# Wedding Gift Feud



## BostonBob (Apr 24, 2010)

*from thespec.com:*










Consider this: you attend the wedding of a casual acquaintance. You opt for your go-to gift - a basket filled with fancy salsas, oil, biscuits, marshmallow spread and more. You sign the card, "Life is delicious - enjoy!"

Later, you get a text from the bride - "I want to thank you for coming to the wedding Friday," it begins.

"I'm not sure if it's the first wedding you have been to, but for your next wedding &#8230; people give envelopes. I lost out on $200 covering you and your dates plate . &#8230; and got fluffy whip and sour patch kids in return. Just a heads-up for the future."

It sounds like a Miss Manners hypothetical, but this was the drama that played out at a recent Hamilton wedding.

Kathy Mason and her boyfriend gifted a food basket to Laura (who declined to give her last name) and her bride. When Laura suggested Mason poll "normal functioning people" about her basket-giving blunder, Mason brought the question to The Spectator and the Burlington Mamas Facebook group, where it garnered more than 200 responses in less than 24 hours. Even those who agreed cash was a more appropriate gift thought the bride's reaction was rude.

"We just appreciate the support;" Mason says, "the confirmation that what we did was thoughtful and not out of place."

Mason says she was second-guessing herself in the wake of the bride's texts, which started out by simply asking for the receipt (one of the brides was gluten-intolerant).

Louise Fox, an etiquette coach who has appeared on shows including Slice TV's Rich Bride, Poor Bride, says even requesting the receipt was out of line. She says the couple should have offered the basket to family, friends or a food bank, then written a thank-you note that focused on the thought behind the act of gift-giving.

Here's a taste of the email exchange:

Gift-givers: "&#8230; to ask for a receipt is unfathomable. In fact it was incredibly disrespectful. It was the rudest gesture I have encountered, or even heard of."

Newlyweds: "Weddings are to make money for your future &#8230; not to pay for peoples meals. Do more research. People haven't gave gifts since like 50 years ago! You ate steak, chicken, booze, and a beautiful venue."

Gift-givers: "It's obvious you have the etiquette of a twig, I couldn't care less of what you think about the gift you received, "normal" people would welcome anything given, you wanna have a party, you pay for it, DON'T expect me to."

Newlyweds: "You should have been cut from the list &#8230; I knew we were gunna get a bag of peanuts. I was right."

Fox, the etiquette coach, says the newlyweds' reaction is at the top of her list as far as rude behaviour goes. "It's hard to top that. The wedding is never supposed to be about the gifts. It's a celebration of the union."

"You should be grateful that you got a gift and that's the end of it. You want to preserve the feelings of the giver."

Laura disagrees. She chalks it up to cultural differences. She's Italian and her bride is Croatian. They've never been to a wedding where guests didn't give cash.

She says it cost $34,000 to host 210 guests at a local wedding hall. Mason was one of only two guests who didn't gift at least $150 cash (the other gave a present in addition to cash).

"I don't know what day or century they're living in &#8230; it must have been a regifted gift," Laura says. "I just spent $200 for you and your guest to come and you guys must have given me $40 back."

She says Mason's gift was the laughingstock of the wedding. At a post-wedding pool party the next day, friends and family stopped by the living room to get a look at the basket that's still on display in their home.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

People suck, plain and simple. I specifically requested for our wedding, cash or gift cards or don't bother bringing anything as we already had all the useless things we needed as gifts prior to wedding. Every gift got thrown in boxes and has been stored in the garage ever since, and will never get used, possibly thrown out one day or sold if someone will take them. Some of them were worth say $100, whats the point of given a gift of $100 when you've already been told we have everything we need ie plates, toasters and so on. Sure, weddings shouldn't be something that the bride and groom see as a place to make money, but at the same time guest should consider that every stupid gift they gets puts them in debt and if enough people who shouldn't of been invited in the first place show up might put the couple in debt for a few years! A simple wedding can easily cost $15000 - $20000 and trust me I know, because mine was as simple as it could get!

My "favourite" gift at our wedding, someone bought a basket with cheaply made sandals as a gift for 2 people... maybe total of $10 because it was wrapped.. the sandals broke within 15 minutes of them being worn... they got a nice thank you card and have never been spoken to again except for when we received invitation to their wedding and reserved 4 seats at their wedding reception and didn't show up =)


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

Hah... I wouldn't have even gone to the snob's wedding, she must have had some inckling of their behaviour prior.


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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

Wow, somebody's a Special Snowflake. Or a Bridezilla. 

A wedding is meant to celebrate the union of the couple. It's not a fundraiser. If you invite 210 people to a lavish celebration and can't pay the tab (or expect your guests to do so), that's nobody's fault but yours for being an entitled twit with no sense of fiscal responsibility.

If somebody gives a crappy gift, yeah, it may reflect poorly on their taste or cheapness. Or they may be in dire financial straits and not want to broadcast it. The gracious thing to do is to send a nice thank you card and decide *privately* if these people are worth keeping in your life or not.

And a simple wedding doesn't need to cost $15K. That's freaking ridiculous. Uninvited guests is a whole other issue, but to me $15K is money better spent on something other than the wedding-industrial complex.


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## Bobsidd (Dec 28, 2012)

I wanted my family and my mates at my wedding, because I wanted them there to celebrate an extremely important moment in my life with me, not in order to even out the bottom line. In my opinion, to say that weddings are just to make money for your future seems to be missing the point. But maybe times they are a changin'. 

This article would be interesting with a poll attached. Thanks for posting.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Maybe we just need to go back to the cave man days and club the woman over the head and drag her back to the cave. Then we wouldn't have this problem.

Elle, sure simple weddings don't cost $15000, but if you have a reception where there is food not even including alcohol depending on size of guest list can easily be $15,000. The reception for my wedding was $10,000 for 200 people, nothing special, and if someone says well you don't have to invite that many people, then you just need to keep in mind you'll be pissing off relatives and friends if you're close at all to anyone. For my family alone we sent out 20 invitations, and that was just to close family that I talk/see often. 20 invitations x 2 is 40 guests, that doesn't even include if they bring a son/daughter. My wife had even more close family as aunts/uncles baby sat her, she baby sat their children and so on and so on. Just to do the actual blood relations not to cause any bad feelings in family we were already over 100 guests! Sure, make the reception for just your parents/siblings and reception doesn't cost much, but in the society we live in, people end up talking about how cheap you are if you do something like that usually!

People bringing toasters and other useless crap ie candy baskets that is half the time a re-gift that they got themselves doesn't help anyone out and in fact makes you realize who you can delete from your real life, yes deleting a person from your life is as easy as deleting them on a social media site. People make gift lists or specific requests to prevent useless and un-needed gifts, if someone is so useless that they can't follow simple instructions, or have half a brain to realize that their gift is useless they shouldn't bring anything. Most people would rather someone not bring anything at all and just give a card with a congratulations and thank you for inviting them to the wedding then to bring something that is useless.

The poll question included for anything relating to this story should include a "if you knew this person who gifted such a useless gift, would you invite them to your wedding knowing what crap they pulled at someone elses?" I'd bet you 90+% would answer "No, she wouldn't get a invitation" and I'd be highly surprised if she ever gets invited to another wedding unless she is in the bridal party =)


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

We had a big church and Chinese banquet wedding and then a week later, we had a small beach wedding up in Powell River at the home of my friends, Bill and Laura. Bill is ordained to perform weddings and did so for both weddings. The first wedding was more for our parents (240 guests I believe). I was able to negotiate a very good price at the restaurant since we were one of the first to book after they opened. I think it worked out to $250/table of 10 (I'm Malaysian so haggling for my wedding banquet was fun). Altogether spent $7500 including tip and tax. Not bad considering we had 24 tables.

We received about half red packets and have gifts. The former were enough to cover the total cost of the wedding, but everyone was given a thank you note. After almost 11 years, we still have a few gifts sitting unused in our hallway closet.

My sister still has 80% of her wedding gifts in boxes stacked in one corner. That's why we almost always give red packets (envelopes of cash) which we know is always appreciated. 

But yeah, that "bride" was bloody rude and class-less. Regifting or giving it to a charity would have been a much classier solution. Getting into a war of "texts" shows what a b!tch she really is, especially the "it's the laughingstock of the wedding" comment. People like that deserve to have their weddings called off due to flooding (like what's happening in Calgary).

Weddings are NOT for making money!!! If that's her mentality, I expect her to get married several more times if she can con more women to propose.

Anthony


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

Some people do suck.....Laura is definitely on the top 10 list today....Im thinking the snob should have sold tickets to her wedding 

on a side note....Bob do you by chance own a fishtank? I dont think I have ever seen you post anything outside the Aqua Lounge lol


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Oh and we should remember, the news report seems to give snippets of the conversation ie you notice both the gift giver and the portion use ... meaning they excluded/shortened the quotes. These "quotes" could easily be small snippets of large emails just use to sensationalize the report and make it seem so much worse then it actually was.

Especially this one should be noted...

"your future … not to pay", wonder what the word, multiple words or sentences were between the word future and not that so conveniently got left out. To start the quotes off from the gift giver, it looks like they've already had a large amount of communication prior to that portion, what was said by both parties that got to the point where the gift giver is making the comment about the receipt request.


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## endler (Mar 14, 2013)

LOL what a h0e!!!!
"I paid 200 to invite ur a$$ to my wedding so u should give me at least 200 if u wnna come without being laughed at"
That girl deserved a wedding at mcdonalds...
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2


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## effox (Apr 21, 2010)

I think requesting a receipt is tacky, no matter what the gift was.

Personally, I'd much rather just give cash, as I had just done at my best friend's wedding.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

I wonder what, way back when weddings came to be, was an acceptable gift then. So much simpler back in those days im sure. Livestock was probably a choice gift lol though I guess in some places still is lol


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Have your say about the wedding gift firestorm

Better read then the article written about the information submitted. Anyone who says the bride is horrible ( well, the bride that was named since they were both brides ), you should read what the gift giver says. Seems to call the bride a cow, seems to suggest their marriage is going to not last and better luck with their next marriages, and that was just the response to the quote of ""I'm not sure if it's the first wedding you have been to, but for your next wedding &#8230; people give envelopes. I lost out on $200 covering you and your dates plate . &#8230; and got fluffy whip and sour patch kids in return. Just a heads-up for the future."

It gets better in the text messages after that!


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

effox said:


> I think requesting a receipt is tacky, no matter what the gift was.
> 
> Personally, I'd much rather just give cash, as I had just done at my best friend's wedding.


Same here, just gave my cousin a well stuffed red envelope last weekend.


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## endler (Mar 14, 2013)

this bride is obviously not happy in her marriage if shes gnna hate on the ONLY person who gave her a gift and not cash. If she claims its only him that gave her a gift n not money then why is she so upset??? So upset she tried to ask for the receipt of a 30 dollar gift basket so she could convert that to cash...

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2


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## endler (Mar 14, 2013)

Bobsidd said:


> I wanted my family and my mates at my wedding, because I wanted them there to celebrate an extremely important moment in my life with me, not in order to even out the bottom line. In my opinion, to say that weddings are just to make money for your future seems to be missing the point. But maybe times they are a changin'.
> 
> This article would be interesting with a poll attached. Thanks for posting.


Nope. Times not changing... you just have someone who admitted that they didnt have a wedding to celebrate with family n friends but only to prepare for her future..

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

The wedding was Laura's nest egg to prepare for her "post-divorce" life to pay for the lifestyle to which she would like to become accustomed to but cannot afford on her own efforts.


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## gklaw (May 31, 2010)

I got the point.
But a gift is not a gift any more when we have expectation what it must be and how much it must worth. Am I right or am I not  
I would hate to keep track of which good friend gave me what and do so in return. So so friends I won't bother and should not be at my wedding at the first place.

I would expect receiving some cash but never expect that to be a must to help pay for the party. When I decided to invite a bunch of friends over to join in my celebrate. I really hate to second guess the appropriateness or the value of their gifts.
Otherwise, I may as well take a donation first before I plan the celebration. No donation, no invitation. Yes, I may suffer some loss and have to cover some cost of the party. Well, I threw the party, did I not? C'est la vie?
Whether one is worthy to be my friend and important enough to be in my wedding is never to be measured by the gift I received? If not, I am just using them to throw myself a big party?

If cost is an issue at the start, keep it simple. Pretty sure that won't spoil the fun of a wedding party.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

gklaw said:


> If cost is an issue at the start, keep it simple. Pretty sure that won't spoil the fun of a wedding party.


Actually, the most fun I ever had at a wedding (besides my own of course) was my friend Winston's house party wedding. It was a blast and didn't cost an arm and a leg either. Lots of people, lots of fun, lots of food, lots of love. That was a real wedding party.


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## JTang (Apr 21, 2010)

SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> We had a big church and Chinese banquet wedding and then a week later, we had a small beach wedding up in Powell River at the home of my friends, Bill and Laura. Bill is ordained to perform weddings and did so for both weddings. The first wedding was more for our parents (240 guests I believe). I was able to negotiate a very good price at the restaurant since we were one of the first to book after they opened. I think it worked out to $250/table of 10 (I'm Malaysian so haggling for my wedding banquet was fun). Altogether spent $7500 including tip and tax. Not bad considering we had 24 tables.
> 
> We received about half red packets and have gifts. The former were enough to cover the total cost of the wedding, but everyone was given a thank you note. After almost 11 years, we still have a few gifts sitting unused in our hallway closet.
> 
> ...


Wow $250/table??? That's a great deal. I remembered that I paid $650/table (wine extra) x20 on my wedding banquet 12 yrs ago. Compares to my friend's $1000+/table of nearly 30 tables of guests, mine was cheap! Wedding is usually pretty expensive especially for my culture (Chinese). Most of us have to go through the complete, complicated ceremonies (in both Western and Chinese formats), which I call the "Shows" for friends, relatives and parents. I thought about doing a simple "vacation wedding" in Vegas... guess what the In-Laws said!? Lol. I wonder how many wedding couple actually enjoy and have fun in their own wedding!?

Luckily in our tradition, majority of the people attending give cash like Anthony said. Not sure about today's average but back then (12 yrs ago) was around $80-$100 a head, depends on how fancy the restaurant is. And attending a wedding banquet with a family of 4 is a costly event! That's why I usually go by myself.  If you know the couple well, you better bring at least the average if not more. Otherwise I rather not attend than be cheap.

We did receive 15-20 gifts in our wedding since many of our guests were pretty young back then. Some were still in school so you couldn't expect much from them. Most of those gifts are still sitting in boxes in the storage room. I totally agree that its just a waste! Maybe I should dig them out n throw them on CL or the next garage sale. Haaha!

Wedding is not about money making but i think a young couple will really appreciate it if a friend can help out by at least covering the cost of his own meal, unless they are loaded!


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

I negotiated very hard since I was pretty much paying for the whole wedding myself. That's how I got the really good price ($250/table). My brother's wedding banquet cost over $400/table and he was married many years earlier. Then again, he's too shy about price negotiating to really be good at haggling.

Most of the gifts were from our peers/friends, whereas most of the red packets were given by my parents' and in-laws' generation. I agree, mostly young people just starting out themselves gave gifts since they could not afford to give $$. I personally tried not to pay any attention to who gave what since I went into the wedding fully expecting to pay for the who celebration out of my own pocket if necessary. Thanks to some very generous guests, I didn't have to and actually came out quite a bit a head, but if that hadn't happened, I would NOT have pulled a "Laura" and complained to the guests for not giving me a nest egg. Glad I was not at her wedding.


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## BostonBob (Apr 24, 2010)

Diztrbd1 said:


> on a side note....Bob do you by chance own a fishtank? I dont think I have ever seen you post anything outside the Aqua Lounge lol


Aquariums........so that's what BCAquaria means. :lol: Yes - I do have 2 tanks but only 1 is currently running. I have a 2.5 gallon lidless tank that another member here gave me - it was over 2 years ago so I have forgotten her name but she was extremely nice and refused to take any $$ for the tank. It is now empty as the Betta it housed died about 6 months ago and I just haven't found a replacement yet. My main tank ( 33 gallon ) has now been running for well over 15 years. I have kept both tropical fish and Goldfish in there with varying levels of success. It will soon be switched over once again from a Community tank to a Goldfish tank as I just haven't had any luck keeping real plants alive. I have tried several low-light plants but they just don't last.


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## Diztrbd1 (Apr 21, 2010)

lol didnt mean to change the subject, was just wondering. Ahhh the good ole 33g. Thats my oldest tank too, though I have acquired a 75 and 125, something about the 33 I love and can't seem to find it in me to get rid of it. Best low light plant is Java Fern....the only way you can kill that stuff is to not have it in water.


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## onefishtwofish (Apr 21, 2010)

endler said:


> LOL what a h0e!!!!
> "I paid 200 to invite ur a$$ to my wedding so u should give me at least 200 if u wnna come without being laughed at"
> That girl deserved a wedding at mcdonalds...
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2


u sound like a wedding at mCdonalds is a bad thing...............................


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## aQ.LED (Nov 13, 2012)

I understand the bride is overreact ... but ... bag of chips as a gift to other's wedding? I wouldn't even give that to my son's karate graduation. 
I think the bride kind of felt more of a embarrassment and disrespectful than anything else. Think about all the stress and planning that she went thru. I kinda see how and y she react the way she did.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

It seems quite clear that the guests did not know the couple very well and did not feel obligated to give a decent gift. That being the case, they should never have been invited in the first place, if the bride is so worried about costs and making money on her wedding. Probably better if they never invited the "basket-giving" couple in the first place. Her over-reaction to the poorly thought out gift is what turns off most people.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Recap of what was said.

Bride1 (first text 1): "Heyyy I just wanna say thanks for the gift but unfortunately I can't eat any of it lol I'm gluten intolerant. Do u maybe have a receipt"

Badgiftgiver: "Ahh <replacement word for poo poo>! Really!? We had a great time. Thank you again for allowing us to be a part of the celebration."

Bride2 Laura: "Hey (writer) it's (Bride 1's) wife Laura. I want to thank you for coming to the wedding Friday. I'm not sure if it's the first wedding you have been to, but for your next wedding... People give envelopes. I lost out on $200 covering you and your dates plate... And got fluffy whip and sour patch kids in return. Just a heads up for the future  "

Badgiftgivers (snippets of response email from the 2 texts sent to both on facebook): "This is not even close to being the first wedding I have attended, and actually I have done a lot of research on wedding etiquette, a step in the process the two of you clearly skipped over (clearly displayed by Laura chewing gum, like a cow does hay, while walking down the aisle)." --- Wow bad gift giver just called the bride2 a cow!

"I'm sure that one, or the two of you will mature, and grow into adults who will take a different, more respectful, LOVE based approach when you invite guests to your next wedding." --- looks to me as if bad gift giver is suggesting their marriage wont last and better luck on their next one.

--------------------------

Bride 1 who invited bad gift giver sends a thank you and asks for receipt, bad gift giver gives what comes off as a sarcastic response that doesn't even address the question about the receipt, says more like "to bad for you, I enjoyed, thanks". Which is when Bride 2 (Laura) send her response, which sure isn't the route that should of been taken but you know... someone you don't know gets invited to wedding from your partner, you partner somewhat kindly does a thank you and tries to find a solution to the problem, although maybe not the best solution and gets pretty much told off. Then the bad gift giver decides, hey lets send a email to both of the brides at once, I'll make it a really good one and tell them both were to go in which I will insult the bride 2 (Laura) directly who isn't even the one who requested the receipt to begin with and then insult both of them. Which of course sparks the rest of the texting where more gems of comments get tossed around such as this by the bad gift giver "you should just be happy your sham of a marriage is legal dude! ", and to top it off, the bad gift giver then goes on to send this to the news paper!

Only one solution to what happened here, everyone involved should be quarantined from the rest of the population just in case their stupidity is contagious, and humanely put down to protect the future of civilization as a whole.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

kacairns said:


> Only one solution to what happened here, everyone involved should be quarantined from the rest of the population just in case their stupidity is contagious, and humanely put down to protect the future of civilization as a whole.


Yup, everyone involved need to be spayed and neutered, for humanity's sake.


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## The Guy (Nov 26, 2010)

*Omg!!!!!!!!!!*

I think if I were the groom in this case I would want to hide out somewhere! Can you imagine being married to this person, "SCAREY" thought eh!! But then again maybe he's just as bad who knows.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Psst, he is a "she" in this couple.


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

The Guy said:


> I think if I were the groom in this case I would want to hide out somewhere! Can you imagine being married to this person, "SCAREY" thought eh!! But then again maybe he's just as bad who knows.


Groom is a women, if you read past the horrible editorial done as shock value you learn a lot and this person isn't as "SCAREY" as it makes her out to be, gift giver is just as "SCAREY" as the bride possibly even more considering some of the comments the gift giver makes.


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## Elle (Oct 25, 2010)

Based on the article, everyone involved in this fiasco deserves a swift trip to Etiquette Hell. Retaliatory rudeness is just as rude as the original insult. Bonus tacky points awarded to all involved for splashing what could have been resolved privately and with grace all over the internet! So Jerry Springer-esque. 

I wonder if there's a mother in law like this involved somewhere, just to add fuel to the fire? Carolyn Bourne: Mother-in-law from hell sends email to bride-to-be Heidi Withers | Mail Online


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## kacairns (Apr 10, 2012)

Elle said:


> Based on the article, everyone involved in this fiasco deserves a swift trip to Etiquette Hell. Retaliatory rudeness is just as rude as the original insult. Bonus tacky points awarded to all involved for splashing what could have been resolved privately and with grace all over the internet! So Jerry Springer-esque.
> 
> I wonder if there's a mother in law like this involved somewhere, just to add fuel to the fire? Carolyn Bourne: Mother-in-law from hell sends email to bride-to-be Heidi Withers | Mail Online


Good read! With the way all the parties acted in this wedding party, I'd be surprised if mothers/mother-in-laws have anything to do with their "children", they probably cut ties long ago with them seeing how horrible they were!


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