AIBU- £350 bridesmaids dresses

[Youbigdosser]

Me and my sister have been asked to be bridesmaids to our cousin we used to be very close to.
We aren’t short of money but the dresses she has chosen for us to wear and asked us to pay for ourselves are £350 each.
I wouldn’t say no and look cheap but if it was my wedding I’d never ask this of someone. Is she a cf?
Would you pay?
YABU- just go with it
YANBU- she is a cf!

It's all a question of the bride and groom's priorities....

We spent around the UK 'average' wedding spend on our wedding. Out of that...

• We paid for all the bridesmaids' dresses, shoes, shawls (cream wool), bags. Dresses were around £200 each, including alterations. They looked lovely.
• We paid for (very nice) suits for the best man and ushers (and also shirts, ties, cuff-links etc). One of them told me that he still uses his for interviews !
• Drinks were free for guests all night.
• We organised a bus between the church and the wedding-venue for guests who weren't driving.
• We hired a babysitter for the (very few) guests who had children so they could enjoy themselves.
• We made sure there was lots and lots of food the whole time, including picnic tea, canapes, wedding breakfast, cake, evening food and sweets and biscuits. We both hate weddings where you're hungry the whole time.

Things we cut back on were:

• The wedding-dress. I spent well below the average on this.
• Flowers etc. We had some but didn't go overboard.
• Decorations/favours/invitations. We kept these cheap and cheerful and made the favours and invitations ourselves.
• Cake, photographer, make-up, hair. We looked around and advertised locally for all of these so didn't pay over the odds.
• Venue. We went for a nice but not super-expensive venue. The rooms there were reasonably priced so our guests didn't have to shell out £££ if they wanted to stay the night.

We also had local stag and hen dos and I paid the travel costs of a close friend because I knew otherwise she would struggle to afford it and it was important to me to have her there. We both paid for most of the drinks and I paid for a lot of the activities on mine so it was affordable for my friends who were attending.

So, in my view, YANBU. The only people a wedding is really important to are the bride and groom (though hopefully their friends will be happy to celebrate the day with them). I would have hated for my wedding to have caused financial difficulties for anyone.

Woman BLASTS bride-to-be for making her pay £350 for bridesmaid dress
mol.im/a/8559339

You might want to get this thread taken down...

At least the daily mail haven’t used the photo op shared.

And they think C.F. stands for 'control freak'

I had to pay for my own dress and shoes once but I was promised reimbursement from the mother of the bride. This was because the dress initially picked for me didn’t fit and a refund couldn’t be sought, so that deal was made by her. However that refund (at least £30) never materialised. If someone asked me to buy my own bridesmaid dress, especially one as expensive as that, I would think they were on glue.

From the "typical" old-fashioned setup when it comes to weddings (and who pays for what) that I was always told: the Bride's family pays for the reception, the Groom's family pays for the rehearsal dinner, the Bridal party pay for their suits/dresses (their "present" is their participation in the wedding hence they pay for the outfit, including shoes) and the Couple pays for the bridesmaids gifts (which is usually the jewelry they are wearing the day of), and the groomsman gifts. With that in mind though, I would be prepared, as the bride, to purchase a dress if needed. I would much prefer paying for the dress and shoes while keeping my close friends in the wedding party rather than having her either have to step down or spend money she really doesn't have (which I have done in the past) just to be in the wedding. I would have offered to pay at least half if I was that "in love" with the $350 dress. Honestly, I don't care how "good" my friends are doing, financially speaking, I couldn't imagine expecting them to pay $350 for the dress and then all the other costs on top of that, we're going into almost $500 to be in someone else's wedding. YANBU.

@NWojtanowski are you in the USA? Wedding etiquette between USA and UK is traditionally VERY different.

My bridesmaids paid for their dresses but picked whatever they wanted in a Very standard colour that suited all of them and they were all happy with. I didn’t even see most of them before the day and they looked amazing.

@mumsnethq can you please remove the picture on page 2 if you cant remove thread as this thread has been shared on the sun and daily mail

@Youbigdosser sorry to hear the sun shitbags picked this thread up. I hope you haven’t got any flack over it

£350 is far too way to a bridesmaid dresses. You can get a gorgeous evening dresses at the price.
From talk to our customers, I found both are OK, brides pay for the bridesmaid dresses or bridesmaids pay for themeselves. But if bridesmaids pay for the dress, there will be a gift from bride to thank them.

The only time I think this is okay is if you say, “You can wear any blue dress below the knee” etc. and not where you dictate the exact dress and cost. Being a bridesmaid is a favour you do the bride. Why should you pay for it?

Zombie.

Why do people dredge stuff up like this?

Omg I missed a trick there. Do people really have their bridesmaids pay for their own dresses? Wish I'd known that was a thing. We paid for dresses, shoes, hair/makeup and jewelery, could have saved a flipping fortune.
She is being very unreasonable!