wedding party conflict

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

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

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

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

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

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Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

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

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

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

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

About Jubilee

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

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Blog Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Okay. I love it. Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: All healing stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I mean, she’s family, she’s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: No, absolutely.

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

The Maid of Honor You Thought You Knew

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: because of a Walt Disney burger.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Right.

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

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

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

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

The Wedding Alcohol Scam

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: money.

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

Jubilee Dawn: Right. I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And in the memo line it said wedding alcohol.

Christa Innis: So there’s another check,

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

Christa Innis: directly to him?

Jubilee Dawn: Yes.

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: I try to be vague.

Christa Innis: Okay.

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

Christa Innis: Yes. Yes. Okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Pattern Buried for Years

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

Christa Innis: Oh.

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Oh my gosh.

Jubilee Dawn: I know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Losing Half the Bridal Party

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Oh my God. It

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: yeah.

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

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

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

You know what you are doing.

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

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

Christa Innis: That’s wild.

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

Weddings and Funerals Reveal Everything

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

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

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

Christa Innis: helping.

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

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

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

Christa Innis: it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: knowing all this.

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

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

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

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

And it does give me a lot of anxiety.

Christa Innis: Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: wild

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

Jubilee Dawn: lot for sure.

Religious Manipulation & Forced Forgiveness

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red Flag, Green Flag

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

Jubilee Dawn: No, you’re good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

’cause just depends on your relationship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You’re just sensitive. You’re so sensitive

Jubilee Dawn: to be fair. I am so,

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: child.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: Yeah. Repeat it.

Listener Submission: The Bridezilla Who Used Her Friends

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

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

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

Like the energy, like vampires.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That’s the thing.

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

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

Christa Innis: Yeah. Wow. I

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Yeah.

Jubilee Dawn: Feels bad to me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: my gosh. She

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

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

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

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

You know?

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: Absolutely.

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Yes,

Jubilee Dawn: she’s gonna try.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: so.

Jubilee Dawn: Wow. The audacity

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: very uncomfortable trying to line people up.

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

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Yeah. And publicly like.

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: Okay. She goes,

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: Oh, so strange.

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

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

I would be like, bye.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: yeah,

Christa Innis: flip.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: maybe.

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: She should make the wedding dress right.

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

Jubilee Dawn: gosh.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You just, you just stand by my side.

Jubilee Dawn: Yes.

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Yeah. That

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

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because

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

Christa Innis: Yeah.

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

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

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

Christa Innis: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jubilee Dawn: All right. Thank you.

by Christa Innis

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

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

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

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

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Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments

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

Words of Wisdom: Standout Quotes from This Episode

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

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

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Blog Transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Small Pockets of Happiness and Personal Growth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wedding Dilemmas: Navigating Registry Drama & Friend Photographers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Would You Rather: Wedding Edition

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Seven-Day Wedding Disaster

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wedding Stress Confessions: DIY Disasters and Lessons Learned

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bye now.

by Christa Innis

Blog Transcript:

The Maid of Honor You Thought You Knew

The Wedding Alcohol Scam

A Pattern Buried for Years

Weddings and Funerals Reveal Everything

Religious Manipulation & Forced Forgiveness

Red Flag, Green Flag

Listener Submission: The Bridezilla Who Used Her Friends

Blog Transcript:

Small Pockets of Happiness and Personal Growth

Wedding Dilemmas: Navigating Registry Drama & Friend Photographers

Would You Rather: Wedding Edition

The Seven-Day Wedding Disaster

Wedding Stress Confessions: DIY Disasters and Lessons Learned

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