Wedding went viral

[Xenia]

Agree with the step mother but she should not have written it. If you want a sil,y big wedding you are not someone to marry.
www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23965571-in-the-white-corner-the-bride-in-the-pink-the-mother-in-law-from-hell.do

In the white corner, the bride. In the pink, the mother-in-law from hell...
Laura Roberts
29 Jun 2011


The last thing any bride-to-be wants is to fall foul of her future mother-in-law - particularly when her damning criticism of your behaviour goes viral on the internet.

But that is what has happened to Heidi Withers, a PA working in the West End.

She received an email last month from Carolyn Bourne, the stepmother of her fiancé Freddie Bourne.

The 29-year-old forwarded the message to a select group of friends who were so surprised by its tone that they too forwarded it on to others...and then on to thousands.

Mrs Bourne, 60, who is married to Freddie's father Edward, wrote: "It is high time someone explained to you about good manners. Yours are obvious by their absence and I feel sorry for you."

She went on: "Unfortunately for Freddie, he has fallen in love with you and Freddie being Freddie, I gather it is not easy to reason with him or yet encourage him to consider how he might be able to help you. It may just be possible to get through to you though. I do hope so. Your behaviour on your visit to Devon during April was staggering in its uncouthness and lack of grace.

"Unfortunately, this was not the first example of bad manners I have experienced from you. If you want to be accepted by the wider Bourne family I suggest you take some guidance from experts with utmost haste."

She even described her future daughter-in-law as "an ideal candidate for the Ladette to Lady television series".

Mrs Bourne, who lives near Dawlish in Devon and is a renowned breeder of pinks and dianthus flowers, went on to list numerous examples of Miss Withers's "lack of manners" - as detailed below.

She concluded by saying: "I pity Freddie."

Her stepson, who runs online bike shop Capital Cycles and lives in Putney, declined to comment. His father Edward Bourne, 63, said: "We have nothing to say."

Miss Withers and Mr Bourne are not the first to suffer acute embarrassment because of out-of-control email round robins. A derogatory email exchange between Harry Fildes, 25, and Sebastian Marsh, 24, about the latter's ex-girlfriend "went viral" in March after Mr Fildes accidentally copied her in. Mr Marsh was later sacked by his company, Miller Insurance.

Holly Leam-Taylor, a graduate trainee at consultants Deloitte quit in December 2009 after sending an email discussing attractive male staff. The email, entitled Deloitte First year analysts Christmas Awards, asked her female colleagues to vote on which men in the office they considered most attractive.

The nine categories included "boy most likely to sleep his way to the top".

An excerpt from their email exchange...

from: Carolyn Bourne
to: heidi withers
subject: your lack of manners

Here are a few examples of your lack of manners:
When you are a guest in another's house, you do not declare what you will and will not eat - unless you are positively allergic to something.
You do not remark that you do not have enough food.

You do not start before everyone else.
You do not take additional helpings without being invited to by your host.

When a guest in another's house, you do not lie in bed until late morning in households that rise early - you fall in line with house norms.

You should never ever insult the family you are about to join at any time and most definitely not in public. I gather you passed this off as a joke but the reaction in the pub was one of shock, not laughter.

You regularly draw attention to yourself. Perhaps you should ask yourself why. No one gets married in a castle unless they own it. It is brash, celebrity style behaviour.

I understand your parents are unable to contribute very much towards the cost of your wedding. (There is nothing wrong with that except that convention is such that one might presume they would have saved over the years for their daughters' marriages.)

If this is the case, it would be most ladylike and gracious to lower your sights and have a modest wedding as befits both your incomes.

One could be accused of thinking that Heidi Withers must be patting herself on the back for having caught a most eligible young man. I pity Freddie.

[RobF]

I don't know why any man would marry a woman who wanted to get married in a castle. It's just asking for trouble.

[pooka]

I agree with some of the step-mother's points. Stupid though to put it in an email. Much more gracious and, for want of a better word, 'classy' to keep quiet in my opinion.

Very very poor behaviour to forward the email on.

[wimpybar]

step mother is emailing about the dil's lack of manners yet she send this email!

step mother sounds like a right stuck up moo

[KnittingRocks]

Both MIL and DIL sound as bad as each other tbh - they don't spoil a pair!

[VivaLeBeaver]

I'd be interested to know whose house Heidi was in when she said she didn't have enough food, helped herself to more before being asked, etc. Now normally I'd agree that its bad manners, however if she was in her fiance's parents' home then maybe she just felt relaxed, at home, etc?

Bad manners of the MIL to put all this down in writing though. A few hints would have been much more lady like.

[Xenia]

I agree. The points are not wrong a all but they are something the step mother could have a quiet word with the son about if she really felt she had to and could not just rise above it. If she and her husband are being asked to pay towards the silly expensive wedding though I can understand concerns and if the rapacious greedy girl is expeted her fiance to pay which will almost bankrupt him then he needs to put a stop to it and see if she'd still marry him if he offered her a church wedding with a receptio back the house which is a buffet. That soon sorts the sheep from the goats in terms of materialistic girls to be avoided.

[limitedperiodonly]

Are you reading the same report as I am?

Where does it say that the stepmother and the groom's father are being expected to contribute to the wedding or that the prospective DIL is rapacious, greedy and about to almost bankrupt her fiance?

Where does it suggest that the wedding plans are anything other than a joint decision by the couple, being paid for by the couple?

The only detail about the wedding is that it is to be held in a castle. Not my cup of tea but I wouldn't describe it as silly.

I suspect the stepmother has had a number of quiet words with her stepson and this unpleasant, hysterical email to his fiance is a result of his turning a deaf ear.

Mrs Bourne has made a complete idiot of herself. Heidi and Freddie probably knew that, but now everyone else does.

[moshchops]

I'd never behave like that in someone else's house. then again, I'd never send a rude email like that. And I would certainly never be so uncouth as to allow it to go viral if I had received it. They are as bad as each other! Poor old Freddie - he is in for a life of hell.

[hellodave]

so..is freddie the dog?

[MardyBra]

I read this earlier and thought it was hilarious.
I then showed it to DD because I thought it was amusing and also to demonstrate the dangers of putting anything on the internet.

FWIW, I think the MIL probably had a point about some things but also agree that she should never have put it in a vitriolic email.

[diddl]

I think the fact that the girl forwarded it proves "MILs" point tbh.

[towardsZero]

m.digitalspy.co.uk/odd/news/a327487/bride-to-be-criticised-by-mother-in-law-in-viral-email.html

She was diabetic - so perhaps explains the food issue? I know the insulin diabetic in my family can get anxious about food - more so when first went on insulin.

I think step-mother was mad to put this in an e-mail and it was mad to forward it on - but a lot of people just do not stop and think things through.

[sayanythingRogerjustrogerme]

I find a lack of good manners appalling; and surely, writing an email to bemoan someone's rudeness in such terms is unbelievably uncouth. But silly girl to forward it on.

[MmeLindor.]

Oh, the MIL sounds dreadful.

From that DigitalSpy link it seems that the bride was a guest in her future MILs house and that of her future SIL. And she was expected to send a handwritten letter of thanks - who does this nowadays?

As to the accusiations of her not hiding her diabetes condition - as if it were something to be ashamed of.

She could not have known that the email would go viral, but be honest - if you had received that email, would you not have sent it on to friends to say, "Look, I told you my MIL is a nutter"?

[niceguy2]

If ever there was a case of two wrongs don't make a right, here is one of them.

[Treats]

It's not the DIL's fault it went viral. The reports say that she sent it to a few close friends - well, I'd have done exactly the same if I'd received such an upsetting email. You can't create a viral phenomenon - the whole point is that people pick up and send it on spontaneously. It went viral because the comments are so shocking and outrageous that it was interesting to people who don't even know the two women.

I don't know how you can say - niceguy2 - that two wrongs don't make a right. What did the DIL do wrong?

[mousymouse]

handwritten notes of thanks? for visiting a (soon to be) relatives house?
THAT is silly.

[oohlaalaa]

Hehehe. Laughed so much. So glad I have a lovely mother-in-law.

I appreciate the mil's sentiments over poor manners, but I think it is very bad manners to pull someone apart in an email. I loved the comment on castle wedding.

Arguably it is bad manners fors DIL to forward email on, but I'd have probably sent it to a few close friends too.

[MollysChamber]

MIL comes across as a horrendous snob.

Uncouthness? Lack of grace? MIL is the one that sent a spectacularly rude email. She needs to have a word with herself.

[Playdohinthewashingmachine]

The thing is, I can imagine why the future-DIL might have behaved the way the MIL says.

She is diabetic so she she "declares" what food she will and won't eat - perfectly sensible.

The MIL serves her small "ladylike" portions and is deaf to hints for more so the DIL-to-be helps herself to more - that's a situation I've read on MN before, and everyone was unanimous on that thread, in saying the OP should take the food she needed rather than go hungry all weekend

Lying in bed till late morning - with a MIL like that, I'd be hiding for as long as I could too

Drawing attention to herself? People who accuse others of that are very very often those who like to be the centre of attention themselves and can't stand anyone else getting any attention, particularly not if it is their son paying the attention to another woman.

The wedding cost - well, that's just silly. What does it have to do with the MIL where or how or how much?

I'm just guessing of course. Maybe the DIL is incredibly rude, we don't know. We do know that the MIL is incredibly rude, 'cos we've seen the written evidence.

Let's hope the DIL finds her way to MN and gets some advice on how to handle the MIL ...

[mayorquimby]

Any valid points the mother may have had about her dil's poor manners or having a wedding beyond their means is completely lost in her own pomposity.
She starts the e-mail with an all out attack, questions her motives for marrying her son,calls her parents poor, calls her rude and whiny and also makes the ridiculous fucking statment about the dog.
The 2 sound like absolute nightmares.
It stinks of some nouveau rich upper-middle class curtain twitcher who believes that everyone should be treated with respect and manners unless of course she thinks they are lower in the social order than her.

[fivegomadindorset]

We got married in a castle, Mrs Bourne would be delighted un the fact that yes it is our own family castle, we hire it out for weddings and other events, we have to.

[Smellslikecatpee]

Oh come on If I'd got that email I'd have forwarded to by friends too, in a 'you can not believe what now' manner, it's not her fault that it went viral, if it had been handwritten I'd I've shown it to friends too.

Poor girl is better off away from that lot and poor Freddie, sound like Step Mum has already been chewing his ear off too

[sparkle12mar08]

I sent a handwritten not to my husband's parents after the first time I stayed in their home. Who wouldn't? It's basic good manners!