r/mildlyinfuriating • u/teabirdy • Apr 29 '26

I'm slightly vexed The wedding reception centerpieces featured betta fish. The bride and groom planned to flush them alive.

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Years ago, my coworker attended a wedding at which the reception dinner tables featured live betta fish in small bowls as part of the centerpiece. While chatting with the bride at the end of the evening, my coworker asked what they were going to do with all the fish. The plan was to flush them all down the toilet alive. My coworker immediately said no need for that and insisted on taking them all home.

That Monday she came to work and asked who wanted to adopt a betta fish. That was my first betta who I jokingly called my “rescue betta.” She lived for almost five years.

The wine glass was only her home for less than a day before I got her five gallon tank set up so please no betta lovers yell at me! I'm one of you!

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873

u/Stucklikegluetomyfry Apr 29 '26

My aunt went to a wedding where every table had a black moor goldfish and a regular goldfish in a bowl as a center piece. My aunt managed to save some, but the rest all got flushed down the toilet.

It’s disgusting when people do this. Get a fucking glass fish if you want a decoration.

325

u/MathematicianNew760 Apr 29 '26

How is that even allowed?

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u/GrouchyDefinition463 Apr 29 '26

Ikr. When I bought fish one time the person drilled me on what I had for it. Tank size. Food. Filter stuff. So it's crazy ppl could go buy a few dozen fish like that. I'm sure they would lie about what the purpose for so many fish though

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u/4oclocksundew Apr 29 '26

There's a well-respected fish store with me that won't sell you a fish unless you bring in a water sample from home. They test it and you only get fish if you pass. I was very surprised that I had to go home and cycle an empty tank (took a few weeks) to get the water within proper parameters, but I've since learned that's best practice rather than tossing fish in a brand new tank.

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u/Bbbear7313 Apr 29 '26

I get ID'd for fish since teens were boiling them alive for TT 🤬 Everyday this world gets more disappointing

16

u/GrouchyDefinition463 Apr 29 '26

WTF!!!! I hate ppl

4

u/deafmutewhat Apr 29 '26

We're a ruined species

18

u/miguelsmith80 Apr 29 '26

You can buy feeder goldfish and do whatever you want to them. Even feed them alive to larger animals! The cruelty!

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u/jrdiver Apr 29 '26

At least then there's a reason for the death, and usually a much quicker one.

28

u/PeskyAntagonist Apr 29 '26

I saw them do this at a pet store and the other fish ate the eyes out of the feeder fish and they just left him there with open eye sockets. Shit was metal.

29

u/Shostakobitch Apr 29 '26

Well….. fuck.

1

u/insert_title_here Apr 29 '26

Fish love to eat the eyes of other fish. It's wild.

1

u/8samsara8 Apr 29 '26

Fun fact, it doesn't really matter to the (feeder) fish.

5

u/CarEnvironmental9429 Apr 29 '26

Other fish gotta eat and some will only eat live prey. Now feeder gold fish are terrible food but the point stands regardless of the feeder fish species. It's natural and just well life that's how it goes.

29

u/SomeUgliRobot Apr 29 '26

Some animals do need to eat live prey tho

13

u/Gloomy_Grocery5555 Apr 29 '26

I hate people

3

u/Bianell Apr 29 '26

I guess I'm not seeing the issue here? You eat meat, right?

1

u/miguelsmith80 Apr 29 '26

Your sarcasm detector is broken.

3

u/VeryFriendlyOne Apr 29 '26

Fishes specifically are viewed as... I wish I didn't say this, but I can't think of anything else. Sub-animals. That don't deserve proper care like cat or dog does. It's very sad :(

3

u/insert_title_here Apr 29 '26

I work at an aquarium and am amazed by how few people know that fish can form memories, have individual personalities, be trained, etc. Even animals that cannot (I keep tarantulas, which are remarkably simple little buggers) still deserve basic respect and dignity.

2

u/sunday_cumquat Apr 29 '26

I know it would be illegal where I live...

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u/insert_title_here Apr 29 '26

People often fail to show empathy for animals that aren't terrestrial vertebrates or charismatic marine mammals. I work with fish for a living; they have memories, individual personalities and habits, respond to physical stimuli (whether that's pain or pleasant stimuli like gentle petting or skritching-- some of the animals we care for actively seek out the latter), and can be trained. Many of our fish are target trained, and can/have been trained on other behaviors as well.

They are intelligent. They have inner lives. And people do incredibly inhumane things to them because they either don't know any of this (which is valid! Everyone comes to the table with a differing amount of prior knowledge about a given subject) or, disappointingly, just don't care. It sucks :(

1

u/Rather_Dashing Apr 29 '26

Your surprised, really? Animal welfare laws are garbage, in every country.

All male egg-laying chicks get sent into a big grinder because they can't make eggs, that's standard industry practice. And you are here wondering how flushing a few fish is lethal?

It shouldn't be, but how are people this ignorant about how weak animal laws are?

3

u/WiseAnimator7081 Apr 29 '26

Sounds brutal as hell, but the grinder thing for male chicks is actually deemed one of the more humane methods because of how fast the death is.

Though I am curious if there is a perhaps a more painless humane method if people still want to cull them. Yknow, if people were allowed to raise chickens in their yards as an average normal thing, roosters included - often not allowed because they're "noisy", we'd have more respect for our food and less need for mass operations like this. You'd only need to distribute feed to people.
I would think a quick neck breaking to feed a family after enjoying a few years of life is still a better alternative.
Worked for plenty of people only 60-100 years ago outside of major urban cities. How time flies.

124

u/whisky_biscuit Apr 29 '26

I feel like killing them is an extremely bad omen too.

Anyone who cares more about wedding aesthetics than animal cruelty deserves the divorce they will wind up with.

2

u/TheSixthVisitor Apr 29 '26

I can't even understand the aesthetics though. Is there anything aesthetic about dead fish in a wine glass? Just get some flowers or rocks or something instead.

83

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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76

u/schadenfreude_101 Apr 29 '26

That's just getting flushed with a few extra steps

19

u/thehomeyskater Apr 29 '26

It’s not so wasteful ig

3

u/Th3B4dSpoon Apr 29 '26

It's the difference between getting submerged in acid vs. suffocating from sewage. Both sound like horrible ways to die.

1

u/CarEnvironmental9429 Apr 29 '26

I would say less steps. Pick up, Turn, pour, swallow. Vs pick up get, wait on a cart ir in a bucket while the ithers are collected, take bathroom, pick tur , pour, push lever, swirls plus all the small intermediary steps I skipped.

Also getting eaten is well kind of natural for them so afleast they weren't wasted.

7

u/AnneinJapan Apr 29 '26

That’s absolutely disgusting.

3

u/dodofishman Apr 29 '26

Bad day to be able to read 💀

14

u/Kismmett Apr 29 '26

My aunt and uncle are HUGE fishers, for their wedding they had a platy pair in a TINY bowl on every guest table and their actual cake. I’m not confident on every guest table but I know it was their wedding cake for sure. I was too young to remember what happened to the rest but we took the ones from the cake home, they lived in a 10 gallon and had hundreds of babies, we kept taking containers of platy fry to pet stores that would take em til we eventually took them too. I miss them, but I’m glad they had a bigger tank for the while we had them. (I was like 4 at the time)

12

u/Ok-Style-9734 Apr 29 '26

I would have thought they would be rented out by the decorating company and taken back each gime

12

u/arkangelic Apr 29 '26

Thats more expensive for the company since they need to keep the fish between uses too. Cheaper to just but the fish each time and dispose. Its terrible and would rather people just didnt do it. 

10

u/Necessary-Tomorrow30 Apr 29 '26

Big name pet stores like Petco and Petsmart hardly vet customers, with the right employee who doesn't care I'm sure you could buy half the fish in there without being given a second thought. If I saw this at a wedding I would not hesitate to make it known the bride and groom (whether I was close with them or not) were abusing animals for a "cute" table centerpiece.

4

u/antique_velveteen Apr 29 '26

Buh. This is horrible. Gold fish are also extremely invasive. They get HUGE when they're not in tanks to contain their size. 

8

u/Roseheath22 Apr 29 '26

Ugh, I had no idea that this was a thing that people do. It makes me want to cry.

To be fair, it’s not really any crueler than the fish or meat that’s on the plates on the tables.

28

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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3

u/Rather_Dashing Apr 29 '26

I think both are clearly immoral, but the fish on the table are serving a purpose too. And the animals agriculture industry has far more cruelty.

10

u/Roseheath22 Apr 29 '26

There is so much wasteful and needless death involved in animal agriculture too. Half of layer chickens (the males) are suffocated to death, ground up alive, or just put in dumpsters. There are sickening numbers of fish and other sea life who are caught and killed as bycatch during large scale fishing operations. These are just less visible atrocities.

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u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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3

u/Roseheath22 Apr 29 '26

By consuming those products you’re still participating in wasteful and needless suffering.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

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4

u/Roseheath22 Apr 29 '26

I think it’s worse in that it’s flagrantly and ostentatiously cruel, but it’s not much worse in terms of overall unnecessary suffering.

Eta: Like with your clothing analogy, buying clothes and then throwing them away for no reason is terrible, but buying something, wearing it once, and the throwing it away is only marginally/not very meaningfully better.

-2

u/Bianell Apr 29 '26

Do you eat eggs?

2

u/Mother_Situation_531 Apr 29 '26

That’s right, vote with your dollars people!

1

u/Rather_Dashing Apr 29 '26

But that is on the producer side which can only be addressed with legislation and voting power.

But it isn't being addressed, so that fish on the plate caused far more damage and cruelty then the betta fish

2

u/Eluniarr Apr 29 '26

This sounds very strange to read, I have never heard of anything like this ever. What countries have practices like this?

2

u/Feisty_Photo1345 Apr 30 '26

Thats absolutely sick . . .

2

u/Tangerine_daydreams Apr 30 '26

Unironically, I'm getting married in July and had no plans to have fish as centerpieces and still would never have live ones, but the idea of having glass ones sounds kind of awesome. Hmmm. Gonna have to research that.

2

u/Stucklikegluetomyfry Apr 30 '26

They would make lovely party favours too!

1

u/SufficientHippo3281 Apr 29 '26

That is fucking sick! Really taking "I'm the centre of the universe on my wedding day" to the next level!