Bride's Mom Tries to Steal Wedding Cake and Replace It with 'Cheap' Sheet Cake Because She 'Didn't Get Her Way'

Mar. 15, 2025

A bride and groom cut their wedding cake (stock image).Photo:Getty

Bride and a groom is cutting their rustic wedding cake on wedding banquet. Hands cut the cake with delicate flowers.

Getty

A guest is sharing “one of the wildest things” they’ve ever seen at a wedding, describing the incident as being like a scene from “some terrible heist movie.”

In a post onReddit’s “Wedding Shaming” forum, the guest explained that they once attended a “big New York-New Jersey wedding” which began smoothly with a church service that went “off without a hitch.” But when it was time for the newlyweds and their families to pose for professional photos, “the first sign of trouble” emerged.

“The bride’s mother starts throwing a fit that the bride’s family should have priority for photos. She actually physically stopped the photographer from taking a group shot of about fifteen people to make them wait for her family to be ready,” the guest recounted. “The bride looked mortified and the bride’s father and groom’s parents had to step in and keep the mom from causing a scene.”

The guest noted that “somebody let slip” that the bride and groom had funded the entire wedding themselves, and the bride’s mom was still “furious” that she had been excluded from the planning process.

With the drama of the photo session eventually “smoothed over,” the newlyweds and their guests gathered at the reception to celebrate. All seemed well until about an hour into the event, when the catering staff was preparing to serve the food.

“Suddenly there’s shouting from the direction of the kitchen and entrance hall. Alotof shouting,” the guest wrote, before revealing the surprising cause of the commotion.

A sheet cake (stock image).Getty

Blank Sheet Cake with Chocolate Trim Icing on aluminum foil.

“The bride’s mother hadreplaced the cake. In its place she left a sheet cake and was attempting to move the original cake, a beautiful, two-foot-tall number out of the building on a serving cart,” the Redditor continued. “Only a raised lip on the tile floor had kept her from wheeling the cart and cake out the door in a mad dash to the parking lot.”

According to the guest, one of the groomsmen had stepped out of the reception space for a moment, discovered her struggling to get the cart over the bump and “raised the alarm.”

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“Like some terrible heist movie, her whole plan was to steal a several hundred dollar gourmet masterpiece and replace it with a cheap, Walmart-looking cake that had presumably been in the trunk of her car all afternoon and hope nobody noticed. All because she was mad she didn’t get her way,” the guest wrote.

Ultimately, the wedding cake was rescued and the sheet cake was “disposed of.” After her scheme was foiled, the mother of the bride spent the remainder of the reception “sulking” in her car.

A slice of wedding cake on a plate (stock image).Getty

Slice of wedding cake

The bride, meanwhile, managed to keep her “poise” despite her mom’s shocking behavior. “I gather this probably wasn’t the first time her mother went a little crazy,” the guest wrote, concluding their post: “It was certainly one of the most memorable events I’ve ever attended.”

Others expressed their sympathy for the bride having to endure such a stunt on her wedding day.  “I don’t get how a mother who supposedly loves their child could do this,” a user said.

One confused commenter asked the guest what they thought the mom’s intention was in swapping the cakes. “To ‘punish’ her daughter? Make her look bad?” they queried.

In reply, another commenter shared some possible theories: “Maybe she wanted it to be a disaster without her input. Maybe she thought sheet cake would be just fine and wanted to prove herself right. Maybe she planned to eat the whole thing herself in her car out of spite. Who knows how the mind of a person like that works.”

source: people.com