8 Brides Who Got Their Sweet Revenge—And It Was Glorious

Wedding day is a dream come true for many people: flowers, tears of happiness, promises of eternal love... and in some cases, the perfect opportunity for epic revenge. Because not all brides walk down the aisle with angelic smiles and impeccable gowns. Some have a very clear mission in mind: to get revenge in the most brilliant and memorable way possible. Whether it’s against a toxic ex, a meddling family member, or even the groom himself, these brides have proven that saying “I do” can be accompanied by a sweet (and sometimes brutal) act of poetic justice.

My maid of honor planned to marry soon after me. Later, I found out everyone was invited but me! When I asked her, she confessed, “My fiancé doesn’t like you, sorry.” But she still wanted to be my maid of honor. I stayed calm because I had a better idea.

On my wedding day, she arrived at the church and saw that it was completely empty. I can only imagine her confusion. The week before, I had told her we’d changed our minds and wanted a religious ceremony. She was supposed to meet us at the church, and then we’d all go to the reception together. After finding an empty church, she texted me and the other bridesmaids.

My reply? “Oh, I forgot to tell you—we changed our minds again! Our budget was too tight to decorate two venues, so we did everything in one place with just a few people. It was a small thing, just family and close friends. I couldn’t invite anyone else. I hope your big day is beautiful and that nothing or no one ruins it.”

In the mid 90s, after about 2 years of dating, my dad proposed to my mom. Everyone was happy for them... Except for my aunt. She was jealous that the attention wasn’t on her and that she wasn’t getting married first, so she manipulated her boyfriend of 7 months into proposing and then became the biggest bridezilla ever.

My mom had always wanted a summer wedding, and when my aunt found out, she made it her mission to make sure that didn’t happen. But that was not the end. While trying to get over the disappointment of having to have a fall wedding instead of a summer wedding, my mother had some friends and cousins over to help her come up with ideas for her wedding. It was all a hodgepodge of stuff that clashed, and most of it wasn’t even my mom’s taste.

My aunt came over to borrow something and saw all the bridal magazines on the kitchen table, and one was open to a page of sunflowers. My aunt flew into a rage. Sunflowers were her favorite. If she didn’t have sunflowers, her wedding would be ruined, her life would be ruined. My mother didn’t want them as her wedding flowers. So she told my aunt to chill out, her cousin had left the magazine like that.

Suddenly, my aunt said, “Well, they’re really ugly, all brown in the middle,” and started ranting about this flower she had thrown a tantrum about thirty seconds ago. My mom wasn’t an idiot. She knew what was going on. My aunt just wanted things, so my mom wouldn’t have them, and she was going to do it over everything. So my mom came up with a plan.

After my aunt left, she started making two wedding binders. One was filled with things she liked or wanted to consider. The other was filled with the most hideous, tacky things that the mid 90s Canadian wedding industry had to offer. The first binder was kept at my maternal grandparents’ house for safekeeping so that my aunt would never find it. The second was placed on a bookshelf in my parents’ apartment.

A few weeks later, she and my dad went to my paternal grandparents’ house for my grandmother’s birthday. My grandma wanted to see if my mom had picked out a dress. She hadn’t, but “she knew exactly which one she wanted, and she had seen the same magazine on my grandmother’s coffee table and would be happy to show it to her.” My aunt’s head lifted. Bait taken.

My mom went on to point out the ugliest dress in the entire magazine, one that she had laughed at with her friends because who would want to wear something that bad? Well, what do you know, it was my aunt’s dream dress, and she has an appointment that Friday to try it on and buy it, and how dare my mom try to “take more from me than you already have.”

My mom agreed not to buy the dress, and my dad asked if she was going to take it out of the wedding binder in their apartment or keep it there for inspiration? Suddenly, my aunt seemed very interested in visiting her apartment. But not to look at the binder, no, no, no, of course not. She often invites herself over or lets herself in by telling the landlord that she is expected. The binder disappeared from the bookshelf more than once. My mother didn’t care.

So July comes, and it’s my aunt’s wedding. It’s an absolute disaster. It was all just generally awful. Anyway, no one will say it to her face, but her wedding was awful and most of the guests left hours before it was supposed to be over. My aunt tells my dad “there’s still time to run,” “you two won’t last” she gloats and is snide and smug...

Until my parents’ wedding. I don’t want to make this post any longer than it already is, so I won’t describe their wedding in detail. Basically, it was beautiful. My mom didn’t notice because she was too busy marrying my dad and enjoying herself, but my aunt was furious because she’d spent months thinking she’d stolen my mom’s dream wedding and instead my mom had an amazing event that our family still talks about.

The best part of my mom’s revenge is that she didn’t actually do anything. If my aunt hadn’t felt the need to set my parents up, she wouldn’t have had the nightmarish fever dream that she did. If she hadn’t basically broken into their apartment sometimes to steal the notebook, she would have come up with her own ideas. She brought it all on herself. @lolf***no / Reddit

As long as I can remember, my parents loved my sister more. When I got my first boyfriend, I didn’t want to bring him home, but my parents insisted. Well, one time we were separated, and he came to see me to tell me that my sister was flirting with him. Of course, my sister told my parents a different story: that my boyfriend had tried to flirt with her instead, but she refused, of course, because how could she do that to me?

Guess who my parents believed. Well, my boyfriend wasn’t perfect, but... I believed him right away. Anyway, my parents forbade me to go out with such a horrible boy. I got another, but again my sister accused him of flirting with her when he refused her advances. Again, my parents believed her. The relationship couldn’t handle the Romeo and Juliet situation and fizzled out again.

College was my savior. I started to be happy. I still contacted my parents and visited them on holidays and such, but since they refused to pay for anything, I could excuse not going much because of money. During this time, I avoided introducing them to a man. It was around this time that I met my husband.

When we talked about getting married, we decided that we didn’t care much about the ceremony because of our budget, as we would rather spend it on a dream trip to Europe for our honeymoon. As for where to do it, since his family was spread out and mine was still mostly concentrated in my hometown, we decided to do it there. We sent out the engagement announcement and the “save the date for” a few months later.

Well, at this point, my parents naturally demanded to meet my husband. He had been preparing for this. He even bought a high quality recorder that he could hide in a pocket to record everything. He was excited, thinking of all the ways he could rebuff my sister’s advances, insult her, and then share the recording of her attempts with my family. So he went off alone, excited to meet them.

And later came back euphoric. “Babe! Babe! You wouldn’t believe what they wanted! Babe! We can screw them so bad, there are so many possibilities!” I was confused and wanted to listen to the recording, but he wisely told me I’d better listen to him first, or I’d misunderstand him.

Well... he went there, and instead of flirting, my parents and sister sat him down. After some grumbling about not agreeing with him, my judgment, etc., they announced that they were willing to pay for my wedding... on one condition. My sister would be the first to walk down the aisle at my wedding. In a wedding dress.

Their excuse was that it wasn’t okay for a younger sister to get married first, so it was only fair that my sister at least have the experience. At my venue. With pictures taken, and the dress, and she’d have a cake later, etc. And my husband had the recording to prove it. I was shocked.

It was then that we decided to make a plan: Act like we agreed, but then hire security and don’t let them in. My husband went back to my parents. He said he would be willing to help them. He pointed out that I don’t like conflict, so if I was surprised by it, I might not throw a tantrum in front of everyone. On the other hand, marriage IS a big deal, so who knows if I’d lash out.

So he suggested a compromise: they’d help pay for things. That way I’d feel even more pressure not to say anything, because not only would we be public, but I’d be grateful for their help, and that would appease me. They agreed. And so began the months of deception, where my parents and sister thought they were fooling me, and my husband and I were fooling them.

Soon the day came. The plan my parents/sister/husband came up with was: wait until everyone was seated. Since the bride always comes out late, they would have my sister arrive at that exact time (so I wouldn’t see her and try to stop it) and walk down the aisle. By the time I heard what was happening, it would be too late to do anything. We made sure to keep our real security hidden at first.

When the guests and my parents arrived, all they could see was a woman with a list of names to check. Only after my parents arrived and sat down did we bring out the security. A guy who looked like a bodyguard. We told him not to let anyone in to see my sister, and even agreed to pay a nice tip if he didn’t reveal what we told him. Soon the time came.

My parents got a text that my sister was less than 5 minutes away, so my dad went and told people to start. My bridesmaids had been told to follow his lead beforehand, so they obeyed without checking with me. After they all went down and took their places, my dad stood at the entrance as if waiting for me. The bridal song started playing, the doors opened and... I walked in.

My dad looked horrified that I was there. He tried to look behind me, but you can’t see the entrance to the venue from where we were, so he couldn’t see what happened to my sister. And then his phone rang, I saw the caller ID and it was her. He just... left me there with a mumbled “something came up.” At some point, my mom left as well.

My husband’s dad quickly ran over and took my arm. He’d been warned he might have to do that. Seeing him run frantically to me made me smile. I walked down the aisle and heard whispers as people discussed what had happened. Some seemed to be leaving to check. By the time I reached my husband, though, all was well. He made me feel better by joking that my sad face was so real I deserved an Oscar, and don’t worry, he’d rake them over the coals for what they did.

We got married without a hitch. My parents didn’t come back. I noticed a lot of people leaving and coming back during the party, but no one dared tell me what was going on. Well, what happened is... it worked! My sister arrived in a wedding dress. The security guard refused to let her in. Per our agreement, he claimed she must be in the wrong place because there was already a bride.

My dad went there and tried to threaten him with the police, claiming he’d never heard of him, so he couldn’t be working there. The security agreed with the police because he was hired by us and doing his job. My dad realized it was too late and tried to demand that he let my sister in. All my parents could do now was damage control, as everyone who found out was horrified that they were trying to pull it off and yelled and cursed at them.

The three of them, of course, said it wasn’t a secret and threw my husband under the bus. At this point, my husband was called. When he came, he put on his best look of confusion and denied, denied, denied. He denied ever agreeing to anything so ridiculous.

When they insisted that he had, he demanded proof, and of course they couldn’t produce any. All the text exchanges they could produce were about normal wedding decisions. My sister was screaming and crying and apparently sitting on the floor, kicking her legs like a child.

We had a great time. My husband only kept the forced angry face for a short while before he broke into a smile. After that, we went back to the hotel to get some sleep before our honeymoon. Of course, the three of them have been trying to contact me ever since. I’ve refused their calls. @sisterinmywedding / Reddit

We decided to have a micro-wedding with just our immediate family, about 10 people. We got married at a venue that is known for hosting very large events, but we rented a smaller room there.

My husband has a child with his ex, so he sees her quite often for things related to my stepchild. We had always planned to invite her to the wedding to see her child all dressed up and generally maintain a good co-parenting relationship. And before we had invited her, she informed DH that she would be there and asked when and where it was. He was a little surprised, but since we were going to invite her anyway, he just told her.

On the day, she showed up at our morning ceremony wearing the shortest dress I’ve ever seen, over stockings and suspenders (the suspenders were visible for a good 6 inches from the bottom of the dress), skyscraper heels, nightclub makeup, and costume jewelry. I found out afterwards from mutual friends that she had texted everyone asking when they were coming — because she had invited herself, we hadn’t thought to let her know it was such a small ceremony — and when they told her it was just family and the reception was completely separate, she started to panic a little.

And I had the best little revenge. I asked everyone to be EXTRA nice to her. Every time she tried to sneak away, someone would engage her in conversation. She was extremely uncomfortable and ended up sitting down with her coat covering her. The wedding went off without a hitch. I’m not sure what she was expecting, but it all worked out fine in the end. @internetdramalobster / Reddit

I had an acquaintance, Laura. I didn’t consider her a close friend, but we hung out in the same places because we had the same group of friends. She was not a bad person, but there was something I hated about her: she always wanted to be the center of attention, no matter what. Still, I was always cordial with her and tried to maintain a pleasant relationship.

However, ever since she learned that I was engaged, she never missed an opportunity to give me unsolicited advice on how to organize the wedding. Suggestions about the location, the catering, the colors... sometimes she even got on my guest list.

But the last straw was when, in the middle of the preparations, she told me bluntly, “I will help you with the preparations, but since I am going to be your most important guest, I hope you will not put me at a table with boring people.” Although she had been invited as part of the group of lifelong friends, it seemed to me that her attitude was crossing a line. So I decided to do something subtle but effective.

When I received the confirmations from all the guests, I couldn’t help but notice that Laura never sent me the final answer as to whether she could come or not. I decided not to press her and wait until the last minute. I thought about leaving her off the list, but I felt that would be too much. So instead of just not inviting her, I decided to make a small change in the organization without anyone knowing.

On the day of the wedding, when it was time for the reception, Laura showed up, hoping to find her place with her friends, as usual. But when she arrived at the table, she found that there was no room for her. The place was full, and the tables were already taken. When she asked me, confused and a little offended, why I hadn’t sat her with the others, I replied with a smile, “You didn’t confirm in time, so there were no seats left. I wish you’d done it earlier.”

Her expression was a poem. No one knew what had happened, and no one dared mention it. Laura ended up sitting at a table in the back, completely isolated, away from the spotlight she liked so much. Best of all, in the end, no one noticed that I had avenged her selfish attitude. And, honestly, it was a relief to see that the wedding was finally about us and not about her drama.

Years ago, when my husband and I got married, we had a large wedding (100+ people) that we paid for ourselves. Since we were young and not making a lot of money, I tried to save where I could. I hired local people and friends to do a lot of things at a discounted price, and since I worked at a 4-star restaurant/banquet facility I was able to talk them into doing the wedding reception for cost as long as I provided a, b, and c.

Basically, we had an amazing wedding for a very low price, but it was still a pretty large amount per person. Somewhere between 17-20 per plate. Not bad, but not cheap. Anyway, the invitations go out and after a while the RSVP cards start pouring in and like I said, we ended up with over 100+ people that would be attending. My aunt was one of those people. She RSVP’d for herself, her husband, and her son — my cousin.

Wedding day comes, we get married, reception time, and my aunt (and family) is a no-show. I notice because I only have two. I’m annoyed, but more worried that something might have happened. However, the following Monday, I get a card in the mail from them with a check for $10.00! No apology, just signed with a little “Congratulations.” Nothing personal.

I was so disappointed. So I call her mother, my grandma, and tell her what happened. She immediately says, “This doesn’t even cover the cost of the meals she wasted when she didn’t show up! What a cheapskate!” It hadn’t even occurred to me at the time.

Then she says the best thing ever. “You know, your aunt is super OCD about her checkbook. Don’t cash that check. It’ll drive her crazy.” I didn’t, and it did! It also drove my narcissistic mother crazy because she got all the phone calls asking when I was going to cash the check. I guess she was too embarrassed to call me by then. Win, win!

The BEST part is that I kept the check and left it in the card. I have a habit of keeping all my cards and every once in a while I’ll pull that card out and look at that check, and it always makes me feel so good. @Redhead_spawn / Reddit

For context, I am Indian, and most marriages here are still arranged. I was set up by my family with a guy. He is a nice man, and we talked, and we really liked each other. The engagement and the wedding day were planned, and we all started shopping. So the thing is in our culture it is the groom’s family who buys everything for the bride.

So, 1 month before my engagement, the groom’s side of the family took me shopping for my engagement dress and jewelry. It included MIL, SIL (groom’s sister. Let’s call her Karen) and SIL (groom’s brother’s wife. Let’s call her Susen.) What really pissed me off was that Karen was taking pictures of everything I bought, but I didn’t want to ruin my mood, so I just ignored them both.

Fast-forward to my engagement day, both Karen and Susen are wearing the exact same sari that I was wearing. I was horrified. Not only that, they bought the same jewelry shoe and got similar hairstyles. Everyone joked that they couldn’t decide who was the real bride.

After that, they insisted on taking pictures with me, which I couldn’t refuse because “it would be rude of me.” They also posted these pictures on Instagram with the caption, “Let’s see if you can tell which one is the bride.” They just ruined my day.

Then came the time when we had to go shopping for a wedding dress. I asked my fiancé to come with me. He agreed. I thought it would be just him and MIL this time, but surprise, surprise... Karen and Susen were also there. As I was narrowing down the dresses, Karen came over and started taking pictures of everything AGAIN.

At this point, I knew exactly what was going to happen next. The devil in me was awakening. One by one, I rejected all the beautiful dresses I had originally chosen. Then I started picking out the ugliest dresses in the store. Both Karen and Susen were in shock. They both tried to convince me to buy what they liked, but again I had to ignore them for my own peace.

And as I expected, they started taking pictures of everything AGAIN. But this time I was happy. When it came to the alteration measurements, I asked the lady if I could come back tomorrow and give my measurements, and she agreed. The next day, I went with my fiancé and changed each dress to what I originally liked.

And finally the wedding day comes. As I walk down the aisle, I look at both Karen and Susen, who are red as tomatoes. Throughout the ceremony, they had been telling everyone how I was a mean girl who went against their wishes and returned everything they bought for me for something else, and how I had ruined their chances of getting matching outfits and nice family pictures. Although some people agreed with them, most were on my side.

And the best part is the reception party, where they both wore an evening gown in all neon (I had previously chosen a neon pink gown because “this color is trending”) and I wore a really beautiful gold lehenga. They were both visibly upset. My FIL, MIL and BIL are all on my side as they think this was just a miscommunication between us that I didn’t tell them I had changed my mind about the dresses.

But only I know why I did it. Everyone at the reception was talking about both of them and how stupid they were to try to wear the same dress as the bride. I felt soooo good. I know it’s petty, but I kind of love it. @learn_o_phile / Reddit

My half sister, Heather, and I have never really gotten along. We are both 24 years old. My dad left my mom for her mom, and we were born the same month, just 20 days apart. It was always weird.

It doesn’t help that Heather’s mom hates me and my mom. In general, Heather and I didn’t have the best relationship. She was always trying to one-up me, even though we both came from similar economic backgrounds.

Anyway, last month, my fiancé and I got engaged and had our engagement party. We had originally planned it as a casual-formal event. Nice dresses, but not “I’m going to the Met Gala ball” nice. More like “we’re going to a nice restaurant” nice.

One day, my cousin came and showed me something: a picture of the dress Heather was going to wear. It can only be described as opulent. It was long and white. Strapless with “Chrystals” sewn in and gold accents. I was pretty sure it was a wedding dress, but I can’t be 100% sure. That made me really mad. So I decided... whatever.

I started texting people and telling them that there had been a change of plans. And that instead of casual formal, I decided to have a costume party. My mom’s side is crazy about Halloween, so they were right on board. I texted my dad and asked him to relay the message to Heather and her mom, knowing full well that he would forget or leave it until the last minute.

The night comes. Guests begin to arrive, most of them in costume. Some didn’t have time to get one. We just provided them with funny hats and cheap wigs. Heather, my dad, and her mom arrive about an hour late. As soon as she realized that everyone was wearing either elaborate costumes or weird accessories, and she didn’t stand out, she lost it.

Especially when my fiancé came over and told her that her wedding dress looked amazing for a cheap costume. She left crying, and her mother and my father told me that I was being childish and that I could have told Heather myself and not asked my father. @obsnotmain / Reddit

If these stories have taught us anything, it is that weddings can be scenes of love, joy... and revenge, executed with mastery. So if you ever receive an invitation with a wicked smile from the bride, think twice before accepting. And if you liked this collection of anecdotes, you will love this article about weddings that seemed perfect until they weren’t.