'AITA for not shaving my beard for my brother's wedding?' UPDATED

"AITA for not shaving my beard for my brother's wedding?"

I'm 24 and cursed with babyface. It's been a source of insecurity for me for most of my life, along with generally not finding myself attractive. For about 22 years I never was able to grow a beard, mainly because it was kind of patchy and grew unevenly, and made me look dirty and unkept.

Then, you-know-what happened, and since I was covering that half of my face with a mask everywhere I went, I decided to stop shaving and see what would happen. Don't get me wrong, it was ugly as hell. For MONTHS.

But over time, it started to even out, the empty patches filled in as hair grew over them, and now I have to say it's pretty sick. It's not lined up or anything, just imagine like a mountain man. I keep it shampooed and brushed as well.

My confidence is higher than ever. I love the way I look with this beard. Now onto the issue, my older brother has asked me to be his best man, and he wants all of his groomsmen to be clean shaven and clean cut for his wedding photos.

I told him I would happily cut my hair (I have about shoulder length hair as well) but my beard has helped me out with confidence and self image issues and I'd really rather not shave it. He kinda brushed me off and said it would grow back.

I explained to him how long of a process it was to get to where it is, and how the growing-out stage made me feel even uglier than when I was clean shaven, and how I had to fight the urge to shave for months, and how it would be even harder for me now that we're not covering our faces. (Sorry for the run-on sentences, its just how my brain works.)

He flat out refused, and I, somewhat sadly, suggested maybe I shouldn't be in his wedding party and just be in attendance. He then said, "if my own brother isn't gonna be my best man over a beard, maybe you shouldn't attend at all."

I asked if he really felt that way. He said he did. So I told him, no problem, I'll skip it then. The conversation ended there, as he gave me a look of disbelief and kind of stormed off.

Since then, I've gotten a few texts and calls from family, no one's outright called me an asshole, but they've definitely made some comments about me "putting some facial hair over family" and "can't i put vanity aside for one day"

(to that part I've reminded them it would be more like putting vanity aside for 4-5 months, not that i consider myself vain for finally liking the way that I look)

I don't know. I only have one brother, and he (hopefully) is only going to get married once, and I would feel like shit if I missed it. I want to give him time to calm down before I try to talk to him again, and I guess in the meantime this is always a good place to get unbiased judgement. AITA?

EDIT: A lot of people have suggested I have it professionally groomed. I'm kind of kicking myself for not thinking about it in the moment. I'm definitely going to be coming back to him with this compromise.

Most commenters agreed he's NTA. Here are some of the top comments:

gcrnoles said:

NTA I never understand why people getting married think they can dictate someone’s appearance. And it is not just “one day”. It will take you months to grow it back out. Your brother the TA

holigramj56 said:

NTA. If he’s willing to cut you from the wedding because you have a beard, he’s not the type of person you want to be there for anyway. And grats on the confidence! It’s a life changer.

And [–]stunted_jest said:

NTA. I see absolutely no difference between this and a bride demanding a bridesmaid to dye her hair. It's unreasonable of your brother to not take no for an answer. And for outright banning you even attending makes him double the AH.

After his original post, OP spoke to his brother. He then posted this update:

Thanks for the helpful comments and even the ESH/YTA votes as they made me see things from a different perspective. Before I even got a chance to talk to him on my own, my brother called me up. I guess my soon to be SIL talked some sense into him, and managed to make him see the situation from my perspective.

He apologized to me profusely and said he had been so wound up with the wedding planning and he had gotten this hyper-specific vision of what his wedding photos were meant to be like that he overreacted when faced with the fact that they wouldn't be that way.

He specifically said "I don't want you to shave. It's important to me that you look like yourself in the pictures. I don't want to look back and see some guy that kind of looks like my brother."

I told him I still was planning to get my beard professionally shaped and groomed for the wedding, and he told me dead out, "Only if that's what you want to do. I'm fine either way."

I apologized as well for not suggesting a comprimise earlier and being nonflexible. He laughed and said "get out of here with that shit. I'm apologizing to you." I felt good about how the call went and I think we're good.

He even sent a message after the phone call to our wedding party groupchat and told the rest of the guys they no longer needed to shave if they didn't wish to. So everything turned out alright. Thanks everyone.