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Bride Throws Cousin Under The Bus To Impress Conservative In-Laws, Wedding Goes Bust
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Bride Throws Cousin Under The Bus To Impress Conservative In-Laws, Wedding Goes Bust

Interview With Author
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When planning a wedding, considering who to invite is a crucial step. The Knot claims that the average size of a U.S. wedding in 2023 was 115 people. Of course, a lot still depends on culture, budget, and other factors, like friend and family relationships.

This bride singled out one cousin when it came to her wedding. Because the rest of the family was invited, the young woman assumed she was, too. However, when she showed up at the ceremony, her appearance caused a scene. She sought opinions from netizens: was coming to this wedding without an official invitation so wrong?

We also reached out to the young woman in question, u/Imaginary-Active5980. The Redditor agreed to tell us more about her relationship with the now-married cousin and how the whole ordeal made her feel. Read our conversation below!

A woman “caused a scene” at her cousin’s wedding after finding out she was not invited

Image credits: mstandret/Envato (not the actual photo)

She asked the internet whether her decision to show up with her family was so inappropriate

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Image credits: Woodsymoss/Envato (not the actual photo)

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Image credits: Imaginary-Active5980

The author says she and the cousin used to be very close, but something changed last year

Image credits:  astrakanimages/Envato (not the actual photo)

In her original post, u/Imaginary-Active5980 writes how she and her siblings were close with the cousin as kids. “Honestly, I’ve always seen her as another one of my siblings,” the Redditor told Bored Panda. “She’s an only child and we lived 15 minutes away when we were younger, so we spent all of our time together.”

Granted, they did drift apart a little bit when the cousin was a preteen, but eventually, they became even closer. “I think she guided my sister and [me] through a lot of our lives, and she was the person we went to if we needed advice,” the young woman says.

The relationship remained close even when the cousin moved away for college. “We always sat next to each other at family events and would catch up on each other’s lives/gossip,” the Redditor says.

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However, last year something changed. The women barely talked at family gatherings on Christmas, birthday parties, and Easter. At first, the author just thought it was because the cousin’s boyfriend was present.

“She talked to me like my aunts or uncles or other family members, like an adult,” u/Imaginary-Active5980 says. “She asked things like ‘How’s school?’ or ‘What are you doing again?’ when we used to talk about our failed relationships and friend drama together. So, I guess that’s when I really realized that something had changed.”

“Maybe in the future, we might overcome this, but it seems unlikely,” the OP says

Image credits: sloomstudio/Envato (not the actual photo)

At the moment, the author doesn’t see herself reconnecting with her cousin. “I don’t think I could bring myself to be around someone knowing what they think of me in their heads,” u/Imaginary-Active5980 told Bored Panda.

“She talked to me like I was dirty in a way, like she was ashamed of me, and when you know that someone thinks of you like that there’s no going back. But, at the same time, it will always make me sad to think about how close we used to be.

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“I think I might try to fix it out of nostalgia, to go back to the relationship we had,” the author admits. “Although, I don’t think that could happen realistically,” she adds immediately. “And I know that I don’t want to be around her husband and in-laws if their opinion of gay people is so low she couldn’t even let them know she had a gay cousin.”

However, the women most probably will be seeing each other at family gatherings. The author says it will probably be only polite handshakes and sitting at the same table. “Maybe in the future, we might overcome this, but it seems unlikely,” she admits.

The author has two theories about why the cousin would decide to cut her off so suddenly

Image credits: nenetus/Envato (not the actual photo)

The OP has two hypotheses regarding why her cousin decided to exclude her from the wedding. The first one is that she always felt uncomfortable with the OP’s sexual orientation to some degree.

“If you strongly disagree with someone’s view, and if you truly care about your family member, the right thing to do would’ve been [to] stand up for me, and not exclude me to please her husband and his family,” the OP believes.

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“So, I’d assume maybe she didn’t disagree with him that much and had always felt uncomfortable about my sexual orientation. But then I remembered how much she supported me when I first told her, and how she helped me come out to my parents and it seemed genuine,” the author points out the discrepancy.

“So, my second hypothesis is [that] maybe she is so infatuated with her husband that she’d do anything to please him and make sure that he doesn’t leave her, including what she did. Maybe she’d even cut off her parents if he asked her to,” u/Imaginary-Active5980 theorizes.

“That seems plausible to me because she’s always been sort of a people pleaser, so maybe she wants him to like her and that’s why she excluded me,” the Redditor says. “I’m sort of torn between these two answers; either she really wanted to please her new family, or she had always felt that way and took that as an opportunity to get me out of her life.”

“There isn’t even one second where we considered the possibility that I wasn’t invited,” the OP wrote in the comments

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Most netizens agreed that the bride was the AH for her bigotry

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However, others thought that the author should’ve checked whether she was really invited and blamed her for causing a scene

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Poll Question

Thanks! Check out the results:

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Kornelija Viečaitė

Kornelija Viečaitė

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Read more »

Hi there, fellow pandas! As a person (over)educated both in social sciences and literature, I'm most interested in how we connect and behave online (and sometimes in real life too.) The human experience is weird, so I try my best to put its peculiarities in writing. As a person who grew up chronically online, I now try to marry two sides of myself: the one who knows too much about MySpace, and the one who can't settle and needs to see every corner of the world.

Read less »
Kornelija Viečaitė

Kornelija Viečaitė

Writer, BoredPanda staff

Hi there, fellow pandas! As a person (over)educated both in social sciences and literature, I'm most interested in how we connect and behave online (and sometimes in real life too.) The human experience is weird, so I try my best to put its peculiarities in writing. As a person who grew up chronically online, I now try to marry two sides of myself: the one who knows too much about MySpace, and the one who can't settle and needs to see every corner of the world.

Ilona Baliūnaitė

Ilona Baliūnaitė

Author, BoredPanda staff

Read more »

I'm a Visual Editor at Bored Panda since 2017. I've searched through a multitude of images to create over 2000 diverse posts on a wide range of topics. I love memes, funny, and cute stuff, but I'm also into social issues topics. Despite my background in communication, my heart belongs to visual media, especially photography. When I'm not at my desk, you're likely to find me in the streets with my camera, checking out cool exhibitions, watching a movie at the cinema or just chilling with a coffee in a cozy place

Read less »

Ilona Baliūnaitė

Ilona Baliūnaitė

Author, BoredPanda staff

I'm a Visual Editor at Bored Panda since 2017. I've searched through a multitude of images to create over 2000 diverse posts on a wide range of topics. I love memes, funny, and cute stuff, but I'm also into social issues topics. Despite my background in communication, my heart belongs to visual media, especially photography. When I'm not at my desk, you're likely to find me in the streets with my camera, checking out cool exhibitions, watching a movie at the cinema or just chilling with a coffee in a cozy place

Do you think the cousin should have clarified the invitation details?
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Insomniac
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As usual, the YTAs didn't appear to have read the post; they just wanted to accuse. There is no way the OP could have known she wasn't included given the wording of the invite. I'm pretty sure that was deliberate on Bride's part because she didn't want to have to explain ahead of time and face family wrath. She was just hoping OP would magically not show up. Oops. And how would anyone at the wedding even have known OP's gay? There were no plus-ones. Unless OP was wearing a giant sticker or feeling up the bridesmaids, which she obviously wasn't... nobody would have even known. Bride wanted to be a victim of the Queer Agenda and has already probably complained to her church group how her butch lesbian cousin in a rainbow pantsuit crashed through the church doors at her wedding screaming "I'm gay! Everyone listen to me talk about having gay sex!"

Ms.GB
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Their marriage won't last and if it does I guarantee you it'll be miserable.

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Insomniac
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If I were to get married, my gay cousin would be the last thing I'd be worried about explaining to any potential in-laws. My two cousins who married each other would be higher on the list (they look alike... it's weird). The fact that my one cousin's hubby cannot go within a certain distance of another cousin because he spent a year incarcerated for.... you get it. The cousin who has been married over 20 years to the same guy, but several of her 11 children (all born within the marriage) look NOTHING like her husband and a lot like a friend of his (different race). My cousin's wife who goes round telling people they're fat. My uncle who will show up in suspenders and a flannel shirt regardless of the dress code. My auntie who always finds someone to pick a fight with over something that happened 20 years ago and make sure the entire room can hear her screeching. A gay relative is not a family embarrassment. My collection of... I don't even know what to call them... is.

Myoviridae
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This absolutely cracked me up! Sorry you have crazy relatives, but we all do... And yeah, the gay cousin would be the least of my freakin worries too! :-)

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Insomniac
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As usual, the YTAs didn't appear to have read the post; they just wanted to accuse. There is no way the OP could have known she wasn't included given the wording of the invite. I'm pretty sure that was deliberate on Bride's part because she didn't want to have to explain ahead of time and face family wrath. She was just hoping OP would magically not show up. Oops. And how would anyone at the wedding even have known OP's gay? There were no plus-ones. Unless OP was wearing a giant sticker or feeling up the bridesmaids, which she obviously wasn't... nobody would have even known. Bride wanted to be a victim of the Queer Agenda and has already probably complained to her church group how her butch lesbian cousin in a rainbow pantsuit crashed through the church doors at her wedding screaming "I'm gay! Everyone listen to me talk about having gay sex!"

Ms.GB
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Their marriage won't last and if it does I guarantee you it'll be miserable.

Load More Replies...
Insomniac
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If I were to get married, my gay cousin would be the last thing I'd be worried about explaining to any potential in-laws. My two cousins who married each other would be higher on the list (they look alike... it's weird). The fact that my one cousin's hubby cannot go within a certain distance of another cousin because he spent a year incarcerated for.... you get it. The cousin who has been married over 20 years to the same guy, but several of her 11 children (all born within the marriage) look NOTHING like her husband and a lot like a friend of his (different race). My cousin's wife who goes round telling people they're fat. My uncle who will show up in suspenders and a flannel shirt regardless of the dress code. My auntie who always finds someone to pick a fight with over something that happened 20 years ago and make sure the entire room can hear her screeching. A gay relative is not a family embarrassment. My collection of... I don't even know what to call them... is.

Myoviridae
Community Member
2 weeks ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This absolutely cracked me up! Sorry you have crazy relatives, but we all do... And yeah, the gay cousin would be the least of my freakin worries too! :-)

Load More Replies...
Load More Comments
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