AITA for telling my sister in law that she is an i**ot for expecting her family to be as generous with gifts for her marriage as they were for mine?

A Redditor shared a story about her sister-in-law’s frustration over wedding gifts—or lack thereof. The sister-in-law eloped privately and later sent out her registry link, only to find family and friends weren’t as quick to buy gifts as they were for the Redditor’s traditional wedding.

After weeks of hearing complaints about “cheap” relatives, the Redditor finally pointed out that expecting the same gift reception from an elopement versus a big, traditional wedding wasn’t realistic. When the sister-in-law took offense, it sparked a family debate. Read the story below!

‘ AITA for telling my sister in law that she is an i**ot for expecting her family to be as generous with gifts for her marriage as they were for mine?’

When I married my husband we had a smallish wedding. 150 guests. Trust me that’s small for our families. We paid for everything ourselves. All together we spent about $25,000. It was in our budget and we had saved up for it. And that included everything. My dress, the wedding party’s dresses and tux rentals.

Catering, you name it we paid and came in under budget. Our guest were family and close friends. The way it should be. And they were generous with gifts, both from our registry and cash in envelopes. When everything was said and done our house was filled with great stuff we needed.

And our savings were several thousand dollars over where we started before we paid for the wedding. My husband’s sister just eloped in February. And nobody found out about it until early April when she sent out links to her wedding registry. Not too many people have bought anything off of it yet. And she is getting upset about that.

All she talks about whenever we speak is how cheap everyone is. Every conversation leads back to the same topic. After more than a month of this I have had enough. I asked her if she understood why we got gifts when I married her brother. Like at our physical wedding that took place at a church and then a reception at a rented ballroom.

She said I was treating her like an i**ot and that she understood the difference between our weddings. I asked her why she would expect the exact same treatment for two very different events. I said that only an i**ot would think the outcome would be the same in both situations. She is mad at me. My husband said he was also frustrated with her stupidity but that I should apologize for calling her an i**ot.

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

No_Lavishness_3206 −  NTA. Ask her if she sends gifts to all the birthday parties she isn’t invited to attend. 

Old_Satisfaction2319 −  NTA. Most of people are not going to buy a gift for a wedding they were not invited to. So a person gets married, I am not invited to anything, not even to a sad Coca-Cola, and I am expected to buy a gift? If I am incredibly close to that person, maybe I would buy something small, but if not, I would only offer some congratulations and she can thank her lucky stars that nobody have answered sarcastically to receiving her registry.

hikergirl26 −  While you are 100% correct on everything you said, it is usually not considered a nice thing to to call someone an i**ot. You may have been able to phrase it a little gentler or maybe have brought it up sooner so it did get to your breaking point.

You should probably clear the air with the i**ot remark and then head home to use one of your awesome wedding gifts. Very slight AH though I am smiling at what you said because it was a great response to her comment that you were treating her like an i**ot.

[Reddit User] −  YTA – only slightly- but only because I don’t understand why you felt the need to interject into her pity party to call her an i**ot. To be clear, she is an i**ot, but you could’ve kept that to yourself. If being around her complaining was too much for you, then you should’ve tried spending less time around her.

cbm984 −  ESH. It wasn’t nice to call her an i**ot but I get being tired of hearing her whine when she clearly doesn’t understand people don’t generally give gifts when there’s no celebration.

But I would like to know how you pulled off a wedding with 150 guests on $25k. I spent $30k on my wedding with half as many guests (and it wasn’t at all lavish) so I’d really like to hear how you budgeted this.

extinct_diplodocus −  NTA. You left a loophole. I said that only an i**ot would think the outcome would be the same in both situations. Instead of self-applying the i**ot label, all she had to do was agree and say, “Of course I don’t expect *identical* outcomes; I just expect more than I got.”

kickrocks2958 −  NTA. The truth hurts. If she didn’t want to hear an unfavorable opinion/fact, she shouldn’t bring it up.

Sea-Tea-4130 −  NTA-She is an i**ot. You were honest in telling her that. No apology needed for honesty.

Strange-Courage −  NTA if you elope and don’t invite people, don’t really expect a gift since these people didn’t get to enjoy your day. You can do whatever you want for your wedding but the #1 way to get gifts and cash is to entertain them, feed them, open bar 😂 she is an i**ot don’t apologize.

AnUnbreakableMan −  NTA, but you should apologize. Tell your SIL, **“I’m sorry that you’re an i**ot.”**

Did she cross the line in her honesty, or was her sister-in-law’s expectation truly unrealistic? Should family members give equally, regardless of wedding style, or do traditional weddings warrant different expectations? Share your thoughts below!