“Bawling for Most of the Day” — Woman Learns Petty Reason She Was Asked to Babysit at Wedding

Jamie Nelson (@jamie.nelson98) has a TikTok account populated with juicy Reddit stories culled from various subs on the popular social media site. She references one post that was uploaded to the site's r/amiwrong sub where a wedding guest, who was initially happy to be invited to the matrimonial celebration realized that it came with a stipulation.

"Am I wrong? I was invited to a wedding but there's a catch. I was so extremely happy to be invited to a wedding, I pulled out the invitation but a little sticky note like dropped out and I looked at the invitation first," she says as she wipes her face down with a piece of cloth.

"It was truly such a beautiful invitation so I stuck it to my fridge, like the artwork that I thought it was."

Jamie continues to talk about the conditional wedding invitation the Redditor says she received. "It was addressed to my husband and I and I was absolutely stoked. I love weddings like so much I tend to get super teary-eyed and just so happy. All the joy and new beginnings and all the love that is just spread throughout a wedding."

The woman went on to state that she loves weddings so much that she "was even a wedding singer." "That's how much I love weddings. So this is where it gets pretty strange. I picked up the invitation and it said that while my husband was invited to the wedding, I would have to sit in a room with a bunch of other women that were invited to babysit kids."

As it turns out, the invitation wasn't so much for Jamie to go and enjoy herself as it was for her to be used as free childcare for the duration of the evening. There's a special room in the church where the kids would be, and that is where I would be for everything. Literally the whole time, but I would still need to dress for a wedding just in case I were in any of the photos," she says.

"I would be with the kids during my meal time and during the ceremony. And then there was a link for their gift registry, oh, and to add our meals for me and my husband would be $100 each. And then there was a link to go pay for our meals ahead of time and RSVP," she says, indicating that the folks throwing the wedding wanted their guests to pay for their food beforehand.

She also added that she "uses a walker to walk long distances" and while she would "happily ... sit in a room [to] watch children" but that her condition wasn't exactly the best child-watching solution as if she needed to "move quickly ... like if they choked" or if she needed to "stop them falling," she would be "pretty much useless at that point."

It's at this point that Jamie's first video on the story ends, but in the Reddit post, the user also specifies that they're 50 years old, and since their husband knows the family in question, it would make more sense for them to look after the children, especially since he offered to do so.

The issue is, however, that the invitation specifically stated that childcare was to be handled by female attendees, so even though he was more than willing to make sure the kids at the wedding weren't getting into trouble so his significant other could enjoy the festivities, she said she doubted that those running the wedding would "let him" even do that.

After interacting with Reddit and going back and forth with some of their questions, and providing a series of updates, she eventually discovered why the mother of the bride, whom she had known for a long time, ultimately wanted her supervising children at the wedding and not watching the ceremony.

It's because they were worried if she came to the wedding in a wheelchair that she would ultimately ruin the aesthetic of the photos. She informed the mom that she could easily sit in the pews.

The mom wasn't happy with that response, stating that her oxygen tank would stick out like a sore thumb and she'd take up too much space.

But the Redditor pushed back, stating that her oxygen tank wouldn't show up in photos at all, as it acts as a little backpack she could hold in her lap or place between her feet.

Unfortunately, the mom still thought the oxygen would be a "distraction," and then she ended up exchanging some "words" with the woman before hanging up.

One Reddit user wrote that she should just peace out of the wedding entirely: "Send your and your husband’s regrets and don’t send a gift. These people are clearly not the friends you thought they were. Everything about this invitation is just wrong."

On TikTok, someone responded to Jamie's video, stating that they were appalled that guests were even being asked to pay for their own dinners ahead of time: "The minute you had to pay for dinner, No. the babysitting is a hell no."

Someone else also found the move to be gauche: "That is literally so tacky. I would decline the invitation and never talk to them again."

And then there was another person who thought of a way to get back at the wedding organizers: "You should decline but say you would still like to get them a gift and include a link where they can pay for their own wedding gift."