Night Before Wedding, Husband Gives My $370,000 Venue to Brother

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The day before the wedding, my husband-to-be started stammering at me.

"My brother still isn't married. Me holding my wedding first, as the younger brother, that just looks bad."

"Mom and Dad talked it over. Let's just hold tomorrow's wedding together with my brother and his bride. Doing it together is luckier anyway."

He pulled out a hotel schedule and handed it over.

"Ten in the morning to five in the afternoon, that's my brother and his bride's time slot. Those roses you booked for the venue, my brother's bride happens to love them, so don't take them down. One set of flowers, two uses.

"His bride's gown hasn't arrived yet, so tomorrow she wears yours first, then gives it back for our turn."

I looked up at him. "So when's our wedding scheduled?"

He looked proud of himself. "The two of us get the prime slot! Seven to eight, not hot at all. Mom and Dad set that time aside just for us!"

I stared at him and let out a cold laugh.

Three months. All the design drafts I'd gone through, the hundreds of thousands I'd sunk into building that venue, and it was all so I could set the stage for his brother and sister-in-law?

He was still going on in my ear. "Doing it this way, Mom and Dad are happy, my brother and his bride are happy, and I'm happy too. Three birds, one stone!"

I didn't say anything else. I looked down and fired off two messages fast.

【The riverview apartment and the Porsche in my dowry, pull all of it back.】

【The wedding's off. Tomorrow's venue gets billed at full price, all charged to his brother and his bride's tab.】

They wanted to use my venue for free?

Keep dreaming.

……

The moment I pushed open the hotel door, my temper shot straight through the roof.

In the center of the main stage, where the wedding portrait of me and Paddy Adams was supposed to hang, they'd swapped in his brother and sister-in-law's happy couple photo.

Ours had been taken down and left leaning against the storeroom door, and there was a black shoe print smeared across my face in it.

Paddy didn't notice anything wrong with my expression at all. He just kept pointing things out.

"My brother and his bride couldn't book a good lead car, so tomorrow morning they'll use our Porsche as the lead car first. For our wedding tonight, you take the Audi behind it. It's got AC, you won't be hot."

"His bride's main gown still hasn't come, so she borrows yours first. But the train's too long, and my brother's bride is petite, she can't carry it. I already worked it out with the bridal shop. Tonight they'll take out one layer of lining so it fits her, and sew it back on later."

He pointed again at the flowers that had just been flown in that day.

"My brother's bride loves these roses too, so lucky we don't have to clear them out. One set of flowers, two uses, no waste."

I couldn't hold the anger down anymore and cut him off.

"These are Ecuadorian roses. Ninety thousand in flowers alone, and your brother's wife says she likes them and just wants to take them?"

"The main gown was handmade by an old tailor in Savannah, French antique lace, two months to make, sixty-eight thousand, and you're telling me to just tear it apart?"

"I oversaw this whole venue for three months. Three hundred and seventy thousand poured into it."

"Thirty-eight thousand for the makeup team, twenty-six thousand for the two-camera photography, all booked by me."

"So I spend hundreds of thousands building this venue, your brother and his bride get to use the new stuff first, and I take the leftovers? Am I your family's cash cow?"

Paddy's face stiffened for a second, then he frowned and put on a look of righteous virtue.

"When we were kids the family was poor. My brother dropped out in middle school to work so I could go to college. Without him there'd be no me today."

"He's thirty-six already. His bride's family sets a high bar, won't marry him without a proper wedding. This is the biggest thing in his life, and as his younger brother, if I can help him I have to help him."

Then he turned it back on me and blamed me.

"Your family's rich anyway, you won't miss this. A wedding's just a formality. Our love is what matters most. Can't you be a little more understanding?"

I didn't answer him. I looked down, opened the chat with my mom, and typed fast.

【Mom, I'm not marrying him. The riverview apartment and the Porsche I'd planned as my dowry, pull all of it back. Tell the hotel to settle every cost at full price and bill it straight to his brother and his bride.】

My mom replied instantly:

【Good thing your dad and I insisted on holding the wedding before registering the marriage. Don't let yourself get shortchanged. Your dad and I are right here.】

Paddy was still murmuring in my ear.

"Don't get emotional about this. Mom and Dad both think this arrangement is the most perfect one. With my brother and his bride going first to set the example, we'll go on tonight steadier for it."

I looked up and cut him off.

"I'll ask you just one last thing. Your brother and his bride's wedding was supposed to be half a year after ours. Now it's crammed onto the same day, and everything gets used by them first."

"This idea, did your parents and your brother's whole family sit down and plan it together, or did you go running up and offer it yourself?"