If your cousin was days away from saying, “I do,” but you caught their partner making out with someone in their wedding party, would you tell them?
Last month, this woman’s cousin was supposed to have gotten married. Her cousin spent well over a year planning her special day, and it was a very large wedding.
Her cousin paid for her venue, ordered a wedding dress, and had family members flying in from all over the place to be there. Her aunt made her entire house into a wedding storage facility, and her living room was overflowing with boxes of decorations.
Her cousin was elated, and it wasn’t the kind of relationship where the couple is completely wretched but tying the knot anyway. Her cousin truly thought she was marrying the man of her dreams.
A couple of days before her cousin’s wedding, she was out one night with her friends when she caught sight of her cousin’s fiancé and a bridesmaid at a bar.
She does know this girl, and she’s met her a bunch of times. She figured that perhaps they were together to discuss the wedding, and there were people around them.
“Later on, though, I went outside to get some air and saw them near the side entrance kissing. Not a quick drunk mistake either; they were properly all over each other, and his hand was under her top,” she explained.
“I just stood there for a few seconds thinking surely I’m seeing this wrong because WHO does that a week before their wedding, in public as well??”
“I took a short video because I knew nobody would believe me without proof, especially that close to the wedding. I didn’t confront them, partly because I was honestly shocked and partly because I didn’t want them deleting messages or making up some story before I spoke to my cousin.”
The following morning, she phoned her aunt to ask her what would be the least heartbreaking way to break the news to her cousin that she witnessed her fiancé cheating.
Her aunt actually begged her to wait until her cousin was done with the wedding. Her aunt reminded her that her cousin had spent close to $30,000 already on the event, and guests were in the middle of traveling to be there.
Nothing was refundable, and her aunt was hoping this was just a silly mistake on this guy’s behalf, like he was trying to get it out of his system before becoming a husband.
“I thought she was joking at first, like genuinely. Then my mom called me and said basically the same thing, that my cousin was already stressed and telling her now would ‘humiliate the family,'” she added.
“I understand the timing was awful, I really do, but I couldn’t stand next to her at that wedding knowing what I knew. I couldn’t watch her marry him, take photos, sign everything, and then tell her once the catering had been eaten because apparently that would be more convenient for everyone else.”
She decided to go against her mom and her aunt, and she showed up at her cousin’s apartment with the video for her. Her cousin watched it twice in a row, asked for a copy, and then closed herself in the bathroom for an hour.
She was worried that her cousin had fainted, but then she opened the door and told her that she had called off the wedding with three days to go before she was set to walk down the aisle.
It turns out her cousin’s fiancé confessed to cheating on her for months with the bridesmaid. It was not a one-time thing. The affair started around the same time as the engagement party, and this bridesmaid had been acting like her cousin’s best friend while helping her pick decorations.
Her cousin has thanked her for speaking up and said she never would have forgiven her if she allowed her to marry a cheater, but not everyone agrees, and half of their family members are furious with her.
Her uncle maintains she should have called out her cousin’s fiancé and given this guy the opportunity to explain, while her aunt drags up how much money got lost to the canceled wedding.
Her mom is mad at her for creating a mess and making everyone else pick it up. But she did help in the ways that she could, such as calling guests to tell them the wedding was off, returning what she could, and sitting with her cousin for days on end.
“The bridesmaids’ parents also asked me to delete the video because it’s damaging their daughter’s reputation. My cousin told me not to, in case either of them starts lying about what happened, so I haven’t,” she continued.
“Now that’s apparently me being cruel and trying to punish people. I haven’t posted it anywhere, haven’t sent it around; literally the only people who have it are [my cousin and me]. I know some people will probably say I should’ve let him tell her himself, but what was I supposed to do, give him a deadline??”
“‘Hey, tell her by Friday or I will,’ so he can cry, delete everything, and convince her it was some innocent misunderstanding? Maybe I handled parts of it badly because I was panicking, but I don’t regret telling her before the wedding. I regret that she got hurt; I regret that everyone lost money, but I didn’t make him cheat, and I didn’t make the bridesmaid betray her.
She just doesn’t understand how she’s getting blamed for wrecking her cousin’s wedding when it was her cousin’s fiancé who made out with the bridesmaid just days before the wedding.
Do you think she did the right thing?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
