What's the most shameful thing you've witnessed at a wedding? Think on it for a second.
That's the question posed to every Facebook user looking to join the "that's it, I'm wedding shaming" group, which has ballooned to nearly 70,000 members, all looking to shame the holy (or, in many cases, not so holy) rite of matrimony.
Examples of shameful wedding moments may include, but are not limited to, bridezilla horror stories, tasteless if not downright offensive decor, nightmarish ceremony flubs, fights, accidents, interruptions, cold feet, etc.
Weddings are often described as the best days of peoples' lives, but they're also expensive, emotionally charged, contentious, dramatic, and drag out for months of planning, if not years. They all have the potential for disaster (even if the disaster is just poor taste).
Wedding anecdotes get passed around from guests and participants in real life, but they're also delightfully juicy to just about anyone, so it's only fitting that they've found an eager audience online.
Where do people wedding shame?
Groups, pages, and forums dedicated to wedding shaming have popped up on nearly every social media platform and grown popular, especially over the past two years.
Wedding shaming in the form of stories, screenshots, and photographic evidence has circulated on the internet for years, but specific wedding shaming-oriented groups became popular in 2018, when many of the major content hubs for its purpose were created on Reddit and Facebook.
'Heyladiesbook'
The Instagram page "heyladiesbook" posts screenshots of articles that cover shameworthy wedding moments, along with other female-oriented cringe. The account is promotional and run by the authors of "Hey Ladies!," a book about a group of women and their event-planning email chains and texts that span weddings and girls' trips.
On "heyladiesbook," you'll find a wide mix, from horrifying staged oral sex wedding photos you can't believe a couple paid someone to take, to Daily Mail articles with headlines like "Horrified wedding guest reveals the bride ran out of the reception 'ranting and raving' because her new husband danced with his MOM - after she forbid him from enjoying the special moment."
'That's it, I'm wedding shaming' and 'That's it, I'm ring shaming'
There are three prominent Facebook groups for wedding shaming. The first, and most notable, is "that's it, I'm wedding shaming." It's also the hardest to get into, but each group requires you to answer a few questions before a moderator accepts your request to join.
The wedding shaming Facebook group collects a wide variety of stories, and it's description gives some suggestions of what might fit there, including "that kid who bullied you in high school and had a wedding that looked like the KKK vomited burlap over it."
"That's it, I'm ring shaming," is a lot more focused but it's also a slightly larger group. This group, along with "That's It, I'm Proposal Shaming," operates a little differently. Many people post their own wedding ring or their own proposal story and let the commenters rip them apart.
If you've never experienced an online group like this before ("r/RoastMe" on Reddit epitomizes the concept), you might be a little shocked to venture in and see the torrential negative downpour. The groups are also definitely more toxic and the shaming is often more pointed, since it's literally aimed at the person posting.
On the flip side, there are smaller sister Facebook groups for praising. There's "that's it, i'm wedding praising" and "That's It, I'm Ring Praising." Some of the groups resonate with "weird Facebook," the modernist, nonsensical meme culture that found a home on the least cool social media platform.
They're not all wedding-related, but wedding shaming fits like a glove – or garter. And some of them, like "i can't tell if i'm in the ring shaming group or the nail shaming group," self-described as "sometimes everything is just so bad," perfectly epitomize the sarcastic culture.
r/weddingshaming
You’re probably wondering why this is shame worthy. Well how do you feel now that you know she was ***NOT*** the bride from r/weddingshaming
Aside from Facebook groups, the peak of mainstream shaming culture exists on Reddit. Subreddits provide the perfect forum-esque environment for specified shaming, and "r/weddingshaming" rules the genre with almost 80,000 subscribers.
The subreddit's flair options demonstrate what kinds of content resonates there: tacky, monster-in-law, groomzilla, bridezilla, and NSFW (not safe for work) are the category options.
Top posts include one bride who found the original Reddit post attacking her dress code requirements – she asked women over 160 pounds to wear all black and told the others to wear Louboutins, but spelled them as "Loubotin heels" – and decided to host a polygraph party to figure out who leaked them online. It could all very well be fake. But it's still enjoyable to gawk at.
Besides the wedding shaming subreddit, there are a few other popular shaming subreddits that traffic heavily in wedding content. "r/JUSTNOMIL" is home to more than 1 million Reddit users sharing and reading stories about "mean, nasty, toxic, and / or abusive" mother-in-laws.
Wedding content is extremely prevalent and popular there, including one woman who says she caught her soon-to-be mother-in-law trying on her wedding dress (while naked!) before trying to extract her from the Galia Lahav (they're expensive!), ripping the dress in the process.
There's also "r/ChoosingBeggars," a massive subreddit with more than 1.7 million subscribers, about people trying to scam others or being way too picky in the face of good grace. It's a breeding ground for amazing wedding content, including one woman asking for free catering in exchange for exposure because she'll be "starting an Instagram soon."
What makes a perfect wedding shaming story?
Wedding shaming posts are generally either photographs (such as one of the father of the groom wearing a Trump 2020 hat to the ceremony), screenshots (like of a listing for a DIY men's urinal for an outdoor wedding), or stories.
The stories that get the most attention often have a satisfying twist ending. The most upvoted post of all time in "r/JUSTNOMIL" is called "The White Dress" and follows this formula. It's told from the perspective of a bridesmaid who witnessed the bride's mother-in-law panic over the inclusion of a Jewish Chuppah (a canopy for the bride and groom to get married under) in the ceremony.
After "much fighting, a lot of screaming, crying, threatening to pull money," etc., the Chuppah issue was laid to rest. But then, the mother-in-law showed up to the wedding in a floor-length white satin wedding dress from David's Bridal. As the bridesmaid explains in her excellently written tale, there was nothing to do but pour red wine down the front of the gown, resulting in a screaming match and tantrum.
Another popular post of a bridezilla plot that backfired on "r/weddingshaming" is story about one engaged guest who was invited to her fiancé's cousin's wedding. The catch is that the cousin, the bride, asked the woman not to wear her engagement ring or talk about her engagement.
Feeling uncomfortable, the woman decided not to go altogether, but her fiancé showed up. And as she explained it, "All night my fiancé was bombarded with questions. 'Where is your fiancé?' 'Why wasn't she allowed?' 'How did the engagement happen?' 'Do you have a video?' The bride wasn't happy at all."
And then there's the $1,500 wedding guest donation minimum post. It's so iconic that it became the header image for "r/weddingshaming," was covered by the Daily Mail, and may have singlehandedly inspired enough wedding shaming fervor to elevate the trend itself.
It stems from screenshots of a lengthy Facebook rant from a would-be bride named "Susan." In summary, "Susan" announces that she's canceling her wedding and calling off her engagement four days before the ceremony. She also says she's going to delete her Facebook account and go backpacking in South America for two months.
The real drama is that "Susan" blames her friends and family for the deterioration of her wedding, which she charged $1,500 a person to attend. After a soliloquy about meeting her ex-fiancé at 14, saving $15k for a wedding, buying a $5k ring, and having their son Declyn together, "Susan" says a local psychic encouraged her to pursue her dream $60k wedding, which the bride and groom expected to crowdsource from their friends.
At first, things went well, and "Susan" raised $3k from her ex's family and $5k from her best friend-turned-"c---" maid of honor, but everyone pulled back after only 8 others RSVPed. Then "Susan" says she caught her fiancé on the phone gossiping with the ex-maid of honor about how stuck up she was and the rest is, well, internet history.
Posts like those inspire a lot of attention, even though they aren't explicitly verifiable. In this case, even Chrissy Teigen shared it to Twitter, describing the saga as "some lower stakes 13 Reasons Why s---."
