Update!.. 'Suck it up': Bride accuses cousin of show-stealing for suffering an anaphylactic allergic reaction at their wedding

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Feb 27, 2023 12:00 PM EST

The lack of accurate information and general misunderstanding of anaphylactic reactions in the wider population astounds me. My leading theory for this is that it all goes back to the "People don't understand what they can't see." discussion that is so pertinent when it comes to other unseen injuries and illnesses like traumatic brain injuries. "You look fine, so you must be fine!.." the same thing your mother used to tell you before she sent you to school with the flu.

People generally don't understand the concept of anaphylaxis—this is not helped by our impression of it from 90s popular culture as some kind of joke where a dorky side character grabs their throat as soon as they're exposed to a peanut. Cue every other character standing around and pointing and laughing at them.

In reality, anaphylaxis is urgent and life-threatening, causing prolonged anxiety to sufferers who must carefully judge the contents, source, and preparation of every little thing they eat. The reaction itself can be unpredictable; nobody tells you that rather than asphyxiating when your throat closes up, sometimes, instead, all the fluid in your blood vessels drains out into interstitial space. This results in severe blood pressure drop, leading to organ failure, coma, and death, with the entire experience feeling not all that dissimilar to a panic attack until critical stages. The reaction every person suffers is different, and that reaction can be different every time. So, if someone is suffering a reaction around you, the best time to call an ambulance was five minutes ago.

If a guest informs you of an allergy at your wedding or any other event, it's best to take it seriously. If you fail to communicate their allergy to the caterer or kitchen you'd best take accountability and not devise some way of defecting by accusing the guest of something bizarre like show-stealing or upstaging. (Although, if this were me, I would NOT have been eating at the wedding if I didn't know it was safe.)

That's what happened to this wedding guest at their cousin's wedding. The lack of communication from the bride around their guest's allergy sparked a whole ordeal of family drama. In their original post, the guest posted to see if they were in the wrong for having a reaction at their cousin's wedding (#1-12) before returning with an update (#13+).