Page 6 | Can't Believe What I've Just Seen at a Wedding

Bulbsbulbsbulbs · 2025-09-06T17:15:12+00:00

Afternoon wedding, on a beach. Bride in traditional wedding dress, guests mostly in smart normal wedding attire. One guest was in a wedding dress. A proper, full on wedding dress. Strapless, corset back, full length, big full skirt with a TRAIN. The bride had asked guests not to wear white and it wasn't white but bloody hell, who would do that? She looked amazing in it but I simply can't understand the thought process. I've no idea who she was other than a friend of the bride, close enough to go to the hen night, but I'm pretty sure the bride wouldn't have said this dress was OK if she'd been asked. She wasn't a bridesmaid, literally just a guest with no other role to play at the wedding( unless she's going to step up and sing Don't Cry For Me Argentina at the reception later which is possible I suppose!) I'm just gobsmacked that someone would do this.

CoffeeLipstickKeys · 07/09/2025 01:20

Lifebeganat50 · 07/09/2025 00:46

“Hardly any places in the UK”

apart from the whole of Scotland 🙄

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Lol

Letsgoroundagainnow · 07/09/2025 01:46

IsSheOkayOrWhat · 06/09/2025 22:11

must be a shit wedding if your on your phone!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don’t think I’ve been to a wedding where 100% of my time I was dazzled by the entertainment and unable to do anything else?

Why would it be a shit wedding because OP accessed her phone?

MarxistMags · 07/09/2025 01:48

I'm not understanding the 'not so hidden' message. Can you enlighten me please

SweetnsourNZ · 07/09/2025 01:56

Echobelly · 06/09/2025 19:21

Other end of the scale, could it be someone who's never been to a wedding and thinks you're supposed to wear something like that? I never went to a wedding until I was in my 20s, maybe she looked up 'wedding outfit ideas' and barked up totally the wrong tree?

I heard its very normal in the American South for the women to dress like bridesmaids at weddings. Not sure if it's true, or if it still happens today.

SweetnsourNZ · 07/09/2025 01:58

Echobelly · 06/09/2025 19:34

Why would anyone do it? Because a lot of people know nothing about weddings if they haven't been to many perhaps.

Honestly, before I got married and went on wedding forums and found out more about what's commonplace, if anyone had asked me to be a bridesmaid on the assumption I would 'obviously know' I was expected to attend every dress shopping expedition, be really involved in wedding planning and to sort out a hen weekend for a dozen people in Aiya Napa or whatever, I would have got in such trouble. I assumed the bridesmaids just got bought a dress and had to turn up on the day and look worse than the bride.

Obviously, not every bride expects super involved bridesmaids and most will communicate upfront what they want. But I see online a lot of arguments about being a bridesmade that seem to come from exactly this misalignment of expectation. So I think it's possible a first time guest could just make an error about what you're supposed to wear.

Actually that was how it used to be before the craziness took over weddings.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 07/09/2025 05:49

It was probably my sister. Every single wedding I’ve been to with her (including mine (and hers!)), she’s looked as if she could feasibly be the bride. Apparently ivory is her best colour. And she always has to draw attention to herself wherever she is.

TheSquashyHatofMrGnosspelius · 07/09/2025 06:29

LaurieFairyCake · 06/09/2025 18:38

What colour was it? Sounds like a ballgown?

Not with a train. That's no ballgown.

LovelySunnyDayToday · 07/09/2025 06:53

Bulbsbulbsbulbs · 06/09/2025 19:25

Actually I came home in the 'down time' photos etc. I posted because I was just so surprised by it.

And of course I can't take a photo of a stranger and post it on the internet!!! Christ. But she looks a bit like this, without the straps and with a train.
share.google/T8zR5bPLk7WHlVaWi

Edited

A friend wore a gold dress tike this this to my wedding. I remember it bothering some people. I wasn’t really thinking about her tbh.

LovelySunnyDayToday · 07/09/2025 06:58

SheSpeaks · 06/09/2025 21:39

I’ll preface this with I’m not a wedding person and have zero idea of the “rules” that are apparently just common knowledge (exactly how one gains this knowledge nobody can ever explain to me) but these thread always astound me.

As far as I can tell these rules only apply to women and men can all wear matching or similar suits etc and that’s fine. But what I have learned so far from MN in terms of weddings is:

Women must not, as a wedding guest, wear the same colour as the bride. Even if we don’t know in advance what colour that is. We must not wear white because it has a recent association with women getting married in the UK (very recent, white is in no way traditional). We must not wear red because it indicates a scandal. We must not wear green because it means jealousy or is bad luck. Or black because it indicates mourning and is associated with funerals. We must not wear pale colours lest it is mistaken for white, not lace in case the brides dress has lace, nor white background patterns because of photos. No styling that might be mistaken for a wedding dress (such styling is found in a large percentage of formal wear) Also not formal enough to wear separates, and entirely frowned upon to choose anything someone might interpret as showy or with too much leg or cleavage.

Now I learn we also cannot wear pink or ball gowns.

I have worn pretty much all of above to weddings in the past including white, and including wearing the same colour as the bride, and realise I have lived my life in a perpetual state of faux pas. And yet nobody has seemed concerned and all my friends are still talking to me and most of them am still invited me to their second and third weddings so I can’t have annoyed them too much.

Please do tell me how we are supposed to intuit these mad rules and even better do tell why they only apply to women and why they only apply at the one specific social occasion of a wedding?

Just don’t dress like the bride. That’s it really. Not hard.

orangemapleleaves · 07/09/2025 07:37

At my wedding one woman, a colleague I couldn't stand but who was going out with a friend so I had to invite, wore a white lacy dress but tried to get away with it by adding colourful stockings. Dick.

UninitendedShark · 07/09/2025 07:37

A colleague’s MIL has form for being an attention seeker and turned up to her eldest son’s April wedding in a lovely, highly appropriate MOG outfit. Topped off with a home made Easter bonnet complete with half of the hobby craft Easter section hot glued to it. She refused to remove it for the photos at the church.

DiscoBeat · 07/09/2025 07:43

MadameSzyszkoBohusz · 06/09/2025 19:03

I once attended a wedding where the MOB wore a full length white dress with a veil. 😲

A hwwwwhaaat??

snowmichael · 07/09/2025 07:43

> unless she's going to step up and sing Don't Cry For Me Argentina at the reception later

Seems more likely she'll be singing "It should have been me" :)

Cathandkin · 07/09/2025 07:50

orangemapleleaves · 07/09/2025 07:37

At my wedding one woman, a colleague I couldn't stand but who was going out with a friend so I had to invite, wore a white lacy dress but tried to get away with it by adding colourful stockings. Dick.

I hope everyone realised what she was like after that.

PineappleSunrise · 07/09/2025 07:57

SheSpeaks · 06/09/2025 21:39

I’ll preface this with I’m not a wedding person and have zero idea of the “rules” that are apparently just common knowledge (exactly how one gains this knowledge nobody can ever explain to me) but these thread always astound me.

As far as I can tell these rules only apply to women and men can all wear matching or similar suits etc and that’s fine. But what I have learned so far from MN in terms of weddings is:

Women must not, as a wedding guest, wear the same colour as the bride. Even if we don’t know in advance what colour that is. We must not wear white because it has a recent association with women getting married in the UK (very recent, white is in no way traditional). We must not wear red because it indicates a scandal. We must not wear green because it means jealousy or is bad luck. Or black because it indicates mourning and is associated with funerals. We must not wear pale colours lest it is mistaken for white, not lace in case the brides dress has lace, nor white background patterns because of photos. No styling that might be mistaken for a wedding dress (such styling is found in a large percentage of formal wear) Also not formal enough to wear separates, and entirely frowned upon to choose anything someone might interpret as showy or with too much leg or cleavage.

Now I learn we also cannot wear pink or ball gowns.

I have worn pretty much all of above to weddings in the past including white, and including wearing the same colour as the bride, and realise I have lived my life in a perpetual state of faux pas. And yet nobody has seemed concerned and all my friends are still talking to me and most of them am still invited me to their second and third weddings so I can’t have annoyed them too much.

Please do tell me how we are supposed to intuit these mad rules and even better do tell why they only apply to women and why they only apply at the one specific social occasion of a wedding?

After reading decades worth of “rules” threads I’ve come to realise that the only safe wedding guest outfit is a shade of blue and likely involves florals. But only if you’ve not heard in advance that the bridesmaids are wearing blue or florals (and you’d better be close enough to the bride to get that information in advance!), in which case you’re obviously trying to screw up the photos.

In my day it just used to be important not to wear an actual wedding dress to a wedding unless you were actually the bride. Then it became white/ivory/cream/anything with a pale background like pink or yellow that could be mistaken for being in the white family, and all hell has been breaking loose ever since.

CaptainMyCaptain · 07/09/2025 08:02

CoffeeLipstickKeys · 06/09/2025 22:04

These alleged rules only exist in the strangled confines of mumsnet. Where a grandiose minority seek to apply a convoluted set of rules & norms to social situations. Deeming anyone who won’t acquiesce to their constrictive demands as thick as pigshit.
Meanwhile is real life there are no such rules, and no self appointed harridans to impose their rules

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This.

IsSheOkayOrWhat · 07/09/2025 08:11

Letsgoroundagainnow · 07/09/2025 01:46

I don’t think I’ve been to a wedding where 100% of my time I was dazzled by the entertainment and unable to do anything else?

Why would it be a shit wedding because OP accessed her phone?

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If for one day ( at someone’s special day) you cant get off a bloody phone then you got issues. I wouldn’t think once about getting my phone out and posting on MN. lol 😂

RichardMarxisinnocent · 07/09/2025 08:28

rainbowunicorn · 06/09/2025 21:04

You can in Scotland. You can get married pretty much anywhere you like in Scotland.

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Good point, I'd forgotten the different wedding laws there. In England and Wales there aren't many where you can have the actual legal wedding on the actual beach.

RichardMarxisinnocent · 07/09/2025 08:30

Lifebeganat50 · 07/09/2025 00:46

“Hardly any places in the UK”

apart from the whole of Scotland 🙄

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Yep sorry about that, I was too England and Wales focused

MiddleAgeRageMonster · 07/09/2025 08:39

I often wonder how bored the bride must be on her wedding day to notice everyone else's outfit!
I have been married years now but even at the time I couldn't have recalled what my guests were wearing except for the one rather large woman that wore a white vest top (the £2.50 from Primark kind) with a pair of black cropped leggings and black ballerina shoes-she has lived rent free in my head for a long time, not because she ruined anything but because all of the other guests were talking about her for all of the wrong reasons!!! A pink ott ballgown type think might have been preferable.......

Echobelly · 07/09/2025 08:40

SweetnsourNZ · 07/09/2025 01:58

Actually that was how it used to be before the craziness took over weddings.

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Well absolutely, that's all I knew about.

My only bridesmaid was 3, so no organising hen parties! 😃

WizardOfTopsham · 07/09/2025 08:40

At my wedding my best friend wore an outfit that would have upstaged Beyonce, and my ex-MIL wore a very pale cream. I didn’t give a monkeys: they weren’t the ones walking down the aisle, and I thought they both looked fabulous.

Although we are now divorced, I still love my ex-MIL.

Cathandkin · 07/09/2025 08:41

MiddleAgeRageMonster · 07/09/2025 08:39

I often wonder how bored the bride must be on her wedding day to notice everyone else's outfit!
I have been married years now but even at the time I couldn't have recalled what my guests were wearing except for the one rather large woman that wore a white vest top (the £2.50 from Primark kind) with a pair of black cropped leggings and black ballerina shoes-she has lived rent free in my head for a long time, not because she ruined anything but because all of the other guests were talking about her for all of the wrong reasons!!! A pink ott ballgown type think might have been preferable.......

So, you did know what one of your guests was wearing!

WizardOfTopsham · 07/09/2025 08:43

The only time I’ve commented on another guest’s wedding attire was where the bride’s cousin wore a white suit. Not because it was white, but because she wore no top or bra under the jacket, and I don’t think many of the people present escaped without seeing her tits. Including the vicar.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 07/09/2025 08:46

When I was studying photography, we were told that the “no white” thing just came from photography. The camera will preferentially focus on white. Good form to focus on the bride rather than guests!