I’m the bride whose future MIL paid her friend a thousand dollars to secretly butcher my hair two weeks before my wedding. She needed to learn a lesson about respecting others. I’m 26, American, and I work as a waitress at a busy downtown restaurant.
I like my job. My regulars know my name, the tips are decent, and I don’t have to pretend I care about quarterly projections. My now-husband, Alex, is 28 and runs a small marketing firm.
We met when he came in with coworkers for happy hour. He left his number on the receipt with: “If you ever want to go somewhere you’re not required to smile, text me.”
I laughed in the walk-in fridge, stared at it for 10 minutes, then texted him. Things moved pretty fast after that.
Dates, sleepovers, moving in. One night, he proposed in our tiny kitchen between the trash can and the stove. I was in pajama shorts and an old T-shirt.
He held out a ring with shaking hands and said, “I know this isn’t fancy, but I want every version of you for the rest of my life.”
I burst into tears and said yes. The problem was never Alex. The problem was his mother, Elaine.
…The story doesn’t end here, it continues on the next page 👇
