A terrifying movie or book or show gets your blood pumping in the moment of consumption, sure—we covered our eyes in Squid Game with the rest of the world. But for the most part, you rest easy afterward knowing that what you've witnessed is fiction, deliberately spun up to creep you out. When the real world gets eerier than anything Stephen King could dream up, that's when you have every right to get a little scared of the dark.
Once in a while, a story of a dreadful disappearance, demonic possession, or devil worship will land in the local paper instead of a pulpy old paperback. We've rounded up the most unnerving real-life tales below. In honor of spooky season, here are eleven we can't stop thinking about.

The Axe Murder House

The Villisca Axe Murder House in Villisca, Iowa is a well-known tourist attraction for ghost hunters and horror lovers alike. The site of a gruesome unsolved 1912 murder, in which six children and two adults had their skulls completely crushed by the axe of an unknown perpetrator, was purchased in 1994, restored to its 1912 condition, and converted into a tourist destination. It costs $428 a night to stay at the old haunted home, where visitors always report strange paranormal experiences, such as visions of a man with an axe roaming the halls or the faint screams of children.
But in November of 2014, the haunting took a darker turn. Robert Steven Laursen Jr., 37, of Rhinelander, Wisconsin was on a regular recreational paranormal visit with friends when true horror struck. Per VICE:

His companions found him stabbed in the chest—an apparently self-inflicted wound—called 9-1-1, and Laursen was brought to a nearby hospital before being helicoptered to Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha.

The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said Laursen suffered the self-inflicted injury at about 12:45 a.m., which is around the same time the 1912 axe murders in the house began.
Laursen recovered from his injuries, but has never spoken publicly about what occurred that day. For Martha Linn, the owner of the home, the incident was very upsetting. "It's publicity, but it's not exactly the kind of publicity you desire to have. I don't want people thinking that when they come to the Villisca Axe Murder House something's going to happen that's going to make them do something like that.” The house remains open for tourist visits and overnight stays today.
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The Haunted Doll

When you think of haunted dolls, it’s likely the creepy old Victorian-looking porcelain kind that springs to mind. None of which you probably have laying around. Still, don’t get too comfortable around any kids toys too soon, though: a Disney’s Frozen Elsa doll that was gifted for Christmas 2013 in the Houston area made headlines earlier this year when it seemingly became haunted.
Per KPRC2 Houston News:

The doll recited phrases from the movie Frozen and sang “Let It Go” when a button on its necklace was pressed.
“For two years it did that in English,” mother Emily Madonia said. “In 2015, it started doing it alternating between Spanish and English. There wasn’t a button that changed these, it was just random."
The family has owned the doll for more than six years and never changed its batteries. The mother says the doll would randomly begin to speak and sing even with its switch turned off.

The family decided to throw the creepy doll out in December of 2019. Weeks later, they found it inside a bench in their living room. “The kids insisted they didn’t put it there, and I believed them because they wouldn’t have dug through the garbage outside,” Madonia told KPRC2 Houston News.

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At that point, Elsa ceased to sing the English rendition of “Let It Go” altogether, speaking only Spanish when pressed. The family then double-bagged the bizarre doll and placed it at the bottom of their garbage which was taken out on garbage day. They went on a trip shortly after, but when they returned, Elsa too had come back, and was waiting in the backyard of their home.
This time, the family mailed Elsa to a family friend in Minnesota, who taped the haunted doll to the front bumper of his truck. It doesn’t seem to have made its way back to Houston yet, as per Madonia’s latest February Facebook update on the creepy doll.

A Deadly Exorcism

In August 2016 in North London, 26-year-old Kennedy Ife began acting strange and aggressive following a pain in his throat. He reportedly bit his father, threatened to cut off his own penis, and complained of a python or snake inside of him before his family restrained him to a bed with cable ties and excessive force.
As the BBC reported:

“The family then set about attempting to ‘cure’ Kennedy through restraint and prayer over the next three days, the court was told.”

His brother, Colin Ife, told police:

“It’s clear that thing was in him, what we believed was a demon because it was not natural. It was clearly trying to kill him,” he said.
“We had to restrain him for himself. It was clear if we didn’t restrain him, he could have tried to harm people in our family.”

Kennedy Ife had been bound to his bed for three days without medical attention when his brother called emergency services, explaining that Kennedy Ife was complaining of dehydration. He appeared to have developed breathing issues, and was pronounced dead at 10:17 a.m.
As The Independent reported:

While police were at the house Colin Ife allegedly carried out an “attempted resurrection” by chanting and praying for Mr. Ife.

All seven of Kennedy Ife’s family members were accused of manslaughter, false imprisonment, and causing or allowing the death of a vulnerable adult. A post-mortem examination revealed over 60 wounds including a possible bite on Kennedy Ife’s body, and his father, Kenneth Ife, along with four of his brothers, sustained injuries as well.
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The BBC reported:

Kenneth Ife told jurors he ordered his sons to take shifts and use "overwhelming force" but denied that an "association with cults, occults and secret societies" played any part in the death.

After a four day jury deliberation, all seven family members were cleared of charges on March 14, 2019.
📷Witches prepare themselves for a journey by broomstick to the Black Mountain, circa 1650. From a 17th century Dutch copperplate by Adrianus Hubertus.Hulton Archive

Dead Animals in the Walls

When the Bretzuis family decided to insulate their home in Auburn, Pennsylvania in 2015, they discovered that it had already been—with scores of dead animal carcasses.
As Fox reported:

The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items.
After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown.

The expert attributed the rotting animals in their walls to Pow-wow or Dutch magic, a ritual originating in the culture of the Pennsylvania Dutch to treat ailments and gain physical and spiritual protection. The Pennsylvania Dutch were a group of German-speaking settlers to Pennsylvania in the 1600 and 1700’s, and are often of Lutheran, Mennonite, or Amish faiths.
The Washington Post notes on the magic:

Many of the spells deal with the care of livestock, finding water, or the treatment of minor ailments, reflecting the conditions and concerns of early American settlers.
But powwow also has within it a tradition of darker spells, and even of such things as conjuring demons.

One notable ritual in their tradition is this hex to create loyalty in a dog:

To attach a dog to a person, provided nothing else was used before to effect it: Try to draw some of your blood, and let the dog eat it along with his food, and he will stay with you.

The mold found on the rotting carcasses in the Bretzuis home has caused illness among the family members, and they say that the odor hasn’t gone away.
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Florida Devil Worshipping

Friends noticed that Danielle Harkins, a 35-year-old schoolteacher near St. Petersburg, Florida, started acting strangely in June of 2012, developing an interest in demonic rituals.
Soon after, she was arrested for abuse of seven of her former students, as the Tampa Bay Times reported:

Danielle Harkins told the kids they needed to rid their bodies of demons as the group gathered before dusk Saturday around a small fire near the St. Petersburg Pier. They should cut their skin to let the evil spirits out, police said she told the children. Then, they needed to burn the wounds to ensure that those spirits would not return.
When Harkins held a lighter to one teen's hand, wind blew the flame out, police said. That prompted her to douse his hand in perfume before setting it on fire. The boy suffered second-degree burns, police said.
Another teen was cut on the neck with a broken bottle, police said. Harkins used a flame to heat a small key, which she then used to cauterize the wound.

The police were notified because a friend of one of the students who participated in the ritual raised alarms. However none of the students themselves told their parents about the event or would comment following the arrest of Harkins for aggravated battery and child abuse.
NBC reported:

Investigators said they've spoken to Harkins, but she didn't spell out what type of religion would require such drastic measures.
"She hasn't informed us exactly what she was trying to accomplish with this," Puetz [of the St. Petersburg Police Department] said.

The Death of Elisa Lam

Elisa Lam was last seen on January 31, 2013 in the lobby of the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. She was vacationing through the West Coast, documenting the trip on her blog, and checking in with her parents every day. On January 31 those calls stopped. Lam had vanished. Soon the police were involved and her parents arrived to help with the search.
They had nothing. That February, LAPD released elevator surveillance footage of Lam before her disappearance. The footage shows Lam behaving strangely in the elevator, appearing to talk with invisible people, peering around the corner of the door, crouching in the corner, and opening and closing the door. But what exactly is going on in this video raises more questions than answers. Theories range from psychotic episodes, to demonic possession, to unknown assailants just out of the camera's view:
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Around that time, hotel guests started reported weird things happening with the Cecil Hotel water supply. As CNN reports:
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"The shower was awful," said Sabina Baugh, who spent eight days there during the investigation. "When you turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal."The tap water "tasted horrible," Baugh said. "It had a very funny, sweety, disgusting taste. It's a very strange taste. I can barely describe it."But for a week, they never complained. "We never thought anything of it," she said. "We thought it was just the way it was here."

On the morning of February 19, a hotel employee climbed to the roof and used a ladder to investigate the hotel's water storage tanks. That's where authorities found the decomposing, naked body of Lam, whose personal items were found nearby. After an autopsy, her death was labeled accidental. NBC Los Angeles reported at the time about the strange circumstances in the hotel's past:

The tank has a metal latch that can be opened, but authorities said access to the roof is secured with an alarm and lock.The single-room-occupancy hotel has an unusual history. "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, who was found guilty of 14 slayings in the 1980s, lived on the 14th floor for several months in 1985. And international serial killer Jack Unterweger is suspected of murdering three prostitutes during the time he lived there in 1991. He killed himself in jail in 1994.In 1962, a female occupant jumped out of one the hotel's windows, killing herself and a pedestrian on whom she landed.

In February 2021, a Netflix doc called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explored Elisa's tragic case and the history of the "cursed" Cecil Hotel.

An Exorcism in Indianapolis

Last year, the Indianapolis Star published a lengthy report on a family terrorized by three children allegedly possessed by demons. The account of Latoya Ammons and her family tells disturbing stories of children climbing up the walls, getting thrown across rooms, and children threatening doctors in deep unnatural voices. It would seem like something straight out of a movie–a work of fantasy, except all of these accounts were more or less corroborated with "nearly 800 pages of official records obtained by the Indianapolis Star and recounted in more than a dozen interviews with police, DCS personnel, psychologists, family members and a Catholic priest."
One of the more chilling sections of the report includes a segment about the possessed 9-year-old:

According to Washington's original DCS report—an account corroborated by Walker, the nurse—the 9-year-old had a "weird grin" and walked backward up a wall to the ceiling. He then flipped over Campbell, landing on his feet. He never let go of his grandmother's hand.

Another segment of the piece reads:

The 12-year-old would later tell mental health professionals that she sometimes felt as if she were being choked and held down so she couldn't speak or move. She said she heard a voice say she'd never see her family again and wouldn't live another 20 minutes.

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Utah Murder-Suicide

In September of 2014, a Utah teen returned to his home to find his parents and three siblings dead. "In a notebook, a 'to-do list' had been scribbled on the pages ... The list looked as if the parents were readying to go on vacation—items such as 'feed the pets' and 'find someone to watch after the house' were written," The Salt Lake Tribune reported. It appeared to be murder-suicide, but there was no suicide note, no prior indication that they would do this, no explanation. Police could not figure out why two parents would kill themselves and three of their four children.
For a year, no one knew exactly what happened to the family, or what would drive the parents to do something so unthinkable. In January, police released more chilling details in the case. According to accounts from family members and an investigation by police, the parents were driven by a belief that the apocalypse was coming and an obsession with a convicted killer. As the Washington Post reported:

Friends and family told police that the parents were worried about the "evil in the world" and wanted to escape a "pending apocalypse." But most assumed they just wanted to move somewhere "off the grid." Investigators also found letters written by Kristi Strack to one of the state's most infamous convicted killers, Dan Lafferty, who was convicted in the 1984 fatal stabbing of his sister-in-law and her 1-year-old daughter. According to trial testimony, he killed the victims at the order of his brother, Ron Lafferty, who claimed to have had a revelation from God. The story became a book called "Under the Banner of Heaven."Police said Kristi Strack became friends with Dan Lafferty, and she and her husband even visited him in prison.

The Phone Stalker

In 2007, ABC news documented a series of cell phone calls to families with terrifyingly specific death threats. The unidentified callers knew exactly what families were doing and what they were wearing.

The families say the calls come in at all hours of the night, threatening to kill their children, their pets and grandparents. Voice mails arrive, playing recordings of their private conversations, including one with a local police detective.The caller knows, the families said, what they're wearing and what they're doing. And after months of investigating, police seem powerless to stop them.

This went on with the Kuykenall family for months, who reported a caller with a scratchy voice threatening to slit their throats.

When the Fircrest, Wash., police tried to find the culprit, the calls were traced back to the Kuykendalls' own phones -- even when they were turned off.It got worse. The Kuykendalls and two other Fircrest families told ABC News that they believe the callers are using their cell phones to spy on them. They say the hackers know their every move: where they are, what they're doing and what they're wearing. The callers have recorded private conversations, the families and police said, including a meeting with a local detective.

"The Watcher"

After moving into their $1.3 million dream home, a New Jersey family started receiving creepy death threats from someone who identified themselves as "The Watcher." As CBS News reported earlier this year:
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Since moving in, the owners said they have received numerous letters from the mysterious person. "The Watcher" claimed the home "has been the subject of my family for decades," and "I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming," Castro reported.The new owners have several children, and other letters asked, "Have they found out what's in the walls yet?" and "I am pleased to know your names now, and the name of the young blood you have brought to me."

The family was forced to flee from their home and later filed a lawsuit against the previous owners.

Issei the Cannibal

In 1974, 24-year-old Wako University student Issei Sagawa allegedly followed a German woman to her home in Tokyo, Japan, broke into her apartment while she was sleeping, and attempted to cut a piece of flesh off her body to consume. When she awoke, she reportedly fought him and he was later captured by the police. According to a 2012 Vice documentary that covered Issei's bizarre story, he was mistakenly charged with attempted rape and his wealthy father paid the victim a settlement outside of court to have the charges dropped.
Seven years later, in 1981, he allegedly committed a murder in France—shooting and eating a fellow University student, Renée Hartevelt. Issei creepily documented the entire experience with photographs and he was captured by authorities once again while attempting to dump the rest of her body in the Bois de Boulogne lake. He was deported back to Japan and committed to a mental institution. For reason unknown, his psychologists in Japan declared that he was sane. Furthermore, a legal technicality involving the French government refusing to turn over the documents from his case meant that his murder charges were dropped completely. He checked himself out of the mental hospital and has reportedly been walking the streets as a free man ever since. Issei has even become a controversial celebrity, writing over 20 books. According to Japan Today, he most recently fantasized about an unnamed TV actress, saying:
"I'll catch a glimpse of her thigh and think, 'That sure looks tasty.' But I don't feel like I actually want to eat it. As I accomplished the act of cannibalism once, there's no meaning to maintaining the desire for it anymore. In my book, I wrote that it [human flesh] was tasty, but that was not really true; I'd much rather eat Matsuzaka (Kobe) beef. But because I'd desired to consume human flesh for so long, I'd managed to convince myself that it would necessarily be delicious."
Issei Sagawa was also referenced in the Rolling Stones song "Too Much Blood," with the lyrics reading: "And when he ate her he took her bones/To the Bois de Boulogne." He is currently 73 years old and continues to live in Kawaski City, Japan. To this day, no one knows why France did not allow Japan to give him a trial.
📷MATT MILLER

My mother is hosting my bridal tea/shower in June. This is supposed to be the party for all the grandmas, aunts, cousins, coworkers and other various female wedding guests. All of the teas/showers I’ve ever previously attended for my own family and friends were very well-attended, and I’d always envisioned my own being fairly similar. However, basically my fiancé’s entire side (except FMIL) have RSVP’ed “no.” Additionally, about half of my own side are also not coming either. It’s gone from a party of about 65 or more down to 20ish. I’d expected & accepted that some people wouldn’t be able to come, but not the majority!
Meanwhile, my sisteMOH is in charge of the bachelorette in July. This is the girls’ night out with my bridesmaids and friends. Again, most of the RSVPs are negatives, 15+ down to only six. Again, I understood a few people might not be able to come, but not most! Additionally, there are a few overlaps in the invites for the two events, and almost all of those have said no to both the tea & bach. I know they have their own lives and my events are not important to anyone but me, but in their position, if I couldn’t get to one, I’d definitely be making every effort possible to get to the other!
Now today, my old college roommate (whose own shower, bachelorette and wedding I traveled multiple states for) just confirmed that she can’t make the tea, after having already declined the bachelorette too. But then she added: “I’ve got my room booked for the wedding, so I will be there for the big day!” This is apparently similar to what everyone else has been telling my mom/sister when delivering their “no”s (only roommate RSVP’ed directly to me).
And it’s that addition at the end that got me thinking…
On our actual wedding day, there’s going to hopefully be over 160 people. I’m not really expecting us to be able to spend more than maybe 5 minutes visiting each table and even less time actually talking to each person, based on my experience having attended others’ weddings as a guest. Also, I know myself and I know that I’ll be focusing on everything going on with me and my new husband (cake cutting, speeches, dances, etc). Sorry, but I’m not afraid to admit that my guests just aren’t going to be my priority that day. Our venue also screwed us with our farewell breakfast location (https://www.reddit.com/weddingplanning/comments/13qcey7/venue_frustration_has_torpedoed_any_all_desire_to/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 ) Even though we’re planning on being there the full 2 hours as people come and go, we’ll have to be switching between the divided indoor section and outdoor section that we got stuck with instead of the whole-group tent. Therefore it’s likely there will be people we won’t even see in the morning, let alone get to talk to.
So basically, I’m not anticipating getting quality time with anyone outside of the bridal party during the wedding. That was what the tea and bachelorette were supposed to be for! At the tea, I would’ve been able spend some time getting better acquainted with my fiancé’s relatives (most of whom I’ve only met once or not at all) and gotten the chance to catch up with my own family that I only see at major holidays or events like this. The bachelorette would’ve been a reunion with college or long-distance friends. In other words, the tea & bachelorette would’ve given me opportunities to actually enjoy my friends & relative and celebrate my wedding with them personally. Instead, I feel like these people are now going to spend time & money traveling all this way just to fill seats and be a face in a crowd that I’ll barely even register as being there.
So, as my title said: I’ve realized today that I’d much rather have these guests come to the tea and/or bachelorette and spend time with me in a smaller, more personal group when I’m not distracted than to come to the wedding just to say they were there and not spend any time with me.
Is this normal? Anybody else feel this way?

10 years ago today, I was in the worst wedding. Here are the highlights, backing up to the bridal shower: - I planned the shower. Sent out over 40 invitations (having talked the bride down from many more). Handmade decorations. Got a room at a restaurant and had food for 25 even though I only received 1 rsvp. 5 people attended, including the bride, myself, and another bridesmaid that helped plan/setup. So 2 guests.
-The wedding venue was a lovely spot by a lake. Except ..geese. Geese that apparently ate steak and left the biggest piles of poop all along the edge of the lake. Exactly where the wedding was to be. Certainly someone would scoop it before the wedding, I thought. Alas...
-Day of the wedding: Groom was missing ( he had skipped out on a wedding previously). Chairs weren't there. Her dress (really a prom dress) didn't fit so we laced her into it using some cheap ribbon. Chairs and groom finally arrive. There's maybe 10 guests. We walked to the longest song (something from Twilight). In sandals, I had to pick my way through the giant piles of goose poop (seriously, my dogs don't poop that big) to stand between...piles of goose poop. The ceremony took literally less than 5 minutes. It took longer to walk down the aisle. We do pictures, during which she gets goose poop on her dress. The whole ordeal took 45 minutes. Which would be fine except...
-The reception was at another site about 30 minutes away and didn't start for another hour and a half. And I'm starving because we had to get ready at her house that morning and all she had was 1 bottle of Moscato, which I had quickly commandeered. So I got some fast food and hung out with my parents' cat for an hour.
-The reception was basically at a bar. Not a room at a bar, just at the bar. With random dudes drinking and smoking and watching sports. Food was like frozen jalapeno popper type stuff. At least the beer only cost a dollar.
-There was no dj, just kids with a phone hooked up and they kept changing songs without letting any of them finish.
-I had a banner made with their names and the date. They hung it on the atm.
-We aren't friends anymore and the marriage lasted less than a year. I did see that she's remarried and seems much better off and I'm happy for her. But I'll never forget the poop. So. Much. Poop.
Please don't repost or use this for some lazy news article. Be cool.

Is there an organization that helps with tenant rights in Montgomery County, PA?

I've found these super useful while planning my wedding (5/19/23- a week wed tomorrow!) so I thought I'd give back and share some of our thoughts, figures, regrets, etc!
So we started with a budget of 20k. We tried to allot it towards the stuff that was going to be expensive no matter what (venue, food) and to the stuff we cared about (photos, flowers), moreso than to "wedding stuff" that was traditional. I think we for the most part succeeded, however we did end up overbudget by far. I knew there would be surprise expenses but I underestimated them.
Overall goals: we both wrote down some dream goals for the wedding when we started to plan. It is a bit bittersweet to look back on those notes now because the wedding definitely took on a bit of a life of its own, and I think our goals did get a bit lost along the way. I wrote: Cinderella (2015) garden party wildflowers, black cat motifs, Taylor Swift, Mamma Mia vibes, delicate, whimsical, floral. He wrote: live band, ice cream cake, food truck, vibey, lowkey, fun.
Venue: (ceremony): $750. We got married at our church which could have been even cheaper but we added a few hundred for a donation to the general fund. The breakdown was a $100 cleaning fee, $300 musician fee (would have been lower but we asked the music director to learn a few new pieces for the service and wanted to compensate him for the extra work). The church is a gorgeous old Chicago church that we've been attending just over a year. We loved getting married there- the religious element was important to us, and our church community was so happy for us to get married there. It was a pretty church so we didn't really need to decorate it, which saved money as well.
Venue (reception): Firehouse Chicago ($6k). link. We looked for venues for a while and toured a few. Our guest count was sort of in between the cozy dinner party vibe we wanted, and the giant repurposed warehouse/ballrooms that most of the venues felt like. Smaller spaces that were still beautiful were wildly costly. But we liked Firehouse- it was pretty/unique enough looking that we wouldn't have to cover the place with decor to make it look halfway decent. My only regret about the venue is that it rained on our wedding morning, so they set up these big white tents outside, covering up the courtyard- and the tents were not very cute- the tops of them all stained from tree debris, etc. The courtyard was beautiful- fairy lights, flowers, Chicago brick buildings surrounding it, old trees- it felt like a little secret garden. But with the tents up... you are just in a white tent with stains on the top. I wish I'd made a better plan for rain or thought seriously about what to do and if I still liked the venue in rain mode. And it wasn't even raining by the evening! D: The tents weren't even necessary. But they were up and everything in them setup so there was no taking them down. Oh well. The venue also could have been cheaper - we added their candles for $150 (they strew a bunch of candles around for you) and their getting ready room ($500) for my bridesmaids and me to get ready in. We also took a bunch of pictures up there- it's a beautiful getting ready space. Very vintage feeling. The staff was very helpful to work with, though there were a few restrictions on vendors which we didn't love. They wanted us to use a catering vendor off their approved vendors list, and literally every single caterer would have been over 10k. We ended up going off the list (which would have incurred a small charge- not greater than the difference between that and 10k!) and since they had worked with that caterer before, they didn't charge us the fee- but still. Approved vendor lists sometimes are just a list of pricey people you can't opt out of. The staff of Firehouse was great, and the cost included people to set up your decor for you in the morning, a drop off time the day before with someone to listen to how you wanted things set up, and someone at the event all day to handle any emergencies / guide the staff for the room flip. Dinner is one setup of tables, and then you go outside for a toast/cake cutting, and the staff changes the floor around / takes away some tables to clear space for a dance floor, which was nice optimization of the space. The staff was awesome- they listened to my thoughts about what should go where, took my hampers of table numbers and a giant crossword and a guestbook tablecloth and card box and favors and 50 plus vases of flowers- all this stuff- and set it up beautifully. Prettier than I could have. I didn't have to fix a single thing. When I came downstairs in my wedding dress to go to the church, the place looked incredible. Husband wants me to add that we might have gone with a different reception space if we had known when we started planning that we were going to do the ceremony elsewhere. Part of the appeal of Firehouse was it had the pretty outdoor space where we could have a ceremony. But if we'd gone with a restaurant elsewhere, it would have been probably half the cost (since it would have combined food and venue).
Catering: City BBQ ($4,728, this is with gratuity included.) We had barbecue catering and it was delicious- we got a lot of compliments on the food. Brisket, turkey, mac n cheese, green beans, corn bread, potato salad, buns, and chocolate cake for dessert. They also did some fruit and cheese trays during cocktail hour. It took us weeks of searching last fall to find a caterer that wouldn't be over 10k for our number of guests but it was so worth the search. Chicago ups the cost on sooo many things but there are still some places you can find something cost effective if you put in a lot of time looking. We had wanted to do a food truck, particularly a taco truck, but they were all super expensive. We talked to three of them and it was going to be over 12k, some closer to 15k. We decided we didn't care that much abt the food truck and just wanted something tasty- ideally not the plated classic wedding dinners. So we had the buffet from City BBQ, and it was lovely. They were super nice to work with, and their head caterer came to our walkthrough at the venue a month prior and worked out the timeline etc with the venue coordinator. They did all the serving, setup, clean up, behind the scenes- they were awesome. So worth the money. I saw a lot of recommendations of just get some big tin trays of food and have family / friends manage the serving, but to me it was sooo worth it to have people working the event. I wanted my family and friends to be enjoying themselves.
Bar: Drinks On Us ($2k, gratuity included). The drinks were good. They provided two bartenders (one for the inside bar, one for the outside), and all the alcohol. I went with the package that had one red wine, one white wine, three kinds of beers, all sodas and such, and one custom cocktail (grapefruit fizz and vodka). The going back and forths with this vendor was a little frustrating- they have a faulty system, so as soon as I made a payment, the next day they send an email with vaguely grim language about a payment being over due- "take the easy way out and pay now before incurring 15% fees". The first time (initial deposit in December) I emailed them all alarmed. They said oh don't worry it just does that. The second time (paying the full balance in early May), I was more irritated. I'd just paid $1400, I'm managing giant payments to vendors left and right, and it's telling me I'm overdue and need to PAY NOW. It was unprofessional and a little menacing. The people were great, but the email system they have in place really soured me on them. They were very apologetic. I think I'd still recommend them, but know that you might get faulty emails warning you about late payments and fees.
Cake: Bittersweet Pastry, $140 (link we got this cake in pink and white for the cake cutting picture. Guests had chocolate cake from the caterer. The cake was beautiful, but not that good lol. But still worth it I think. This was a semi last minute addition as I realized we didn't have anything to cut for a picture.
Rehearsal dinner: A restaurant near our church. I believe this was around 2k, but my husband's parents paid for this. We had sliders and french fries and an open bar. The rehearsal was a lot of fun- the format of the room was a little restrictive, but it felt private to just our group, and it was super close to our church so we could walk right over after the rehearsal.
Marriage license: $60
Officiant: $0 (our priest officiated, she did not take a fee since our church considers marriage a sacrament and part of the duties of the church. We do donate to the church regularly though so you could consider that to be part of the fee.)
Ceremony music: see above church fee- it was about $300 but tied into the church fee
Photographer: Artbelka (Mariya Byelikova) Photography, $3,800. link. This got us seven hours of shooting, and we will have a gallery of pix as soon as she is done editing them. Photos were very important to me and I loved her style. We did engagement pictures with her, and both my husband and I are a little nervous in front of the camera. She set us at ease and got great movement pictures of us- very natural and candid and documentary style, while still having that stylish cinematic sort of feeling. We loved working with her- I'm hoping to do yearly pics with her or something. She was incredible. She also came to our rehearsal the day before because our church is in the round and is a slightly awkward space to photograph. And we last minute added an hour (we were originally set to do six hours) because we were either going to miss getting ready pics for me, or the special dances on the other end of the day, and she added an hour like 3 days prior to the wedding, no problem. Highly recommend her!
Videographer: Initially, Birch Films (James Birch Eiesland), for what was supposed to be $750 for a local Chicago videographer. It turned out he was from Minneapolis and finishing up school so he'd have to travel to Chicago and added a $200 travel fee. ok... well why are you listing yourself as local? Anyway... 12 days before the wedding he cancelled and refunded our money due to a family emergency. We scrambled and a friend of a friend who has a photography business was able to jump in. Paige Evans photography. This cost about $1200 but they also were doing it SUPER last minute, and they in general seemed more professional than James. (When we asked him how he was going to capture audio during the ceremony since vows are usually kind of quiet, and the videographer is standing a ways away, he said "his camera will pick up the audio". When we asked Paige how they would get the audio, she said they have a mic for the officiant and one for my husband. Just a glimpse into - you get what you pay for sort of thing.) They shot video of the entire ceremony, entire set of speeches/toasts, first dances- and caught highlights of other moments like dancing, guests, etc. They'll be sending me a 1 minute highlight reel in the next week or so I believe for social media, and the full videos will come later. Husband's parents paid for video, so I am not counting it towards our total.
Flowers: Romee Willow Floral, ($2k) link. Flowers were one of the most important things to me- I wanted a wildflower sort of feeling, a garden party vibe even though our wedding is in the city. I got quotes from a few florists and I really liked Romee Willow. I sent them my Pinterest board of flower inspo and they made a mood board and we talked through which flowers would be available right now, and the most important colors to me (yellow, light pink, light blue) and the shape of the bouquet, etc. They provided one bridal bouquet, 4 bridesmaids bouquets, 10 boutonnieres, 2 mom wrist corsages, a flower crown and basket of petals for the flower girl, and 54 bud vases of flowers for the tables at the reception. We originally were going to rent the vases and return them, but we wanted people to be able to take the flowers home (we couldn't, since we have cats) so we ended up getting vases off amazon link and everyone was able to take the flowers home in their cute vases. LOVED our florals. She beyond delivered. It would have been cheaper if we hadn't had the rental vases in our original contract, but she added more flowers to make up for the difference of not having the rentals. She perfectly caught the vision of what I wanted, and even though some of the flowers I wanted weren't in season (rip black eyed susans, queen anne's lace, etc) she made great substitutes. link to some pics we snapped of the flowers
Flower preservation: Bloom and Make ($600) link This was a last minute addition as I panicked two weeks prior to the wedding and realized I would want to preserve the bouquet. I wanted it pressed into a flat picture frame to hang on the wall, and I also added a pair of flower earrings. We'll be working together on this as the flowers come out of the press to see which ones look nice still and how I want to do it. I kept my bouquet in water overnight and we drove it to her house the day after the wedding. Very excited to work with her- I love her stuff on her website. She had great insight about colors too- apparently white flowers don't press that well, and reds turn brownish? She was excited to press my bouquet because it was so colorful. I can't wait to see how it turns out!
Other Decosignage/DIYs: $600ish. This was all very random stuff. Little gold wire stands to put the table numbers on. Templates to make the seating chart and name cards and table number cards. I got the templates off of etsy and made them on templett, and printed them at Staples. We did a custom crossword from etsy which was about $40 (on sale!) so we provided about 40 questions and answers, and this lady assembled it into a gorgeous "sip n solve" crossword for us. We printed it on laminated paper and got expo markers and a big poster board on an easel for cocktail hour. We also had little paper ones I printed at home if people wanted to try the crossword themselves. Probably about $60 to get the poster printed. I got a tablecloth off of ebay (still in package) for $20- super nice linen hemstitched tablecloth- and we had that set up almost like a blank canvas, for people to sign as a guest book. We also had a board of family wedding pics from our parents and grandparents' wedding days, and had that leaning on the wall behind the card box and matchboxes. All this stuff was super fiddly and time consuming- nothing individually that expensive, but just took time to make and think through what I wanted. I think they all turned out really nice though- especially the tablecloth. I plan to embroider on everyone's messages, and bring it out for holidays and have whoever attends the holiday sign it and date it- trace kids' hands, etc. A living heirloom. :) Our card box was a big yellow bread box from Michaels for $12- I didn't want a "card box" I'd literally never use again, so I got something I think is cute (I love yellow) and I'll use it as decofun storage. We also had an embroidered guest book from Rifle Paper co that was an impulse purchase in the last cpl weeks- I got worried that older guests might not sign the tablecloth and would be looking for a traditional "guest book". That did in fact happen. I'm going to try and transfer their signatures over to the guest tablecloth if I can. I made the matchbook design on my ipad and sent it to someone who had them made into matchboxes for me- about $100 for 100 matchboxes as our wedding favors. I was briefly worried no one would take any but MIL marched around with the basket and gave everybody a matchbox so we only have about 30 left which is a true miracle. Bless her heart. link to tablecloth results / inspo, and some other DIY stuff.
Invitations, Save the dates, postage: $400. I used a template on canva for the save the dates, and those were prob about $60. I found a template on Etsy and made the invitations on templett for the wedding- it's a beautiful art nouveau Mucha green frame. Those were also probably about $60-70. Most of the money here went to stamps. I love stamps. I made envelopes that match the garden party / floral vibe, but also that sort of corresponded to each guest's personality a bit. My sister who likes turtles, got a turtle stamp. My friend from ballet class got a ballerina stamp. I just really like stamps. This was an excellent excuse to get a lot of MNH stamps off of ebay I'd been eyeing for years and use them on my stationery. stationery pics
DJ: Just Press Play Productions (originally $550, but we had $9.60 added on). Very mixed feelings on this vendor. I think you get what you pay for. Most DJs were like 2k and we were reaaaally looking to save money by this time. This one was on the preferred vendors list, and they were super cheap, and brought the speakers / microphone themselves, and all we had to do (in theory) was provide the playlists and a device for the music to be played on. When I paid them, I got an irritated email about the fact that I turned on purchase protection (they requested we pay thru venmo, to avoid the credit card fees.) They requested I pay the extra nine dollars and sixty cents, and said it didn't benefit them to have the protection on, and that "they have never not shown up for their customers". I was like ...... but I paid the nine dollars, and decided to reserve judgment. They told us to make a couple of playlist- one of fast songs, one of slow songs, and one with the special music for the first dances, anniversary dance, last dance, etc. We did so. We had a call with the DJ a few days pre wedding and went over his script/transitions. He was going to announce tables for dinner, announce the speeches/transition between them, announce the dances, etc. He did some of those things. We had to do some of the transitions ourselves- everyone gave their toasts and speeches, and then we had to kind of say "that's all the speeches, thank you" and he was just standing there. The music was way too loud. We asked him a few times to turn it down, but if he did, it never took. It was super super loud during dinner, and during dancing. He texted me during the ceremony (I didn't see it till i got home that night lol) "where is the cocktail hour playlist". I didn't know we needed to make one of those- we made a slow song playlist and a fast/dance song playlist, as they had said most people do. It wasn't that he was bad... it just wasn't ideal. We should have looked into it a little more and realized we needed a cocktail hour playlist. And the email chiding us for the purchase protection thing and requesting the nine dollars really made me laugh.
Attire (groom): Husband got his suit made from scratch from an online try on place called Lords of Wool. I'm not sure if we would do it again. It was a lot of hassle to take the measurements and try and figure out what was going to be the closest fit, and when the suit arrived (cost abt $500) he still had to go to a tailor to get it altered. I think it would be easier to just go to someone to get a suit made for you locally. The suit was a light blue linen- really pretty- which was why we didn't go with a bigger name brand - nobody had that specific color. His parents paid for his suit, so I am not counting it towards our total.
Attire (bride): Here's where I really would do stuff different. I got my dress ($2k originally, more like 3.5 with alterations) from Diana's Bridal (not to be confused with David's Bridal!). The alterations cost a lot- even though there really wasn't much that needed to be altered. It fit me pretty well. They took the bust and waist in a little bit, and hemmed the dress, and added a bustle. I think we got "wedding charged" a bit. And then the real reason I am a bit bummed about this aspect is I ultimately decided to wear my mom's wedding dress for the ceremony. 3 grand later- I'm wearing a dress I had all along. So fricking silly. I wore my Diana's bridal dress to the reception, but it was a very full ballgown on little spaghetti straps. Beautiful (I still love it!) but super super heavy. Not very danceable. And I still have welts on my shoulders from those beaded spaghetti straps chopping into my shoulders with the weight of the giant ballgown all night. The bustle failed bc of course it did- it is a super heavy skirt- and my mom had to safety pin it up. I never ended up wearing the veil I got for this dress (it was this one but it was only $100 when i purchased it because the veil was for the ceremony. And by the week of the wedding I was eyeing stuff like this on ebay and just wishing I'd been more true to myself and gotten some vintage dress for less than a thousand dollars, a little more danceable, maybe even rewearable- and not felt like I had to get a "wedding dress". Oh well. You live and you learn. dresses
Hair and makeup: Nika Vaughan ($1430) link. This cost included hair and makeup for me and for two of my bridesmaids- so six hours and six services. My stylist was Lia. She did a great job for the most part! When we did the trial in March, I thought I was going to be wearing the ballgown for the ceremony. So we did loose curls and a little braid for the veil to sit in, and it was beautiful! Get to the wedding day and I'm wearing my mom's dress which has this Edwardian like high collar. I have long hair- curls/down is going to fight with the collar of the dress. But I knew I was going to switch to the ballgown later. So I said what can we do hairwise that's still sort of Rapunzely, that I can take out later and it's still curly and pretty down. So she had to sort of improvise on the day of, and she did a french braid, which isn't my favorite. Oh well. And the flowers she wove into my hair looked sort of straggly- there were daisies and things but she picked these little evergreen looking things that didn't go that great in my hair in my opinion. Oh well. The makeup was beautiful! And the hair came down post ceremony and had gorgeous curls still. I would definitely recommend them- I didn't like "bridal makeup" and wanted something more natural and modern, and they definitely delivered.
Rings: I just used my engagement ring as the wedding band again- it doesn't stack well- ($140 off of etsy, can't find the link anymore but here it is on me) and he got this ring from Ethereal Bloom for $55.
Other outfits (mostly bride): $350. I got a dress from Asos link for the bridal shower and somehow have no pictures in it. It's a great dress though, I will wear it again! Got a little clip in veil from Lulus for $30 for the rehearsal dinner, and a dress from Anthropologie for $176 for the rehearsal dinner, and shoes from Target for $26. rehearsal dinner dress.
Bridesmaid and groomsman and flower girl/ring bearer attire: I wanted each bridesmaid in a different color- we did lavender, light blue, light pink, and light green. I wanted yellow originally but they all begged me not to make them wear yellow. So I put the flowers girls in yellow lol. I did a survey of each girl's size, budget for a dress, and requested color of (pink lavender green blue yellow), and once each had a color, I looked online and found 5 dresses for each girl within the price range they listed, with their size available, in the sort of garden party fairy vibe I wanted. They then picked the dress they liked best from the 5 options. Somehow, all four bridesmaids ended up picking dresses in almost the same cut and fabric, so it looks like I told them "this dress!" but it all worked out. They looked great. two of the bridesmaids. I had a flower girl and ring bearer who were kids, and two babies to be "jr" flower girl and ring bearers. I put the girls in adorable yellow dresses, and the boys had kids / baby versions of what the groomsmen wore. I did not care about the groomsmen attire at all- they did khaki vests because they all had khaki pants already, over a white shirt. I sent each of them a link to a tie in a color matching the bridesmaids- pink, green, blue, lavender. They looked great too.
Other costs: Thankful registry ($30). Definitely recommend registering with Thankful! So convenient to use different websites across the internet- can do literally any store you want, and can attach your paypal/stripe accounts for people to send cash. They also compile a thank you note list with who gave what and when, and little notes from the gift-givers. Other random costs... we used Minted for the wedding website which was free. Definitely recommend! Our website is beautiful and looks like us, and has my lily of the valley motif which I love. We also did both digital and physical RSVPs which worked really well. Plenty of people mailed their RSVPs but a lot of the younger ppl did online. And we could just go in and enter the online stuff for people who lost their card in the mail and/or weren't tech savvy. We had a bridesmaid suite for us to stay in night before the wedding: $218. Half of us ended up not even staying there lol- one of my bridesmaids brought a plus one and she was going to be staying there with us without us knowing that ahead of time... so me and one friend just slept at our own houses (we live in Chicago) and the bridesmaid suite became moreso this one girl and her plus one, and one of my sisters. Oh well lol. For the wedding night we thought abt a hotel room but it never happened and we were happy to just come home to our cute cats and our nice apartment.
total cost: $26,524
tldr; we had a beautiful wedding. We were 6k over budget... some of that was stuff I would definitely change (skip the Diana's bridal dress and get something 3k cheaper), some of that was stuff we forgot to include (we added tip into the totals on things and hadn't had that factored into the original budget, that was definitely over a grand across all the vendors), and some of it was just stuff you don't know you need until you're buying gold wire table number holders on amazon two weeks before the wedding. If I did it again I'd do it different in some ways, but most of the things came out great. And I am SO relieved and happy to be done. Thank goodness we are married and it's done and it was beautiful. Despite the rain.
If you have any questions about anything let me know! I hope this helps other Chicago brides/grooms on a budget. It's expensive out here but we did our best to keep costs low.

Disclaimer: Fake names and no ages mentioned and this is really long
This happened around four years ago, but I still remember it so vividly and I think it’s time to share this wild story.
A little back story: I had a really close friend, let's call Jerry… he was also friends with my brother, could hang out with my mum by himself, basically was a part of the family. One night in January we had organised to go out for dinner, Jerry, me and our mutual friend Marcus. Jerry asked to bring his cousin Amy along as she was getting out of a rough relationship and Jerry wanted her to start making friends again.
From this point, we form a cute little friend group, and Amy and I specifically become instantly close. Looking back now it was a red flag.
We spend the next year living life, and just having the best time. I still look back fondly on these memories. She was my party friend.
What I haven’t mentioned yet is I was dating my now husband for around two years before Amy and I met.
Around November the same year we met. She starts chasing a guy named Kaleb. Kaleb had just left his baby Mama and had a 1 year old son. By just left, I mean 3 weeks before. Amy basically moved in with him and his family a few weeks into dating and a month in, Kaleb’s son was calling her mummy and Amy would always get upset when the real mum would try to spend time with the son. (baby mama was an addict)
This always bothered me but he wasn’t my kid so wasn’t my place to say anything and the situation was quite complex.( not my story to tell)
I gave birth to my own baby the following January (I didn’t know I was pregnant, a whole other story I may share another time) and Amy and I basically became mummy friends.
This is where the wedding stuff starts: Throughout this whole year following Amy kept talking about how Kaleb was saving for an engagement ring, he’s dropping hints about proposing ect.It was all she talked about sometimes. Come March of 2019 somewhat out of the blue, my partner proposes. I announce it in my friend group chat the day after it happens. I get the excited congratulations from Jerry and Marcus and a very short congrats from Amy. For weeks after, it was crickets from Amy and my messages to he in the group chat were left on read.I decided to call her about 4 weeks later. We were on the phone for 2 hours. Talking about literally anything else. She brought up her work, her son, her son’s baby mama, her at this point HYPOTHETICAL wedding before I’m even able to bring up my proposal and wedding. Before you ask, no Amy was never going to be a bridesmaid. I have 3 siblings and 2 very close childhood friends that are still in my life and will be forever. I honestly didn’t pick Amy as I had only known her for 2 years at this point. I had watched my sister pick people for her bridesmaids that were only in her life for a season of time not a lifetime and she regretted it.While we were talking, I said I had booked to go try wedding dresses. She came back with “what’s the date? I’ll be there with bells on cause I better be in the bridal party bitch”.I was taken aback and just laughed and ended the call shortly after. I ended up sending her a message the next day explaining that she won’t be one and the reason why I chose who I did and all I got was an ok back. Which I was understanding of because I knew it would have been disappointing/hurtful for her.Again weeks follow and I barely hear from her, there is no response when I reach out or if I talked in in the group chat. This changes all of a sudden when she starts messaging again about how she thinks Kaleb is going to propose. Being excited for her I asked why she thought that. She said because she made Kaleb go buy a ring…I tried my best not to judge just saying “how cool, you got to pick your ring, aren’t you sad there is no surprise to it anymore though?”
She responded with “no I hate surprises, I’ve even told how and when he is going to propose”
And sure enough, one week later Kaleb knocked on their front door, and proposed to her.At this point my wedding had been booked for the 21st of March 2020. But invites hadn’t gone out so no one other than family that live out of town knew yet. Amy told me the week following her engagement that the date she had picked was 22 November 2020 (weird note that's also my husband's birthday). Shortly after my invites went out she decided to change her date to 22 November 2019. Stating she didn’t want to wait and weddings on fridays are cheaper. I just always thought the date and the change of the date was very curious.
I got added to a group chat that Amy created titled “Amy’s Bridesmaids”. I was honestly shocked but was still excited nonetheless. She announced the colour of her wedding is pale pink, curiously enough my wedding colours were burgundy and…you guessed it, pale pink. Yes, she knew this.
She also explains how her wedding is going to run differently. She said that he and Kaleb are going to have a private wedding ceremony with just their son and Kaleb’s dad. They will have a reception with everyone after the fact in a barn, it was going to be a rustic vibe. We were allowed to pick whatever dress we liked, but it had to be a floor length formal dress. I again tried not to judge, I just didn’t understand the criteria of the dress when 1. It was a reception in the barn and 2. We weren’t going to be a part of any formal photos. BUT she was the bride and I kept it to myself.So much happened the following months I’m just going to try and keep it brief and not mention everything that led up to the climax of our friendship's end.

1. I had booked one of my bridesmaid’s sister’s to make jars of honey as my wedding favour. I paid for this and there was no expectation to have it free. Amy found out and asked if she could have her number and asked for it for free because she was my friend.
2. She asked me (i’m a trained makeup artist) to do her makeup as a wedding gift
3. Two of my friends that did photography as a hobby asked me if they could shoot my wedding to start to build up a portfolio. I negotiated a cost with them as originally they did not want to be paid. Amy asked me to have their details. They quoted her a cost because they were not friends with her. She booked them. They asked for a deposit and she said she didn’t have the cash but she definitely wants to book them. They then followed up with her as they needed to take a day off to shoot the wedding. She said she couldn’t afford it but still really wanted them to do it. After them bringing their price down and saying they don’t need a deposit the both took the day. One week later she sent them a message saying she can’t afford it again. And BLOCKS them on facebook so they can’t respond
4. She created a facebook event for the wedding to post all her rules for the wedding in the most aggressive way

eg “ if I see a phone of someones I will throw it into the field”“ I don’t give a fuck that you want to watch the ceremony it has nothing to do with you its about me and Kaleb, don’t come if you have that attitude”
“ The food is the food, if you don’t like it. Go hungry or don’t come”
“ It is not an open bar, I’m already paying for your finger food. Don’t be moochers”And so so much more. I’ll see if I can find a post I screenshotted.

1. Questioned me when I said my mum was going to bead my dress, as she used to make my ballet costumes and it was just going to make it that much more special.This last part was the straw that broke the camel's back: unfortunately this same year my then fiance tore his ACL and completely obliterated his meniscus, thus needing a knee reconstruction a month out from Amy’s Wedding.At this point, I had organised her bridal shower (she didn’t want a hens) at my house, booked a singer, bought decorations, and started accumulating bottles of champagne and drinks. And this was how my day was set out the day of her wedding:

Drive 30 mins to help decorate the barn for reception in the morningDrive back home to do Amy’s makeup, help her get ready and drive her back to the location of the wedding for her ceremony at 3pm.Drive back home as there was a good 3ish hours between the ceremony and reception then go back for the party.This was all agreed to. I was more than fine doing it. As my fiance was going to look after our daughter that day. That was until my fiance had his surgery exactly a month before Amy’s wedding and he relied heavily on me after. The Surgeon said his meniscus was the worst he had ever seen. I already was burnt out with working, looking after my daughter and fiance on top of helping with wedding prep and still planning my own weddingNo one was available to have our daughter while I ran around through the day, she was going to my FIL while we actually attended the wedding. She was 2 months off turning 2 so she would not have coped with all of the running around either.I decided the only option was to be 100% transparent with Amy and let her know the situation and that I needed to take a step back. I told her that I was only able to commit to doing her makeup on the day of her wedding and one of the other bridesmaids was happy to take her to the ceremony. I let her know the Shower was still good to go ahead. I had organised most of it and would have the help of my mum and FIL that day.
Surprisingly she took it really well. Said she understood and that was all good. Everything was fine. Or so I thought.While at work the next day, our friend Marcus came up to me asking why Amy had changed the venue of the bridal shower. I had no idea. He pulled his phone out and showed me and there it was, change of venue and time to a small cafe. The plan now, everyone just buys their own lunch. I was so confused. When I finished work I messaged Amy asking what was going on.She explained that she was trying to take stuff off my plate. I do understand why she did it, I just thought it was a little disrespectful to change the plans of an event, without letting the person that was organising the event know… I let her know that too.She apologised but there was something that still felt unresolved. We had a mutual friend putting up stories and tagging her that were along the lines of the world doesn’t revolve around you. I could tell she was bitching about me to this friend.The next day Marcus sends me a message asking why Amy had made a new event for her shower. I went to check the old event and it had been cancelled. And what do you know, I wasn’t invited to the new event. I was uninvited to an event that I was planning. But yet I hadn’t heard anything about it from Amy, nor had she felt it necessary to cancel me to do her makeup. I know her, she was fully intending on uninviting hoping I wouldn’t know/find out and still have me attend her wedding and do her makeup. Leading up to this I pretty much had decided I was just going to slowly phase her out after her wedding. Let her have her day and part ways. But this was my breaking point. I had kept my mouth shut, I wanted her to have her day. I couldn’t anymore.I sent her the most epic break up message in existence. I went off. I was done. I blocked her, and that was the end.Through mutual friends, I got to see photos and I was pettily delighted to see that she clearly couldn’t book another makeup artist for the wedding or probably refused to pay for one and all she had was mascara and she looked washed out.
The day of her wedding was of course my husbands birthday so we got to celebrate him which was a wonderful thing after the rough recovery he was having.I have no idea how she is. But I do know she separated from her husband and she had her own son around the same time I had mine in 2020 which I also find so weird.As for me, I managed to get married 3 days before the whole world went into lockdown in 2020. We welcomed our second bub at the end of the same year and are still extremely happy. Unfortunately Jerry and I are no longer friends, of course he chose his cousin's side. But I still have love for him.
https://preview.redd.it/3senqpeu022b1.png?width=1125&format=png&auto=webp&s=6602f2d548f8fa8884c205c0b6934aee00c0b815
Photos from the Facebook event

This match is now over. Join the post match discussion here

FT: Ross County 3-3 St Johnstone

Ross County scorers: Yan Dhanda (54' PEN), Jordan White (69'), Jack Baldwin (90')
St Johnstone scorers: Stevie May (24', 51' PEN), Ryan McGowan (90'+5')
Venue: ?
Auto-refreshing reddit comments link
LINE-UPS
Ross County
Ross Laidlaw, Jack Baldwin, Dylan Smith, Keith Watson, Victor Loturi David Cancola, Nohan Kenneh, Yan Dhanda Jordan Tillson, George Harmon, Connor Randall, Jordan White, Simon Murray Alex Samuel.
Subs: Ross Munro, Josh Sims, Ben Purrington.
^{____________________________}
St Johnstone
Ross Sinclair, Andrew Considine, Liam Gordon, Ryan McGowan, Adam Montgomery, James Brown, Cameron Ballantyne Daniel Phillips, Cameron Macpherson David Wotherspoon, Graham Carey, Drey Wright Connor Mclennan, Stevie May Zak Rudden.
Subs: Christopher Kane, Tony Gallacher, Alex Mitchell, Jack Wills, Jamie Murphy.
MATCH STATS via BBC

	Ross County	St Johnstone
Possession	53%	47%
Shots	14	10
Shots on Target	8	5
Corners	6	4
Fouls	15	15

MATCH EVENTS via ESPN
18' Jordan White (Ross County) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
24' Goal! Ross County 0, St. Johnstone 1. Stevie May (St. Johnstone) right footed shot from outside the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Drey Wright.
41' Keith Watson (Ross County) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
51' Goal! Ross County 0, St. Johnstone 2. Stevie May (St. Johnstone) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
54' Goal! Ross County 1, St. Johnstone 2. Yan Dhanda (Ross County) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the top left corner.
56' Substitution, Ross County. Alex Samuel replaces Simon Murray.
68' Substitution, St. Johnstone. Daniel Phillips replaces Cammy Ballantyne II.
68' Substitution, St. Johnstone. David Wotherspoon replaces Cameron MacPherson.
69' Goal! Ross County 2, St. Johnstone 2. Jordan White (Ross County) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by Nohan Kenneh.
79' Substitution, Ross County. David Cancola replaces Victor Loturi.
85' Substitution, Ross County. Jordan Tillson replaces Yan Dhanda because of an injury.
86' Substitution, St. Johnstone. Zak Rudden replaces Stevie May.
88' Substitution, St. Johnstone. Connor McLennan replaces Drey Wright.
90' Goal! Ross County 3, St. Johnstone 2. Jack Baldwin (Ross County) left footed shot from outside the box to the bottom right corner. Assisted by George Harmon.
90'+5' Goal! Ross County 3, St. Johnstone 3. Ryan McGowan (St. Johnstone) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner following a corner.
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I am flairing this as Traffic although this may be criminal, but I wasn’t so sure. So I was applying for apartments the other day since I am moving and one of the background checks run through one of the apartment sites shows me with a criminal record.
I’ll give a bit of info that isn’t revealing. It is for Montgomery County, Pa labeled as “Following too closely” for a date almost 8 years ago. The docket shows very minimal information aside from name and dates.
I don’t remember anything about being in that area at the time as it was 8 years ago, nothing has come of it until now, and I also may have been across the state since the date of infraction is a date that I’d have to be back at school.
I’d like to get this resolved, I don’t know if there is anyway to get this removed or anything. Thanks in advance!

Ang hirap magisip, bakit ba ako pa ang naassign dito ni ako nga d pa kasal char! Solocit sana ako ng inputs pls. Ang set up kasi ng pa bridal shower namin is sa videoke room. Sana game na wala masyado kelangan o zero props at all. So far ang nasa listahan ko pa lang is wedding word scramble lol! I need 2 more huhu

Sorry long post i also have dyslexia so if I've spelled everything wrong im sorry. I also changed everyone's names
Ridiculous drama of "Nell" What the hell do i do? Im going to be head bridsmaid at my friends wedding in june "Tina", im very excited as we are great friends. The problem is one of the other bridesmaids, oh my goodness this lady dosn't know how to exist if shes not the center of atention. I assumed she would step back a bit in the leadup to the wedding, let the bride to be shine more. She has not and at any spare moment brings up her own life drama as a way of diverting more attention. This was honesty unsurprising to me as i have know "Nell" for a while on and off but it got super real a fiew months ago when she decided to devorce her husband... prepare yourself for the spicy drama🔥 Ive known "Nell" for a while through mutual friends at my local church and know her to be a very problematic person in general dateing alot and leaving broken hearted guys in her wake. I never judged her for this and even offered my support to her multiple times. But on and off for years every time i would see her she was daiting a new person. Never botherd me as i said i considered us to be friends and wished her all the best. In 2021 "Nell" got married i sang at her wedding it was a very odd wedding id been to quite a fiew weedings during 2021 as it was post covid many friends of mine had been waiting a while to get married "Nell's" wedding was a whole different vibe so disorganised (the videographer who was supposed to be organising the live stream of the wedding to the grooms family was late, as in arrived after the wedding was set to have started) Even after waiting for this videographer to set up the wedding was over in under 2 or 3 hours. 🤔 They exchainged vows we sang had some hastaly organised finger food and it was over there was barely anywhere to sit at the venue. The two of them had only been together for maybe a year at that point and this was coming off the heels of "Nell" being in a very serious relationship with another guy that ended in his heart break and her imidiatly moving on, no tears shead. So the wedding didn't feel like it had the highest chances of success. Again none of my business i wished them the best. 2022: "Nell" and new husband "Andy" buy an envestmet propery leveraging the property that Nell was given by her parent's after getting married they also buy two new cars using "Nells" new husbands steady income to approove all these lones.
2023 April: "Nell" messages me (a week after stating her and her new husband were trying for a baby) that they are seperating Im confused and way to busy organising "Tina's" bridal shower to ask more quiestions. Me and "Tina" were invited to a sleepover! "Nell" shares with us during the course of the night that she has been cheeting on both her husband "Andy" and her previous very serious boyfriend "Jackson" infact she had been seeing another man since 2018. she wanted us to tell her it was all ok. "Tina" even said "if it makes you happy its ok"!!!😮😮 Nell admitted the only reason she got married was because she wanted to get out of her parents house i believe she knew they would give her a house if she got married to a nice Christian boy. This is where this time line gets ridiculous!! 2018: she starts sleeping with this other man lets call him "Greg" 2019: Starts daiting "Jackson" the good cristian boy number 1 with a good job. 2020: breaksup with "Jackson" starts dating richer easier to manipulate "Andy" 2021: Andy and Nell get married 2022: Many large finacial investments are made house🏠 two cars🚘🚙 Early2023: Nell uses the promise of starting a family to get him to sign all these documents to buy all these things and immediately after decides to divorce him As i said the house she was given by her parents was used as leverage for the other investmet property and cars. And because she insisted they use her bank in the devorce he will probably get nothing and get skrewed unless he can pay for the cars or the house outringt. Oh my god And ubove all this she has invited her new bo "Greg" the man she has been having sex with since 2018. To a party this friday and expects us all the welcome in this new man into our social group like all the previous guys no problem. Oh my god she is a straight up psychopath the way she moves emotionlessly from man to man taking everything they have i don't want to be anywhere neer her. But i have to be associated with her atleast until after "Tina's" wedding as we are both bride's maids. She keeps trying to get me to tell her she is in the right. What do i do??? Do i tell "Andy" (who i know) she cheated on him? Do i tell "Jackson" (who i know) she cheated on him? Should i tell "Andy" to get a better devorce lawyer? Do i tell no one and pretend all is well? Do i tell "Nells" parents? Please help

SO (28 M) and I (27 F) have been together for over 5 years. Our wedding is this weekend. My main concern (and reason for posting) is that I’m dealing with an extremely toxic FMIL and while my SO sees this, he seriously struggles with standing up to her, going against her, or rocking the boat in any way.
FMIL has always been an issue in our relationship. Some early examples of her character: calling my SO “the dumb one” in a eulogy (I took issue with him being publicly humiliated), trying to convince him I was flirting with his friend (right after we told her we were moving 2 hours away…interesting timing IMO), texting SO’s exes and talking to me about them and vice versa, pushing alcohol on his friends when they were in high school (she always allowed SO to host parties at her home because her priorities were being the “cool mom” and him being a popular athlete. Note that she doesn’t even drink herself)… the list goes on.
Since we’ve been engaged, she’s been nothing but trouble. SOME examples: - She invited random cousins we don’t know to the wedding before we even made a list, and threw an absolute fit when we told her she had to uninvite them. - She called us out of the blue one day saying she wanted to surprise us with bagpipes at our wedding, but since she’d mentioned the idea to my sister and mom, decided to run it by us (because they told her to!!!). She had “Kenny coming at 6:30 to play the bagpipes” - a fully formulated plan that didn’t fit our vision at all. When we politely told her no thank you, we had already paid for music, it was World War 3… crying, gaslighting, the works. - I invited her to come wedding dress shopping and she replied “nope that’s not my thing.” Okay, fine… but after I showed her photos of the dress, she somehow found it online and began showing the webpage to people. Cool… When I asked her to please stop, she acted like I was being crazy. - She and 8+ friends arrived at my bridal shower an hour early and stood in the corner and my mom and sister ran around the venue setting up, didn’t offer to help once. When her table was ready, she sat down before my sister (who worked her butt off) could take pictures.
Now, she’s throwing a fit about us not hosting a post- wedding brunch that includes her friends. The brunch we’re financially able to host includes the wedding party and immediate family - no friends of either parents or outside of the wedding party. Again, there’s crying, yelling, and gaslighting when she’s told that we just can’t afford it. Note that she was never offering to help pay, just complaining about her friends not being invited.
I’ve tried very hard to make things peaceful with her but she’s relentless. My SO is her oldest son, and he’s very clearly the favorite but he’s also been treated as a show pony by her. She claims to be the #1 mother in the world, but was extremely emotionally abusive when raising him. I just feel like there’s no winning no matter what I do.
TL;DR: FMIL has always been a difficult, lying, gaslighting narcissist. My SO sees it but basically melts when it comes to standing up to her. I don’t know what to do and I’m terrified to marry him. I love him more than anything but I’m so worried about this woman becoming a part of my life forever.

Saw this post by the promoter:
Please be advised, Dream Theater originally scheduled at Wild Things Park in Washington, PA will be moving to 1st Summit Arena @ Cambria County War Memorial in Johnstown, PA on the same date (June 27, 2023).
Please be advised, all tickets will be honored for the new venue and event organizers are working with the new venue to transfer all tickets to the newly designated venue.
If you would like to request a refund, you will have up until Monday, May 29th at 10AM ET to request a refund. To request: - Please submit a formal refund request via your Eventbrite account. To learn more, please visit the link below. - Please provide a reason for request
If you would like to keep your ticket: - No further action is required - As this is a new venue, please allow for a delayed delivery of your new tickets and seating location - If you have any specific accommodation requests, please reach out no later than 2 weeks prior to the day of the event so we can best accommodate any seating requests (i.e. ADA accommodations)
Refund Request: bit.ly/EBRefundRequest 🎟️ bit.ly/DreamsonicPA*
ETA for people just skimming: This isn't simply a case of shifting to a new venue a few miles away. This is adding travel time on the scope of nearly 2 hours away from the original venue, at nearly 100 miles difference, on a week (work) night, with a show that has an already earlier than normal start time. My own one-way travel time went from an original 45 minutes now to 1.5 hours.

I need suggestions desperately 😵‍💫
I’m looking to host a bridal shower in July but every single place I’ve looked, I’m running into dead ends. Either they’re not available in July due to no AC/other events happening, they’re astronomically expensive, etc.
I’m looking for a lowkey, DIY venue that pretty much just costs a reasonable site fee to rent for a couple of hours. Something with a woodsy/beachy/outdoor vibe is preferable but not necessary. I’m not a huge fan of fire/VFW halls because they tend to be a bit… dated lol.
Any help is much appreciated!

Looking for restaurant recommendations in Brooklyn to host a bridal shower with 50-75 guests. Thanks!!

We regret to report that Tulsa Athletic have been required to move venues due to Athletic Community Field at Hicks Park being deemed “not to meet minimum standards” by the NPSL. This decision is presently under appeal as we and eight independent assessors (five conference members, OSA, FC Tulsa, and US Soccer’s Open Cup Commisioner) showed that the venue met and/or exceeded current league minimum standards.
The full listed league minimum standards are below.
Minimum standards for NPSL hosting 📷 Closed stadium (not an open park or a park with temporary enclosures) 📷 Seating for five hundred (500) people 📷 Field size measuring a minimum of 65 yards X 110 yards and a maximum of 80 yards X 120 yards 📷 Locker room for visiting team 📷 Showers onsite for visiting team 📷 Referee locker room/changing area (proper indoor space, not an outside tent/shed/storage fixture; space must not require officials to walk through teams' locker rooms) 📷 Accessible Press Box with power outlets and shelter from rain 📷 WiFi access in Press Box 📷 Stadium lights 📷 Electronic scoreboard and working time clock 📷 Ample sideline space for team benches 📷 Working PA system
We have built an outstanding team this year and are looking forward to competing on the field. We have until May 15th to find that field. Long term, we feel our home is at Athletic Community Field at Hicks Park and will continue to invest time, money, and resources to develop the venue. It is a great little stadium, and we are impacting a great community through the sport of soccer through the facility. Those are pillars of our club and your support is, as always, cherished.
We do plan on playing some friendlies at Athletic Community Field at Hicks Park this year. That and other details will become available the second they are known.

It’s possible that you’ve come across a number of advertisements or websites in and around PA that proclaim, “We pay cash for homes in Montgomery County!”
As one of the most reputablecash house buyers in the region, we at [business] wanted to dig in and create an article on what these kinds of firms can do for a local property seller and how the process works. We also wanted to explain how it works.

Who typically plans the wedding/bridal shower? All those that I've attended seem to have been hosted in honor of the couple and put on by family members. Is this the norm or should the couples/bride be managing the majority of logistics?
Our shower is in a couple months and almost nothing is planned besides the venue. As the bride, it feels like everybody is waiting on me to plan and delegate. I've asked for help from MOH + moms, but it goes nowhere. Am I a bridezilla for wanting to have minimal authority over the shower??

Who typically plans the wedding/bridal shower? All those that I've attended seem to have been hosted in honor of the couple and put on by family members. Is this the norm or should the couples/bride be managing the majority of logistics?
Our shower is in a couple months and almost nothing is planned besides the venue. As the bride, it feels like everybody is waiting on me to plan and delegate. I've asked for help from MOH + moms, but it goes nowhere. Am I a bridezilla for wanting to have minimal authority over the shower??

First of all, I cannot believe this happened at all, let alone 3 days before the wedding.
My sister in law reached out to me and asked for the schedule for hair and makeup the morning of the wedding. I sent it to her and she asked if her time slot could be moved later because she will have her child with her in the morning and didn’t know how much time she would have. I told her it was okay if her child was there a few weeks ago, however, the wedding ceremony itself is child free. He is currently 6 months old, so I know it’s difficult.
For some background.. I told her he could be at everything, including the reception, EXCEPT for the ceremony. All I wanted was 15 minutes of peace during that time. She originally declined being a bridesmaid due to this and said she only would if her family could babysit. A few weeks after I asked, she reached out to me and let me know her family could babysit and I thought all issues had been resolved.
Back to the current issue- she asked if she could have a different time slot in the morning and I gave it to her and then reassured her that I don’t want her to feel rushed to get over to where we are getting ready since she won’t be starting until later and she will have him with her. I meant this in the way she wanted it, it’s difficult to travel with a child, I understand, and I didn’t want her to feel like she had to rush to get him collected early in the morning. We have been very good friends for at least 5 years, we have never had any issues. She took this text in the worst way possible. I was absolutely floored.
She interpreted the text as me not WANTING her there any earlier, said she feels unwelcome and that she is an inconvenience. She said to cancel her time slots and she no longer wishes to come get ready with us and she will “see me at the venue”…. I can kind of see how she would maybe think I didn’t want him there earlier from the way I worded the text if she didn’t know me very well and if she hadn’t literally asked me to move her time slots.. however.. we have had a very good relationship the whole time she’s been with my brother and I’m deeply hurt that she thinks I would ever try and make her feel this way. She continued to go on about how she’s been feeling this way and how stressful it’s been to find child care..
I truly can’t believe she wouldn’t have reached out to me sooner if she genuinely felt so unwelcome for so long even though I’ve made it very clear to both of them that he could come to everything except for the ceremony. She had to bring him to my bridal shower but this was never an issue with me. Both my brother and sister in law made a huge deal and apologized up and down but I never said he couldn’t come in the first place. She was throwing the shower and he didn’t feel well so she wanted to be with him and I never portrayed in anyway that I was displeased by this.
She made the decision to be a bridesmaid and she said her family would be here. How is her having trouble finding childcare, which she told me was taken care of, suddenly something that’s my fault?
I seriously am so caught off guard and I do not know what to do. I immediately explained what I actually meant, and told her he obviously was welcome and that it wasn’t an issue and was never an issue for him to get ready with us, I was just literally doing what she asked. She half apologized for “coming off strong”, expressed her concerns again and said she’d still like to get ready with us but she will have to leave even earlier.
I’m truly shocked that she’s been feeling this way and that she didn’t pick up the phone and call me, say something to me in all the times I’ve seen her recently and that she decided to say something a few days before hand. She also mentioned how upset she was that she couldn’t come to the rehearsal because she would be with him.. I never said he couldn’t come. She never asked me. When she RSVPd no I figured she wanted to stay home with him since she wouldn’t be with him for part of the following day. Apparently, she asked my other sister in law about if kids were invited. I told sister in law 2 (who actually asked me if kids could come) no because her kids run around and scream and I genuinely didn’t think they would be well behaved enough for the restaurant my in-laws chose for the rehearsal dinner. I also can never have a conversation with them without being interrupted abruptly by their children constantly. I seriously don’t know why I wasn’t asked directly due to him being much younger and not as much of an issue in that way.
If she’s worried about being an inconvenience she certainly is now. I spent a few hours yesterday crying about it and I don’t know what to do. I wish I had more time to process this because now it’s so awkward and so unnecessary and now I don’t even know if I want her there. I’m getting married Saturday, obviously already incredibly anxious and I don’t know what to do now.
TLDR: sister in law that I have a good relationship with (or so I thought?) misinterpreted my meaning behind a text and sort of blew up. Said she wanted to back out of all bridesmaid activities except for the ceremony. Half made up and wants to do everything again. Not sure where to go from here or how to process this close to the wedding.

So this is a genuine question as I’ve never been a bridesmaid before but a friend of mine asked me to be one (many months ago and I happily said yes) and the wedding is later this summer. It’s not in my home country, in fact it’s about an 11 hour flight away so it involves travel and a few nights in a hotel to cover all the events and account for the time it’ll take to get there.
So far I’ve had to pay for everything, flights (which I’d expect to pay for), hotel (which I assumed I’d have to book but some people have told me I shouldn’t have had to pay for this if I’m in the bridal shower, or at least not all of it ), my dress (which the bride has been chill about once it was a certain colour but I paid for it ), hair and make up (which I’d have to pay for too but I declined because I actually can’t afford to spend more) and I’m also expected to give a gift (which is to be money). I don’t know for certain but I feel like I’ll also be covering transport to and from venues, but this wasn’t explicitly said just that I would be getting taxis and they’d be easy to come by. I never really thought that bride would cover all of these (maybe hair and make up) but people I’ve talked to said this is really unusual and bridesmaids wouldn’t normally have to pay for everything? Especially if it’s in a different country and I’m travelling so far.
In total it’s going to cost me 3.5k plus (I maybe could have shaved 500/600 off I booked flights earlier but not a whole bunch different) ….anyway it all sort of added up and I didn’t think about it at the time but is it usual for the bride not to offer to cover anything for a bridesmaid? Im not annoyed just surprised and wondering what the etiquette is.