A woman who would prefer to re-wear an existing bridesmaid dress at an upcoming wedding should not be pressured into buying a new dress instead for the event, Reddit users decided.
“AITA for not buying a bridesmaid’s dress for my friend’s wedding?” asked Reddit user “Bright_Ad_2563” in a Friday, Jan. 12, 2024 post on Reddit’s “Am I the A–hole” subreddit.
In the post, the writer said she’s a 25-year-old woman who was recently asked to be a bridesmaid at her friend’s wedding.
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“Her theme for bridesmaids was a sunset, so she asked us all to wear yellow/orange/pink dresses to match the theme,” wrote Bright_Ad_2563.
She also said that she’d previously been a bridesmaid in her brother’s wedding a few years back — and that her sister-in-law had the bridesmaids wear yellow dresses.
The woman wrote on Reddit that her friend, the bride (not shown), wanted her to buy a new dress for her upcoming wedding, as people have already “seen” the existing bridesmaid dress. (iStock)
“It is a beautiful dress and was very expensive for me as a college student,” wrote the Reddit poster.
“My brother agreed to pay more than half [the cost], which made it a lot more affordable, but that dress isn’t wearable outside of special occasions and I’ve only worn it once” since the wedding, she added.
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But when Bright_Ad_2563 told her friend that she already had a dress for the wedding, her friend was not OK with this idea.
“Even if people have seen it, it doesn’t matter?”
After the bride asked her if she planned on wearing the same dress to her wedding as the one she’d worn previously, she “then said she would want me to get a new dress for her wedding as I’ve worn my yellow one before, and people have seen it.”
“I was confused by this,” wrote Bright_Ad_2563. “Even if people have seen it, it doesn’t matter?”
The woman added that her sister-in-law was a year ahead of her at school and there are some mutual friends who will have been at both her brother’s wedding and her friend’s upcoming wedding — but even so, she did not want to buy a new dress.
Many people who responded to the social media post said they felt it was odd that the bride thought people would remember a previously worn bridesmaid dress. (iStock)
“Bridesmaid dresses are expensive and I don’t get to wear them afterward, so they sit in my closet,” she said.
Bright_Ad_2563 then asked Reddit users to weigh in, as she feared she had violated some sort of wedding etiquette.
Fox News Digital reached out to Bright_Ad_2563 and an etiquette expert for comment.
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It is very common nowadays for bridesmaids to wear dresses that do not perfectly match the other dresses in the wedding party, said the website Zola.
“Mismatching dresses are one of the best ways to help your bridesmaids feel comfortable, since they’ll have more freedom to select a dress that reflects their own style and flatters their body type,” the wedding site also noted.
Many brides today ask their bridesmaids to pick out a dress they like, rather than one that matches the exact style and color of the other bridesmaids’ dresses, said the wedding website Zola. (iStock)
Many brides opt to have all of their bridesmaids wear either the same color but in different dress styles, or to wear dresses that coordinate but are not the same color or style, the website noted.
On the AITAH subreddit, people can reply to posts and indicate the poster is “NTA” (“Not the A–hole”), “YTA” (“You’re the A–hole”), “NAH” (“No A–holes Here”) or “ESH” (“Everyone Sucks Here”).
Other users said they would not have minded in the slightest if their bridesmaids had re-worn a dress at their wedding.
Users can “upvote” comments they find helpful, and “downvote” those they do not.
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In less than 12 hours, more than 500 people responded to Bright_Ad_2563’s post, with nearly all of them saying she was “NTA.”
“Why on earth would it matter that you [had] worn it before?” said Reddit user “Llink3483” in the top-upvoted comment.
Reddit users assured the original poster that there was nothing wrong with re-wearing a bridesmaid dress of her choosing — especially one from years ago. (iStock)
Llink3483 continued, “It’s not like people are going to look back in years to come and think, ‘Oh what a beautiful wedding, shame the bridesmaid re-wore [a] dress from a previous wedding.’”
Other Reddit users said they would not have minded in the slightest if their bridesmaids had re-worn a dress at their wedding — or that they hoped their bridesmaids would one day wear their bridesmaid dresses again.
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“The dresses I chose for my bridesmaids were meant to be re-worn. I hope one of them did. I would be thrilled if I saw them wearing it again,” said user “bacucumber” in part.
One Reddit user claimed she was even told by a bride to wear a bridesmaid dress again.
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“My [sister-in-law] texted me after seeing the bridesmaid dress I wore to a friend’s wedding to say it matched her colors (she did shades of blue and different styles instead of all exactly the same). She told me I could wear it again as her bridesmaid because there was no point [in] buying another very similar dress,” said user “you-will-be-ok.”
“Everyone was impressed I got to wear a bridesmaid dress twice (because that rarely happens),” said the same user.
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