Teen Ruthlessly Ruins Aunt's 'Priceless' Wedding Dress, So Father Forces Her To Hand Over $15k In Savings

Jul 13, 2021

A year ago, a man posted to Reddit's AITA subreddit, in which he recounted a horrific story of how his 16-year-old daughter hacked his sister's wedding dress to pieces. As punishment, he forced her to hand over $15,000 in savings to his sister. But when his ex didn't agree with his punishment, the man posted to the subreddit asking who was in the wrong. But as it turned out, there was even more to the story.

What makes the story so tragic is the "priceless" value that the dress had for the man's sister. After she got engaged to her girlfriend, the siblings' grandfather offered to make her fiancee a custom suit. This is because their grandparents had been seamsters and owned a store — in fact, the sister of the man had worked with them there before eventually taking over the store herself. 

What's more, the siblings' grandma had asked the brother to ask his sister what her dream wedding dress was and to secretly record the conversation. Thinking the chat was just between them, the sister went into great detail but said that it was far too expensive and that she'd get something cheaper. 

Well, you can imagine her surprise when the grandma pulled out her dream wedding dress that she'd made for her. It fit perfectly and even made everybody cry. But tragedy struck when the grandmother died not long after, which hit the sister particularly hard. While mourning her grandmother, she felt even more connected to the dress, which she now saw as a way for their grandmother to be part of her wedding when she walked down the aisle. 

But then the unimaginable happened. The man took his 16-year-old daughter (who he only named "C") to the house of his sister (her aunt). C asked to try the dress on but her aunt politely said no, with one of the reasons that C is a lot bigger in size. C "made a face" to this, but left the matter.

Later on, the siblings went to go and pick up food while C stayed at the house to play with the dog. But when they returned, they found that C had taken it upon herself to try the dress anyway and things had gone disastrously. He explained:

"C had apparently tried to get it on, popping some seams, and got stuck. Instead of waiting for help, she cut her way out. The dress was hacked to bits."

Understandably, the sister asked her brother and C to leave as she was incredibly upset. Later, he called his sister and asked if it could be saved but the answer was no. She would make a new one, "but it wasn't the same." She then revealed how much the dress had cost — $12,000 give or take. This was because most of the dress was hand-sewn and was made from very expensive fabric. All in all, the grandma had put in almost 500 hours to make it, "since it was the only family wedding we'd have."

As the man had stated that he and his ex share a rule that if their daughter breaks something she has to pay for it, he stayed true to his word. The daughter did, in fact, have $15,000 worth of savings, which he instantly made her transfer to her aunt — $12,000 for the dress and an additional $3,000 for "emotional distress tax."

The teen was sobbing but the dad was firm — if she'd popped a few seams the dress could've been fixed, but she had hacked the dress beyond oblivion. That's when the man's ex learned of the story and initially, she didn't agree with his punishment, claiming that the dress was "free." 

This is what prompted the man to write to Reddit in the first place, to ask who was in the wrong. People agreed unanimously that the daughter was in the wrong and he did the right thing in teaching her a huge lesson over what she had done. One commenter pointed out that the dress wasn't even worth $15,000, that it was actually a "priceless" family heirloom. 

But there's even more to the story. Later, the man updated his original post saying that after seeing the dress in tatters, his ex called and said that his punishment was the right thing to do. Shocked at her daughter's actions, she persisted in asking her daughter why she'd do such a thing and this is what she eventually said:

"[She said] she was mad that Grandma wasn't alive to make her a dress, and that it was 'unfair' my sister got a free beautiful dress as a reminder when my daughter got 'nothing,' despite the many things she was given after the funeral. She tried it on, took it off when the seams popped, and then in anger hacked it apart. If she couldn't have a dress from Grandma, no one could. Her own words."

People on Reddit were shocked at how callous her answer was, but it only confirmed that the man's punishment was the right thing to do. Let's hope his daughter seriously learned a lesson from what she'd done. 

Who do you think was in the right here? Do you know any similar stories of someone behaving terribly out of jealousy? Pass this story on so others can be warned of such bad behavior.