Claire just wants to be the glamorous mother-of-the-groom—but when she realizes that her daughter-in-law has her own plans for the wedding, she steps back to focus on her own outfit, only for there to be a fight between her and Alice on the big day. Alice claims that Claire has destroyed the wedding by stealing her dream dress, while Claire sees nothing wrong in her actions. Who is wrong?
All I wanted was to be the mother-of-the-groom. That’s it. I just wanted to be the doting mother who loved her son more than anything—but this is the story of how my attempt to make my son’s wedding perfect turned into a day we’d all rather forget.
When Mark introduced Alice to us, she was unlike anyone I expected him to fall for. Mark, my son, is a lawyer at a top firm—a position that he secured straight after his graduation from Stanford.
“I’m going to be a lawyer, Mom,” he told me once when he was still in high school and doing an essay on the career he wanted to get into.
“I could easily see that,” I told him, making him breakfast as he worked away.
“It’s to help fight injustices. For children, specifically,” he said, drinking his orange juice.
Mark had big dreams, and I knew that my son was always going to reach for the stars.
Alice, on the other hand, was completely different from my son. Her entire personality was light and carefree, whereas Mark was serious and brooding. Alice was a self-taught coder, who freelanced from their cozy apartment. Their worlds, their politics, their interests didn’t align.
But they made it work—and they were a sweet couple for the most part. But love, as they say, is blind.
When Mark proposed to Alice, we were all invited to the scene to help surprise her.
“Please, Mom,” Mark said on the phone. “Alice isn’t close to her family, so to see you and Dad there will be good for her. She’ll know that she’s welcomed and supported.”
“Of course, honey,” I told him, already envisioning their wedding in my head.
I swallowed my reservations and offered to pay for the wedding. James and I had put money away for Mark’s studies, but he had always gotten bursaries which paid for it all.
“We can just use that money for the wedding, Claire,” my husband said over lunch the day after the proposal.
“It’s the best thing we could do for them,” I agreed. “This way they can save up to move out of that small apartment. I know Mark’s been talking about a house with a garden because he really wants a dog.”
When we told Mark and Alice, I thought that the gesture would bring us closer. I didn’t have any daughters, so I thought that this would be my chance.
I could get to know Alice better—and that would be good for Mark, to know that his wife and his mother got along well. Instead, the wedding planning only highlighted our differences.
After a few months into the wedding planning, I met Alice at a coffee shop so that we could go over the details. But we clashed on everything.
“I think roses are timeless,” I said, helping myself to a slice of cake.
“They are, but they’re also overdone in a sense,” Alice said, sipping her tea. “Mark and I want peonies.”
Our meeting went back and forth a few times—and we were stuck in a space where we just couldn’t agree on anything.
“Okay, how about this?” I asked her. “You go ahead with everything else, and just tell me what color your bridesmaids are wearing, so that there won’t be any clashes.”
“They won’t be wearing green,” she said. “I’m leaning toward pink.”
I paid the bill and we parted ways with the wedding planning.
But then, one afternoon Alice texted me.
Hi Claire, just picking out my wedding dress with the girls! I’m so excited! I wish you were here!
Attached were photos of her five top wedding dress picks.
I knew that Alice and I were on different ends of what we thought that the wedding should look like, but I wanted to be included in the big things. I wished that she had included me in the wedding dress shopping.
“At least she’s sending you the top picks,” James said as he read the newspaper next to me.
“I know, but it’s not the same,” I said.
“Do they look good?” he asked. “Can I see them?”
Together, we scrolled through the photos of the potential dresses. They were adequate choices, but nothing stood out.
Nothing that would fit the standard of my future daughter-in-law.
The dress that was Alice’s favorite and the first contender for the actual wedding dress wasn’t what I expected.
I typed back, telling Alice that it wasn’t quite the best choice. And I hoped that my financial stake in the wedding would weigh in. James and I hadn’t given the kids a budget. They had everything at their disposal.
Why not consider the second one? It might be more flattering for you.
James chuckled beside me.
“You’re at the point of over-stepping,” he said.
Before I could say anything, my phone pinged with a message from Alice.
Sorry, but I disagree. This is the dress I’m choosing.
That night over dinner, as James was plating our salmon, I shared my frustration with him.
“Alice is not even considering my opinion, and I’m paying for the dress!” I exclaimed.
James tried to mediate; he also texted Mark to make sure that he knew how I felt, too.
“I think you should just leave the wedding planning to them now,” James said. “Put all your attention into yourself and what you’re going to wear.”
But it also turned out that Mark was able to persuade Alice to wear the dress I preferred.
I had to admit, it was the less stressful option, and I hadn’t been able to shop for my dress before that.
So, that’s what I did.
I went to a few different boutiques and eventually found my perfect dress. It was emerald green, which I knew brought out my eyes.
“That’s beautiful,” James said when I tried the dress on for him.
I had felt different. I no longer felt like the mother-of-the-groom who had been pushed aside. Instead, I felt beautiful in my own skin, my self-esteem growing every time I thought of the dress.
When the wedding week loomed upon us, James and I tried to make ourselves as present as possible. We went to all the events that Mark and Alice needed us to be at—including the rehearsal dinner where we saluted them and drank champagne to toast the festivities.
“All sorted, Mom?” Mark asked me. “Your dress and everything?”
I smiled at my son. Despite being in the middle of Alice and me, he was always checking in on me.
“Of course,” I said. “I’m ready to celebrate you and Alice.”
On the morning of the wedding, I put on my green dress and did my make up. It was everything I had wanted to look for my son’s wedding—elegant and sophisticated.
As I arrived at the venue, the air was thick with murmurs. I ignored them, thinking that everyone was just so used to me being dressed in comfortable clothing, that this was something different for them.
I went straight to the bride’s dressing room, hoping to see Alice and compliment her before she walked down the aisle.
Upon opening the door, Alice looked up—her joyful expression collapsing into one of utter devastation. She looked me up and down before bursting into tears.
“Why did you do this to me, Claire?” she sobbed, her voice choked with emotion.
Confused, I stepped into the room and closed the door.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“Your dress!” she exclaimed.
“What about it?” I asked, second-guessing everything.
“It’s my dream wedding dress, just in another color,” she said, nearly shouting.
I was taken aback.
“Alice, honestly,” I said. “I didn’t realize—they look so different in color.”
But Alice wasn’t having any of it. She sat on the edge of the couch, her head in her hands.
“How could you?” she looked up and cried out. “You’ve made this day about you! Just because we didn’t take any of your suggestions!”
Mark, having heard the commotion from his dressing room next door, came rushing in.
“Mom? What’s going on here?” he asked me.
He looked from Alice to me, seeking an explanation.
Trying to calm the waters, I explained everything slowly.
“I didn’t see the resemblance, Mark,” I said. “I truly just loved the dress, and I thought—”
Alice stood up and marched toward Mark.
“No!” she exclaimed. “You thought that you’d show me what I could’ve had, but in green. Isn’t that it?”
“Mom, please,” my son said. “Let’s just try to get through the day. Please, for me.”
I agreed and left the dressing room. I just wanted to find James and sit quietly until the day was over.
I knew that Alice and I were walking a thin line, but I didn’t expect her to shout at me in the manner that she did.
Naturally, I was upset, but I didn’t want to ruin their day any further.
Reflecting now, perhaps I should have been more open to Alice’s preferences. It was her day after all, not just mine to orchestrate. The question of whether I was wrong hangs heavily over me.
Yes, in trying to enforce my vision, I might have lost sight of what was truly important—Alice’s happiness and Mark’s peace on their special day.
Was I wrong for what I did?
First-time mom is stunned when newborn baby lifts her head and crawls across the hospital cot
Three weeks late into this world, Nyilah Daise Tzabari arrived with an expediated plan to make up for lost time and get things done.
Lifting her head and scooting across her cot at only three days, Nyilah, a super baby, is evolving unusually fast, leaving her first-time mom and dad in shock.
Still in the hospital, baby Nyilah was captured on camera, lifting her own head and crawling in her cot.
She was less than three days old.
“The video was taken when Nyilah wasn’t even a full three days old. She was two and a half days old,” said first-time mom, Samantha Mitchell, of White Oak, PA, who added her wonder baby makes her feel like “she’s never had a newborn.”
Speaking with Kennedy News (though New York Post), the 34-year-old mom said, “I’ve babysat most of my life and have over 20 years’ experience with children and I’ve never seen anything like this before.” She continued, “I guess I’ve never been around many babies at three days old so there are a lot of (nuances) in it but I have never seen a baby like this ever.”
In the TikTok video, when Nyilah uses her tiny front arms to prop herself up and crawl, you can hear Samantha’s mom say, “no fricken way,” and Samantha, who sounds gobsmacked, saying “Oh my gosh. Mom! She’s crawling! Mom!…how does that even move?”
Responding to her baby’s cooing, Samantha says, “Well that’s what happens when you spend too much time in mommy’s belly.”
Born to parents Samantha and her fiancé Ofer Tzabari, Nyilah was three weeks late. She entered the world on February 27, 2023 at 7 lbs 6 oz and went viral when Samantha filmed her unexpected movements to prove to her family and friends that her baby was already crawling.
“My mother was the only other person in the room when it happened and she told me to record it,” Samantha said. “No one would have believed me otherwise. My fiancé wasn’t in the room, and I know if I didn’t get it on film, he would not have believed me…(The video shows) the first time I saw her crawl and I was in complete shock…The way she lifted her head too and was babbling left me in complete shock,” she added.
The video, Samantha’s first on TikTok, has 57.5 million views.
Fans were equally surprised about Nyilah’s incredible strength, and jumped in with comments like, “These new babies are different they come out crawling and be walking at 1 month old, talking at 3 months and getting jobs at 2yrs old.”
Another user jokes, “I would run out without the baby,” while one says, “Rumor has it she left on a plane a day later to live life.”
According to Healthline, most babies start to creep or crawl around six to 12 months. “And for many of them, the crawling stage doesn’t last long–once they get a taste of independence, they start pulling up and cruising on the way to walking.”
“Oh momma! you better get home and baby proof! that little is already on the move!!” One user wrote, cautioning Samantha on her quickly developing newborn.
“Sometimes I laugh and just think I wish she could be a baby,” Samantha said.
It seems like Nyilah is on the fast-track to growing up. At only 18 days, she was rolling from her belly to her back, at one month old, she was smiling at her mom, at two months she was rolling from her back to her belly, and at three months, she was slugging her mom with her powerful arms.
In an adorable video posted June 6, Samantha gets a mitten-covered fist to the face and giggling, she says, “Oh you punched mommy.”
In addition to testing out the strength of her arms, Nyilah is already standing with support, and mom predicts it won’t be long until she starts walking.
“Without a doubt, she will start walking soon. She stands at the moment. She puts so much weight on her legs. We’re not trying to make her stand. She just refuses to buckle her knees and sit down,” Samantha said. “She isn’t standing on her own yet, but she stands holding us and is always trying to stand.”
Also, Samantha shares that Nyilah is so strong, that she no longer needs her head and neck supported.
“I’m shocked every day by her. She tries to push herself out of her little chair and bouncer when we put her in it too…She is a very alert baby and has been since she was born. From day one her strength was very shocking to us,” the mom said.
Nyilah is turning out to be very chatty. At seven weeks, she tried to have a conversation, mimicking words spoken by her mom and dad, Ofer.
“We always say I love you to her and she seemed to be trying to repeat it to us and trying to say it. We couldn’t believe it. It is more like babbling but she is definitely trying to copy us,” Samantha said. “If she makes a noise and we laugh, she will keep making the noise because she knows we’ll react. She’s a very clever baby.
Nyilah is also a very happy baby.
“She is such a smiley, happy baby and laughs all the time. The second you smile at her; she starts smiling and laughing back at us. She is such a happy baby and I hope her videos make everyone happy.” Tzabari added, “For me, it was the first time I’ve been with a newborn, and I thought her actions were normal until people began to tell me they weren’t…I thought this was how babies were but actually her actions aren’t average for a baby of her age.”
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