Giving gifts is a tricky thing and no simple task, there are so many pitfalls one can fall into with the act of giving. The gift needs to be representative of how you feel about the person and representative of the relationship itself. Not giving something thoughtful enough shows that you don't really understand, care, or consider them. Perplexingly, it's also possible to go too far, giving something that means and says way too much. Of course, the worst of all is simply forgetting about the oc…

Spending the holidays with your husband's ex-wife sounds like prime material for a straight-to-streaming holiday-themed romantic comedy, but the reality is that it's not nearly as funny when it is your reality. This stepmother turned to this online community for advice on a complex personal problem she was facing and wondered if she was in the wrong for encouraging her 19-year-old stepdaughter to speak up about ending their joint family holiday gatherings with the stepdaughter's mother, her hus…

It doesn't seem likely that this family will ever recover after this wedding debacle. The groom had been in an 18-year relationship with his fiancée and had previously gotten into hot water after chickening out of their first engagement three years prior to this go-around (talk about commitment issues!). This time, he hadn't shown up to the altar and was nowhere to be found. Three hours passed when finally the groom's sister received a call from her brother-in-law saying they found the groom at…

You don't wear white to a well-lit or naturally-lit normal wedding. Apparently, you also don't wear yellow to a blacklight wedding either—so says this bridal party who asked a guest to leave after declaring her yellow dress to be inappropriate under the chosen ambient lighting. While we've read about some ridiculous situations where wedding guests have worn what might-as-well-be wedding dresses to their friend's or family member's wedding affairs, I think it's fair to say that this is not one o…

Meals are undoubtedly one of the most important daily chores, along with sleep. Being properly fed is one of the things that everything else in a successful and happy life stems from. But providing healthy meals for your family isn't cheap… Have you seen the price of groceries these days? And the time it takes to cook and clean for an entire family can't be understated. So, undoubtedly, the combination of those two things, the time and the price of the actual food, would be supremely valuable.…

Enforcing “no children” policies at weddings can be treacherous territory, on one hand you want to manifest the ideal you've bee

Future in-laws seeking advice!

Weddings have a way of bringing out the strain in families, and the pressure of executing a single greatest day of the bride and groom's life really ups the ante. Meanwhile, you're trying to keep all your unpredictable extended family in line and making sure everything goes according to plan, leaving plenty of opportunity for something to go wrong. Of course, it can also bring out festering underlying dynamics between siblings too… This 16-year-old was meant to be a bridesmaid at her older sist…

This sounds harsh, but it's one of those lessons where the sooner you learn it in life, the better off you'll be. Success takes effort—and sustained effort at that. At a certain point, a certain amount of sustained effort is going to be an essential factor and determinant of whether you have an income that can support your continued existence and survival. That's not to say that it's the only thing that matters, but for most of us, it's an important starting point. Thus, this lesson holds value…

Growing up and embracing maturity is hard—and especially hard for some. Accepting that your age and responsibility means that you need to leave some behaviors behind can be tough. This is usually associated with things like realizing that you can't walk away from crashing your mountain bike into a tree like you used to. Not only that, there's a chance that you might even seriously injure yourself gardening, which will take weeks or months to recover from. But this applies to social interactions…

There are plenty of types of weddings: bad weddings, good weddings, traditional weddings, and untraditional ones… those at traditional locations and those taking place on the tops of mountains and places you generally might not ever expect; there are also those that go all out and those without any manner of ceremony whatsoever. No matter what the difference one thing generally remains certain: The wedding is for those being married and a chance for their loved ones to witness and celebrate the…

Fall wedding season is in full swing, and anyone who has ever attended a wedding knows that rarely does everything go according to plan. Sometimes, minor mishaps happen, like the caterer running late or a speaker tripping up in the middle of their speech. However, there are instances where things go so terribly wrong that the rest of the day seems impossible to correct. If this collection of funny wedding photos leaves a lasting impression on anyone who is in the process of planning their upcom…

"We had no choice but to throw all those sauces away."

There are certain implied rules of engagement when it comes to celebrations, and it's generally expected that you'll let the person being celebrated have their moment and not do anything to steal their thunder by making major announcements of your own that are bound to generate buzz and get people talking about you. Of course, this is notoriously hard for some people who can't bear to not be the center of attention, which is why we end up with so many of these stories of entitled friends and fa…

Whether or not you're still in school, you're an adult at 21 years old, and as such, it stands to reason that you should be significantly contributing to your living situation. There may be some situations where your family might be wealthy enough that you can get away with not contributing, but for most, the reality of most family situations will be that this is not the case, and at 21 years old, you will need to be contributing. Readers here voted for the university student not to be in the w…

If you break something, you're responsible for its repair or replacement; that's really just common sense. Hopefully, you have insurance for such things that would cover you if someone needed you to repair or replace it. This responsibility understandably extends to your dependents, pets, and anything else you should have a responsibility and control over—whether or not you take that responsibility seriously. Still, there are situations where the claimant might end up dealing with a claimant wh…