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He thought he was planning a wedding. Instead, he ended up on the phone with his credit card company, canceling a venue he says he never agreed to book.
There’s a specific quiet that follows that kind of move. Not dramatic. Just administrative. Hold music. Verification questions. Meanwhile, somewhere else in the apartment, she’s crying to her mother.
What started as friction over tablecloths and a church pew turned into something tighter. “My day.” “My money.” A river venue booked without him. A charge reversed without her.
It stops sounding romantic quickly.
And somewhere between maroon linens and a family church with generations behind it, the argument drifts away from aesthetics entirely.
On the surface, the dispute is about where a wedding should take place: a church rooted in his family’s history versus a riverside venue chosen by his fiancée and encouraged by her mother. But the conflict hardens when she books the river location using his credit card without his approval, prompting him to cancel the charge and draw a line.
That moment shifts the frame. It’s no longer about décor or taste. It becomes about decisions made alone.
The escalation continues when he reviews their shared wedding savings and discovers spending beyond agreed limits, including a significant transfer to her mother. She defends the choices by pointing out urgency and by noting that he hadn’t even noticed the money missing before.
From there, the standoff widens. He feels sidelined and financially exposed. She appears to feel justified and supported by family loyalty. The wedding itself recedes, replaced by questions about how choices get made and who absorbs the consequences when they aren’t shared.
Text Version
AITA for cancelling our wedding venue a couple of months before the wedding day?
INCONCLUSIVE
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/throwawaythedate123
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
AITA for cancelling our wedding venue a couple of months before the wedding day?
Trigger Warnings: emotional manipulation, entitlement, theft, possible controlling behavior, classism
Mood Spoilers: outrageous and horrifying
Original Post: March 18, 2019
So about a year ago I popped the big question. I was deeply in love with my girlfriend and everything felt amazing. That is until she transformed into a bridezilla in front of my eyes.
Ever since we got engaged all she can do is talk about the wedding, which was fine at first but it started to consume her. I thought that I would get some say in how the day was going to go but everything I suggest is immediately shot down. The only choice I got to make was my tux and even that had to fit her God damn color scheme.
Well things really started ramping up when her mother came down for the weekend. She’s your typical trailer trash woman who married into a successful family. All her ideas are awful and tacky yet my fiancee laps it up like a dehydrated person in a desert. When I try to bring it up with her she tells me that this is “her” big day and I should just be supportive. I told her it was my money and that I should have more say in how it’s spent. Her mom picked out maroon table clothes with flowers and suns on them, I feel like it’s a funeral for a carnival worker. She even suggested we have beer kegs on tap.
So the last straw was that her and her mother, without my consent, used my credit card as a payment on a venue down by a river instead of the church we discussed where my family has attended for generations and made many contributions, the pricing was even a little cheaper minus the price of the hall afterwards. Who wants to get married next to a stinking river full of flies and whatever other insects will float around, on top of all the people who will just waltz up to the river to enjoy the day while were trying to get married.
I finally had enough so after she told me what she did I cancelled the payment on my credit card (after spending hours dealing with my credit card company) and told her she could either set up a date at the church or find someone else to marry because I’ve had enough of this. She’s spent the last couple hours bawling her eyes out to her mom and making me seem like the monster after she went behind my back.
Am I the asshole in this situation?
TL;DR: my fiancee became a bridezilla and won’t let me make any decisions and her and her mother have teamed up against me. She chose a venue without my consent so I cancelled the payment and told her that she either goes with my choice of where we get married or we aren’t getting married at all.
Update 1: Thank you everyone for your great responses. It has been pretty eye opening to say the least, I’m going to confront her in the morning. I’ll post another update for anyone still interested.
Verdict: Not the Asshole
Relevant / Top Comments
OOP responds to a deleted comment about his fiancée taking his money without his consent
OOP: Right? Who thinks it’s right to take someone’s money without their consent and then get mad at them for being upset.
Commenter 1: NTA – Maybe it’s my values but I think that this day is also very much your day, not just hers, so you should undoubtedly be having a say in this (unless, of course, you handed her the reins). She’s forgetting about the person she’s marrying and I don’t think her mother is helping. I don’t think that this is something that should break you up (not too interested in the ‘BREAK UP NOW’ kind of solutions), but you should definitely be having a conversation about this. You also should consider how she treats your money now and how she might in the future. Running with your credit card and making a brand new plan without you is definitely a big no. There’s no guarantee what might happen when you share finances in the future, but it’s definitely food for thought and something to keep in the back of your mind.
OOP: The financial aspect does have me worried. What if I come home one day to find out we’re in debt over our heads over an investment she made without talking to me.
Commenter 2: ESH. Your fiancée is way out of line booking something with your credit card without discussing it, but you also seem assholishly condescending.
You talk about her trashy mother and look down on her trashy ideas, completely ignoring that these are things your fiancée genuinely likes. Her mother is trailer trash? Then that’s probably how she was raised. That’s what she’s comfortable with. Why are you marrying someone when you look down on the way she was raised and the things she enjoys?
You say the original plan was for you to get married in the church that has been special to your family for generations, but also that you have had no input other than your tux. Those conflicting statements make me wonder what else you’ve my-way-or-the-highway’ed her on and not even noticed or cared that you were because it seemed right or normal to you.
Honestly, I feel like you both have way more issues to sort out than the venue before you get married.
Commenter 3: NTA. Frankly, in your shoes, I’d have called off the entire wedding. It seems like as soon as she had you locked in, her real personality came to the fore. Her mother is probably a good example of what your fiancee will become in the future. I’d have nope’d the fuck out a while ago. You don’t say that you love her — you say you did. Time to walk away, dude. For both of your sakes.
Editor’s note: OOP updated in the same post
Update: March 19, 2019 (same post, next day)
Update 2: I tried creating a new thread but don’t understand how the filters work. Here’what happened after.
I got a lot of great advice from my post last and the main thing that I took away was that someone using your money for large purchases behind your back is a big red flag. Well it turns out you guys were right because I decided to look into our finances regarding the wedding and found a lot more than I bargained for.
I have a large savings account that I have been putting money into for the last 8 years or so, about a year back my fiancee ran into some vehicle trouble and it was a hassle so I gave her access to my account in case of emergencies in the future. This same account is what we were using for a lot of the wedding expenses. We agreed on a maximum price that we could spend out of it and everything else would have to come directly out of pocket. I don’t often keep tabs on the account because really it’s in the back of my mind, I put money out of each check into it and move on.
Well after all this went down yesterday I decided to check all my finances and found out that not only had she exceeded the limit we had agreed too, but that some of the money coming out didn’t make sense. She had transfered almost $2000 to her mother recently. I confronted her about this today and her answer was that her mom needed the money to come down because she can’t be spending her money right now due to a new business venture her mother and father are involved in. I was angry because it’s bullshit that not only is the mother and father not helping with the wedding but we have to pay for them the entire time too. These people are pretty well off so it’s pretty ridiculous. That wasn’t the end of it though because after more arguing my fiancee told me that she paid for her mother and her dad to come down last time too and it wasn’t a big deal and that I didn’t even notice the money was gone so who cares.
After learning all this I told her the wedding was off for now until I get a chance to think things through. She cried and begged for another chance but I wouldn’t budge I told her I need time. She’s staying at the hotel with her mother tonight and I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. I’m so mad right now and feel really betrayed. I don’t know if she’s the right one for me anymore.
We have talked over the phone recently but still haven’t gotten anywhere. It’s a pretty tough situation all around.
Thanks for listening everyone. I’ll update more if you’re still interested.
Editor’s note: marking this inconclusive since OOP hasn’t updated in six years
Source
At first it reads like ordinary pre-wedding friction. Color schemes. A church tied to his childhood. A river he describes with open disgust. The tone is already sharp, but still contained inside planning.
Then the sequence accelerates.
Venue booked.
Credit card charge.
Payment reversed.
Ultimatum issued.
Savings account checked.
Two thousand dollars transferred.
Laid out like that, it’s less dramatic and more procedural. One action triggering the next. No commentary required.
Midway through, something shifts in emphasis. He talks about whose card it was, whose savings, who funded what. She talks about not making a big deal out of money he didn’t notice was gone. Their reasoning moves past each other. Neither one adjusts.
There’s also the way he speaks about her mother “trailer trash,” tacky ideas, carnival-funeral imagery. It’s not neutral language. It suggests embarrassment, maybe contempt. That current runs underneath everything, even when he’s describing logistics. It doesn’t need to be analyzed to be felt.
The financial discoveries, though, are concrete. Access granted for emergencies. Spending cap agreed upon. Limit exceeded. Transfer made. She says it helped her parents during a business venture and that she’s covered their travel before. He hadn’t realized.
He calls off the wedding for now. She cries. She stays at a hotel with her mother. He says he feels betrayed.
What lingers isn’t the river or the church. It’s the moment she tells him he didn’t even notice the money was gone.