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Some couples go all out on their wedding decor; after all, it’s supposed to be “the happiest day of their lives.” Some people go the “Euphoria” route and spend $50,000 on flowers. Others lean into kitschy barn decor. Whatever floats your boat, right? But people on the r/mildlyinfuriating Reddit community said this couple took things way too far when they incorporated live fish centerpieces as part of the decor.
In a Reddit post with 132,000 upvotes, u/teabirdy shared an incident that happened years ago but impacts her to this day.
In the post she shared that her co-worker attended a wedding reception and noticed there were betta fish in the centerpieces.
Post-Wedding Fish Flush
It wasn’t until the end of the night, while chatting with the bride, that the co-worker learned what was supposed to happen to them.
“The plan was to flush them all down the toilet alive,” the post reads.
The co-worker wasn’t having it and immediately volunteered to take all the fish home herself. The following Monday she showed up to the office with the rescue fish and started asking around for anyone willing to adopt one.
The Redditor took one of the fish home.
“That was my first betta who I jokingly called my ‘rescue betta,'” u/teabirdy wrote. “She lived for almost five years.”
The poster also made a point to clarify that the wine glass shown in the photo was only a temporary situation while they got the fish a proper five-gallon tank the next day.
“Please no betta lovers yell at me! I’m one of you!” she wrote.
Why You Should Never Flush A Fish
It might seem like a harmless send-off. You see it on TV and in movies so often, and they portray it as the fish being flushed back into the ocean. But when you think about it just a bit longer, you know that they’re not about to be reunited with their fishy friends being flushed down the same pipes that your waste goes through.
Experts say that flushing a fish is a bad idea, whether they’re dead or alive.
The Spruce Pets compares flushing a live fish to dumping an unwanted or dead kitten or puppy down an outhouse pit. Plus, a dead fish can carry the very diseases or parasites that killed it, and flushing it can introduce that into the water supply.
If a fish somehow survives the flush and makes it to a local waterway, the damage can be significant. Non-native fish can kill off local wildlife, destroy vegetation, and pass on parasites to species that have no resistance to them. In some cases, they breed and create offspring that were never supposed to exist in that ecosystem.
As Mr. Rooter Plumbing notes, releasing fish into the wild may even be illegal depending on where you live. Better options include contacting a local pet shop, finding a fish club, or donating to a school or nursing home with an aquarium.
Commenters React
“I worked at a Petco and a customer came in for goldfish to use as centerpieces and we refused her business. Lots of things wrong with the company as a whole but very glad my coworkers and I flagged these things. Thank you! And your coworker is awesome!!” a top comment read.
“The planners of my senior prom decided to have live goldfish as centerpieces on the tables, with the intent that people would take them home (somehow??). When nobody did this of course, I pointed out how big goldfish actually get and how hard they can be to keep. Fortunately my aunt has a large fish pond where many of them and their descendants currently live,” a person shared.
“To feature animal abuse in your wedding is absolutely fucking beyond me,” another wrote.
“I swear nothing posted here is ever “mildly” infuriating, it’s either completely silly or completely horrifying. Treating living things as disposable decorations falls into the latter category,” a commenter added.
BroBible reached out to u/teabirdy for comment via Reddit direct message. We’ll be sure to update this if they respond.