When planning a wedding, demanding a freebie from a family member doesn’t typically go over well with relatives — or with strangers on the internet hearing about your predicament.
But, for one bride on Reddit, her revelation about her discounted wedding catering was met with sympathy from users who agreed that she was entitled to free catering from her brother-in-law.
The groom’s brother agreed to cater the wedding for free but backed out last minute.
In a post on Reddit’s r/weddingshaming subreddit — a corner of the internet where users vent about wedding drama and disasters — the bride was met with almost unanimous support.
Sharing the backstory to the ongoing drama, the bride writes, “My fiancé is a veteran and when he got out of the military, he invested about 50k he’d saved up in his brother’s first restaurant.”
She and her fiancé actually met while working at his brother’s restaurant where her dedicated soon-to-be husband carried out renovations, worked in the dish pit, handled paperwork and did “anything that was needed to support the ‘family’ business,” she wrote.
“Eventually, that business dissolved, and [future brother-in-law] relocated and moved up in the culinary world,” she writes.
He has never paid back a cent of what was given to him, and catering our wedding was going to be the only repayment my [future husband] was ever gonna ask for.”
Her brother-in-law even ‘expressly’ offered to do the catering.
It wasn’t as if they had forced him into the decision. According to the bride he was engaged in the plans, asked them what they like to eat and discussed the logistics.
He decided to back out last minute when he found out the amount of work it would take to set up the catering.
“His excuse now is that ‘it’ll be too hard.’ We wanted the sentimental food from the old restaurant — literally a taco bar.”
“I’m also a kitchen manager so I know what that would entail and was collaborative with him the whole way,” she wrote.
She says that, instead, her brother-in-law offered to pay for something else but when pressed, couldn’t provide a budget so she suspects the offer is an empty one.
She notes that catering in her area will likely cost $75 per person so — with 100 guest coming to the wedding — this will be a huge financial blow for the soon-to-be newlyweds.
“I feel mad disrespected, especially coming from someone in the industry who knows what this is going to do to our budget now,” she continued.
Money aside, the bride-to-be feels let down by the situation.
“I can’t believe someone would go back on their word on arguably the most important aspect of a wedding,” she writes.
“We will figure something else out, but right now it feels like my budget and expectations just took a beating.”
Reddit users empathized with the stressed-out bride, but offered alternative suggestions.
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“Don’t let this get in the way of your day. My wife and I ordered pizzas for everyone at our wedding. Did people think that was weird? No idea! We never asked for their opinions on it, and we never cared,” one user wrote.
“It was our wedding. Since you’re in the restaurant industry, I’m guessing you’re going to want to do a bit more than we did, but my point stands either way,” they continued.
“As much as this sucks, don’t let it ruin everything else for you.”
Taylor Haynes is a writer based in Chicago. She covers entertainment, news and human interest stories at YourTango. You can find her on Instagram here.
