Two days before my wedding, my passive-aggressive future MIL secretly replaced my blonde hair dye with neon green. She thought she’d finally sabotage my “unsuitable” style, but she didn’t count on one thing — my fiancé’s unwavering loyalty and mischievous sense of revenge.

I’d always known wedding planning would be stressful, but I never imagined I’d end up looking like a punk rock reject two days before walking down the aisle.

The whole mess started during what I’d dubbed “Wedding Week,” when Linda dropped by our apartment unannounced almost every day to “help” with last-minute details.

She’d been picking at every decision since Ryan proposed, from the venue (“Oh, a backyard wedding? How… quaint.”) to the menu (“Buffet style? Well, I suppose some people prefer casual.”) to the flowers (“Wildflowers? How… rustic.”).

It was driving both of us insane, but Linda’s passive-aggressive remarks made it impossible to confront her.

I’d spent months carefully crafting what I thought would be the perfect intimate ceremony.

There would be string lights threading through the oak trees in my parents’ backyard, and mason jars filled with freshly picked wildflowers. I’d picked a dress that made me feel like a woodland fairy rather than a formal bride.

Everything was designed to reflect who Ryan and I really were, not who his mother wanted us to be.

A few days before the wedding, Linda perched on our secondhand couch like she was afraid it might bite her, scanning our living room with the same sour expression she always wore during these visits.

We’d also had to shrug off numerous remarks about our decor choices since we moved in together. Linda always found something to pick on. Our wedding was just her latest bugbear.

“Are you sure you want to wear your hair like that for the wedding, dear?” Linda’s perfectly plucked eyebrows arched as she studied my ash blonde waves.

“Your natural blond is quite pretty. And with your complexion…” She let the sentence dangle like a guillotine blade.

I forced a smile, gripping my coffee mug until my knuckles went 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.”

“Hmm.” 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.” She sighed dramatically. “A salon that lets you bring your own dye seems a bit… well, I understand budget constraints can be… limiting.”

My jaw clenched so tight I could hear my teeth grinding.

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 build up an immunity to her passive-aggressive venom.

“Oh, would you mind if I used your powder room?” Linda set down her barely touched tea.

I gestured toward the hallway, relief flooding through me at the brief reprieve. “Of course. You know where it is.”

She was in there longer than necessary, which should’ve been my first clue something was up. When she emerged, her lipstick was freshly applied, and she was wearing that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile I’d come to dread.

“Well, I should be going. So much to do before the big day!” She air-kissed my cheeks, leaving behind the cloying scent of her designer perfume. “Do try to get some rest, dear. Those dark circles under your eyes…”

The next day at my usual salon, everything started normally enough. Megan, my regular stylist, chatted about her latest drama series obsession while mixing the dye I’d brought from home. We had a longstanding arrangement where I got a teensy discount for bringing my own dye.

The familiar chemical smell filled the air, mingling with the scent of shampoo and hairspray.

“So, final touch-up before the big day, huh?” She grinned at me in the mirror. “Nervous?”

“About marrying Ryan? No way. About surviving his mother for the next forty years? Absolutely terrified.”

“Still giving you grief about the wedding?” Megan started sectioning my hair with practiced movements.

“Let’s just say if passive-aggressive comments were an Olympic sport, she’d take gold.”

I shifted in the chair, trying to get comfortable. “Yesterday she spent twenty minutes explaining why backyard weddings are ‘charming in their simplicity.’ Pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment.”

Megan laughed and then started applying the dye. We continued chatting, but she slowly became distracted. She kept frowning at the mixture, and her movements got slower and more hesitant.

“Um, Sarah?” Her voice wavered. “Are you sure you want to do this color?”

My stomach dropped. “What do you mean? It’s the same ash blonde I always use.”

“Well… no.” She grabbed a hand mirror and held it up behind my head.

The scream that came out of me probably scared half the clients right out of their chairs. Where my blonde hair should have been, electric green was bleeding into my strands like radioactive waste.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”

I watched in horror as Megan frantically tried to rinse it, but the damage was done. My hair looked like freshly mowed AstroTurf.

“I don’t understand,” Megan muttered while examining the bottle I’d brought. “This is definitely the dye you always use, but the color is certainly not right. It could be a manufacturing error, I guess…”

The memory of Linda’s lengthy bathroom visit suddenly took on a sinister new meaning.

I drove home in a daze with my sunglasses on despite the cloudy day, praying it was just the salon lighting playing tricks. But my bathroom mirror confirmed my worst fears — I looked like the lovechild of the Joker and a highlighter pen.

That’s how Ryan found me, curled up on the bathroom floor, mascara streaming down my face, surrounded by every hair product we owned as if one of them might magically contain the answer.

“Sarah? Babe, what’s wrong? I got your texts and oh, my God!” He stopped dead in the doorway, jaw hanging open.

“Your mother,” I choked out between sobs. “She must have switched my dye when she was in the bathroom yesterday. She’s the only one who’s been here, and she was in there forever.” Fresh tears started falling. “She’s finally done it. She’s finally found a way to ruin everything.”

Ryan’s face hardened in a way I’d never seen before. He kneeled beside me, pulling me into his arms.

“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 going to be my wife, and I still love you, no matter what you look like.”

His voice then took on a hard edge. “But don’t worry. Leave it to me. This is definitely Mom’s handiwork, and I’ll ensure she regrets this.”

The next morning, Ryan called Linda over, his voice honey-sweet on the phone. When she swept in wearing her signature Chanel suit, her eyes widened theatrically at my appearance.

“Oh, honey!” Her hand flew to her chest. “What happened to your hair?” The corner of her mouth twitched.

“Cut the act, Mom.” Ryan’s voice could have frozen hell over. “We know you switched Sarah’s hair dye.”

Linda’s face went through an impressive array of expressions — shock, indignation, innocence — before settling on wounded dignity.

“I would never! How dare you accuse me of such a thing?”

“Really?” Ryan crossed his arms. “You’re the only one who’s been here, and the only one who would pull a stunt like this. Do you think I’ve forgotten that time you put orange dye 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, “you have to admit it wasn’t doing you any favors.”

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Ryan said, his voice deadly calm. “You’re going to pay for every treatment it takes to fix this, or you can consider yourself uninvited from the wedding. And if you ever pull something like this again, you won’t be welcome in our lives. Period.”

Linda blanched. “But I’m your mother!”

“And Sarah’s going to be my wife. Time to decide what’s more important to you: being right, or being part of our lives.”

The day before the wedding, after three expensive and unsuccessful attempts to strip the green, I sat in our bathroom fighting back tears. Ryan walked in, hands held behind his back.

“What’s that?”

He pulled out a bowl filled with hair dye.

“If you can’t beat ’em…” He grinned.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I absolutely would.”

And that’s how we ended up walking down the aisle with matching green hair, grinning like idiots while our guests tried desperately not to stare.

My dad nearly choked on his laughter when he saw us, and even my sobbing mother had to admit we looked “uniquely us.” Linda sat in the back row, 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.

Here’s another story: I was cradling my newborn son after an exhausting 36 hours of labor when my overbearing mother-in-law burst in and gave my husband, Ethan, a lavish present, claiming I’d merely “served my purpose.” Years of pent-up tensions boil over, forcing Ethan to choose sides. Click here to keep reading.

This work is inspired by real events and people, but it has been fictionalized for creative purposes. Names, characters, and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

The author and publisher make no claims to the accuracy of events or the portrayal of characters and are not liable for any misinterpretation. This story is provided “as is,” and any opinions expressed are those of the characters and do not reflect the views of the author or publisher.