weddings

A bridesmaid had to take 80 dead goldfish home after bride's idea goes horribly wrong.

We all know the role of Maid of Honour is pretty much to deal with any crazy request the bride throws your way with little objection, right?

…Even if it’s something as ridiculous as filling 40 glass bowls with goldfish and ensuring none are caught sleeping on the big day.

Yep. One maid of honour was tasked with discarding dead goldfish on her best friend’s wedding day after the bride’s bizarre desire to decorate each table with a fish bowl centrepiece went slightly… wrong.

Team Mamamia confess the worst request they’ve received as a bridesmaid:

Because precisely no one wanted to take a goldfish home with them as the bride had planned, because of course they didn’t.

The woman shared her hilarious story on Reddit, and the ending is oddly heartwarming.

“I was MOH for my (then) best friend. It was a fairly casual affair and she wasn’t as big a monster as most of the stories here, with the exception of this one tiny thing,” the anonymous post to the “bridezilla” thread began.

“The venue offered a variety of glass containers the bride could fill with whatever she wanted. Tall cylindrical vases, decorative platters, bowls, globes. Which shape she chose would depend upon what the bride chose to display in it. Did she want flowers? Candles? Pebbles? No, she had a better idea,” the woman explained.

ADVERTISEMENT

This is where her story starts to take an odd turn:

“You see, ex-friend was an animal lover. On and off again vegetarian/vegan, PETA supporter, etc. She was especially fond of fish. With that in mind, how cute would it be to have a pair of goldfish in a globe as a centrepiece? Real, live goldfish – a pair of them (to represent the couple, see?) – on each and every table, all 40 of them.”

The woman went on to explain that while she was happy to fulfill whatever wish the bride had, her goldfish idea raised some concerns. Particularly why, as an animal lover, she would want to put 100 goldfish through the stress of a wedding, possibly leading to their watery deaths.

But the bride was more concerned at what an off-putting eyesore floating, dead goldfish would be at the table while people were eating.

(I mean, fair).

“That can be your job during the reception,” the bride told her maid of honour. “Just keep an eye out for dead ones and replace them before anyone notices. They’re called feeder fish for a reason. They don’t live long, everyone knows that. We’ll buy them that morning, they only need to survive through the reception.”

ADVERTISEMENT

May we remind you this bride LOVES ANIMALS.

Considering the woman’s multiple objections, the bride decided to go ahead and purchase said fish on her own, without her maid of honour’s help.

Here’s what happened on the day:

“I didn’t have a lot of time to spare during the reception to watch over all 40 centrepieces, but I did catch a few floaters,” the woman recalled.

“‘Luckily’, the happy couple had spares in the back. They’d bought roughly a hundred that morning. Three cents a piece, what a bargain. Floating tealights would have been so much more expensive, you know? Besides, everyone uses those. The goldfish are unique. Memorable. Just like the bride!” she continued.

But the best part of the story took place after the wedding, when the maid of honour was left with 80 forgotten goldfish that none of the guests – surprisingly – had opted to take home (partly because the bride hadn’t thought to provide containers).

With the wedding hall hosts and venue operators desperate to clear up the plates of half-eaten cake, and the bride and groom off on their honeymoon, the maid of honour took one for the team.

“That night I strolled into a big-box pet store in my big floofy red satin floor length gown, heels clacking on the tiles, and purchased a big ass rectangular tank, a filter, and some fish flakes.

“A few were dead by the time I got home, then more the next morning. More again in the afternoon, and the evening, and the next morning.

ADVERTISEMENT

“By the third day, we were down to five, and we lost one a day after that until there was only one left.”

But the plot twist to end all plot twists? The maid of honour duty from hell saw the start of a beautiful new friendship:

“And that last one? Five years. I named it Sun. It lingered far longer than my friendship with the bride, and far far longer than her marriage.”

And that, my friends, is the greatest tale of going home with someone after a wedding we’ve ever heard.

(Of course in this case it wasn’t a drunken groomsman… it was 80 nearly-dead goldfish).

Reddit users responded to the post with hilarious outrage:

“It would be a cute idea except it’s a ridiculously terrible idea,” one said.

Another had a twisted revenge plot:

“I would’ve taken the dead ones and mailed them to her individually, sending each one on the day it died and including a number card. 1 of 100, 2 of 100, 3 of 100…”

But our favourite?

“The real shame is that according to law all those fish were unwittingly married during the ceremony as well. Dozens of unwanted marriages, and then they had to watch their spouses die one by one,” one said.

Christ…