a lot of risks that got unmitigated here. Yeah, but it was a multifaceted risk. That’s trifle.
Christa Innis: That’s why I’m feeling like there’s some kind of backstory. ’cause if they’re cousins, there’s gotta be some kind of like we don’t have the age difference.
Like if she’s like a lot younger. No. Or if they were close at one time. Because the fact that she showed up in the color and the bridesmaids immediately were like, we don’t like her. Something had to have happened at a previous event.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah, because honestly, even the wearing white to a wedding, like I wouldn’t do it.
But I also feel like. If someone does do it. Like who cares? Like I would never go up and pull
Christa Innis: someone’s Shaw off. Oh no. I know one like, ’cause I do like confessions too that people send me.one confession was my grandmother told me she wanted to wear white to my wedding or something, or showed up to my wedding in white and I was like.
Janelle Riddell: I would never say anything. If my grandma wanted to wear white to my wedding, I would not have, I would’ve been like, I’m so happy you’re here. But I’m also not the person that would care if someone showed up white. totally, I think someone wearing white maliciously to a wedding
Christa Innis: mm-hmm.
Janelle Riddell: In either hopes to piss off the bride, hopes to draw attention to themselves because they like whatever it is, the white is the tip of that iceberg. And that’s the case with Chloe. Right.
Christa Innis: A hundred
Janelle Riddell: percent. Like and you can look at that specific scenario, parallels in so many other relationship dynamics.
Mm-hmm. Right. Like it’s not the front thing, it’s the like the way back. Yes. was someone wearing white like. you should never wear white to a wedding for sure. But I’m saying like an elderly person who’s like, doesn’t know, or a girl who like, doesn’t have enough people in her life or like whatever, and wears like a white floral dress to a wedding or something and literally it’s just there as like a friend’s date.
Like she’s just wearing a white floral sundress, lots of color on it, but a white base to a wedding. Which I personally wouldn’t do, but not everyone has a big sister. Not everyone knows. Right. You know what I mean? I think there’s a lot of like, visible wedding, no-nos, like wearing white to a wedding, which is again, woman and a female experience.
Mm-hmm. But there’s a lot of like less visible wedding no-nos that just like go unnoticed or undetected that in my opinion are just like, just as rude or like, just as, but again, that like depends on where you’re from or like. People are gonna call me tacky or whatever, where I come from, it’s very common that people don’t get, bring gifts to a wedding.
They bring just money. Yeah. we call it presentation here, yeah. So when you’re inviting someone to a wedding, you’re inviting them as a guest. So no, you’re not expecting that they’re gonna give anything as a wedding guest. But it’s also like, again, it’s 2025, like, you know, that weddings are expensive and all these sorts of things like.
I personally, would never go to someone’s wedding and give them no gift. Right. And not like have a conversation with them and say, I’m really appreciative for the invitation. I cannot afford to give you a gift right now. and they’re gonna say, oh my gosh, like, don’t worry about it, whatever. That luckily hasn’t been a scenario I’m in.
I’m just saying that’s, I kind of put wearing white to wedding along those same sort of like.
Christa Innis: Do you see
Janelle Riddell: what I’m saying? Like along that same, yeah. And different people have different thresholds. A lot of people are gonna say, who cares if she wears white to a wedding? And I would tend to, maybe a good thumb, depending on what her intentions are, just the same as a lot of people are saying that so entitled, no one has to give you a gift on your wedding day.
And I’m saying like, agree with you. I’m saying I personally would feel embarrassed to go to someone’s wedding and get them no gift. Yes. Regardless of what type of gift giving you do in your work. Culture or Yeah. Location,
Christa Innis: you know? Oh, totally. And I think you made a good point about if things are done maliciously or if that’s like the final straw that broke the camel’s back.
Because like so many people will see these stories and they’re like, oh, it’s not that bad. Or like, an wants to like pay for a part of the wedding or something, but then she makes a change last minute and they’re like, well, she was paying for it. And it’s like,
But you didn’t look at what she said before that, or that there was already this like animosity between them and then she did it. So there’s obviously, it wasn’t just like, oops, I accidentally picked pink when you wanted blue. Or there’s these little things where when they do it maliciously or on purpose to wear white, to make you feel intimidated or make you feel bad, that’s different than someone accidentally doing it.
Janelle Riddell: Or same as the same colors as the bridesmaids, right? Like that to me is also like if, you know, the bridesmaids are wearing eggplant purple or whatever. And then you wear eggplant purple. Like as a person who maybe thought they should have been a bridesmaid and weren’t like the groom’s sister who isn’t close with the bride at all, wasn’t asked to be it or whatever.
And she intentionally wears the same color as the bridesmaids. That’s maliciously wearing the same colors as the pride space. Yeah. And a lot of people are just right, whereas like. Someone who’s like the girlfriend of a friend from work has no way to like even find out. A lot of women will still ask like, Hey, could you ask your friend like what the colors are?
So I don’t wear the same colors. Some people don’t ask that, and that’s fine. I don’t think they need to. And so they accidentally show up in like the same, I don’t know, like times are tight right now. Like it’s, I’ve definitely worn. A dress I’ve worn is a bridesmaid to someone’s wedding.
Yeah. As a guest. at another wedding. Like,
Christa Innis: but that should be the goal, right? Of like being able to wear your bridesmaid dresses, which I always say I want to be able to, and then I’m like never been able to rewear them, but I have accidentally worn the same color as bridesmaids, but it wasn’t.
Maliciously. I didn’t know they were gonna wear that color and it was a style dress completely. But yeah, that’s definitely happened. I think it’s all about intent and you don’t always know someone’s intent, but I think a lot of times you have a good idea if it’s done that way.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah, I mean a lot of it is just like in this particular story too, when everything that went wrong,
I think it’s so interesting because this story is coming, like, it sounds like the bride was distressed and upset. Like, no one cares about me. Like she was crying. if there wasn’t that note included, like, yeah, that wedding sounds like an absolute cluster, you know? Mm-hmm.
Christa Innis: What I was saying was some people like don’t care. It sounds like the bride cared in this case, but as an onlooker, what they think is like, this is so crazy to a lot of people, like in their friend group, like, that’s just a Friday. You know, like it’s a bunch of drunk
bridesmaid sc groomsmen.
It’s fine. We’ll figure it out.
Janelle Riddell: Well, I mean, and no judgment, like whatever floats your boat, I guess. But, Yeah. Except that she was pulled into the drama that was upset at the bride. Yeah, totally. Totally. I think that, again, it’s like access to alcohol. Like a lot of people. I’ve been to a lot of weddings where it’s not necessarily a dry wedding, like it’s they’re serving alcohol, but because there’s so fearful that there’s gonna be like, maybe not necessarily a scene like this, but like.
A scene they really like limit the availability of alcohol or they, whatever the case is. And so often those end up being the weddings that either one person has, what alcohol they brought in from the outside or whatever, and takes it way too far and you end up with that drunk person anyway, or it’s just like a dud of a wedding.
Like no one’s dancing, no one’s like, So it’s a balancing act for sure. Yeah. Like you don’t, you gotta, that’s where you, again, you gotta know the people you’re inviting and know like What their vibes are. Like if you have a group of people that like open bar, ’cause again, where I come from in Canada, in the province, I live in open bars like typical for weddings.
Mm-hmm. Most weddings are open bar and so that I find actually like creates. Like there isn’t a weird scarcity mindset about the booze. Yeah. So it, like, it’s just a better vibe because no one’s drinking in excess. ’cause they’re not worried about the bar’s gonna be shut down or the bar’s this like, it’s just Yeah, normal.
Christa Innis: That’s a good point. Um, maybe that’s just the weddings I’ve gone to, but, yeah, I would say most I’ve been to, to our open bar, but there’s definitely been some like that. Switch over to cash bar that I’ve been to, or they start as cash bar and then it’s like open bar, or there’s some that are just kind of like uncertain where you’re like.
Is it gonna clo like it closes during dinner or something? I’ve seen that, but um,
Janelle Riddell: yeah, it’s
Christa Innis: pretty common I think at like venues, but yeah, I know alcohol’s like a tricky thing because it’s like some people have that relative or that person that they know they want there, but they can’t control themselves around alcohol.
And it’s like, do you wanna babysit all night? And as the bride and groom, you don’t want that. Responsibility. So you would hope, at least for the most part, that they would like keep the drama away. But it sounds, it sucks that this bride was brought into the drunken drama with cousins and aunts and God knows what else.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of followers message me, like different scenarios where exactly that they’ve been faced with that scenario. There’s someone, usually it’s like on the in-law side, right? That’s why it’s being sent to me. Whoever it is that they can’t trust them around alcohol, and so they make the decision to not invite them, and then after having a conversation with them or whatever the case is, and, that person influences a whole bunch of people to not come to the wedding or whatever it is, you know what I mean?
And so. it can be so tricky. I am really lucky that I’m speaking from a place of, I didn’t have anyone coming to my wedding that I was worried was gonna drink to excess and like make like, be really embarrassing or like get in fights or like, no, none of that. So that was really, good.
But I know there’s so many people who are in that situation, and that’s the same thing. That’s the same thing that people would say everything we were talking about. Like, oh, well just tell them not to do that thing. Or just say, you know, you’re not gonna drive five hours. Like it isn’t that simple. Like people would want their uncle there, people would want their mom there or whatever, but they know that she’s has a bad relationship with alcohol and especially on an emotionally fueled day or.
So tricky for people.
Christa Innis: well that was a crazy story. I would say that’s crazy. Probably the most violent one I’ve ever read. Oh. Um, I think I’ve maybe read one other with a fist fight. But this was like, this was pretty, pretty intense.
okay. Well to end the episode, I always like to read a couple of weekly confessions that people send me. Okay. I know we’re little over on time, so, um, we’ll go through these. Okay. First one says, I wasn’t made of honor by title, but I did everything they would do instead. Okay. That doesn’t really seem like a crazy confession.
No. Yeah, that, I mean, that sucks when that happens. ’cause you know, especially if you’re like a people pleaser you like, I did all this, but like, yeah. Not the maid of honor. Yeah. I’ve definitely been a part of a lot of weddings where I’m not the maid of honor, but I did the Maid of Honor work because I was just like, I’m that person.
Like what do you need help with? How can I help? Like, yeah,
Janelle Riddell: there.
Christa Innis: this one says, my mother-in-law threw a temper tantrum because my sister is throwing my baby shower. Yikes. I mean,
Janelle Riddell: yikes. I guess, I mean, again, like, it’s totally like situation dependent. I live in a world where like, my family is big, people’s families are big.
Like have two baby showers, then like. It doesn’t need to just be one baby shower, but I know that’s not common for everybody. Sometimes it’s like, there only is one baby shower, so
Christa Innis: Yeah. I don’t get throwing a tantrum about it. Just like, no, together, bring a cake. I don’t know. Figure it out.
Janelle Riddell: Bring a cake.
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. Sometimes it’s like hard because I’m just like, I don’t know how people deal with, I would just be like. You can throw one at your house and invite your friends to it. Yeah. let’s see. This one says I nearly ran out on my wedding day. Turns out I should have. Ooh, ooh, there’s a, that’s it.
That’s it. That’s all it says. That’s all it says. ’cause they’re just short Instagram confessions. So I’m wondering if either they’re still married and they’re like, Ooh, rocky, or they got a divorce. I’ve had a few like that,
Janelle Riddell: maybe he’s gay. Maybe.
Christa Innis: Yeah. if she ha she or he, I don’t wanna say who.
Well, or,
Janelle Riddell: the opposite right or
Christa Innis: right, but they, maybe she’s gay.
Janelle Riddell: Yeah. I don’t know. I sus, the more likely is he’s just a jerk or he’s a, like he cheated on her or like, if we’re playing the laws of averages here, she probably should have because he’s a jerk.
Christa Innis: Yeah. I feel like if they have that feeling like before, like while they’re planning the wedding, like, I should probably cancel my wedding then it, I feel like most of the time then it comes true.
Not comes true, but like, yeah. They’re like, yeah, all those signs were pointing to, no, don’t do it. Oh my gosh.
Janelle Riddell: All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your perspective and your hot takes and confessions.
Christa Innis: for anyone listening, where can they follow you, find your content, and, anything else exciting that you’re working on?
Janelle Riddell: Absolutely. thank you so much for having me. This was such a good discussion.
so they can find me on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube shorts, but I don’t post a ton on YouTube shorts right now. My username is at Hey, Janelle Marie. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Family Feuds, Bridal Boundaries & Wedding FAQs: With Cora Lakey
Would you risk a lifelong friendship over a wedding rule? Cora Lakey did—and it went viral. In this episode, Christa chats with Cora about the controversial wedding FAQ that lit up the internet, the truth behind her no plus-one policy, and why people still struggle with brides having boundaries.
They also dive into how social media shapes public opinion, how post-COVID relationships shifted weddings, and why guests sometimes act like the event is about them.
If you’ve ever been labeled a “bridezilla” for setting standards, this conversation is the validation you’ve been waiting for.
Join me on Patreon and get bonus content every month!
Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
01:05 Cora’s Social Media Journey
01:35 The Wedding FAQ Controversy
06:01 Wedding Guest Etiquette and Boundaries
17:31 Wedding Drama Debates
30:04 Story Submission: Overbearing In-Laws
33:36 Navigating Boundaries with In-Laws
35:38 The Wedding Guest List Dilemma
37:20 Financial Control and Wedding Decisions
43:01 Handling Online Criticism
49:44 Mother-in-Law’s Wedding Day Antics
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
- The Viral Wedding FAQ – Cora explains the behind-the-scenes of her infamous guest FAQ and why it wasn’t as outrageous as it seemed.
- When Plus-Ones Become Dealbreakers – Hear how Cora’s decision to limit plus-ones led to the end of a seven-year friendship.
- Losing Friends, Gaining Clarity – A deep dive into how post-COVID life and weddings revealed who really mattered.
- Wedding Industry Pressure – Christa and Cora reflect on the unrealistic standards brides face and how it feeds the bridezilla narrative.
- Boundaries Aren’t Offensive – The duo discuss why people still bristle at women setting boundaries—especially during weddings.
- Guest Behavior: The Entitlement Era – Cora shares real stories of guests behaving badly and the hard truths brides have to deal with.
- Misunderstood on the Internet – What happens when a TikTok explodes on the wrong side of the internet? Cora shares how she handled it.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
- “People don’t realize they can just scroll if they don’t like it.” – Christa Innis
- “Why is it always the bride who’s labeled difficult?” – Christa Innis
- “If you’re offended, maybe you need to look in the mirror.” – Christa Innis
- “Boundaries aren’t mean—they’re necessary.” – Christa Innis
- “Other people’s opinions of you? None of your business.” – Christa Innis
- “People hate women who say no.” – Cora Lakey
- “We weren’t inviting strangers—we were inviting people who mattered.” – Cora Lakey
- “I’ve used these wedding rules hundreds of times in events. They were never controversial—until TikTok.” – Cora Lakey
- “Humans are the only unpredictable element in planning.” – Cora Lakey
- “No one cares about your dog, no one cares about your baby—it’s your wedding.” – Cora Lakey
About Cora
Cora Lakey is a TikToker whose content career kicked off with a story involving her own wedding drama! Now with over 100k followers, she covers lifestyle, commentary on all things pop culture – and of course wedding hot takes!
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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.
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A Team Dklutr Production
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Christa Innis: Hi Cora. Thank you so much for coming on. Hi Christa. Thanks for having me. I am so excited to talk to you today. We were just saying before recording, I was like, I feel like I know you through seeing all your content and it’s one of those like funny, like weird things with social media. ’cause when you see someone enough, you’re like, oh, just catching up with an old friend, but we’ve never met.
So how are you?
Cora Lakey: Thanks for coming on. I’m good. I know that’s the beauty of the internet. You make so many best friends all over the world. I love it.
Christa Innis: Yeah. So for anyone that doesn’t know you or doesn’t follow you, can you just tell us a little bit about you and, you, we’ll kind of get into it.
Cora Lakey: So I’m mainly a TikTok creator.
I post basically just what I’m going through in my life and I feel like I got a lot of momentum through my wedding, FAQ, which was very controversial apparently. and I kind of just talk about whatever I’m experiencing in that moment. So ironically, right now I’m going through a divorce, so I’ve been talking about that a lot.
But I’ll continue to talk about my journey through life online.
Christa Innis: yeah. I remember, you were featured in a story about your own wedding, FAQ, and people were like going crazy over it. So let’s talk about that. in this FAQ? What did people have the like, hardest time understanding about it?
The Wedding FAQ That Sparked a Storm
Cora Lakey: I feel like the entire thing was taken, blown out of proportion.
So a little bit about my background. I worked in the events industry forever. I started doing weddings at, you know, the luxury level in Los Angeles, then I moved to doing corporate events at tech companies. So that’s actually how I ended up in the Bay Area. So I thought a lot of these things were just common sense and that people were used to seeing them because in my professional experience, I’ve word for word used these hundreds of times.
So I had no reason to think the internet would be disturbed by it at all. oh man. I think one of them was I implemented, like color suggestions. So it wasn’t necessarily like you have to wear these specific colors, but just gave suggestions of different colors to where I think people were really confused by that.
But now it seems pretty commonplace. I’m trying to think. I haven’t looked at it in so long. I said if people were late that they would be guided to like a waiting area. But I think it came off as very direct. So people thought they would be turned away if they were late to the ceremony. I said there was an unplugged ceremony.
People were upset that they couldn’t be on their phones, like people were just, yeah. just so many things. And one of the parts that I think maybe was more controversial, as I said, we were doing no plus ones, And I think that got a little bit blown outta proportion. I can provide context later on, but I think people thought it was such a hot take not to offer a hot a plus one to a wedding.
and I ended up mentioning that I lost a seven year friendship because of it. And I think that was the thing that people held onto was they were like, there’s like a juicy story here. We wanna hear what’s going on. so I think it just all compounded where, people were kind of picking each one apart until I was like, okay, I need to address this because this is,
Christa Innis: it’s crazy.
Like I was just talking to someone how like whenever a bride has like guidelines or rules or wanna help something, they’re automatically considered a bridezilla. But it’s like, if there were no rules or like people just went willy-nilly, like, then it would be complete opposite. Like, oh, she’s so disorganized, or this was not a good plan, or this wasn’t a good wedding.
And so it’s like you can never win in those situations. cause I feel like when I’m going to a wedding. It’s kind of nice to have some guidelines, but I’m also like a type A like planner person, so I like being like told kind of like, okay, this is what to expect. Here’s kind of like our theme. Or like some colors you might see because I’ve shown up wearing a bridesmaid dress color not knowing, and I was like, oh.
Which I guess in hindsight there’s no way for me to know. But there’s different things like that where it’s like, it’s kind of nice to see some guidelines. I’m still hung up on it. People were mad about unplugged ceremony. I feel like that’s so common and like I get mad about that, that they pay for photographers and they want professional photographers.
I know. Yeah, I
Cora Lakey: think people took my wedding FAQ very personally, and I think it was, 2023. So I think it was at the time where people were starting to analyze the FYP, the for you page and really analyzing that. People truly think their for you page is talking directly to them. And I feel like that’s a form of internet culture where people are chronically online and they don’t understand that we can’t control where the algorithm puts our videos.
And so people were taking it so personally I think a year later it really course corrected and I actually get a lot of support on that video now. Yeah. But it’s just such an interesting time and I think it just all, it was a perfect storm at once. Yeah. Where I was just like,
Christa Innis: this is
Cora Lakey: out of control.
Christa Innis: I know.
It’s funny because I always say that about like the skits I do like, so there’s stories that are sent to me about things that happen around weddings. Right. And a lot of them do have to do with mother-in-laws. I have a great mother-in-law, so I can’t relate to them, but I do hear stories and I do see them however.
When I share a story with a mother-in-law, someone will always comment like, oh my gosh, like you should share stories about mother of the bride, or you should share stories about this. And I’m like, if you’re getting offended, you might need to look in the mirror because like I don’t see a bride Bridezilla story and be like, oh my gosh, that’s terrible.
I’m like, well, I know I wasn’t like that, so I’m not gonna, it’s fine. There’s stories like that, it happens. Like people don’t realize they can just like scroll if they want to or not engage.
Why Women Aren’t Allowed to Set Boundaries at Weddings
Cora Lakey: Exactly. And I think it speaks to a larger issue with wedding guest culture and how sometimes wedding guests can be extremely entitled.
Like I had so many experiences with people not confirming until immediately before or not giving us an answer or acting like it was super inconvenient to attend and. I feel like I see that a lot online as well of people making a point to not give a gift because they’re already attending the wedding.
So I think it’s really important for, yeah, people to analyze their own behavior and be like, no one’s forcing you to go to a wedding. You can say no, and if you say no, like there’s no expectations, no is a full sentence. But at the same time, you’re discounting how incredibly expensive weddings are, how much stress and pressure they are, especially for the bride.
And I think people hate women with boundaries and they hate women that say no and say, I’m not okay with this. And I think we can recognize that brides are the ones planning the wedding 99% of the time. So all that vitriol goes to the bride and it’s kind of messed up. Right. Why are you doing this?
Christa Innis: They’re seen as the controlling or the difficult one because it’s their vision. you hear it time and time again. It’s like people never make comments about the groom. It’s always the bride. I shared a story yesterday that’s been going viral about, this couple had a no, a child free wedding and someone brought a baby and the baby was crying during the whole vow ceremony.
Yeah. And so like no one removed like the baby. No one, like, I don’t know what the details were, why they showed up with a baby when it said child free, but the title of the article was so degrading to the bride. It said Angry Bride, like, something about is mad that crying baby is there during vows or something.
I totally butchered that. But it was all about the bride being angry and it’s like. They paid lots of money. They apparently specified no children. And you don’t remove the baby while the vows are going off. Like so they’re gonna have crying baby during their video. Yeah. And there’s such an
Cora Lakey: easy solution for that.
Just go to the reception. Okay, you paid all this money to attend the wedding, don’t bring your baby to a ceremony. Like things are common sense. And I think that’s why I was so firm with my FAQ because in a professional environment I’ve had to recognize that things just aren’t common sense and people will push and poke and prod you.
So you have to be extremely direct, simple and to the point. So you can be like, Hey, this is outlined here, this is where this was communicated. And if you add too much language and you try to, you know, make it as polite as possible, people just don’t get it. Mm-hmm. And they start to poke and prod at whatever your rules are that you’re trying to reinforce.
So I feel like that’s another way, like my wedding FAQ was so jarring for people maybe was because it was so direct and I think they aren’t used to women saying no and saying, I’m not putting up with this and maybe we need to talk about that.
Christa Innis: Yeah, no, I totally agree. Because we’re just taught as women, I think, just to be like, oh sure, okay.
You know, people pleasers like I always like to say I’m a recovering people pleaser and like even now when I’m firm, I’m later like, was I too firm? Was I harsh? Are they gonna think badly of me? And it’s like this thing that, like this narrative that we put in our heads of like, if I stand firm for something, they’re gonna think I’m a bitch or something.
And so we just constantly question our decisions and like how we talk to people because of that.
Cora Lakey: Exactly. What was so interesting too about that whole situation is my husband at the time wanted a lot of these rules and actually wanted to have a wedding in the first place. So because I worked in the events industry, I wanted to elope.
I know how expensive weddings are. I was like, I do not wanna deal with the production, like how stressful it is. Like I’m gonna be in the professional mindset this whole time and I just wanna like fully relax. And he was the one that really wanted a wedding. Mm-hmm. And I was like, alright, like I’ll use my expertise.
I’ll make it happen. Excuse me. Sorry, my light died. and so that’s where I was like, it wasn’t even a consideration for people that my husband was the one who might have come up with a lot of these rules because we’re just so used to women being like, all right, I’m taking the front seat here.
So it was really interesting.
Christa Innis: But yeah, no, that’s so true about you say like they automatically just assume that it’s the woman when like, it was same like for our wedding. Like I included my husband on every decision. I wasn’t like, this is what we’re doing. This is my day, not yours. Like, it was like, it’s our day. Let’s talk through this together.
And we were very on the same page about like the size of wedding we wanted, like, did we want kids or no kids, did we want plus ones? that kind of thing. And we were very, like, I would say most everyone we invited had a sign, significant other that we knew. So that’s why we had obviously like couples that were like married, but like I didn’t invite like my cousins.
Boyfriend of six months, like, you know, or two months ’cause that I’ve never met. Yeah. So like my pictures. Yeah. So that’s, yeah. So the plus one thing, do you wanna share on your plus one? Yeah.
The Plus One Controversy
Cora Lakey: Okay. this is why I think it got really misinterpreted. So for me it was really important to have just an intimate wedding where we knew every single person, the theme was friend and family barbecue.
Like I just wanted to be really casual, relaxed atmosphere. And I knew that wasn’t gonna be possible with strangers at our wedding. if you followed me online, you probably see I’m like really transparent about the things I’ve been through in life. And I didn’t talk about this in the FAQ because obviously I didn’t know it would blow up, but my dad passed away pretty suddenly and tragically and I knew I would be talking about that a lot throughout the wedding just through, any speeches I did because.
It was such a life altering moment and I really wanted my dad at my wedding. and he wasn’t gonna be there. So it was like a big gap that I was feeling. So I was already feeling really vulnerable throughout the day. And so that was a very firm decision I made from the beginning. No strangers there.
That being said, if we met them even one time, they were invited. So I’ll give you an example. A friend’s boyfriend, I had never met him. I was like, I’m not comfortable having the boyfriend I’ve never met at my wedding. I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable. she expressed that that made her uncomfortable.
So I was like, listen, let’s get coffee with him. Like we can hang out. We just don’t want strangers there. Met him, he was great. He was invited to the wedding. Mm-hmm. So if the people, if it was important to them, we wanted it to be intimate to the point that if there were any communication things that maybe didn’t make sense for them or didn’t make sense for us, we wanted to be able to have an open dialogue.
Post-Pandemic Wedding Drama
So that was a great example of something didn’t work for her, she expressed it to us, we made it work. Mm-hmm. Whereas the other friend in the seven year friendship that I lost, like there was no interest in our lives, the wedding. we saw that from the beginning, you know? And I think another thing that was really interesting is this was post covid time.
So a lot of people were losing friendships because covid, like a lot of our relationships changed, a lot of friendships dwindled. And this was an example of a friendship that during Covid, like we had completely stopped talking, so we hadn’t talked in almost two years. Mm-hmm. And I kind of extended an invite as.
You know, an olive branch to be like, Hey, I love you. I loved you at one point, and I would love you to be there. You were there for so much of our early dating stages, but we hadn’t talked in almost two years. And by that point, they had a boyfriend. I never met the boyfriend. I didn’t feel comfortable having this stranger hearing all about losing my dad and how sad I was that he wasn’t there.
So. I didn’t invite the boyfriend and instead of communicating that to me, she just didn’t go to the wedding. So it was very obvious that, and here’s the thing, like she never even communicated to me that was what bothered her. Mm-hmm. It was very obvious from my point of view, because I could see like a behavior shift of like hot to cold when she got the invite.
Mm-hmm. But she had also been telling our other friends that she was upset. I didn’t invite her boyfriend, so I had to hear through other people. And it got to the point that I was like, okay, our friendship is in a place where you don’t even feel comfortable enough to tell me that this bothers you. Like you probably shouldn’t be at our wedding.
You know? Like, you don’t wanna be there. It would be uncomfortable for me to have you there. We barely know each other anymore. So that was what kind of got lost on the internet. Mm-hmm. But I think it’s so easy for people to judge, they see. Yep. Slide on the internet for five seconds and they call you a bitch.
They call you a bridezilla. Yes. And there was so much lost in that that made the decision make sense for us as a couple.
Christa Innis: Yeah. That’s the thing with like social media, people just see something quickly and then they just judge based on that. but yeah, I mean like hearing it, hearing you tell it, I’m like, that makes total reasonable sense to me.
Like, cause that’s the thing, it’s like I read it first as like she was like a bridesmaid, but even then it’s like if you just wanted, like if you just communicated and just met one time, like, especially if the other friend did that, that shows like she was already kind of like dwindling away and didn’t really care enough.
So it sounds like your friendship was already kind of like on the rocks maybe and kind of falling apart.
Cora Lakey: Exactly, and I think the post covid relationships and the weddings that fell into that window, it’s such an interesting conversation because it’s so interesting to me. People just forget that time happened and how impacted all of us were.
And it’s normal and natural that like a lot of relationships fell out and we were all figuring out the messiness afterwards. Like no one in this lifetime has experienced a pandemic before. So I was just figuring it out as I went. I’ve never planned my own wedding before, so I was also navigating the emotions that came with that.
And so I was like, I don’t know, I was just very surprised by how shocked people were by it. ’cause it just didn’t seem like that big of a deal to me with all of the circumstances.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think it’s, I think people are so quick to just be like Bridezilla. but you know, you talking about the friendship too, it’s like I’ve had friendships before where like.
Looking back, it’s like they made their choice to like separate themselves they almost look for a reason to just be like done. cause like, without saying too much, but like in our friend group, there was like a friend we’ve known for like years and years and like we were all bridesmaids in her wedding.
They ended up getting a divorce and she found a new guy and we were like really supportive of it. We’re like, you know, we’re here for you, girl. Like, whatever you need. ’cause it turned out it just wasn’t a great marriage, And when she had this new guy, we were like inviting them to everything.
Like, Hey, come to this. Bring him along. We’d love to meet him. And excuse after excuse, like never showing up and. Then things got really weird and it almost was like she was just waiting for like, I don’t know if it was a controlling, like if he was like control, I don’t know, I don’t wanna put like assumptions out there, but it just got really weird and looking back where like she was looking for a reason just to be like done.
and so when I hear that, that’s what makes it makes me think of. ’cause I’m like, okay, like she was already kind of dwindling away. She just wanted a reason to be mad and be like, you know what? I’m not going to her wedding because of this, but
Cora Lakey: yeah. And that’s totally fine. But I had to accept that for what it was like, weddings are so stressful.
I was like, I can’t let this take up any more of my mental space. You know? It’s like, it is what it is. I was barely like, at that point I was just like, okay, over and done. I wish her well. And I felt like I just had to keep rethinking about it because the internet was so activated by it. I was like, yes.
It’s crazy that this friendship that really, we both put to bed at this point, it doesn’t mean that much to either of us, but the internet is just making it into something. It isn’t.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh yeah. It’s so easy just to change things to make it sound terrible. okay. So we kind of just like dove right in.
I love that. So I feel like we should jump into, these are wedding drama debates. So people send me on Instagram, their hot takes or unpopular opinions when it comes to wedding and I wanna get weddings and I wanna get your side on these. Okay. Not wanting to come to a wedding ’cause there are kids is less valid than not inviting kids.
So, well that’s like worded a very interesting way.
Cora Lakey: Yeah. Like they don’t wanna attend a wedding if there’s kids there.
Christa Innis: yeah, they’re saying like, if someone doesn’t want to come to a wedding. Because there are kids is less valid than someone being like, we’re not inviting kids at all.
that is like a really interesting way of writing that. I don’t put these together so I, ’cause I don’t wanna see them first, but that’s like a very interesting way. I
Cora Lakey: feel like it’s giving, like flying on an airplane and being upset that there’s kids there, like mm-hmm.
You’re in a public place, you aren’t in control of the airline. There’s gonna likely be a child there and you need to get over it. Like if the couple decides they won’t have kids there, it’s your decision whether or not to go. But making a stink out of it is weird. Yeah. I think what they’re trying to say is they don’t wanna attend an alcohol free wedding.
That’s my assumption. Because if there’s kids there, maybe they’re really religious or maybe there’s no alcohol, or maybe they’ll have to limit the quantities and maybe that makes them uncomfortable. So I feel like it is less valid. I kind of get what they’re trying to say, but
Kids at Weddings: A Divisive Topic
Christa Innis: yeah, it’s like they’re going, they’re talking about someone’s response to not wanting to go to a wedding.
So they’re saying like, if someone doesn’t invite kids, it’s okay. But if someone doesn’t wanna come to a wedding because kids are gonna be there, that’s not okay. people get crazy about the kids or no kids things at weddings and I’m just like, whatever the bride and groom want. ’cause I can see both sides.
Like I get not wanting a bunch of kids running around, especially kids you might not know. But I also get where you want, like your family there. Like we all, we invited all our nieces and nephews, but we didn’t have like friends kids there because most of them wanted like date nights out, like away.
Cora Lakey: We did that as well. Just kids of the family and I felt like that was a perfect solution. I have never heard of a wedding guest being bothered by kids being there. That’s so interesting. Yeah. So I think I agree with the original question, like that’s a weird thing to be bothered by.
Christa Innis: Yeah. I’ve had people, when I’ve done like skits on it, I’ve had people be like mad that like, well if you tell me I can’t bring my kid, I better not see any kids there.
I’m like, but there’s a difference if like, if it’s the niece of the bride or it’s the nephew of the groom that is family that’s different than like your the bride’s coworker and you can’t bring your kids. That’s so different. And I don’t know why people don’t see that it’s different. It’s
Cora Lakey: so weird.
I mean, hot take, no one cares about your kid and no one cares about your dog. Like no one wants them there like. It’s not as special to everyone else as it is to you. I love my dogs. They’re my little furry soulmates, but like I know people don’t want my dogs in their face and they don’t want them, you know, off leash at the park.
And the same thing goes for kids. It’s like, I feel like sometimes people. Are just too cheap to find babysitters and just don’t wanna deal with that. Or like they think that everyone wants their kid there and there’s a time and a place for everything. And totally like, I think it’s completely understandable to want the kids in your family that are gonna be in your life forever.
And you’ll see these milestones, like the pictures of my nephew at my wedding, like I cherish those pictures so much and even though like the marriage ended, like I’m keeping all of these family pictures ’cause they’re so special to me and already grown so much. So Yeah, it’s completely understandable to want your family there.
Not a random baby. We’re like, who is this baby? Like, I don’t know you.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Like I think about like coworkers that I invited to my wedding I maybe talked to them like half of them, like here and there. But like if I’d had their kids there, like I feel like that would be weird. They probably wouldn’t have even me, even had me ex or expected me to invite them.
But it’s just
Cora Lakey: your, your wedding is not free childcare. That’s weird.
Christa Innis: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And every kid’s different. Like some kids are gonna love a wedding and be very well behaved, love the music. Other kids are gonna be like, this is boring. Get me home. So it’s hard to do a blanket statement of that.
okay. Living together before marriage dampens the celebratory aspects of the wedding. Ooh, that is a hot take. I
Cora Lakey: don’t agree with that at all. I don’t either buy it before you buy it.
Christa Innis: Yeah. And I feel like, you know what, we’re in the 21st century. We don’t need to be like, because I feel like the reason people didn’t move in until they were married is ’cause they lived at home.
So they lived at home until dad gave them away, or, whatever that next step was. You went from one house to the next. That’s a good point. Yeah.
Cora Lakey: I think. So many issues come from living with someone too. When you see someone’s habits like this is disgusting. I don’t know if this is appropriate for a podcast, but I just was listening on another podcast.
They were doing an FAQ section and this girl was having an issue with her boyfriend peeing in their sink every day. Every day. He was peeing in the sink, not the toilet that was right there. Don’t you need to know that stuff before you marry someone? Live with them? Yeah. What? Yeah, I was so deeply dis disturbed and one of the girls was like, oh, like my husband’s done that before.
I was like. My husband never did that, thank God. And I would not be able to look at him the same if he did. Like, that’s so disgusting. No know these things. Like what if someone has really bad hygiene? What if they’re, you know, a slob? What if, you know, whatever the case may be. Like being roommates with someone is so important.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I totally agree. Like if your thing is like, we don’t wanna move in until it then more power to you, I think that’s great. But I don’t believe in putting down a relationship because they do it differently. I like our wedding was amazing event with all our friends and family and I, was never one of those girls that like, when I was like five I was like picturing my wedding and stuff, but once I met my now husband, like I was like, oh this is so, like, I could totally picture it.
I would, this is how I want my big wedding to be, whatever. But I don’t think it took away from it. But it also wasn’t like, oh my gosh, it’s the rest, the first day of the rest of my life I was like. We’ve lived together for, I don’t know, four years at that point. So like, I
Cora Lakey: think this is such a hot take, and I know we’ll get into hot Takes later, but I think people like Overdramatize weddings a lot, and I think mm-hmm.
A lot of it is just feeding into the wedding industry, right? Like the wedding industry is preying on people saying this is the most important day of their lives and they have to look the most beautiful they’ve ever looked, and they have to have the most gorgeous flowers. And being on the other side of that as a planner, it’s not.
Your wedding is what you make of it. Like if something goes wrong, if it’s down pouring, if your dress rips, like it’s not that big of a deal. Mm-hmm. It’s okay to have a redo. Like for our honeymoon. Like I was distraught because of everything that was going on on the internet and I was like, oh my gosh, like I can’t even enjoy this honeymoon because people, like, I was getting hit up by like major news outlets, like hundreds of messages.
Like it was awful. So we just did a redo honeymoon. Like it wasn’t that big of a deal. So like I feel like the importance of these moments are what you put into it, like what you make of it, and not that big of a deal on, the wedding day. Unless you make it that way. And unless you’re like, this will be the most important day of my life.
You know?
Christa Innis: Yes, I totally agree with what you’re saying. Like the way you said that, because there’s such pressure, and I think that’s where this whole like bridezilla like wedding, like, I don’t know, pressure comes from is like this absolute perfect day. And if one little thing goes off, like it’s not gonna be the day you ever you dreamed of.
And there’s all this like high expectations of like, making it be the absolute perfect day. And I agree with making it nice and stuff, but like things might go wrong and that’s okay and we just have to like, move on from it. like I would never, I wouldn’t say I was like a stressed bride at all. Like, people would be like, oh, you’re gonna be so stressed during it.
And I was just like, there was like, maybe a couple times I’d be like, oh, I’m kind of stressed, but like, I love planning stuff. So for me it was fun. But even like the makeup artist, the morning of, I remember she was like. You are like one of the most relaxed brides. And I was like, well, I figure at this point everything’s done.
Like if something happens, like we’re here, like, I don’t know. Yeah.
Cora Lakey: Oh my God, this is so off topic, but what were your thoughts on that wedding makeup artist drama on TikTok? Did you see that?
Christa Innis: Yes. Wait, the girl that like filmed herself taking off the, yeah, I actually talked about this. I was saying like, she planned that all along.
I think. I think so, because who, on their wedding day when things are already tight, puts up the camera, brings their maid of honor in the bathroom and is like, I’m washing this off. Like, she looked good. Yeah. So I don’t think it looked any different when the makeup artist like did it versus when she did it,
Cora Lakey: it looked exactly the same.
Like, I’m like, that’s why I was so confused. Like surely she’s pranking us, right? Like there’s no way. That was so weird. Like, I’m glad the makeup artist got her flowers and everyone got to see her point of view. But I cannot imagine just as a vendor, like how jarring that would be to go online and have someone roasting your business.
Christa Innis: Yes.
Cora Lakey: I tell you, it was awful.
Christa Innis: Yes. Well, and that just happened too with the photographer. Did you see that one? No. Oh my gosh, you have to look it up. I would almost say this one was worse because she tagged the photographer’s company and she was lying. She wasn’t telling the whole story. So basically she shared like 10 photos from her wedding and she was like, when you look forward to your wedding day, and it turns out like this, and it’s like this sad music from home alone.
You’re like the, and she shows like 10 blurry, blurry photos from her wedding. Mind you, if you looked at the full album, which people obviously were able to find, it was gorgeous. Like gorgeous, but the wedding reception was at nighttime and it was outdoors. So as a photographer you can only do so much with that.
But they did a great job with the photos, but she chose blurry ones to share. She chose, and I guess like the photographer then came on and she shared her side and she’s like, I’ve literally been talking to the mom and the girl I offered to give money back, which is not in the contract. I don’t have to, but she’s like, I did.
She worked with them she thought everything was fine. And then this girl who turns out she’s 19 years old, posted everything.
Cora Lakey: Do you think everyone’s looking for like a viral moment
Christa Innis: nowadays? Yeah, I think so. But. It’s like they don’t think when they do that, like it’s gonna come back to bite you if you’re lying.
Cora Lakey: Yeah, I know everything. I was thinking about that with the one that you just posted today with the bride. With the designer that was like ghosting her and then posted all of that during her wedding weekend. Like she absolutely could have sued her for emotional distress and defamation. Like people don’t think about that stuff until it’s too late, like mm-hmm.
We have to be so careful what we post online because. Like she was a hairdresser, like that could completely destroy her business and mm-hmm. People even think of the consequences of that stuff. Like that’s so crazy.
Christa Innis: I know. And that’s terrible. ’cause then people just go to like Yelp and they’re like, before learning the full story, they just see the seamstress post this and they’re just like, oh, one star.
And anyone can leave a review on Yelp. And so it like plummeted her reviews. And I’m like, that’s the scary thing. Like people just want to, it’s almost like they want validation in what they did or something. And so then it’s like, oh, I need someone to side with me so I don’t feel as crappy about what I did or something.
Cora Lakey: That’s very true. Yeah. I’ll never get the witch hunt mentality of the internet. Like the angry mob. I’m like, you don’t even care about this. Like, why are you
Christa Innis: doing this? No. It is quite literally insane that one of the negatives about. Internet, I would say. Um, okay, let’s get into this week’s story submission.
Um, so like I said before we started recording, I don’t read these ahead of time ’cause I wanna react with you. So I’m gonna read it and then we’ll like pause or feel free to stop me at any point to like jump in ’cause these are crazy stories I guess.
Cora Lakey: Okay,
The Engagement Ring Reveal Gone Wrong
Christa Innis: here we go. Okay. When my husband first bought my engagement ring but hadn’t yet proposed, his mom and sister wanted to see the ring.
He didn’t show, he didn’t want to show them before he asked me and told them no. They proceeded to demand, he show them and went through his free, went through his things until they found it. Can you imagine
Cora Lakey: my god?
Christa Innis: No. Something else that happened was he knew we wanted our, was, we knew we wanted our bridal party to be very small.
My sister and his best friend. That was all. I wanted his sister to have a more meaningful role, and I wanted her to do a reading during the ceremony. I came to find out a few months after the engagement that his family was furious, that his sister was not in the wedding. I didn’t really know his sister.
They didn’t go out or even talk to each other unless they happened to be at the same family event. Every time he was home, his mom and sister would yell at him about the fact that his sister wasn’t in the bridal party, and then his grandmother and aunts would call and yell at him. Ultimately, it wasn’t really worth the fight.
I wasn’t fighting. They were over, and I’m sorry, it wasn’t worth the fight. I wasn’t fighting. They were over my Bri bridal party to me, so I invited her to be in it. Wait, so she gave in because they were complaining and making him feel so bad?
Cora Lakey: God.
Christa Innis: Oh, I have so many thoughts. See, I, and I don’t know your take on this, but I don’t think siblings should automatically be in the wedding.
It totally depends on your relationship. Plus it’s like, it’s not his sister or, I mean, it is his sister, but it’s not like his brother on his side. Like you kind of, you choose your bridesmaids. Um, it’s like I had my husband’s sister and sister-in-law, but I get along with them really well. And so like, I couldn’t imagine getting married without them.
But if we weren’t close or he didn’t talk to them, why would I have ’em in the wedding?
Cora Lakey: Yeah, it sounds like there’s a huge boundary issue with this family and that’s so hard. Like overbearing in-laws is so challenging ’cause you love that person, but when you marry someone, you marry their family and mm-hmm.
Unfortunately, it sounds like that’s what happened here. Okay. So like the first part of the story, them wanting to see the engagement ring, I kind of get that. But it sounds like their intentions were bad. So like it makes me think of sex in the city when Aiden was gonna propose to Carrie and the ring was hideous and then Samantha stepped in, I think it was Samantha stepped in and got a gorgeous ring.
That’s totally her style. So that’s what I thought was the case. It’s like, oh, they’re really close to the bride. They know her style. She might not like this ring, but it just sounds like they’re being nosy and have bad intentions. Yeah. And maybe they wanna be close to you, but they are not emotionally mature enough to express that.
Yes. ’cause if they’re walking behind your back and can’t tell you to your face, you’re the bride, what their issues are and they have to go to him, like clearly there’s like a gap in the relationship and, and it sounds like it’s for the best that she wasn’t in your bridal party, but I guess she is now. So
Christa Innis: I know. Well, and my whole thing is like, I get, you know, maybe wanting to help and like see the ring like. But it’s also knowing when no is no, and knowing the boundaries. And so like the fact that they went in searching for the ring, I’m just like, where’s the boundary? So it sounds like he was probably still living at home maybe.
And they knew he hid it in his room or something. I would be mortified. I would be like, do you not understand what no
Cora Lakey: means? Cool. And what’s so scary about that is you think of the future and you want your husband to protect you. Especially, you know, they, that is true. Like they are the line between, you know, those communication issues and they’re supposed to filter everything and kind of keep the peace.
And if this is already happening where you guys are bending over for your in-laws, what’s gonna happen to you? Have kids like, yeah. Are they gonna be weird and put your kid in clothes that you’re not comfortable with? You know? Or like post pictures of them online, if you’ve said no, like, stuff like that, it’s like, mm-hmm.
What, what are those boundaries? And you know. I understand giving in now and trying to keep the peace, but to whoever you are listening to this, just keep this in mind in the back of your head for when you have kids.
Christa Innis: Yeah. I literally just read something because in my like newsletters, I like putting in like little tips for people.
I literally just read something about boundaries and it said, if you start slipping on your boundaries, that’s like letting the other person know, like you’re easy to like cave. So even if it’s a small thing, like you’re like, oh, you can, okay, sure you can come to my wedding, because they kept pushing and they were angry and they were rude about it.
That’s showing that in the future that if I just keep asking or if I just keep telling them, then they’ll say yes to me. So yeah, it’s like who knows what other boundaries they will cross. That is
Cora Lakey: so true. Yeah. I think it’s a good lesson for anyone listening that’s maybe in a similar situation and maybe, yeah, like I think a lot of women, like you said earlier, have people pleasing tendencies and maybe we need to break that cycle.
Yes. It’s not a bad thing.
Mother-in-Law Drama Over the Wedding Guest List
Christa Innis: I agree. I agree. Um, okay. It says something else occurred when we were looking for venues. We invited our mothers to come along with us and to go to lunch. After we looked at a few, our first visit, we knew that it was not the one and had to make an obligatory, obligatory small talk to we could politely decide, um, to decline and leave.
The coordinator asked how many people we were thinking of, and I said, around 100. Well, my future mother-in-law’s face just fell. And her whole demeanor changed. She suddenly said she wasn’t staying and stocked off. We had no idea what happened. We called her after to see if she was still meeting us for lunch and to see more venues.
I don’t remember if she said it curtly or not, but she said no. Um, oh yeah. I don’t remember if she said curtly and No, or she just didn’t answer either way. Several days passed, maybe even a week. She refused to speak to my husband. Wait, just for saying they were, they were inviting a hundred people. Oh. It came out that she was furious.
We were only inviting 100 people. Like communicate. She,
Cora Lakey: yeah, she wanted all her friends there and she knew that wasn’t gonna happen. Ew. But it’s
Christa Innis: like to not even say like, oh, you’re only inviting a hundred, like. I was hoping I could blah, blah, blah. Like she didn’t even like try to communicate. That’s the problem is like, she just was like, I’m gonna leave and ignore you.
Cora Lakey: No, they sound like a very emotionally immature family and I feel like that’s just something to note for yourself in the future because you’re going, like, it’s guaranteed you’re going to have boundary issues with them in the future, like. They sound like very challenging in-laws, and I think it brings up another conversation of accepting money for your wedding.
Mm-hmm. So we made a very conscious decision not to accept money from our in-laws for our wedding. They. We’re very insistent about certain things. So we’re like, okay, you can cover our engagement party or you can cover part of our rehearsal dinner before the actual wedding event. No money, because I did not want anyone to have a say in our wedding.
Like that was something I was very firm about. And that’s something you need to weigh the pros and the cons of is if you are accepting money from your in-laws, you’re technically accepting some of their wishes. And that includes if they wanna have their friends there, you know you’re gonna feel obligated to have your mother-in-law’s, five best friends that you’ve never met if she’s paying for half the wedding or she’s paying for the whole wedding.
Mm-hmm. So way the pros and cons of. Is it worth having a smaller wedding that I am 100% in control of that I can actually afford? Or are you okay with these boundary issues? But it kind of sounds like you’re not
Christa Innis: Yeah, 100%. Because you can be really firm with someone saying like, no, your money does not mean this, but they’re still gonna hold it over your head.
They’re still like certain people, um, they’re gonna be like, well, I’m paying for the open bar, so that means I get to bring all these people. Um, yeah, it’s, or I can drink as much as I
Cora Lakey: want, act like a fool. And you’re like, no, you can’t.
Christa Innis: Yeah, please don’t. There’s, there’s so much discussion around like, pay because, and it’s funny ’cause when I repurpose and like post videos on different platforms, different platforms have different feelings about it.
Um, and you could probably guess which ones, but there’s one that, there was a story where, um, the mother-in-law offered to pay for. The bride’s bouquet and the bride wanted a very specific thing, and the mother-in-law was like, oh, that’s really expensive. And she’s like, I’m happy to pay the difference. Or she’s like, the bride was like, I will pay for it.
Like, it’s okay. I understand you wanted to help. I’ll pay for it. Mother-in-law law was like, no, no, no, don’t worry about it. I offered the mother-in-law then called the B the um, flower shop changed it, so she didn’t know until the wedding and was mortified. She was like, I, this is not what I wanted. I always envisioned whatever flowers and the Cummins on one platform are mixed.
People are like, well, she, the mother-in-law paid for it, so she should be able to do whatever she wants. I’m like, no, she gave it out. Yeah. I’m just like, how is
Cora Lakey: it even a discussion? Yeah, like sometimes people insist like my in-laws like, so like, I’ll give you an example. Like my family is no Christmas presents.
We’ve just always been that way. Like it’s just not a thing in my family. My mother-in-law loves Christmas, would insist on buying Christmas presents and so I would feel obligated to match her energy. You know, like financial stuff is very murky and you know, I felt kind of uncomfortable with that because my family was just so not into that.
But I wanted to make her happy. But I also felt pressure because I was like, well, you’re doing this for me. I have to do it for you. So it’s like. Again with the boundary, things you need to assert your boundaries and way if you’re okay with uncomfortable things like that happening. But also, what’s wrong with the florist?
Like why aren’t they telling the bride that’s so messed up?
Christa Innis: Yes. Why? Like that, that, yeah, that was another thing is like people were like, why would the florist change it? The girl that sent it to me, it happened like 25 years ago. ’cause all these people were like, this didn’t actually happen. The florist wouldn’t do it.
And she’s like, no, it happened 25 years ago. It’s because the ma, the mother-in-law’s name was on it. Like she’s the one that signed it or whatever. And it’s her credit card information or I don’t, something like that. It’s crazy.
Cora Lakey: But also through following you, I have been shocked by how professional unprofessional vendors are.
The wedding dress designer, like so many people, it’s like, whatcha doing? You know? Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah, I, I’m always, I say like I’m always and never shocked at the same time because in general I’m still shocked about these stories, but I’m also like, it’s crazy. Like nothing truly surprises me ’cause I’m just like, these stories are just like ongoing.
Cora Lakey: Oh, I feel like I learned through working in events, like one of my mentors told me this, humans are the only unpredictable element. Oh yeah. It was so helpful. And like, especially dealing with a divorce now, like I’ve been so disappointed in people’s behavior and you know, people who said, I love you, I would die for you overnight.
Like, I’m dead to them. So it’s really interesting because, you know, I never would’ve, I would’ve been shell-shocked by that, right? Like before mm-hmm. Working in the vets industry. But because I recognize like human beings are just so unpredictable and like, we just have to accept that in every station of life, whether that’s personal things, weddings, divorces, you know, at work, like whatever it is.
Like if you just have no expectations of people, like it really helps you process when these crazy, dramatic things happen because it can like be so emotionally heavy. You know, you want your wedding today day to be a specific way, and like you have such a vision and then someone does something like that, you know, it’s so calculated and hurts you, it’s understandable to be hurt by that.
But if you just take a step back and you’re like, okay, you know what? Like people are just so unpredictable. Like, I can’t control this. It, it makes you feel so much better about things.
Christa Innis: Yeah. No, that’s a really good, really good point to have because I was just saying something my husband the other day. I don’t remember what, well, I don’t remember what it was, but there was something, and I was just like, this is why like over the years, like I’ve kind of just turned into like, not like a hermit, but like I just don’t get as emotionally involved in things as much because I’m just like, I, like I used to take things so personally, not saying I don’t about some things, but like, or so like emotional and I’m just like, people will, people, Mel
Cora Lakey: Robin says, yeah, yeah, for what we do.
Like we’ve heard it all, you know. So you can’t care what people think.
Christa Innis: Exactly. Yeah. I mean, I’ve had to like stop reading comments ’cause there’s certain people that are just like, so mean and Oh my gosh. And so like my husband will know immediately. He’ll be like, what did you read today? And I’m just like.
Nothing. He’s like, what did you read? And I’m like, well, this person said this and this. And he’s like, stop reading the comments. I’m like,
Cora Lakey: what? Nina’s comment you’ve gotten that you remember?
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. Um, well, someone told me once, and this is why sometimes I stutter when I’m reading. Someone told me once that, um, I, what’s the word they used?
She was like, you need to, you should practice reading before you put, you film yourself because you sound, um, oh. What’s the word for not now I’m gonna sound dumb. Um, like you’re, you can’t, like, you sound like you can’t read or you don’t know how to, you’re illiterate. That’s what she said. She said, you sound illiterate because you can’t read on camera.
Um, I’ve had people say, um, I didn’t add for something once, and they said, um, I’m a, like, I’m selling out.
Cora Lakey: Oh my God.
Christa Innis: I was like, do you know how many I like turned down like, I barely do ads. Barely. And I was just like, really? I was like, I do things to like help brides, um, or you know, people, but Yeah. Um, I get mean ones on YouTube a lot.
Like they’ll say like, I’m like. Talking too much. I’m like, well, don’t watch it.
Cora Lakey: Oh my God. Yeah. YouTube is ruthless. Like YouTube shorts is a dark place on the internet. It’s like Twitter almost. I was shocked. Like when you have a video go viral on there. Good luck. It’s, it’s not pretty.
Christa Innis: Yeah. YouTube, I probably, I like stopped reading ’cause like this girl like ripped me apart and won one time.
Yeah. I’m so
Cora Lakey: sorry. That’s okay.
Christa Innis: I can laugh about it now.
Cora Lakey: It’s good. It’s good. Dinner table fodder. Is that what they say?
Christa Innis: Yeah. I usually need like a good week and then I’ll be like, fine. Yeah. Um, like, and, and the, and I I think it goes back to the people pleaser thing, right? Where I, I want to reply so that they either like understand me or they feel bad that they said it.
And there has been, weirdly enough, there’s been two circumstances where I’ve replied to like a mean comment. I. And they’ve actually messaged me and they’ve, they’ve been like, I’m actually really sorry. I said that. And I thought about like sharing it to be like, Hey guys, see, it does help, but I don’t know.
Um, yeah, one lady said like, I’m sorry, I was having a really bad day. I don’t know why I criticized you like that. Um, I think she like criticized how I talked or I said a word wrong or something. And she’s like, oh, I should have never said that. And another person apologized to, so then there’s like this people pleaser in me that I’m like, I want them to like see that I like, this is why I did something, or this is like why I do this kind of content.
And, but then I’m like, I can’t explain myself to everybody. It’s not Did it
Cora Lakey: make you feel better when they messaged you or was it just like, oh, okay. You
Christa Innis: know, ah, that’s a good question. I think it made me feel better, I think because I was like, you know what? Everyone’s allowed to have a bad day. Um, it just kind of sucks that they.
Felt the need like to come online. But my thing is that anyone that bullies online is probably dealing with something very bad in life, or they’re just an upset person. Like
Cora Lakey: yeah,
Christa Innis: like
Cora Lakey: humanizing the trolls is the best way to go about it. I think like whenever, whenever I’m having a really bad day online, ’cause my videos go viral on the wrong side of TikTok all the time.
I dunno why. I’ll literally go somewhere crowded. So I’ll go to like Whole Foods when it’s four o’clock after work or something, or like five o’clock, and I’ll look at all the people around me and be like, okay, I’m seeing these real human beings face to face. Like, do I care what these people think about me?
Like, would I care right now if, you know, if I was telling my story to them face to face, would they have the same reaction as these people online? Probably not. Mm-hmm. Because you know, when you’re a real human being and you see a human being face to face, like you aren’t as critical and you aren’t as harsh.
And I think sometimes, you know, the trolls. You know, they think that the people on the other end of the camera are robots. They’re not real people. Mm-hmm. And vice versa, I’m like, this is just a bot troll. Like this isn’t a real person. And then I’m like, wait, this is like a real person that, you know, potentially is going through something horrible or maybe there’s something wrong with them.
And like, it’s not my place to figure out what their problem is. Yeah. And I just have to,
Christa Innis: yeah. I saw something the other day where it was like, other people, and I’ve heard this before, I just needed a refresher. It was like, other people’s opinions of you is none of your business. And I was like, yes.
Because the internet opens us up to everyone’s opinion. Right. And it’s like you, we never used to get that. Like, if I had put something out in the universe before, like if I wrote something or if I acted in something, I wouldn’t know what everyone’s thought was. But now it’s like people put their every thought out there, and it really isn’t our business to know.
Like, if someone thinks we’re garbage or like we don’t know what we’re talking about, like. I don’t know. We have to like block it out a little bit.
Cora Lakey: It’s so true. And like it’s understandable to care. Like your brain is not supposed to know all of these opinions about you. You know? Like, especially I think you’re only supposed to interact with like 10 people, like in a week.
I forget what the statistic is, but like, if you’re looking at like, you know, your normal circle of people, your friends, your family, your coworkers, like knowing their opinions, it makes sense. Like it’s normal. You’re interacting with them every day. Well then you amplify that by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
It’s like, it’s not normal for your brain to be able to compute what all these randos are thinking about you. So like it’s so normal to care. Mm-hmm. But it’s how you respond to it that makes all the difference, I feel like.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I’m constantly learning of like how to like respond to people like that.
Cora Lakey: You got this?
Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Okay. Um, back to this story. Okay. Another thing, we asked our families for their list of guests well in advance so we could stay on top of things and keep within the budget. My mother-in-law said she was working on it. No problem. We had time weeks, and then a couple of months go by.
We realized she hadn’t given us anything at all. Once again, my husband asked for her list. She said she was working on it. More weeks go by again. We realized we still had nothing from her. So we decide next time to see her in person. We would ask her again. She blew us off again. Weeks go by and we went to visit her and this time we asked if we could just go through her address book.
See, I feel like they’re giving her way too many chances. I would be like, after two times of asking, that’s it. Sorry. Like you’re so scared of
Cora Lakey: her.
Christa Innis: Yes, I know. I’m like, I feel like it’s just. You always wonder, like a lot of times, like the brides write the story and so I’m like, is the groom like feeling like he’s in the middle or she’s trying to appease him still?
Like what’s, I dunno what’s happening here. they asked if we could look at her address book. She came and took the thing away. So that was a no. Okay. Then I’d be like, then you’re not getting a list.
Cora Lakey: No. Yeah. What’s
Christa Innis: the problem?
Cora Lakey: Three strikes and you’re out.
Christa Innis: Yeah. My husband ended up coming up with his own list of people.
His mom might wanna invite why and ran it by her she still wouldn’t give up addresses. He spent hours using dial up internet to find addresses. See why is
Cora Lakey: so weird?
Christa Innis: I feel like they’re being too nice. I’d be like, okay, if you don’t send us a list, then you’re not gonna have anyone to invite. Yeah.
Cora Lakey: You have X date.
This is due. The venue needs it. We need to send out postage.
Christa Innis: Yeah, it’s not
Cora Lakey: by this date, you’re not getting invites. It’s so simple.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Because she’s already basically telling you, without telling you that it’s not a priority. It’s not important to her, or she just doesn’t wanna invite anybody
Cora Lakey: that’s beg her for a
Christa Innis: list.
Cora Lakey: Yeah. Like that’s where I wanna know like, how much is the mother-in-law paying, like if she, is she paying for a hundred percent of the wedding? Because that makes a big difference. Mm-hmm. Like that’s why she can act this way and kind of do what she wants on her own timeline because if she’s paying for it, that makes sense.
If she’s not paying for anything, it’s like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like why are you letting her walk all over you? You know? Yeah.
Mother-in-Law Ruins Wedding Day with One Comment!
Christa Innis: Well, and in the beginning for her to act so mad about the a hundred people comment, but then never communicate. It’s because I wanna invite more people or because, oh, I thought you’d have a bigger wedding.
Like nothing. She just is like being like sour and just being passive aggressive with everything, which is just like, okay, I don’t like it. I don’t get it. Okay. almost at the end here. Sorry, we’re kinda running over. okay. Which leads us to. I completely forgot about this part until one of your skits took me right back.
This leads me to the ceremony, which I thought went great. My husband seemed a tad odd, maybe a bit preoccupied, not runaway. Grew and Preoccupied or anything. It was just hard to pinpoint.
Right after the ceremony, we were getting our picture taken and he informed me that as he was walking his mom in, she told him that she hated his vest.
So he spent our ceremony self-conscious. She did that on purpose.
Cora Lakey: okay. I feel like we need to have a conversation about overbearing mother-in-laws because I’m worried for this girl. Yeah. Like, this is such a long story of like point by point, by point, all these aggressions from your mother-in-law,
Christa Innis: uh, and how controlling or conniving is it to do it right before you’re walking down?
Cora Lakey: Yeah. Like,
Christa Innis: you know, you’re gonna get in his head. And just like almost remind him of like, I’m your mother, this is where I stand.
Cora Lakey: I think like, too, we wanna give people the benefit of the doubt. Like sometimes they say things that are, off the cuff or maybe thoughtless that you’re like, okay, maybe they were just being, thoughtless in that moment.
Or maybe they’re dumb. Like whatever. Like, but no, like, something I’ve really accepted recently is like, we’re all adults and adults are intentional and they are taught to think before they speak. And an adult woman made an intentional choice to make an aggressive comment to make your husband uncomfortable.
Mm-hmm. And that seems like, yeah, you’re right. It’s asserting dominance. And especially like, I think in the wedding ceremony, the tradition part, right? Like it’s like his family. And then there’s a transition where he becomes your family. So then they become the extended family and you’re the immediate family.
And it sounds like she recognized that was happening in a few minutes and wanted to put one last dig in.
Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Gross. I don’t know girl.
Cora Lakey: I’m kind
Christa Innis: of
Cora Lakey: worried about you.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Oh my gosh. she said it was mostly covered up by his tux jacket and you couldn’t even really see it. So there you go. and the last thing, two to three years later, so they’ve been married few years.
Oh, well actually I don’t know how long this story happened though, but my sister-in-law got married and my husband was a groomsman. I was not sat with the family, nor was I in a single one of her wedding pictures. That is so intentional. Even after they added the sister in the wedding.
Cora Lakey: My god, this family is so immature and petty and just protect yourself.
Like I feel so bad. Like we need an update also. Yeah. what’s going on now? Because I feel like, yeah, these couldn’t be isolated incidents.
Christa Innis: No, I know. I wanna like reach out to her and be like, how long ago was this? What update do we have? Can we get more to this? Because that is, I mean, I have so many questions too, like what ended up happening with the guests?
Was she still mad? ’cause they stuck to a hundred people. What’s his sister-in-law’s deal? They allowed her to come in the wedding and then she still is like, mm-hmm. Despite you, I’m not gonna have you in the wedding and not even sat with the. So
Cora Lakey: weird. Why, like, did you watch Secret Lives of Mormon wives?
Yes. It sounds like Jen Affleck and her in-laws, like how they were so glowing and nice to the one and then to her, they’re just so dismissive.
Christa Innis: It’s just so sad. Like it’s like that. mother-in-law or in-law thing where they like picture a certain person to be married to their son and when they don’t meet their expectations, they treat them a different way.
But I’m like, he’s made his choice. He’s an adult. Like he chose this person to marry. She’s now a part of the family. But I also, as the husband, I wanna be like, you need to back up your wife first. Not saying he’s not, but to see that she’s not set with the family, I would be like, mortified.
Why Isn’t He Defending His Wife?
Cora Lakey: Yeah, let’s talk about the husband.
not to sound like Kim Richards, but what, like, why is he not defending you? Like mm-hmm. That really bothers me because your husband is supposed to protect you. Why is he not doing that? Like, if my husband did not say, you better change the seat right now. Like, I would be so upset. Like, you don’t wanna like force someone to do something they’re not comfortable with, but I’m making broad assumptions here.
It sounds like he’s the only boy in the family and they’re very protective of him and cuddle him maybe. And maybe he needs to step it up and protect his wife, you know? Yeah. It’s like, no, like your wife should be the most important person in your life. You needed to do things to make her comfortable. And it sounds like he’s not asserting boundaries with his family.
Christa Innis: no. That’s where I got in the beginning when they like just started searching for the ring that he was like still living at home. And so they had that control over him of like, you know what, you’re still a boy living with mom and your dad and sister or whatever. And so we’re gonna tell you how to do things.
I don’t like it. I don’t like it. I don’t know. Maybe wrong girl. What one girl? Yes. Okay. I know we’re a little over time, so I’ll uh, do this last little thing with you and then we’ll, so this is our weekly confessions. So I’m gonna read confessions that people sent over to me and, we’ll just, we’ll react to them.
Okay. This one says, my in-laws wanted me to lie to their friends why they didn’t go to their wedding. And I told them the truth. Why?
Cora Lakey: Well, yeah, why are they putting you in that position? That is weird. We need more information here. Like, why do you know these
Christa Innis: people? I’d be like, I’m not, so she or she or he, I don’t know, but they were like told to like, lie about something.
But like in-laws are like grown adults. I don’t know. That’s weird. this person says, I hated my mother’s dress at my wedding. Couldn’t even fake it when she showed it to me. Aw. Oh no, that’s bad. Well,
Cora Lakey: whatever makes her feel pretty though. Because you know, a lot of people hate the bride’s wedding dress and it’s like no one should care, but the bride, and I think the same goes with your mother-in-law or your mom.
Like as long as she feels pretty, who cares? Like Exactly. Everyone’s only looking at you anyway. No one cares about anyone else.
Christa Innis: Yeah. As long as she’s not wearing a white wedding gown as the mother of the bride, its fine. Yeah, exactly. This last one says, I secretly don’t want to take anyone with me when I go wedding dress shopping.
And I’m gonna say, you don’t have to take anybody with you. It might be better to go by yourself if it might be overwhelming. I think that’s so
Cora Lakey: valid. And that is a hot take I have is like, I’ve never understood why wedding dress shopping is such a big deal, and like why we have to make it a production.
Mm-hmm. ’cause you wanna make sure that you are not being influenced by any other opinions. Yeah. And you feel you’re most beautiful and it’s really hard to do with other people. Like, I don’t know, like, especially like as women, it’s natural, we’re self-conscious about our bodies and like, I don’t want people to see me changing in and out of dresses or like get their opinion on my hips and my boobs and my butt.
Like, no, like So do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable and like sometimes your friends, bring that confidence out in you. Mm-hmm. And that’s great if you want them there. Like, I had people there, but at the same time, like. I, feel like it’s weird to have so much pressure around that.
Yes. Because it takes like 10 plus appointments. Like I know people who went to like, Emily Dato for example. Like she went to so many different appointments and she didn’t bring anyone and she’s a badass influencer. So successful. So like who
Christa Innis: cares? Yeah, exactly. Like you have to listen to what makes sense for you and what you’re comfortable with because if you’re hearing so many opinions and you know you’re gonna be influenced based on those, don’t invite them or do like a secret dress shopping just by yourself first.
You know what kind of style you like or pick it out first and just pretend like you can’t find anything with anybody else. Whatever you need to do to protect your piece.
Cora Lakey: Yeah,
Christa Innis: I love
Cora Lakey: that.
Christa Innis: Well, awesome. I know we went over a little bit, but I just wanna say thank you so much for coming on. It was so fun hanging out with you and like chatting and you so many good hot takes and opinions.
Yeah. I forgot we were recording halfway through. I’m like, oh yeah. I feel like I’m chatting with a
Cora Lakey: friend.
Christa Innis: I know. Me too. I know. It was fun to kind of just like. Go with the flow and just see what happens. well thank you so much for coming on. That was so much fun. Can you tell everyone where they can follow you and anything you’re currently working on?
Cora Lakey: Yeah, so you can follow me on TikTok Cora Lakey, and my Instagram is Cora Bry line, my ex-husband’s last name. I’m trying to change it so hopefully I’ll have Cora Lakey across the board. yeah. And right now I am just going through a lot of life changes. I am moving into my starting over apartment and I dunno, maybe we can do a different episode about divorce because that’s a whole other topic.
But yeah, stay tuned. Life updates coming.
Christa Innis: Awesome. Well, sounds good. Thank you so much.
The Wedding Dress Scandal That Broke the Internet with Raylee Rukavina
What would you do if your wedding dress arrived looking nothing like what you ordered—just days before the big day?
In this episode, Raylee Rukavina shares the jaw-dropping story of how her custom wedding dress turned into a disaster and sparked unexpected TikTok drama. From communication breakdowns with the designer to a last-minute dress search, Raylee takes us through the rollercoaster of emotions she experienced leading up to her wedding.
But it didn’t stop there—when her designer took to social media to twist the story, Raylee found herself at the center of a viral controversy. Things took an even more unexpected turn, leaving her to navigate a whirlwind of emotions and tough decisions.
Beyond the drama, we dive into wedding etiquette hot takes, from outdated traditions to handling plus-ones and unexpected family opinions.
Whether you’re a bride-to-be or just love a good wedding story, this episode is packed with real talk, lessons learned, and a bit of chaos.
Episode Chapter Markers
00:00 Introduction
00:59 Wedding Planning and Challenges
01:58 TikTok Drama Unfolds
12:30 Aftermath and Reflections
20:27 The Fake Flowers Dilemma
20:58 Unpopular Opinions: Wedding Drama
23:22 Wedding Submission Story: Dress Shopping Disaster
31:05 Weekly Confessions: Rating the Chaos
Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments
- How Raylee’s gown turned out completely different from what she ordered.
- The frustrating lack of updates and missed deadlines from the designer.
- How a false accusation on TikTok led to online hate and doxxing.
- How Raylee managed to stay focused on her big day despite the controversy.
- How she found a new gown just in time.
- Outdated traditions and how to handle family dynamics.
- The dangers of social media drama and public callouts.
- Raylee’s advice for brides dealing with vendor issues and last-minute wedding disasters.
Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode
- ”Once you’re married, you’re there for life. You better start liking me or we figure it out.” – Raylee Rukavina
- “I really tried not to think about it at all. I didn’t want any part of the social media on my wedding day.” – Raylee Rukavina
- ”Even if a parent helps to pay for a wedding, they don’t have as much say because it still isn’t their wedding. – Christa Innis
- “I just can’t imagine as a wedding vendor that makes wedding dresses for a living, putting something so publicly out there and putting your name out there when that’s not even the full story.” – Christa Innis
- “I don’t know how some of these people do it when they say like their fiancé’s family or partner’s family are horrible to them. That’s supposed to be like an extension of your family.” – Christa Innis
About Raylee
Raylee Rukavina is a TikTok influencer, entrepreneur, and hairstylist from Colorado with a passion for golf, weightlifting, and all things beauty. Recently married, she found herself in the middle of an unexpected viral controversy when a custom wedding dress disaster took an unexpected turn on social media.
Raylee shares her firsthand experience navigating vendor issues, handling online hate, and staying focused on what truly mattered—her wedding day.
Follow Raylee Rukavina:
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
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A Team Dklutr Production
Blog Transcript:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Christa Innis: Hi, Lex. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast, this brand-new podcast that I decided to venture into. You are a bit of an internet personality. You do some awesome skits. And so, just to get started, can you just tell us a little bit about you, how you kind of got started, and, yeah, what you kind of enjoy doing on social media?
From ER Skits to Viral Wedding Stories
Lex Harper: Yeah, of course. So, like you said, my name is Lex. I started doing TikTok at the beginning of this year. I’d say I probably started in February or March. As you can see too with my wedding pictures, I got married this year. I kind of have a background in social media. One of the degrees I have from school is digital media production.
So, I’ve worked with businesses before about just having their brand and content be online and everything like that. But I never did anything from my personal social media platforms. And I kind of got thrown into it this year. It was really funny because I was actually working in the ER at the beginning of the year.
If people have been following me from the beginning, they know that my videos and skits originally started with ER horror stories and kind of reenacting what came in. But it was more so like if someone had an embarrassing situation, they’d be like, “I don’t want to go get help for that because this is embarrassing. It’s never happened to anybody else before.” And I would kind of show, like, if you come in with this, this is what we would do to treat it and kind of go along the lines of that.
Then people started sending me their horror stories about being in the ER and doctor’s offices and everything like that. And then I had one message that stuck out to me. It was this woman, and she said, “Hey, I have a really bad mother-in-law story. I personally can’t post it because all of the family follows me on everything, and I don’t want to start any more drama. But I need to know if this is, like, my personal situation and I’m overreacting, or if this is something that’s toxic for a mother-in-law.”
I made that video, and it went viral. I got so many other messages about it, and that kind of just took off from there.
Christa Innis: Wow. I hear this all the time too. You start one way on social media with what kind of makes sense for you and your story, and then the algorithm tells you what people want to see. I love that it kind of turned in that direction. So, it started with people sending you their mother-in-law stories—it didn’t start with your own drama or issues with your own wedding, right?
Lex Harper: No, so I’m very thankful. I have an amazing mother-in-law. I’ve had some people I dated in the past whose mothers were questionable, to say the least, and I had some experiences with that. But the mother-in-law I have is absolutely fantastic.
When I started posting these videos, everyone thought they were my original stories at the beginning. So, in addition to all of the messages being like, “Hey, these are my stories,” I was getting so many DMs that were like, “Girl, you need to leave. That’s not healthy. This is not good.”
Everyone was worried for me. I even had to have a talk with her too. I said, “You know none of these are about you, right?” She watches all of them. She follows me on TikTok. She laughs, sends them to me, or puts them in our family group chat.
If we ever have anything going on, she’ll say, ‘I could react like this. You guys should be lucky.’ And we’re like, ‘We are very thankful that you are not like that.’
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh, I love that. I had the same thing happen. I would have people comment on certain platforms—TikTok is pretty understanding about skits, but platforms like Facebook would say, “Why are you airing your dirty laundry out here? You should go talk to her.”
I had to tell them, “Oh no, these are not about my own mother-in-law. I have an amazing mother-in-law.” She said the same thing to me when I kept my TikTok private for a while. Like, no one knew I was doing it to grow at first. When it started growing and I shared it on other platforms, she followed me on Instagram and said, “The first time I saw it, my heart dropped. I thought you were talking about me.”
And I was like, “Oh my gosh, no, never.” It’s funny how people just assume.
So with your wedding this year, you were a 2024 bride. What was the most surprising thing when it came to planning or did you experience any kind of like, I don’t know, new lesson when it came to your wedding
Staying True to Your Wedding Vision
Lex Harper: I think the biggest thing that I learned with wedding planning was that I had to stand firm on what I wanted because I’m very laid back, go with the flow, just kind of like, yeah, whatever, we can do that. Or like, we need it, we don’t need it, I’ll be fine. My husband’s the exact same way. He’s like, “We can do whatever you want. I don’t have a preference.”
He definitely wanted to help; he wanted to know what was going on. So, I would be talking about, like, our flowers or something, and he’d be like, “Oh, can we put these in there?” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.” His favorite color is actually pink. Don’t know why, it has been since he was little.
So, our wedding theme—it was instead of being 50 shades of gray, it was 50 shades of pink. All of our guests wore different shades of pink. He had a gray suit and a pink and purple tie, and he had a lot of fun with it.
A lot of people told me because I was 24 when I got married, “That’s too young. Are you sure you want to do this?” They kind of tried to scare me out of it. But those were people we knew as family friends, not people involved in our relationship. We like to keep our relationship very private.
If people are like, “Oh, are you guys together?” it’s obviously like, “A hundred percent, that’s my person.” But nobody really knows the ins and outs of our relationship because I just kind of made it better that way.
We had people telling me, “You’re too young to get married. You’re only 24.” And I’m sitting there like, “You guys are going to lose your mind when I tell you my husband’s only 20, and we’re getting married.” So, we do have that little bit of an age gap.
I noticed when we were planning, people were like, “This is going to be the most stressful day of your life. You’re not going to remember anything. It’s going to be so much to try to plan.” But we had the complete opposite experience with that.
His granddad has Alzheimer’s, so we wanted to keep the wedding very, very small. We’re both very introverted too, so that was really weird branching out and doing TikTok for me. I’m like, “I have a lot of people watching me right now.”
But we had a very small wedding—less than 50 people. It was family-only. We did not have any wedding parties. I think we had a lot of things that were considered traditional that we didn’t do. People were like, “Are you sure about this?”
Christa Innis: I know. I think it’s so interesting when people put their own pressures and expectations on other people because it’s like, you don’t know their relationship. You don’t know their personality or what they want to showcase in their wedding.
I had the same thing where people were constantly like, “Oh, you’re going to stress out so much. You need to do this, and you need to do that.” I love that you set your boundaries like, “Nope, this is what I’m doing. This is what makes sense for us,” because it’s so important to be on the same page as your partner.
Everyone else will come in, but you don’t have to change things for everybody else.
Lex Harper: We didn’t want our wedding day to be stressful like that. I don’t know if I’ve told anyone in my family this, but my brother was our officiant for the wedding because we, again, wanted to keep it a small family wedding.
We signed our papers and everything, but those weren’t our real papers. So, we actually got married on a different day. We went down to the courthouse in sweatpants, and that’s how we got married.
That was just a lot easier for us, and it made everything go a lot smoother because it was kind of already done. So, we were like, “Breathe and have a good day.” It was fairly simple.
The place where we got married was a family-run business, and they just opened up their wedding venue that year. If it had been in a big city, the venue itself probably would have been like $20,000 to $30,000. But because we wanted a small countryside wedding, I think it was like $6,000. That’s pretty good.
Christa Innis: Yeah. It sounds like you knew what you guys wanted to do, and I think that’s amazing. It’s so easy to get caught up in a million opinions around you.
I find brides are most confident and happy with their wedding day when they stay true to themselves. I see it in the comments all the time, and I’m sure you see it in your comments too. People say, “I wish I would have done that. I hate that this person told me to do this.”
Lex Harper: I think we had a lot of people trying to tell us what to do too because I’m the youngest in my family. I have two older brothers, so I’m the only girl. He’s the youngest in his family. He has two older brothers, so I’m the only girl that’s getting married.
We’re both the babies of our families that are getting married, and we’re the first ones to get married. So, everyone was like, “Oh, we’ll plan everything for you guys.”
We originally said that we didn’t really want to have a wedding because we just wanted to build a house and start life. And they were like, “No, you need to celebrate.”
Christa Innis: You took a little bit, and then you were like, “Okay, so we’re going to do that.” Okay, I want to jump into some of your own stories that you might’ve heard or your wedding hot takes.
So first, I know you kind of said the mother-in-law story that was sent to you. Do you have any, like, a wedding guest or being part of a wedding, a crazy story or something you’ve heard that just made your jaw drop?
Wedding Chaos, Hot Takes, and Child-Free Decisions
Lex Harper: I think my first year that I moved out to Georgia, I went to a wedding because I grew up in Arizona and had never left the state. Then in the middle of COVID, I decided, “I’m going to move all the way across the country and go to school in Georgia.” So I went out there. It was my first year, and I was working at a country club. I met a lot of the members, and I got invited to a wedding as a plus one.
The ceremony was very nice, very pretty. Then it got to the reception, and I was like, “Oh, okay.” It had this rave techno theme going on. I thought it was really cool—I’d never seen anything like it before. They made the announcement: “The open bar is officially open, so you guys can go crazy.”
I don’t drink—I’ve seen people have a lot of bad experiences with alcohol—so I stayed away. Within two hours of the wedding starting, people were already completely wasted. I thought, “Oh, that’s not a good look.”
The best man gets up to give a speech, but he was very intoxicated, slurring his words and saying all the wrong stuff. The groom tried to take the mic and said, “Hey, let’s just sit down, it’s okay.” The best man shoved him back, and the groom fell onto the table with the cake.
The cake ended up on the groom, and the best man started laughing. He licked some frosting off his finger and said, “At least you picked a good cake flavor. Can’t say the same thing about your wife.” I was just sitting there like, “Is this actually happening right now?”
Christa Innis: No, that’s like something you see in a movie. I cannot believe that.
Lex Harper: It was so bad. They’re still married, though. They were going to come to our wedding because they became really good family friends.
Christa Innis: I would be livid at the best man. That’s one of the things you always hear—if you’re going to give a speech, don’t drink too much beforehand. Keep it classy. If you can’t handle your liquor, maybe don’t give a speech.
Lex Harper: I’ve seen a lot of 2025 brides now posting their rules for weddings, kind of like, “These are my rules for my wedding.” They’ve been getting a lot of backlash for it.
One thing that upset people with our wedding was that it was child-free. That’s just what we wanted to do. It wasn’t about purposely excluding kids, but if there’s only one child who’s four, she’s not going to want to hang out with all the adults.
People online have been saying, “That’s so selfish. You can’t do that. Weddings are about family.” And the brides are like, “It’s my day.”
Christa Innis: Whenever I post about child-free weddings or do a skit about it, it always goes so controversial. People go crazy over it. I think it’s really about respecting what people want for their own weddings.
At our wedding, we only invited our nieces and nephews, so there were seven kids total. We didn’t invite friends’ kids or anyone under 18, just because it made sense for us.
Lex Harper: I’ve noticed the same backlash happens with destination weddings. People get very upset about those, too.
Debating Wedding Etiquette
Christa Innis: That’s so funny that you brought that up because I just saw someone comment on one of the videos saying, “It’s so, so selfish of someone to want a destination wedding because they’re asking for so much money.” And I was like, what? Like, I’ve been invited to a destination wedding, and I just couldn’t make it. I just said no, and I wasn’t offended. I just don’t get it—being offended by other people’s wedding choices.
And I think, too, it’s like people want to complain so much about how other people are choosing to do their day. Like, “Oh, that’s so expensive,” or “The way they’re asking bridesmaids is the wrong way.” And it’s like, it’s not your wedding. But if you were asked and you want to say no, just say no. Or… yeah, people like to complain, I guess.
Okay, so really quick before we get into the wedding submission that I want us to blind react to, I added this fun segment called “Pick a Side” on wedding drama kind of debates. I know we’re kind of just talking about some big ones, but this first one: Is it ever okay to uninvite someone to your wedding? Why or why not?
Lex Harper: I’d say yes. Because if you look at, like, realistic timelines, most people won’t get married for, like, nine months to a year. Sometimes even longer than that. So if there’s something dramatic that happens, like, in their timeline, I think it’s okay to uninvite them.
The one thing I would say it’s not okay to do—I’ve had some stories sent in to me, or I’ve known people who were like the beige moms you see all over TikTok, with this aesthetic of “This is what I have, this is what it needs to be.”
I’ve seen a story where they uninvited one of the bridesmaids because she got pregnant. She was supposed to be the maid of honor, and the bride didn’t want her to stand up there with her when she was eight months pregnant because it would “draw attention away” from her. They had been friends since they were six years old—a 20-year friendship—and she uninvited her for that.
That, I would say, is not okay. That’s true colors showing. But if it’s something like falling out of touch, friends drifting apart—it happens all the time—I think that’s okay.
Christa Innis: Yeah.
Lex Harper: Yeah.
Christa Innis: No, I totally agree with that.
I think, too, like if it’s a situation where maybe someone was dating when you invited them and you were closer to the person they were dating, but they broke up, and you’re like, “Well, I’m not even close to that person anymore.” I could see that being a reason. Like, “It’d be kind of weird if they came now.”
Or if there’s just, like, weird vibes with someone, like you’re not getting along anymore, I totally agree with that.
What’s your opinion on giving guests a plus one? I know you had a small wedding, so what did you do about the plus ones?
Wedding Etiquette and Drama Unfolds
Lex Harper: Just because we did a family-only wedding, we didn’t have anybody do a plus one because our biggest thing was we didn’t want to be meeting people for the first time on our wedding day. We kind of did a wedding weekend with it, and it’s funny because my husband was still in school. So, he got Thursday and Friday off, and we got married on Thursday.
Then we could have Friday, Saturday, Sunday with our family and everything like that. We got married in Tennessee, so we were like, we want to be able to walk around, enjoy the city, and enjoy family time. He went right back to school on Monday.
So we didn’t have anybody to have plus ones because of how small we kept it. We were also trying to keep it small because his granddad has Alzheimer’s, and having that many people in general—especially new people he doesn’t know—makes him uneasy. We wanted to stay clear of strangers and everything for him.
I think it really depends on the relationship they have if they get a plus one. If it’s a new relationship within six months, I don’t really think they will get a plus one. You’ll have other times to do stuff together, like family events, but it doesn’t need to be at the wedding.
I don’t want to be looking through my wedding pictures and having to crop someone out. The running joke in my family is when we take group pictures, the significant others—whatever they are—always go on the end of the pictures until you’re married. So if you break up, they can just get cropped out. That’s just always how it’s been.
Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah. No, I definitely agree. I don’t think plus ones should be a guaranteed thing.
I think it definitely depends on the type of wedding, the relationship, and maybe a cutoff too. If you give everyone a plus one, your wedding’s going to double. And maybe your 16-year-old cousin shouldn’t bring her boyfriend she’s been dating for a month. So definitely think things through like that.
Okay, before we get too late, I want to read this story submission. It’s not too crazy long or anything. As I read it, we’ll just react and maybe respond at the end.
Here we go. And I’ve not read this—I have my husband helping me out, and he’s pasting them in here. So I’m going to react with you.
This story says:
“I met my now-husband, boyfriend at the time, in August 2022. And at the end of September, one of his best friends was getting married. Since we were newly dating, he asked the groom if I could come to the reception only. I didn’t need a seat, a plate—I don’t drink—I would just come to dance.
I showed up and met all of his friends, and one of the friends’ girlfriends, in particular, was overly friendly and made me feel welcome. I immediately saw through it because she gave me major pick-me vibes. She was one of the guys, the type of girl who was the only one allowed in the group chats.”
Christa Innis: The only one to come to guys’ nights. All the get-togethers had to be at her house. Her wedding was two weeks after this wedding, and that’s all she talked about with me at the wedding—how much better her wedding was going to be, how good the food and music were going to be, and how they had top-shelf alcohol in an open bar instead of a cash bar.
So, first and foremost, talking about your own wedding coming up at a new wedding is so tacky. I think that’s so wrong.
Lex Harper: Very much. Even if it already happened and you’re comparing it to this one, that’s just not okay. Everybody has a different background and everything, so your tastes are automatically going to be different. But you also don’t know the financial position they’re in.
And then if it’s better than your wedding—for example, if your budget was 20,000 and theirs was 40,000—you can always find something to be bitter about. You’re like, “Oh, well, I don’t like this, it’s tacky, it’s cheesy,” and it’s like, okay. You know? Exactly. It doesn’t matter.
Christa Innis: Right. Yeah. I know. I just feel like, what a… I don’t know, I just can’t imagine being at someone’s wedding and criticizing what they’re doing with their completely different setup.
All right, let’s see what else happens here. Fast forward—I got to her wedding late because my sister’s rehearsal dinner was that night.
That sounds like a very crazy, busy weekend. I arrived at the start of the reception. Her friend was so drunk, she was taken away in an ambulance.
Lex Harper: Oh my gosh.
Christa Innis: Apparently, that’s a normal occurrence for her because no one batted an eye as she was put onto the stretcher. Oh my God. At what point is it like, okay, maybe this is not a good place. Maybe she shouldn’t be drinking at an event that happens normally.
Lex Harper: Either. If they’re letting you continue to do that, they need to have an intervention or something and be like, “Hey!”
Christa Innis: Yeah, like, I don’t know if this is right… what we should be doing. Oh my gosh, okay. As the night went on, the bride got sloppy drunk, her friends were fighting, their DJ canceled at the last minute so their feelings weren’t great, and we eventually just left.
That, again, sounds like a movie scene.
Lex Harper: That’s karma for talking about the other girl’s wedding.
Christa Innis: Yeah, literally, like she’s talking so high and mighty about her own wedding, and then it’s like, your top-shelf liquor got you a little too sloppy.
Fast forward two weeks later, and another couple of their friends were getting married. Tell me why she talked about her own wedding during the entire cocktail hour and dinner.
Lex Harper: No.
Christa Innis: It didn’t even faze her. Girl, you screwed up at your own wedding, and now you’re going to… I think a lot of it comes from your own, maybe insecurities or… I don’t know.
Lex Harper: I think people get so used to and comfortable with lying to themselves to make themselves feel better. They’re like, “Oh, this happened, but it wasn’t that bad.” You’re like, “We’re remembering these two completely different ways.”
It’s good for you to put an interesting spin on it, but you remember this much when this much happened.
Christa Innis: Exactly. Yeah, they’re just picking out pieces of what makes sense or what they want to remember.
So, she says, “We never really clicked.”
Like I said, she gave off Pick Me vibes, and I didn’t really want a friendship with her. Not to mention, she screamed at me when she found out I was pregnant before she was! Is this girl? This is terrible. And told me we were supposed to be pregnant together. We weren’t even close friends. What? I wouldn’t even say that to my closest friend.
Christa Innis: Maybe in a joking way, but like definitely not someone I barely know.
Lex Harper: That’s pretty creepy. And then, like, the kids are born and she’s like, “They’re gonna get married.” Like, they’re not gonna be friends. Yeah.
Christa Innis: Yeah. “We’re gonna hang out every day.” Oh my gosh. Anyways, I can’t wait to see what you do with this story.
I don’t want to give real names or defining clues because this one was a doozy. Oh my gosh. I cannot. That is insane.
That was a good one to read because sometimes I read stories, and I’m like, it can go one of two ways. This one, like, constantly things happen. Man, girl, I wonder if she hasn’t—I might need to reach out to her and see if she has any updates of, like, this girl’s trying to reach out to her.
Weekly Confessions: Rating the Chaos
Christa Innis: Oh my gosh. All right. So we don’t have much time left. I don’t want this to kick us off, but I want to end with reading some weekly confessions. So I started asking my Instagram followers to share their weekly confessions. So what we’re going to do is play a little drama confession game. I’m going to read the confession, and then I want you to rate it from one to 10—one being mild tea and 10 being absolute chaos.
So I’ve got three here. I’m going to read to you, and I’ve not read them yet. So let’s see what we got. Okay. First one:
Christa Innis: “Okay. Mother-in-law gave me the bra she wore on her wedding night for the next time Hubs and I had a special night.”
Lex Harper: It’s just so uncomfortable. Oh, my God. Can we say like 25? Yeah, for real. And that, like, does she want her to tell her husband and be like, “You’re in the middle of it.” And they’re like, “This is your mom’s bra. Yeah, this is your mom.”
Christa Innis: What? Tell your husband, “Hey, we wore it last night.” Like, weird.
Christa Innis: All right, confession two: “My mother-in-law forgot the rings on purpose on our wedding day in hopes her son would change his mind.”
Lex Harper: That’d be like a 10. I’d be so upset.
Christa Innis: Yeah. When I read this, I’m like, did they know the mother-in-law had ill feelings towards them? Because I’d be like, I would never be giving her the rings.
Lex Harper: Buster with that. For our rings at our wedding, it was so funny because I, like—obviously the girls get engagement rings and everything. We had an engagement party back in Arizona, and my husband wanted to wear a ring for it, so I got him some rubber silicone ones. And he never took it off after the engagement party, and I never thought anything of it. So we’re up at the altar getting married, and I go to put his ring on, and he still has his other ring on. I’m like—
Christa Innis: He’s—
Lex Harper: Like, what?
Christa Innis: Yeah. I love it.
Lex Harper: It’s so comfy for him. He didn’t want to take it off.
Christa Innis: I love it. I wouldn’t trust you with that. We held our rings the whole time.
Lex Harper: Yeah.
Christa Innis: Oh, exactly.
Christa Innis: All right. And last one—and I’m hoping this doesn’t cut me off. I think we should be fine. Okay: “Mother-in-law got a room right next to ours for wedding night. We changed it, and she got grumpy and then teased me.”
Christa Innis: Why do you want the room next to your son and his new wife?
Lex Harper: Uh-uh. No. No.
Christa Innis: Those were—couldn’t deal with that at all. Really, I think those were all like 11 plus, at least.
Lex Harper: All right. So bad.
Christa Innis: Those were awesome. Oh my gosh. Well, thank you for coming on and reacting with me. I’m so excited to share this because these were some great stories, and you had some awesome ones yourself.
Christa Innis: Where can everyone follow you on social media and see more of your amazing content?
Lex Harper: They can follow me on TikTok. My TikTok is L-E-X-X underscore Harper. H-A-R-P-E-R-O-1. I don’t even know what my Instagram is. It should be the same, but it’s not. I know it’s—
Christa Innis: Not. And you can send them to me too, and I will make sure they’re in the show notes as well.
Lex Harper: Yeah, my Instagram one’s long, so I’ll send you that one. Okay.
Lex Harper: But I was gonna ask you something too. I’ve been getting so many comments and DMs and everything. They’re like, “You two need to be doing story times together. Like, you need a collab. You need to do this.” So do you care if I take a picture and put like a teaser, like on my story for it, and be like—
Christa Innis: Yeah, of course. Yeah.
Christa Innis: And then I hope this doesn’t cut out, but yeah, of course. Absolutely. You can do that.
Christa Innis: And when this is all done too, I’ll send you an email with some clips that you can share as well and like tease it and all the links and all that.
Lex Harper: Awesome.
Christa Innis: Well, thank you so much. It was so nice meeting you.
Lex Harper: Nice meeting you too.
Christa Innis: All right. Bye.