The TV wedding special aired Tuesday night on Bravo.
Teresa Giudice's daughters cried over their uncle and her brother, Joe Gorga, not coming to the wedding. But it's not that they lamented his absence. To Teresa's daughters, Joe's still very much persona non grata.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey: Teresa Gets Married special aired Tuesday night on Bravo, and fans finally got to see the not-so-smooth wedding day unfold, much of it triggered by Teresa's only brother and sister-in-law/fellow cast member, Melissa Gorga, skipping her and Louie Ruelas' wedding, which was officiated by Louie's older sister, Veronica.
Early on, the episode flashes back "1 hour ago" to Teresa breaking the news to her daughters -- Gia, 22, Gabriella, 19, Milania, 17, and Audriana, 13 -- that Joe's not coming to the wedding, and the girls get very upset. Gabriella is especially fuming, and things really reach a boiling point when she asked her mother if her "zio Joe" called or texted to tell her himself, but Teresa says no dice, prompting Gabriella to scoff.
"That's the least he coulda done," she says.
As fans saw in last week's Real Housewives of New Jersey finale, Teresa found out Joe and Melissa were planning on skipping the wedding via Dolores Catania, whose Irish-themed 1920s "prohibition" party played a role in the drama. It was at that party that everything came to a head, after Danielle Cabral broke the news to Melissa that Margaret Josephs' former friend, Laura Jensen, told Jennifer Aydin and Teresa that Margaret had dirt on Melissa, claiming she was caught hooking up with a man who is not her husband. It's then that Melissa stopped Danielle and told her she's already heard this story -- from her own husband, Joe.
"You wanna know how I heard it through my husband? 'Cause his sister called him over to her house secretly without me to tell him this story behind my back. Pretty f**ked up sister-in-law I have, isn't it?" Melissa fired back.
Fast-forward to the wedding day, and it's clear Teresa feels a type of way that this drama led to her brother skipping out on the wedding. It didn't help that Louie saw Teresa crying. He presumed it was because the Gorgas were missing the wedding, but the drama was compounded by Joe going on social media to talk smack, prompting Louie to declare on a hot mic, "If these f**king people put one more message on Instagram I swear to God I’m going to f**cking bury them so bad."
"It’s definitely painful," Teresa shares in a confessional. "I mean, my parents are not here anymore, and I would’ve loved for my brother to be there. Never in a million years would I have thought that he would not be there."
"It was really disappointing to tell my daughters that Zio Joe and Zio Melissa are not going to be coming to the wedding," continues Teresa in the confessional, whose father, Giacinto, died at 76 in 2020 and mother, Antonia, died in 2017 at 66.
At one point, Gia sits down with Jennifer and Dolores to talk about the wedding and she relayed to them that "the only thing that stressed [out Teresa] was my uncle."
"When I heard he wasn't coming, I was just like, 'Wow,'" Gia said in a confessional. "At this point, it's like, you really did just completely burn the bridge. It's over for everybody, including me and my sisters."
While getting ready in a suite, it's Milania who hears more chatter about Joe, prompting her to shout that people better not be talking about Joe.
In confessional, Milania joins Gabriella, who calls it "unfair" to keep bringing up their uncle. Milania calls it a "sensitive topic" and it "makes all of us really upset."
Gabriella then, out of nowhere, starts crying from the other room.
"Why is she crying?!" Milania exclaims. "This is when I get pissed off! Why is Gabriella crying?!'"
Teresa gets up from where she’s sitting with Jennifer and runs to check on her daughters. Once again, Milania shouts, "Why is she crying?!"
"My daughters are very overprotective of me since Joe left," Teresa shares in confessional while tearing up. "We’ve been through a lot, so you know, they just want me to be happy. They didn't want my brother to be mentioned at all because they’ve seen what he’s caused the past 10 years. Especially the past few months, it’s been a long road."
Teresa and Louie tied the knot on Aug. 6, 2022, filmed their wedding special days after wrapping season 13 of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The newlyweds spoke to ET's Brice Sander and Louie explained why he was so miffed.
"I got upset because the history of us four, let’s say, you know, myself, Teresa, Joe and Melissa, we invested a lot of time into having a relationship," Louie says.
He adds, "Then the show airs and all this happens, the season goes by, you know, halfway through the season it was really easy to kind of, you know, to get their number in what was going on, what was really happening behind the scenes and the day of our wedding to see them doing that is really classless."
As for Teresa and whether she's any closer to peace with her brother and sister-in-law, the short answer to that is "no."
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