AITA for excluding the only +1 at our wedding (NEW gf) from the family photos? She’s pissed ?

A bride allowed her third cousin’s new girlfriend (who was originally excluded due to a strict no +1 policy) to attend her wedding after a last-minute family tragedy. However, she requested the photographer to exclude the girlfriend from family group photos while offering the couple their own mini photoshoot as compensation.

The girlfriend showed up in an outfit deemed inappropriate by the bride and was politely asked to step aside during the family shots. Now, over a year later, the girlfriend is upset about the exclusion and has voiced her frustrations. read the original story below…

‘ AITA for excluding the only +1 at our wedding (NEW gf) from the family photos? She’s pissed  ?’

I had a TikTok blow up and the comment section requested that I pop over here. These are the details : Our wedding was 1+ year ago, and very classy, and small- there wasn’t a person there who we aren’t related to by blood or marriage. We decided against +1 guests and instead,  put a lot of money into making the night an incredible bonding experience.

Both of our families are from different countries, visiting the US. •Our family members who live state-side were also there, and this issue involves one of them. About 1 mo before the wedding, my 3rd cousin started dating a new gf.

A couple of days after I saw the relationship on Facebook I get a call from him, inquiring about “how small” of a wedding it is and I heard a voice in the background ask something along the lines of if anyone on my husband’s side was allowed a +1.

He began to ask the same question and I cut him off , letting him know,  no. I reiterated that everyone in attendance from both sides are related by as well as explained why these were our wishes. A few days later, I get a TEXT from my cousin essentially pleading for her to be able to come.

Says she will keep a “low profile” and will bring her own food- THESE ARE IMPORTANT DETAILS FOR LATER. The writing didn’t sound like him- I’m convinced it was her, from his phone. About 4 days after our text interaction, a family member passes away.

We were (are) very heartbroken but to cope with the grief, at one point I joked about how “there was room for my cousins GF now, if she wanted to eat the meal they had chosen”. This is exactly what happened. I don’t know why I exactly came to the decision,

but I figured “what’s the worst that can happen” and it would be a good excuse for his GF to meet visiting family members from across the world. •a couple of days before the wedding I reached out to my photographer and asked that she request for the GF to remove herself from frame in the family photos if she felt that it was appropriate for her include herself.

These photos are a big deal. I DO request that the photographer get individual shots of us and them, and give them a little mini shoot for fun- I did kind of feel bad. They ended up with 25+ photos of them together & alone. The day of the wedding I saw my cousin and GF floating around the ceremony venue.

She looked nice, with a large fur shawl covering her entire midsection. I didn’t think about it again.•walking down the aisle, I get a look of the outfit . It was a Lakers purple Poster girl micro dress, with fishnet cutouts on the side. Later that night, I saw that the plunge went down below her bellybutton.

photo time came, and the photographer sweetly requested for her to move out of frame. I couldn’t tell you if they got a photo of her in the group prior to asking,  That’s it. That’s literally, it. AITA? 

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

Proud_Ad9315 −  NTA. You were clear about your guest list. It’s your wedding, and you should be able to enjoy it how you want.

Anxious-Fall-3894 −  My (now) fiancé and I were invited to my cousin’s wedding. We had been dating for over a year at that point and he had met most of my family that was going to be in attendance.

At one point the photographer gathered my family (grandma, uncle, cousins, mom, sisters, their husbands) and I for a photo and I asked my fiancé to just hang back. He was invited into the photo by my uncle but I didn’t want to make an assumption. All this to say NTA OP, not even a little bit. Her outfit though? Yikes…

FragrantImposter −  I just googled poster girl purple dress. Holy crapadoodles. I would expect to see that at a fetish club, not an intimate family wedding. Especially not at an intimate family wedding that she wasn’t even invited to, and at which she was meeting her bf’s family for the first time.

People telling you that she could be edited out of the pictures are neglecting to remember how much editing adds to the price. Wedding photographers are already expensive, and photoshopping is generally extra.

That’s a cost that you shouldn’t have to shoulder for a girl you’d never even met before, who was intent on inviting herself. You are not responsible for her relationship or personality issues,

and did not sign up to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars to fix your wedding pictures just because she might have felt slighted by not being included in them. That has nothing to do with her spectacularly inappropriate sartorial choices.. NTA.

You should probably start staying more in touch with that cousin, though, because anyone who chooses to wear that to a family wedding probably makes dramatic choices in other areas of her life. A living, breathing telenovella is a terrible thing to waste.

awgeezwhatnow −  Not at all, not remotely, not in any way in any world are you TA. … for not having a cousins gf of *a few months* * in your wedding pics.
*that she was trying to invite herself and that she was incredibly inappropriately dressed say a lot about her but are beside the point here.

ballroomdancer13 −  NTA. The gf sounds mega insecure. She can’t go 1 night or a couple days without seeing the guy? And then to show up in a tacky outfit? That screams “Look at me! I need attention!”

False_Net9650 −  NTA she was a new girl friend not a long term girlfriend not fiancé not a wife. She didn’t need to be in family photos.

wouldliketoknow9 −  Your cousin is the AH for bringing her dressed like that.

Ok_Inspector1597 −  NTA I would never invite a new partner to an event like that nor would I attend one as a new partner. Everyone knows only long term relationships and married couples in family photos. And I’m sorry, she showed up wearing what??? That’s not the makings of a good first impression, yuck.

Dependent_Lobster_18 −  NTA. I think it’s common curtesy if you’re a new partner (I.e. less than a year together) you should exclude yourself from family photos. When my husband and I started dating I met his family at his sister’s college graduation and I offered to take the photos,

even though his mom kept trying to include me, as should we break up I didn’t want all her pictures to have her brothers random gf in them.

pixie-ann −  NTA she sounds trashy, controlling and insecure. You are kinder than me, I wouldn’t let someone who had been dating my cousin for only a month come to the wedding.

Was the bride justified in sticking to her photo plans, given the special nature of her wedding? Or was the girlfriend right to feel slighted, even after attending against the original rules? What would you have done in this situation? Share your thoughts below!