AITA for celebrating my anniversary despite what happened at my wedding?

A woman and her husband experienced a heartbreaking tragedy on their wedding day when a young child at their reception tragically drowned. Despite the tragic event, the couple decided to celebrate their first anniversary by posting a few wedding photos on social media. The post, however, sparked outrage from the child’s mother and other family members, leading to a heated online dispute. The woman now wonders if she’s wrong for celebrating their anniversary as planned, considering the sensitive circumstances.

‘ AITA for celebrating my anniversary despite what happened at my wedding?’

My husband and I had our wedding last year. The venue was beautiful and bordered a lake. Unfortunately, during the reception, one of the young children snuck away from their parents and decided to…go for a swim, despite not being able to. This was tragic and devasting, and obviously cut the day short.

We haven’t really spoken to the parents since then, as we weren’t close to them aside from seeing them on holidays, which haven’t happened this year. We are still Facebook friends though. When our first anniversary came, I made a post celebrating our anniversary with a few wedding photos. I didn’t think anything of it, until the comments came flooding in. I woke up to 30 comments and 15 missed calls. The top comment was from the mother of the child, who was outraged about it.

She wrote a very long comment about how my post was disrespectful of the tragedy that had happened that day and how dare I post that and not mention her child (and of course talking to her first). 30 comments later, and it was clear that the entire family had clearly started to take sides in a battle I didn’t realize I created. As of today, we’re at 150 comments. My friends and my parents are involved too.

Half of his family is screaming for me to take it down, apologize to the parents, and show more respect, possibly by even celebrating our anniversary on a different day. Some of the family think that we should still be able to celebrate our anniversary on the actual day, but just keep it offline to “keep peace”. I don’t think I did anything wrong with my post, and I feel like we should be allowed to celebrate our anniversary just like anyone else. I’m not celebrating the tragedy, I’m celebrating my wedding. AITA?.

Check out how the community responded:

superfastmomma −  ESH but for crying out loud, take the post down. On one hand is a family with a dead child facing the one year anniversary of their loss. Unimaginable pain. On the other hand is your need to have people comment on how pretty your wedding was and tell you happy anniversary. Their pain far outweighs your needs for likes.

Why you didn’t block the family of the dead child from your post is beyond my ability to comprehend. As soon as you saw it was causing pain, you delete the post. Of course you can celebrate your anniversary all you want. Just not visible to these people who HAVE A DEAD CHILD!. Show compassion.

cdifl −  YTA. Something awful happened at your wedding. It wasn’t your fault, but it’s something that you have to deal with. I’m very sorry that you will never be able to have a normal anniversary, but that’s a small burden compared to having to deal with the loss of a child.

Those that say you should just celebrate privately are absolutely correct. Do not put anything celebratory where the grieving parents can see it. People have been celebrating anniversaries for centuries before Facebook existed, you’ll survive without making public announcements of your love for friends to see.

Acceptable_Letter331 −  You became the AH the moment all hell broke loose on your post and you didn’t have the decency to delete it completely.

Ragingredblue −  YTA. You’re not an a**hole for celebrating your marriage, you’re an a**hole for celebrating your *wedding*. You just posted photos of an event where a child drowned, and you can’t fathom how insensitive that is, or that the event is a horrible memory for everyone else?!?

We haven’t really spoken to the parents since then, as we weren’t close to them aside from seeing them on holidays, which haven’t happened this year. So you just shrugged your shoulders and moved on, and can’t figure out why the child’s parents have not? And you haven’t even talked with them since?!? I really, really, hope that you do not have children, because you seem to lack normal human empathy.

BitterIrony1891 −  After seeing the edit…wow, everyone even peripherally attached to this situation is determined to be the biggest a**hole they possibly can about it, huh? I thought you were heartless and inconsiderate to have made the Facebook post, but that email suggests you are one of the less-assholish people in your social circle. (“Living in sin”? They can sit on a cactus!!)

I don’t mean to sound flippant, but clearly NONE of the people present at your wedding have processed the tragedy they witnessed (directly or indirectly) in a healthy way. Y’all need therapy. Less processing with each other, since it looks like the whole family are drama queens who reinforce each other’s bad ideas, and more processing with trained professionals.

I’m sorry your wedding was ruined. I’m sorry for the family who lost their kid. I’m sorry for everyone who was present for and impacted by such an upsetting event. I’m sorry your in-laws are making a s**tty situation shittier. What a sad mess.

Texasworld −  Oh god. That’s such a horrible tragedy. NAH. Could the mother have handled that better and not made a public scene on Facebook? Absolutely, but grief makes people act in certain ways. You also probably could have had the foresight to block her on that particular post. At the end of the day, you’re allowed to celebrate your marriage and she’s allowed to grieve her child.

Quellman −  NTA – but maybe insensitive. I went between all three of the choices thoroughly until I arrived at this conclusion. This is such a raw event. A happy occasion that is marred by the unfortunate passing of a child. You have every right to celebrate your wedding. But not all anniversaries are happy. The first year following a loss is difficult, especially that single day. That said, people still have joyous occasions on tragic days. Celebrating on a different day? Those people are AH.

The parents of the kid. Slightly AH. You don’t need to memorialize their kid in your post, that’s their job. I would recommend having your anniversary posts filter out that family in the future. Losing a child in that way (seemingly negligent) is a terrible feeling I am sure.

HowardProject −  NAH – This tragedy is absolutely heartbreaking, and of course it must have been painful for the parents to have seen that reminder of the day… What would have been kinder would have been for someone closer to them to gently remind them that they might wish to block your posts for a few weeks surrounding the anniversary. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t think it’s reasonable of them to expect to control your social media.

But I am incredibly reluctant to call a mourning parent an a**hole for overreacting in this situation. Perhaps your wisest choice would be when making posts about your anniversary to limit your audience and block those posts from the close family members of the child who died.

redit-rachel −  I’m confused. Was the child a family member? The husband’s mother sending that email with 3/4 of the family on it and offering to pay for a second wedding makes me think this child was a family member and not simply the child of parents who OP says they weren’t close with.

The living in sin thing bothers me. OP and husband are legally and religiously married. regardless of the tragedy that took place. A second wedding would be nothing but show and everyone in attendance would know the only reason they are there is because a child died at the first wedding. This wouldn’t be a happy wedding.