14 Of The Best Reddit Updates We Found This Month That Tie Up All The Loose Ends (2024)

They Told Their Cousin They Didn't Care About His Figurine After He Broke Their Book

From Redditor u/LucyAriaRose [not from OP]:

I write as a hobby since I was little. It started as a way to cope with the many problems of my life and I kept doing because I liked it.

I have a cousin… (26M) who love figurines since he was a child. I never particularly cared about those kind of things, but since we were children and we lived close to each other, we always played together and he often showed me his figurines, explaining… how he got them, from what show/film/anime/whatever they are from, etc… I never cared about it, but I saw that being able to talk about his passion with someone else made him happy, so I always tried to pay close attention and to fake interest. His passion for figurine[s] is still alive today. The garage in his home is basically filled [with] figurine[s] and he even bought a 3D printer to print some gadget or figurine he wanted bigger.

Now, while I was in college I had barely any time to write, but I started spending more time [on] it once I was close to my graduation and resumed writing consistently the book I had started when I was 20.

I began to talk to [my cousin] about the story I was writing and he initially seemed interested, then completely lost interest, so I stopped mentioning it to him.

Yesterday I completed my book and decided to print a physical copy myself (hardcover, [paid] someone to draw a cover. It looked exactly like a book you could find in a library). It was my treasure, a proof that I achieved something.

I brought it to my family house, where a bunch of my relatives from both side[s] of the family were staying. They were all enthusiast[ic] about the book, about me completing it after struggling with it for years. They even began to ask if I had any intention to bring it to an editor to publish it officially.

Evidently [my cousin] got upset because everybody was talking about a book he didn't care about, so he suddenly took the book, said he was sick of hearing us talk about it, and threw it out of the window. It was raining outside and the book landed in a puddle. [I] rushed to pick it up but it was completely ruined.

I snapped. I began to yell at him and told him the truth: that for years I had spent hours listening about his stupid figurines I didn't care about and that he was such an AH for his actions. I told him I hoped his whole collection [would] get destroyed in a fire.

Today his parents came to me and refunded me the money for the book and apologized for his behavior.

Now that I'm calm and collected though, I realize I may have overreacted. He cared about having someone to talk about his figurine[s] and I was happy seeing him happy when he talked about them. AITA?

EDIT: (same day)

He just called and apologized. Said he has an idea on how to make amend[s] and will do it in the next few days. Don't know if I should be scared, happy, or something else.

Update:

So, a month has passed and things solved itself, so I thought an update was needed.

Carl came to my house one week ago. He apologized and brought gifts:

- A new physical copy of my book. Now this needs an explanation: Except for me, the only person who has a digital copy of my book is my older sister… [She] is a no-bulls*** kind of person. If the chance of me forgiving [my cousin] were 1 out of 10, the chance of my sister doing the same thing [would be] 1 out of 1,000. When he told me he convinced my sister to give him a copy to reprint it, I was astonished.

- A full collection of figurines of the main cast of my story. There are five main characters in the story and only two of them were on the cover I printed, which mean that he read the book and drew/had someone else draw a sketch of the other three characters in order to make their figurine[s]. They are 25 cm tall and I admit they look really good.

- He paid me back for the physical copy he destroyed. I asked him why he was giving me the money since he had just given me a new copy and his parents had already paid me. He said that the new copy was in place of the one he destroyed, while the money [was] an apology.

He apologized for what he did that day and explained me his reasons (a mix of jealousy and bad timing). Things are still not completely fine but they are better. He thanked me for bearing his hobby all these years. I apologized for losing my temper and insulting his hobby. While I don't share his passion over figurines, I can understand how much… love he put in every one of them.

He looked sincere in his apology and we parted amicably.

I decided to give back to his parents the money they originally gave me as an apology. I spent a couple of hours choosing what to do with the five figurines he gave me. For now I put the two "original[s]" on my desk and the other three on the top shelf of my library. I have to admit, having figurines made about my own book is really cool and I spent quite a lot of time looking at them in the past week.

I want to thank all of you for your support on the original post. Bye…

They Were Talking To A Cute Girl At Their Gym... Then This Happened

From Redditor u/bestupdator [not the OP]:

First off, I have social anxiety. It's especially bad when talking to girls, 1,000 [times] worse when I find them attractive.

I recently got into extremely good shape. Not only have I noticed I get treated extremely differently, I've noticed girls actually take notice to me sometimes.

While finishing my run on the treadmill I started to warm down and finish my run with a small walk. Inevitably at one point I looked over and made eye contact with a cute girl two machine[s] down; being naturally nervous I smiled and looked away straight after. A moment passed and she cleaned her machine off and stood on the treadmill next to me gesturing at my ear buds. I took them off and she proceeded to ask m[e] what kind of headphones they were. Everything went quickly downhill from here.

After about 30 seconds of small talk I could feel my anxiety setting into every part of my body. It took about another 30 seconds before I could no longer walk and talk at the same time. My body decided the walking part was the issue here, not me awkwardly trying to form coherent sentences that didn't make me sound like a clueless idiot who has never had a social interaction before.

Not even a moment later I effortlessly glided off the treadmill, landing on the ground behind me, now looking at this girl glancing down at me like I had seven heads.

"I'm sorry if I'm bothering you I just..."

Before she finished her sentence I said, "I don't know how to do this," and quickly walked off without looking back. Treadmill still going. Favorite water bottle left behind.

I spent a good 20 minutes in my car trying to process what had happened. The only conclusion I settled on was that I need to swap gym ASAP.

TL;DR: Cute girl started conversation with me while [I was] walking on treadmill. Anxiety took over. Let treadmill push me off it and proceeded to make an *ss off myself before full-blown power-walking out of the gym. Left the treadmill running and my favorite water bottle behind. Came to conclusion I need to switch gyms.

Edit: Wow, so I didn't expect people to be so kind and encouraging in the comments. I sorta posted it for the laughs and have gotten an overwhelming amount of kind words and great advice. Thank you for that. I have opted to go to the gym Saturday during my usual time. I've seen her before on weekends so maybe my luck will play out. Sadly, when I called my water bottle wasn't at the treadmill I left it on or returned to the desk. Thank you again everyone.

Edit 2: For everyone asking I will without a doubt update this post if I see her tomorrow or Saturday (Sunday is my day off). [I]f I don't see her this weekend I will still update it when I do see her. Of the past three days I was there I've seen her all three, so odds are I'll run into her this weekend. The handful of people that personally messaged me sharing your stories and kind words, it means more than you can imagine. Thanks again.

Edit 3: Welllllllll today was a miss. Didn't run into her and my water bottle is still nowhere to be found. To everyone saying she is holding on to it, I sure frigging hope so. To those seemingly annoyed I was "hitting on a girl at the gym," she approached me with a casual conversation; all I did was smile at her. I'm confused as to what post you read, because it clearly wasn't mine? To all of you that continue to provide me laughs and genuine kindness, thank you. I will update again tomorrow and likely create a new post when I do eventually (hopefully) run into her. To those here because they want to see what happened to my water bottle, I appreciate your support as well LOL.

Update:

New post for those who care.

THE WATER BOTTLE HAS BEEN CONFIRMED SAFE.

I went to the gym today and ran into her again. Ironically enough didn't even know she was there till I went to the back and pulled out my yoga mat to start stretching. She was already back there getting ready to leave (at least it looked like).

By some miracle I was able to apply some of the breathing techniques so many kind people shared with me and was able to not only have a smooth conversation, I not once felt my anxiety set in till the conversation had actually ended. So thank you again for all of you kind Reddit peeps.

She has my water bottle; she didn't have it with her but she says it's at her apartment (she forgot to put it back in her car after washing it, she said). I outright told her sorry about the other day, letting her know the mix of my nervousness and post workout exhaustion had my mind completely fried. She apologized again for interrupting my workout and said she should have waited till I left the gym to try and say anything to me on our way out.

We chatted for a good 10 minutes, mainly small talk about our workout routines, stuff we do outside the gym and a slight bit about our work lives. The conversation went smooth as butter for what I normally dish out. She gave me her phone number so I could reach out to set up a day to meet her at the gym next week to get my water bottle back.

I texted her a solid hour(ish) ago and we've just been chatting ever since. We're going to the local farmers market tomorrow to hang out and get some food. SHE IS GOING TO BRING MY WATER BOTTLE WITH HER!!

Needless to say, Reddit came through. Thank you people. I truly am grateful for your kind words that helped me face anxieties I've dealt with for a few years now. Strangers on the internet aren't all bad and you kind people have been proof of that.

To clear a few things up off the rip; she offered me her phone number. I didn't go out of my way to "pick up" this girl at the gym. I didn't go back there anticipating to make a friend or get a date. My goal was to apologize and retrieve my water bottle as respectfully as possible.

I've made a friend. That's all I know right now. That's enough for me.

TL;DR: Made a complete *ss of myself at the gym in front of a cute girl, left my water bottle behind and my dignity, decided to confront my insecurities and mistake, and turned out making a friend and finding my water bottle to be safe and sound in the process.

They Were Forced By Their Company To Take A Shorter Route, Then Fought Back

From Redditor u/NakedMuffinTime [not the OP]:

At my job, every day I have to travel between two offices. I start at my main office, then have to travel to the second office, then back to my main office. Because I'm using my personal vehicle for this travel, the company pays me mileage.

Well, there are basically two routes you can take between the two offices. One is about a mile round trip shorter, but has tolls. So I always took the… longer route and avoid the tolls. I did it this way for a year.

Well, in comes the new bookkeeper and she is hellbent on saving the company money. And where does she think all this wasteful money is going? Expense reports, obviously. So she starts [nitpicking] every report. Like if someone is out and has to buy some pens for work. She goes online and finds the cheapest price possible for those pens, and only reimburses for that cheaper price. It, obviously, has p***ed several people off.

Well, she eventually decided to target me. I submit my report for two weeks, and a few days later get the reimbursem*nt payment. Well, it's $5.85 short. I ask her about it, and she says I've been ripping off the company for the past year by taking the longer route between the offices. She will only pay mileage for the shorter route from now on. "And I'm lucky she doesn't go back and take back all the extra from the past year."

I say okay, but to please send me that per her I must take the shorter route and that this is company policy and leave her office. Before I even made it to my desk I had the email from her confirming what she said. Two weeks later I submit my expense report. I reported the shorter route, so the company saved $5.85. But tolls added up to $136. A net loss for the company of $130.15. It's been six months and I'm still "taking the shorter route" costing the company an extra $130.15 every two weeks.

Update:

This extra cost to the company went on all last year. By my estimates it cost the company about an extra $3,500 last year.

So the third week of December we have our annual budget review with all the department heads. It's usually just a quick chitchat about how things went over the year, then we all get a nice catered lunch. This year went a little different.

First… bookkeeper asked that we have a projector set up in the conference room so she could give a presentation on how much she has saved the company since she was hired at the beginning of the year. This was great for me; I prepared my own presentation.

She starts off the meeting going over each department, going over the changes she has made to save money. Her big cherry on top of her savings was how much she has saved by cracking down on excess expense reimbursem*nts. Now, I should say here, that she is not liked by any of the department heads. Most of the employees have complained to their department heads about her bull, and they've been forced to just take the complaints with no power to do anything about it. I, on the other hand, am a one-person department.

So, her presentation ends with a big hooray on how cutting down on expense reimbursem*nts has saved the company a whole $3,500 last year.

Then we start going over each department's budgets. Everything is going normally until they get to my budget. “Wait... why is it so far over budget?” my boss asks.

And this is when my short PowerPoint gets played. I bring up the first slide. It's the slightly longer route I was taking between offices. I explained this was the route I was taking and what the mileage reimbursem*nt was. The next slide was the new shorter route. I explained that [the bookkeeper] forced me to take this route because the mileage reimbursem*nt was less, saving the company about $5.85 every two weeks (a little more after the mileage rate went up in July).

Then I showed them the next [slide] of [the bookkeeper's] email; included in that email is a part about this being final and there will be no further discussion on the matter.

The final slide was all the toll reimbursem*nts I was paid over the year, including the approximate total YTD that was a result of this new shorter route. I explained that had I been able to discuss the matter with [the bookkeeper], I could have explained that the shorter route had these extra tolls. And I said that's the reason I'm so over budget this year.

The room was silent for what seems like forever. Then the owners of the company asked everyone except [the bookkeeper] to step out of the room for a few minutes. When the door opened back up, [the bookkeeper] walked out silent, went to her desk and started packing up her things.

Their Boyfriend Gave Away Their 'Hamilton' Tickets

From Redditor u/bigbluesandwich [not the OP]:

Backstory: My mom is genuinely one of the funniest, kindest, sweetest people I've ever met and I'm genuinely lucky to have been her daughter. She had me fairly young, raised me by herself, and while we were pretty poor growing up, she did her damndest to make sure that I got a good education and had everything I needed as a kid.

One of the things we share is a love of the theater. She would save up and take me to all the musicals that stopped on tour in our town, and while we were always in the cheap seats, it was always something we both greatly looked forward to. These memories of going to the theater with my mom are very precious to me and is one of the main factors in why I work in the entertainment industry today (corporate side, I have a horrendous singing voice lol).

Fast forward to today. Like most theater nerds, my mom and I are basically obsessed with Hamilton. And for those of you who aren't really familiar with it, this show is basically impossible to get tickets for at this point, unless you want to see it in January of next year. I'm lucky enough to be in a financial position with my job that I could afford tickets for a show in July for me and my mom. These are amazing seats (fifth row center), and through some type of divine intervention I managed to snag tickets for the night that [was] Lin-Manuel Miranda's (creator/lead in Hamilton) final performance.

I surprised my mom with these tickets back in December… for Christmas. I'm making a whole week of it: I put us up in a really nice hotel, I made reservations at a bunch of restaurants that we both want to try, and we're going to do a bunch of touristy s*** in general (plus try to see if we can fit in at least one other show before we leave). We are both incredibly excited for this; my mom even has a little Hamilton countdown that she's doing on a mini chalkboard she uses as a planner. She sends me pics every day when she changes it; it's cute.

In January, I began dating this guy that I'll refer to as Josh. We were casual/not exclusive for a while, but became serious within the last two month[s]. He also works in the corporate side of entertainment, but at a different agency than I do. He also has a higher position than me, and makes a loooot more money than I do (this becomes important). We met at an industry event and we hit it off instantly. I thought I could get really serious about this guy, and up to this point there have been no red flags that I've seen (although tbh right now I'm sifting through all of my memories to see if there's something I missed). He also comes from a much… wealthier family than I do.

Josh has a younger sister that I'll call Jennifer (17) [who's kind of going through a big troubled-teen phase. She cuts class, smokes, and is really disrespectful to her parents. I’ve only met her once, but as far as I know, she's not doing anything too bad; she's just kind of a sad kid and could really benefit from some therapy (I floated this by Josh but he said his parents are kind of disdainful of therapy in general). Josh says they can't reach out to her no matter what they do and they've tried everything (except trying to get her to a counselor, but whatever).

Actual problem time: Sunday night I was at my place with Josh. We were drinking wine and cuddling while watching the Tonys (theater awards show). My mom was texting me during the Hamilton performance and geeking out about how excited she was. I laughed and showed my mom's texts to Josh because I thought it was so adorable, and he didn't say anything off but he was acting kind of strange after. He asked me what date the show we were going to was. I told him and then he went into the other room to take a phone call. I thought nothing of it because we both have to take random phone calls like that for our jobs all the time and he's going through kind of a tough time at his. He was in an unusually good mood afterwards and said he had to go home early because he had to "sign some forms at the office early tomorrow" before we met up to get brunch with his parents later that day. Again, nothing too unusual and pretty common with the both of us.

He picks me up at work for the brunch with his parents and again he’s in an unusually good mood. I ask what’s up and he says vaguely that things are going well at the office and this deal he’s trying to make is finally going through. I don’t really press for info [because] we both try to avoid work topics (partially due to work s*** being fairly banal and partially [because] we both have to sign some pretty gnarly NDAs a lot of the time), and this is only my second time meeting his parents so I’m still a bit nervous about brunch. We get to the brunch place and the first thing his mom does when she sees me is give me a huge, warm hug and profoundly thanks me for my kindness. Her dad also gives me a huge handshake and thanks me for “helping out with Jen.” I’m kind of wtf-ing because I have no clue what they’re talking about. I ask what she means and she says for giving her the Hamilton tickets. I turn around to Josh and he just has this big grin on his face.

Reddit, that time my boyfriend was away talking on the phone for “business” he was actually on the phone with Jen promising that I would give her my Hamilton tickets! I was so thrown off by this that I (kind of not very tactfully, I admit) say how I had no clue about this. Josh looks p***ed, and his parents are equally thrown off. But instead of getting mad at Josh his mom just says, “Well, you can still give them to her though right?” And they all look at me like I’m supposed to just agree with this. And I try to explain that the trip is actually for me and my mom, and how important this is to my mom. All three of them start going on about how Jen is “super excited about this” and that this is the first time that she’s not been mad/expressed happiness to them in a while. And that’s how the next half hour goes basically, until the parents leave, mad, and the dad calls me a selfish cow. I’m so flabbergasted that I just sort of put up with it, but I could barely get in a word.

Josh and I go outside the brunch place and he starts screaming at me about my selfishness, and how Jen is going through a much harder time than they thought (he wasn’t very clear on this so I’m not quite sure what he meant), and that I’m being childish because “it’s just a musical.” I haaaate having arguments in public (also this is one of my favorite brunch spots and I wanted to be able to come back without being embarrassed), so I wasn’t really engaging. He eventually called me a c*nt (wtf????) and then left in his car (which is awkward as hell because it was valet parking so he was just kind of stewing by the valet stand while I was waiting for my Uber). Later that night I texted him saying while I wasn’t giving up my tickets there are still some available on that date. However, they cost about $2,500 due to ticket scalpers jacking up the price. Believe me, this is NOT a problem for either the parents or my boyfriend (he literally bought a $3K watch for funsies last week). The only response I got was that that was an exorbitant fee (I agree but not the point); he refuses to pay and he didn’t understand why I couldn’t just give the tickets to Jen. I also got texts from both his parents pleading with me to get the tickets, and also they forwarded an email to me that Jen sent to Josh and her parents for thanking them for the “surprise.” Apparently she’s also obsessed with Hamilton and this is making her year. Also… do they also expect me to give up my plane ticket/hotel? Wtf was their game plan here?

Look, I completely understand wanting to help out with Jen and I feel really bad that apparently her family is filled with weirdos, but this has been all so baffling and the entitled behavior they displayed is a massive turnoff. I am not giving up these tickets(is this selfish?), but I also kind of want to cut my losses here. The attitude Josh displayed towards me outside of the brunch place was very unpleasant to say the least, and he knows how disrespectful I find being called a c*nt, so I’m of half a mind to just break up with him. He knew I had these tickets for a while, and I don’t get why he decided to do this now at all. But should I contact Jen and explain at all? I just saw that she made a really excited post on Facebook about it (I’m not friends with her but I am friends with my bf and he liked her post). I would straight up buy the ticket for her but frankly I can’t afford those prices [because] I’m saving up for the NYC trip for my mom. How do I move forward?

TL;DR: My boyfriend offered/”gave” my Hamilton tickets to his troubled sister without my knowledge and now he and his parents are massively p***ed at me [because] I won’t give them to her. Should I just cut my losses?

Update:

Yeah, I'm typing up an email dumping him right now. Normally I think it's better to meet up irl for things like this, but his behavior both during and outside brunch was scary and I would prefer not to be alone w/him right now (maybe that's paranoid but better safe than sorry). I think this is one of those situations where everything was so crazy and they were acting like this is totally normal behavior that I thought I was the insane one.

The Takeout Girl Tipped Herself Using Their Card

From Redditor u/KittenDealinMama [not the OP]:

Takeout girl tipped herself using my credit card

So I work at a pretty busy, popular seafood restaurant. I just recently got hired about two weeks ago and was getting trained at the bar today. After my training session, I was scheduled to serve tables for the night. Between 3 and 4, I had my break.

So you need someone else to ring out your food for you and I asked the takeout specialist at the time. She rang in my order, cashed me out, and when I turned around she tipped herself 20% and said, “Thanks for the tip!” With the SNARKIEST little smile on her face.

She’s a 17-year-old high school girl who plays travel soccer. Takeout doesn’t usually make s*** in tips, so they make more hourly. I acted like I didn’t care in the moment, but man, that s*** really irked me. It was only $7, but Jesus, man, that could’ve gone towards my employee meal for tomorrow or something. Any of the other servers would’ve kicked her s*** in; they don’t play. It’s just a dumb situation because after today, I can’t bring it up again otherwise I look stupid for b****ing about $7. Just sucks, you know? Really didn’t like that.

Update:

Well, here it is. The very much requested update. First of all, I’d like to thank each and every one of you who took time out of your day to be there for me. I really didn’t expect the post to blow up like that and get so much attention. I was just venting after a long day and the love I received in return was so overwhelming. I needed it. Every word. From every person. Thank you sincerely, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for reminding me of my worth.

So I went in today at 11:45. As I was clocking in, I managed to catch the general manager in the office. I asked her if she had a moment, to which she said she did, and I asked if there was an unspoken rule where servers had to tip takeout for putting together employee meals. She said no, why? I explained what happened yesterday and she apparently was already made aware of the situation. There were a few servers around who heard the whole thing go down; they vouched for me yesterday while I wasn’t around. She offered my cash back and I explained that the money wasn’t my issue, it was the principle. She could be stealing from other employees, guests, who knows? My GM assured me that the issue would be addressed and taken care of. I thanked her for her time and then proceeded to make it a mission of mine to tell the other two managers to ensure that everyone was made aware of what this girl is capable of doing when backs are turned.

They. Were. Astonished. Totally on my side, called it what it was, there was no sympathy for her. It was theft. Point blank period. They made sure all the managers were made aware of what happened and reassured me that this wouldn’t go unnoticed. Dumb chick also didn’t help her case today. Managers caught an ear of her speaking to me in a disrespectful manner. All I had to do was make eye contact with them and there was a mutual understanding that this girl is really a problem.

Now as far as her punishment goes, I only know so much. She did get written up, she was spoken to in the office, and she ended up getting cut early from her position tonight. On the way out, gave me these angry little hissy-fit glares. I laughed in her face, gave her the same little snarky smile that she gave me yesterday. She goes, “Just so you know, I really don’t care where I stand in your life.” I laughed again, louder this time, and said, “Hey! Thanks for the tip! :)”

This story had a happy ending. I made really good money today, had lovely tables, and walked out feeling a lot better than I did last night. So thanks guys, I wouldn’t have done this without you. And I’m really happy that I did.

They Said No To An Open Bar For Their Daughter's Wedding

From Redditor u/LucyAriaRose [not the OP]:

I (42F) and my husband (44M) have a 21-year-old daughter. She’s getting married soon. We’re very close to her. We have a great relationship and we absolutely adore her fiance (22M). We spend a lot of time with them.

My husband and I are paying in full for their wedding with the exception of her wedding dress, veil and headpiece; that my mom bought for her as a gift from the grandparents. Everything has been going smoothly with the wedding planning. We’ve very much have stayed out of it politely, unless asked for advice or suggestions. We know it’s their wedding and their choice. We have been involved of course. We’ve gone to the food tasting at the venue, did the dress shopping and a few other things they invited us to. But mostly we just don’t interfere and I just happily write the check for the deposits, sign the contracts, and send them out. The venue, decorator, caterer, bakery, photographer, florist, and entertainment have been booked and all’s been paid for either in full or have deposits made.

The issue comes with the bar. They want a completely open bar wedding reception with no limit. My husband and I both immediately said “Absolutely not. No.“ This is the only thing we told her no to. It’s also the only thing they tried to go over budget with.

Both my daughter and her fiance got angry and told us it’s not up for debate and it’s not negotiable. They’re doing it. Her fiance, who’s usually very laid back, polite, and easygoing also called me an AH for trying to control them and dictate what they do for their wedding and I don’t have the right to.

I told them that as long as we’re paying for it, it will be within my budget and control. I told them the set amount that we were willing to pay for the bar tab and that’s it. Anything else above and beyond that will be their responsibility. I didn’t yell at them. I would not even have called it an argument. Just a disagreement I guess. They immediately left angry. I didn’t think it was unreasonable for me to set the boundaries for my budget so I wasn’t upset about it.

Now here’s where I may be an AH. I called the venue the other day, the day after our disagreement, and spoke with the coordinator. I signed the contract so I have the authority. We had a candid discussion about the size of the wedding, and the average cost for bar tabs that size, and the different options. After that was thoroughly discussed I set a predetermined amount for the bar tab and she noted on the contract that anything after the limit was reached was to be paid by the guests. I then set it so that no drink could be ordered that was more than $10. Generous considering average top-shelf drinks are about $7-$8 here.

I called my daughter after I did that and informed her of what I did and double[d] [down] on the budget - [I was] absolutely not paying for a fully open, unlimited bar at her wedding. They both called me an AH again. Now they won’t speak to me or answer my calls.

So AITA? I don’t think I am but I’ll take my verdict fair and square.

Edit 1: With the current bar package I set up, no one is paying for anything unless the budgeted limit is reached. Then the option is to turn it into a “cash bar” where guests pay. And IF that happens, which it should not, the bride and groom will be informed of the budgeted limit being reached. They can choose at that time to contribute to the extra expense at that point if they want to instead of a “cash bar.” But here’s the deal.

⁠⁠The budget limit is still the same amount I told them it would be. The venue coordinator estimated it’s MORE THAN ENOUGH. It’s by far much higher than the average bar tab for the size of her wedding. It should be more than enough to last all evening and no guests should have to pay for drinks.

⁠⁠The bar is still “open” with the exception of a price cap on what can be ordered. Guests cannot order a free drink from the open bar that costs more than $10/drink. The average top shelf drink there is $7-$8/drink. It’s not unreasonable. This way no one can order a $2,000 shot or other extremely expensive drinks that would blow through the budget limit in a very short time.

⁠⁠There is no quantity limit per person on drinks.

And according to the venue coordinator, this is the most common way of doing things. Also, if the bride and groom find this unacceptable, they can call the venue coordinator and set up their own contract making them legally responsible for whatever the expense is above my limits.

Edit 2: People are saying they’re very entitled. I am not arguing that point. But I think it’s fair to say that they are generally not this way. She’s very humble, kind, and compassionate. She’s a good person and wasn’t raised as a spoiled, pampered princess with no boundaries. She’s had them and we’re not doormats for her to manipulate. They both work full time and both make good money. They’re financially independent and stable. He’s always been decent respectful young man and responsible with his finances too. They’ve both repeatedly thanked us several times throughout this wedding process. They’ve been very grateful and appreciative. I have no idea what caused this abrupt change now. We’re very close to them and typically spend time with the[m] four or more nights a week, either at our home or theirs for dinner. And we do a lot of stuff with them in public too. They take their younger siblings out regularly too.

Edit 3: His parents are not contributing. His dad isn’t involved in his life, and his mom is disabled and on fixed income.

Update:

The second day after the argument, my parents lovingly got involved. My dad is the wise old man and my mom is the perpetual peacemaker. So they invited my daughter and son-in-law (SIL) over a couple days into this argument and had a talk with them about the whole situation. They calmly listened to the kids and had a candid talk about the situation. My mom pointed out that being estranged and/or tense with the parents on her wedding day was not something that my daughter wanted. By the time the talk was over my daughter and SIL fully understood that they had been extremely inappropriate.

The next day my SIL sent me a very large mixed bouquet of my favorite flowers to my work. Later that evening they both stopped by to apologize in person. They brought a nice gift basket of some of mine and her dad’s favorite things. They told us that they had both realized the next day, after the argument, that they were rude and disrespectful once they understood that what we were doing and paying for for the bar contract was more than reasonable.

They said they had felt guilty for yelling at me, but at the time, were still angry that I made arrangements for the bar contract without them having a say in it. So they continued to just ignore our calls until my dad pointed out that I was well within my rights to do what I did since my husband and I were the wedding benefactors and I was the sole, legally responsible party for the bar contract. He also pointed out it was logical common sense to protect the budget; and the bottom line is that while it would have been a courtesy to include them in the conversation because it was their wedding, it ultimately wasn’t their business how I negotiated the bar contract as it was not their money paying for it. He also pointed out that I had been more than generous and reasonable and did not screw them over or humiliate them as hosts. And they realized that’s true.

So this past weekend was the wedding. It was a beautiful wedding; a fun, happy day. Overall it was low stress and just an enjoyable day. At the reception my SIL nabbed me for a dance and told me he’s very grateful for having me and my husband in his life as we’re the good and stable parents he didn’t have and he loves us both. He told me he told my husband the same thing while they were getting ready. My husband was there; his dad wasn’t. It wasn’t lost on him… what good parents we are to him too.

As for the alcohol/bar tab, we DID NOT go over budget by a long shot, and everyone had plenty of options and didn’t go without. There was a total of one younger man who got completely wasted. He wasn’t a fighter and wasn’t causing any problems; he had his gf with him and they had a hotel room rented at the venue, so they let him be. A couple more people were fairly drunk but not troublesome.

So now, they’re on their honeymoon and we’re dog sitting their corgi. All is good.