'AITA for not giving my late sister's wedding dress to her fiancé's new bride?'
"AITA for not giving my late sister's wedding dress to her fiancée's new bride?"
I’m a 35 year old male, and my sister (29F) “Anna” passed away three years ago in a car accident, just two months before her wedding. She and her fiancé “Matt” (32M) were together for five years and genuinely loved each other. After the accident, Matt was devastated. We all were.
I remember how happy Anna was when she and her friends picked out her wedding dress. it was custom, expensive, and very her. After she died, my parents gave it to me for safekeeping, saying they couldn’t bear to look at it but didn’t want it sold or donated. I’ve kept it in pristine condition in my closet ever since.
Fast forward to now. Matt has moved on (understandably), and is engaged to someone new, “Julie.” Julie was one of my sisters best friends, and was there when Anna picked out her dress. Weird for Matt to get with her, but whatever.
But here’s the bigger issue: Julie reached out to me directly and asked if she could wear Anna’s dress for her wedding, as a way to “honor Anna and symbolically bring her into the ceremony.”
I was floored. I said no immediately. I told her it felt disrespectful, that it was Anna’s dress, and that it’s not a hand-me-down or some family heirloom. I also told her I thought it was weird as F that she would want to wear it.
She said she thought it would be “a beautiful gesture” and that I was “making this about me.” Um, my sister DIED, and you swooped in and are marrying her fiancée, but I’m the AH?
Then Matt called me. He wasn’t angry, but he said Julie had good intentions and that this would bring “closure” to everyone. I asked him if he thought Anna would’ve been okay with it, and he said yes. I don’t agree.
Anna was incredibly sentimental and private. She would’ve been horrified. Mind you, none of my family has been invited to this wedding. Not me, not my parents, not my brother. Matt is marrying Julie, wants her $10,000 dress, and hasn’t even invited any of our family.
Now, my parents are saying I should have at least discussed it with them before refusing. Julie posted some vague story on Instagram about “being shut out by people who claim to care about love,” and now mutual friends are messaging me saying I’m being petty and bitter. I feel like the only sane person here. AITA??
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
NTA, and yes, WTF, it's very weird. IMHO, Julie just really likes the expensive, custom-made dress and doesn't want to pay $$$ to have one made for her, and thus she invented this whole BS story of Anna's legacy.
Wow, that's a whole new level of grave robbing.
For the life of me, unless you are inheriting something from a dead relative that was intended for you, I could not fathom asking for a dead person's stuff. It's weird. It's creepy. It's bad juju. I just don't understand.
NTA. Is she going to change her name to Anna too? Start calling you her brother and your parents Mom & Dad? She has the fiance & wants the dress, is she looking to take over Anna’s old life completely?!
It’s already weird as hell that she got with her late friend’s fiancé, why the hell they would they even want to remind every one of Anna on their big day? Are they trying to make everyone as uncomfortable as possible?
Poetic_Alien (OP)
EXACTLY. That’s been my whole point. It just feels gross to me but everybody else thinks I’m being irrational.
NTA - I don't think you're in the wrong here, especially since none of your family has been invited to this wedding. I'm concerned that they're doing this as a way to say "See! Even Anna's family blesses this union, why else would they give my new bride her custom wedding dress?!"
I genuinely wonder if they were having an affair. I'm sorry, I just cannot imagine asking the family of my dead best friend for her $10,000 custom wedding dress to marry her fiance. It's crass and insensitive.
ETA: Also, "bring closure to everyone".....what the actual f? I'm sorry, OP and his family will NEVER have closure. They lost a sister and a daughter. And to ask them to watch the man she loved marry one of her best friends in a dress she designed to marry that same man is DISGUSTINGLY insensitive. So who is this supposed to bring closure to? It's definitely not Anna's family!
NTA, Sir, my flabber is gasted. I cannot imagine being so crass as to ask wear a wedding dress that belonged to my deceased best friend. Especially when I'm marrying my deceased best friend's former fiancée. WTF? Does Julie have no decency or shame?
10.000 dollars dress? Yeah, Julie definitely doesn't want to honour her friend, she just wants her fabulous dress and be beautiful at her own wedding without paying a single cent.
Don't give her the dress, OP, she's already marry your sister's man, what else she wants to take away from Anna? Please, show all our messages to your parents because I feel like they're been pressured and they're about to cave to maintain a sort of peace.
NTA.
Yup. You are indeed the only sane person in the room.
"Closure" = You're never hearing from them again after they get the dress. There are other ways they can honor Anna as the person who introduced them, especially if none of you were close enough to them for an invite.
NTA. Petty? Your sister is dead, there is nothing petty about that. What is petty is expecting someone to hand over a very expensive gown instead of buying one yourself. How low class.
NTA, this whole thing just feels like such an invasion of privacy and disrespect... the dress was clearly something very special to Anna, not some item to be handed off or reused for someone else's big day, especially without even inviting family? I mean, what would make anyone think that's okay?