Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Everett Collection
There’s drama in the British royal family — no, not that one, for once; I’m talking about the Beckhams. There had already been years of tabloid speculation that something was not right between Posh, Becks, and their eldest son, Brooklyn. But on Monday, Brooklyn released a lengthy statement via Instagram that accused parents Victoria and David of “trying endlessly” to ruin his relationship with wife Nicola Peltz. He described his parents as ruthless, fake, and controlling and stated that he had no desire to ever reconcile with them.
A number of Brooklyn’s claims related to the couple’s glitzy 2022 wedding. Specifically, he alleged that his mother called him “evil” because she felt snubbed in the seating-chart placement and that she scrapped plans to make Nicola’s wedding dress “in the 11th hour.” (This conflicted with claims in a Vogue feature about the wedding at the time that said Peltz had worked with Valentino for a year to design a custom dress.)
But perhaps the most sensational claim — and one that sparked a thousand memes — was that Victoria “hijacked” the couple’s first dance by having the singer Marc Anthony call Brooklyn to the dance floor before the newlywed dance. Victoria then “danced very inappropriately” on her son, Brooklyn claimed, causing him to feel uncomfortable and humiliated. The entire wedding was such a disaster that Beckham said he and Peltz wanted to renew their vows in order to create new memories. (Victoria and David haven’t commented on the allegations, beyond the former soccer star saying in a CNBC interview, “Children are allowed to make mistakes; that’s how they learn.”)
Brooklyn’s statement lit up group chats and sparked a global media frenzy. But for some people, they also hit very close to home. The Cut spoke with six people about how behavior from their own mothers or mothers-in-law tarnished what were supposed to be perfect wedding days. (Their names have been withheld to protect whatever ounce of privacy they still have post-wedding embarrassment.) We heard stories about rehearsal-dinner blowups, ruined bridesmaids’ dresses, and, of course, inappropriately white gown choices.
The day before the wedding, my father-in-law calls me and he says, “Your fiancé’s mother is unhappy with the seating chart.” She wanted her sister sitting with her — a sister I hadn’t met and still haven’t to this day. I told him I’d already sent in the chart, and he asked if there were any way to change it. When I said no, he said, “Okay, well, I’m just letting you know” — and these are his exact words — “if you don’t, there’s going to be a fiasco tomorrow.”
My mother-in-law is a narcissist. It was typical of her to try to have her husband do her dirty work. I’d had enough. I told him, “That’s fine. She doesn’t have to come. I’m not dealing with her.” She had her wedding. This was mine. On the day of the wedding, she was obviously in a bad mood. I think she is used to people just taking it and putting up with her. I had the best time ever because I didn’t pay attention to her.
After the wedding, though, people started sending me messages about her behavior that night. I had a co-worker come to my wedding, and she said, “I could not believe the way she was looking at you guys. She was so upset that you guys were getting married.” People were saying she was making snide comments all night. People were sending me photos of me and my husband dancing and she would be behind us, looking at us very angrily.
My mom is from Lebanon and told me later that when she tried to say hi to my mother-in-law, she was completely ignored. Like, she looked her in the eyes and walked away. I really do think it’s racism. My aunt also said, “You could tell she did not want to be there. It was evident the whole night.”
I haven’t spoken with her in years. The way she behaved at my wedding, there’s no way I could ever, ever forgive her.
In her wedding-reception speech, my mother brought up my awful high-school girlfriend before mentioning my new wife. She was trying to make a point that I had found a great partner who is light-years more polite and nicer than my high-school girlfriend, but she did a very poor, ad-libbed job of making her point. My wife still brings it up on occasion — not in an awful, spiteful way, but more of a “Remember when your mom wasn’t prepared for a simple important speech moment and put her foot in her mouth?!”
My brother’s wife is a nice girl from Europe. My mom really doesn’t like her. She feels like she basically forced my brother to move overseas, so she holds that against her. They don’t get along, but they’re working through it. When it came to planning the wedding, at first my brother and sister-in-law said they were going to get married in the state where my mom lives. My mom was so excited and helped to tour locations there — one of which they put a deposit on. But then my sister-in-law changed her mind and wanted to start over planning the wedding for a different state that the bride has some tenuous connections to. It was a whole thing.
My brother was very clear that my mom could plan the rehearsal dinner, but that was basically the extent of the involvement that he wanted. My mom is a narcissist and drinks like a fish. At the rehearsal dinner, my mom got too drunk and emotional. When my sister-in-law’s mother got up to give a speech, my mom stood up, pointed at her, and said, “You are not to speak!” My mom didn’t take kindly to her wanting to speak at what my mom considered to be “her” event. My mom had to be escorted out.
My brother had to have a serious conversation with her about behaving herself at the wedding or she wouldn’t be allowed to come. It was a whole thing. He has never really forgiven her for that and still brings it up all the time. I’m not sure how she behaved at the wedding itself because I chose to get blackout drunk.
My mother-in-law wore white to my wedding … with black fishnets. She looked terrible. The fishnets had a floral pattern through them. The dress was just a very plain, knee-length number. I said to my dad as we were walking down the aisle and we spotted her, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” His response was, “Jesus Christ.”
She’s definitely self-centered, but she doesn’t crave the spotlight. She’s just completely oblivious to how her actions or words may affect other people. My husband had no idea what she was going to wear, but he knew right away why it was an issue. I believe he said, “What was she thinking?” She wasn’t thinking. She never does. All my friends said things to me, but I just told everyone to leave it. I just ignored her the whole day and night. I don’t like confrontation.
My parents weren’t crazy about my now-husband. My mother was especially angry that we had decided to settle in California because I’m originally from New York. She and I had a lot of arguments when we started planning the wedding, escalating to the point where my now-husband and I canceled the big wedding we wanted and got married with just immediate family in my parents’ living room.
We hired a rabbi to come perform the ceremony. When the rabbi arrived, we were sitting at the kitchen table signing the ketubah, or marriage contract, and the rabbi said she didn’t want any flash photography during the actual ceremony as it would be extremely distracting. My husband-to-be and I agreed because it sounded like a good idea, but my mother hit the roof. She went nuts. She argued and had a tantrum and threatened to force the rabbi to leave the house. “No flash photos, no wedding!” she said. I can’t remember who finally told her to get it together, but my mom backed down and we did get married as planned. I’m sure she was just looking for a reason to prevent the marriage and this felt like an opportunity, but she isn’t the scheming type — just pure, raw emotion. We still got some (non-flash) photos of the ceremony, but the ironic thing is that I never want to look at them again. I won’t because it’s a reminder of how stressful that day was. My mom won’t either because … no flash!
I had a very small wedding. We had planned for an elopement ceremony, so it was just us and 18 other guests. My mom and stepdad were going through a split around that time. My mom asked if she could invite her boyfriend, whom I’d never met. I was just up-front and honest with her that nobody was getting a plus-one. It’s a very strict amount of guests that we can bring, and I don’t even know this guy. It seemed reasonable to me, but she was a little bit taken aback.
On the day of the wedding, I’d asked her not to drink or smoke weed. I know how she gets. But as we’re getting ready at the Airbnb, my mom asks if anybody wants to smoke a joint with her. Obviously, everybody said no, but she did anyway. So I was automatically on edge.
Things were going well at the wedding until the end. Mom started drinking during dinner. I guess she felt tense seeing my stepdad for the first time in a while. Later, when he was talking to my mother-in-law as things were wrapping up, he made my mother-in-law laugh at something he said. Then, from across the firepit, my mom mocked her laugh out loud in front of everybody. This made everybody feel very awkward. Right then, she “accidentally” spilled red wine all over my sister-in-law, who was one of my bridesmaids. Her dress was ruined.
I wasn’t around when all of this happened, so one of my friends came up to me and said, “Don’t look now, but your mom is making a scene.” I walked up to my mom and asked what was going on, and she just started screaming at me in front of everybody. I had to basically put her into a car and shut the door. My brother drove off with her. I haven’t seen her since.
My husband and I are actually considering doing exactly what Beckham and Peltz say they did, where they had a ceremony to renew their vows, just the two of them, to kind of rewrite the memory of their wedding.
Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Stay in touch.
Get the Cut newsletter delivered daily
Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice
Related
