"AITA for wearing red to a friend’s wedding?"
I (22F) attended a friend from high schools (23F) wedding to her (22F) wife, and I wore red. For anonymity I’m going to refer to my friend as Mia and her wife as Sarah. Mia and I were super close from kindergarten through high school. After high school she went to college across the country and I stayed in state and we fell out of touch. She stayed out there every summer, so I literally hadn’t seen her in four years.
I saw her post a picture of a ring saying she was engaged and I commented a congratulations. To my surprise I got an invite in the mail a few weeks later. I was shocked that she thought to invite me but I was excited to see my friend after so long.
The day of the wedding comes and I wore a red/maroon floor length dress. I took my seat and waited for the bride to come down the aisle. Mia came down first and looked stunning, and then to my surprise Sarah came down the aisle in red.
Sarah, as it turns out, is Chinese and their wedding was a mash up of American and Chinese traditions. Don’t get me wrong Sarah looked stunning, and her dress was way more detailed than mine, but I didn’t know they were doing a mashup wedding, much less that Sarah was Chinese. Mia is a private person who doesn’t post that often and their engagement post was a black and white photo of hands!
After the ceremony Mia came up to me, quite upset, and asked where I had the audacity to wear red to a Chinese wedding. I tried to explain to her that I had no idea the wedding was gonna have Chinese elements, like the bride wearing red, much less the fact that Sarah was Chinese to begin with.
She had never posted a picture of her, to my knowledge, and I didn’t stalk her Instagram/facebook to find pictures because I didn’t think it would be a problem. I ended up crying and leaving the reception early. If I had known she was planning on wearing red I would never have worn it.
If I’m being completely honest, my dress was plain red, no pattern or gems or lace or anything and Sarah’s dress was very detailed and down right stunning and I don’t think I could have outshone her anyway. I’ve tried to call and text to apologize but I haven’t heard anything back. So am I the AH for wearing red to a wedding, with no knowledge that the bride would also be wearing red?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
MathematicianSad859 said:
NTA. If they did not want their guests wearing red, they should have specified on the invites.
0biterdicta said:
NTA. You didn't know, plain and simple.
Cascadeis said:
NTA. I was reading the title thinking “only if it was a Chinese wedding”… But no one told you it was a Chinese wedding! Mia should have known to tell you if they didn’t want people to wear red, since you hadn’t even met Sarah (as far as I can tell).
Terminal_Lucridity said:
NTA - unless of course there was a request for guests to not wear certain things. At this point you need to move on and close the book to this friendship as I don’t think either of them will be contacting you.
Violet351 said:
NTA they should have mentioned it on the invite.
Fiempre-sin-tabla said:
NTA. It is on the wedding-havers to make the guests aware if there are going to be obscure cultural hangups and booby traps like this.