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Bridesmaid At A Loss After Future Sister-In-Law Refuses To Tell Her Which Color Dress To Order

Katelyn MacMillan / Unsplash

Getting prepared for a wedding is stressful. Even if you aren’t planning it, being involved requires information and dedication and can be an honor to participate in.

But that can easily turn to frustration as Redditor Educational-Leg1046 quickly discovered. The original poster (OP) is trying to do her part, but no one is helping her.

The bride and her family is getting so upset, that OP is wondering if she did something wrong. Should she have known better?

To find out, she asks the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit about her problem.

“WIBTA If I didn’t go to my brother’s wedding over a bridesmaid dress?”

How could a dress cause such a problem?

“I’m currently in medical school and live across the country from my brother/family. I was surprised when his fiancé asked me to be a bridesmaid because I barely know her, but she wants to have all siblings in the wedding.”

“I made it clear that their wedding was during my final exam week, and while I was able to get an accommodation to take my last two exams early I still wouldn’t be able to help much with planning or be present at things like a bachelorette party/bridal shower.”

“She said this was fine, it would mostly just be to have an even number of bridesmaids to groomsmen and for pictures.”

“There’s a group chat that was created months ago that I would read through every couple of days to get updates on things I needed to do, namely to order a bridesmaid dress. Links were sent with three styles to choose from and we would be updated on colors later.”

“So a couple weeks go by and I ask what color to order, bride says she still thinking about it. Couple more weeks go by and she’s still thinking… then a couple more weeks. You get the idea.”

“Now it’s at the point that if I don’t order this dress in a couple of days it won’t be here in time. So I ask on Saturday what color. No response in the group chat to me.”

“I asked again yesterday (Sunday) what color do I need to order? Then I’m flooded with messages lambasting me for not ordering a dress yet, from her sisters and my sister and her.”

“My sister called me, told me to ‘get my sh*t together’ and ‘order a dress already’ because my lack of preparedness is causing the bride intense anxiety because she doesn’t think my dress will be here on time for the wedding now. She texted me this morning, ‘don’t forget order your dress, love you’ with smiling and kissing emojis.”

“Still, no one has told me what color! I’ve scoured the group chat for a mention of dress colors or an image of a dress but only the maid of honor sent a photo of her dress and I don’t know if she has a special color.”

“There’s thousands of messages so it’s not simple to find anything. Everyone else can meet in person so I assume the decision on color was relayed in person. I can’t tell if I’m being purposefully excluded?”

“About an hour ago my brother called me pleading with me to work things out with the bride because she’s panicking about me.”

“I tried to explain this to him and he told me he doesn’t care, its a petty ladies issue, and since I’m not there for anything else this is the least I can do because the bride thinks I don’t like her because I wouldn’t come to anything.”

“He’s taking her side. They know I’m in medical school, I have literally no say in my schedule. And I’m on the other side of the country, 5.5 hours by plane.”

“I’m fed up with them and contemplating telling my instructors the wedding was moved and I will take my exams at the regular time. I’d have more time to study that way anyway.”

“I haven’t told anyone in my family I’m considering this. WIBTA?”

On Reddit, the users of the board judged OP for not ordering her dress yet and asking which color she should get by including one of the following in their response:

  • NTA – Not the A**hole
  • YTA – You’re the A**hole
  • NAH – No A**holes Here
  • ESH – Everybody Sucks Here

This was an easy call for the commenters on the board. OP has been asking a simple questions and getting nothing in the way of an answer.

All she needs to know is what color dress to order. If they’re freaking out over this right now, they’d likely be more upset if she showed up with the wrong shade.

OP is NTA for trying to get the color right before ordering her dress.

“I don’t understand why they can’t just tell you what color to order?”

“NTA”

“This is weird” – Suitable-Cod-1381

“I’m getting second-hand anxiety just from reading your post. Why is no one telling you the color of the dress???” – always-amiss

“I would send one last message. Short and sweet. I have not been told what colour dress to order.”

“If I have heard by tonight the dress won’t arrive and I will have to withdraw. Hope to hear from you.” – BlueLavender0104

Some of the commenters wrote off trying to please the bride and started making jokes about what OP should do.

“Black dress. Black veil. It goes with everything and you’ll look super slim by comparison. Bonus: foreshadowing.” – TwilitSky

“Heck no, bright pink! Like full on Barbie Pink!” – Select-Anxiety-1557

“It’s a wedding. You should go traditional with white.” – CallRobspierre

OP came back with some updates that don’t look promising. Her attempts to get the name of the color have proven fruitless.

And it’s getting close to the wedding time.

“UPDATE: I called my mother and asked her what color the bridesmaid dresses are, she said lavender. The only color option on the website that I would call lavender are named pearly lilac, periwinkle, and orchid purple.”

“I texted the maid of honor (bride’s sister) to ask what dress color and got a multi-paragraph long lecture about not having ordered my dress yet. Basically, they are trying so hard to accommodate me being across the country by including me in the group chat.”

“She said she didn’t remember the shade name but its a ‘dusty purple’ then sent a blurry picture of a wrinkled order confirmation, the shade name was ‘mulberry.’ On the dress website that is a darker wine/purple color.”

“I told her this and she said to order the lighter dusty purple color.”

“I sent her a screen shot with the list of shade names and asked, ‘which of these?’ She said she didn’t know because everyone ordered their dress so long ago and asked for pictures of the dresses in different shades from the website.”

“So I sent screenshots of all the light purple colors. No response for a while so I called her on the phone, which she was upset about because its past 10pm over there now. Her response was ‘look, I don’t care what your problem is with me and my sister but if you want to stay in good standing with this family you need to get your ducks lined up girly.’”

“I ignored the lecture/comments and asked: ‘what color?’”

“Her response? ‘Light purple’”

“Me: ‘of the three I sent, which one is it?’”

“Her: ‘I don’t remember, I’ll have to ask one of the other bridesmaids for her receipt, I’ll get back to you’”

“I want to bash my head into a wall!”

“I called my second brother, the one not getting married. He said they’re pulling similar things with him and he feels like he was deliberately given the wrong dates for the bachelor party by the best man (bride’s brother) so that he would miss it.”

“He inadvertently learned about the changed date the morning of and when he asked the best man he told him it must have slipped his mind to tell him. Then joked that he wouldn’t have missed much since he probably won’t enjoy any of the ‘festivities’ anyway.”

“They’ve been making homophobic jokes and comments to him that he’s been ignoring but he thinks they’re trying to get him to back out of the wedding. So if we both back out then there will be an even number of bridesmaids to groomsmen again.”

“Only speculation on our parts of course.”

Finally, OP has had enough. The post has gone viral and she’s sure someone from the family will find it soon.

So she’s keeping her retaliation to herself for now.

“Quick update: I was seriously considering pulling out, but the collective rage here and my fading motivation to study has me thinking… by this point, with how this post took off, I wouldn’t be surprised if they find it at some point so I don’t want to reveal my cards just yet.”

“Thank you to the comments that gave me the idea. I guess I’ll be making an update mid June if it all goes to plan.”

OP did everything right, and the bride’s family seemed intent on not providing the right information for her to get the dress.

Assuming her response in mid-June isn’t too terrible, OP can rest easy that she’s NTA.

Written by Ben Acosta

Ben Acosta is an Arizona-based fiction author and freelance writer. In his free time, he critiques media and acts in local stage productions.