The happiest day of my life was supposed to be my wedding day. Instead, I became the uninvited guest—the scorned bride who crashed the event not to celebrate, but to seek revenge. Yet, in a twist of fate, karma got there before I did.

Ethan had made me feel like the luckiest woman alive. From the moment we met, I believed I had found my forever. He was charming, witty, and had a way of making me feel like the most special person in the world. When he proposed seven months ago, I thought I was stepping into the fairytale romance I had always dreamed of.

What I didn’t know was that my happily-ever-after would be ripped away from me in the most gut-wrenching way possible.

Ethan and I had planned every detail of the wedding together—the elegant banquet hall with a beautiful garden, the cascading white roses, the perfect wedding cake, and the song we’d dance to as husband and wife. It was a dream.

Until, one ordinary Wednesday, I walked into a nightmare.

I had left work early to surprise Ethan with his favorite takeout, excited to spend a cozy evening together. But the moment I stepped into his apartment, something felt off.

A woman’s coat draped over a chair. Not mine.

Soft laughter from the bedroom. Not mine.

Dread curled in my stomach. My hands trembled as I walked down the hallway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I reached for the doorknob, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.

And there he was. Ethan. In bed. With my older sister, Lauren.

For a moment, the world stopped.

Lauren gasped and scrambled to cover herself, but Ethan? He simply sat up, running a hand through his hair like I was the one being unreasonable.

“You weren’t supposed to find out like this,” he sighed.

Oh.

Oh, really?

I stood frozen, my mind struggling to process the betrayal—the man I was going to marry, tangled in the sheets with the woman I had shared my childhood with.

“You love her?!” My voice cracked. “Then why the hell did you propose to me?!”

Ethan exhaled as if explaining something obvious to a child. “I thought I loved you. But things changed. Lauren and I… we’ve been seeing each other for a while.”

For a while.

The words made my stomach churn. How long? Had they been sneaking around behind my back for weeks? Months? Years?

I turned to Lauren, my own sister, the person who was supposed to have my back. “How could you do this to me?!”

Her lips parted, but no real excuse came. “I didn’t mean for it to happen,” she whispered.

I let out a cold laugh. “Oh? You didn’t just trip and fall into his bed, Lauren?!”

Ethan reached for her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as if to protect her from me. “Look, I get that you’re hurt, but we didn’t want to keep lying to you.”

“Oh, you didn’t want to keep lying?” My hands curled into fists. “How noble of you!”

I stormed out of that apartment, my heart shattered, my world flipped upside down.

I thought that was rock bottom.

I was wrong.

---

A few days later, my parents called me over. I had barely spoken to anyone since the betrayal. My friends and bridesmaids tried to console me, but my parents? Radio silence.

Naively, I thought they’d finally take my side.

I walked into their house, bracing myself for comfort. Instead, I walked into an ambush.

“We understand you’re upset,” my mom said in that infuriatingly patronizing tone.

“But Ethan and Lauren are in love,” my dad added. “You wouldn’t want to stand in the way of true love, would you?”

True love.

I stared at them in disbelief. “Are you kidding me?”

Mom sighed. “Sweetheart, you’ve always been independent. You’ll move on. But Lauren… she needs stability. And Ethan makes her happy.”

I felt like I was suffocating. “So, what? You’re just replacing me with her?!”

“We’re not taking sides,” my dad said. A blatant lie.

And then, the final betrayal.

“They’re still having the wedding,” Mom said. “Lauren will be the bride.”

My jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s already paid for,” she reasoned, as if that justified everything.

I stood so fast my chair screeched. “Unbelievable.”

“We’d like you to be happy for them,” Dad said, as if I hadn’t just been thrown aside like yesterday’s trash.

I laughed bitterly. “You actually expect me to celebrate this?!”

Lauren had stolen my fiancé. My parents had chosen her.

So I walked out of that house and didn’t look back.

---

When the wedding day arrived, I knew what I had to do.

Crash it.

I wasn’t going to scream. I wasn’t going to throw cake. I just wanted to wait until the officiant asked for objections, then stand up and tell everyone the truth.

But when I arrived, karma had already RSVP’d.

The venue was silent. No music. No laughter. Guests stood frozen, tension thick in the air. Uniformed officers swarmed the room.

Confused, I turned to the nearest cop. “What’s going on?”

Before he could answer, I saw her.

Lauren. In her wedding dress, sobbing. My parents looked shell-shocked.

But Ethan?

Nowhere to be found.

The officer sighed. “We came to arrest the groom. Turns out, he’s a scam artist.”

My heart pounded. “What?!”

“He’s done this before—to three other women in the city. He never planned to marry anyone. He took off with the wedding gifts, deposits, decorations, and any money he could get his hands on.”

I laughed. Hard.

My cheating sister? Left at the altar.

My traitorous parents? Humiliated.

Ethan? Exposed.

Justice had been served.

As I stood there, drinking in the chaos, an officer approached me. “I heard you dodged a bullet,” he said with a small smile.

I glanced at his name tag—Officer Matt.

For the first time in weeks, I felt something other than anger.

That was a year ago.

And tomorrow?

I’m marrying him.

Life has a funny way of working out.