For many brides-to-be, the best part of planning their wedding is going shopping for the dress.
But shopping for wedding dresses can still bring stress, owing to their hefty price tags.
Redditor Vegetable_Ad8601 thought she found a clever and easy solution to this conundrum.
That is, until she shared her plan with her friends and family, who were simply outraged by this decision.
This led the original poster (OP) to take to the subReddit “Am I The A**hole” (AITA), asking fellow Redditors:
“AITA for renting a wedding dress?”
The OP first filled fellow Redditors in on all of the plans she and her fiancé have made towards their wedding so far, and the cost cutting measure she was most proud of.
“Still can’t believe I’m relying on strangers on the Internet to judge me in this situation, but…here we go.”
“Sorry if this is poorly written, I’m just annoyed as hell about the whole thing.”
“I (25F[emale]) was recently proposed to by my fiancé (26 M[ale]).”
“We’ll be paying for the wedding ourselves, since it will be rather small and we’re decently well off.”
“Since we’re paying for everything, we’ve been making most of the decisions, and one of my decisions was to rent the dress.”
“I just don’t see the point in paying thousands of dollars for one dress I can never wear again.”
“My fiancé agreed with me.”
The OP then revealed how her friends and family took this decision.
“Unfortunately, the moment I announced that I was engaged, all anybody cared about was the dress.”
“Since it was all they wanted to talk about, it eventually came up that I didn’t plan on buying the dress, and instead planned on renting it.”
“Well, they were livid.”
“Almost everyone present pulled me aside and lectured me about how that dress would contain so many cherished memories, how everyone in the family still owned their wedding clothes, etc.”
“I suppose they had a point: Every other married woman in the family still has her dress, and several of my cousins have gotten married in their grandmother’s or even great grandmother’s dresses.”
“But considering my fiancé and I don’t want children and therefore won’t have grandchildren, that’s not an issue for us.”
“I told my relatives that I didn’t see the point in spending loads of money on something that would do nothing but gather dust in my closet, and they just made the same points over and over.”
“Eventually, I snapped that if they wanted the dress so badly, they could pay for it.”
“Everyone went silent, and nobody said another word about it for the rest of the night.”
“The next day, I told my best friend what happened, and she awkwardly said that she agreed with my family and that a wedding dress is ‘too important to just rent.'”
“I hastily changed the subject.”
“So, Reddit, AITA?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation.
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
Fellow Redditors were pretty unanimously agreed the OP was definitely not the a**hole in this particular situation.
Several Redditors expressed what a good idea they believed renting a wedding dress was, with some wishing they had thought of it themselves.
“Renting a dress sounds like one of the best ideas I’ve ever heard.”
“Good on ya.” – Hot-Sink6209
“NTA.”
“After the wedding you will store your dress in an expensive box where it will sit until you sell it to a thrift store, or give it to a kid for dress up play, or give it to a future daughter or DIL to wear but by then the style won’t be good or it can’t be tailored to fit them.”
“My wife gave her dress to our daughter to play with.”
“Renting the dress sounds actually very smart.” – EmmetWeasel
“NTA, I got married in a dress that was on clearance for $80 and I’m still not sure if I’ll keep it!”
“Don’t let other people influence your plans, you’ll regret it in the long run.” – SnooBunnies1088
Others agreed the OP’s family and friends were sticking their noses where they didn’t belong, and shouldn’t have any sort of opinion on how the OP found her wedding dress.
“NTA.”
“You basically captured the essence of their nosiness here.” – Prof_Fuzzy_Wuzzy
“NTA – oh barf, it’s your day, your opinion is what matters.”
“I used RentTheRunway for my wedding and reception dresses 6 years ago; $250 and I looked killer in designer dresses that I only would’ve worn once anyway.” – Accomplished_Rock_48
“NTA – This actually made me laugh, though I don’t mean to be rude.”
“People get so invested in their own traditions that it can become incomprehensible to them that others might not want to follow in their footsteps.”
“Sometimes they even feel personally attacked if someone decides to do something different.”
“My guess is, some of the people who bought their dress may actually have felt slightly… embarassed?”
“Or that you were trying to shame them by mentioning it would be rented?”
“If this comes up again, ‘Oh, we know there are lots of great reasons for people to want to buy their dresses, and thats totally ok, but its just not for us.’ and smile.”
“If they pressure you beyond that just smile and say, ‘it’s a decision that’s been made, not a point of discussion, but I appreciate you caring about making my important day so special.'”
“*For personal context, I bought a $100 bridesmaid dress and my mom altered it so now I wear it on anniversaries.”
“But that’s just what I wanted to do.”- CatPhDs
Many felt the OP captured the situation perfectly when she told her friends and family if they didn’t want her to rent a dress, they could pay for it.
“Did anyone else die laughing at ‘I snapped that if they wanted the dress so badly, they could pay for it. Everyone went silent, and nobody said another word about it for the rest of the night.’??”
“I laughed so loud, my dog got off of my lap and is giving me the side eye for disturbing her.”
“That comment says it all.”
“‘Yes, you need a brand new dress that costs $10k, but oh, we aren’t chipping in.'”
“C’mon. No.”
“Men typically rent tuxes, what is the difference?”
“I think renting a wedding dress is economical, environmentally friendly, and honestly, other countries do this (I’m in the US and have friends who immigrated here and have since gotten married rent their dresses and this is totally normal in their cultures).”
“NTA. Not even a little bit.” – Lola_M1224
Indeed, one hopes that this bride’s family and friends’ first priority is not that she’s happy in whatever dress she ends up wearing, purchased or not.
But in all likelihood, they won’t be thinking about the fact that she’s in a rented wedding dress one bit when they see her all aglow on her wedding day.