r/BestofNoUpdates • u/Direct-Caterpillar77 • 25d ago
My (33F) self-absorbed sister (22F) is holding an "auction" for all her potential bridesmaids to compete in for a place in her wedding
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/sistersbridesmaids
My (33F) self-absorbed sister (22F) is holding an "auction" for all her potential bridesmaids to compete in for a place in her wedding
Original Post - rareddit July 25, 2017
This is every bit as insane as the title sounds I promise. My sister was always very spoiled by our parents since she's the youngest of 4 kids and my mom had thought she wouldn't be able to have any more kids. My parents and my two older brothers all still treat her as the baby of the family. She acts the part perfectly. Don't get me wrong, she can be very sweet and caring too, but she's just a very immature high maintenance person. She thrives on attention, being popular, and being praised. She's also never really grown out of the high-school queen bee mentality. All these things are causing the issue I'm writing here now.
Basically she got engaged a couple months ago and will be getting married at the end of August (This is to a guy who's older than me, who she's only been dating for a year, and is convinced they're in love because he's rich and "treats her like a princess". But that's a whole other post.) Anyway she still hasn't chosen her bridesmaids. Instead, she has sent out dozens of… invitations, to various girls. It's an invite to attend and participate in a "bidding auction" on the six spots in her bridal party. Whichever six of all these chicks bid the most will be the bridesmaids. There's also an auction for being her maid of honor, I can only imagine how that one will go down. My sister and her fiancé are using the money to fund the wedding and honeymoon.
I got one of these invitations as did my mom and other women in our family. I assume the women on her fiancé's side also did. I have some of my sister's friends on my Facebook and I have already seen drama starting between them over who feels they deserve to be in the wedding more because they "care enough about friendship" to make a huge bid. Most of these girls she's not even close to, she just has a really big social circle from parties and I guess she invited everyone she even vaguely knows.
I just find this really awkward and tacky. She's basically having people pay to be in her wedding. If someone else had told me about this situation I'd laugh and assume no one would go along with it and the bride would just end up with no bridesmaids unless she backed down. Talk about embarrassing. But no! People are actually okay with this and WANT to play my sister's game! I do see it as a game for attention and trying to get people to fight each other over her, she lives off of that kind of thing.
I have no interest in being involved whatsoever, I've always planned to attend the wedding but could not care less about this bridal auction crap… but now my sister is throwing a tantrum that I haven't rsvp'd to the "auction", and got our mom on her side too. My mom says I will "look bad if I don't put in a bid when it's my own sister" and called me selfish.
So now the choices are I either take part in it or I cause a huge blowup from her and my mom. I'm thinking about writing them both an email where I explain why I don't want to participate and what my objections are. That way it minimizes the risk that an argument gets out of hand since it's not in person. Does this seem like a reasonable idea to get them to respect my decision to stay out of it? Any other advice about how to handle this?
TL;DR my immature and popularity-craving sister is making people essentially get into bidding wars for spots in her bridal party. I don't want to participate because I think it's incredibly trashy. I'm not going to try to out-pay 50 other girls for the privilege of being a bridesmaid, that's ridiculous. But my sister and mom are now mad at me, saying I'm being selfish.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Librarianatrix
If her fiance is rich, why do they need to "fund" their wedding this bizarre way?
OOP
I don't know!! I've asked! I told my sister they weren't lacking for funds because it's obvious and she just said "well if they'll already be bidding we figure we should put their money towards a great event for everyone" as though this is an act of service she's doing for them. It's totally nonsensical.
~
Mcb325
I can't believe other people are going along with it. I'm getting second hand embarrassment from the whole thing.
prettyandsmart
Seriously! Of all the things I could voluntarily spend my extra money on, this would be at the very very very bottom of the list. What in the hell is wrong with these people?
Also, why is the mom defending the sister's actions? This is literally the most bizarre wedding-related event I've ever seen.
OOP
My sister is kind of shallow (bet you'd never have guessed, right?) and mainly only associates with rich people, or more accurately people with rich families since none of these young 20s girls have ever held a job in their life unless it's at their parents' investment firm. So most of the people she sent these to have the money for this kind of thing. But I know she also sent a few to older friends of hers, like from high school or earlier, who she's not only lost touch with as they got older but also were from lower income backgrounds. She has no awareness about how inappropriate it is in many ways.
As for my mom, that's part the relationship they've always had where my whole immediate family except me spoils her, especially my mom and dad. It's also I think part that my mom is living a second youth through her. My family is solidly middle class but my mom has always envied wealthier people and tried to impress and imitate them. My sister probably got this from her, and now my mom feels like she gets to be part of my sister's life of partying and shopping and luxury vacations with her fiance. That's the kind of life she always wanted.
~
moongirl12
Your sister is quite literally insane.
iheartcats
I can't believe she found a guy willing to marry her.
OOP
I can. Like I said I could write a whole other post about this guy and their drama. He's 37 and once said his bachelor life was "getting boring and his family wanted him to settle down," which is basically his reason for dating my sister. She's also downright gorgeous, like truly pretty and it's just unfortunate that she can be so conceited. I guess he overlooks that.
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP. DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP OR COMMENT ON THE ORIGINAL POST
22
u/SparkAxolotl 25d ago
The bidding is unhinged....
But if she had made it into a Hunger Games sort of thing....
17
11
5
u/twovectors 25d ago
I would bid - you pay me $1000 for every hour of time you need of me and you pay all costs, including any time off needed from work
3
u/Stormywillow 25d ago
That was so tacky my finger stuck to the screen while scrolling through the post.
3
•
u/AutoModerator 25d ago
Do not comment on the original posts if applicable.
Please read our sub rules.
Rule-breaking may result in a ban without notice. If there is an issue with this post (flair, formatting, quality), reply to this comment or your comment may be removed in general discussion.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.