Two days before my wedding, my future mother-in-law, Linda, pulled off the ultimate sabotage. I didn’t know it yet, but she had secretly swapped my blonde hair dye for neon green. She thought she’d finally ruined my “unsuitable” style, but she hadn’t counted on one thing — my fiancé Ryan’s absolute loyalty… and his wicked sense of humor.
I had always known wedding planning would be stressful. But I never imagined ending up looking like a punk-rock reject just two days before walking down the aisle.
The chaos started during what I’d dubbed “Wedding Week,” when Linda started dropping by our apartment unannounced almost every single day, all in the name of “helping” with last-minute details.
And it wasn’t just casual advice. Linda had been criticizing everything from the start. The venue? “Oh, a backyard wedding? How… quaint.” The menu? “Buffet style? Well, I suppose some people prefer casual.” The flowers? “Wildflowers? How… rustic.”
Ryan and I were slowly losing our minds. But confronting her was impossible. Her passive-aggressive tone made it feel like you’d committed a crime just by disagreeing.
I had spent months planning our perfect intimate wedding. String lights would twinkle through the oak trees in my parents’ backyard. Mason jars would overflow with freshly picked wildflowers. My dress made me feel like a woodland fairy, not a formal bride. Everything reflected who Ryan and I were — not what his mother wanted.
A few days before the wedding, Linda perched on our secondhand couch as if it might bite her, her sour expression fixed like a permanent mask. She scanned our living room as though every detail was a personal affront to her impeccable taste.
And, of course, she had to make a comment about my hair.
“Are you sure you want to wear your hair like that for the wedding, dear?” Her perfectly arched eyebrows raised. “Your natural blonde is quite pretty. And with your complexion…” She let the words dangle like a guillotine.
I forced a smile, clutching my coffee mug until my knuckles turned white. “Yes, Linda. I’m sure. It’s close to my natural color anyway. I’m only touching it up tomorrow at the salon, like I told you last week.”
She took a delicate sip of her tea. “Well, it’s your day, I suppose. Though I do wish you’d consider that lovely upscale salon I recommended. The one where all my friends go. A salon that lets you bring your own dye seems… well, I understand budget constraints can be… limiting.”
I clenched my jaw so hard I could hear my teeth grind. Ryan’s voice echoed in my head: “Just let it roll off, babe. She’s trying to get a reaction.” Easy for him to say — he’d had thirty years to develop immunity to her poison.
“Oh, would you mind if I used your powder room?” Linda set down her barely touched tea.
“Of course. You know where it is,” I said, relieved to escape for a few minutes.
She was in there far longer than necessary — my first clue something was up. When she emerged, her lipstick was freshly applied, and she had that cat-that-ate-the-canary grin I’d come to dread.
“Well, I should be going. So much to do before the big day!” She air-kissed my cheeks, leaving a cloying trail of perfume behind. “Do try to get some rest, dear. Those dark circles under your eyes…”
The next day at my usual salon, everything seemed normal. Megan, my stylist, chatted about her latest drama obsession while mixing the dye I’d brought from home. I had a long-standing deal with her — a little discount for bringing my own dye.
“So, final touch-up before the big day, huh?” she asked, smiling at me in the mirror. “Nervous?”
“About marrying Ryan? No way. About surviving his mother for the next forty years? Absolutely terrified.”
Megan laughed, then started sectioning my hair. “Still giving you grief about the wedding?”
“Yesterday she spent twenty minutes explaining why backyard weddings are ‘charming in their simplicity.’ Pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment.”
We chatted as she applied the dye, until she paused, frowning at the bottle. Her movements slowed, hesitant.
“Um, Sarah?” she said finally. “Are you sure you want to do this color?”
“What do you mean? It’s the same ash blonde I always use,” I said, stomach dropping.
“Well… no.” She held up a hand mirror behind my head.
I screamed. Screamed so loudly it probably sent half the salon running. Where my blonde hair should have been, neon green screamed back at me, glowing like radioactive sludge.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” I shrieked. Megan frantically tried to rinse it, but it was too late. My hair looked like freshly mowed AstroTurf.
“This… this is definitely the dye you always use,” Megan muttered. “But the color… it’s not right. Could be a manufacturing error?”
The memory of Linda’s long bathroom visit hit me like a freight train.
I drove home in a daze, sunglasses hiding my horror, hoping the salon lighting was lying. But the mirror confirmed it — I looked like a highlighter gone rogue.
Ryan found me curled up on the bathroom floor, mascara running, surrounded by every hair product in the house, like one might magically fix the disaster.
“Sarah? Babe, what’s wrong? I got your texts and… oh my God!” He froze in the doorway, jaw slack.
“Your mother,” I choked, tears falling. “She must have switched my dye yesterday. She’s the only one who’s been here. She finally found a way to ruin everything.”
Ryan’s face hardened. He knelt beside me, pulling me into a hug.
“Hey, look at me. Nothing is ruined. You could walk down the aisle with purple polka-dotted hair and it wouldn’t matter. You’re still my wife, and I love you no matter what you look like.”
Then his voice sharpened. “But don’t worry. This is Mom’s handiwork. And I’ll make sure she regrets it.”
The next morning, Ryan called Linda over. Sweet, honeyed voice on the phone. When she arrived in her Chanel suit, eyes wide at my hair, she gasped theatrically.
“Oh, honey! What happened to your hair?”
Ryan didn’t skip a beat. “Cut the act, Mom. We know you switched Sarah’s dye.”
Linda’s face went through shock, indignation, innocence — then settled on wounded dignity.
“I would never! How dare you accuse me?”
“Really?” Ryan crossed his arms. “You’re the only one who’s been here. And the only one who would do this. Did you forget the orange dye you put in Aunt Fran’s shampoo?”
Her face crumpled like wet tissue paper.
“It was just a little joke,” she muttered. “I thought it might make her reconsider that awful blonde color. Really, dear,” she turned to me, “it wasn’t doing you any favors.”
Ryan’s voice was deadly calm. “You’re paying for every treatment to fix this. Or consider yourself uninvited. And if you ever pull a stunt like this again, you’re out of our lives. Period.”
Linda blanched. “But… I’m your mother!”
“And Sarah’s going to be my wife. Time to choose: being right or being part of our lives.”
The day before the wedding, after three failed treatments, I sat crying in the bathroom. Ryan appeared, hands behind his back.
“What’s that?”
A bowl of green hair dye.
“If you can’t beat ‘em…” he grinned.
“You wouldn’t.”
“I absolutely would.”
So we walked down the aisle together, matching neon green hair, grinning like idiots. Guests tried desperately not to stare.
My dad nearly choked on laughter. Even my mother had to admit we looked “uniquely us.” Linda? She sat in the back, looking like she’d swallowed a lemon.
Sometimes the best revenge isn’t getting even — it’s showing the world that nothing, not even nuclear-waste-colored hair, can dim your happiness.