When my sister sent out her wedding invitations, she didn’t just include an RSVP card. She included a price list. Apparently, attending her “luxury celebration” required buying packages like it was a concert.
I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my younger sister, Emily. She’s 25 now and has always been my parents’ favorite. If there was ever a competition for attention growing up, I didn’t even need to enter. Emily always won by default.
She was the “pretty one,” the “fun one,” the “baby of the family.” Meanwhile, I was the responsible one, the one who studied, worked hard, and didn’t cause trouble.
Our parents adored her, and they expected me to adore her too. And for the most part, I did. Until I realized admiration wasn’t enough.
Emily expected sponsorship.
See, I have a well-paying corporate job now. I’ve worked my way up, and for the first time in my life, I don’t have to check my bank account before buying groceries. But to Emily, that meant one thing: I was her personal ATM.
She started small.
“Hey, can I borrow a couple hundred for a dress? I’ll pay you back next week.”
Then it became, “You make more than I do, sis. It’s not a big deal.”
Eventually, she stopped pretending to repay me at all. And every time I tried to draw a line, my parents would say, “She’s your sister, Olivia. You can afford to help.”
When she got engaged, I knew something absurd was coming. I just didn’t know how absurd.
Two weeks ago, her wedding invitation arrived.
It was gorgeous, I’ll admit. But tucked neatly behind the elegant invite was a second sheet. I assumed it was a registry list. Oh, how wrong I was.
It was a price list.
A full-on, color-coded spreadsheet with tiers, emojis, and “premium options.”
At the bottom it read:
“All guests must select a participation tier to help support our dream wedding.”
Her “tiers”:
$100: Sister’s Selfie with the couple
$200: Seat in the front row
$250: Dinner with the couple after the reception
$500: Name engraved on the guestbook table
$1,000: Honorary bridesmaid sash
$2,500: Right to toss the bouquet
$5,000: Sponsor a champagne toast — with your name announced
I reread it three times. My sister had turned her wedding into a subscription service.
I called her immediately.
“Emily, please tell me this is a joke.”
She laughed. “Oh, come on, Liv! Don’t be so uptight. You’re thinking small. You have to vibe prosperity. This is about abundance and love in its highest frequency.”
“This isn’t abundance,” I said. “It’s extortion.”
She gasped. “Wow. I didn’t expect negativity from my own sister.”
After I hung up, I called my parents.
“Dad, Emily sent out a menu of charges for her wedding. She’s asking people to pay hundreds of dollars for things like front-row seats and selfies.”
He sighed. “Sweetheart, it only happens once. Just pay it. It’ll make her happy.”
“Make her happy? She’s turning her wedding into a GoFundMe campaign!”
My mom added gently, “Olivia, don’t be dramatic. It’s Emily’s special day.”
And that was when I realized I was on my own.
At first, I planned to skip the wedding entirely. But then… a delicious spark of mischief lit up in my brain. Why let her think she’d taught me a “lesson about abundance,” when I could turn her greed into pure entertainment?
So I RSVP’d yes.
When she texted, excited, “Can’t wait to see which tier you picked!” I replied, “Don’t worry, I’ll bring an envelope of cash to cover my packages.”
I spent the next few days preparing an envelope stuffed with one hundred one-dollar bills—crisp and counted. I labeled it “Payment for Sister’s Selfie Package.”
My coworker Tina begged to come as my plus-one. “I’m recording everything,” she said. And I agreed.
When the big day arrived, the venue was stunning. But a strange tension hung in the air. Guests whispered and exchanged uncomfortable looks. Turns out everyone had gotten a price list—with different “packages.” The whole wedding felt like a ticketed event.
When Emily saw me at the gift table, she beamed. “You came through! My favorite big sister!”
“Of course,” I said. “Let me just… count it out.”
“Count it out?”
I pulled out the thick stack of ones.
“One… two… three… four…”
By twenty, people started turning their heads.
By fifty, people were giggling.
By eighty, a crowd had formed.
At one hundred, I slapped the last bill down. “Payment complete.”
Laughter rippled through the crowd. Emily turned bright red.
“Olivia! What are you doing?”
“Just fulfilling my financial obligations,” I said sweetly.
Even her groom, Robert, was visibly suppressing a smile.
Throughout the reception, the tension thickened. Guests whispered and joked about “upgrading their meal packages.” Emily’s smile became increasingly strained.
Then came the bouquet toss—one of her “premium experiences.” I nearly laughed out loud.
As the night wrapped up, I stood and tapped my champagne glass.
“Excuse me. I need to speak to the vendor.”
The tent went silent.
Emily blinked. “Vendor?”
“Yes. The one responsible for the wedding packages. I have issues with my purchase.”
She sputtered, “Olivia, not now—”
“Oh, but I must. According to my Sister’s Selfie Package, I was promised a genuine smile from the bride. It was not delivered as advertised.”
Laughter started again.
“Also, my dinner was cold, my chair wobbled, and my engraved guestbook name seems to be missing. Therefore, I’d like a refund.”
The place erupted. Someone yelled, “Give the lady her refund!”
Emily hissed, “You’re ruining my wedding!”
“No, Emily. You ruined it when you turned it into a cash grab.”
Robert looked mortified. My parents looked horrified. Grandma June looked thrilled.
I sat back beside Tina, heart pounding with adrenaline.
“This is going viral,” Tina whispered.
“It already is,” I said, seeing the recording on her phone.
By morning, it had blown up online under the caption:
“Sister Requests Refund at Pay-to-Play Wedding.”
Emily called two days later, shrieking, “You humiliated me! Thousands of people saw that!”
“Yes,” I said calmly. “Maybe now you’ll stop monetizing your relatives.”
My parents were angry too—until Grandma June started retelling the story proudly at every gathering.
A few weeks later, I got a small envelope in the mail. Inside: a single dollar bill and a note:
“Refund issued. Congratulations. You finally got your money’s worth. — Emily.”
I laughed. Maybe she was still mad. Maybe she learned something.
Either way, I got what I wanted—a story worth every penny.
Because if you treat your family like customers, don’t be shocked when they start asking for refunds.
