I had always known the entire wedding planning process would be quite stressful, but I never imagined I would end up looking exactly like a punk rock reject only two days before walking down that important aisle. This whole mess started when Linda, my passive-aggressive future MIL, began dropping by our apartment completely unannounced almost every single day during what I had immediately dubbed “Wedding Week.” She picked apart every single decision Ryan and I had carefully made, from the cozy backyard venue to the simple buffet menu and the freshly picked wildflowers. Linda’s endless passive-aggressive remarks made it completely impossible for either of us to properly confront her. I had spent months planning an intimate ceremony that truthfully reflected who Ryan and I truly were, and absolutely not who his overly critical mother desperately wanted us to be.
A few days before the ceremony, Linda perched on our secondhand couch, scanning the living room with the same perpetually sour, judgmental expression she always wore during her tiresome visits. She then directed her complete attention to my appearance, asking, “Are you sure you want to wear your hair like that for the wedding, dear?” She let the condescending sentence dangle, implying my chosen ash blonde color was utterly unsuitable. I forced a very tight smile, assuring her I was simply going for a slight touch-up at the salon the next day. She replied with a dramatic sigh, complaining that a salon allowing me to bring my own dye seemed “a bit… limiting.” Moments later, she asked to use the powder room. She stayed in there much longer than necessary, emerging with a freshly applied lipstick and that deeply dreaded, sickly “cat-that-ate-the-canary” smile I knew too well.
The very next day, at my usual salon, everything began quite normally. Megan, my regular stylist, was chatting about her latest drama series while mixing the dye I had brought personally from home for a small discount. We were discussing Ryan’s mother, and I shifted in the chair, confirming that Linda was still giving me constant grief. Megan applied the familiar mixture, but soon she grew distracted. She repeatedly frowned at the bowl, and her movements became slow and deeply hesitant. “Um, Sarah?” her voice suddenly wavered with concern. “Are you absolutely sure you want to proceed with this color?” My heart instantly dropped to my stomach. She grabbed a small hand mirror and held it up behind my head. The scream I let out probably scared half the waiting clients out of their chairs. Where my lovely blonde hair should have been, a terrible, electric green color was bleeding rapidly into my strands like toxic radioactive waste.
I drove home in a complete daze, wearing sunglasses despite the cloud-heavy day, frantically praying it was only the salon lighting playing a cruel trick on my eyes. The harsh bathroom mirror confirmed my absolute worst fears—I looked exactly like the frightening lovechild of the Joker and a glowing highlighter pen. That is exactly how Ryan eventually found me, completely curled up on the cold bathroom floor, my face covered in streaming mascara, surrounded by every hair product we owned. “Your mother,” I choked out between heavy sobs. “She must have maliciously switched my dye when she was alone in the bathroom yesterday. She has finally done it; she has entirely found a way to thoroughly ruin everything!” Ryan’s face hardened instantly in a way I had never, ever witnessed before. He pulled me close into his arms, telling me nothing was ruined and that he still loved me. “But don’t you worry,” his voice then took on a hard, firm edge. “This is definitely Mom’s malicious handiwork, and I will ensure that she deeply regrets this action.”
The very next morning, Ryan sweetly called Linda over, his voice falsely honey-sweet on the phone. When she grandly swept in wearing her signature Chanel suit, her eyes widened theatrically at my appearance, offering a false, sarcastic “Oh, honey! What happened to your hair?” Ryan immediately cut her performance short: “Cut the act, Mom. We know that you maliciously switched Sarah’s hair dye.” Linda’s face cycled quickly through shock, indignation, and wounded dignity before Ryan brought up the time she had once put orange dye in Aunt Fran’s unsuspecting shampoo. Her face instantly crumpled. “It was just a small joke,” she muttered, quickly turning to me to add, “it wasn’t doing you any good.” Ryan’s voice dropped to a deadly calm tone, giving her a clear ultimatum: “You are going to immediately pay for every single treatment it takes to fix this hair, or you can instantly consider yourself uninvited from the entire wedding. Period.”
The day right before the wedding, after three costly and completely unsuccessful attempts to strip the impossible green color, I sat fighting back tears. Ryan walked into the bathroom, holding a large bowl of dye behind his back. “If you cannot beat them,” he simply grinned mischievously. “You absolutely would not,” I said. “I absolutely would,” he replied with genuine conviction. And that is precisely how we ended up walking happily down the important aisle with matching, vibrant green hair, grinning like complete idiots while our stunned guests tried desperately to avoid staring openly at us. My own father nearly choked on his sheer laughter when he first saw us, and even my sobbing mother had to admit we looked “uniquely us.” Linda sat miserably in the very back row, looking like she had just swallowed an extremely sour lemon. Sometimes the most satisfying and best revenge is not successfully getting even, but instead showing the entire world that nothing, not even nuclear-waste-colored hair, can ever successfully dim your absolute and genuine happiness.
