My wife and I eloped but her family crashed our wedding — it was stalker-level crazy

A man claimed he and his wife eloped to avoid his wife’s “crazy” family — but they traveled 1,000 miles to crash the wedding anyhow. 

Posting in the Reddit thread r/weddingshaming last month, the new husband, 26, going by the name GLL420, explained that he and his wife, also 26, decided to elope after they found out she was pregnant. 

They planned to bring a group of four close friends to Colorado for the secret wedding, so they rented an RV and a big romantic Airbnb and also hired a photographer and videographer. 

‘We strategically picked Colorado because of 1. The views and 2. it was so far from our families,’ he detailed in the post.

Not only would inviting his wife’s big family to a wedding, even a local one, be expensive, but “her family is crazy,” he explained.

“She was raised in a house with a manipulative addict,” the man bemoaned. He said that his mother-in-law’s brain is fried from years of abusing pills, and she raised her kids with the mentality that “family is all you have” so that they wouldn’t abandon her. 

“She doesn’t understand what’s going on most of the time, or at least pretends not to. But reacts like a child when met with confrontation,” he said of the mom later in his post. 

Just as the man and his new wife were about to get married — they got a phone call.

“Her entire family, mom, dad, sisters, sisters, boyfriends, all drove over a thousand miles to crash our wedding,” he said, adding his wife made the mistake of telling her sister about the elopement. 

Disaster ensued.

Her family welcomed themselves into their Airbnb and followed them to the wedding — where the intruders hijacked it by making it “about family” and interrupting the ceremony to “pray.”

After the wedding, the family insisted they all have a party at the Airbnb, and the new bride — who wasn’t drinking because she was pregnant — had to reveal that secret to everyone. 

“Immediately everything went much further downhill. Her mom had found a new target in our unborn child. The future of manipulated children who would never be able to leave her side. She was thrilled,” he wrote. 

“This was no longer about our marriage, it was about her daughter getting married. No longer about our baby it was about her grandbaby,” he said. 

His wife’s family refused to leave, and the photographer stopped taking pictures because “everyone looked so miserable,” he added.

“After all was said and done we had a ruined ceremony, 140 pictures, 0 video and no after movie,” he said.

“We didn’t get to go to the ice skating rink, no ice sculptures didn’t get to go to Denver, and our first dinner as a married couple was eaten separately. We were supposed to have 800 pictures, two videos, and one ‘movie’ of the whole weekend combined,” he added.

They also lost a “ton of money” and didn’t have a chance to hand in their marriage certificate. 

“Her mother and sisters almost cost us a marriage with [zero] remorse. It’s been a stressful month and I’m just glad it’s over,” he wrote.

Commenters below his post were appalled by the situation.

“Sounds like a nightmare. I encourage you both to make moves to cut these people out of your life so you can be surrounded by family that ACTUALLY love you and not let your child and any future children grow up in an environment of eternal strife,” one person recommended.

“I am so sorry this happened to you. I hope you and your wife can have a ‘redo’ at some point,” another said. 

Others said the man and his wife played a part in letting her mom crash the wedding.

“Why did they have the address to your Airbnb? Why, when they showed up, did you let them in? Why did you not try to keep them out of the venue somehow? I understand they followed you, but could you have called ahead and asked for security?” another commenter said. 

“I’m not trying to blame you and your wife for her family’s frankly bonkers behavior. But the time to stop going along to get along is NOW. Keep them out of your marriage, if not your wedding. Protect your relationship, and your wife’s pregnancy, and your eventual baby from them,” their post continued. 

“Your wife needs therapy and you need to have a serious conversation and set clear, explicit boundaries as a couple ASAP before the baby gets her,” another said. 

“Ultimately you’re both grown adults who could have shut this nonsense down. You could have removed them from the venue, you could have removed them from the Air B&B. But you didn’t. You won’t have a choice when the baby arrives,” they added.