Redditor kjally76 is a 25-year-old bride-to-be who is planning “an extravagant wedding.”
But as in most weddings–no matter the scale–not everything goes according to plan, and there are always hiccups along the way to the nuptials.
Our bride had a vision of how her sisters would appear as bridesmaids, but there were some obstacles already preventing her from completing that vision.
There were confrontations and drama, which led the bride to visit the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit and ask:
“AITA for asking my sister (20 female) to fix her overgrown/two toned hair before my wedding?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“My (26f) wedding is in 3 months. Both of my sisters (Sadie 29 female, Olivia 20 female) are my MOH’s.”
“My wedding is going to be elegant and big, as groom and I have a lot of friends/family and we’ve always dreamt of an extravagant wedding.”
“I have a good relationship with both sisters, however my younger sister, Olivia, has made the process a bit difficult as a bridesmaid. I chose a light dusty pink for the color of the bridesmaid dresses and let the girls pick what style they wanted.”
“Immediately, Olivia says she’s going to feel insecure as she’s so pale and the dress will make her look red. I suggested a spray tan, as the color of the dresses had already been set in stone to match the rest of my wedding but she said absolutely not (fair).”
“I didn’t hear anything else about the dresses, but now I’m in a predicament with her again and I’m not sure if I’ve made a mistake for making such a big deal of this.”
“Olivia regularly highlighted her dark brown hair with blonde for years, but decided about a year ago to grow it out and let it get healthy, meaning no dye.”
“A month or so in, her hair didn’t look terrible, more like a balayage, but now we’re around the year mark and her roots are straight up brown and there’s a straight line, no blending, of blonde for the last 8 inches of her hair.”
“Olivia has insisted she has her hair down during the wedding, however I don’t want her roots and hair on full display during pictures, ceremony and throughout the night.”
“I love my sister and respect what she wants to do with her hair, however, her hair is an eye sore and I’ve never seen anyone let their hair look like this for this long.”
“I told her I would pay for anything she wanted done to it, as long as her roots were at least a BIT blended for the wedding. She says that she doesn’t want to put anymore chemicals on it and is leaving it and I won’t change her mind.”
“I told my hair dresser about Olivia’s POV (we go to the same hairdresser) and she told me that there are plenty of things she can do for her that can make her hair look blended and still be healthy. Olivia still refuses, despite me offering to pay and telling her our hairdresser said she could make subtle changes and preserve her hair.”
“I should add that her hair is NOT breaking or fried, she simply wanted a break from dying it to get it as healthy as she could and to grow it out.”
“This day is one of the most important in my life and having someone in my wedding party with unkept roots is something I don’t want.”
“I’m not asking her to cut it or change the color, just blend/transition the colors. She’s irritated because my other sister and mother have told her that she should change it for the sake of not ruining pictures.”
“AITA here?”
Strangers online were asked to declare one of the following:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
When the thread was bombarded with YTA judgments, the OP edited her post to include the following clarifications.
“ETA- I am overwhelmed with responses (mostly YTA votes🙃) and I want to add a couple of things.”
“My sister doesn’t want her hair up because she doesn’t like how it looks up. People are inventing medical reasons that simply do not apply to her. She doesn’t like her hair up, that’s her reasoning.”
“Her dress color WAS made a big deal of until I suggest she can get a spray tan, because I’m not changing the colors of my wedding this close to it. I don’t have enough characters to add in every detail of this fiasco, but it IS dropped now.”
“Photoshop is a great solution except she’ll be in every picture of the wedding party. That is so time consuming for the photographer that it isn’t realistic.”
“I don’t expect her to dye her hair completely and put bleach on it again, I just asked her to let our stylist do ANYTHING she can to blend the roots. Stylist said she could easily do a gloss with NON permanent dye and then a hair treatment to ensure her hair is still healthy.”
“Sister won’t go for it still (and to answer the question, no, sister does not get her hair trimmed. She is trying to grow it while still not taking the right steps to do so).”
“I feel like I’m out of options as everything I’ve suggested to compromise with her, she says no. It’s a big deal to me that her hair doesn’t look like a Halloween costume while I’m spending so much time and money for this event.”
In response to the edited post, many Redditors weighed in with their thoughts in favor of the OP.
“NTA. It is beyond me that she feels insecure in a dress that makes her look pale, but has no qualms wearing unkempt hair like that down.”
“You offered various solutions to the problem, from wearing it up to blending it, but she’s not willing to accommodate you at all on your special day. IMO, that makes her the AH.” – rembrandtismyhomeboy
“Nta. Every single argument for calling OP Y T A can easily be flipped on the sister.”
“It’s a nice wedding ceremony not a family backyard bbq fix your damn hair. It’s such a small ask from OP and she’s being very cool about it and found the solution and offered to pay. Op is bending over backward to not offend anyone and her skster is being ridiculous.” – Darth_buttNugget
“NTA, what the heck. People are getting so bent out of shape for very minor things.”
“It’s a wedding. It’s the one time people are allowed to focus on the little things and ask reasonable things of people for the day. The changes she’s asking for aren’t even that big, and the fact that the sister isn’t willing to even have her hair up on the day pushes me over to the NTA verdict.”
“Idk if it’s my country, but bridesmaids and groomsmen, when being asked to be a part of the wedding party, know that there are sacrifices that come with it.”
“I hate makeup. I don’t wear it, it’s incredibly uncomfortable for me and I will avoid wearing it where possible. When I was the bridesmaid for my brother’s wedding I wore a long red dress with heels, wore multiple pins in my hair to keep it in place, and wore a boat load of makeup so that I matched the other bridesmaids.”
“Because it was my brother and sil’s wedding, and I love them and wanted them to have the wedding they wanted.”
“So much already goes wrong at weddings, and if you can’t bare to even have your hair tied up for the day, you shouldn’t be a part of the wedding party.”
“If the sister wasn’t a bridesmaid then sure, wear what you want and do what you want with your hair. If you’re in the wedding party, you do as the wedding party does.”
“It’s really not that hard, and this comments section seems to think that asking a bridesmaid to make one (miniscule) change means that she’s being stripped of her bodily autonomy. It’s not that deep.” – bunny_cannon
“NTA! The people of reddit looooove to throw brides-to-be under the bus for how they want things to be at their wedding.”
“Having preferences, wanting nice photos, and the event being significant are *not* things to shame others about. it doesn’t make them shallow, it isn’t a sign of skewed priorities – that’s all bullsh*t. People are allowed to want their weddings to be a certain way.”
“There’s no reason for OP’s sister to be making this such a difficult process. If she really is set on doing nothing to her hair, then it should be up to her to find a hairstyle that covers the awful way it’s colored.”
“Or – the easiest solution and my first opinion would be to simply remove her from your wedding party OP! If looking nice on a day so important to you is really that hard for her to do, then she can attend as a guest – and I said what I said.” – user_friendly_socks
Overall, Redditors thought the sister was being stubborn for not making what they thought would’ve been a simple adjustment to appease her sister on her special day.