For most people, a honeymoon is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, celebrating their union with the person they want to spend their life with.

So there’s good reason to make it special – whatever that means for you.

Despite the treacherous drive, the couple in this story were excited for their honeymoon; after the stress of wedding-planning it would be a welcome break.

But just before they were set to depart, the bride’s sister threw a spanner in the works.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for refusing to cut my honeymoon short to attend my sister’s last-minute engagement party?

My husband and I (both in our early 30s) recently had our destination wedding in my home country in Latin America.

We stayed for about a week and a half, while my sister Sarah and her fiancé stayed a few days longer. We were all staying at a family property together.

After the wedding, my husband and I planned a mini-honeymoon to a nature reserve/cloud forest area.

It is only about two and a half to three hours away by distance, but the commute was brutal. It involved winding mountain roads that quickly gave me a headache and motion sickness. It was not an easy drive.

But their honeymoon was not as peaceful as they might’ve hoped.

We booked a cabin from Monday to Thursday. Since Monday and Thursday were travel days (and recovery from the car sickness), we really only had Tuesday and Wednesday to actually enjoy the honeymoon.

Sarah and her fiancé decided to throw an engagement party at the family house while we were on this trip.

Since Sarah and I have a strained relationship (we used to be extremely close and that changed very recently due to her fiance), I coordinated with my Mom.

I explicitly told my Mom: “We are away Monday to Thursday. If the party is on Thursday, we will absolutely be there. If it is on Wednesday, we cannot make it.”

This reasonable information, however, did little to affect her sister’s plans.

Despite this, they scheduled the party for Wednesday. My mom couldn’t give me a reason why.

When I was told the date, I said unfortunately we wouldn’t be coming. I wasn’t willing to endure that winding drive twice in 24 hours, lose our non-refundable reservation, or cut our already short honeymoon in half.

My mother pulled me aside the morning we were leaving to the honey moon and told me I needed to be “more flexible” for family.

She implied I was being selfish and should just cut the trip short or “make it work” to support my sister.

Let’s see how this made her feel.

I tried to not let it get to me, but I felt so sad by the conflict that I cried for an hour as I packed for my honeymoon.

Wedding planning in another country and accommodating my husband’s family that don’t speak the language was stressful, and I hadn’t had any time with just my husband and I the whole trip. I really felt a two-day honeymoon wasn’t unreasonable.

Sarah isn’t explicitly giving me the silent treatment, but things are very cold. She is avoiding plans to spend the holidays with us, and communication is essentially non-existent.

Due to the fact that she picked the one day I said I couldn’t make, I suspect she chose Wednesday on purpose so I wouldn’t be there, allowing her to paint me as the unsupportive sister. Am I wrong sticking to my honeymoon plans?

AITA?

Not only is she not in the wrong for making just a little bit of her wedding trip about her and her husband and prioritising her honeymoon accordingly, she’s not wrong for being upset by her mom’s warning either.

Her sister has taken a trip that was about the marriage and somehow made it about her and her fiancé, without leaving her sister time to truly celebrate her own marriage and relax into married life.

It sounds like her sister is pretty self-centred, and given her mom’s attitude, it’s easy to understand how she might’ve ended up that way.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person pointed out that if she’s being selfish, her sister is being even more so.

While others suggested options to move forward.

Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged them to put some clear boundaries in place immediately.

Both Sarah and her mom are being entirely unreasonable if they think that she should cut her honeymoon short for a hastily-arranged party, with a date that seems to have been chosen out of spite.

She was very clear: if the party was on the Wednesday, she wouldn’t be able to attend. So she needs to do just that.

It’s time for her to show her mom and sister that she’s an adult, and won’t bend to their every whim any more.

Then, they need to respect her more.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.