Bridesmaid Supported For Causing $500 Cleanup Fee

A bridesmaid revealed in a now-viral post that she left her friend Vanessa's wedding early to avoid cleaning the venue.

Posting in Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" (AITA) forum under the name Jane, the bridesmaid said that, without her help, Vanessa's family couldn't clean the venue in time, and were therefore forced to pay a $500 cleaning fee. The next day, Jane received a long text from Vanessa, blaming her for the unforeseen cost.

The post has garnered more than 15,000 upvotes and over 1,300 comments from Redditors who slammed Vanessa for demanding "free labor" from Jane.

Wedding Duties

At the beginning of her post, Jane said Vanessa's wedding was held at a "remote" mountain lodge. The day before the wedding, the entire wedding party arrived at the venue to conduct a trial run of the ceremony. Jane assumed the bridesmaids would get to relax once the rehearsal was over. Instead, they were put to work.

"[T]he men immediately headed to the liquor store, and the groom and bride's mothers began ordering the bridesmaids to move furniture into place," Jane recalled.

"That night the women did everything from dragging 250 chairs out of the shed and setting them up, to hauling furniture down two flights of stairs and positioning it in other places. Because I was the tallest and strongest person in the group, it was mostly on me to haul the larger pieces around and the mother and mother-in-law of the bride largely stood around talking about details with her," Jane continued.

During the ceremony the following day, Jane learned that Vanessa was trying to avoid paying setup and takedown fees and that she expected the wedding party to clean the venue.

"Toward the end of the party almost everyone had left and I realized that two of the groomsmen were so drunk that they were going to be useless, and it would again be on the bridesmaids to clean up and put all the furniture back up the stairs," Jane said.

So, she left.

"The next day, I woke up to a massive paragraph from Vanessa that said it was my fault that they had to pay the $500 cleanup fee because they weren't able to get everything put back in time," Jane concluded. "AITA?"

Who Should Clean After A Wedding?

Speaking to Martha Stewart Weddings, event planner Merryl Brown said brides shouldn't recruit their bridesmaids to help with post-wedding cleanup. Instead, they should hire a "strike crew."

"It is unwise to rely on family members and the bridal party to clean up after a wedding," Brown said. "While everyone agrees to do these things with the best of intentions, after a night of dancing and drinking, there are very few people that actually want to do this late in the evening."

By hiring a strike crew, Brown says the bridal party can relax, and the newlyweds can avoid paying exorbitant cleaning fees.

Redditor Reactions: Not The A**hole

Redditors slammed Vanessa for being a "cheapskate" and demanding that her bridal party do "heavy labor" for her.

"NTA [not the a**hole]. If the wedding party is going to be doing this kind of work, you should have been ASKED in advance. You can't demand your wedding party do heavy labor like that because you want to be a cheapskate. You can ask, but you can't just expect and demand," wrote u/KaliTheBlaze.

"Absolutely NTA...They just wanted it to be 'too late' for you to back out of it," said u/twethereal. "This was above and beyond 'bridesmaid duties' and you shouldn't be treated like you're the one at fault."

"Anyone who expects their friends as free labor for their wedding to save on paying venue staff doesn't really sound like a good friend, to be honest," added u/Proud_Fee_1542.

Newsweek has reached out to Jane for comment.

Other bridesmaids to go viral after posting in AITA include one who stepped down from her future sister-in-law's wedding party the day before the ceremony, a woman who said she wanted to skip her brother's wedding altogether due to unnecessary bridesmaid dress drama, and a woman who bowed out from being her best friend's maid of honor after learning that her fiancé wasn't invited to the wedding.