It should go without saying that a funeral is no place for an engagement announcement — at least, for most of us. We can't exactly account for one groom-to-be, however, who recently decided to use his 14-year-old stepsister's funeral reception as the opportunity to share the happy news with him family. And yeah … things got awkward.
In an anonymous post, the man said he'd been excited to announce his recent engagement with family before getting news of his stepsister's passing.
His post, which has since been deleted from Reddit, the 19-year-old details how he recently proposed to his 20-year-old girlfriend of five months. But following his stepsister's sudden death, it just "didn’t feel right" to spill the news to family just yet.
"I wanted to give my family the space to grieve but I also wanted to announce my engagement," he shared.
A few weeks later, the man and his new fiancée flew to California for the funeral.
He knew his entire family was going to be at the reception, which he said is "unusual considering we all live in different states and countries." So, he explained, it would be a family reunion of sorts.
"Under any other circumstances this would have been the perfect time to announce our engagement," he continued, "but it just didn’t feel right because everyone was so down."
At this point, it seemed like the young man was going to keep his engagement to himself. Until...
There was apparently a moment at the reception where the mood seemed to momentarily lighten.
"Everyone was laughing and reminiscing, her cheer coach was even telling everyone about her upcoming trip to Morocco," he recalled.
Which is when the man decided to take his shot.
"I called a toast and announced our engagement," he recounted in his post.
Unsurprisingly, the reception to the wedding news was *not great.*
In fact, the Redditor could only describe his family's reaction as "awkward" when recalling the uncomfortable moment.
"I was expecting cheers and congratulations, but instead the whole room went silent a few people said an awkward congratulations and then everyone went back to silently eating their food," he shared.
In fact, things became so awkward, that eventually he was eventually asked to leave.
A few minutes after his announcement, the boyfriend of his stepsister's half-sister asked him to step outside.
"We went outside where I was confronted by my step sister's older [half sister] who was crying hysterically and told me that I always make everything about myself and asked me why I couldn’t just let this one day be about someone else," he wrote.
Shortly after, they demanded that the man and his fiancée leave and not come back.
His mom and grieving stepdad agreed that it was a good idea for him to leave.
After the Reddit poster left, he also received multiple texts from his family members chastising him for “'making a funeral all about me'" and others saying they wouldn't be coming to the wedding at all.
"I’m at a loss," he added. "I don’t think I made the whole funeral about myself."
In the comments, people were honestly dumbfounded by the admission.
"Holy [expletive] why would you think that would ever be a good idea," one commenter wrote.
"I could see someone thinking this might be a good idea for 1/2 a second … but it’s definitely not," a second person added. "And the fact that your family immediately said that you always make things about you leads me to believe that this has probably been a recurring issue."
"You … you called for a toast and were expecting cheers?" a third person wrote. "At the funeral of a child? That’s ridiculously self absorbed. You're the [expletive]."
Honestly, we'd have to agree here. For all of the hassle the teen got for his boneheaded mistake, we think a thoughtful email or text — sent several weeks after his sister's funeral — would have sufficed. And saved a lot of people from a lot of heartache.
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