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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:
SoupDragon · 30/06/2011 19:29

Clearly the MIL is a bit thick, as well as a nasty snotty bitch, given she managed to send the email three times.

maypole1 · 30/06/2011 19:37

PERSONALLY THINKING about it i think the mum was trying to provoke her so she could run to the sun with a damming reply but she got nothing

booge · 30/06/2011 19:58

Apart from being a monster the SMIL to be is obviously naff, she grows pinks...

doozle · 30/06/2011 20:34

The MIL sounds awful. And she writes in the style of an eighteenth century snob. The "wider Bourne family" - wtf?

I mean, I do think it's rude to start eating before everyone is ready. But good god, the MIL is rude beyond belief sending an email like that.

Georgimama · 30/06/2011 20:34

According to her Dad Heidi and Freddie sent a joint reply, so hopefully he has got some balls where the step mother is concerned.

Oh to be a fly on the wall at that wedding....

doozle · 30/06/2011 20:34

And all this talk of staying at "Houndspill". It just makes me laugh.

doozle · 30/06/2011 20:35

Sorry I mean "Houndspool"!! Snort.

Georgimama · 30/06/2011 20:43

It's the gift that just keeps giving, that email isn't it? Every time I re-read another little gem pops out at me - the first time I read it through I was just staring at the screen open mouthed. I really couldn't take it in.

Riveninside · 30/06/2011 20:48

Mil is a hyacinth bucket like snob.

And 'the girl' is a 29 yo adult woman.

Riveninside · 30/06/2011 20:49

Can you imagine the actual weddi g now Grin frosty wont begin to describe it.

VivaLeBeaver · 30/06/2011 20:59

When I was 18 I got a live in job for a very, very posh family. Think massive country estate with 100+ acres. I always knew when I'd committed a bit of a faux pas as Mrs X would just tense ever so slightly. But she'd then rememebr herself and smile sweetly and carry on. And I was only the paid help! She was far too well mannered to tell me that I was cutting the cheese the wrong way but I soon learnt. Grin

befuzzled · 30/06/2011 21:04

I feel like I have entered a parallel universe. I can't believe some people are taking the MIL's side. She has shown herself to be a horrendous snob of the highest order (much like Xenia, but then we all knew that). I also can't believe that anybody in 2011 actually expects handwritten thank you notes for going to stay with your future ILs for the weekend - and I am a prolific writer of thank you cards and actually went to a Swiss finishing school!

slhilly · 30/06/2011 21:17

It's the actual things the SMIL thinks are bad manners that I find really really weird.

Where I was brought up, it was considered polite to give guests free rein. If they slept in, well and good. If they were hungry, they helped themselves (all the more so if diabetic) - including opening the fridge if need be. If they didn't like a food item, we'd have been dismayed not to have found out in advance so we could avoid serving it them, and would have tried to find something they did like.

It feels like that peculiarly thin-lipped English type of manners that's all about the guest seeking to please the host, rather than vice-verse.

VivaLeBeaver · 30/06/2011 21:42

Agree, DIL is never going to feel welcome in the MIL's house again. Surely to make a guest feel unwelcome is the height of bad manners/

lachesis · 30/06/2011 21:50

Exactly, Viva.

lachesis · 30/06/2011 21:52

If I had a guest coming whom I knew was diabetic, I'd be sure to ask before hand what types of food would be best, if any could or should be avoided, make sure there was food on offer at all times and hte guest felt comfortable helping herself.

My FIL has to inject insulin and follows a low-GI diet. I love spicy, salty foods, but when they come over it's low-GI meals, snacks, etc.

If someone is coming and I know they are vegetarian, I would ensure there was plenty for them to enjoy.

People who don't have children yet, I would expect them to lie in.

lachesis · 30/06/2011 21:53

FIL feels fine testing his blood sugar in front of us, but he takes himself off to the loo to inject as our children are so young.

Xenia · 30/06/2011 22:15

I have never told my children to write handwritten thank you notes but it's interseting that the girls do, presumably because all their friends do so they have picked it up as what you do if you spend the night at your friend's parents etc.

It's just a question of learning the rules for whatever group you will be a part of and it works the other way round. We know the father of the bride uses very rude language and four letter words so presumably to make him feel comfortable the new in laws may adopt his own lingo. What fun.

Talk of the big wedding and girls who want things that are expensive put me in mind of this written in the 1500s - plus ca change...

I Care Not for These Ladies
By Thomas Campion
I care not for these ladies,
That must be wooed and prayed:
Give me kind Amaryllis,
The wanton country maid.
Nature art disdaineth,
Her beauty is her own.
Her when we court and kiss,

She cries, ?Forsooth, let go!?
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.

If I love Amaryllis,
She gives me fruit and flowers:
But if we love these ladies,
We must give golden showers.
Give them gold, that sell love,
Give me the nut-brown lass,
Who, when we court and kiss,
She cries, ?Forsooth, let go!?
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no.

These ladies must have pillows,
And beds by strangers wrought;
Give me a bower of willows,
Of moss and leaves unbought,
And fresh Amaryllis,
With milk and honey fed;
Who, when we court and kiss,
She cries, ?Forsooth, let go!?
But when we come where comfort is,
She never will say no. s

OP posts:
trixymalixy · 30/06/2011 22:27

I agree with Michaela's situation 2.

I cannot believe that anyone is defending the MIL!!!!

trixymalixy · 30/06/2011 22:30

And the poor girl obviously had a hypo on the beach. I cannot believe the MIL is criticising her for that!! That the MIL was embarrassed by someone becoming ill says everything about who is right and wrong in this situation to me.

darksideofthemooncup · 30/06/2011 22:35

I am desperate to know how she managed to upset the dog.

VivaLeBeaver · 30/06/2011 22:36

Maybe she upset the dog by having a hypo on the beach and collapsing and therefore refusing to throw sticks for it. Grin

mathanxiety · 30/06/2011 22:57

Woman is a first class example of lack of manners. Whatever she thought of the future daughter in law, taking a swipe at her parents while she was at it was mean, petty, vindictive and uncouth. And apparently she's a blow-in in the wider Bourne family to boot, not even the first Mrs Bourne, but second fiddle..

My own exMIL used to get up at stupid o'clock and loudly empty the dishwasher in the kitchen right below the room she assigned for my DCs to sleep, making enough clatter to wake the Danes, then tut tut when they were tired and very cranky by mid-morning, fast asleep by lunchtime, hungry in midafternoon when they awoke, and too tired again to eat much for dinner. She complained that I spent all my time with the DCs not true but I wasn't available to hop to her command for conversation duty thanks to the DCs being so discombobulated by the early waking time. She didn't believe in food allergies. And we once arrived there to find the house had had a flea infestation for the previous week with no sign of it abating, and no warning to stay away until she had the lace fumigated. exMIL pushed food mercilessly on me 'finish this salad', 'go on finish the potatoes', 'there's just a bite or two, won't you have the last piece of xxxxx' -- as if I was the bin and it would save her the trouble of either putting leftovers in the fridge or tossing them.

Xenia, since when does a woman with a career of her own 'join' a groom's family upon marriage? Harkening back to the 1600's much?

mathanxiety · 30/06/2011 22:58

lace = place

Ponders · 30/06/2011 23:14

We know the father of the bride uses very rude language and four letter words so presumably to make him feel comfortable the new in laws may adopt his own lingo

How do we know that, Xenia? I have missed the source