Why Bride Kicked Friend out of Wedding Mid-Ceremony Cheered: ‘Your Fault’

The internet has weighed in on a woman who expects a bride to apologize first after her unsupervised son ruined the cake at her wedding.
In a post to Reddit sub r/AmITheA****** on August 20, the woman, who did not give her name but posts under the username u/OK_Worldliness3239, asked if she was in the wrong for “not apologizing to my friend after she screamed at me and my kid at her wedding.”
While Reddit users overwhelmingly told the mother she was in the wrong, one expert told Newsweek they should both “forgive one another” and try and move on.
The woman, 29, who is married and has a 4-year-old son, explained she is very close to the bride, and that the bride sees her son as her nephew.
She was unsure, however, whether she wanted children at her wedding, despite having two nieces around the boy’s age. The woman convinced her friend she should allow children at the wedding as they “deserved to be included,” and the engaged couple eventually agreed.
But while the vows went off without a hitch, with all the children well behaved, things took a turn at the reception.
With the woman’s son off playing with the other kids with minimal supervision, the newly-married couple then went to cut the cake.
“Suddenly, I hear BFF SCREAM Son’s name. Hubby and I push forward to see what’s wrong,” she wrote. “I see my son with frosting around his mouth and on his fingers.”
Etiquette expert Jo Hayes of EtiquetteExpert.org told Newsweek: “It pains me to hear about such a scenario going down at a wedding”—but added: “Yelling [or] screaming is never the appropriate course of action.”
The wedding cake can be a costly part of the celebrations, costing an average of $540, according to a survey from The Knot. And depending on the size of the wedding and the number of guests the cake is expected to feed, the price can soar.
The cutting of the cake remains an important part of the wedding day for many couples, with 71 percent of couples incorporating it into the celebration according to a 2021 study from the wedding experts.
After her son took a chunk out of the cake, the woman tried to apologize, but her friend, the bride, was having none of it, screaming: “This is YOUR FAULT. Your son RUINED my cake. He’s only here because YOU told me it would be worth it to include the kids!”
But the mother yelled back, telling her it was an “accident” and the rest of the cake could still be eaten, and pointing out she was yelling at her “nephew.”
“She told me I was no friend of hers and he wasn’t her nephew, in front of everyone. She told me to leave or she’d call security,” she said.
Both the mother and her son were in tears, and the family left the wedding.
A bridesmaid then reached out to the mother and apologized for how the bride reacted, but told the mother she needed to say sorry—but the woman replied that she wanted an apology from the bride, first.
“Not only did she blow up at me in front of everyone, but at my son. I’m humiliated but even more angry on his behalf,” she said.
Hayes said both women should sit down together and communicate how they feel: the bride, whose cake was ruined by the little boy, and the mother, for how she felt as she and her son were shouted at in public.
“Holding on to unforgiveness, and associated resentment and bitterness, holds a person in bondage and in darkness,” Haye said, and insisted forgiveness is the best thing to do for your mental health, “even if the other person doesn’t apologize.”
And so the woman came to the internet to ask if she was in the wrong for refusing to apologize first, and while the post received 8,600 upvotes, Reddit users responded with a resounding: “Yes, you are.”
One user wrote that “not only should you apologize, you should have apologized right then and there,” and took issue with her use of the word “accident,” as “your kid is young so it wasn’t malicious but it certainly wasn’t an accident.”
They added: “You also need to pay at least part of the cost of the cake because that tier was not edible.”
Another accused the woman of having “guilted and manipulated her friend to even allow kids in the first place, and then couldn’t even supervise hers after the friend caved.”
And one said the woman’s husband was even more at fault, as she had pointed out he was the designated driver for the evening, writing: “Hubby even let her drink and have fun to remain attentive. He’s to blame more IMO [in my opinion].”
“Your kid ruined the wedding cake and you feel that’s just an ‘accident?'” one said. “He willfully dug his fingers into the cake and ate a piece of it. How is that an accident?”
Meanwhile, expert Hayes acknowledged “healthy boundaries may have to be set in the relationship going forwards.”
She added, however: “We do ourselves a favor by releasing forgiveness, and remaining in the light.”
Newsweek has contacted u/OK_Worldliness3239 on Reddit for comment.
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