“AITA for not being able to move on from my wife’s wedding prank?”

I had a wonderful wedding — until my wife and our friends completely ruined it with a “joke” during the garter removal.

During the reception, we were doing all the usual wedding traditions. At one point, it was time for the garter toss. Everyone gathered around us in the center of the dance floor. My wife sat down in a chair, and one of my friends came over with a blindfold, saying I had to do the garter removal blindfolded.

I should have known something was up from their smirks, but I’d had a few drinks and didn’t think much of it. Everyone seemed to be having fun, and I wanted to keep the good mood going. So, I agreed, put on the blindfold, and got ready to play along.

The moment I was blindfolded, though, my wife quietly got up and switched places with one of my groomsmen. He’s someone I’ve known my whole life, but we’re not very close. After that night, I honestly can’t even stand him — not because of who he is, but because of what they did.

He sat down where my wife had been, wearing shorts with the garter on his thigh. My wife stood behind him, talking to me so I’d think she was still the one sitting there.

Following their directions, I knelt down and started to reach out for what I believed were my wife’s legs. When I found the garter, my wife said, “Use your mouth! With your mouth!”

So, still blindfolded, I leaned in, grabbed the garter with my teeth, and started pulling it down. Everyone around started screaming and clapping. My wife even came over to “help” me pull it past his shoe when it got stuck.

When I finally got it off, they told me to stand up and take off the blindfold. I was grinning, thinking everyone was laughing because it was funny, and that I’d been a good sport. But when I took it off, the laughter got even louder.

That’s when I realized everyone in the room — family, friends, everyone — had just watched me put my mouth on another man’s leg, thinking it was my wife. Every single person was laughing at me.

It felt humiliating.

I was furious. A part of me wanted to yell, to walk out, to do anything to make them see how badly they’d crossed the line. But another part of me thought staying calm would hurt less — that showing how angry I was would only make them laugh harder. So I swallowed it. I forced a smile and went through the rest of the night pretending I was fine.

My wife could tell something was off, but she kept smiling and moving through the night like nothing happened. There wasn’t really a time or place to talk about it anyway — everyone was around us, and I didn’t want to ruin the event or all the money and effort that had gone into it.

The next day, at the post-wedding brunch, I was still pretending everything was okay. I even kept quiet for most of our honeymoon, trying to convince myself that my wife hadn’t meant to hurt me, that it was just a misunderstanding, and that saying anything would only ruin her happy memories.

But near the end of the honeymoon, after a few drinks, I finally broke. I told her exactly how I felt — that the prank was disgusting, that it made me feel violated, that it completely destroyed my trust and intimacy toward her.

I went too far in how I said it. I was angry and hurt, and once I started, I couldn’t stop. At first, she apologized a little, but then she got upset, walked away, and we didn’t talk for hours. Honestly, I think part of me wanted her to feel the same pain I did.

Since then, it’s been hard to move forward. I’ve told her I don’t want to hear anything about the wedding. I don’t want to write thank-you cards or look at photos. If our anniversary were tomorrow, I wouldn’t celebrate it.

We have a good relationship in many ways, but I can’t stop thinking about that moment — when I took off the blindfold and everyone was laughing at me. I replay it in my head constantly, and the anger always comes back.

To make it worse, the whole thing was recorded. The videographer caught every second, and I can see at least four other people filming on their phones in the video. Watching it now just makes me sick. Seeing everyone’s faces, laughing at my expense, makes me want to disappear — or punch something. It feels like it’s happening to me all over again every time I think about it.

My wife says she’s sorry, that she thought I’d laugh it off, that I need to move on. Maybe she’s right — maybe I am the one holding onto this too long. But I can’t just forget it. I can’t stop coming up with reasons to be angry about it.

Sometimes I even tell myself it was a form of assault — that I was tricked into putting my mouth on another man without consent. Maybe that’s me trying to justify how violated I feel. I don’t know.

NTA. Humiliating someone on what’s supposed to be their happiest day is not a prank — it’s cruelty disguised as a joke.

There’s a time and a place for jokes, and a wedding isn’t one of them. You don’t prank someone unless you’re completely sure they’ll laugh about it too. If the joke only hurts one person, it’s not funny — it’s disrespect.

Doing that to your partner on the day that’s supposed to celebrate love and respect is basically saying, “I don’t take you seriously.”

Talk to your videographer. Ask them to cut out the garter part completely and delete any footage of it. You have every right to request that.

And seriously — consider speaking to a therapist. It won’t make what happened okay, but it might help you understand your feelings and find peace again. What happened to you was real, and the hurt you feel is valid.

NTA. Your wife’s prank didn’t just ruin a special moment — it dismissed your feelings entirely afterward.

If the situation were reversed — if you had smashed cake in her face for laughs — would she have taken it as a joke? I doubt it.