We know weddings bring people together to celebrate love, and all that romance in the air can be intoxicating, but is it ever okay to propose to your partner at someone else’s wedding? With brides losing their minds over children wearing white, uninviting their mums over their outfit choice or sacking bridesmaids just for having ‘huge boobs,’ surely stealing the newly married couples limelight by going down on one knee in front of everyone is an obvious no-no. Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? But if social media and this man’s story is anything to go by, there are a growing number of people that think that someone else’s wedding is a prime opportunity to pop the question!

So I (30m) and my husband (34m) just got married a week ago. We were having a good wedding until the speeches happened. Now i thought it was common sense to not do this, but during the best man’s speech he decided to propose to his girlfriend. She said yes and all hell broke loose.

From that point on, no one paid attention to me or my husband nor paid attention to the event times. People starting eating early, the speeches were cut short after he proposed, on top of that he got the dj to play him and his girlfriend “their song”. Which incited a whole bunch of couples to do the same. For about 3 hours it was just couples running to the dj to play “their song” and hogging the dance floor. When me and my husband finally got a chance to dance people were to exhausted and didn’t pay attention, they instead went to eat.

After several hours of this, i told my husband I didn’t really want to be here anymore, and he agreed. We ended up leaving, the only person we said goodbye to was our parents. Nobody even noticed we had left.

Now here’s the problem. 3 days after the wedding a cousin of mine had asked me when did i leave my wedding, as she never got to say goodbye. I told her we left early because nobody was paying attention nor cared enough to. She said ok and hanged up. Now we’ve been getting calls from all our relatives telling us we’re immature and need to lighten up. That we should be happy our wedding made people this romantic.

So AITA?

Commenters were rightly outraged on the couples behalf, and some suggested that the so-called ‘best-man’ should contribute to the wedding costs since he’d treated the day as a joint event.

NTA

Send the best man a bill for half the cost of his engagement party. (Garamon7)

NTA . It was incredible rude to propose at another’s wedding because this is exactly what happens. Your wedding gets hijacked. They got a free engagement party, which is terrible. I’m sorry your special day was ruined. (No_Tumbleweed_544)

NTA. They’re all embarrassed that you held a mirror up to them. I mean they only realised you left early 3 days later! I’m so sorry I hope the best man eventually wakes up and appreciates what a shitty move that was and apologises. (az22hctac)

Some people thought that this lack of wedding etiquette was largely due to social media trends on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

NTA

I blame Instagram and TikTok for this – so many “cute” videos of bride giving her bouquet to her bridesmaid, whose boyfriend immediately proposes to her while everyone is cheering and happy about it (especially bride and groom) and suddenly some people think proposal at someone’s wedding is the best thing ever (as if woman should be happy, that she has cheap boyfriend who has to use someone else’s wedding venue because he can’t do anything himself). (ChipEnvironmental09)

Some commenters had even attended weddings where something similar had happened, proving that it’s not such a rare occurrence as you’d expect.

NTA

I have been to a wedding and witnessed similar, twice.

Once, as you stated everything went completely bonkers.

The second it was the grooms mom who grabbed the mic and said that as nice as it was for so and so to get engaged it wasn’t about them, time to go back to the regular programming of the bride and groom’s day. Thankfully the grooms man had the decency to looked embarrassed.

I feel that this growing trend again of people proposing at weddings is why there are now MCs being hired and DJs being given very detailed notes on what to do if this happens.

My sister had one, he stated the mic would cut, and Darth Vader’s entrance music would play… no one dared.

My buddy just married his love, at their amazing wedding their MC got up and stated “this is a gay wedding, don’t any of you dare to remove the glitter and shine from these two with a proposal that was not consented by either of these men. The mic will cut, the lights will go down and you will hear war cries” (TheatreWolfeGirl)

However, some people believed that the couple should have been more assertive, taken back the reigns and steered the focus back to their marriage before the day descended into chaos.

NTA, but honestly it sounds like if you were more assertive some of this could have been avoided. “Hey DJ dude, you work for me. No more requests from people who are not me or my new husband. Thanks.” (Floydfan)

Ok a little of both here. NTA for leaving early, and of course they suck for what they did.

But YTA for not handling it then. Maybe not YTA just, childish? You’re the couple, what stopped you from going to the DJ and saying hey, no more requests, let’s get back on track? I find it hard to believe that guests could get to and talk to the dj for 3 hours, but you two couldn’t make it up there and get your own wedding going. (mallad)

YTA only to yourselves here. You paid for your big day and while I know it might’ve been uncomfortable, you needed to reign in those guests. Tell the DJ to stop, tell the MOH, parents, your loud mouth aunt or whoever to wrangle people etc.

But no, NTA really.

That groomsman should’ve known better. This isn’t a romcom, this is real life and upstaging the people the event is rude.

But everyone took advantage of your kindness and unwillingness to stir the pot. How a single guest didn’t even think to check in with you is equally baffling. (Briarihallow)

What do you think? What would you have done if someone had tried to upstage your wedding by proposing to their partner?