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r/AITAH
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Posted by u/Born-Bottle1190
16 hours ago

'AITA for not replacing $400 worth of flowers at a wedding?' 'I went home pissed.'

Okay Reddit so this happened back in 2021 when I was 22m. My good friend from childhood was getting married. I was invited as a guest, and was really excited to go. My friend invited me to his apartment the night before to get hammered and have one last hoorah before he got married the next day.

At about 11:00pm the night before the wedding, the future FIL calls my friend and says “hey so I need you to come over tomorrow at 8am or so to help me prepare the yard for the wedding reception.” So then me and the other friend that was at the groom’s apartment end up getting roped into helping with chores the next day.

I could have refused but said yes to be nice because it was my first time being a guest at a wedding and I thought it wasn’t abnormal to ask for help.

I’ll admit I was slightly annoyed because I was under the impression I’d be able to roll out of bed at 9-10am and would have plenty of time for some hair of the dog and getting ready for the wedding. If I knew I’d be waking up at 7am to do manual labor, I wouldn’t have gotten so drunk.

We wake up hungover the next day at 7am and go to do the chores. The FIL has a whole list, including sanding his benches, weed whacking and cutting grass, trimming hedges, and a bunch of other odds and ends, making me realize we were going to be there doing hard sweaty manual labor while hungover all for free for the next 2 hours minimum, the morning of the wedding I’m supposed to be a guest at.

The FIL asks me to trim his flowers. I said I didn’t know how to trim flowers. He said “please, it’s not hard, just cut anything that looks dead.” And hands me a pair of trimmers.

I proceed to spend the next 30-45 minutes trimming up his flowers, cutting off everything I think looks “dead”. So in my mind, Im supposed to be cutting off everything that isn’t attached to the flowers and their petals. I cut off all the vines and weeds.

FIL sees how much I trimmed off in the trash can and investigates the job I did. He immediately starts making outbursts about how I “butchered them” for cutting off the weeds and vines. At this point I feel bad and say I’m sorry, that I just did what he said and cut off everything that didn’t look like it was an alive flower, just as he requested.

He condescendingly made comments about how “what adult doesn’t know what a vine is” and how I should know that flower weeds are a “healthy part of the entire plant”

Anyways I just chalked it up to him being stressed, apologized again, and we finished helping him with other things. Finally we go home and I get ready for the wedding. As more people arrive, the story about the flowers starts spreading around. The FIL/MIL makes a big production about dragging a bunch of people to the local flower shop and replacing all of the flowers in the backyard, totaling about $400, and makes it a point to tell everyone at the wedding (including the photographer and musicians) about me being the guy who ruined the flowers.

The whole day the family just kept talking shit about me to other guests and giving me dirty looks, and I kind of became the running gag of the wedding.

I went home pissed because it ruined my experience at the wedding, especially considering I did all this free labor for the guy THE DAY OF THE WEDDING THAT I WAS SUPPOSED TO JUST BE A GUEST AT. I told him I wasn’t a florist and was hungover and didn’t know what I was doing, but he insisted.

A couple weeks went by and my friend’s wife messaged me through his phone that I owe her family the $400 and she’s going to sue me if I don’t pay up. I laughed and said good luck getting my money and then proceeded to not really talk to my friend for the next 3 years.

AITAH for not paying the $400, or was it the FIL fault for not hiring a florist or doing it himself?

Comments (37)

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u/Dull_Zucchini9494 • 1h ago

This is a lesson of "You get what you pay for" They tried to get free labor out of their guests instead of hiring professional labor. No reason to have guests mow the lawn or whatever. You expressed you didn't know what you were doing and your concern was discarded. He should have at least demonstrated for a few minutes what was required. He didn't and it ended up being botched but that's on him for handing the task to someone unqualified.

I would have just refused citing my lack of florist training and give his scissors back to him. I honestly wouldn't have done any of the labor for them and tell them I'll see them at the ceremony and reception.

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u/PotatoMonster20 • 6h ago

Lol

NTA

The FIL hired you, at a rate of $0/hour to do a job you weren't trained for.

He knew you didn't know how. Because you told him.

If he's unhappy with the results, that's fine. You can give him back all of the money he paid you.

Hell, just to be generous, you can pay him back 5x the amount he paid you.

B
u/blucougar57 • 2h ago

NTA.
Tell you’ll pay him for the flowers when he pays you for your labour.

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u/ahfuckinegg • 8h ago

should have said "I'm invoicing your father for $400, that's my $200/hr emergency/weekend rate for yard work, so everything is square, right?"

K
u/Kickapoogirl • 6h ago

NTA, but they all are. prep like that should have been done by qualified people, not hung over guests of the wedding.

S
u/Sea-Ad9057 • 1h ago

tell them you will refund all the money they paid you to do the job

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u/DawnShakhar • 6h ago

Do you really need to ask? I'm usually one to take stories at face value, but this is so absurd I'm having a hard time believing it.

Assuming it really happened, did they try to sue? It could make for another funny story.

O
u/Own_Breakfast_570 • 5h ago

NTA but has your friend ever reached out to talk or did he give up trying with you too cause of his new family?

T
u/Thisisthenextone • 6h ago

ESH

You didn't do what was asked. He asked you to trim ***flowers*** not the plants. Get rid of obviously dead ***flowers***.

You are an idiot, but you don't owe money.

In the future don't agree to help when you don't want to. It's not that unusual for close friends to help set up weddings that are at someone's house. I helped for nearly a week to set up my friend's wedding. Say no if you don't want to help your friend. It's ok to say no.

They shouldn't be charging you money. They're not wrong to think you're an idiot though. You were asked to trim ***flowers*** off and you took out anything that wasn't a flower. If you were asked to hand water to adults, would you start handing vodka to children? That's the equivalent to what you did. You went for the opposite thing and did the opposite of what you were told. You went to non-flowers and killed the living non-flowers.

Source:   Reddit

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