Bride wants to remove her sister from her wedding party because her pregnancy might steal her thunder

Weddings sure are a stressful time, aren’t they? They put the bride and groom both under tremendous amounts of pressure and stress to make their big day the fairytale wedding everyone will remember forever. They have to look their best and smile constantly, while taking care to make sure everything behind the scenes keeps ticking as well. And honestly, these days weddings have more moving parts than most NASA computers. Staying completely carefree is becoming gradually more and more impossible.

Still, many would argue that the two lovebirds deserve to be cut some slack. After all, you only get married once (hopefully, anyway), so why not have one day that’s completely and utterly about you? Why not have it exactly the way you always pictured it in your mind? You go back to real life immediately afterwards, so being a little selfish for one day won’t hurt anyone, right? Well, depends on how far you go, as one bride-to-be discovered.

Social media is a wonderful thing, most of the time. It helps us connect with friends and family, but also allows us to reach out to people with similar interests or concerns, even if they’re complete strangers.

Social networks like Facebook have groups for likeminded people, where they can socialize and ask each other for advice. One young woman took full advantage of that fact, posting in a bridal group to ask for help with the situation she found herself in, and possibly excluding her own sister from her wedding.

Posting anonymously – and you’ll soon understand why – the bride mentioned that her big day was inching ever closer. The wedding was set for August, 2019, but had been announced a full year before. At first, there were no outward signs that any serious drama was in the cards. It really did look like this would be an ordinary wedding like any other, with everything going off without a hitch.

But then… then the bride let slip that she had told her wedding party – meaning all of her bridesmaids, including her own sister – that she didn’t want any of them to be “visibly pregnant” during the wedding. “It’s my personal preference,” she said without elaborating.

The bride’s sister was said to have been aware of this “personal preference,” and the bride was told they were shooting for a conception in April, 2019, meaning four months before the wedding. That should be plenty of time, right? It very well might’ve been, if not for the fact that the bride’s sister a little undershot that date…and got pregnant in January instead.

Now, in February, the mom-to-be broke the happy news to her sister… who was actually less than thrilled. She could’ve been ecstatic that she was about to get a new niece or nephew, but she chose to focus on the fact that when she’ll be standing at the altar, her sister will be eight months pregnant.

“I’m so lost at how to proceed,” the bride continued her post. “I mean, I expressed my preference to my entire party.” At that point she must’ve realized how badly that sounded, and chose a different tack. While she didn’t expect anyone to arrange their conception according to her wedding date, or so she claimed, she felt it was now her choice to make decisions in accordance with this new development.

She didn’t specify what those decisions might be exactly, however, possibly hinting at excluding her sister from the wedding party and relieving her of her bridesmaid’s duties altogether. It was her big day, after all, not her sister’s, right? Signing off as a “stressed bride-to-be,” she asked for advice.

Members of the bridal group read the future bride’s story, and had a lot to say. Unfortunately for her, it probably wasn’t quite the feedback she was hoping for – the ladies were having a hard time finding any sympathy for the supposedly aggrieved bride. One woman named Lynne commented to say that if it meant anything to her that her sister was there, she wouldn’t care if she was pregnant.

“She sounds like an awful person and I wouldn’t be in her wedding if she paid me,” she added. Another, Brittany, sarcastically said that “God forbid” the bride got any nephew or niece to love for the rest of her life. “How dare she,” she said tongue firmly in cheek.

In the age of social media and instant communications, weddings are like pressure cookers. Everyone involved in organizing them is under a magnifying glass and expected to constantly be “on.” But if we’re being honest, no one is under more pressure than the bride.

Quite frankly, it’s her wedding – everybody else – groom included – is just visiting. Just like in normal life, some people can handle the stress better than others. Others let it get to them, and it makes them lash out, even at loved ones – just like our bride.

Since brides are indeed in the eye of the storm when it comes to weddings, an entirely new term has been coined to describe a bride who went off the rails – “bridezilla.”

Combining the word “bride” with the famous Japanese movie monster Godzilla, we get this new type of person who tramples love ones’ feelings as Godzilla did Tokyo. The term has become so widespread, in fact, that it spawned a reality series. Bridezillas aired on WE tv for nine years, and started back up again in 2018.

Of course, none of that can serve as an excuse. Everybody gets jitters, and those butterflies you’re feeling fluttering around in your stomach aren’t unique. And you certainly can’t use them to justify hurting the feelings of someone you love.

Yes, it’s your big day. But that doesn’t mean that other people cease to exist. One woman in the bridal group noticed this trend, and wondered what’s up with “all these crazy brides” who want everyone else to put their lives on hold up to the day they get married.

If you or someone you know are a bride-to-be, don’t despair. You don’t have to be brought to the point where you consider excluding your sister – or anyone else important – from your big day.

There are many wedding planning services you can use to take the stress off of your shoulders and put it on someone who has experience with dozens of weddings. If you’re strapped for cash, you can ask a parent or a trustworthy friend to help out too – just make sure they aren’t planning on getting pregnant!

Speaking of wedding planners, if you’re in that business long enough, you’ll eventually reach a point where you truly have seen everything. From pulling out of the wedding the day it was set to take place to knockdown, drag-out fights, most wedding planners probably think they’re pretty much shock-proof.

One particular wedding planner, however, encountered something that rocked even her to her very core. The term “bridezilla” didn’t even seem apt anymore – even Godzilla has morals. And oddly enough, it also revolved around the pregnancy of the bride’s sister.

For reasons that will quickly become apparent, the wedding planner shared her story anonymously. It all began several months before the wedding, when the bride’s sister told her that she was pregnant. Once again, instead of being happy, she informed her of how “inconvenient” it was.

Ignoring her sister’s protests that they’ve been trying to conceive for three years, she simply said, “Well, then, I guess you can’t be in my wedding, because I don’t want to deal with the problems your pregnancy will cause.” Just as simple as that.

Fast-forward several months, and the bride-to-be and her mother are in the wedding planner’s office, going over some last minute details. Suddenly, the mom leaves to take a call. She returns much later, clearly shaken, and it looks like she’d been crying.

“Who was that?” the bride turned to her and asked. “Your sister,” the mother replied. “She lost the baby.” Just then, the wedding planner wished she was anywhere else but there, intruding on that intensely private family matter. But it was the bride’s reaction that really threw her.

The bride didn’t cry, she didn’t scream, and she didn’t ask how her sister was doing. “Oh. Well,” she said instead, “I guess she can be in my wedding, since she’s not pregnant anymore.” With the color running from her own face, the planner looked to the mother.

Seeing “something snap” deep in her eyes, the mom turned to her in a deadly soft, deadly calm voice. She informed her that she would no longer be financing the wedding, and her daughter will be paying for it all herself.

At this point, the bride-to-be entered panic mode and started freaking out. Shrieking and waving her arms, she assailed her mother, trying to figure out the reason behind this “sudden and unexplained” refusal to pay for her wedding.

The mother, steadfast in her silence, got up and left. The bride-in-jeopardy trailed after her, still peppering her with hysterical questions and pleas. As the wedding planner discovered 24 hours later, the whole thing was called off entirely – by the groom, who had apparently found out who he was about to marry.

These two remarkably similar stories of two brides – one who went over the edge and one who was teetering over it, not yet falling in – can serve as cautionary tales, if nothing else. Your wedding day is important, but it is only one day.

Your relationships with the people closest to you, on the other hand, will last a lifetime. Some things just cannot be unsaid, and some actions cannot be undid. Before doing anything, stop, take a deep breath, and ask yourself if that’s who you want to be.