AITA for starting my wedding on time and not waiting for my parents?

A bride started her wedding ceremony on time despite her parents arriving 15 minutes late due to an unforeseen car accident. The couple had emphasized punctuality due to the venue’s strict time limit and the cost involved, but her parents are now upset they missed the ceremony.

‘ AITA for starting my wedding on time and not waiting for my parents?’

I got married on Saturday, and it was absolutely amazing except for one thing: my parents showed up late. They knew the ceremony time, and my husband and I made it very clear to everyone, both in the invites and in person, that we were going to start exactly at that time. The venue cost us a lot of money (we paid for the entire wedding ourselves) and we were only able to use it for a limited amount of time, so we wanted to make every minute count.

So the wedding day came, and half an hour before we were scheduled to start, my parents still hadn’t showed up. My husband and I both called them multiple times but nobody answered. We waited and waited, and still heard nothing. Finally, the start time arrived and my parents still weren’t there. I was really pissed off at this point. The wedding coordinator asked if I wanted to go ahead and start the wedding, and I said yes. All of our other guests were already there, and we wanted to be considerate of their time.

My parents showed up 15 minutes later and missed the entire ceremony. It turns out they did leave early but got rear-ended at a traffic light and had to deal with insurance, police, etc. They only have a landline, no cellphones, so they couldn’t get in touch with me. Obviously there’s no way I could have known this. I’m still frustrated with them for not making more of an effort to get to the venue early, and they’re furious at me for not delaying the wedding 15 minutes so they could be there. AITA?

Check out how the community responded:

Queens_BigBoi −  NAH – you’re not an a**hole for starting on time, you had no idea how late they would be. (however I’ve not been to too many weddings but they did last over 15 mins seemed a bit short but that’s not really the issue.) Your parents aren’t asshoels because they were literally in a car crash albeit not huge but this is a legitimate reason to be late to any event.

Yes your parents should get cellphones and it would of helped your timing of the event. Yes they will be upset that they missed potentially one of the biggest moments in your life but no one in this situation is an a**hole. Edit spelling – however I do think a cat crash does sound super cute. Edit 2 – apparently non religious weddings don’t take too long, thank you for informing me reddit 🙂 The only weddings I’ve been too was ones when I was young and were religious these seem to take longer.

FKDotFitzgerald −  Sounds like your parents are TA for not having cell phones in 2019.

[Reddit User] −  I was going to say No A-holes until this: I’m still frustrated with them for not making more of an effort to get to the venue early, and they’re furious at me for not delaying the wedding 15 minutes so they could be there. This was a s**t happens situation. They did leave early. You couldn’t delay indefinitely without losing your venue. Sucks a lot, but it is what it is. ESH for you all pointing fingers and trying to enforce hindsight as the gold standard. Edit: clarity for the bot (thanks to those who pointed that out)

xbaconbearx −  NAH. It sucks they were rear ended. They made an effort to be there, but life got in the way. You also couldn’t wait forever. Sure, maybe 15 minutes wouldn’t be so bad, but where do you draw the line?

Impiish −  ESH. You couldn’t have known it was only going to be 15 minutes, and your parents need at least 1 cell phone. They also could have used the other person’s to call you?

enitsirhcbcwds −  ESH. Your parents should have cell phones. It’s 2019, it’s irresponsible not to. You could have waited. Not an hour, but 20 minutes or so. I’m surprised they weren’t supposed to be there well before the ceremony for family pictures, precessional lineup, etc.

nails_for_breakfast −  NTA. At this point if you live in a developed country it’s completely absurd to not have a cell phone. certainly someone at that scene had one they could have borrowed.

[Reddit User] −  Info: You realize your parents don’t have cell phones and after calling their home phone with no answer you don’t think that something is up? If they aren’t home they’re on their way and if they don’t show after that long something was clearly wrong. You didn’t have time to send literally anyone down the route the drove or even to their home to check?

I’ll say YTA because you could have at least waited a few minutes (they are your parents) and if they were much later then start. But they didn’t know they’d be late, they obviously didn’t plan it and then they missed their kids wedding. That hurts. Them not having cells is besides the point, while it makes life easier people survived without them for many years.

It really sounds like you’re just faulting them for not being able to call you when really they were probably rushing we fast as they could and worried sick they’d miss your wedding. I feel like they felt bad enough about PLUS they were in a freaking accident. A little slack here was probably due. Edit: I didn’t really expect this to blow up. So thanks, the awards were quite a shock. Insert more cheesy sappy thanks and stuff.

panic_bread −  YTA. If your parents are the kind of people to be chronically late, I think it would have been fine without them. But this was a situation where you didn’t know where they were and had no way to reach them. It was very likely that they were in a crash or something was wrong, and then that turned out to be true.

Kheldarson −  NAH. Your parents did the best they could, and you had to make a decision based on the limited knowledge you had. (The only thing your parents may be the ass on is not having at least *a* cellphone between them for this exact sort of reason.) And they couldn’t have borrowed a phone from the police or found a nearby store to borrow a phone to let you or your husband know? Still, you’re not the ass for starting your ceremony on time as planned as you had no additional information as to why they were late, and they’re not the ass for being upset at missing it.