People are divided by viral post about woman planning her wedding without being engaged

A Reddit user has sparked a debate on the platform after revealing that an acquaintance has started planning her wedding despite not being engaged.

This week, a Reddit user who goes by the username Distinct-Ad-1348 described the situation in a post to the Wedding Shaming subreddit.

In the post, titled “My best friend’s friend is planning her wedding without being engaged,” the user explained that their best friend recently moved to another state where she befriended a woman who was single at the time.

However, according to the OP [original poster], the woman eventually began dating someone who did not have a steady job or home, but who moved in with her shortly after. The woman is now planning the couple’s wedding, despite not being engaged, because she is “desperate to get married”.

In the post, the Reddit user said that the wedding planning has included purchasing a “cheap” wedding dress, choosing flowers and a location, booking wedding makeup and hair appointments, and asking her best friend for advice on her own wedding two years prior.

“She has chosen flowers and a location and is asking my friend questions about her own wedding (was two years ago) and knocking everything she did,” the post reads. “She’s saying that her dress was way too much and has bragged about hers [being] so much cheaper. She’s basically shaming my friend’s very beautiful, very reasonably priced wedding while planning her own… and she isn’t engaged yet.

“No proposal, no ring, no fiancé- but apparently she’s ready if and when that day comes.”

The user concluded the post adding: “This is not normal behaviour.”

The post, which has since been upvoted more than 800 times, has prompted a range of responses, with one person claiming that the behaviour is “unhinged” and that they would be “very concerned” if one of their friends was “spending time with someone like this”.

“At best, someone like that is going to cause a lot of drama which they will blame on other people,” they added.

Another person said: “Oh god. I thought I was bad for having a Pinterest board of wedding dresses and colour schemes and snooping on venues while I’m not engaged .... but I at least have a partner who has told me he will be proposing within the year.”

“It sounds like your friend needs to un-meet this woman and have nothing to do with her,” someone else wrote.

The post also prompted others to share their own experiences with individuals who prematurely planned their nuptials, with another person writing: “My ex best friend bought a wedding dress before she even had a boyfriend.”

However, others weren’t entirely shocked by the situation, as one person noted that the planning is “overzealous” but that we all “dream of our wedding at some point”.

“You do not need to have an actual proposal to plan a wedding. Folks do it all of the time. The two of them could have just decided they want to do it,” someone else wrote.

According to Brides, the average wedding typically takes one year to plan, while one expert noted that they typically recommend couples wait at least one month after their engagement to begin planning.