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A bride is sparking debate after she reportedly let her own niece and flower girl go after the little girl was caught making "mean" comments.
The bride in question, u/aitaflowergirl, took to Reddit to ask if she was in the wrong.
r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for taking away my niece's flower girl duty the day of the wedding? from AmItheAsshole
"For flower girl, we had a choice between my two nieces, Amber and Katie," she said.
"They're both eight and it was a tough decision. Unfortunately for my perfect day I felt shallow and since Amber has more of a typical angelic ''cute'' appearance (very long hair, glasses, big smile) I picked her. Her parents also convinced me she deserved it because she got top marks in some assessment her school did."
But quickly, Amber turned nasty toward Katie.
"During the wedding prep Katie and her dad (my brother) kept telling me that Amber had been bullying her about the fact she didn't get the job. The girls have never liked each other for reasons I don't know. I didn't pay too much mind to it since I was too caught up in myself."
"On the wedding morning I got to witness the bullying myself and it was pretty cruel. Amber (and keep in mind this is an eight year old child) told Katie that she'd never get married because she's too ugly. I could imagine how upsetting this would be for a child and I made Amber apologize and also took away the flower girl job and gave it to Katie. Amber was crying throughout the wedding day, and for the past days I haven't heard anything from her dad, my other brother."
This seems straightforward enough, right?
But Reddit is grasping onto the first part of the story--the way the bride made the choice of her flower girl.
"YTA for not just having two flower girls. Like, why was this even an issue in the first place?"
"YTA for making it so incredibly obvious that you were picking Amber over Katie in the first place that you gave credibility to Amber's bullying. There was no reason you couldn't have 2 flower girls. You played favorites, then realized it was problematic when Amber exaggerated the same reasoning that lead to your initial decision."
"YTA for choosing your flower girl based on who was cuter. Who the hell are you to be judging an 8 year old kid on how cute she is? Sounds like bullying runs in the family."
"YTA. I have 4 nieces and all 4 of them were flower girls at my wedding. Why choose just one, and the "cute" one at that? Sounds like you created your own drama just for pretty pictures."
"YTA. Amber is eight. She's parroting the attitudes of those around her. I have a cousin my age and this happened to us all the time. Our family would treat me like the cute one and her like the good one, and we fell into our respective roles and we fought ALL the time. It took until we were adults to see the ways in which we were constantly encouraged to compete with each other.
"You're surprised to hear Amber call Katie ugly when you basically did the same damn thing in your rationale for excluding Katie from your wedding in the first place."
"You have two nieces. Your job is to love them both, treat them both with respect and model positive behavior. Do better."
Playing favorites with family members is a generally bad role model, and many believe Amber is simply putting a magnifying glass on the OP's problematic reasons for choosing one over the other.
This whole situation could have been avoided with two flower girls.
"YTA you picked your flower girl based on who was cuter WTH."
"YTA. 'The girls have never liked each other for reasons I don't know. I didn't pay too much mind to it since'"
"It could be cause someone who is trying to convince us they're an adult is pitting them against each other."
"'I was too caught up in myself.'"
"This I have absolutely no difficulty believing. Self-absorption sounds like a default operating mode for you, wedding or no."
"YTA, because you basically were doing the same thing to Katie by excluding her because the other girl was 'prettier' for a bloody 8 year old, could've easily had both of them..."
"So you rejected one niece because of her looks, then got mad when she was bullied for her looks? You're honestly disgusting. The little brat isn't blameless for her behavior, but you set up the situation to begin with. Maybe be less superficial next time. ESH except poor Katie"
"So you punished a cute little girl for being cruel to another little girl for being "ugly," after you picked the cute little girl over the less cute little girl to be in your wedding? You actually punished her for basically being more honest about being a shallow jerk than you are.
Why didn't you have them both in your wedding? Pictures? You only wanted pretty people?"
"Maybe you should think about being pretty on the inside, I can't YTA hard enough, honestly."
"You traumatized and triangulated two 8 year old little girls, then split them. On your wedding day. Bizarre."
Learn this lesson well: when tasked with a choice between two eight-year-olds, the correct answer is either both or neither.
Fostering bullying is not a cute look.
*****
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