To make DD wear a dress?

Church would disagree with you - they want trendy young'uns to go/perform , to encourage others.

Know I'm coming into this a bit late (and relieved you got something sorted!) but I'm completely with you on appropriate clothing for the occasion. If children don't learn to consider appropriate clothing for different occasions, than that is a failure.
My children are a bit younger but when needed, they are in smarter clothes than everyday. They also generally enjoy getting dressed up!! Equally happy in jeans wellies and fleeces for outdoor/messy stuff!
They regularly attend church, so know the set up for that sort of environment....

I'm glad it all worked out. I thought you were given a hard time on here but got to a good compromise in the end.

I bet there's quite a few of these friends in jeans who end up coming to the service wearing dresses or more formal tops and trousers.
Encourage her not to follow the crowd.

THIS! Please tell me you didn't force your almost adult daughter to wear a dress @EatYourDamnPie It's not a visit to see King Charles, it's a carol service at the local church!

95% of nearly 1400 posters think YABU. You must know you are!!!

YABVU!

The problem here is you. Your poor daughter.

It’s not her confirmation. She chose to get confirmed and that’s when she started going to church.

Anyway, do read the OP’s posts because you’re a bit behind the times.

If she was wearing micro hot pants and a bikini top I would maybe get your point (not that women 'cant' wear those but it will probably be cold and more for the beach than 'carols at church') but its not the 1950s, she doesn't need her Sunday dress and pearls to attend church.

I would maybe just try to steer away from to hyper casual legging, uggs and an in your face graphic print t-shirt to Jeans and a plain top/dressy top/jumper which would be fine. It doesn't need to be 'formal', guide her instead of dying on the hill.

It’s a massive drip feed that this is her confirmation! I don’t think jean’s would be appropriate in this case and I doubt that’s what all the other candidates will be wearing. I went to one last year and all the teenage girls were in white dresses.

Way too old for you to dictate what she wears. If she was less than 10, I'd have agreed with you, but at 14, you just have to let them get on with it.

I remember being about 12, and my mum randomly finding an old dress of my sisters that she wanted me to wear. It was flowery and had that sort of white frilly bib around the neckline. I'm sure you can picture the sort of thing. Somehow, she managed to bully me into it, and I went off to meet my friend who lived down the road, who happened to be a boy, and he laughed, and laughed. I've never forgotten how stupid that dress made me feel, and how angry I was at mum for making me wear it.

OP, what today has revealed is that your DD doesn't have enough "meal out with the grandparents" type clothes. That's something to remedy another time. Today isn't it.

I had thought you were going to say 4 not 14 and even then I was going to say YABU.

Mainly because you seem to be concerned about her conforming to what her peers are doing, but you’re doing the same citing that this is out of respect to other people

She's 14 and you need to ask if it's unreasonable to force her to wear a dress and also unreasonable to make her dress differently from her friends?

Yes, it's very unreasonable.

I'm late to this, but read all the OP's updates and am pleased about the outcome. However -

OP, there are some words that I think you need to think about going forward -
that you've compromised in allowing her to wear part of what she wanted -

A 14 year old is well able to make these decisions for herself. That you've posted on a forum for other people's opinions rather than trust your daughter - kindly, you are infantilising your daughter - if she'd worn what she'd wanted would she really have stood out? You said there was another with the same outfit as your DD wanted to wear.

Again, kindly meant, but do you try and control other things in your DD's life - friends, food, outings, hobbies? Just be aware, please, that if you are the one making all the decisions in your DD's life you take away that power from her - mistakes too are a learning experience.

You appear to have rather a grandiose view of this church event. It's a carol service, not the Oscars! If formal dress were required, the minister or choir leader would have made this clear.

She’s 14 - YABU.

this reminds me of getting told off by my DM when I went to a family christening and wore trousers for the day. My answer was He doesn't care what we wear, He cares that we are going. I was already a mum of 2 by then but all through my teenage years I was told I could only wear a dress for Church and I hated it so much I rebelled and chose not to go anymore.

Let her choose her own clothes

14 and she has no other casual clothes to wear. What century are you living in. I'm old enough to be her grandmother and my children would have all had casual fairly up to date clothes to wear on such occasions. Do not make her wear that dress she will never forgive you. Let her wear what she wants and make sure you take her out to buy some modern jeans and a couple of band T-shirts ASAP.

Im a minister let her wear what she wants

She definitely has to choose what she wears at 14.

Surely jeans/ leggings with a plain-ish teeshirt is ok if you feel the band tees are no good. Does she have a Christmas tee/jumper? If she’s usually a good kid and the band isn’t Cradle of Filth or similar then it’s really not the hill to die on.

I found that CofE were generally more dressed up than Catholics for church ... just an observation when I was younger, might be different these days.

But at 14 I'd let her wear what she wants.