And the bride wore black.
A British bride was covered in black paint just before walking down the aisle in a shocking ‘revenge’ attack by her spiteful sister-in-law.
Gemma Monk, a 35-year-old mother of two, was walking with her father to her big day in Maidstone, England, when she heard someone shout her name and saw them throwing black paint at her. told Kent Online.
Grabbing her attacker’s hair, she realized it was her brother’s wife, Antonia Eastwood, 49, who had been barred from the marriage due to a simmering feud stemming from the sister-in-law’s wedding a year earlier.
Shocking photos show the dejected bride-to-be with dark, muddy paint covering the left side of her face and chest and splattered across her white wedding dress.
Eastwood fled, but was unable to stop the wedding for more than twenty years.
Remarkably, Monk managed to compose himself, clean up, buy a second wedding dress – and tie the knot just two hours later.
“We had been waiting for that day for so long. Nothing was going to stop me,” Monk said on Wednesday after her sister-in-law was found guilty of two offenses of criminal damage for the May 2024 attack.
“I didn’t think twice about it,” she said. “I would have walked down the aisle by myself [underwear] and with black paint over my face if necessary.”
Monk said she excluded Eastwood from the wedding because of a feud that started when her sister-in-law accused her of trying to trip her up at her own wedding.
The shocking ordeal came after Monk lost weight due to cancer fears, she said.
Eastwood was aware of her health problems, but “still decided to ruin the most important day of my life and put me in danger,” said Monk, who has since been given the all-clear.
Monk choked back tears as she addressed her sister-in-law in an emotional victim impact statement.
“The fact that my brother’s wife threw paint on me changed my outlook on life and made me wonder if I had done something really bad, if I had done something wrong,” she said in court.
“This has turned the most special day of my life into the worst memory that I will never forget, and neither will my family,” she added.
Eastwood was given a ten-month prison sentence, suspended for twelve months, the British equivalent of parole. She was also ordered to perform 160 hours of community service.
“This was meant to be a special day for Gemma Monk and her family. Thanks to your behavior it turned into a nightmare,” Judge Oliver Saxby told her in sentencing.
