'AITA for not letting my grandma wear my prom dress to a party?'

"AITA for not letting my grandma wear MY prom dress?"

1 (16f) went prom dress shopping with my grandma (54f) and my Mum (35f). I found a lovely dress and my Mum and Nan both payed half each for the dress.

As I was getting ready on my prom night, my Nan starts saying how she 'would love to try it on at the weekend' and 'she loves it so much' I ignore her and get ready for my prom.

I have a lovely time and had forgotten about her comment. Two days after she said 'can I wear your prom dress' and I flat out said 'No'. She then goes on a rant about how 'she paid half for the dress therefore she gets to wear it' and won't let up.

I feel guilty for insisting on her never wearing it but I also think that it's very clearly MY dress and I don't want her to wear it. So, am I The A*&^%$le? Xxx

Edit for information: She wants to wear it out to a party.

Let's see what internet users had to say.

idkjustissue writes:

YTA what’s the issue? It would make her happy? You don’t OWE it to her just cause she paid for half. She did that to do something nice for you cause she loves you and wants you to be happy. Why don’t you wanna do something that will make her happy at little cost to yourself?

multibo writes:

NTA - They bought you the dress as a gift, it belongs to you now. She has the right to ask you if she can wear it and you have the right to say no. I get that it might be annoying for her, but no need to rant about it.

feistymom writes:

NTA in thinking a gift is just that, a gift and you can do what you like with your dress. If nan was planning to borrow it she could have made that a condition of paying for it.

But I’m curious, so you have something planned for this dress that somehow precludes her borrowing it? Could she not wear it for whatever evening and return it to you cleaned? Does your nan have a habit of borrowing prom dresses and destroying them?

Maybe she thought it would be fun to take a picture in the dress and send it to your grandfather. Maybe she’s going to a senior center prom. Maybe it would be a nice ego boost for her to see if she’s the same weight as her beautiful granddaughter.

Maybe she wants to dress up, get sloppy drunk and force the cat to slow dance with her. Who cares, what’s the harm in letting her borrow it?

I don’t know your nan and I don’t know your family but I’ll just caution you that these are the stories that become the stuff of family legends and not in a good way.

In 20 years you’ll be planning your wedding and nan will not attend but she will send you a gift certificate to proms-are-us because “the only thing that girl ever cared about was prom dresses.”

Unless you’re planning to attend the same party let her borrow it. Yeah, it’s probably not age appropriate but that’s not your concern.

OP came back with these edits later:

Edit 1: Thank you all. I’m glad I’m not being unreasonable. Xxx

Edit 2: I see where the YTAs are coming from, so thank you for broadening my perspective of my Nan’s POV. Xxx