Bride criticized after she didn’t send thank you note to maid of honor for $700 gift

‘We were ecstatic to get $50-100 from our guests. Everyone got a thank you note,’ one person responds on Reddit

A woman has detailed how her sister made her Maid of Honor despite their distant relationship (Getty/iStockphoto)

A bride has been criticized for sending thank-you notes to all her guests except her maid of honor, who gave her a $700 gift.

In a recent post shared to the popular “Wedding Shaming” forum, a woman explained how her initial $500 wedding gift for her sister “just [wasn’t] enough.” The Reddit user started by explaining that when invited to the nuptials, she didn’t expect her sister to ask her to be her maid of honor (MOH) .

“This was a little surprising as we are not particularly close – we live in different states and she doesn’t ever contact me (I will try to call/text her),” she wrote. “The lead up to the wedding and the wedding itself was s***.”

She then shared more details about the events before the wedding, noting that she and her partner “flew out to attend [the] engagement party”. However, she explained that when she got to the party, which was at her parents’ house, she accidentally upset the then-bride-to-be.

“I offered to steam my sister and her fiancée’s dresses. They pulled out a steamer that they bought from a boot sale,” the post continued. “I stupidly used it and it spluttered water on my sister’s dress, leaving a small water stain. It was not noticeable. Well. She absolutely lost it. Screamed at me, said I had ruined her day.”

Although the MOH managed to get the dress dry cleaned, so it was “fine” for the party, her sister didn’t speak to her for “the rest of the day.” She also noted that her sister “never thanked” her for flying out for the party, even though the flights were “not cheap”.

She acknowledged that while she gave her sister space after the engagement party, the bride was then upset for three reasons, the first one being that she didn’t bring a gift to the event. The second reason was that the MOH didn’t speak to the “right people” at the party and didn’t take photos. The bride was also upset because her MOH “had not shown enough interest in wedding prep,” which urged the Reddit user to call her sister.

$500 just isn’t enough as a wedding gift
byu/ultimately-unclear inweddingshaming

“She reiterated that I had ruined her engagement party. I decided to be the bigger person and promised to speak to her more about the wedding,” the woman continued. “As an aside, the reason I had not brought a gift for the engagement party was because I was planning on giving her a generous wedding gift.”

The MOH then described her experience looking for a bridesmaid dress, which she had to pay for and show to the bride for approval before buying. She noted that while she was fine with that, all of her and her bridesmaids’ first choice for dresses “got rejected”. The group then learned that the bride wanted them to buy “a very specific type and color of dress”, but she didn’t want to pay for it. Ultimately, the bridesmaids learned they “had no choice” in the matter of picking dresses.

As the wedding was approaching, the MOH and her partner discussed what to give as a wedding gift, considering how much money the bride’s sister spent on a bridesmaid dress. The couple also took four flights for wedding events, and the MOH’s partner bought the bride a “magnum of champagne to celebrate”. While the bride’s sister and her partner settled on $500 for a gift, her mother suggested giving more, since the MOH was the older sibling. The Reddit user was hesitant about the idea, given her relationship with her younger sister.

“I pointed out that she almost openly hates me, screamed at me after her engagement party, and would almost certainly never think of giving me even half of $500,” she wrote. “I should also mention that my parents substantially paid for this wedding, and so this is not a situation where the wedding itself was so lavish that perhaps a larger gift was warranted.”

The MOH then explained that once she got to the wedding rehearsal, she discovered that the nuptials weren’t going to be what she thought, learning that there wouldn’t be music or a dance floor there.

“The wedding was scheduled for the middle of the weekday for an afternoon only, no nighttime dancing, nothing. Just a pizza lunch,” she added. “A bus was organized for guests to get to and from the wedding, but they had to pay for it. Take a day off work and then pay for transport.”

She concluded by noting that she gave her sister $700 as a wedding gift, which she didn’t receive a “thank you message or card” for, even though other guests did for their gifts.

In the comments, multiple people questioned and criticized the bride for not sending her MOH a thank you note, after receiving such a generous gift.

“We were ecstatic to get $50-100 from our guests. Everyone got a thank you note,” one person responded.

“I got a $10 gift card from a family member, who was having a hard time. You can bet they got just as gushing of a thank you note, as my grandmother, who gave us a $350 Kitchenaid. I honestly didn’t expect a lot of gifts, but I was just happy to see everyone there,” another wrote.

Others questioned the MOH for giving such a nice gift in the first place while slamming her sister’s behavior.

“$700? After how she treated you at the engagement party over a simple mistake? Yea, you shouldn’t have even given her $70,” one wrote.

“No thank-you note?! I would have sent you one with a huge apology for my bad behavior during and after my wedding. People eventually show us who they really are, don’t they? I’m just sorry you had to spend so much money to find that out about your own sister,” another commented.