AITA for thinking bride is heinous?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AITA.

I’m a very reluctant maid of honor to a cousin. I tried to beg out because she has a mean streak, but she kept pressing. Wedding planning has only made her worse. The current problem is bridesmaids dresses.

She picked a rare color from a store that was shipping several months out and demanded we all pay $75 extra for rush. I did. Total came to just under $300. As it turned out, one of the bridesmaids ignored all of her texts and calls, and didn’t get around to ordering the dress until recently. Even with rush shipping, her dress won’t arrive in time. My cousin’s fix was to tell the rest of us to buy new dresses from a new store that ships quickly.

How she went about it was…well, she group texted us instructions for the new dresses and then told us to call her “if there’s a problem.” That was it. She didn’t say anything about the dresses we had already bought. I called her to ask if she planned for us to wear both dresses (i.e., change outfits halfway through). She bit my head off, saying she couldn’t deal with questions, I just need to follow instructions and asking if I was that hard up for money. Her reaction was so mean and over the top that I held back as she spoke. I wanted to hear everything she had to say. We hung up with me calmly saying “I guess I’ll buy the second dress???” She said “Good” and hasn’t called me since.

Turns out the first store she chose offers only exchanges and they’ll keep half the cost of the dress. I kinda don’t want to be in the wedding anymore. I just feel bruised and insulted. If I had had to ask bridesmaids to get new dresses, I’d be so apologetic. I’d at least offer to cover the difference. Naturally, if she had offered to pay, I’d have turned down the money immediately. It’s not the ask or the money. It’s the how. Feelings matter.

Any advice on how to move forward here? Should I get over it? Maybe I should try to get her to fire me as MOH? I’d like us to keep in touch as family and see each other maybe annually. Zero pressure to attend her wedding because hardly anyone likes her. That makes me feel a little bad for her though.

If I decided to stay as her MOH, I would wear the first dress. But, then, I might test positive for Covid the day before the wedding and need to quarantine for ten days.

When I got married I did not have attendants dress alike. I had a closet full of hideous pastel bridesmaid dresses and I was not going to do this to my friends so I told them the color, royal blue, and gave them each $100 to put toward price of dress and wanted them to get a dress they could wear again. Shoes were black patent. My only request was that the dresses be in similar style. It worked out very well.

Good for you! Bet your friends love you for being so sensible, PP! I only had one attendant, my maid of honor, and I told her to pick any dress she wanted as long as it was any shade of purple or lavender, and to make it something she would use a lot afterward. She picked a simple and lovely purple linen knee-length dress she could wear for work. I did not see it until we were getting dressed at the church an hour before the wedding. SO much less stress than dictating a specific dress for a whole cadre of attendants!

I did the same -- one attendant, and she picked her own dress. I bought her a pair of earrings to match. So much less stressful, and she got to wear something that she liked that was flattering and in her budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest to the bride and the other bridesmaids in the group chat that we all keep our original dresses and the one without a dress can buy one that coordinates with your dresses. The one with the different dress can be called MOH. Say upfront that it is a matter of cost. I am sure the other bridesmaids are thinking the same thing. Do it quickly before anyone else buys the new dress. In a group chat, I would think the bride is less likely to bully all of you at once lest she is left with no bridal party at all.

I’m going to go with a combo of what you and PP have suggested. I’m giving my dress to the bridesmaid who didn’t buy hers and humbly stepping down from the wedding party to make everything easier on everyone. I think you all have come up with the most gracious approach that doesn’t require a confrontation. Thank you!!

I'm not sure if there is a term for ultra pathetic, OP, but if there is, your picture should be next to it in the dictionary.

I’m sure my cousin would agree with you. People like you and her aren’t for me. Confrontation and aggression stress me TF out.

I am so with you, OP. I do not have the room in my brain to deal with people like your cousin or the PP. Life is hard enough without volunteering to spend time with a-holes.

You’re my kind of person. I think people like us are in the majority. We aren’t perfect, but we’re also not hunting for chances to bend others to our will or have a brawl. Especially coming out of a pandemic, I’m grateful for every day and want to focus on people who are good to me. (OP)

[Anonymous]

The bridesmaid who caused this mess should quit the wedding or pay for all the new dresses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’d buy the second dress instead of a gift.

Yes, do that. No gift. If she asks, just tell her she blew your budget out.

[Anonymous]

She's a jerk, you should quit.

what SHE should do is "fire" the bridesmaid who screwed up, not punish the rest of you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to derail this thread, but I find this whole "bridesmaids paying for every thing" for American weddings very cheap and low class.

We are immigrants. When my DD got married, her BFF hosted the bridal shower at our house, but we paid for everything because we felt that the BFF did not have to spend money on top of planning everything. We also paid for the travel costs, room and meals for their bachelorette party. DD was adamant that there would be no gifts. The fact that these girls coordinated their schedules, took time off from work and came together to celebrate my DD for a weekend was already too much of an ask.

For the wedding, I paid for the dresses for the bridal party, hair, makeup, meals, room, transportation. It is ridiculous to have a bridal party and expect everyone to spring for a dress that they would normally would not buy. I think that the tradition of having a bridal party should be simplified. Let everyone wear what they want to wear or pay for their matching outfits.

Ok? Maybe in your culture things are different.

Thank God for that. I can however still point out where the other "culture" fails and is "cultureless". FWIW, none of my DD's bridesmaids most of whom were WASP Americans, came protesting that they wanted to follow their "culture" of paying from out of pocket for my DD's wedding celebrations. Instead, most of them were very grateful that they did not have to pay for anything.

I suspect this is not even something that is related to the WASP "culture" but the modern perversion brought about by the trashy pop cultural phenomenon of "Bridezillas".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would offer to drop out of the party and give the dress (the one you already bought) to the bridesmaid who didn’t order in time. That way nobody has to buy a second dress. You can sell it as a sacrifice on your part to save the rest of the party (we all know she won’t buy it and she’ll cut you off, but that was going to happen immediately after the wedding anyway). To everyone else, you look like the bigger person.

This is an amazing idea. But what if the other bridesmaid isn’t the same size? Looking at pics, we don’t have the same body type at all. More ideas for how I can get bridezilla to fire me would be very welcome.

JFC, OP. Don't be so passive aggressive. Your relationship with this person is over, whatever happens. You have already said that you expect her to drop you after the wedding. Moreover, do you really think that if you maneuver her into firing you things will be just fine afterwards?

She sounds terrible, but you, frankly, aren't much better. You sound like a pathetic, shallow, spineless shell of a person. Grow up.

NP. You, PP, are the problematic one. OP has explained her reasoning and there is zero need to hurl insults at her like in this post above.

Telling OP to grow up, when your "advice" is just to insult her, is the least grown-up thing on this thread.

OP, there are people like this one on DCUM. They exist just to tell every OP that they're wrong, no matter what the OP is actually asking. Ignore.

Delivery aside, which part of the prior post do you disagree with? That OP is spineless? Passive aggressive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest to the bride and the other bridesmaids in the group chat that we all keep our original dresses and the one without a dress can buy one that coordinates with your dresses. The one with the different dress can be called MOH. Say upfront that it is a matter of cost. I am sure the other bridesmaids are thinking the same thing. Do it quickly before anyone else buys the new dress. In a group chat, I would think the bride is less likely to bully all of you at once lest she is left with no bridal party at all.

I’m going to go with a combo of what you and PP have suggested. I’m giving my dress to the bridesmaid who didn’t buy hers and humbly stepping down from the wedding party to make everything easier on everyone. I think you all have come up with the most gracious approach that doesn’t require a confrontation. Thank you!!

I'm not sure if there is a term for ultra pathetic, OP, but if there is, your picture should be next to it in the dictionary.

I’m sure my cousin would agree with you. People like you and her aren’t for me. Confrontation and aggression stress me TF out.

I am so with you, OP. I do not have the room in my brain to deal with people like your cousin or the PP. Life is hard enough without volunteering to spend time with a-holes.

You’re my kind of person. I think people like us are in the majority. We aren’t perfect, but we’re also not hunting for chances to bend others to our will or have a brawl. Especially coming out of a pandemic, I’m grateful for every day and want to focus on people who are good to me. (OP)

Really? Then why are you in this wedding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read all the responses, but I’d drop out of the wedding party and give the original dress to the bridesmaid who didn’t order hers, and tell her good luck.

+ 1
I like this.

[Anonymous]

I think you should call all the other bridesmaids and talk to them first, before you talk to your cousin, because at this point, they all may have quit.

This situation is really the fault of the procrastinating bridesmaid, not the bridezilla. Ideally, she should be the one apologizing to everyone and bowing out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would suggest to the bride and the other bridesmaids in the group chat that we all keep our original dresses and the one without a dress can buy one that coordinates with your dresses. The one with the different dress can be called MOH. Say upfront that it is a matter of cost. I am sure the other bridesmaids are thinking the same thing. Do it quickly before anyone else buys the new dress. In a group chat, I would think the bride is less likely to bully all of you at once lest she is left with no bridal party at all.

I’m going to go with a combo of what you and PP have suggested. I’m giving my dress to the bridesmaid who didn’t buy hers and humbly stepping down from the wedding party to make everything easier on everyone. I think you all have come up with the most gracious approach that doesn’t require a confrontation. Thank you!!

I'm not sure if there is a term for ultra pathetic, OP, but if there is, your picture should be next to it in the dictionary.

I’m sure my cousin would agree with you. People like you and her aren’t for me. Confrontation and aggression stress me TF out.

I am so with you, OP. I do not have the room in my brain to deal with people like your cousin or the PP. Life is hard enough without volunteering to spend time with a-holes.

You’re my kind of person. I think people like us are in the majority. We aren’t perfect, but we’re also not hunting for chances to bend others to our will or have a brawl. Especially coming out of a pandemic, I’m grateful for every day and want to focus on people who are good to me. (OP)

Really? Then why are you in this wedding?

That has been explained repeatedly in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you should call all the other bridesmaids and talk to them first, before you talk to your cousin, because at this point, they all may have quit.

This situation is really the fault of the procrastinating bridesmaid, not the bridezilla. Ideally, she should be the one apologizing to everyone and bowing out.

Good point about the procrastinating bridesmaid being to blame. Shifting the consequences to others says a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The bridesmaid who caused this mess should quit the wedding or pay for all the new dresses

Or just wear a different but matching dress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AITA.

I’m a very reluctant maid of honor to a cousin. I tried to beg out because she has a mean streak, but she kept pressing. Wedding planning has only made her worse. The current problem is bridesmaids dresses.

She picked a rare color from a store that was shipping several months out and demanded we all pay $75 extra for rush. I did. Total came to just under $300. As it turned out, one of the bridesmaids ignored all of her texts and calls, and didn’t get around to ordering the dress until recently. Even with rush shipping, her dress won’t arrive in time. My cousin’s fix was to tell the rest of us to buy new dresses from a new store that ships quickly.

How she went about it was…well, she group texted us instructions for the new dresses and then told us to call her “if there’s a problem.” That was it. She didn’t say anything about the dresses we had already bought. I called her to ask if she planned for us to wear both dresses (i.e., change outfits halfway through). She bit my head off, saying she couldn’t deal with questions, I just need to follow instructions and asking if I was that hard up for money. Her reaction was so mean and over the top that I held back as she spoke. I wanted to hear everything she had to say. We hung up with me calmly saying “I guess I’ll buy the second dress???” She said “Good” and hasn’t called me since.

Turns out the first store she chose offers only exchanges and they’ll keep half the cost of the dress. I kinda don’t want to be in the wedding anymore. I just feel bruised and insulted. If I had had to ask bridesmaids to get new dresses, I’d be so apologetic. I’d at least offer to cover the difference. Naturally, if she had offered to pay, I’d have turned down the money immediately. It’s not the ask or the money. It’s the how. Feelings matter.

Any advice on how to move forward here? Should I get over it? Maybe I should try to get her to fire me as MOH? I’d like us to keep in touch as family and see each other maybe annually. Zero pressure to attend her wedding because hardly anyone likes her. That makes me feel a little bad for her though.

If I decided to stay as her MOH, I would wear the first dress. But, then, I might test positive for Covid the day before the wedding and need to quarantine for ten days.

When I got married I did not have attendants dress alike. I had a closet full of hideous pastel bridesmaid dresses and I was not going to do this to my friends so I told them the color, royal blue, and gave them each $100 to put toward price of dress and wanted them to get a dress they could wear again. Shoes were black patent. My only request was that the dresses be in similar style. It worked out very well.

For what it’s worth I would much rather be just given a specific dress to purchase than have to go out and hunt around for one myself, much less coordinate with a group to ensure that it matches a similar style…and it’s unlikely that I would wear a royal blue dress again regardless.

[Anonymous]

Buy the second dress, give the first one to her as a wedding gift and expect to never hear from her again. Win win.