Planning A Wedding
Planning your wedding and getting married to the love of your life should be one of the most exciting times of a woman’s life. However, toxic future in-laws can make the wedding planning experience an absolute horror. One woman, who we’ll call Erica, took to Reddit to share the story of her incredibly overbearing mother-in-law who not only tried to wear her designer wedding dress, but DESTROYED it in the process.
Before the epic falling out with her mother-in-law, Erica and her fiancé, who we’ll call Nate, had been engaged for around a year and were in the process of planning their destination wedding in Colombia.
Nate had a very interesting relationship with his mother, who we’ll call Jill. Erica already had the feeling that her future mother-in-law didn’t like her. They were cordial, but Jill’s politeness never came off as genuine. To add even more friction, Jill would do things like sit on Nate’s lap or tuck his hair behind his ear or cut his food for him…all while Erica was right next to them. She also caught her feeding him in public. Jill’s behavior toward Nate is clearly super weird considering she’s his MOTHER.
Once Erica finally let Nate know how inappropriate his mom was with him, Jill never fed him public again. However, Erica had no idea how obsessive her future mother-in-law was about to become.
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Future Monster-In-Law
Jill wasn’t crazy about Erica and Nate’s destination wedding. She made up countless excuses on why it was a bad idea. She would go on about how she thought they’d all get murdered, the cost of the airfare, the thought of Nate getting Malaria, etc. Erica tried to limit her access to the wedding planning process, but when as soon as she did, Jill would complain that Erica was cutting her out.
One day, Jill paid a visit to Erica and Nate to see their new home. However, her visit was disguised as a plot to lay down some harsh criticisms for the couple.
Jill unleashed her wrath and let the couple know how much she hated Erica’s engagement ring. She said it was “far too extravagant and there are CHILDREN STARVING IN AFRICA AND PEOPLE DIE FOR THESE ROCKS.” Take a chill pill, Jill; it’s just a lab-created Mojssanite.
She said Erica and Nate’s house was an extravagant display of wealth, but in reality, it was just a townhome that they got a good deal on.
Jill rudely pointed out to Erica that she was getting fat. She told her she needed to start counting calories so her wedding dress would still fit by the time she had to walk down the aisle. Meanwhile, Jill bragged about her new diet and how slimming her dress was.
Jill’s roast of Erica and Nate was eventually interrupted when Nate needed Erica to help put together a bed in their spare guest room, leaving Jill to her own devices in their empty living room. About 40 minutes later, Erica took a break to use the bathroom. She walked toward the master bedroom, opened the door, and found her future mother-in-law doing the unthinkable…
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The Dress
Erica stood in her bedroom doorway shocked as she witnessed Jill struggling to yank her wedding dress over head. Jill was clearly too big for the dress because it was stuck really bad. Erica blurted out, “What the heck?!” and all Jill could stammer out was “Oh my God! OH MY GOD! OH GOD!”
Erica rushed over to help Jill out of the dress, though only because she feared that Jill would ruin the dress…but it was too late. Jill had managed to scratch her way free through the back of the dress and completely destroyed the sheer material. She bursted the side zipper and somehow got a nasty footprint on the train. To make things even worse, Jill wasn’t even wearing any underwear!
“What were you thinking?!” Erica yelled at Jill.
“I…I was just trying to make sure the dress would fit you…because if it fit me…then it would absolutely fit you too.”
Erica was furious. Of course it fit her! She had just had her final fitting for dress and it had fit like a glove.
Both Erica and Nate were extremely disturbed by what happened. Erica doubted she was try the dress on just for fun. Sitting on the bed was a bouquet of dried flowers that were not there before – Erica suspected Jill was actually pretending that she was the bride, which is so wrong, but given insane her future mother-in-law was, it makes a lot of sense.
To make matter worse, Jill refused to pay for the damages to the dress. Instead of an apology, she lectured Erica on spending so much on a wedding dress. She claimed that because she had so much trouble getting into the dress, perhaps that was a sign for Erica to buy something less dramatic.
It took all of Erica’s strength not to start throwing hands. She’d wear rather wear her Galia Lahav dress to her freaking grave than have to keep putting up with Jill’s crap.
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All The Lies
After Jill ruined Erica’s dream wedding dress, Nate did what any good fiancé would do and confronted his mother by telephone and demanded that she help cover the damages. Still, she refused. She claimed it was an “accident” and she was “just trying to help.” Like a true narcissist, she tried to spin the story to make it seem like she was actually trying to help Erica.
Jill claimed that she was “giving [Erica] a standard to aspire to.” She even admitted that she just wanted to feel as “young and beautiful” as Erica!
The worst part? Nate began falling for Jill’s lies. He believed her.
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The Damage
After Jill refused to pay for the dress, Erica started throwing a fit (I mean, can you blame her?) until Nate suggested they take the dress to a seamstress to assess the damages.
The three went to visit the seamstress together, and just as Erica thought, the dress was trashed beyond repair. The beading was destroyed, the sheer back of the dress was torn to shreds, the tulle on her trains was ripped, and the seams were split.
Hearing the the specifics of how bad the damage was crushed Erica and Nate’s reaction only made her feel worse. He kept trying to make light of the situation and suggested that it “absolutely could have been an accident.” He lied to the seamstress’s face when he told her the reason the dress was destroyed because his mother “had an accident” when she tried it on to “relive her model days.”
Erica felt betrayed and that she didn’t have anyone standing in her corner. She corrected Nate and let the seamstress know that Jill tried the dress on without her permission knowing darn well that she couldn’t fit into it. Jill deliberately destroyed the dress and all Erica wanted was for her to admit that and pay for what happened.
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“How Could Money Be More Important Than My Love For You?”
When Erica and Nate got home from the seamstress, Erica gave Nate an ultimatum: if Jill didn’t pay up, then Erica was ready to sue fo the damages. Of course, Nate kept trying to brush everything off. He told Erica that the cost of her dress didn’t meet the the threshold for a lawsuit and that it wasn’t worth the time and effort.
Not knowing what else to do, Erica took to the internet and googled the thresholds for small claims courts in her state. She printed all of her findings and forced Nate to read them.
He finally started to see the light and conceded. He agreed to call his mother, with Jill present, so they could work something out.
Erica sat next to Nate as dialed the phone. Jill picked up and they argued for just five minutes before Jill broke down. She sobbed, accused her son of not loving her, called Erica trash and every other name in the book for turning him against her. “How could money be more important than my love for you?” she cried.
To make the situation even worse for Erica, Nate soothed his crying mother. He told Jill he understood where she was coming from, but said that Erica was being “super emotional” over the dress and paying for it would help the mess blow over. Jill just sobbed some more until Nate reassured her that he would “talk to Erica.”
After Nate hung up the phone, he had the nerve to tell Erica that “all he wanted was peace and to please just let him pay for the dress and let this go away.”
That was a bad move on Nate’s part – neither Erica nor his mother were going to let him try to play both sides so easily.
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Uninvited
When Nate told Erica he wanted to pay for the dress, she absolutely lost it.
“I screamed at him. I cried harder than I probably ever have cried because I honestly feel that he took her side over mine. I told him that it wasn’t about the dress and that if he genuinely believed that this was over an ‘overpriced’ dress at this point, then we needed to cancel the wedding and he and his mommy could have a nice vacation to Colombia without me.”
They kept arguing. Erica told Nate she no longer wanted Jill at their wedding and, surprisingly, Nate agreed.
The next day, the couple sat down and called Jill and told her that she was no longer invited to the wedding because of what happened. Erica even felt proud of Nate when he hung up on his mother when she started screaming and sobbing at him through the phone.
Erica thought that maybe she was wrong to underestimate her fiancé…that is, until she saw some messages between Nate and Jill on the couple’s shared iPad.
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The iPad
Erica rarely uses the iPad she shares with her fiancé because she is satisfied with using her Kindle, but sometimes she’ll use it when her Kindle needs a charge and her phone is nowhere to be found.
One day, not longer after the falling out with Jill, she was using the iPad when a message from Jill popped up…asking Nate for tips on how to buy discounted airfare to Colombia.
Erica took it upon herself to do some additional sleuthing.
“I scrolled through the messages, and he had folded the very next day, saying that he had disinvited her for my sake but he still wanted her at the wedding. That he’d slowly work on changing my mind, and hopefully on the weekend of the wedding I’d be feeling forgiving and welcome her and if not, I could deal with it.”
As you can imagine, Erica was absolutely livid. She was at her breaking point. Their fight was so bad that Nate had to leave the house and stay with a friend for a few nights.
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The Wedding Is Off
At this point, Erica and Nate’s entire relationship is being held together by a single thread. They are still engaged and fighting to make things work, but the wedding is off. The only thing that is keeping Erica from leaving Nate entirely is the fact that she does truly love him.
“I really want to work past this if we can,” she said. “We’re both committing to seeing a couple’s therapist. It’s a must.”
Still, Erica feels played. Instead of supporting her, Nate was trying to play both her and his mother. But in the end, Nate’s unwillingness to fully stand by his fiancée’s side is what caused the mistrust in their relationship that led them to postpone the wedding.
As for Jill: she’s still furious at Erica and is still actively trying to spin the story in her favor and paint Erica as a trashy and greedy woman who’s determined to corrupt her precious baby and bring her misery.
Jill has even tried to come to Erica and Nate’s house unannounced to “collect her baby and his belongings.” At least now Nate has grown a backbone and refuses to acknowledge his overbearing mother. He blocked her phone number and agreed to not have contact with her until he and Erica begin therapy. Nate has even given Erica possession of all his passwords and the iPad she she can check in on him at anytime.
With this kind of surveillance, you’d think that Erica was trying to prevent Nate from talking to a crazy ex-girlfriend, not his own mother. But honestly, I can’t say that I blame her.
“I love him and I want to be able to go the distance with him,” Erica said, “but while Jill is in the picture, I just don’t think I can.”
We don’t know what the future holds for Erica, Nate, and Jill, but we hope whatever happens, they find some peace and clarity…or at the very least Jill admits her wrongdoings and just pays for the dang dress!
What would you do if you had in-laws like Jill? Let us know in the comments!
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