Bride gives away a hundred goldfish as wedding favour but maid of honour is forced to take them all home

Every bride wants their big day to be perfect – but one maid of honour has revealed how her best friend’s desire to give her guests goldfish as a wedding favour went drastically wrong.

The woman recalled how her former pal – who was a self-confessed animal lover – wanted fish in a tank as an unusual centre-piece on each table at her reception.

Despite her chief bridesmaid’s warnings that nobody would want to take them home from the wedding to keep as pets – and that the noise and transportation would be traumatic for them – she insisted on ordering a hundred of them in without thinking what would happen if they hadn’t been adopted by the time the globes had to be returned.

The distraught maid of honour has explained on Reddit how she was forced to take them all home with her – and watch them die one by one just as she had predicted.

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In a post titled ‘Living creatures as wedding favours’, the woman told how her then-best pal thought she had come up with a genius idea to decorate the forty tables, and give guests a special gift to take take away with them.

She wrote: “You see, ex-friend was an animal lover. On and off again vegetarian/vegan, PETA supporter, etc.

“She was especially fond of fish. With that in mind, how cute would it be to have a pair of goldfish in a globe as a centrepiece? Real, live goldfish – a pair of them (to represent the couple, see?) – on each and every table, all 40 of them.”

The former maid of honour explained how she had tried to make the bride-to-be see sense, explaining that it was unlikely many – if any – guests would want to adopt a pet on the spur of the moment.

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She also suggested they would be pretty stressed out with the wedding chaos, adding that dead fish floating in the middle of the table could put people of their meals.

They agreed that the bride would sort everything out and that on the day the maid of honour would simply watch over the globes during the ceremony and replace any dead fish where necessary.

“Anyway, wedding happens. I didn’t have a lot of time to spare during the reception to watch over all 40 centrepieces, but I did catch a few floaters,” she continued.

“‘Luckily’, the happy couple had spares in the back. They’d bought roughly a hundred that morning.”

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At the end of the reception, none of the guests had taken the remaining 90 fish home and the company wanted their hired globes back.

“It couldn’t have helped that the bride didn’t think to provide containers for them. So, will the bride and groom be adopting these eighty goldfish plus about ten ‘spare’ still in the back swimming around in the giant bag from the pet store?” she wrote.

“Alas, they can’t! They’re headed off on their honeymoon. Such a shame. ‘Gotta go now, bye!’

“With that, they were gone. Now I was literally the only person from the wedding left in the building. The hosts still needed their globes back.

“That night I strolled into a big-box pet store in my big floofy red satin floor length gown, heels clacking on the tiles, and purchased a big-ass rectangular tank, a filter, and some fish flakes.

“A few were dead by the time I got home, then more the next morning.

“More again in the afternoon, and the evening, and the next morning. By the third day, we were down to five, and we lost one a day after that until there was only one left.

“And that last one? Five years. I named it Sun. It lingered far longer than my friendship with the bride, and far far longer than her marriage.”

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Other users couldn’t believe her story and rushed to leave supportive comments.

One person joked: “I would’ve taken the dead ones and mailed them to her individually, sending each one on the day it died and including a number card.”

Another commented: “Urgh, that’s horrible! She’s definitely not an animal lover. Animals are not decorations! Sorry you got saddled with that.”

A third shared: “Yep. Worked a wedding where they had live fish in the centre pieces. Most died before the guests sat down. What’s more appetising than dead fish in stagnant water at your dinner table??”

With that in mind, perhaps flowers as a centre piece would be a much better option if you’re planning a wedding any time soon.

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