'AITA for kicking SIL and husband's BFF out of wedding since they refused to wear the bridesmaid dresses?'

"AITA For Making My SIL and Husband’s Best Friend Miss My Wedding?"

I 30f recently got married to my husband 33M. Here is the back story: Originally the bridesmaids were supposed to have custom skirts. Think a midi circle skirt with polka dots. I bought the fabric and paid a fee for the skirts to be made. These were not elaborate skirts at all, but I didn’t want generic expensive dresses that no one would wear again.

So, all in all the bridesmaids only needed to buy shoes accessories and get their own hair done. I also provided matching shirts. We had a simple bridal shower that no one had to pay anything for. We didn’t have any big trips or anything that required payments from them.

The bridesmaids were 1. My sister in law (32F) 2 my husbands best friend (33F). 3. Three of my sisters (I have 5). I also had a MOH which is my sister. (The last sister had to work so she made invitations, helped with get the wedding together etc. she wasn’t left out). Please note there are many body types represented from plus sized to super skinny.

Here is the problem. The seamstress I hired didn’t complete the skirts. She didn’t tell me until the pickup date which was 2 days before the ceremony that they weren’t ready. The whole time I had been checking in with her to see progress and she was telling me that it was going well. We had fittings for measurements and everything.

It turns out, the seamstress used the money and fabric to make things for another client of hers and hadn’t even started on ours and I suspect didn’t intend to either. She made one skirt to show me “progress” but never the full lot of skirts. So I and one of my sisters got the money back for the fabric and fees (that’s a whole other sorry and involved a lot of repenting).

This left the bridesmaids with nothing to wear. So we ended up with some admittedly ugly dresses. They were thrown together as we didn’t have time to find anything nicer that could fit multiple body types. I was panicking because of time and we went with something simple.

My husbands sister and his best friend decided that they didn’t want to wear the new dresses. They brought their own dress to the wedding and TOLD me what they were going to wear. I said no and instead of taking that answer they started to put on the unapproved dresses. My older sister called my other sisters and let them know it’s a problem and they came quickly to sort it out.

At this point I was stressed trying to get ready and trying not to cry. Long story short my sisters kicked the two out of the wedding and asked them to leave. They were told nobody wants to wear these dresses but this isn’t our wedding and we are going to wear them anyway.

The two tried to plead with my husband who said no as well. They both left and now I’m being blasted on Facebook for overreacting and trying to control them. Also, they were offended that my sisters were telling them off and made them leave so they both missed the wedding. They are demanding an apology. AITA for how this played out?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

Imaginary_lock said:

I hope you put that seamstress on blast in whatever social media you use.

OP responded:

My family sings together and we go around the state at different venues. I don’t have to blast her I just spread the word. She won’t get much more business at least from our world.

SpicySweett said:

Everyone sucks it up and wears ugly bridesmaid dresses. I’ve worn a few myself, completely hideous and unflattering. But who cares, it’s not my wedding, I wore them to show support for the marriage and my friends and family. Making a stink about the dresses was uncool of your SIL and friend, NTA for booting them.

SnooWords4839 said:

Here is your apology - I'm sorry you refused to wear the required outfits and kicked up a big enough fit to be asked to leave. Hubby and I had an amazing ceremony, sorry you missed it.

[deleted] said:

NTA. And that's some next level gangsta shit from your sisters kickin' them out ?

OP responded:

I have a large family and we don’t play about each other. I would have done the same thing for them.

Little_Hippo_Unicorn said:

Ok so to make sure I get it - the outfits you were going to get them sadly didn’t get made in time. You still bought them something but it wasn’t what they wanted. Did the new dresses fit? With the exception of them being ugly was there anything that made the ladies uncomfortable?

Ok so the issue here is that as bridesmaids there was an outfit expectation. If they no longer wanted to be a part of it they could have been guests. Them opting to miss the wedding over a dress is more concerning. Either they fed into each others drama or this was always the plan. Also the way it played out seem to be that they were trying to bully you into what they wanted…. And in the end they lost.

I am going to go with NTA since you had asked them to wear matching outfits and were providing them. The fact they were being adversarial was likely why your sister just kicked them out (good for her).

Should you feel the need to “defend” yourself you can respond by saying that while it was unfortunate that the outfit that was commissioned didn’t get completed and that the back up item you got them wasn’t to their liking so they chose to miss a momentous event for your husband.

While you would have wanted for them to stand with you, if they didn’t want to wear the dress you got them they could have still come as guests where you weren’t selecting what they wore.

And OP responded:

Hi, yes the dresses fit. They didn’t complain about them being uncomfortable. They just didn’t want to look bad at the wedding. They knew what the dresses looked like before the day. The came with the new dresses in hand.

We'll keep you posted on any future updates!