Woman defended after being accused of trying to ‘outshine’ sister-in-law at her wedding

Woman was accused of stealing the spotlight from newlywed after she received compliments about her newborn baby

A woman has been defended after she said she was accused of intentionally trying to “outshine” her sister-in-law at a wedding.

In a recent post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” Reddit forum, the woman specified that she and her husband recently attended her sister-in-law’s wedding. She prefaced that while she wasn’t trying to brag about her appearance, she’s often received comments about how she was “physically pretty,” and that the remarks have their “perks and cons”.

She further specified that while in school, her peers “either only paid attention to” her looks or “thought everything [she] did was against them,” which she said caused problems in her female friendships. The woman then brought up the “conflict” at her sister-in-law’s wedding, which she noted was at “fancy location,” which meant she decided to “ dress up a little bit”.

“I had a baby three months ago, I wore a dress with cleavage,” she explained. “When [the bride] and her husband were busy catching up with friends, some family members came and complimented my outfit with the always so necessary comment about how good I look because I’ve lost most of my baby weight.”

The woman went on to note that while her baby wasn’t at the wedding, he was with the babysitter who lived near the venue. However, her baby was only being breastfed, so there were two points during the nuptials where she had to go outside and see him.

“The first time was when they were giving speeches, so I went to the car, breastfed him and [the babysitter] left,” she said. “Then the second time some people wanted to see the baby so as we were outside (because of the music) some of our family came to greet my baby.”

She then shared a separate issue that arised: her other sister-in-law posted photos on social media with her at the wedding and called her “the prettiest doll” in the post. However, according to the Reddit poster, the bride thought the post was “very nasty”, which allegedly prompted the bride to make a vague Instagram post.

“[The bride] posted on [Instagram] saying that no matter what, some people always want to shine brighter than others and steal the stoplight even on special occasions,” the Reddit poster continued. “I saw that and I sent her a text like: ‘Hey, is everything okay?’”

The woman shared that her sister-in-law later asked her if she was “tone-deaf,” before revealing that the Instagram post was about the Reddit poster. She then shared that the bride was upset about people complimenting her sister-in-law about “how good [she] looked, how lucky [her] husband is, how pretty [her] baby” was. However, the woman specified that when she tried to defend herself, her sister-in-law continued to argue.

“I told her: ‘Sorry, but I don’t really see how that has anything to do with me,’” the post continued. “[The bride] said that I’m doing this on purpose and to back up her argument she said that in the photo I posted, people were commenting on that kind of stuff. She insists that I wanted to outshine her by basically looking prettier and having people coo at my baby.”

She concluded her post by claiming that the situation may just be “that female competition” that she’s experienced previously with friends. “It wouldn’t be weird to me if she thought that me dressing up or losing weight was something I’ve done to purposely harm her because it has happened to me before,” she claimed. “But I don’t want to be too harsh and I want to give the benefit of the doubt because maybe I was wrong.”

The Reddit post has since gone viral, with more than 5,500 upvotes as of 6 February. In the comments, many people defended the Reddit poster, with some arguing that she did the right thing by going outside to feed her baby during the wedding. They also criticised the bride for seemingly getting upset about her sister-in-law’s looks.

“I will NEVER understand why women are so damn competitive and get upset with people for not being 100 per cent attentive to the bride on her wedding day,” one wrote. “Your baby never came into the wedding or reception. You went outside to deal with it.”

AITA? My sister in law thinks I wanted to purposely outshine her at her wedding
byu/Careless_Algae4252 inAmItheAsshole

“We can’t help what we look like. You could have worn a potato sack and had the same trouble. SIL is being unreasonable,” another wrote. “You have always been told you were pretty and have had people dislike you for it. I suppose I have often thought that good looking people had an unfair advantage over people like me, but that probably isn’t really the case. Again, we can’t help what we look like.”

“Some people don’t understand that not everyone can pump, and not every baby will take a bottle,” a third noted. “You went out to feed. This is a situation you wouldn’t have been wrong no matter what you did.  If you turned up with a baby, you were taking away from the bride. If you didn’t turn up, you couldn’t be bothered to turn up.”

However, some people claimed that a wedding wasn’t the time to bring a new baby around, given the fact that it could take away attention from the bride on her big day.

“A wedding is NOT the time to introduce a new baby to the family unless the bride and groom are aware that something will be happening and are on board with that. Since your baby was not a guest at the wedding, the bride and groom were clearly not expecting the introductions to take place during their reception and have every right to feel some kind of way about this being sprung on them without their knowledge,” one wrote. “It’s especially not appropriate to introduce the baby in a way that takes guests away from the wedding celebrations.”