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Wedding went viral

283 replies

Xenia · 29/06/2011 16:11

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.

OP posts:
WhipMeIndiana · 30/06/2011 12:53

wonder when the wedding is? bet it gets paparazzi now!

fuzzywuzzy · 30/06/2011 12:55

God this reminds me of my ex outlaws, ExSIL screamed at me once that I was lazy because I had not got up with her and her sister and mother....at 4am......each freaking morning of a 'holiday' I really truly honestly had not wanted to spend with them (they were so godawful to me).

The points in the email are all unreaosnable;

The girl has to eat the right foods she is diabetic!

What time did she lie in till, (I never slept past 8am at ex's hellhouse, but that was still too late apparently, altho the same rules did not apply to ex, who never rolled out of bed before midday ....)

One assumes the location of the wedding reception has been decided on by both the couple, MIL sounds just plain wildly jealous to be honest, she doesn't like that a beautiful young girl has walked in and taken the attention away from her!

I would have also forwarded such an email to my friends, god knows I regaled them with tales of the horror that were the outlaws many a time over, it was the onyl way I could cling to my sanity!

Xenia · 30/06/2011 12:56

Copyright is one of the forms of intellectual property. When you write an email to someone you keep the ownership of the copyright in it. You are only impliedly licensing them to forward it to someone else if that is in some way clear. There was no such consent here. The girl therefore breached copyright.

Separately if you write something confidential (eg your views about your propsective step daughter in law and personal information under the Data Protection Act 1998 you are not giving permission for all and sundry to be sent it even the girl's friends).

She has broken a heap of laws but she's just a PA and presumably not very bright so presumably wasn't aware of that.

OP posts:
AitchTwoOh · 30/06/2011 13:14

XENIAAAA!!

you are funny.

Treats · 30/06/2011 13:14

Ouch Xenia. I think you'll find that a) some PAs are very bright indeed and b) plenty of very well educated people don't think that forwarding emails is unlawful.

I thought the Data Protection Act was only binding on companies and organisations that store data in the course of their business and not on individuals?

Also, I thought copyright law only applied if someone was seeking to profit financially from work that you had produced?

Either way - it seems to me that it's the MIL who's less than bright in committing her poisonous thoughts to email in the first place. It's not a secure medium - it's easy to store, easy to disseminate and difficult to retract. If she had any sense at all, she would have thought of that before sending it.

AitchTwoOh · 30/06/2011 13:15

are there any photos? would love to see what they all look like.

limitedperiodonly · 30/06/2011 13:16

Xenia you are Mrs B and I claim my no-expenses spared fantasy wedding.

DuelingFanjo · 30/06/2011 13:21

that bit about poor freddie and 'unfortunately' is sooooo bloomin rude!

Hullygully · 30/06/2011 13:26

Xenia darling you would look much brighter if you didn't feel the need to use snobbery and rudeness to make your points.

piprabbit · 30/06/2011 13:27

If I was the other DIL with the 'exquisite' manners, I would currently be hiding under my duvet with embarrassment.

Like being held up by the teacher as the shining example of How To Do It Right, knowing that you are never going to live it down.

limitedperiodonly · 30/06/2011 13:28

I dunno df. I feel quite sorry for poor Freddie myself. And his dad.

For how long have they been shackled to this monster? How many trampled bodies have they had to pick up and dust down?

Divorce is easy, Mr B. Free yourself. You don't have to suffer like this any more.

fuzzywuzzy · 30/06/2011 13:33

pictures here

AitchTwoOh · 30/06/2011 13:35

they all look so normal. particularly freddie. i pity freddie.

Hullygully · 30/06/2011 13:37

freddie's face is too round. Never trust a man with a football head. Fact.

Hullygully · 30/06/2011 13:38

The mil has got flowers growing out of her chin. she's clearly not right.

limitedperiodonly · 30/06/2011 13:39

That's not Mrs B. That's a picture of some random girl who's probably not very bright.

The real Mrs B is on page 5 of today's Mail but I'm not going to increase the profits of that vulgar rag by linking to it.

Treats · 30/06/2011 13:42

Derpressing how many people commenting on the Metro story seem to be saying that the MIL is probably right and that the DIL is a spoiled princess.... Some people are so quick to denigrate young women.

Hullygully · 30/06/2011 13:49

But but but, surely the sheer unmitigated spite and rudeness of sending that email far outweighs any minor food guffs?

Hullygully · 30/06/2011 13:49

gaffes

limitedperiodonly · 30/06/2011 13:50

No, the girl in the Metro link is clearly younger and trying to hide her true identity behind a bunch of carnations. I know I would.

limitedperiodonly · 30/06/2011 13:52

Heidi passed a diabetic guff over luncheon at Bourne Towers? That puts it in a completely different light.

OTheHugeManatee · 30/06/2011 13:56

The quote that really confuses me is the FIL-to-be, who told the papers "?We are aware of what is being said. I know it is very boring, very repetitive and very dull but we will not be making any comment and neither will my wife."

If he's using the royal 'We' then they must be vair snobbish indeed Grin

gramercy · 30/06/2011 13:57

Oh, dear - guff gaffes would be truly awful at prospective in-law's house...

It seems to be six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

The mil sounds scary but the girl must have been fairly dire to provoke such ire.

My aunt entertained one of her son's girlfriends who was so incredibly obnoxious that my aunt went to their flat and took all her son's stuff back home!

dittany · 30/06/2011 14:11

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.