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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:
SpringHeeledJack · 01/07/2011 11:17

my mil is lovely

apart from a shaky start (involving me b/fing twins upstairs, starving hungry, without so much as a cup of tea, while the folk of the Blood Royal dined and quaffed at the magnificent table downstairs Hmm) she has been an utter, utter joy.

And she sends cheques

just sayin'

Hullygully · 01/07/2011 11:23

I'm also glad I never met mine because apparently she was an awful snob and I wouldn't have been good enough (now tell me dh, why would you tell someone that? hmmm?)

SpringHeeledJack · 01/07/2011 11:28

you wouldn't have been good enough??

EldritchCleavage · 01/07/2011 11:43

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

Brilliant! I must admit that was my thought when I saw the garish photo of MIL in the DM online.

Riveninside · 01/07/2011 13:06

Wonder what mrs snobby would make of me tube feeding dd at the table Grin

BettySuarez · 01/07/2011 13:10

I keep thinking about the Pinks too.

I wonder whether the DIL has commited the ultimate faux pas by refering to them as Carnations

Wicked girl, she should be flogged Wink

BettySuarez · 01/07/2011 13:11

Smile Riven

goodkate · 01/07/2011 13:15

I'm getting married in a Castle next week that I do not own. My poor old DH to be, how he is going to suffer!

limitedperiodonly · 01/07/2011 13:17

Good point. I wonder if the men will have carnations in their button holes with little twists of tin foil on the stalks.

I've heard tell that's very naff. It must be, I had them at my own wedding. Grin

My mum and MIL insisted on orchid corsages. I suspect that is also deeply common.

Wamster · 01/07/2011 13:42

The mil is a stupid fool. OK, the girl may have displayed bad manners, but what the mil did is idiotic: you simply do NOT make an enemy of the person who is sleeping with your son in this way. She has put her son in a very awkward position here. The silly woman would do best to remember that more flies are caught with honey than with vinegar.
She should have smiled sweetly at the girl and made subtle suggestions while cursing under her breath.

You know what? Women never bloody learn a basic fact about men and that fact is this: they are largely controlled by their sex drive and any mil stupid enough to think that her darling son is going to choose the woman he is about to have sex and possibly breed with over her is a moron. Unless, of course, he is a true mummy's boy.

goodkate · 01/07/2011 13:45

I absolutely agree with you Wamster, men are driven by their sex drives and that will never ever change - it makes them easy to read and rather dumb at times. It is women's greatest weapon and we should use this to our greater advantage - it is an alternative route to feminism.

The MIL should have been more wiley.

Wamster · 01/07/2011 13:51

I am not saying men are wholly controlled by their sex drive, (although some would say that they are!) but it is absolutely natural that each generation goes on to meet another human being that they wish to form a relationship with.

It is entirely natural; I am not religious at all (atheistic if anything) but I must admit that the bible's notion of marriage and 'leaving and cleaving' is absolutely right from an evolutionary viewpoint.

Why do some mils wish to fight against nature by not acting gracefully and accepting that their son now has a more important woman to look out for? Not to say that he can't still love his mum, just that she should, naturally, be second best when he meets the woman he wishes to share his life with.

limitedperiodonly · 01/07/2011 13:56

In the words of Will Young: 'I think I'm gonna leave right now.'

BettySuarez · 01/07/2011 14:01

And this Ladies and Gentlemen is why both of my sons are being raised to be gay Grin.

Not that they know this.

It's a secret Wink

mrjellykeepskidsquiet · 01/07/2011 14:05

I can't believe anyone would agree with the mil....what a vile email to send to anybody let alone future dil's.

Shes not even the first Mrs Bourne at that, shes his stepmum. Sorry but if I was Freddie she would be told where to get off

MissClavel · 01/07/2011 14:31

My friend has just arrived to stay for the weekend. She doesn't have children, while I have 3.
I have informed her that now I have been apprised of the correct etiquette, I must insist that she rises, in accordance with the house norms (set by my dd) at 6.15 on both Saturday and Sunday mornings.
She is delighted, though as I just caught her looking in the fridge, I'm going to have to write her an extremely rude email anyway.

NellyTheElephant · 01/07/2011 14:49

Just as an aside for those of you confused about the dog issue, Bomber is in fact the nickname of the FIL, so when she says Bomber was 'profoundly upset, depressed and anxious' she meant her husband i.e. the FIL, but most of the papers seem to think that Bomber is the name of their dog!!

Ponders · 01/07/2011 15:00

Oh thank goodness for that, I thought it must be

thanks, Nelly Smile

dollius · 01/07/2011 15:27

I WISH someone would set up a spoof Carolyn Bourne Twitter account

Wamster · 01/07/2011 16:06

CarolynBourne FlowerSeller
One needs to get finger bowl for d-i-l 2b to drink from at next visit. John Lewis sell them or should I try Marks and Spencer?

dollius · 01/07/2011 16:10

Oh, do it. PLEASE!

Wamster · 01/07/2011 16:23

CarolynBourne FlowerSeller
There comes a time when every mother has to let go of her dear little boy, but the Jones's shih tzu is far too vulgar to breed with my beloved woof-woof, Jack.

lachesis · 01/07/2011 17:05

Freddie looks very short.

Driftwood999 · 01/07/2011 18:06

Run Freddie run, as fast as you can.

scottishmummy · 01/07/2011 18:39

no woman will ever be good enough for prince freddy.according to his mum that is

he needs to draw a line and support his fiancée - or else when they have kids mil will constantly criticise.ironically for someone going on about manners she has exhibited dreadful manners herself