Sounds like one of them dodged the proverbial bullet... *crazy*

I do think it's a red flag that he went behind his stb wife's back and basically tells her kid that her art sucked and would "ruin" the wedding. (which is an odd dynamic in itself that he cares about those appearances so much.. most guys I know are happy to just be "out" of the wedding planning and just show up in their suit.. lol).

While mom may be "blindly" supportive of her daughter's art.. and that could have some issues.. I think the underhandedness of how he handled it to be worse.

And... honestly.. it isn't going to RUIN a wedding to have some "poorly executed paper cranes" (if they were indeed bad) on the tables..  I mean really.. if you are THAT concerned about appearances.. you are probably too shallow for me.

how hard would it be to just say.. "yeah.. mary's daughter has been trying out origami.. and wanted to do something nice for her mom and I".. if someone was rude enough to comment on their poor execution.. "Well.. she is just starting out I guess.. it's the thought that counts right?"

I mean.. how hard its it to be a decent human being.

Yeah...I incorporated SKIDs into wedding - one kid wanted to play guitar. Fine...he decided he wanted to play a song that revolves around death, destruction, and despair. I made DH change the song choice. Both SKIDs did fine but you know what? It's actually not the SKID's day it's YOUR day. I bet 1000% that there is much much more to this story and I have a very good feeling that the SKID may have stretched the truth about the interaction to her mommmmmmie. But alas @aniki-moderator is correct a bullet was dodged, this was a great little tip off of the kind of behavior and stuff to come. Sounds like this guy had a little angel on his side. <3 

If the story as related is what happened - the fiance told the daughter her ideas were ruining the wedding and that her mother agreed with that - then I think the fiance is an AH and handled the situation very poorly.  I wouldn't marry him in that circumstance either, at least until the daughter was launched.  In reality, I'm sure there was more going on.  I can't imagine my husband would have cared about origami art at our wedding - he didn't care about much of anything and left it all up to me.  Maybe there are men who are very into the details to the point they'd insult a kid over her wedding ideas/artwork, but most guys I know were not nearly as interested in wedding details as their wives were.  I've got to think there were some underlying issues between the fiance and the daughter, maybe caused by the mother's actions, maybe not.  If that was the case, cancelling the wedding before everyone descended into step hell was probably for the best.

I think we see these AITA situations with our own eyes, meaning we see it from our point of view and if we despise our skiddos, we see the SD from our view points. 

I agree with AgedOut and ESMOD.

There are MANY asshole step parents, who truly do treat their step kids like trash, and there are bio parents who allow it and I don't agree with that. The partner does not always come first.

If the woman called off the wedding, I'm sure there were other things besides this instance over HIS wedding (as he referred to it).

Gave that guy a break.  He did not know what life in front of him was going to go.  That 16 yo SD had more power then him

That relationship wasn't going to work. Good it ended before everything got messy 

We will never know the true story.  The guy could be an ahole, or he could have endured possibly years of interferance from SD in his relationship, and a piece of irigami was the final straw.  BM might have dodged the bullet but it could have been the guy who dodged it.

Before exDH and I got married, exSD was pleasant to my face, but the night before the wedding she started to show her colors.  It was a very minor incident, but DH came to me and told me exSD did not 'feel comfortable' in my home.  She wanted to be the 'photographer' for the wedding.  I said, "Sure."  At the wedding she wore black, was withdrawn, and acted as if she were at a funeral.  I suppose our marriage meant the death of any hope that her parents would reunite.   Luckily, the photos weren't too bad, but her actions were a precurser to the hell I would live with for 30 years, and DH always took her side against me.  After a while, all the 'little' things add up so they are part of a bigger problem.

I'm still laughing at the thought of some beginner origami decorating the tables at someone's wedding. All I can think of are the origami frogs that are usually made by elementary students. 

As we all know in stepland, nothing is what is seems, but it does seem as though these two should not have gotten married. Mom agreeing to something with her daughter about the wedding seems like a weird power dynamic (since it's not the daughter's wedding) and future stepdad going to the daughter instead of talking to future wife seems like a weird power dynamic. 

I think these AITA stories tend to lean very heavily one way in the posters favor.  Personally I would have thought the poster was a$$hole if she had married the guy.  I guess you just need to keep a lookout for the story “AITA, my ex fiancé believed her kids over me.”   

I maintain anyone who, for whatever reason, does not become a stepparent dodged a bullet.

I think the BIG take-away from this story and your post is the very important reminder that we must ALWAYS remember that what we're being told may not be the full story. That goes for everything we read and hear, whether it's in our personal lives, or about celebrities, in politics, whatever. Stories are usually slanted to get the desired response from the reader and it's just a good life skill to think carefully about what the other side of the story might be.

I had not heard this story until now, but you bring up valid points about whether the fiance is really the monster he's being portrayed as.

I think there's a lot we don't know and can't know about this whole situation.  My first thought is why is origami by potential SD his hill to die on? My second thought is why would he talk to his fiance's daughter so coldly and harshly? 

I suspect mom assumed he wouldn't mind origami table decorations by her daughter...its just folded paper, no big deal, but if he expressed strong feelings opposing it, ok...maybe she could make one piece to just appease her and be done with it to avoid drama.

But I do wonder if the daughter exaggerated when telling her mom what he said to her...as parents and step parents most of us have been on the receiving end of exaggerations and it literally can make a mountain out of a mole hill. 

I think they both probably dodged bullets here.  It helps if we as step parents can be flexible,  but we HAVE to have boundaries too, or we get walked all over. SKids can often manipulate and do without a second thought, so it's definitely a rough life sometimes,  even when the skids are older. And as step parents,  it sometimes feels like we don't have as much of a voice in situations. Its not for the faint of heart.

They both suck if everything in the post is accurate. I went and read the post and update on Reddit. Seems like the BM made a decision without having talked to her FH first (or at all until he got blindsided by his FW, FSD, and the friend making the decorations). Any SP would be upset by that, even if the actual incident wasn't a hill to die on. The BM says they argued about it and that's when he called it "childish", so my guess is that he said it in the heat of the argument. The BM then ended the conversation abruptly because she had to go help her sister move.

So, major points against the BM for 1) not communicating with her FH, 2) not being willing to compromise or apologize that she screwed up, and 3) abruptly ending a conversation that was clearly important to her FH because, likely similar to her BD, someone/something else was more important.

IF what the FH did after that is to be believed, he is a major AH. IF he really had told FSD in the past that her artwork is trash and her mom would agree if she wasn't her mom, then he's a major AH. Is it possible the situation was embellished? Sure, because the BM took her BD out to her favorite restaurant alone and gave her an open forum to trash talk her FH - and reward her for it.

The BM seems to also have a flare for the dramatic. She called off her wedding on a family call and broke it off with her FH publicly. She doesn't mention if he admitted to saying anything to her BD, which I find interesting. He did pack his bags and leave. That could either mean that he knew he was had or that he was just tired of the BS. Hard to say. The BM does go on to say that she told his family what happened, which caused some to side with the FH and saying her BD was being sensitive, but FMIL apologized on her son's behalf for what he did. So that's not really any help, either.

The BM throws up some red flags in her behavior as a partner. That wouldn't justify the FH saying what he said if he actually said it. But we don't know that side of the story, so I'm not going to say he's a victim of a Disney Mom and manipulative SK. But, I'm also not going to say that he wouldn't have had anything to complain about either because his FW clearly has communication and priority problems.

The bride dodged a big bullet IMHO.  That he went to the SD behind his bride's back, says it all and makes him a write off.

My perspective... is good riddance to that immature juvenile POS.

Sure, the groom can certainly have an opinion on wedding stuff.  However, the manipulation is unacceptable.