MIL dressing like my bridesmaids

[Hiccupp]

DP and I have rearranged our wedding for early next year and mentioned the colour scheme / choices to his family. Despite making it clear that the bridesmaids' dresses will all be navy, with various different straps etc., DP's mother has taken it upon herself to order a dress in the same shade that completely blends in with the shape and style.

AIBU in thinking it's not her place to dress like one of the bridesmaids? I expected her to want to join in having her hair and make up done with us (she loves to match her DD at any event) and am pleased we normally have that sort of relationship, but I thought the mother of the groom should wear something complementary to the overall colour scheme if not her own thing entirely!

Ha ha! My MIL did this. We went for a “kingfisher” blue colour for the bridesmaid dresses & matched DH’s cravate to it. My MIL asked if she could see the bridesmaid dresses. I said she couldn’t as it was all a surprise for the day.

Did you let your mum see them before the day, or was it literally just you, your husband and the bridesmaids who saw them before (presumably the bridesmaids couldn't show anyone else)? TBH that's the most batshit bit of your post, that it needed to be such a big secret.

YABU to dress the bridesmaids in navy. Choose a pretty lighter blue. Smoky pastels.
Also navy is a vv popular choice for older women. You might have guessed she’d choose it.
YANBU however to be impatient with a mother who copies her daughters hair and clothes. Embarrassing and tiresome, and you’re all supposed to say Which is which I can’t tell 🙄

When I got married 34years ago .....I know 😱
It was the 'done' thing for both mothers to compliment the bridal colour scheme.

We had all our outfits sorted. Flowers to match dh's kilt etc.. Mil rang the hire shop to try and change dh's tartan pattern!!.
Just one time of reasoning behind her being uninvited!!

Mumsnet makes me laugh. It's not hard for a MIL to "get it right" as others have suggested - it's really simple, don't dress like the bride and don't dress like the bridesmaids

A dress in a complementary colour would look lovely, a dress in the same colour is fine if it's an obviously different style (a floral navy dress say would look lovely)

It doesn't have to be perfect, nobody would care, just don't wear same dress as bridesmaids or a bridal dress!

I can be pretty clueless about style but it seems obvious to me!

We're also due to get married, so I get it. I don't like MIL but even I wouldn't mind that. Navy is a colour that goes well at any age.

OP, you should have said it was a bridesmaid dress from the same range, in your first post. A lot of posters only read that one, so won't see your update. I think a lot of the pps who said you're being unreasonable (or a bridezilla as one poster said) would change their replies if they'd seen what dress it actually is.

I do think your MIL is BU, and going by the fact that she tries to match her daughter when going to functions, it shows she lacks boundaries. I think she's trying to be seen as another bridesmaid.

@Motoko
OP, you should have said it was a bridesmaid dress from the same range, in your first post.

I see how it's not quite clear there, but technically, since I was planning to choose 3 different styles from the selection, and can make sure we don't go with the same as hers, I didn't want to say it was identical.

Ok I see that it’s a dress from the exact same range, and in the same colour as the BMs, so I concur this is definitely odd.

However, it’s just odd. As someone else has noted, she’s the one who will (possibly) look a bit odd in this situation. I definitely don’t think you should fall out with her over this.

An aside but, I also really like those sort of collections of BM dresses, and I could see picking something similar even if I weren’t in the party. I don’t mean, similar to the actual BMs, but just that those type of collections tend to be flattering to many figures, and it would save me having to hunt for a dress elsewhere. I’m not the best shopper. I would pick a different colour though as well, as I said before, it is a bit odd!

If MIL wears it with a jacket or contrasting wrap and a hat no one is going to even notice. However if she turns up holding a bunch of flowers then you have reason to be upset.

She could turn up wearing white. There is always a worse scenario that could happen.

@ArtieFufkinPolymerRecords - as you're the second person to be scornful of my use of "batshit", I feel I must concede that I was being bitchy there. I am clearly not as emotionally unaffected by the impact of my in-laws on my DH and me, as I would like to be. And no, your assumption that I included my Mum in wedding things that my DH's mother was excluded from wedding isn't true for us - I worked really hard to include my inlaws to as much of the same degree as my parents as was possible, despite the fact my DH didn't have as good a relationship with his as I had with mine at the time. I have stopped doing that now though and let my DH dictate the relationship we have with his family rather than persisting with my mantra that we "must treat them equally to my parents" after a comment they made (the only one thing they did that I must confess did leave me sobbing) ... when our eldest was born, I was rushed to theatre with life-threatening issues 2 hours after giving birth. They sat, less than 24 hours later, in the hospital in front of us both cuddling our baby (yes, yes, their grandchild too) with me still seriously ill & by not means "out of the woods" and said how they had heard my DH had had a magical half an hour. My DH didn't understand what they were on about...they didn't mean "witnessing the birth our child', no, apparently it was magical for him that I was rushed away (and he then spent at least half an hour worrying I might die before he was given an update) because it meant he had our baby to himself!

I know I should resist but I am going to give in to the urge to justify myself a bit even though I appreciate you and I will likely have to agree to disagree on this even if I expand on my viewpoint. I also appreciate without history and context it does seem odd to keep the bridesmaid dresses and their colour "secret" and that from what I have written so far, it comes across that it was my decision to keep them secret, but it wasn't my decision. So I guess it was my DH who was "batshit" in your opinion, with my facilitation. My DH said that he didn't want his mother to wear the same colour as him - and we planned his cravat to be the same colour as the bridesmaid dresses (as he felt he'd had a lifetime of his parents leaching onto everything he did - his feelings and words, not mine) so he said something along the lines of please don't show my parents the bridesmaids dresses otherwise it will be suddenly the only colour my Mother could ever have considered wearing. So when she asked to see them and replied to my response that DH and I were keeping them a "surprise" that she would feel more comfortable knowing their colour so she didn't clash. I said that's fine but we would rather you don't go for the same colour, if that ok, but a clashing colour wouldn't bother us at all. She replied that of course she wouldn't go for the same colour but she would try not to clash too...and then came in an outfit the exact same colour. It was a surprise to me, as I had taken her at her word...turns out, unsurprisingly, that my DH knew her better than I did.

Anyway, none of this is relevant to the Op, who I wish a fabulous and memorable wedding day and every happiness in their further lives together.

@readingismycardio

We're also due to get married, so I get it. I don't like MIL but even I wouldn't mind that. Navy is a colour that goes well at any age.

But would you mind if your MIL chose to wear exactly the same dress as the bridesmaids because that is what is happening here.

Slightly ironic username!

Can your DP have a word? I think it's v odd and also she will look a bit foolish as a bridesmaid / not bridesmaid!

She’s going to look like a loon. Make sure there isn’t a spare bouquet available for grabs.