The bride said my 4yo ruined her wedding, but I’m the one who deserves an apology

Georgia wasn’t convinced about the idea of having kids at her wedding, but her best friend assured her it was a good idea. Big mistake. Huge.

When it comes to weddings, one of the biggest points of contention is deciding whether you want to have kids attending. 

Sure, kids are family, but they can also wreak absolute havoc on what was supposed to be a day of happiness and love. 

One bride, Georgia*, wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do for her own wedding, and now she’s probably regretting her choice. 

Want to join the family? Sign up to our Kidspot newsletter for more stories like this. 

The kid ate a piece of cake before everyone else. Picture: iStock

“The cake had a small chunk taken out of it”

Georgia was contemplating whether she should have kids attend her wedding, and given she has two nephews, she figured it would be nice to have them present on her big day. 

Her decision came with some encouragement from her best friend, Harriet*, who has a four-year-old son. 

RELATED: ‘I don't want to attend my best friend’s wedding if they serve chocolate cake’

At first, Georgia wasn’t feeling great about having kids at her wedding. “She wanted to be able to let loose and enjoy her wedding without worrying about any kids messing things up,” Harriet explained on Reddit. 

But Harriet told her best friend that having kids at the wedding was the way it was supposed to be. “The kids were still family and deserved to be included,” she said. 

It took a bit of convincing, but Georgia eventually relented and OK’d having her nephews and best friend’s son at the wedding. 

Introducing our new podcast: Mum Club! Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Fast-forward to the wedding, and everything was going along “swimmingly”. Knowing her son would likely be bored throughout the event, Harriet thought ahead and packed “quiet activities to keep them entertained and everybody behaved”. 

However, things took a turn at the reception.

After the newlyweds had their first dance, all the guests gathered in the middle of the dancefloor to watch the cake-cutting ceremony. 

“At this point, the kids were running around and playing with each other and it was a fairly secure space and I knew almost everybody there, so I felt comfortable with Son playing with the other kids while Hubby and I had fun dancing,” Harriet said. 

As Harriet and her husband approached the middle of the dancefloor, albeit slowly as they had a “couple glasses of wine” by this point, they tried to catch a glimpse between the “crowd [that] was blocking the view”. 

A split-second later, the sound of Georgia screaming Harriet’s son’s name echoed through the reception hall. Panicking, Harriet and her husband ran towards the centre of the crowd to see what was happening. 

“I see my son with frosting around his mouth and on his fingers,” Harriet said. “The cake had a small chunk taken out of it.”

The bride was apoplectic, screaming “this is YOUR fault” to Harriet. “Your son RUINED my cake,” she screamed at her best friend. “He's only here because YOU told me it would be worth it to include the kids!”

Harriet tried to reassure the bride that it was simply an “accident” and “ the rest of the cake was still edible”. But Georgia wasn’t budging and ordered Harriet and her family to leave the premises. 

A few days passed, and the bride’s sister reached out to Harriet, apologising “for her sister's reaction”. However, the sister also stressed that Harriet “needed to apologise” for her son’s actions, too. “I think sorries are out the window now after her outburst,” Harriet confessed, adding she wouldn’t apologise to Georgia unless she apologises first.

RELATED: Aussie bride's wedding cake was so bad, she thought they sent the wrong one

“You are exactly why people don’t want kids at their weddings!”

Even though the bride’s reaction was quite extreme, people on Reddit couldn’t help but stand by her, placing the blame squarely on Harriet for not having better control of her child. 

“You and your husband should have kept an eye on your kid,” someone said. “You are exactly why people don’t want kids at their weddings! You deserved everything you got.” 

“She allowed kids based on your assurance that having kids at the wedding would be OK,” said a third. “It's most especially egregious when the one person who said kids deserved to be included to be the one whose kid f**ked over her wedding celebration. It is a big deal. It is a once-in-a-lifetime event.”

“You or your husband should have had an eye on your son and been ready to jump in at a moment's notice,” an angry person shared. 

“If you didn't want to have to supervise your child the whole night, you shouldn't have brought him.”

“Why are you bringing a four-year-old to a wedding and letting him run around with cake?” someone wondered.

“It's not like he was having a meltdown and couldn't be stopped; you just didn't care to watch him. You were in the wrong, and your friend was right to be mad.”

*Names have been changed

Originally published as The bride said my 4yo ruined her wedding, but I’m the one who deserves an apology