Weddings can be a huge hotbed for drama. The coming together of different families and, unavoidably, their baggage, can drum up a lot of emotions. Everyone may be gathered together for celebrating the bride and groom, but sometimes behind-the-scenes drama takes over.
A guy who served as his brother's best man came away from the wedding with a wild story. Since there are a lot of people involved, pseudonyms were provided to make more sense of things. The original poster (OP), whom we'll refer to as Rob, shared the story on a wedding drama thread on Reddit.
Rob explained that his brother, Steve, and his wife, Tara, aren't usually the dramatic types. The wedding they were throwing was a celebration that came after they had already eloped for insurance purposes. The day was set to go off without a hitch, but eight weeks ahead of the big day, drama rocked the bridal party.
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The bride's brother, Alex, was officiating the wedding. His longtime girlfriend, Christie, was serving as the maid of honor. That changed when the two broke up, leaving her banned from the wedding due to the couple's own rules on who could be invited.
A guy traveling to be his brother's best man had no idea that he was walking into some serious drama. The best man, whom we'll refer to as Rob, took to Reddit to share the story.
"I (24m) was the best man for my older brother (26m). Bride (24f) and my brother had eloped about a year earlier for health insurance reasons but were throwing a moderately sized wedding to celebrate it (around 100 people) in a local park," he explained.
The bride, whom we'll call Tara, and the groom, whom we'll call Steve, asked the bride's brother to officiate the wedding. His girlfriend of four years was asked to be maid of honor.
"Let's call the Bride's brother Alex and Maid of Honor Christie. [Tara] and [Steve] specified a very strict no plus-one policy. You weren't allowed to take your significant other unless there was a ring. Christie was an obvious exception because she and Bride were already friends," Rob noted.
"Note that my little brother's girlfriend of 5 years (that he married later) was directly told not to come because of this policy," Rob pointed out.
The drama all started to unfold just eight weeks before the wedding. "About 2 months before the wedding Alex calls [Tara] to let her know that he and Christie broke up and that Christie no longer wants to come to the wedding and won't be the maid of honor. Bride asks what happened and Alex just says that they drifted apart."
That wasn't all that Tara's brother had in store for her. "Also Alex has a new girlfriend that he'll be taking to the wedding instead," Rob wrote.
Of course, Tara reminded Alex of the plus-one policy and that he wasn't going to be able to bring his new girlfriend unless she had a ring on her finger. This should have kept her from being there, right?
"Alex says that there is a ring. Alex and his new girlfriend (let's call her Danielle) are engaged. Also, Danielle is pregnant," he revealed.
"[Tara] asks how he met Danielle. Alex met Danielle when he was helping teach a pottery class at his local community college. Danielle was a student taking the class. Danielle is 19."
Redditors weren't loving the six-year age gap, but that's not even the most bizarre detail in this story.
"[Tara] asks the obvious question: 'Did Alex cheat on Christie with Danielle and get Danielle pregnant?' Alex says absolutely not. Alex says he broke up with Christie, started dating Danielle, proposed to Danielle, and then he and Danielle got pregnant on purpose."
The story didn't make any sense for a number of reasons. Rob explains that Tara and Christie were excitedly talking about the wedding just two weeks prior.
"Still Alex is family, so Bride agrees to invite Danielle to the wedding and Christie is uninvited."
This left Tara in a tough spot. She didn't have any other friends she was close enough with to fill the spot. Many also suspected she didn't want to let anyone else in on the drama going down.
"Bride needs a new maid of honor and doesn't have many close female friends. She ends up asking her 16-year-old cousin from Europe that she hardly knows. This isn't a big deal for her," Rob explained.
The wedding went well, but the air of what happened was still hanging over everyone who was aware.
"Everyone has a good time. My little brother's girlfriend helps with set up and clean up, but doesn't attend the ceremony or reception as per the Bride's wishes," Rob noted.
Rob ended up getting Christie’s side of the story when he ran into her recently. “I buy her a drink and Christie is more than happy to tell her side of the story. Alex had been cheating on Christie for months with Danielle before Christie learned about it,” he shared.
“Alex and Christie were actually trying to have a kid during that time and had even picked out baby names. Alex only fessed up to his infidelity when he found out that Danielle was pregnant. He then swiftly dumped Christie and proposed to Danielle.”
And just in case you don't think Alex is total scum, here's the last lingering detail.
"As a final insult to injury Christie had recently found out the name of Alex and Danielle's new child. The name was one of the baby names Alex and Christie had picked out for their potential baby."
One of the biggest questions on the post asked for more details on what went down between Tara and Christie.
"How did the maid-of-honor get uninvited? What a piece of work that bride was, too. Tossing over a friend good enough to be maid-of-honor 8 weeks before the wedding. Unbelievable. I hope she at least reimbursed her for every single penny she had to put out," one commenter wrote.
"Christie went no-contact with [Tara] after learning about Alex and Danielle. So the uninviting conversation was one-sided," Rob explained.
"Christie was devastated by the whole thing and went to other friends for help moving out of Alex's place immediately. Additionally, Alex may have told her to stay away from his family."
“About a month after the wedding Christie did reach out to [Tara]. After a short conversation, Christie asked [Tara] to remove all pictures of Christie and Alex from [Tara]’s social media as Christie didn’t want to be reminded of Alex online. [Tara] agreed, but told Christie the request was childish,” he noted.
“Christie made it clear that she didn’t wanted [sp] to be associated with Alex’s family anymore, which included [Tara]. When I talked with Christie she had moved on, but she still had no desire to reach out to [Tara].”
A lot of people saw red flags with Tara. She discarded a friendship that was supposed to be special without much further thought. The bizarre and arbitrary plus-one policy could've easily been adjusted. The fact that she had no one else to step in as maid of honor also speaks to her character, some Redditors feel.
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