AIBU to wear a floral dress my brother's girlfriend calls white to their wedding? Part 2.

[princesspicker]

Old thread nearly full. Some of you are saying if people had seen the dress straight away the votes would be 99% against me, let’s see about that. At least half the other thread say it’s fine to wear this dress.

From the old thread:

My brother is getting married in three weeks and I’ve bought a fairly expensive dress for his wedding.

The dress: https://www.hobbs.com/product/carly-floral-dress/0126-5675-9022L00-CREAM-MULTI.html

BD’s gf (bride) saw a dress that is similar to my dress. She saw it at my mum’s. It has a pattern but with short sleeves and some ruffle. It is one of my dresses and I had left it at my mums house. It is not the dress I’ll wear for the wedding.

She called that dress white even though it has a pattern. She told mum that it would be inappropriate to wear for the wedding day. Mum and I think she pretended to think it was one of my mum’s options, since it was clearly not something mum would wear anywhere.

This all happened because my mum was showing her all the dress options she had in mind for herself for the wedding.

When bride raised this with mum, mum told her not to worry because she (mum) won’t wear white.

Which is true regardless of if you say the dress is white or cream or whatever.

After this happened, my brother started asking everyone what they would be wearing.

Old thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5546975-aibu-to-wear-a-floral-dress-my-brothers-girlfriend-calls-white-to-their-wedding

👆this right here. I’ve very much enjoyed reading all of your totally OTT replies, OP, but at the end of the day if you don’t wear the dress nothing bad will happen. I’m sure you can find an even more princessy dress that your daughter will love too.

If you do wear the dress you are going to be seen as the sad, desperate jilted sister-in-law determined to try to outshine/upset/both her new SIL on what should be a happy day for the bride. Not a good look. I have no doubt you will ignore the quoted posters solid advice, however. So I ask only that you post the details of the fall-out after you deliberately sabotage your relationship with your brother and his new family for no particular reason so i can enjoy a satisfying conclusion to the drama 😘

You started off this stating the bride didn’t want your mother’s input and that this was a source of anger for both you and mother and you. Then you told us your mother managed to get to the fitting as long as she did not divulge what the wedding dress was like. Your mother immediately broke that trust and told you what the wedding dress was like. Very traditional OTT according to you and your mother.

Or maybe you go to brothers house and parents meet you there, or maybe you go to brothers house and they dont meet you there.

You're telling your brother he simply isn't important enough to visit on his own
You have already relegated him to second place, and maybe his fiance has had enough of your shit and is hoping you flounce off as you seem highly volatile and narcissistic

Almost 2000 people out of 2645 have voted you are being unreasonable.

Ah so she isn't making you all go to a destination wedding as you said! She is simply having her wedding at her home as is traditional.

The voting is also perhaps skewed by people like myself. I voted that YANBU because I think that a floral dress on a cream background is suitable attire for a wedding. But having said that, I still think in your shoes, I would have shown a photo of the dress to your brother and asked 'is this ok?' Then if the answer was no, I still wouldn't have worn it.

A lot of the people who voted YANBU might fell the same as me that it is an ok dress for a wedding, but nit the hill to die on for the sake of family relations.

Confused about your confusion. All of those things are true. Would you not be angry if someone refused you trying to help them when their friends and family can’t be there? And pay for them too? Utterly ungrateful.

Doesn’t mean you can’t take the high road and still help despite them biting the hand that feeds them.

Mum had to promise her to not tell anybody so she could go with her. Otherwise she would have been paying for her alteration without getting anything in return.

It’s a destination for us. Traditional where?!

Wondering, is it “traditional” to live with your bf for a decade before marrying? Seems like they are picking and choosing the traditions that suit them. Then, for everything that inconveniences others, they pretend it’s tradition.

Omg OP 😅
I honestly have no words other than you sound like an absolute fucking nightmare.
Bridezilla must really love your DB to be taking you on as a SIL, white dress or not.

It took 2 threads and we are on page 35 of the 2nd thread for us to be told

the bride is not English ( unlike the Op ) and that the wedding is in the bride's home country and not a ' destination ' wedding as informed by the Op previously.

only 5 pages left before thread 3 begins...

You’ve started both of these threads because you’re frothing with indignation that the bride has had the audacity to give you and your mum explicit instructions, yet every example you’ve given demonstrates exactly why she felt she had to. She isn’t treating you like children for fun—she’s treating you like people with a proven track record of ignoring perfectly reasonable boundaries.
“Please don’t tell anyone what the dress looks like.” Your mum promptly tells people.
“Please don’t wear anything inappropriate.” You’re going to anyway.
She doesn’t trust you because you’ve shown yourselves to be untrustworthy. That’s not her being controlling; that’s her responding to your behaviour.
The most bizarre part is that you seem convinced you’ve proved what an impossible bride she is, when you’ve actually done the exact opposite and if anything, you’ve left people wondering what else has happened behind the scenes to make her feel she has to pre-emptively manage you both.

And you seem bizarrely smug that you and your mum sit there picking her and ‘her’ wedding apart as though the fact you both agree validates your behaviour. Do you honestly think she has kept all of this to herself? Do you think her family will sit there blissfully unaware while you and your mum exchange eye rolls all day? You said your ex fiancée was talking about your family behind your back, I wonder why!!

It’s all transactional to you both, isn’t it? If they get this, we deserve that in return?
Your mum lied to her future DIL and broke her trust. And you still insist she has class!

And your mum ran straight to you and told you so she broke the promise didn’t she!! How do you justify that?

👏🏽

Without getting anything in return??

She's getting the satisfaction and pride of being able to give her son and daughter in law a beautiful wedding. Not dictating every aspect of it!

You are ‘mum’ aren’t you

It’s not a destination wedding if going to your home country. If they were marrying here would it be a destination wedding as her family would have had to travel?

Also, if I was offered help because my friends and family can't be there, but that came with stipulations and dictatorship then yes, I would absolutely refuse. No one HAS to accept help just because it's offered.

That's quite funny, Miss Main Character. A destination wedding doesn't mean one that some guests travel to. I could say I had a destination wedding even though it was right here in the UK, because some guests came from another country to it 🤣

Nobody keeps all the traditions, and of course we all pick the ones that are important to us when we get married. Most people accept that it's the bride and groom who get to choose (not the MIL who is financially contributing! That would be mad.). I bet you weren't planning the old wedding tradition of getting groom and his friends kidnapping the bride.

Because of the attitude.

It has never been a question about a dress. The first thread didn't even contain the dress picture for a long time.

It is an incessant serie of insults aimed at her SIL - class, "kind-of-people they invite", "showing respect", "helping is about blood family", expecting her DB to be available for child care with 0 intention to reciprocate, "she didn't ask me personally not to wear the dress".

The OP is seriously unpleasant.
I suppose I wish the DM picked this up, and the SIL was able to read it, it might be a very enlightening reading for her, or maybe she knows already.

Jesus Christ. They can get married, where they want, how they want and when they want. IT IS THEIR WEDDING!! You don’t have to go, it’s not compulsory.

I don’t think there is a single point of information you’ve put on here that is reasonable:

• You won’t show bride the dress and have a reasonable conversation about it.
• You expect your mum to be able to choose the shoes your brother wears for his wedding 😆
• You’re 40 years old and don’t want to change the dress because it would upset your daughter who thinks you look like a ‘princess’
• You think your mum paying for some of the wedding means she should get to dictate things about the wedding and, worse, be able to tell other guests what she’s paid for.
• You don’t/won’t ever visit your brother on his own.
• However you happily accept childcare from him, on your terms, but you won’t reciprocate for him if he has kids.
• You seem to think being a single parent absolves you from any kind of give and take in a relationship.
• You think a wedding in the brides home country is a destination wedding.

It just goes on and on.

Exactly this. We got married in the UK, where we live. My in laws all came from Spain, where they live. A branch of my family came from Canada, where they live. That doesn’t make it a ‘destination wedding’, just because DH’s family and part of my family had to travel from abroad!

You really do need professional help though.

I'm actually beginning to reconsider calling mine a destination wedding. I could mysteriously drop it in to a conversation with someone who didn't know me back then and leave them to assume we went to some Greek island 🤣