COMMENTARY: At this wedding there was room for only one princess

Chloe is a little girl who loves the color pink, wears only dresses and has an array of tiaras she wears everywhere.

So when the 4-year-old and her mom were invited to a wedding recently, “Chloe was excited,” her mother related. “She asked if she could wear her princess tiara and I said, ‘of course.’”

After they got to the wedding there was a delay before the ceremony.

“Fifteen minutes after it was supposed to start, one of the bridesmaids came out and told me that the bride, Jen, was refusing to come out because my daughter was wearing a tiara,” Chloe’s mom posted on Reddit. “I thought she was joking, but she wasn’t. Apparently, the bride was also wearing a tiara and wanted to be the only one wearing it. I told the bridesmaid that Chloe loves tiaras and always wears them.

“The bridesmaid said, ‘Not today, she isn’t,’ and told me it needed to be removed. I said no.”

The groom and the bride’s mother also got into the act. I’m not sure what happened after that. Maybe there was shouting and crying. Screaming and cursing. Whatever there was, Chloe and her mom were escorted out.

So Chloe’s mom sent her account of the incident to a Reddit feature called AITA, which apparently serves as the internet’s version of “Dear Abby.”(If you’re wondering, AITA stands for “Am I The (expletive)?” That last A doesn’t really stand for expletive, but words suitable for the internet tend to make newspaper editors nervous. So you’ll have to fill in the A-word of your choice.)

But instead of wise answers from Abby, AITA reactions are posted by a forum of “redditors.” And, to my surprise, the redditors all sided with the bride.

  • “This day was not about you or your daughter. This situation caused a lot of unnecessary drama on someone else’s day,” one said.
  • “You were asked nicely, but were petulant and entitled. You caused this,” another wrote.
  • ”You don’t wear white to a wedding, and, honestly, I feel a tiara falls into the same category,” a person commented.

Maybe you agree with them. Maybe you don’t. Either way, feel free to email me your thoughts. If nothing else, I might get another column out of them.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering.

Wondering about Chloe. Will she be scarred forever by this incident, or has she already forgotten about it?

Wondering about Chloe’s mom. Is she having second thoughts about not simply taking off her daughter’s tiara?

Most of all, I’m wondering about the groom. Is he having second thoughts about marrying someone so self-centered and immature her happiness was threatened by a little girl’s tiara?

Contact this columnist at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com.

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