After a chance encounter and years of dating, Ryan and Hanna are about to walk down the aisle and commit to each other. But when Ryan\u2019s mother reveals an incriminating video of Ryan with another woman, Hanna feels her heartbreak. But later, the truth of the video is revealed, along with more deceit than Hanna ever expected.Do parents just enjoy dropping bombshells before weddings? When I say before\u2014I mean 30 minutes before?Because that\u2019s exactly what Ryan\u2019s mother did.\n
Ryan and I met two years ago\u2014it was one of those by-chance meetings. I was at the community theatre because one of my friends, Mila, was in the local musical with her directorial debut.So, there I was, standing outside after the performance, holding a bouquet of flowers for Mila.\n
Ryan walked out, and because of the crowd, walked directly into me, crushing the flowers.\u201dI am so sorry,\u201d he said, picking up the bouquet.\u201dI hate crowds,\u201d I said.He chuckled and gestured for us to move away from the door.\u201dI\u2019m not a fan either,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m Ryan.\u201d\u201dHanna,\u201d I said, introducing myself.Just three months into our romance, Ryan proposed in a pub while drinking Guinness and eating crispy potato skins.\n
Last week, we should have sealed that promise with our wedding vows. But our wedding went in the complete opposite direction it should have gone.Initially, my family welcomed Ryan with open arms. As the only daughter, my parents were thrilled that I had met someone who genuinely made me happy.\u201dThis is a different side to you, Hanna,\u201d my mother said one evening when we had Ryan over for family dinner.\n
He makes her happy,\u201d my father said, smiling. \u201cThat\u2019s all a father could wantRyan felt welcome\u2014he felt the warmth that they showered him, and through that, we grew stronger as a couple, too.On his side, it was more or less the same thing. The Coles opened their home and hearts to me, and they wanted nothing more than to have us over as much as possible. Mrs. Cole, Audrey,had gotten into a coffee date and manicure routine with me, tooEverything felt right\u2014until the very moment it wasn\u2019t.\n
Leading up to our wedding, I was the calmest I could have been. It was a small church wedding, and Ryan and I had planned the intimate affair right down to the little details. We knew exactly what we wanted and how to make it special for our day.But on what was meant to be the happiest day of my life, just before the ceremony, my soon-to-be mother-in-law pulled me aside.\u201dDarling,\u201d she said. \u201cCan we chat for a moment?\u201dI nodded and told her to wait until my glam team was done with my hair and makeup.\n
Something about her demeanor made me feel anxious and nervous. I watched her movements from my reflection in the mirror.Her eyes moved around the room quickly, often settling on my wedding dress hanging from its hook.When I was ready, and my mother was buttoning up my dress, I turned to Audrey.\u201dI\u2019m ready when youare,\u201d I said, smiling at her.Her eyes glazed over, seeing me in the dress.\n
She had been at my fittings before, but this was the moment that Audrey and my mother would see the full effect of my bridal outfit.\u201dHanna,\u201d Audrey said. \u201cThere\u2019s no easy way for me to say this.\u201dMy heart thundered in my chest. While my hair was being done, and I sat watching her, I knew that nothing good was going to come from our conversation.\u201dJust say it,\u201d I said. \u201cTell me.\u201dAudrey pulled her phone out of her clutch and held it out for me.\u201dThere are videos on this phone that will explain everything. I am so sorry, Hanna, but Ryan needs to be caught out.\u201dMy mind raced.\n
I couldn\u2019t fathom what I was about to see once her phone was unlocked.\u201dHere,\u201d she said, handing me her phone as a woman\u2019s voice echoed through the room.The videos on Audrey\u2019s phone revealed Ryan with another woman, in clandestine affection, undeniable betrayal.Are you sure?\u201d I asked. \u201cThis is him?\u201dAudrey closed her eyes and took a deep breath.\u201dWell, look at the jacket on the bed,\u201d she said. \u201cIsn\u2019t that the one you got him?\u201dI pressed play again, and looked at the jacket.\n
The hotel room also looked familiar\u2014I was so sure that we had been there before.But Ryan\u2019s face isn\u2019t in the frame,\u201d I said.I was struggling. I couldn\u2019t believe that my almost mother-in-law was standing in front of me with a video showing her son\u2019s affair.\u201dHanna,\u201d she said slowly. \u201cIt\u2019s right in front of you. You can choose to overlook it, but think of the man that you would be marrying if you choose to ignore it. Could you live with yourself knowing that? Could you live with him?\u201dI shook my head. I wanted to cry because of how overwhelmed I was.Fine,\u201d I said.\u201dYou\u2019re calling off the wedding?\u201d Audrey asked, hope lining her voice.\u201dNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI\u2019m going to walk down that aisle. I\u2019m going to walk to the man who has been unfaithful to me.\n
And when the time comes for our vows, I\u2019ll break it off then.\u201d\u201dOkay, dear,\u201d Audrey said, putting her phone back into her bag. \u201cIt\u2019s almost time now, anyway.\u201dI sat down on the chaise, and waited for my father to come and get me when it was time to marry Ryan. I wanted nothing more than to get into a car and drive away to some place where I could eat my feelings in a mountain of fries.My heart violently pounded with fury as I approached the altar on my father\u2019s arm. Ryan, aware of the storm brewing beneath my skin, smiled tenderly at me. He took my hand and squeezed it. It would have been absolutely perfect, except for the fact that he had been with someone else.\n
Our priest went on to quote scripture about love and matrimony from the Bible. And when it was time for our vows, my heart quietened down\u2014finally realizing what was about to come.\u201dI don\u2019t,\u201d I said softly, more to the ground than to Ryan.\u201dSpeak louder, Hanna,\u201d the priest said.\u201dI don\u2019t!\u201d I said more confidently, the words echoing like a resounding shockwave.Ryan\u2019s shock morphed into confusion as I repeated those two words again.\u201dHanna? What?\u201d he asked, hurt and betrayal deep in his voice.\u201dAsk your mom,\u201d I said, pointing at Audrey. \u201cMrs. Cole, please tell everyone what you told me earlier.\u201dThe church hushed immediately, as if everyone were holding their breath. With shaking hands, she opened her bag and took out her phone.\n
Like earlier, she held it out to me.\u201dLook,\u201d I said to Ryan.Ryan took a step back, almost falling over the wedding arch.\u201dThat is not me, Hanna!\u201d he said loudly. \u201cHanna, you know it\u2019s not me!\u201dI refused to look him in the eye.Then he confronted his mother.\u201dMom, what is all this? What is that? Where did you get that video?\u201dAudrey shook her head and walked down the aisle, leaving the church in silence.\n
I could not bear to hear Ryan\u2019s excuses.\u201dHanna, please,\u201d he said. \u201cI need you to believe me.\u201dAnd I wanted to. Of course, I wanted to believe the man I loved. But it was clear, the jacket that I bought him lay across the bed in the video. He had been with someone else.And if there was the possibility that he wasn\u2019t with another person\u2014how would he explain the video? And the woman who was barely dressed? And the sound effects?\u201d I can\u2019t do this,\u201d I said. \u201cI won\u2019t.\u201dI ran out of the side door, my parents following closely behind.Ryan continued to reach out to me for the rest of the day\u2014and when night settled, I finally blocked his number.\n
Yet, two days later, when I was wrapped in a blanket wondering where everything had gone wrong\u2014Ryan showed up at my parents\u2019 house with takeout and flowers.\u201dYou expect this to fix everything?\u201d I asked.\u201dI need to talk,\u201d he said simply.Against my better judgment, I listened.What Ryan revealed next sent me down another spiral.He had confronted Audrey after the wedding.\u201dI went straight to her house,\u201d he said. \u201cShe was sitting there, in her kitchen, eating toast and listening to old records as though she hadn\u2019t just ruined our wedding.\u201d\u201dI think you did that,\u201d I blurted out.\u201dHanna,\u201d he warned.\n
\u201cMy mother orchestrated that video. The people in it are her students. And it was all because she didn\u2019t want us to get married.\u201dMy jaw hit the ground.Audrey was a high school teacher\u2014but she also tutored first-year college kids in English. So, when it truly came down to the fact that Ryan and I were actually getting married, she panicked. She called two of her college students, who were too eager to make a bit of extra money, to play the part.\u201dI thought she liked me,\u201d I said while digging into the food Ryan had brought over. \u201cClearly she doesn\u2019t if she put an entire video together.\u201d\u201dShe did say that the sounds were edited,\u201d Ryan chuckled nervously. \u201cBut I\u2019ve got to hand it to her, adding my jacket was a good touch.\u201dI didn\u2019t understand how I felt. For the past two days, since walking away from my own wedding\u2014I convinced myself that Ryan had been the bad guy in my story.\n
That he was the villain who broke my heart, while his mother exposed him for who he was.And yet, the reality was so much worse.Here was a woman who had claimed me as the daughter she never had, only to break my heart before marrying her son.She believed I was unworthy of Ryan.I forgave Ryan immediately, and he did the same in return\u2014I did accuse him of cheating on me in front of all our guests.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I Yelled \u2018I Don\u2019t!\u2019 at My Own Wedding after Conversation with Groom\u2019s Mother Whose Plan Almost Worked Out After a chance encounter and years of dating, Ryan and Hanna are about to walk down the aisle and commit to each other. But when Ryan\u2019s mother reveals an incriminating video of Ryan with another woman, Hanna\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":74328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[855],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-74325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-story"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/14-1.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legendstitch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}