Woman tells friend that spending $10K on her wedding dress is irresponsible. AITA?
When this woman feels like she needs to tell her friend the truth about her spending, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my friend that spending $10k on a wedding dress is wasteful given her financial circumstances?'
This happened over the weekend and she still isn't talking to me so here we go. My friend (24f) is getting married next year, and is spending what I think is a ridiculous amount on a wedding dress.
She doesn't have a high paying job, she's a public school teacher, and lives on a tight budget. Her fiance makes more money, he's in tech, but she told me they are splitting the cost of the wedding 1/3 her parents, 1/3 his parents, 1/3 them as a couple, so it's not like his salary is covering this dress.
We were out to brunch with a group of friends when her wedding came up, and she got out her phone to show us her wedding dress that she recently committed to. I was expecting something normal, a photo of her in a dress in a bridal shop, but it was just a sketch.
Then she dropped the bomb that she's working with a designer to make a brand-new dress from scratch.
This shocked me because she has never mentioned this before, and I asked some follow up questions about who the designer is, where she's getting this done, and how much it costs, and that's when she dropped the $10k amount.
I told her that was way too much to spend on a dress, and she got super defensive. She's trying to justify it as her chance to try out fashion design, because she's the one who sketched this thing and it's apparently her dream dress from a design perspective that couldn't be purchased anywhere else.
Here's where I might be the AH, because I didn't let it go. I told her that if she can't sew it herself, she can't call it her dress, because the actual designer is going to be the one doing all the work, and it's wasteful to spend that much money on a vanity project.
She took this poorly and shut down for the rest of the outing, and one of our other friends texted me after and told me that I was being an AH for telling her what she could or couldn't afford to do.
The friend also told me that apparently they got their venue for free because it's owned by her fiance's family, and that the $10k for the dress was originally earmarked for the venue and that's what they're spending it on...
but I still think it's just way too much money to spend on a dress because the venue would be for everyone but the dress is only for her.
I probably shouldn't have confronted her about the cost in public, and I'm willing to apologize for that, but come on - this is way too much money for a public school teacher to spend on a dress, right??
Let's see what internet users had to say.
putridball76 writes:
It is way too much money imo in general, but it’s not you paying for it, or helping her out financially in other aspects. As long as everyone involved is okay with the price tag, and she’s happy with it that’s what matters. YTA in this situation.
blacksmith7 writes:
YTA. It’s not your wedding, not your money, not your relationship, not even your family. You have no stake in what she does or what her family does financially for the wedding, so why are you getting worked up over it?
You sound very unhappy, could it be possibly you have your own anxieties and this situation brought out a strong reaction in you? Probably do some self reflection and apologize.
aetherfx writes:
YtA. If you don't think $10K is a reasonable amount for a wedding dress, then when you get married next time, don't spend your money on it. You're not paying her bills. You're not lending her money, so you need to keep some opinions to yourself.
She did design the dress, it's a collaboration at worst, and materials are expensive, good artisan craft is expensive, and design is expensive. You can easily hit her $$ price by doing what she did. But it will be her dress in her special day.