At my wedding, my mother-in-law showed up in a full-length white lace gown, clinging to my husband like she was the bride. I tried to let it go\u2014tried to rise above it. But years later, at my brother-in-law\u2019s wedding, she wore the same dress again. This time, she didn\u2019t get away with itI have only one wedding photo on display\u2014a tightly cropped, professionally edited shot of just my husband and me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rest are locked on a thumb drive I can\u2019t bear to open. Jeff and I moved across the country not long after, hoping space would dull the sting of her constant meddling.When Jeff\u2019s brother Dylan got engaged, I warned his fianc\u00e9e, Sarah, about Linda\u2019s antics. Sarah was confident she could handle it. Linda even promised to \u201cdress appropriately\u201d this time. But come wedding day, there she was\u2014same white lace dress, now accessorized with a bold red sash and overdone makeup. It was pathetic d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She weaseled into every photo, hovering behind Sarah like a specter in stilettos\u2014until the photographer turned to her and asked, voice sharp as glass, \u201cYou\u2019re not the bride, are you?\u201d The silence that followed was glorious. Linda froze. Dylan didn\u2019t flinch\u2014he pulled Sarah close and told his mother to step aside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She stormed off in a huff, and for once, the rest of the day was about the actual bride and groom. No drama. No white lace. Just joy.Linda hasn\u2019t worn that dress since. Maybe she finally realized the spotlight doesn\u2019t belong to her. Or maybe, just maybe, she learned that when you try to steal the show, the right person will make sure the camera doesn\u2019t lie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At my wedding, my mother-in-law showed up in a full-length white lace gown, clinging to my husband like she was the bride. I tried to let it… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":683,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8193"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8195,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8193\/revisions\/8195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}