Would you judge a mother of the bride or groom for wearing black?

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Or is it now completely acceptable? The dress is floor length and fabulous and my future in law is ok with it but I would hate to think anyone would think I was being funereal because I love them!

I’ve been to quite a few weddings where people wear back. But never the mother of bride or groom!
Extremely outing I’ve also been to a wedding where a female guest & not a bridesmaid, can only be described as wearing an off white/ light cream meringue type dress. She got a lot of odd looks!

I used to have a colleague who was lovely but his mother was batshit and very possessive, he didn’t know if she would actually turn up to the wedding.

She did turn up, late and wearing all black. That sent a very clear message to the guests that she wasn’t happy. Certainly gave us something to talk about.

Why green? As a redhead I wear a lot of green & saw a fabulous green dress on sale that I'm considering for my cousin's wedding.

OP I wouldn't think anything of it if the dress was very obviously not a funeral dress which I assume it is.

My MIL was asked not to wear black or green (my grandmother was very, very superstitious about green at weddings). So she wore black and green with a huge hat that hid her face. I’ve always wondered why.

Green is supposed to be very bad luck. My late mother was very superstitious, it was one of many things she would not do. I could write a book about it! I try not to be superstitious but I can't get over that one.

Black is not OK for a wedding

If by ‘judge’ mean ‘assume you were expressing disapproval of the marriage’, I probably would and internally speculate on the background for why you didn’t think the marriage should be going ahead.

It does depend on the type of wedding - I think it would stand out more at a traditional afternoon wedding at an English country church where every other woman was in light colours rather than at a non-church wedding with lots of people wearing smart evening wear. It may be more the latter since floor length wouldn’t be suitable for the former anyway. If so, as PPs say, if you make sure to use coloured accessories, it may be OK.

In terms of standing out, if you Google Raquel Welch at her son’s marriage to Fred Trueman’s daughter, that’s the sort of wedding picture you don’t want.

If it’s a black tie occasion it’s fine, otherwise definitely not, even less so for mother of bride/groom as they usually buy something new so would have specifically chosen floor length black…

That's exactly what I'd want to avoid. A round of applause at your own child's wedding? So attention seeking. My mother wore white to my brother's wedding with the hugest hat I've ever seen. Unnecessary.

No, it's quite common at many of the weddings I've been to, and not just the ones with a black tie or cocktail dress dress code. (Have also been to plenty of wedding were some guests, as well the MoB/MoG have worn white and no-one had a fit of the vapours or made accusations of them trying to upstage the bride).

When did wearing green or even red become verboten at weddings? Both are popular colours for the groomsmen and bridesmaids.

It's only on here people are weird about what colours one can wear to a wedding.

I thought avoiding green for weddings was a fairly well known thing (bringing bad luck), red less so (association of scarlet woman, i.e. adulteress).

I wear lots of green, it suits me. Never heard about not wearing green to a wedding.
I also wore a black dress once to a good friends wedding. I already had te dress and she said how I should wear it to her wedding. Think I wore a light coloured jacket with it.

My friends MIL did this on purpose.

When's the wedding? It will stand out much less in the depths of winter.

If it's a summer wedding at a country house type thing, you'll stand out for the wrong reasons. Even if the bride was ok with it I wouldn't want to bring that kind of attention on myself iykwim.

It's risky because some people seem to do this to make a statement.

I've seen so many mn posts referencing this.

I think PPs whose MILs have done this have all said "I wondered whether it meant they didn't approve" or in one case "I knew she didn't approve so wondered whether she was doing it deliberately".

This is something that you can prevent by using the medium of words to communicate rather than clothes, and saying "I love this dress, would it be OK if I wore it. I promise that it absolutely 100% doesn't mean that I'm making a subtle protest about the marriage - I'm delighted to be gaining you as a DIL/SIL"

Nothing however will stop the groom's workmate's girlfriend who works in the same company going back and saying "yes it was a lovely wedding, but you'll never believe what the MIL wore - she obviously didn't approve".

My mum wore black to my first wedding she just feels more comfortable in that colour xxx

If dark colours fit the MoB or MoG better, something like this would be ok. Though you can go for dark or navy blues, or browns too.
But more black than this would lift an eyebrow. Colour or light jacket and hat breaks it up enough.

I once went to a formal wedding in the US and so many people wore black I started to think I missed a dress request on the invite. Even the (adult) bridesmaids wore black. So no I wouldn't think twice if anyone wore black.

I would certainly raise an eyebrow.

All black?

Yes I would absolutely be sitting there as a guest wondering what behind the scenes falling out I had missed out on.

I would think there was serious beef between them

I wore a black dress to my niece's wedding pre lockdown. It never occurred to me that you shouldn't. It was just a lovely dress.

I hope now that no one was thinking that I had a downer on either the bride or groom as I love them both.

I find these rules ridiculous. My sister & I both had winter weddings & our mother wore black to both our weddings. I wore black as my sisters bridesmaid & she wire green as mine

We all looked fabulous & they were very chic, glamorous events.

I would not be caught dead in 99.9% of the dresses recommended on here for weddings though.

My friend's very Catholic grandma wore it to her wedding because she was marrying a non Catholic. It definitely sent the message that she DID NOT APPROVE of the marriage. It depends on the message that you want to convey but I certainly wouldn't wear black to a wedding.