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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think it's rude to take little girls to a wedding in bridesmaids dresses...

189 replies

Dyeingforachange · 30/04/2012 08:49

...when they aren't the actual bridesmaids? Does this rank alongside wearing women wearing white to weddings?

OP posts:
TheBigJessie · 30/04/2012 11:49

MrsDavidBridges

Yeah, I'm glad that bride was lovely to that little girl, too. That little girl will be humiliated thanks to her parents plenty of times in the future, as it is. Poor thing. Sad

McHappyPants2012 · 30/04/2012 11:49

thanks, i didn't want to leave any of the little girls out, that was the reason i didn't want bridesmaid far to many girls in my family. So they all could be princess for the day.

i wanted a marriage and not a wedding, my wedding was stress free and planned within 2 months

MyMelody · 30/04/2012 11:50

I was so happy on my wedding day that I didn't notice or give a flying fig what anyone else was wearing! I'm amazed anyone could get upset by a little girl wearing a posh dress to a wedding! Confused

KatieScarlett2833 · 30/04/2012 11:52

I would have been happy for as many wee souls to dress up and come down the aisle as could fit in the church.

Hurt a little childs feelings? Never.

ScrambledSmegs · 30/04/2012 11:54

Hmm - have actually been to a wedding where a guest turned up with three little girls in what definitely looked like white flower girl dresses, hair done, carrying flowers very much like the bridal party. She hung around by the venue entrance and apparently told the bride that it would break the little girls heart if they weren't allowed to walk in ahead of her Hmm. Bride of course said ok (faced with 3 little hopeful faces, who wouldn't) but she already had official flower girls who seemed a bit put out - her own daughters. The new flower girls were distant relatives, I think.

Now, that was rude. Just wearing bridesmaidy dresses, not so much.

ScrambledSmegs · 30/04/2012 11:56

Btw, apart from the bride's children, it was a child-free wedding (venue rather child-unfriendly). So it wasn't like the bride even knew they were going to be there!

fluffiphlox · 30/04/2012 11:57

Isn't it about dressing up for a wedding? Most of us do that. Little girls especially want to do that. (Well mostly). I don't suppose any of the guests would really confuse them with the actual bridesmaids? It's a bit mean-spirited (on what's supposed to be a happy day) to begrudge a little girl a few hours in a fancy frock.

fluffiphlox · 30/04/2012 11:57

Scrambled that does sound rude however. Wedding hi-jack!

choccyp1g · 30/04/2012 12:06

Many years ago I went to a wedding where the Groom was Danish, and ALL his teenage girl cousins wore white dresses: simple chiffony things, but not all the same.
Apparently it is traditional (in Denmark? in his family?) for all "unmarried" girls to wear white to weddings. If I remember correctly there were no actual bridesmaids, but it really was a very long time ago.

KatieScarlett2833 · 30/04/2012 12:08

Just thinking, it's traditional here for males at a wedding to wear a kilt. Which means that most men turn up looking almost exactly the same. Do they have a Groomzilla fit? err no.

Wimmins are funny sometimes.

EldritchCleavage · 30/04/2012 12:12

It's a minefield.

I don't get the desperately wanting to be bridesmaids thing, personally. I had no interest when I was small. Actual adult women wanting to be bridesmaids and being all offended if they aren't chosen is something I find really quite strange, as well as ridiculous. All these stories of people pushing their little daughters forward and falling out with the bride if the daughters are not chosen is odd and a terrible shame. Then there are the brideszillas who chose children they scarecely know because they are bonny and will look nice in the pictures-double weird.

As for dresses, deliberately getting the same dress as the bridesmaids is odd. Putting a young child in a dress that could be a bridesmaid's dress is perfectly normal, isn't it? As so many posters have pointed out, most little girl's party dresses could double as bridesmaids' dresses.

melika · 30/04/2012 12:12

On the other hand, I dressed my 2 DS in waistcoats, cravats and smart trousers for my nieces wedding. They were not page boys. She didn't mind and are in the pictures etc. I thought I would make maximum effort as there aren't many family weddings these days. I'm so glad I did too.

There is nothing wrong in dressing up for a wedding at all. YABAU.

McHappyPants2012 · 30/04/2012 12:14

my husband just handed over the bank card and said see you there, he was not in the one bit intrested in the planning of the wedding.

can you just imagine on dadsnet this thread....... my uncle wore the same suit as my groomsman (if that is a word)

MarySA · 30/04/2012 12:19

Well I don't see why a small girl shouldn't be allowed to wear a frilly dress to a wedding. But not carry flowers and hang about to be part of the wedding party. I do get the wanting to be bridesmaids thing. I was never a bridesmaid. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!

sashh · 30/04/2012 12:26

YABU people can wear whatever they like for whatever reason. If you don't want them at the wedding then don't invite them. After that it is up to them.

Reread my post - the cchild in question wasn't invited

EdlessAllenPoe · 30/04/2012 12:29

i think when someone has a lot of bridesmaids and you aren't one of them, then it is one of those moments when you think ' i like them more than they like me' so is not that silly a thing to feel upset over.

i only had DD1 as a dressed bridesmaid so i suppose i can't complain if others don't choose me!

HexagonalQueenOfTheSummer · 30/04/2012 12:35

Eldritch, I think some women (myself included) have got upset in the past about not being a bridesmaid as it's not about standing in the church holding the bride's dress train, but more about the friendship thing and realising that you're not as important to the bride as she is to you, which is very upsetting.

My best friend from school, who had been my best friend all through secondary school and college, decided to have another friend from our school group as her bridesmaid and in actual fact I was only invited to the evening do. I didn't make a fuss and went along graciously but I thought it was mean of my best friend to do that, and it did show her in another light to me and made me cool off a lot towards her in the years that followed. We are still friends but I could never refer to her again as my 'best friend', and I think she knows that somewhere along the line she has pissed me off.

EldritchCleavage · 30/04/2012 12:53

Well, Hex, I can see how it would hurt in those circumstances. That is pants.

HexagonalQueenOfTheSummer · 30/04/2012 13:02

Thanks Eldritch :) I guess in a way she did me a favour as I could have wasted another 10 years or so thinking she was my best friend and then she could have done something equally as unkind.

5Foot5 · 30/04/2012 13:16

I am truly astonished how many people have been at a wedding where this has happened (non-bridesmaid wearing bridesmaidy dress or non-page wearing page-y cothes) and even more astonished at how many posters think it doesn't matter or that anyone would be uptight to care.

Of course it is rude and very thoughtless. Surely the only interpretation of such an action is that the parents are trying to insinuate their own DD in to the bridal group. And yes of course little girls who are official bridesmaids might feel that this de-values thier status a bit.

Agree entirely with posters who say that this is attention-seeking behaviour.

MyMelody · 30/04/2012 13:26

what is a 'bridesmaidy dress' though? I've been to weddings where the bridesmaids have worn red, weddings where they've worn blue and weddings where they have worn pink! (I don't think I've actually been to one where they have worn white or ivory but I can't remember).

Whats more, at any wedding I have been to I have never known what the bridesmaids were going to be wearing beforehand, how would I?

MarysBeard · 30/04/2012 13:35

That would be my point. Define "Bridesmaids dress." I think it's frankly weird for anyone to be worried about what some three year old girl is wearing at a wedding, unless she's trying to hold the bride's train and walk up the aisle Hmm

My bridesmaid's outfits were separates from Coast. No-one wore the same at the wedding but it wasn't outside the realms of possibility that someone might. It wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest.

MarysBeard · 30/04/2012 13:40

In fact when DD1 was about three she did go to a wedding and wear a "bridesmaidy dress". As in a high waisted long dress with a lilac top, chiffon skirt and a little rose in the middle. MIL got it form a charity shop as a "dress up" dress for her but she wanted to wear it to the wedding, and I let her as it looked very pretty. Fortunately the bridesmaids aged 25+ were, perhaps surprisingly not wearing the same style Hmm

kerala · 30/04/2012 13:44

Oooh this is very on topic for us. Our little DDs (5 and 3) were Not Invited to DBIL wedding. All fine. After having lunch with us (don't see them much) they Now Are Invited. But not as bridesmaids I don't think though not clear they are the only DC in the family. The colour scheme is purple and the only pretty matching dresses we have are....purple. Both are desperate to be bridesmaids and have already assumed they are though DH and I putting them straight on this. Will I be terribly rude and unreasonable to let them wear these frocks...

Floggingmolly · 30/04/2012 13:56

Yes, Kerala, you would.

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