As the wedding plans faced delays due to the pandemic, emotions ran high and ideas about personal touches became more important. The bride believed she was honoring her family by using flowers from her sister-in-law’s garden, but her sister-in-law saw it differently. What started as an innocent gesture quickly turned into a family feud that tested relationships and values.
This story unravels the unexpected fallout from what seemed like a small act, revealing how misunderstandings and assumptions can escalate into bigger conflicts. Who was really at fault? And in the end, how did everything unfold? Get ready for a tale that illustrates how sometimes, well-meaning intentions can lead to surprising consequences.
My wedding was put on hold due to coronavirus.
During this time, SILs grandfather got sick, so she traveled to stay with her family.
I was left in charge of feeding her dog, my SIL has always grown beautiful flowers, and succulents, she knows how much I admire her green thumb. Before she left she cut all the heads off her roses, and this is where I made my mistake at the time I did not know you could cut the heads off roses and make more grow.
So when I was over feeding the dog I noticed more growing and was amazed, then the restrictions in my country where lifted, my husband and I decided to throw together a quick wedding ceremony, the idea just came to me to use the roses she’d grown, thinking that has she’d cut them she’d not know I’d taken any.
As I was over cutting them, I remembered the succulents and decided to grab a few in their pots to use as centre pieces.
We’d always wanted to get married in my grandmothers church and venue hall, which was 2 hours away from our home and SILs home, SIL decided she’d come back for the wedding, but would fly into that local airport, then go straight to the local hotel instead of going home when she landed then driving to the wedding and back all in one day.
The wedding itself went beautifully, she was happy and I was so happy, everyone was happy.
We get to the after party and SIL notices the succulents, and gets very angry asking if they’re hers, and how could I do that. She started trying to snatch them up, unfortunately this caused a light fuss while I asked at her to stop, that she was ruining my wedding, while I grabbed at the succulent.
She loudly said “You’re stealing from me”
My family wrongly took this to mean they could take the succulents, the ones they didn’t take did end up damaged as people touched the leaves and squeezed them.
SIL took all my succulent centres that she could and left in a huff, after that the party died down, pretty much everyone in her family took her side, where as my family think it’s flowers it’s ridiculous.
When she arrived home the next day she noticed the roses gone, and send a message saying how could I steal her plants without permissions, and that she was “sick” of me over stepping all the time.
Personally I feel like they’re just plants, they will grow back, and it’s a shame for her to have spoilt the after party when she could have just left the succulents and most people would have ignored them.
But I also understand she spends a lot of time and money growing many of these plants and they are her pasttime that I should have asked to use them
Conclusion
In the end, this story reminds us that family dynamics are complicated, and what seems like a harmless gesture can sometimes be misunderstood. The bride’s use of her sister-in-law’s flowers may have been intended as a kind act, but it sparked tensions that highlighted underlying issues of boundaries and respect. It’s a lesson in communication and consideration—sometimes, asking first can prevent unnecessary conflict.
Despite the rocky turn of events, the story concludes with a reflection on the importance of understanding and patience. Families are built on trust and mutual respect, and even in the midst of wedding planning chaos, those values shouldn’t be overlooked. Whether the bride was in the wrong or not, it’s clear that clear communication and understanding could have prevented this floral feud from blooming into a full-blown family crisis.
Ultimately, this story is a reminder that what we do for loved ones should come from a place of kindness and respect. Sometimes, a small act can have big repercussions—so it’s always wise to think twice before taking action. After all, love and family are worth more than a bouquet of flowers and a bit of garden gossip.
Here’s how people reacted:
MY!?!?
TRANSLATION: I was here for absolution, not the truth.
So they’re cheap plants… but, if they are so cheap… why couldn’t she afford to go to the store and just buy them in the first place. Ripping plants out of the ground and thinking that she can just replant them the next day…. like they might just die from the shock and poor care of someone who doesn’t know anything about gardening….and dead heading roses is not the same as cutting off a rose for an arrangement. It might take years for the growth to come back.
She’s just an awful person and doesn’t care. She doesn’t care if she ruins something she knew someone else cared about, she is the only one that matters.
And these type of people don’t just stop at cutting and destroying gardens…
Bruh, does she really think the Internet was gonna side with her on this even after calling her an asshole?? The fact she even feels the need to call everyone snitches implies she felt betrayed by a stranger posting it on Facebook.
I wouldn’t be surprised if OOP destroyed some specialty or rare plants and SIL just doesn’t want to deal with her anymore.
Not to mention roses, nice quality ones can be a ton of money, especially when older.
OOP is entitled and completely doesn’t understand why she’s in the wrong but I bet if you damaged something of hers she’d throw a whole fit.
This line tells you all you need to know about OOP. This is not new behavior, she does this all the time and then acts as flippantly as she does and never feels that she’s in the wrong. She seriously took SIL’s “no it’s fine” at face value. Either she’s willfully ignorant so she can keep being entitled and pretending like she doesn’t know why people are mad at her, or she’s actually not very bright (putting it nicely).
I love plants and let me tell you, succulents are finicky. They’re cacti so the leaves are juicy like aloe “leaves”, and they can be easily bruised or squished. They need the right balance of sun and water so the leaves don’t dry out or get too much water and become mushy. And you can’t just cut plants willy nilly, there’s always a certain way or time of year to cut a plant so you don’t ruin the progenitor plant or the clipping. For some plants you need to apply honey as like a medicine for after you cut them, because they’re alive! They need care for their “surgeries” so they don’t go into shock and die. OOP’s dumbass definitely doesn’t know any of that so she just saw SIL cutting and thought “she does it, it grows back, I’ll do it and it’ll grow back” but she has no idea of the calculations SIL has been doing to prepare for clipping and care for the plants after.
Also I think it’s funny (not) that she’s like “those are $2 plants”. I bet the ones in SIL’s garden weren’t, they’ve been cared for and loved and definitely look way better because of it. OOP didn’t want the unloved grocery plants herself because she knows they’re not as good as plants that have been raised.
and
>My family wrongly took this to mean they could take the succulents, the ones they didn’t take did end up damaged as people touched the leaves and squeezed them.
I see where OOP got it from.
If roses are so easy to grow and succulents are so cheap, why hasn’t OOP made her own garden??? But also, the most basic decency to not touch or take anything that doesn’t belong to you? I’m sure OOP would also just be as upset if the person who was checking on her home took her belongings too.
> You’ve all left a strain on my beautiful memory over cheap plants! I however am going on vacation tonight.
She’s too self-absorbed to realize that this is *her doing*. She’s the one who ruined her relationship with her sister.
She doesn’t get that it’s not about the fucking plants.
What the SIL did was dead-head her rose bushes – you cut the old/dead flowers off at specific nodes of the stem, and the plant will push out some new growth including another round of rosebuds. Depending on the variety, growing conditions, position of the stars etc, you can get months of roses blooming in your garden.
However, if you fuck it up and cut in the wrong place, the branch dies back. No new growth, and it’ll have to be pruned off at the right point or else it will keep dying back.
Also, freshly pruned roses are at risk of fungal infections. Some varieties (related to yellow roses) are VERY susceptible, while others (most red roses) are less. You don’t want to prune when it’s humid, or forecast to rain, or you get a lot of dew in the morning.
If, like me, some of your roses are already inflicted with a fungus (black spot is a curse that came with my garden), you want to take precautions while pruning, like sterilising your tools between cuts (so you don’t spread the fungus throughout your plant) and definitely between plants (so you’re not contaminating the healthy ones).
So like. Best case scenario: OOP cut the roses appropriately, and SIL gets a third wave of blooms.
Worst case scenario: OOP has done a huge amount of harm to the rose bushes that SIL may spend YEARS trying to rectify.
Unthinkable scenario: OOP has unintentionally set SIL’s rose bushes on the path to death and decay.
Listen OOP trying this for sympathy doesn’t work when you’ve already said you don’t care and “it’s just plants”
I guess the rose doesn’t fall far from the bush.
Hell i can imagine she might have happily said go ahead and use this and this and that but not this. And it would have been a happy ending instead of this shitshow.
I remember this from a wedding shaming group on FB and she was getting dragged so badly. It went on for a few weeks.
I am not a crazy plant lady, but my blood is still boiling.
You may not always know who owns something, but you always know who doesn’t. You.
Not yours.
ONE untimely thunderstorm can ruin an entire season’s flush of blooms.
I greatly doubt that Bridezilla picked the roses in a way that caused minimum damage to the plants, either.
She deserves evisceration!
I once found out my husband gave my neighbor permission to prune one of my fruit trees and lost my shit. I told him that would be like me asking another guy to change the oil in his car lol
All this could have been avoided if she asked.
I could even kinda forgive the bouquet, but stealing house plants? And her family stealing them?! And she still doesn’t get it?
Because you can’t get plants of the same quality as lovingly cultured succulents for two dollars at the store.
You get cheap, small plants that’ll take years of effort, love and hard work to be grown to what SIL had in her garden and house.
And OOP knows that perfectly well, that’s why she didn’t buy 2 dollar succulents but stole the ones her SIL had and which would cost up to hundred dollars at a professional greenery.
Besides, even if they truly were just 2 dollars each, you still can’t steal them and expect people to be okay with that
Not surprised she doesn’t understand the concept of asking first.
Also nice looking succulents are very difficult to grow long term. They have a tendency to kind of outgrow their pots and need replanting or careful pruning so I imagine all those stolen plants are dead now
She obviously has no idea how expensive that shit can be.
If I was her brother, I would be cutting her off… and any other family member that thinks his wife is in the wrong here.
I would never do what OOP did, and the responses she wrote show a horrible shallow person, who has no regards for other people
>My family wrongly took this to mean they could take the succulents, the ones they didn’t take did end up damaged as people touched the leaves and squeezed them.
Why?
A friend of mine grows roses with a passion and she told me she has special clippers for them, she would be in tears of someone butchered her rose bushes.
Yeah, given your reactions here, and describing them as 2 pounds each, I think you would have forgotten. Even if she had remembered, it’s likely that some would have been taken home by other guests.