Cousin 'upstages' the bride at engagement party, 'I was speechless;' AITA? Updated.
Wearing the same dress as the bride on purpose to any wedding-related event is not usually recommended unless you want to make enemies, but accidents do happen...
So, when a conflicted cousin decided to vent to the moral compass of the internet otherwise known as Reddit's 'Am I the As^hole' about some classic dress drama, people were ready to help deem a verdict.
AITA (Am I the As%hole) for upstaging the bride and refusing to change my dress?
So my (27f) cousin (29f) is soon getting married. The thing is, our families have been in no contact for the last 10-12 years because of some issues between our fathers (in total, 4 brothers who hated each other).
The feud recently came to an end because all the kids are grown up now and we kind of want to keep our differences aside, and enjoy the upcoming events. We all had a little reunion.
This issue started with my cousin's engagement party. Now I want to highlight that I take good care of myself.
I do yoga and dance to stay fit. On some special occasions, I love to dress up a lot. It makes me feel good and confident.
My cousin is a doctor and, due to her schedule, she has put on some weight, but I respect her because her profession is tougher than mine. I am an engineer.
For her engagement, I wore a nice beautiful peach colored gown. It wasn't a new one, this was a 3-year-old gift from someone. We are Indians and brides generally prefer to wear lehengas or saares.
Even though we have reconciled as a family, my sister never involved me with her planning or anything related to her wedding and I was totally okay with that.
When me and my mother arrived at the location of the event, all was good but the bride was late, people from the groom's side welcomed us nicely and I was feeling great.
My cousin was almost 2 hours late but when she arrived (with her two 'besties') I could feel the tension between us rising high. To my horror, she was wearing a peach coloured gown exactly like mine, but it was more glittery.
Only the bottom part of our dress was slightly different. She went on without acknowledging my existence.
My mom noticed me but told me to relax as it was an accident and to enjoy myself. She went ahead to help my aunty with further preparations. I took a seat in the corner with my other cousin.
When I was talking to him, one of the bride's 'besties' came to talk. I thought she was there to invite me to join them but she straight up told me to change my dress.
I was speechless. I told her no because:
1. There was nothing else to wear and 2. My house was several kms away and it would take me almost 2 hours to do so. She started suggesting different options for buying a new dress or she could lend me some clothes. I firmly told her no.
My mom and dad were unaware of all this. She kept arguing with me but gave up. When the ceremony started my cousin was looking fine and smiled at me because, in the end, she was getting engaged to the love of her life.
We both got lots of compliments and I thought the drama was over. But her friends kept giving me side eyes throughout the event and today one of them tried to contact me on instagram.
The most hurtful thing was the fact that there was an after party thrown by the bride and groom for all the cousins and their special friends, but I wasn't invited. I kind of feel like an AH. But I need an honest opinion.
Here's what the jury of internet strangers had to say about this one:
[deleted] said:
NTA. You could not have possibly known what she was wearing.
PrecisionGuessWerk said:
NTA. But I do find it peculiar that you mentioned your fitness and her weight. Nothing from the interaction described above suggests that they were jealous of your fitness, or that you 'pulled off the peach gown better than her.'
Only that your dress was 'too similar' to hers. Are you sure you aren't adding the part where they're jealous of your figure, as an assumption? you might be an ah for that one.
FrogFlavor said:
YTA a little bit. Several kilometers is not that far girl, and no it doesn’t take two hours to change an outfit - you could have kept your hair and makeup and jewelry the same and just changed clothes.
Top-Noise5959 said:
NTA. But just for future reference, ask what the bride is wearing. Doesn't matter if it was traditional or not.
My cousin got married last month, I texted the bride to be and asked her to send pics of all dresses, in order to avoid anything. And guess what, she and I were planning on a light pink dress. So I changed my plans. It's just, like , you don't HAVE to do it, but it'd be nice.
Redhead_2022 said:
NTA. You didn’t know what she would be wearing.
InterplanetaryJanet said:
NTA. You didn't do it on purpose. If she wants to hold a grudge for something so stupid, let her. You don't need that drama in your life.
cholaf said:
Lol YTA for 'so she recently gained some weight, but I respect her because...'
It looks like the opinions were mostly divided for this one. Later, the post was updated to include:
Well, a lot has happened since I made the post here. First I want to thank you all for giving an honest opinion. One thing that I noticed, all the Indians who commented on my post told me that I am NTA.
Let me clear out a few things. I don't hate my cousin(the bride), I am not petty or mean and this dress incident was totally unintentional. Her friend said that I was upstaging the bride, which was not the case. During the ceremony I tried to keep a low profile even though it wasn't my fault.
I compared our looks and weight because it had been literally a competition between us since childhood to look better than each other, which was really childish and created more issues in our family. And I thought her friends were mean to me because of our previous issues.
So for an update...a few days ago, my aunt (Bride's mom) called my mom. They were having this general discussion about further planning for the wedding. Then my aunt told my mom that I would be besides the bride on stage during the wedding.
It was a shock for me because it's like getting a maid of honor position. I quickly texted my cousin to thank her and we talked for the first time after her engagement. We decided to meet up for a coffee.
At the coffee shop, I brought up the topic of our matching dress and she told me she was shocked at first but later totally forgot about it. I also asked her why she was choosing me over her friends to be on stage.
She gave a few reasons why they are not punctual and irresponsible and can be very demanding sometimes and I am literally her family.
As I mentioned, she was actually looking very happy during her engagement. She also told me that she was a bit disappointed that I wasn't there at the after-party and her soon to be husband was also asking for me.
From her talk, one thing I know is that she is not aware about her friends being mean to me and lying about me. Cousin and I are on good terms, at the end we ate some delicious burgers and had fun and I also showed her my dress which I will be wearing at her wedding (super glittery light green color lehanga).
I am still unsure if I should tell her about her 'bestie' or just let it go. I just want to enjoy the wedding without any further drama.