It was our wedding day, and everything was supposed to be perfect. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the air smelled like fresh flowers. But despite all the beauty around us, there was one person who made everything a little less bright—my sister-in-law, Jenna.
From the moment the wedding began, Jenna’s mood was off. It was like the sun itself had offended her, and the world wasn’t working in her favor. I stood near the barn, watching the bridal party in their beautiful dresses. The photographer was already snapping photos of everyone laughing and posing happily. But in the middle of it all, Jenna was the only one who couldn’t get into the spirit.
As the bridal party gathered, Jenna dragged her feet. She squinted at the sun, her face a mix of irritation and discomfort. “It’s too hot,” she muttered under her breath, tugging her dress down at the hips. A few steps later, she groaned, “This dress is clinging in weird places.”
When the photographer called for everyone to gather for the bridal party photos, Jenna was still unhappy. She fluffed her hair and shot a glare at her reflection in the car window. “Great. I look like I stuck my finger in an outlet,” she complained.
Nina, my wife, looked over with a soft, concerned expression. She reached out and brushed a stray hair from Jenna’s face. “Here, Jen,” she said, offering a water bottle. “Take a sip. You’ll feel better.”
But Jenna didn’t even acknowledge the bottle. She just stared at it like it was an insult.
I’d heard Nina talk about Jenna’s mood swings before, but seeing them unfold like this on our wedding day was a different story. “Maybe she’s just nervous,” Nina had whispered to me earlier, her voice full of concern. “Big crowds make her anxious.” I nodded, but in my head, I couldn’t help but think that 30 guests hardly counted as a “big crowd.”
As the photographer, Melissa, led everyone out to the beautiful golden fields surrounding the farmhouse venue, it felt like magic. The sun bathed everything in a warm glow, and everyone was laughing and having fun—everyone except Jenna, who always seemed to be on the edge of the group, standing away from everyone else. Nina had tried to bridge the gap between them by making Jenna a bridesmaid, but it was clear that their bond was still fragile.
“Can we get the sisters together?” Melissa asked, her voice cheerful.
Nina’s face lit up as she moved toward her sister. Jenna reluctantly stepped forward, her smile barely visible.
“Put your arm around her waist, Jenna,” Melissa instructed. “That’s perfect!”
But as soon as the first shot was taken, Jenna rolled her eyes, and in the next shot, she forced a fake smile. By the third shot, she was outright sneering. Nina, bless her heart, pretended not to notice. She kept smiling, kept posing, kept trying.
“You two look gorgeous!” I called out, hoping to lift the mood. Nina blew me a kiss, but Jenna muttered something I couldn’t catch. Nina’s brief wince told me everything I needed to know.
Despite Jenna’s sourness, the rest of the day was beautiful. Nina was radiant as she walked down the aisle, her eyes glistening with happy tears. We exchanged our vows under the clear sky, and later danced beneath twinkling fairy lights as the sun set.
Even Jenna seemed to relax after a couple of glasses of champagne.
Later that night, as we lay in our hotel room, Nina snuggled against me and whispered, “Thank you for being so patient today.” I kissed her forehead.
“Your sister didn’t ruin anything,” I said softly. “Nothing could have ruined today.”
Nina sighed. “She tries, you know. In her way.”
I nodded, not knowing how to respond. If that was Jenna trying, I couldn’t imagine what she’d do if she weren’t making any effort at all.
Three weeks later, the photos from the wedding arrived. Nina and I snuggled on the couch, the laptop between us as we clicked through the pictures. Each image brought back a rush of joy—friends laughing, confetti floating in the air like snow, and us in the middle of it all, looking like we’d stepped out of a fairy tale.
“Oh, look at this one,” Nina gasped, pointing to a photo of us surrounded by our friends, confetti falling like snow. “Can we frame this for the living room?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, marking the photo number. We continued scrolling through the pictures, pausing to laugh at some and sigh at others, each one capturing a special moment.
“Wait till everyone sees these,” Nina said, her voice warm with excitement.
She pulled out her phone and sent the link to the bridal party, including Jenna, with a message saying that we planned to post some photos on social media.
I hadn’t even had time to refill our wine glasses before Nina’s phone buzzed with a call. Jenna’s name flashed across the screen.
Nina picked up with a cheerful “Hey, Jen! Did you see the photos? They’re amazing, right?”
Jenna’s voice came through loud and sharp. “You let the photographer capture me looking like THIS?! I look like I just crawled out of a drain!”
Nina’s smile faltered. “What? No, you don’t. You looked beautiful. Just like the rest of us.”
“Are you blind?” Jenna’s voice rose, full of anger. “My hair is frizzy, my dress makes me look fat, and in half the shots, I’m squinting like I’ve never seen sunlight before!”
“It was bright out,” Nina said, her tone calm.
“Not like me!” Jenna screamed. “DELETE every photo I’m in, immediately! If you post even one shot of me looking like that, I swear I’ll never speak to either of you again—and I’ll blast you both online. I mean it, Nina!”
“Jen, please—”
“I’m serious. Delete them, or we’re done!”
The call ended with a harsh click. Nina sat there, phone still in her hand, frozen. Her eyes welled with tears, but she didn’t speak right away. Finally, she whispered, “She always does this. Every time I think we’re making progress…”
I wrapped my arm around her, holding her close. “What progress? She made our wedding day about her, and now she’s making our wedding photos about her too. She’s in almost every picture!”
Nina curled into me. “I just wanted her to feel included. That’s why I asked her to be a bridesmaid. We may not get along, but she’s still my sister…”
The silence that followed was thick. Nina’s breathing was shallow, uneven. Finally, she whispered, “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
That’s when I made a decision.
Jenna had made herself an outsider. So, I would respect her request. After Nina fell asleep that night, I opened the laptop and began to go through the photos, one by one. Every photo Jenna was in, I cropped her out. She had always been on the edge of the group, making it easy to remove her without it being obvious.
Click by click, she vanished from the photos.
When I was done, I posted the ones Nina and I loved most on Facebook. Since Jenna wasn’t in any of them, I figured she couldn’t complain.
I was wrong.
The next afternoon, my phone buzzed with a call from Jenna.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” her voice screamed before I could even say hello. “You’re ERASING me from your wedding? From the family? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stayed calm. “You told us not to use any photos with you in them. So I respected that. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is you took me OUT instead of just not using those pictures!”
“They were our wedding photos, Jenna. We wanted to share them.”
“So you just cut me out? Like I wasn’t even there?” she raged.
“You didn’t want to be in them. I was respecting your wishes.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it!” she shouted, before the line went dead.
That night, when Nina came home from work, I told her what had happened. I expected her to be angry, but she surprised me.
She sat down heavily on the couch and started laughing—a shocked, almost relieved laugh.
“You actually did it,” she said, shaking her head. “You stood up to her.”
“I’m sorry if I overstepped.”
“No,” Nina said, reaching for my hand. “Don’t apologize. Maybe this is what needed to happen.”
The next few days were filled with a constant stream of texts and calls from Jenna (to Nina, not me), from Nina’s parents, and even a couple of cousins. Jenna wouldn’t speak to either of us, and Nina’s parents sent guilt-filled messages about “family harmony” and “being the bigger person.”
Nina listened to all of them, responded politely, but didn’t give in. Each day, she seemed to stand a little taller.
One evening, as we folded laundry side by side, Nina broke the silence.
“I should’ve stopped protecting her years ago,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.
I paused, folding a shirt in my hands. “What do you mean?”
“Jenna. I’ve been making excuses for her my whole life. Fixing what she breaks.” She placed a neatly folded towel on the pile. “It’s exhausting.”
“You don’t have to do it anymore,” I said, my voice full of resolve.
Nina leaned her head on my shoulder. “Thank you.”
It felt like a weight had been lifted. For the first time in a long time, both of us could finally breathe.
