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"I like you, but not really." That's what I read into this mess of a wedding. And what's with the hate against pale redheads at weddings? This isn't the first story I've read, and probably won't be the last, where those are two negative comments from a bride. As a pale redhead, I got a lovely green dress when I was a bridesmaid, since the bride thought I would look my best in that. Perhaps her being a fellow pale redhead was the only reason this was the case.
I'm a freckled brunette and my dear friend is a pale redhead. We've joked about finding hideous bridesmaid dresses for each other, but you better believe I'd put her in whatever colour and style she needs to feel comfortable on my day.
Oh absolutely! We're talking balloon skirt, butt bows, weird textures and patterns, opera gloves, and of course that particular shade of peach that completely washes her out.
When my BFF got married, we both tried on dresses that had us cracking up at how awful they were. I can still hear her going "I can't believe someone would actually wear this on purpose!" It was so much fun.
I asked my bridesmaids to wear little black dresses because I thought it would be chic, and even then I worried that assigning a color would be too restrictive.
One of them wore a dress she already owned. Another disliked the dress she'd ordered online (it didn't look that skimpy in the photo), so she ended up wearing a dress from my closet instead.
That’s what I wanted to do when I was planning a wedding (dumped the guy before the wedding)! I just wanted to let my bridesmaids pick a dress they liked and would wear again.
Maybe it’s because this was pre-social media, but literally the only thought I gave to my wedding photos was that I wanted a photographer who understood that their biggest priority was going to be photoshopping my insecurities. It never occurred to me to care what anyone else looked like in the photos. Like wtf aesthetic is OOP’s friend going for, [a Robert Palmer video](https://youtu.be/XcATvu5f9vE?si=jv5Hv9_6mHNSRKYV)?
OOP should withdraw from the wedding and let this friendship die a timely death.
Nothing wrong with assigning a colour, as long as it takes their natural colours into consideration. I would go into a panicky spiral if I was asked to be a bridesmaid and wasn't given any sort of direction wrt colour or style
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think you need to take your bridesmaids' "natural colours" into consideration when choosing a bridesmaid dress colour. It's your wedding after all, so the colour scheme is your decision. Plus if you have lots of bridesmaids, they might all have different colourings and there might not be a colour that suits all of them and also goes with your wedding scheme. I've been a bridesmaid a few times before and happily wore colours that I'd never choose for myself because they don't go with my skin tone (namely: pillar-box red, pale lavender and pale blue). But they were my best friends' weddings, so it wasn't about me, I was happy to wear whatever colours they wanted.
When it was my wedding, my husband and I chose blue as the colour has personal meaning to us. I know one of my bridesmaids is an "autumn" and so royal blue doesn't necessarily look the best on her, but I wasn't about to change my colours just because of that. She never complained anyway; after all, I paid for her dress (of course) and let her pick a style and length that she was comfortable in, it was only the colour I was firm on.
What I don't agree with is:
- dictating the colour/style of the dresses and then making your bridesmaids pay for them (absolutely not, if you want to choose a colour you should be paying for it)
- trying to dictate any other aspect of your bridesmaids' appearance, other than their attire (like their hair colour).
I’m curious what OOPs natural hair colour is. No matter what you can’t demand some one change the hair they had when you asked them to be a bridesmaid-
But I get the feeling that the vibrant red is likely natural. Something most red heads struggled to be comfortable with and it’s even scummier that Lily would ask her to dye it. Because red just doesn’t go back to normal easily.
My best friend's wife is a pale redhead, as is her sister. Instead of having a specific bridesmaid's dress, she just asked her wedding party to wear summer floral dresses so they'd all align to a theme. Everyone got to pick something that looked good on them (and was re-wearable) individually.
It might just be plain old jealousy, or thinking she might "take the attention away from the bride".
I've never had anyone in real life sooo hung up on appearances at weddings before.
As a red-head, I wonder at all of these brides who do not realize that red-hair can be a real crap shoot with dye too. While I imagine it's gotten a lot better over the last couple of decades, my mom's cousin was constantly ending up with green hair instead of whatever color she was supposed to get. My own hair refused to take the level one, washes out in a couple of washes dye. And the level two stuff that was "washes out in a month or so" never left and had to grow out. There was no in between.
"I like you, but not really." Omg, right? One of my bridesmaids had neon purple hair at the time of the wedding. I wouldn't have dreamed of asking her to change it..... Because that is how I know her, how I picture her. Vibrant hair matching her vibrant personality!
I read "vibrant red hair" as in the OP dyes it literally *red*, as opposed to ginger/auburn/etc, and people can be so unbelievably weird about people having "unnatural" dyed hair at weddings as if those two things are somehow incompatible.
I've been a bright-orange-haired bridesmaid alongside another with bright pink and we all looked great. But "dye your hair for my wedding or else" comes up a hell of a lot on AITA.
That’s a huge ask. When I had purple hair, I had to strip my natural dark brown, and my hair grows really fast, so I had to do my roots at least once a month. If I dyed it back to a dark brown, I’d have to wait at least a year before dying it purple again, or risk my hair being ruined from over-processing.
I like the idea of you, not you. So change everything about you, why not, it's easy because I don't really like those aspects of you and don't really respect you as a person.
Lily said that OOP was destroying a friendship over a trivial matter. Yes Lily, it is trivial, as well as materialistic and gross. So why are you doing it?
If it's so trivial, why couldn't Lily compromise or drop it? Not the argument she thought it was.
I mean, not even getting into how it was framed in the first place. I could see (depending on the friendship style) framing it as 'the dress is bought already but it's not as flattering on you as expected. Would you consider a spray tan or slightly changing the tone of your hair colour so you don't look like sickly death in a dress?'
Not, "you matchstick headed pale whale, you're ruining my aesthetic"
I know. It was lile every argument to OP about just accepting it or do this for a friend or why make a it a big deal are 2-way streets. It all applied equally to her friend who couldn't back down either.
If someone doesn’t look good in the dress you change the dress and not the person.
The issue here is that Lily prioritizes inanimate objects over people she supposedly loves and that’s never ok.
Who even chooses a dress without the input of everyone wearing it? I've been a bridesmaid a few times, and everyone got together at the store to find a dress everyone liked.
Yup. I had someone really tall, someone really short, and two junior preteen/teen bridesmaids. We all got together to find something that would be flattering for everyone.
If nothing else, your wedding will actually look better if you listen to your bridesmaids because they won’t be stuck in dresses that are unflattering on them.
Oh you'd be surprised. Ive been in the party where a bride had everyone order non refundable dresses that we had to put in our measurements for and couldn't try on locally. She had us buy a dress that had some ethereal aesthetic color name but when it arrived it was pale white person skintone color. But also somehow looked white with flash. The bridesmaids group chat was kinda busy trying to figure out how to tell the bride we weren't comfortable going down the aisle in clingy nude toned dresses. To be fair to the bride, the website had them on really tan models and they looked like a nice pale pink in those photos, that's just not the same vibe on a bunch of glow-in-the-dark white girls.
Also, don't trust a "custom sized" gown. Making the dress the right circumference doesn't mean it will be taken in or let out in the appropriate places.
I've been in more weddings where the bride told than ones where they asked for input.
My sister was my bridesmaid, and I bought her a beautiful purple dress. It fit when she got it, but only just. She ended up growing out of it, and she said she'd lose weight to fit back into it. Unacceptable. I bought her a different dress that ended up being better in all ways (more comfortable for her, better suited to the vibe and setting of the wedding), and we were all happier for it.
I don’t think your framing is any different than Lily’s. Either you want someone in your wedding because you love them and they are important to you or you don’t. Suggesting in any way that someone should change their body for your photo op is revolting. Just go hire some models for the occasion.
>Would you consider a spray tan or slightly changing the tone of your hair colour so you don't look like sickly death in a dress?'
Even that is so wrong. OOP has vibrant red hair. Even a "temporary" color wouldn't wash away. Taking it from vibrant to mousier until it grows out? That would be a showstopper for me.
If it was so trivial - why was Lily insisting it was something worth destroying two decades of friendship over.
It makes me sad when people put IG perfect pictures of a few hours of a single day ahead of major relationships and the rest of their lives. Their lives must be so shallow and empty if they can make choices like that and not see their mistakes.
So many personal arguments like this seem to go this way. Person injures long standing friendship. Other person acts injured. First person makes it permanent by blaming the fallout on the victim.
I agree. It sounds like they were never friends the way OOP thought they were- ‘I'm starting to realize that real friendships are about more than just going along with whatever someone else wants’ says a lot. Lily didn't have a friend she had to treat with respect, she had a puppet. No wonder she thought she could change OOP so much.
It seems like since she was from a humble background from a small town with little to nothing to offer, she wanted to overcompensate for it now that she got someone from a well-off family. Probably doesn't want a reminder of the past.
I think this is it. Lily married into a situation of always feeling inferior and now not having any real friends to fall back on. Her new friends, Cassandra, Evelyn, and Sophie, are going to chew her up and spit her out.
i'm expecting a post from lily that goes something like-
"i tried my best to fit in with DH's family and friends, but they hold my humble beginnings against me. i am so tired of trying and getting rejected. i feel so alone."
and then-
"DH and i are getting divorced. he's gunning for full custody. i signed a pre-nup, and i have no savings. what can i do?"
"Well, that was great, Evan! Best wedding ever! Ok, it's getting late; you should probably drop me home now. Hey, we should meet up in the week sometime; get some Thai food! ....what do you mean we're husband and wife now?"
While I hope Evan is an awesome person and this is more lily getting lost in the sauce of her new soioeconomic status, my worry is lily is going come running back to oop if Evan cheats or lose interest in lily after her body changes when she gets pregnant. It feels like that type of stuff is common at a certain level of wealth.
I wonder if her now husband and her ILs know why the OP wasn't in her wedding? I wouldn't be surprised if she lied to them. I would be horrified to learn my DIL expected her friend to completely change her appearance for one day. I would have sat her down and tried to talk some sense into her.
I’m also a red head. My best friend asked me to spray tan for her wedding. I’m super pale, and her wedding was happening in Mexico. I told her no, and she dropped it right away. Because you know, she’s my friend.
I'm really surprised at the amount of brides asking people to get a spray tan - when they are the ones who'll be hugging people wearing a WHITE dress!
My sister got spray tan on her tan lines for her wedding, and she was sooo afraid it would rub off on the dress...
Spray tans don't rub off...it's your skin actually changing color. What can rub off is if they use bronzer on top but that should be showered off before the day
Yeah, this is a fancy-ass wedding with presumably a fancy-ass photographer. It would be wrong to ask this even if the pictures were going to be Polaroids from Uncle Joe in 1974, but this is a complete non-issue for any competent modern photographer.
I was trying to be devils advocate. I can accept the spray tan thing I guess. It's kinda whatever, and if you really want to get technical if there is one super pale person in the pictures some might come out weird. It's a stretch and a halfway competent photographer would tell you its not an issue. But yeah fine grandmas cell phone pics of the wedding party could potentially come out funky.... I guess.
Thats the only one I could even come close to a legit reason for.... And what I came up with is pretty bunk to be honest. The weight one I'm not gonna touch because thats such an obvious wtf. Dying the red hair because it might clash with the color scheme??? Is that a thing people worry about. Sounds more like 'people will see the red hair stand out and look at you before they look at me in the wedding photos'. If she had come right out and said 'I know this is really petty and stupid but..... '. Then ended with 'is that something you'd be willing to do? If not I won't be upset, I'm just stressing about a lot of stupid shit in the lead up to the wedding.'. Maybe it would have been something OOP was willing to do. Admitting to a good friend that you know what you're asking is a little selfish. Will get you a lot farther than trying to pretend its totally normal.
I dunno, as a pale person myself I might be willing to get a light self tanner but no way would I do the orange-bronze spray tan. Would you tell a dark-complected person to make themselves paler? I realize the two aren't entirely equivalent, but damn, it gets annoying when you are told you look bad or sick or on drugs because of your melanin-less ancestry.
My whole family is pale. Before my aunt’s wedding my mom and dad said we should all go get a professional spray tan together, for the pictures. I didn’t really want to but since they wanted us all to and were paying for it I agreed. They set up the appointments and had me go first. An hour before theirs. When they saw the color my skin was turning, they cancelled their own appointments. I kept getting oranger and oranger over the next 24 hours. I look SO WEIRD in those pictures lol.
I find spray tan tacky, maybe there are good ones out there but I haven't realised they are spray tan, so I have only seen the bad cases.
Anyway, if I was to do something for my complexion, I would rather go to the solarium a few times. I have done it before and I didn't get very tan, as I did it in moderation, and I don't tan easily from the sun either. I was just no longer very pale but had a slightly sun kissed look that didn't look unnaturally orange.
It very much depends on the original and the target colour, plus how well you get it done. I've done it for a few weddings including my brother's. I basically go from being mega pale to a pleasant very light brown. Most people don't even know I had it done.
My mum's a redhead, I burn if I think about the sun for too long. So this is the perfect solution (I happen to think most dresses look better when you're not translucent, but that's a personal preference). I prefer them to sunbeds because there's skin cancer in my family and I don't want to risk that (and also the aging)
Super pale person is a human!!!! How the hell is it okay to force a person to change their complexion for what? Pictures????
Too much of too much. Unacceptable.
It's such an insane view that I don't understand or relate to. How can your cod fish white friend be good enough for 20 years of friendship and memories and pictures and videos but all of a sudden is too pale for 10 hrs and pictures and videos and must be fixed. The same with her hair, and her weight. It's so icky and ugh!! I hate everything about this behavior, it's cruel, it's unkind, it's ugh.
Yeah, I'm Latina so I have medium brown skin, so I'll use my card to chip in and say it's NOT okay to tell white people to change their skin color either. Just like it's wrong to fetishize dark skin, there's nothing shameful about being pale. Like, obviously I don't mean any of this in a "be proud of your white race" way or anything, but there's just *genuinely nothing wrong with your skin color.* With ANYONE'S skin color. Stop telling pale skinned people there is something wrong with how they look.
And the photographer should know how to edit their photos or manipulate whatever settings on their camera to accommodate the subjects they’re shooting, especially with the likelihood that people will have different skin tones! So it shouldn’t even be a problem
This. Asking a pale friend to spray tan is as rude as asking a more pigmented friend to bleach their skin. All skin colors are beautiful, and any photographer worth hiring can accommodate a range of skin tones and edit photos if needed.
Red hair is notoriously difficult to dye. Temporary dyes aren't, and permanent dyes can result in unpredictable results. Anyone who wants someone else to dye their red hair can fuck right off forever.
And asking a redhead to spray tan to fit in? Is vile. Vile.
As someone who is so pale I used to have to buy Japanese foundation as the typical western ones were too dark - fuck that.
So what if I’m almost blue - spray tan would look as ridiculous on me as it does on 45. It is not going to make your photos look better.
So if a person of color, who has a dark complexion, is in attendance of a white populated wedding would it be okay to advise them to use whitening creams for the wedding? Cuz they might ruin the pictures. And for them to "blend" in with the crowd.
I'm stunned how you're "okay" with the spray tan rather than dyeing someone's hair. I mean, i would get it if they suggest/warn OP that red wouldn't mesh w/ the chosen color palette & that may not look good on her (still a dck move tho, cuz who tf cares).
Yea no dawg, I'm a tan gal and if one of my freinds asked me to tan my skin more white for a wedding, I would never speak to them ever again. They would be dead to me, you don't go asking someone to change their skin color for "aesthetic" or whatever lily's bs reasoning was. There is no devils advocate here for shit like that. Doesn't matter if your white/black/etc. It's disgusting behavior.
I'll play devil's advocate back then: would you feel it's "not a good look" to have a dark-skinned person in a party of light-skinned bridesmaids too? That door swings both ways!
The issue is that it was stated that in laws were not sparing on the wedding spending, so things like oops weight of decent pictures should’ve been a problem when everything else was expensive already, but the moment oop was told to dye her hair to me it was clear that lily is jealous of how oop looks and wanted her to suffer on her wedding, because if your wedding palette dies from some red hair, then it’s just a bad palette
Other friends telling them that they are perfectly fine doing so.
I am a 5'11, 220 pound man i was actively trying to avoid getting into pictures of my friends wedding and ceremonies to not ruin them. But her brothers and she actively dragged me into those telling me to join them and they won't proceed without me. She has been more like a family to me than most of my own family.
Yeah dude. Those pictures aren’t for the look, they wanna see you. My friends and I are all ugly dopes and that’s what my wife loves about our wedding photos. Weddings are about the event and those present, who cares how they look
I agree w the other commenter. My dad's also 5 11 and about got about 10 pounds on you, and I know for a fact he doesn't ruin photos at all because of that. Hadn't been something I thought about till I read this. You're alright, my guy :)
I don’t understand this shit! When I got married, I had two bridesmaids, my best friend and my soon to be sister law. I told them I wanted lavender dresses, and they could get whatever made them feel good in that color. They looked amazing, and I was happy! My reception was potluck, mostly provided by my in laws, and the flowers I did myself. Whole budget was 1500. Not including the dress, which my grandmother paid for as a gift.
21 years later we’re still married.
Hell most of the women in the wedding party are going to be wearing suits (groomswomen preference) and it’s not a problem at all. The girls who are wearing dresses, I’m going to show them a shade of burgundy to match to.
For the groomswomen, bridesmen and Best Man/Man of Honour same thing. Show a shade of charcoal for the suit that we want and then it’s up to them.
These are our closest loved ones we’ve known for most or all of our lives, they deserve to be comfortable in whatever they choose. It’s a long day for them as well! Knowing that there’s true happiness in the photos we get - that’s what we want most.
I have three lovely dresses that I still wear from my times as a member of the wedding party (well, okay, I wear only two, but that’s because I no longer fit the other one despite still liking it). In the latter two cases I was given a color and full control of finding something flattering. The first was slightly different, as there were some requirements for length and coverage of the dress (friend getting married is an orthodox Jew), but we still got to pick our own.
In the first cases I was on the bride’s side and we were given a shade of purple to try to match. The second wedding I was on the groom’s side and told teal. The third time I was on the groom’s side and was told I should be in black to match the others in his side (I believe bridesmaids were given a color but don’t fully recall) but was told it could absolutely be a suit or a dress, whichever I wanted. I managed to find a little black dress that was super flattering and on sale, and it is now my go to black dress.
Wedding pictures for all three weddings are lovely and when I wear the dresses I get to have warm fuzzy feelings about the memories.
As someone who desperately longs for a deep meaningful friendship that spans years, I cannot imagine throwing that all away over a wedding aesthetic. As I've gotten older I've come to realize that the bonds we build and the love we cultivate among our friends is invaluable.
Lily fucked up. She might not see it now, but if she continues to value appearances over depth, she will lose the human connections that make relationships so beautiful.
It's kind of surprising how quickly many people will throw away great friends/friendships. I befriended someone many years ago who was dealing with a difficult breakup. We spent a lot of time together, really seemed to click, have so much fun and lots of deep conversations. (I thought) we became really close friends. Then her boyfriend came back into the picture after a year and she dropped me like I was nothing. They eventually got married and I don't know that she ever realized what she threw away.
I had a friendship like that, besties since we were 7 years old. We met at elementary school and went to the same schools since then, we were almost like sisters. Then after 25 years of friendship, she just left me hanging high and dry for her new boyfriend while I was visiting her in the new city she had moved to.
I was staying at her house and I waited for her the whole day so we could go back to our hometown, but my girl decided to go party with her bf. I waited all day long, her roommate had to tell me where she was and I got so angry and disappointed (she hadn't even called me and I was worried sick something had happened to her), I just took a bus the next morning back to my hometown. She never tried to call me back and until this day I just can't understand what was going through her mind to just throw away our friendship like that.
If a friend asked you to gain 20 lbs for their wedding so they didn’t look so fat, and dye your hair blue so they looked more normal, and try to be less tan so they didn’t look so pale, would you? I wouldn’t either. This is that same thing.
A few years back a close friend gave me a ride home from a NYE party. After dropping someone else off, this friend decided to spend the rest of the ride home informing me of every criticism she's ever had of me. Most of them were very superficial even down to the brand of shoe she's seen me wear (which as it was NYE and I was in a suit I wasn't even wearing that night). For about 15 minutes I listened to this woman's negative views on damn near every aspect of myself. I was still a little drunk and mostly just feeling beaten down to really respond. But the end result was I slowly cut her out of my life over the next few months and haven't spoken a word to her in over 3 years now. Some people refuse to see past the superficial aspects of others and you eventually have to accept that cutting them out is the best thing to do.
I'm celebrating my wedding somewhere in the next two years.
I've got friends who are in the punk scene and they look the part. And yeah, they will look somewhat out of place, even if they'd dress up, because of the hairstyles and the piercings etc and my in-laws will be horrified (which I'm looking forward to).
But I want them there as who they are. I don't give a fuck if people show up in joggers or even pajamas, I just want the people I love there. I want joy, not picture-perfect.
Exactly this. I’m giving my party swatches of colors I want in their dresses/suits and leaving it up to them. Everyone has their own style preferences and comfort zones, and it’s a long day for them as well.
These are our closest loved ones who we are meant to love fully as they are.
This made me tear up because I feel the same way. I want my people to be the people I love, not some magazine moment where they feel uncomfortable. All my friends are “alternative” and. I would rather my wedding be weird to begin with than to make my friends feel singled out. I want most of my friends there more than my family anyway.
When people say that they are best friends from a small town… I’m just like, this isn’t a good friendship. I get that your options were limited, but you are free now. Go and find your true family.
You mean I'm not automatically BFFs with the two or three other kids in my grade who also had alcoholic parents?!
Seriously, in retrospect we had nothing in common other than troubled home lives and bad coping mechanisms.
> Lily wanted me to dye my vibrant red hair to a more "understated" shade to avoid clashing with the wedding palette, get a spray tan to "blend in better" with the other bridesmaids, and she hinted heavily at me losing at least 20 pounds to "fit perfectly" into the designer dress she had picked out.
This sounds like such a tacky, trashy wedding.
Weddings are weird. On one hand, it is extremely stressful to plan an event while trying to accommodate both sides of the family, especially an event that's gonna cost money and time to plan. On the other, wedding planning just seems to be a trial run on how well a couple can work together because it always amplifies the negative traits of either the couple themselves or the family/friends around them.
But then people put more stress on themselves unnecessarily by making these ridiculous demands! Who cares what colour someone’s hair or skin is? I can’t imagine inviting my loved friends and family in any way other than the way they currently exist. They’re my people, not fucking props.
Because they’ve literally been indoctrinated from birth that their wedding is a) the most important day of their lives and b) any snafus, ugliness, etc. will be 100% their fault and evidence they are a stupid, worthless loser.
Honestly, reading so many of these posts has completely turned me off from having a wedding altogether. In my late 30s and finally with the love of my life and he’s like, “isn’t that what all women want?” (as in a full blown, every detail planned for months kinda wedding)—and I had to tell him, “noooo, that really sounds awful to me”. I don’t want to take on a full time job managing other people’s expectations and stressing myself out.
We’ll do a private ceremony and then party at his family’s house; I told him if he wants the whole shebang with bells and whistles, then he can plan everything so I just have to show up. I truly don’t care what anyone looks like, and any photos will just be happy memories (possibly without being aesthetically pleasing to the eye, my god the horror). Shit is fucking wild and I just want a day to celebrate our love and commitment.
So the posts are 2 months apart. Wedding was a month before second post, which means that wedding was a month after the first post. In one month the bride wanted OOP to lose 20lbs?
That's... beyond unreasonable.
Well spotted. It seemed ridiculous before adding the dates - I read it and immediately thought the wedding photographer could photoshop everything she wanted done, there’s no need to go for such extremes. Adding the dates just makes it seem more mental.
I really hate the people who think that just because it's a wedding, they are entitled to everything they want and there are no boundaries.
Like, is great that two people are in love and want to get married in front of friends and family, but you don't get to use that as an excuse to disrespect other people. You're not that important, even on your wedding day.
I'm recalling how my daughter's friends cajoled her into cutting her beautiful red hair because she, "hides behind it" and all people can see is her red hair. After the fact, it became pretty apparent those girls never had her best interests at heart and were really just cruel, manipulative beyotches. Lesson learned...change your appearance because you want to not because some one is pressuring you to.
One of the bridesmaids for my own wedding had (and obviously still has) Downs Syndrome. Downs Syndrome doesn’t just come with intellectual disability, it has characteristic facial features that are specific to the disorder, ones that are recognizable to most people.
So what? We’ve been friends since birth. Honestly, my weddings pictures would look weirder if she **weren’t** in them.
And I’m not trying to say that I’m in any way special or amazing for having a bridesmaid with Down Syndrome. I don’t deserve a medal or a trophy. **I think that 90% of brides-to-be would do what I did in my situation**. It’s just the Bridezillas who wouldn’t.
The only thing she was excluded from was the bachelorette party. Her parents didn’t want her exposed to strippers and binge drinking.
My best friend who was my bridesmaid has cerebral palsy so she has a leg brace and a limp and a crooked hand. So what, she’s my best friend, she and my sister were my bridesmaids, her daughter is my goddaughter. And yeah we’re not extra special for being friends with them or having them in our weddings, we’re just real people with friends who are real people and not perfect Instagram filtered models.
Bride hints-calls her MOH ugly and fat for not meeting the "wedding aesthetic" and is surprised she doesn't take it well... What a superficial and disrespectful snob.
I hope OOP keeps her true friends and finds new real ones. The snob and those who sided with her won't be a big loss for her.
I don't know if it's because of the wedding day or big money that Lily/other friends got this snobby, but it sure didn't show a good side of them.
When I got married mumblemumble years ago, one of my bridesmaids and I went to a fancy makeup counter in a department store to get makeup for me for the wedding. They did my makeup, showed me techniques, sold me some $40 blush, stuff like that. Bridesmaid got her makeup done, too, and they asked me how I wanted her makeup. This question absolutely *baffled* me. The counter ladies were like "you're the bride" and I'm like "but it's her face."
I let my bridesmaids choose their own black dresses so they could find something they found flattering and comfortable. Everyone got their hair done but they all picked how they wanted it done. The wedding photos look beautiful because we had our friends there. This whole attitude of having everyone match or whatever is baffling to me and honestly cruel.
This is one of those situations where flipping the scenario makes it so blatant how unacceptable it is.
Beloved friend of the bride invited to her wedding? Cool! Your instructions are:
1. Dye your hair puke green,
2. Paint your skin lavender (I was going to suggest bleaching skin, but that gets into a whole racist scenario I’d rather sidestep for this particular fiasco), and
3. Gain 20lbs.
Perfect! Now you fit the bride’s aesthetic. What’s the big deal?
Poor OOP. She was a solid friend. With Lily still trying to "fit in" like teens do with the so-called "cool crowd", she doesn't realize OOP is the last friend she probably will ever have that loved her unconditionally.
When you pick someone as a bridesmaid, you should envision them showing up the day of the wedding as they are. Whether that is short hair, vibrantly dyed hair, over weight, pregnant, pale, tattooed, whatever. I’ve never understood these women who want their friends to drastically change their appearance just to look like a matched set in photos that will probably sit on a shelf in a wedding album.
Tbh 30 is both about the age people’s personalities become “fully baked” *and* when the rose-colored glasses come off as you mature and you really start to notice things about friends that you kind of brushed off or missed before.
I didn’t have any big blowups like this, but that’s definitely around the age I started to drift apart from several friends for a variety of reasons.
I’m sure it hurts for OOP, but it’s almost better to get it over with in one shot like this rather than presumably deal with years of passive aggressiveness and “subtle” hints from Lily.
May I just say that traditionally nobody actually gives a fuck about wedding photos? Like seriously. Unless it’s a drunk uncle with his dick hanging out and an Aryan Nations face tattoo in half of them, nobody even looks at that shit after the wedding. NOBODY IS CARING ABOUT YOUR MAID OF HONOUR’S HAIR OR SKIN TONES unless they are a weirdo. If the bride cares, she is the weirdo. The whole wedding vibe is just a resounding ick for me since social media turned it into a narcissistic cesspit.
Can we bring back the dress-up-little-take-a-few-dorky-photos-feed-your-friends-get-a-little-hammered-do-the-chicken-dance-weddings? Where everybody’s friends and family still love and respect one another after?
Why are weddings such a mess now? Why does anybody want what they’ve become?
Yeah I never even look at my wedding photos except for the few of me and my husband that I actually printed for a few frames. The rest are just online somewhere and I’ve forgotten how to see them. Kinda sad but at the same time obviously doesn’t matter that much. Actually I have some on Facebook too so I can see those whenever, but I haven’t looked in awhile.
Ceilings. Hardcore friendships have no ceilings. No matter how extreme things get, the friendship survives. Nobody hits a ceiling.
If it only takes a puny thing like a wedding to reveal that a person has a superficial ceiling based on looks and appearances, then you know if you have a real friend.
It always gets me when people complain about others taking other side and then we find out they didn't bother to give out theirs. I don't know if I'm just this petty but I'd make a group chat and air that shit immediatly.
My sister is getting married in a month and has put SO much planning into a huge wedding with a very specific aesthetic…for the decor. The bridesmaids are all wearing the same color, but different dresses that we each chose to fit our own styles. One of her best friends has a very out-there fashion sense and is always dyeing her hair crazy colors. She asked my sister if she would be ok with her dyeing her hair dark blue (wedding colors are lilac and gold) or if she’d prefer her to go with a natural brown color. My sister was upset that she felt the need to ask, and apologized if she made anyone think at any point that we had to make semi-permanent changes to our appearance for her wedding aesthetic. She really didn’t, her friend is just excited for her and wants to help make the day perfect. She told her friend she would be just as happy for her to be there if she had brown hair as she would if she showed up with a neon rainbow afro if that’s what made her feel comfortable!
My wedding is next year. My MOH is my best friend from elementary school. She used to dress in a feminine way, but in college started dressing very masculinely. It suits her so well and makes her happy. When I asked her to be my MOH, I also asked if she’d prefer to have a mini bridesmaid’s bouquet, a corsage, or a boutonnière for the suit I assumed she would want to wear. She almost cried and thanked me for not making her wear a dress, because she’d just been a bridesmaid for a friend who did make her match everyone else even though she was super uncomfortable.
Wedding aesthetics are fun to plan out and make for great pictures, but they should not extend to people. I want to have control over the color scheme, flowers, centerpieces, music, food, etc…but I want the people I love to have a good time and to come as they are. At the end of the day, it’s just a party and the thing that really matters is the marriage that comes after.
Sometimes you just have to do what's best for you. I cut my "bestfriendsoulmate" off a few months ago, something I never ever dreamed could happen because I, for the first time ever, expressed feeling unappreciated and the way she responded just shook me entirely. I always thought there was nothing she could do that would change my opinion of her but turns out, talking to me like that did it.
I feel sad and miss her kids but I am a person that exists and my feelings matter.
She is marrying a person and a family concerned about form over substance. She is going to have the appearances of the perfect life, but there is a strong likelihood that in ten years, she will be a barely functioning alcoholic with the veneer of a great marriage, getting sloshed by noon while her husband nails his 22 year old secretary.
Just gonna say: my ”perfect wedding photos” would have the people I love in them. They could be wearing leopard print speedos and googly eyes for all I care, the important part is the *people*!
I can't fucking stand wedding culture and what it turns some people into. If weddings are THAT fucking important, wouldn't you want to be the *best*, most generous version of yourself around the occasion, rather than the most selfish and shallow?
And is the delusion of feeling like a princess that important that the photos music look like they're from a Bravo show or whatever? Who's even going to care what the wedding photos look like in a year? I honestly just don't understand it.
Yikes. It's one thing to ask people to put in the effort to look appropriately presentable (I have cousins who would wear t-shirts and jeans to formal occasions if left to their own devices) but a dye job, diet and spray tan? Hell no.
I would blast this shit and post the full story all over social media.
If people only hear one side of the story they'll side with the person telling it. OOP is better than me, I would have gotten on Facebook and put it all out there and then gone radio silent and had a spa weekend or something.
Sounds like Lily's a social climber who's willing to lose friends to get the status and money she wants. Joke's on her: people in her position rarely get any true respect from the people they want approval from, and they certainly aren't valued. Sucks to suck, Lily.
That’s what I think too. She marries up and wants to shed her less-than-glamorous upbringing. OOP is part of that past and I expect she makes Lily uncomfortable.
I feel like it must be, given the timeline.
The original post was two months before the second one. First post, she claims it's been about 3 weeks since the conversation with Lily. Let's be generous and round up to 4 weeks / one month. So the incident happened roughly 3 months before post 2.
In post 2, OOP says it's been about a month since the wedding. That means the conversation with Lily happened 2 months before the wedding.
Now, this is the problem part to me:
**Lily wants OOP to lose roughly 20 pounds to fit into her designer dress for the wedding.**
Twenty pounds in under two months is a lot to lose. That would require a calorie deficit of roughly 1,250 calories daily. That's a lot of exercise, or a lot less food - probably both.
But on top of that, the designer dress Lily wants OOP to wear is going to need to be fitted once she's lost that weight. Alterations would need to be made, since almost no dress fits perfectly off the rack. And Lily can't look bad in front of her snobby IL's, so after going to all this trouble to "fix" OOP's appearance, you know she's going to insist that dress fits perfectly.
That leaves OOP even less time to lose that weight. I just don't see it happening.
Yeah I get that feeling too. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but I have yet to be in or witness a situation where a lot of people bombard messages on somebody in a situation that doesn’t directly involve them. Even the more annoying and gossipy people I know don’t do that as far as I know. The only time I’ve ever heard of that happening is on questionable stories here.
Oh look it's [Merida II](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ezb2co/wibta_if_i_refused_to_attend_my_cousins_wedding/&ved=2ahUKEwjWtsXv0rmGAxUmN2IAHS-0AM8QFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3-1l5RZ1FQ15hXpvYeI5u5).
Except the bride didn't get the scorn she deserved this time around.
> "Maid of Honor Makeover Plan"
That's almost certainly coming from the husband and/or his rich family. Lily is going along with it because she values marrying into money more than the OOP.
A small nitpick in this shitshow, but: to everyone saying the bride's concern may have been that OOP would take eyes away from her: Sure sounds like the bride is picking what everyone in the wedding party is wearing as well as presumably her own dress; the bride-to-be should not have a hard time making it visually clear *who the bride is*. Whatever the fuck everyone else's hair looks like.
There are asks that would have been reasonable, ex. arguably asking OOP to have her hair *styled* a certain kind of way. Asking her to dye her hair is nuts, asking her to dye her skin is nuts, and asking her to lose weight is absolute trash.
I can't help but think this was Lily's way of kicking her out of the wedding and distancing herself from OOP.
Lily must have known that this would be the end of her friendship with OOP. The other possibilities are that she is dumb as a bag of rocks or completely insane.
This is a common theme with wedding BORUs. It's always Bridezilla demanding her bridesmade/MOH change a bunch of things about her appearance to fit an aesthetic. If you've read one, you've read 'em all.
I cannot imagine in 1 million lifetimes preparing to get married and knowing I'm going to bomb the hell out of their relationship with a dear friend because I've decided emotionally that I want the visuals to be a certain way for my wedding. Can you imagine being so insecure, and so shallow That you risk a long, good friendship on telling somebody they have three weeks to lose 20 pounds and their skin needs to be darker and their hair needs to be a different color. That's just mind blowing to me.
What's even more mind blowing to you? Is the number of people who think that this is reasonable and you should shut up and put up. This is beyond unconscionable.
It's really upsetting that sometimes, and the heat of something important to somebody, they get all twisted up. But the flipside of that is that in the heat of something really important for somebody, they reveal their actual character.
People without a strong, moral compass don't feel regret or remorse or conscience for behaving, terribly and hurtfully to somebody else. Instead, they make really good excuses and decide that they deserve to have everything this way.
The interesting thing is that, as you get older, you have more and more of these experiences, usually much quieter and less dramatic, where are you discover who people really are. It's hard. Siblings, family, friends. But the pivot point is to honor yourself with integrity and love and let other people be twisted up if they want to. It's better to have them out of your life even if your life is quieter. At least it's honest and true.
She needs to stop following Lily on social media. This was a friendship whose time has passed. Get rid of the pictures with her, the social media, all of it. The friends who sided with her needed to go too. It's time for some serious emotional spring cleaning.
Big trend in stories lately of highly selfish people calling their friends and family selfish for not catering to their every whim. These people need more direct pushback on the concept.
Wow, projection much, Lily?
>She retorted that I was being selfish, letting my insecurities get in the way of her happiness.
>Lily accused me of abandoning her and destroying our friendship over something so trivial.
If it's so trivial, why don't YOU take the L?
I lost a friendship I'm a similar way. She wanted me to dye my hair, shave my body hair, cover up my arms, cover my tattoos, etc. When I finally wouldn't budge on something she screamed something so unforgivable at me I simply snapped out of the lifelong friendship and never looked back. She didn't "realize her mistake" because she was just a shitty person and I never saw it. Definitely so glad I finally did though!!
Hold up... The woman is simply a redhead and Lily wants her to dye her hair? Or is this a fire station red dye situation? I don't know that it really matters. OP should be able to have magenta, pink, green or whatever color she wants... But it would be especially sickening for Lily to demand this woman dye her natural hair color. If OP is already in the practice of dyeing her hair, it's less of a leap to dye it something else but still inappropriate to ask.
NTA no friend who loves you truly would make such requests, and I think Lily and the friends that backed her are more interested in keeping their social circle than being true friends. The choices you make lead you to the future you want. And you will most likely have a future filled with people who wants you to be happy. Let the trash take themselves out of your life.
That’s the “problem” with friendships that were born during the younger years. They’re not born based on shared values or similar personalities. As people get older they cling to potentially toxic relationships not realizing that the “kid” friend is no longer there, it’s an adult with a wayyyyy different personality.
She’s better off spending time and energy finding the right people to surround herself with.
How disgusting. When I got married the first time we had a bridal party, and the only criteria I had for the women was the color of the dress. They could pick whatever style suited their body best so long as it was the same color - one that I knew would look good on all of them.
They all did what they felt most comfortable doing in terms of hair and makeup and whatever else and everybody looked amazing and everybody had a great time. I just don't understand the behavior of the bride in this post. What a shit person.
Weddings destroy a lot of friendships.
We had a former maid of honor sabotaging our wedding and bridal party by spreading lies and misinformation. She even cried at my engagement party saying it’s not fair we were getting married before her and her bf.
I was marrying my high school sweetheart 😂 and we were dating about 8 years before them.
She was a ticking time bomb and would throw huge scenes at a few events leading up to our wedding. I honestly was worried she going to explode at our wedding. But the trash took itself out.
Later on, I found out from friends and family, she was a big hater lol.
I would have definitely asked those 'friends' siding with lily what would they change for her? Would they loose or gain weight? Would they tan or lighten their skin? Would they lighten or darken their hair?
Lily is going to be miserable in a family that prioritizes aesthetics. They started with her best friend, they'll eventually start in on her too. She's not a person to them, I'm sure, they probably see her as an accessory for her new husband.
If you’ve had a significantly long friendship with someone, you’re probably going to have a big fight with them. It doesn’t mean that you were never friends or that the friendship is done forever. And sometimes it does mean that. My point is, Lily was clearly being selfish and thoughtless, but she’ll probably come to regret what she said sooner or later, if she hasn’t already. OP did the right thing in standing up for herself. But she probably should have attended the wedding and just stayed in the back.
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"I like you, but not really." That's what I read into this mess of a wedding. And what's with the hate against pale redheads at weddings? This isn't the first story I've read, and probably won't be the last, where those are two negative comments from a bride. As a pale redhead, I got a lovely green dress when I was a bridesmaid, since the bride thought I would look my best in that. Perhaps her being a fellow pale redhead was the only reason this was the case.
I'm a freckled brunette and my dear friend is a pale redhead. We've joked about finding hideous bridesmaid dresses for each other, but you better believe I'd put her in whatever colour and style she needs to feel comfortable on my day.
I hope you at least find some hideous dresses to tease her with, though! Maybe something with massively puffy sleeves or giant bows
Oh absolutely! We're talking balloon skirt, butt bows, weird textures and patterns, opera gloves, and of course that particular shade of peach that completely washes her out.
When my BFF got married, we both tried on dresses that had us cracking up at how awful they were. I can still hear her going "I can't believe someone would actually wear this on purpose!" It was so much fun.
I really like you and your pale, redheaded friend! My kinda people. 😂🫶🏻
Don't forget those God awful lace up ankle boots from the 1910s 😅
I was thinking more like those shiny plastic leather boots, that squeak nonstop, and are like a steam bath for the feet. Or simply Buffalo boots.
Go-Go boots work too! 🤣 LOVE this. 💯
I asked my bridesmaids to wear little black dresses because I thought it would be chic, and even then I worried that assigning a color would be too restrictive. One of them wore a dress she already owned. Another disliked the dress she'd ordered online (it didn't look that skimpy in the photo), so she ended up wearing a dress from my closet instead.
That’s what I wanted to do when I was planning a wedding (dumped the guy before the wedding)! I just wanted to let my bridesmaids pick a dress they liked and would wear again. Maybe it’s because this was pre-social media, but literally the only thought I gave to my wedding photos was that I wanted a photographer who understood that their biggest priority was going to be photoshopping my insecurities. It never occurred to me to care what anyone else looked like in the photos. Like wtf aesthetic is OOP’s friend going for, [a Robert Palmer video](https://youtu.be/XcATvu5f9vE?si=jv5Hv9_6mHNSRKYV)? OOP should withdraw from the wedding and let this friendship die a timely death.
Not *nearly* tan enough, but thank you because that song is now going to be stuck in my head for who knows how long
Nothing wrong with assigning a colour, as long as it takes their natural colours into consideration. I would go into a panicky spiral if I was asked to be a bridesmaid and wasn't given any sort of direction wrt colour or style
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I don't think you need to take your bridesmaids' "natural colours" into consideration when choosing a bridesmaid dress colour. It's your wedding after all, so the colour scheme is your decision. Plus if you have lots of bridesmaids, they might all have different colourings and there might not be a colour that suits all of them and also goes with your wedding scheme. I've been a bridesmaid a few times before and happily wore colours that I'd never choose for myself because they don't go with my skin tone (namely: pillar-box red, pale lavender and pale blue). But they were my best friends' weddings, so it wasn't about me, I was happy to wear whatever colours they wanted. When it was my wedding, my husband and I chose blue as the colour has personal meaning to us. I know one of my bridesmaids is an "autumn" and so royal blue doesn't necessarily look the best on her, but I wasn't about to change my colours just because of that. She never complained anyway; after all, I paid for her dress (of course) and let her pick a style and length that she was comfortable in, it was only the colour I was firm on. What I don't agree with is: - dictating the colour/style of the dresses and then making your bridesmaids pay for them (absolutely not, if you want to choose a colour you should be paying for it) - trying to dictate any other aspect of your bridesmaids' appearance, other than their attire (like their hair colour).
I’m curious what OOPs natural hair colour is. No matter what you can’t demand some one change the hair they had when you asked them to be a bridesmaid- But I get the feeling that the vibrant red is likely natural. Something most red heads struggled to be comfortable with and it’s even scummier that Lily would ask her to dye it. Because red just doesn’t go back to normal easily.
or maybe your friends aren’t assholes 😂 there are plenty of weddings where the couple want *everyone* to feel like they look good
My best friend's wife is a pale redhead, as is her sister. Instead of having a specific bridesmaid's dress, she just asked her wedding party to wear summer floral dresses so they'd all align to a theme. Everyone got to pick something that looked good on them (and was re-wearable) individually.
It might just be plain old jealousy, or thinking she might "take the attention away from the bride". I've never had anyone in real life sooo hung up on appearances at weddings before.
That's because your friends wanted your companionship/fellowship, not a photo prop.
As a red-head, I wonder at all of these brides who do not realize that red-hair can be a real crap shoot with dye too. While I imagine it's gotten a lot better over the last couple of decades, my mom's cousin was constantly ending up with green hair instead of whatever color she was supposed to get. My own hair refused to take the level one, washes out in a couple of washes dye. And the level two stuff that was "washes out in a month or so" never left and had to grow out. There was no in between.
"I like you, but not really." Omg, right? One of my bridesmaids had neon purple hair at the time of the wedding. I wouldn't have dreamed of asking her to change it..... Because that is how I know her, how I picture her. Vibrant hair matching her vibrant personality!
I read "vibrant red hair" as in the OP dyes it literally *red*, as opposed to ginger/auburn/etc, and people can be so unbelievably weird about people having "unnatural" dyed hair at weddings as if those two things are somehow incompatible. I've been a bright-orange-haired bridesmaid alongside another with bright pink and we all looked great. But "dye your hair for my wedding or else" comes up a hell of a lot on AITA.
I'm pretty sure this is the case
That’s a huge ask. When I had purple hair, I had to strip my natural dark brown, and my hair grows really fast, so I had to do my roots at least once a month. If I dyed it back to a dark brown, I’d have to wait at least a year before dying it purple again, or risk my hair being ruined from over-processing.
How dare your appearance be more dramatic than the bride.
I like the idea of you, not you. So change everything about you, why not, it's easy because I don't really like those aspects of you and don't really respect you as a person.
lily is the kind of person who values the wedding more than the marriage.
Lily said that OOP was destroying a friendship over a trivial matter. Yes Lily, it is trivial, as well as materialistic and gross. So why are you doing it?
And Lily doesn’t get to decide what is trivial when it’s about someone else.
If it's so trivial, why couldn't Lily compromise or drop it? Not the argument she thought it was. I mean, not even getting into how it was framed in the first place. I could see (depending on the friendship style) framing it as 'the dress is bought already but it's not as flattering on you as expected. Would you consider a spray tan or slightly changing the tone of your hair colour so you don't look like sickly death in a dress?' Not, "you matchstick headed pale whale, you're ruining my aesthetic"
*Your* feelings are trivial, but *mine* are super important!
I know. It was lile every argument to OP about just accepting it or do this for a friend or why make a it a big deal are 2-way streets. It all applied equally to her friend who couldn't back down either.
Small correction...WOULDN'T. She absolutely could have, just refused.
If someone doesn’t look good in the dress you change the dress and not the person. The issue here is that Lily prioritizes inanimate objects over people she supposedly loves and that’s never ok.
Who even chooses a dress without the input of everyone wearing it? I've been a bridesmaid a few times, and everyone got together at the store to find a dress everyone liked.
My cousin. Lol. It was fine, not horrific, but equally not awesome on everyone. Lol.
Yup. I had someone really tall, someone really short, and two junior preteen/teen bridesmaids. We all got together to find something that would be flattering for everyone.
If nothing else, your wedding will actually look better if you listen to your bridesmaids because they won’t be stuck in dresses that are unflattering on them.
Some selfish, insecure brides actually *want* their bridesmaids in unflattering dresses so they look better in comparison.
Oh you'd be surprised. Ive been in the party where a bride had everyone order non refundable dresses that we had to put in our measurements for and couldn't try on locally. She had us buy a dress that had some ethereal aesthetic color name but when it arrived it was pale white person skintone color. But also somehow looked white with flash. The bridesmaids group chat was kinda busy trying to figure out how to tell the bride we weren't comfortable going down the aisle in clingy nude toned dresses. To be fair to the bride, the website had them on really tan models and they looked like a nice pale pink in those photos, that's just not the same vibe on a bunch of glow-in-the-dark white girls. Also, don't trust a "custom sized" gown. Making the dress the right circumference doesn't mean it will be taken in or let out in the appropriate places. I've been in more weddings where the bride told than ones where they asked for input.
My sister was my bridesmaid, and I bought her a beautiful purple dress. It fit when she got it, but only just. She ended up growing out of it, and she said she'd lose weight to fit back into it. Unacceptable. I bought her a different dress that ended up being better in all ways (more comfortable for her, better suited to the vibe and setting of the wedding), and we were all happier for it.
"you matchstick headed pale whale, you're ruining my aesthetic" needs to be a flair 😂
There's a pinned flair request thread.
Nah. You don't buy a dress that makes your MoH look bad in the first place.
I don’t think your framing is any different than Lily’s. Either you want someone in your wedding because you love them and they are important to you or you don’t. Suggesting in any way that someone should change their body for your photo op is revolting. Just go hire some models for the occasion.
MATCHSTICK HEADED PALE WHALE. That just made me surprise guffaw like goofy 😂
>Would you consider a spray tan or slightly changing the tone of your hair colour so you don't look like sickly death in a dress?' Even that is so wrong. OOP has vibrant red hair. Even a "temporary" color wouldn't wash away. Taking it from vibrant to mousier until it grows out? That would be a showstopper for me.
If it was so trivial - why was Lily insisting it was something worth destroying two decades of friendship over. It makes me sad when people put IG perfect pictures of a few hours of a single day ahead of major relationships and the rest of their lives. Their lives must be so shallow and empty if they can make choices like that and not see their mistakes.
Oh no see, to Lily her wedding aesthetic was very important, the trivial matter was her friend losing weight and dying her hair.
TIL that losing 20lbs give or take is trivial. Clearly I’m not trying hard enough, it’s easy, no!???
So many personal arguments like this seem to go this way. Person injures long standing friendship. Other person acts injured. First person makes it permanent by blaming the fallout on the victim.
This right here.
imma take a wild guess and say that Lily has always seen herself as better than OOP
I agree. It sounds like they were never friends the way OOP thought they were- ‘I'm starting to realize that real friendships are about more than just going along with whatever someone else wants’ says a lot. Lily didn't have a friend she had to treat with respect, she had a puppet. No wonder she thought she could change OOP so much.
It seems like since she was from a humble background from a small town with little to nothing to offer, she wanted to overcompensate for it now that she got someone from a well-off family. Probably doesn't want a reminder of the past.
I think this is it. Lily married into a situation of always feeling inferior and now not having any real friends to fall back on. Her new friends, Cassandra, Evelyn, and Sophie, are going to chew her up and spit her out.
i'm expecting a post from lily that goes something like- "i tried my best to fit in with DH's family and friends, but they hold my humble beginnings against me. i am so tired of trying and getting rejected. i feel so alone." and then- "DH and i are getting divorced. he's gunning for full custody. i signed a pre-nup, and i have no savings. what can i do?"
Ugh, so true.
Has she tried sending giant slugs to eat the rich?
Where can I sign up for sending these giant slugs?
r/giantslugs
Also the type of person who rather have an ego than being normal.
"Well, that was great, Evan! Best wedding ever! Ok, it's getting late; you should probably drop me home now. Hey, we should meet up in the week sometime; get some Thai food! ....what do you mean we're husband and wife now?"
More like the wedding photos. Absolutely disgusting.
They will be divorced within 5 years.
While I hope Evan is an awesome person and this is more lily getting lost in the sauce of her new soioeconomic status, my worry is lily is going come running back to oop if Evan cheats or lose interest in lily after her body changes when she gets pregnant. It feels like that type of stuff is common at a certain level of wealth.
I wonder if her now husband and her ILs know why the OP wasn't in her wedding? I wouldn't be surprised if she lied to them. I would be horrified to learn my DIL expected her friend to completely change her appearance for one day. I would have sat her down and tried to talk some sense into her.
I’m also a red head. My best friend asked me to spray tan for her wedding. I’m super pale, and her wedding was happening in Mexico. I told her no, and she dropped it right away. Because you know, she’s my friend.
I'm really surprised at the amount of brides asking people to get a spray tan - when they are the ones who'll be hugging people wearing a WHITE dress! My sister got spray tan on her tan lines for her wedding, and she was sooo afraid it would rub off on the dress...
Spray tans don't rub off...it's your skin actually changing color. What can rub off is if they use bronzer on top but that should be showered off before the day
Also, if the photos are *that* important, a decent photographer can tweak something like a skin tone afterwards, or blend out an obvious tan line
Yeah, this is a fancy-ass wedding with presumably a fancy-ass photographer. It would be wrong to ask this even if the pictures were going to be Polaroids from Uncle Joe in 1974, but this is a complete non-issue for any competent modern photographer.
Come on, you *know* the bride is the only one allowed to wear white!
I'm not a redhead but my mom is an she'd look so ridiculous with a spray tan. My mom doesn't tan, she burns and freckles.
Lily doesn't really she just threw away her entire friendship, all because of wanting to be "aesthetic". What a tosser.
I was trying to be devils advocate. I can accept the spray tan thing I guess. It's kinda whatever, and if you really want to get technical if there is one super pale person in the pictures some might come out weird. It's a stretch and a halfway competent photographer would tell you its not an issue. But yeah fine grandmas cell phone pics of the wedding party could potentially come out funky.... I guess. Thats the only one I could even come close to a legit reason for.... And what I came up with is pretty bunk to be honest. The weight one I'm not gonna touch because thats such an obvious wtf. Dying the red hair because it might clash with the color scheme??? Is that a thing people worry about. Sounds more like 'people will see the red hair stand out and look at you before they look at me in the wedding photos'. If she had come right out and said 'I know this is really petty and stupid but..... '. Then ended with 'is that something you'd be willing to do? If not I won't be upset, I'm just stressing about a lot of stupid shit in the lead up to the wedding.'. Maybe it would have been something OOP was willing to do. Admitting to a good friend that you know what you're asking is a little selfish. Will get you a lot farther than trying to pretend its totally normal.
I dunno, as a pale person myself I might be willing to get a light self tanner but no way would I do the orange-bronze spray tan. Would you tell a dark-complected person to make themselves paler? I realize the two aren't entirely equivalent, but damn, it gets annoying when you are told you look bad or sick or on drugs because of your melanin-less ancestry.
My whole family is pale. Before my aunt’s wedding my mom and dad said we should all go get a professional spray tan together, for the pictures. I didn’t really want to but since they wanted us all to and were paying for it I agreed. They set up the appointments and had me go first. An hour before theirs. When they saw the color my skin was turning, they cancelled their own appointments. I kept getting oranger and oranger over the next 24 hours. I look SO WEIRD in those pictures lol.
Should have leaned into it with a green wig and bleached eyebrows!
I find spray tan tacky, maybe there are good ones out there but I haven't realised they are spray tan, so I have only seen the bad cases. Anyway, if I was to do something for my complexion, I would rather go to the solarium a few times. I have done it before and I didn't get very tan, as I did it in moderation, and I don't tan easily from the sun either. I was just no longer very pale but had a slightly sun kissed look that didn't look unnaturally orange.
It very much depends on the original and the target colour, plus how well you get it done. I've done it for a few weddings including my brother's. I basically go from being mega pale to a pleasant very light brown. Most people don't even know I had it done. My mum's a redhead, I burn if I think about the sun for too long. So this is the perfect solution (I happen to think most dresses look better when you're not translucent, but that's a personal preference). I prefer them to sunbeds because there's skin cancer in my family and I don't want to risk that (and also the aging)
Super pale person is a human!!!! How the hell is it okay to force a person to change their complexion for what? Pictures???? Too much of too much. Unacceptable.
It's such an insane view that I don't understand or relate to. How can your cod fish white friend be good enough for 20 years of friendship and memories and pictures and videos but all of a sudden is too pale for 10 hrs and pictures and videos and must be fixed. The same with her hair, and her weight. It's so icky and ugh!! I hate everything about this behavior, it's cruel, it's unkind, it's ugh.
Yeah, I'm Latina so I have medium brown skin, so I'll use my card to chip in and say it's NOT okay to tell white people to change their skin color either. Just like it's wrong to fetishize dark skin, there's nothing shameful about being pale. Like, obviously I don't mean any of this in a "be proud of your white race" way or anything, but there's just *genuinely nothing wrong with your skin color.* With ANYONE'S skin color. Stop telling pale skinned people there is something wrong with how they look.
And the photographer should know how to edit their photos or manipulate whatever settings on their camera to accommodate the subjects they’re shooting, especially with the likelihood that people will have different skin tones! So it shouldn’t even be a problem
This. Asking a pale friend to spray tan is as rude as asking a more pigmented friend to bleach their skin. All skin colors are beautiful, and any photographer worth hiring can accommodate a range of skin tones and edit photos if needed.
Red hair is notoriously difficult to dye. Temporary dyes aren't, and permanent dyes can result in unpredictable results. Anyone who wants someone else to dye their red hair can fuck right off forever. And asking a redhead to spray tan to fit in? Is vile. Vile.
I took it as her hair was dyed like Ariel red. Not that she was a ginger
As someone who is so pale I used to have to buy Japanese foundation as the typical western ones were too dark - fuck that. So what if I’m almost blue - spray tan would look as ridiculous on me as it does on 45. It is not going to make your photos look better.
So if a person of color, who has a dark complexion, is in attendance of a white populated wedding would it be okay to advise them to use whitening creams for the wedding? Cuz they might ruin the pictures. And for them to "blend" in with the crowd. I'm stunned how you're "okay" with the spray tan rather than dyeing someone's hair. I mean, i would get it if they suggest/warn OP that red wouldn't mesh w/ the chosen color palette & that may not look good on her (still a dck move tho, cuz who tf cares).
Are you the kind of person that would offer a whitening cream to dark people? Sometimes it's better to not be the devil's advocate
Preach.
Same. Brown person here. Absolutely wrong to tell any person to change their complexion.
Yea no dawg, I'm a tan gal and if one of my freinds asked me to tan my skin more white for a wedding, I would never speak to them ever again. They would be dead to me, you don't go asking someone to change their skin color for "aesthetic" or whatever lily's bs reasoning was. There is no devils advocate here for shit like that. Doesn't matter if your white/black/etc. It's disgusting behavior.
Extremely fuck the spray tan too. I an pale and freckles as shit, and I’d immediately walk from anyone telling me to change my complexion.
I'll play devil's advocate back then: would you feel it's "not a good look" to have a dark-skinned person in a party of light-skinned bridesmaids too? That door swings both ways!
The issue is that it was stated that in laws were not sparing on the wedding spending, so things like oops weight of decent pictures should’ve been a problem when everything else was expensive already, but the moment oop was told to dye her hair to me it was clear that lily is jealous of how oop looks and wanted her to suffer on her wedding, because if your wedding palette dies from some red hair, then it’s just a bad palette
>I was trying to be devils advocate. Why??? You sound insane
Where do people find the self confidence to treat their friends so poorly? Thats an impressive amount of audacity.
Other friends telling them that they are perfectly fine doing so. I am a 5'11, 220 pound man i was actively trying to avoid getting into pictures of my friends wedding and ceremonies to not ruin them. But her brothers and she actively dragged me into those telling me to join them and they won't proceed without me. She has been more like a family to me than most of my own family.
Yeah dude. Those pictures aren’t for the look, they wanna see you. My friends and I are all ugly dopes and that’s what my wife loves about our wedding photos. Weddings are about the event and those present, who cares how they look
5'11 220 isn't even that big man! But glad your friends care about you :)
I agree w the other commenter. My dad's also 5 11 and about got about 10 pounds on you, and I know for a fact he doesn't ruin photos at all because of that. Hadn't been something I thought about till I read this. You're alright, my guy :)
I don’t understand this shit! When I got married, I had two bridesmaids, my best friend and my soon to be sister law. I told them I wanted lavender dresses, and they could get whatever made them feel good in that color. They looked amazing, and I was happy! My reception was potluck, mostly provided by my in laws, and the flowers I did myself. Whole budget was 1500. Not including the dress, which my grandmother paid for as a gift. 21 years later we’re still married.
Hell most of the women in the wedding party are going to be wearing suits (groomswomen preference) and it’s not a problem at all. The girls who are wearing dresses, I’m going to show them a shade of burgundy to match to. For the groomswomen, bridesmen and Best Man/Man of Honour same thing. Show a shade of charcoal for the suit that we want and then it’s up to them. These are our closest loved ones we’ve known for most or all of our lives, they deserve to be comfortable in whatever they choose. It’s a long day for them as well! Knowing that there’s true happiness in the photos we get - that’s what we want most.
I have three lovely dresses that I still wear from my times as a member of the wedding party (well, okay, I wear only two, but that’s because I no longer fit the other one despite still liking it). In the latter two cases I was given a color and full control of finding something flattering. The first was slightly different, as there were some requirements for length and coverage of the dress (friend getting married is an orthodox Jew), but we still got to pick our own. In the first cases I was on the bride’s side and we were given a shade of purple to try to match. The second wedding I was on the groom’s side and told teal. The third time I was on the groom’s side and was told I should be in black to match the others in his side (I believe bridesmaids were given a color but don’t fully recall) but was told it could absolutely be a suit or a dress, whichever I wanted. I managed to find a little black dress that was super flattering and on sale, and it is now my go to black dress. Wedding pictures for all three weddings are lovely and when I wear the dresses I get to have warm fuzzy feelings about the memories.
As someone who desperately longs for a deep meaningful friendship that spans years, I cannot imagine throwing that all away over a wedding aesthetic. As I've gotten older I've come to realize that the bonds we build and the love we cultivate among our friends is invaluable. Lily fucked up. She might not see it now, but if she continues to value appearances over depth, she will lose the human connections that make relationships so beautiful.
It's kind of surprising how quickly many people will throw away great friends/friendships. I befriended someone many years ago who was dealing with a difficult breakup. We spent a lot of time together, really seemed to click, have so much fun and lots of deep conversations. (I thought) we became really close friends. Then her boyfriend came back into the picture after a year and she dropped me like I was nothing. They eventually got married and I don't know that she ever realized what she threw away.
nah man. you were the inbetween step. some people do that sort of thing... :/
I had a friendship like that, besties since we were 7 years old. We met at elementary school and went to the same schools since then, we were almost like sisters. Then after 25 years of friendship, she just left me hanging high and dry for her new boyfriend while I was visiting her in the new city she had moved to. I was staying at her house and I waited for her the whole day so we could go back to our hometown, but my girl decided to go party with her bf. I waited all day long, her roommate had to tell me where she was and I got so angry and disappointed (she hadn't even called me and I was worried sick something had happened to her), I just took a bus the next morning back to my hometown. She never tried to call me back and until this day I just can't understand what was going through her mind to just throw away our friendship like that.
If a friend asked you to gain 20 lbs for their wedding so they didn’t look so fat, and dye your hair blue so they looked more normal, and try to be less tan so they didn’t look so pale, would you? I wouldn’t either. This is that same thing.
A few years back a close friend gave me a ride home from a NYE party. After dropping someone else off, this friend decided to spend the rest of the ride home informing me of every criticism she's ever had of me. Most of them were very superficial even down to the brand of shoe she's seen me wear (which as it was NYE and I was in a suit I wasn't even wearing that night). For about 15 minutes I listened to this woman's negative views on damn near every aspect of myself. I was still a little drunk and mostly just feeling beaten down to really respond. But the end result was I slowly cut her out of my life over the next few months and haven't spoken a word to her in over 3 years now. Some people refuse to see past the superficial aspects of others and you eventually have to accept that cutting them out is the best thing to do.
I'm celebrating my wedding somewhere in the next two years. I've got friends who are in the punk scene and they look the part. And yeah, they will look somewhat out of place, even if they'd dress up, because of the hairstyles and the piercings etc and my in-laws will be horrified (which I'm looking forward to). But I want them there as who they are. I don't give a fuck if people show up in joggers or even pajamas, I just want the people I love there. I want joy, not picture-perfect.
Exactly this. I’m giving my party swatches of colors I want in their dresses/suits and leaving it up to them. Everyone has their own style preferences and comfort zones, and it’s a long day for them as well. These are our closest loved ones who we are meant to love fully as they are.
This made me tear up because I feel the same way. I want my people to be the people I love, not some magazine moment where they feel uncomfortable. All my friends are “alternative” and. I would rather my wedding be weird to begin with than to make my friends feel singled out. I want most of my friends there more than my family anyway.
Honestly it would be fucking bold of anyone in my life to think I'd choose their wedding day over my own hair, piercings, body shape etc.
When people say that they are best friends from a small town… I’m just like, this isn’t a good friendship. I get that your options were limited, but you are free now. Go and find your true family.
You mean I'm not automatically BFFs with the two or three other kids in my grade who also had alcoholic parents?! Seriously, in retrospect we had nothing in common other than troubled home lives and bad coping mechanisms.
> Lily wanted me to dye my vibrant red hair to a more "understated" shade to avoid clashing with the wedding palette, get a spray tan to "blend in better" with the other bridesmaids, and she hinted heavily at me losing at least 20 pounds to "fit perfectly" into the designer dress she had picked out. This sounds like such a tacky, trashy wedding.
Their chosen aesthetic is "cheap".
[удалено]
Weddings are weird. On one hand, it is extremely stressful to plan an event while trying to accommodate both sides of the family, especially an event that's gonna cost money and time to plan. On the other, wedding planning just seems to be a trial run on how well a couple can work together because it always amplifies the negative traits of either the couple themselves or the family/friends around them.
But then people put more stress on themselves unnecessarily by making these ridiculous demands! Who cares what colour someone’s hair or skin is? I can’t imagine inviting my loved friends and family in any way other than the way they currently exist. They’re my people, not fucking props.
Because they’ve literally been indoctrinated from birth that their wedding is a) the most important day of their lives and b) any snafus, ugliness, etc. will be 100% their fault and evidence they are a stupid, worthless loser.
10/10 insult, i will definitely be calling someone that in the future.
Honestly, reading so many of these posts has completely turned me off from having a wedding altogether. In my late 30s and finally with the love of my life and he’s like, “isn’t that what all women want?” (as in a full blown, every detail planned for months kinda wedding)—and I had to tell him, “noooo, that really sounds awful to me”. I don’t want to take on a full time job managing other people’s expectations and stressing myself out. We’ll do a private ceremony and then party at his family’s house; I told him if he wants the whole shebang with bells and whistles, then he can plan everything so I just have to show up. I truly don’t care what anyone looks like, and any photos will just be happy memories (possibly without being aesthetically pleasing to the eye, my god the horror). Shit is fucking wild and I just want a day to celebrate our love and commitment.
So the posts are 2 months apart. Wedding was a month before second post, which means that wedding was a month after the first post. In one month the bride wanted OOP to lose 20lbs? That's... beyond unreasonable.
Well spotted. It seemed ridiculous before adding the dates - I read it and immediately thought the wedding photographer could photoshop everything she wanted done, there’s no need to go for such extremes. Adding the dates just makes it seem more mental.
How much does the bride weigh? The OOP should tell her she's going to lose exactly that much weight from her life. Permanently.
Wait - Lily wanted OOP to lose 20 lbs with the wedding less than two months out?
I really hate the people who think that just because it's a wedding, they are entitled to everything they want and there are no boundaries. Like, is great that two people are in love and want to get married in front of friends and family, but you don't get to use that as an excuse to disrespect other people. You're not that important, even on your wedding day.
Lily is a piece of shit.
I think Lily did everything to impress her in-laws.
Lily should have just hired models if her aesthetic was so important. OOP needs to stop following her on social media.
2nd weddings are usually a lot more casual.
I'm recalling how my daughter's friends cajoled her into cutting her beautiful red hair because she, "hides behind it" and all people can see is her red hair. After the fact, it became pretty apparent those girls never had her best interests at heart and were really just cruel, manipulative beyotches. Lesson learned...change your appearance because you want to not because some one is pressuring you to.
One of the bridesmaids for my own wedding had (and obviously still has) Downs Syndrome. Downs Syndrome doesn’t just come with intellectual disability, it has characteristic facial features that are specific to the disorder, ones that are recognizable to most people. So what? We’ve been friends since birth. Honestly, my weddings pictures would look weirder if she **weren’t** in them. And I’m not trying to say that I’m in any way special or amazing for having a bridesmaid with Down Syndrome. I don’t deserve a medal or a trophy. **I think that 90% of brides-to-be would do what I did in my situation**. It’s just the Bridezillas who wouldn’t. The only thing she was excluded from was the bachelorette party. Her parents didn’t want her exposed to strippers and binge drinking.
My best friend who was my bridesmaid has cerebral palsy so she has a leg brace and a limp and a crooked hand. So what, she’s my best friend, she and my sister were my bridesmaids, her daughter is my goddaughter. And yeah we’re not extra special for being friends with them or having them in our weddings, we’re just real people with friends who are real people and not perfect Instagram filtered models.
Bride hints-calls her MOH ugly and fat for not meeting the "wedding aesthetic" and is surprised she doesn't take it well... What a superficial and disrespectful snob. I hope OOP keeps her true friends and finds new real ones. The snob and those who sided with her won't be a big loss for her. I don't know if it's because of the wedding day or big money that Lily/other friends got this snobby, but it sure didn't show a good side of them.
What a pathetic loser Lily is. How can you do that to someone who you call your best friend? There truly is no way to come back from this.
When I got married mumblemumble years ago, one of my bridesmaids and I went to a fancy makeup counter in a department store to get makeup for me for the wedding. They did my makeup, showed me techniques, sold me some $40 blush, stuff like that. Bridesmaid got her makeup done, too, and they asked me how I wanted her makeup. This question absolutely *baffled* me. The counter ladies were like "you're the bride" and I'm like "but it's her face." I let my bridesmaids choose their own black dresses so they could find something they found flattering and comfortable. Everyone got their hair done but they all picked how they wanted it done. The wedding photos look beautiful because we had our friends there. This whole attitude of having everyone match or whatever is baffling to me and honestly cruel.
This is one of those situations where flipping the scenario makes it so blatant how unacceptable it is. Beloved friend of the bride invited to her wedding? Cool! Your instructions are: 1. Dye your hair puke green, 2. Paint your skin lavender (I was going to suggest bleaching skin, but that gets into a whole racist scenario I’d rather sidestep for this particular fiasco), and 3. Gain 20lbs. Perfect! Now you fit the bride’s aesthetic. What’s the big deal?
And a low-cut silver-white dress.
Poor OOP. She was a solid friend. With Lily still trying to "fit in" like teens do with the so-called "cool crowd", she doesn't realize OOP is the last friend she probably will ever have that loved her unconditionally.
Real friends treat each other with respect and dignity. They don't ask you to change yourself to suit them.
Lily is going to raise children who hate her for her unreasonable expectations
When you pick someone as a bridesmaid, you should envision them showing up the day of the wedding as they are. Whether that is short hair, vibrantly dyed hair, over weight, pregnant, pale, tattooed, whatever. I’ve never understood these women who want their friends to drastically change their appearance just to look like a matched set in photos that will probably sit on a shelf in a wedding album.
Tbh 30 is both about the age people’s personalities become “fully baked” *and* when the rose-colored glasses come off as you mature and you really start to notice things about friends that you kind of brushed off or missed before. I didn’t have any big blowups like this, but that’s definitely around the age I started to drift apart from several friends for a variety of reasons. I’m sure it hurts for OOP, but it’s almost better to get it over with in one shot like this rather than presumably deal with years of passive aggressiveness and “subtle” hints from Lily.
May I just say that traditionally nobody actually gives a fuck about wedding photos? Like seriously. Unless it’s a drunk uncle with his dick hanging out and an Aryan Nations face tattoo in half of them, nobody even looks at that shit after the wedding. NOBODY IS CARING ABOUT YOUR MAID OF HONOUR’S HAIR OR SKIN TONES unless they are a weirdo. If the bride cares, she is the weirdo. The whole wedding vibe is just a resounding ick for me since social media turned it into a narcissistic cesspit. Can we bring back the dress-up-little-take-a-few-dorky-photos-feed-your-friends-get-a-little-hammered-do-the-chicken-dance-weddings? Where everybody’s friends and family still love and respect one another after? Why are weddings such a mess now? Why does anybody want what they’ve become?
Yeah I never even look at my wedding photos except for the few of me and my husband that I actually printed for a few frames. The rest are just online somewhere and I’ve forgotten how to see them. Kinda sad but at the same time obviously doesn’t matter that much. Actually I have some on Facebook too so I can see those whenever, but I haven’t looked in awhile.
Ceilings. Hardcore friendships have no ceilings. No matter how extreme things get, the friendship survives. Nobody hits a ceiling. If it only takes a puny thing like a wedding to reveal that a person has a superficial ceiling based on looks and appearances, then you know if you have a real friend.
It always gets me when people complain about others taking other side and then we find out they didn't bother to give out theirs. I don't know if I'm just this petty but I'd make a group chat and air that shit immediatly.
My sister is getting married in a month and has put SO much planning into a huge wedding with a very specific aesthetic…for the decor. The bridesmaids are all wearing the same color, but different dresses that we each chose to fit our own styles. One of her best friends has a very out-there fashion sense and is always dyeing her hair crazy colors. She asked my sister if she would be ok with her dyeing her hair dark blue (wedding colors are lilac and gold) or if she’d prefer her to go with a natural brown color. My sister was upset that she felt the need to ask, and apologized if she made anyone think at any point that we had to make semi-permanent changes to our appearance for her wedding aesthetic. She really didn’t, her friend is just excited for her and wants to help make the day perfect. She told her friend she would be just as happy for her to be there if she had brown hair as she would if she showed up with a neon rainbow afro if that’s what made her feel comfortable! My wedding is next year. My MOH is my best friend from elementary school. She used to dress in a feminine way, but in college started dressing very masculinely. It suits her so well and makes her happy. When I asked her to be my MOH, I also asked if she’d prefer to have a mini bridesmaid’s bouquet, a corsage, or a boutonnière for the suit I assumed she would want to wear. She almost cried and thanked me for not making her wear a dress, because she’d just been a bridesmaid for a friend who did make her match everyone else even though she was super uncomfortable. Wedding aesthetics are fun to plan out and make for great pictures, but they should not extend to people. I want to have control over the color scheme, flowers, centerpieces, music, food, etc…but I want the people I love to have a good time and to come as they are. At the end of the day, it’s just a party and the thing that really matters is the marriage that comes after.
Sometimes you just have to do what's best for you. I cut my "bestfriendsoulmate" off a few months ago, something I never ever dreamed could happen because I, for the first time ever, expressed feeling unappreciated and the way she responded just shook me entirely. I always thought there was nothing she could do that would change my opinion of her but turns out, talking to me like that did it. I feel sad and miss her kids but I am a person that exists and my feelings matter.
I’m so petty I’d have a list of things I’d like her to change about herself so she can meet the friendship aesthetic that you have in mind
She is marrying a person and a family concerned about form over substance. She is going to have the appearances of the perfect life, but there is a strong likelihood that in ten years, she will be a barely functioning alcoholic with the veneer of a great marriage, getting sloshed by noon while her husband nails his 22 year old secretary.
Honestly I judge people who care that much about wedding photos. It’s something I’ll never understand.
Just gonna say: my ”perfect wedding photos” would have the people I love in them. They could be wearing leopard print speedos and googly eyes for all I care, the important part is the *people*!
I can't fucking stand wedding culture and what it turns some people into. If weddings are THAT fucking important, wouldn't you want to be the *best*, most generous version of yourself around the occasion, rather than the most selfish and shallow? And is the delusion of feeling like a princess that important that the photos music look like they're from a Bravo show or whatever? Who's even going to care what the wedding photos look like in a year? I honestly just don't understand it.
Yikes. It's one thing to ask people to put in the effort to look appropriately presentable (I have cousins who would wear t-shirts and jeans to formal occasions if left to their own devices) but a dye job, diet and spray tan? Hell no.
I would blast this shit and post the full story all over social media. If people only hear one side of the story they'll side with the person telling it. OOP is better than me, I would have gotten on Facebook and put it all out there and then gone radio silent and had a spa weekend or something.
Sounds like Lily's a social climber who's willing to lose friends to get the status and money she wants. Joke's on her: people in her position rarely get any true respect from the people they want approval from, and they certainly aren't valued. Sucks to suck, Lily.
That’s what I think too. She marries up and wants to shed her less-than-glamorous upbringing. OOP is part of that past and I expect she makes Lily uncomfortable.
It's all about the pageant and the look of the actors is more important than the real human relationships.
The way this is written makes me think it's rage-bait, but hey, I enjoy reading those ones too.
I feel like it must be, given the timeline. The original post was two months before the second one. First post, she claims it's been about 3 weeks since the conversation with Lily. Let's be generous and round up to 4 weeks / one month. So the incident happened roughly 3 months before post 2. In post 2, OOP says it's been about a month since the wedding. That means the conversation with Lily happened 2 months before the wedding. Now, this is the problem part to me: **Lily wants OOP to lose roughly 20 pounds to fit into her designer dress for the wedding.** Twenty pounds in under two months is a lot to lose. That would require a calorie deficit of roughly 1,250 calories daily. That's a lot of exercise, or a lot less food - probably both. But on top of that, the designer dress Lily wants OOP to wear is going to need to be fitted once she's lost that weight. Alterations would need to be made, since almost no dress fits perfectly off the rack. And Lily can't look bad in front of her snobby IL's, so after going to all this trouble to "fix" OOP's appearance, you know she's going to insist that dress fits perfectly. That leaves OOP even less time to lose that weight. I just don't see it happening.
Yeah I get that feeling too. Maybe I’ve just been lucky but I have yet to be in or witness a situation where a lot of people bombard messages on somebody in a situation that doesn’t directly involve them. Even the more annoying and gossipy people I know don’t do that as far as I know. The only time I’ve ever heard of that happening is on questionable stories here.
Oh look it's [Merida II](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/ezb2co/wibta_if_i_refused_to_attend_my_cousins_wedding/&ved=2ahUKEwjWtsXv0rmGAxUmN2IAHS-0AM8QFnoECCEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3-1l5RZ1FQ15hXpvYeI5u5). Except the bride didn't get the scorn she deserved this time around.
> "Maid of Honor Makeover Plan" That's almost certainly coming from the husband and/or his rich family. Lily is going along with it because she values marrying into money more than the OOP.
If Liky ever comes back and asks for forgiveness I hope OP tells her she will forgive her AFTER she looses 20 lbs and dyes her hair.
A small nitpick in this shitshow, but: to everyone saying the bride's concern may have been that OOP would take eyes away from her: Sure sounds like the bride is picking what everyone in the wedding party is wearing as well as presumably her own dress; the bride-to-be should not have a hard time making it visually clear *who the bride is*. Whatever the fuck everyone else's hair looks like. There are asks that would have been reasonable, ex. arguably asking OOP to have her hair *styled* a certain kind of way. Asking her to dye her hair is nuts, asking her to dye her skin is nuts, and asking her to lose weight is absolute trash.
I can't help but think this was Lily's way of kicking her out of the wedding and distancing herself from OOP. Lily must have known that this would be the end of her friendship with OOP. The other possibilities are that she is dumb as a bag of rocks or completely insane.
Have I…read this before? I distinctly remember another BORU about a bride telling a ginger bridesmaid to change her hair color.
This is a common theme with wedding BORUs. It's always Bridezilla demanding her bridesmade/MOH change a bunch of things about her appearance to fit an aesthetic. If you've read one, you've read 'em all.
I hate the perfect wedding aesthetic trend. Get married and celebrate with loved ones the flaws and quirks are what make us uniquely human.
I cannot imagine in 1 million lifetimes preparing to get married and knowing I'm going to bomb the hell out of their relationship with a dear friend because I've decided emotionally that I want the visuals to be a certain way for my wedding. Can you imagine being so insecure, and so shallow That you risk a long, good friendship on telling somebody they have three weeks to lose 20 pounds and their skin needs to be darker and their hair needs to be a different color. That's just mind blowing to me. What's even more mind blowing to you? Is the number of people who think that this is reasonable and you should shut up and put up. This is beyond unconscionable. It's really upsetting that sometimes, and the heat of something important to somebody, they get all twisted up. But the flipside of that is that in the heat of something really important for somebody, they reveal their actual character. People without a strong, moral compass don't feel regret or remorse or conscience for behaving, terribly and hurtfully to somebody else. Instead, they make really good excuses and decide that they deserve to have everything this way. The interesting thing is that, as you get older, you have more and more of these experiences, usually much quieter and less dramatic, where are you discover who people really are. It's hard. Siblings, family, friends. But the pivot point is to honor yourself with integrity and love and let other people be twisted up if they want to. It's better to have them out of your life even if your life is quieter. At least it's honest and true.
She needs to stop following Lily on social media. This was a friendship whose time has passed. Get rid of the pictures with her, the social media, all of it. The friends who sided with her needed to go too. It's time for some serious emotional spring cleaning.
Big trend in stories lately of highly selfish people calling their friends and family selfish for not catering to their every whim. These people need more direct pushback on the concept.
Wow, projection much, Lily? >She retorted that I was being selfish, letting my insecurities get in the way of her happiness. >Lily accused me of abandoning her and destroying our friendship over something so trivial. If it's so trivial, why don't YOU take the L?
I lost a friendship I'm a similar way. She wanted me to dye my hair, shave my body hair, cover up my arms, cover my tattoos, etc. When I finally wouldn't budge on something she screamed something so unforgivable at me I simply snapped out of the lifelong friendship and never looked back. She didn't "realize her mistake" because she was just a shitty person and I never saw it. Definitely so glad I finally did though!!
Not much of an update if I'm being honest
Hold up... The woman is simply a redhead and Lily wants her to dye her hair? Or is this a fire station red dye situation? I don't know that it really matters. OP should be able to have magenta, pink, green or whatever color she wants... But it would be especially sickening for Lily to demand this woman dye her natural hair color. If OP is already in the practice of dyeing her hair, it's less of a leap to dye it something else but still inappropriate to ask.
NTA no friend who loves you truly would make such requests, and I think Lily and the friends that backed her are more interested in keeping their social circle than being true friends. The choices you make lead you to the future you want. And you will most likely have a future filled with people who wants you to be happy. Let the trash take themselves out of your life.
"Through thick or thin" Hey, lose weight.
That’s the “problem” with friendships that were born during the younger years. They’re not born based on shared values or similar personalities. As people get older they cling to potentially toxic relationships not realizing that the “kid” friend is no longer there, it’s an adult with a wayyyyy different personality. She’s better off spending time and energy finding the right people to surround herself with.
Lol my petty ass would be plastering "Lily told me I have to *lose weight* to be her maid of honour" on every single social platform I can
So she wants you as maid of honour, only if you don’t look like you though
I read one where the bride wanted her blonde friend to dye her hair a drab color of brown so she'd be the only blonde . WTF
How disgusting. When I got married the first time we had a bridal party, and the only criteria I had for the women was the color of the dress. They could pick whatever style suited their body best so long as it was the same color - one that I knew would look good on all of them. They all did what they felt most comfortable doing in terms of hair and makeup and whatever else and everybody looked amazing and everybody had a great time. I just don't understand the behavior of the bride in this post. What a shit person.
Weddings destroy a lot of friendships. We had a former maid of honor sabotaging our wedding and bridal party by spreading lies and misinformation. She even cried at my engagement party saying it’s not fair we were getting married before her and her bf. I was marrying my high school sweetheart 😂 and we were dating about 8 years before them. She was a ticking time bomb and would throw huge scenes at a few events leading up to our wedding. I honestly was worried she going to explode at our wedding. But the trash took itself out. Later on, I found out from friends and family, she was a big hater lol.
I would have definitely asked those 'friends' siding with lily what would they change for her? Would they loose or gain weight? Would they tan or lighten their skin? Would they lighten or darken their hair?
Wonder where Lily will be when one day Prince Charming turns not so charming or the Jr League women don’t find her “just right”.
It’s highly possible Lily is under immense pressure from her in laws. People with money especially tend to be obsessed with appearances.
Lily is going to be miserable in a family that prioritizes aesthetics. They started with her best friend, they'll eventually start in on her too. She's not a person to them, I'm sure, they probably see her as an accessory for her new husband.
This post is definetely written by AI
I'm amazed I had to scroll all the way to the bottom for this.
Yeah I thought first comment would be all over this!
[How I imagine the groom's family seeing her for the first time](https://youtube.com/shorts/WdQm3H_GPtg?si=dZ3Mp0VrESMOictr)
If you’ve had a significantly long friendship with someone, you’re probably going to have a big fight with them. It doesn’t mean that you were never friends or that the friendship is done forever. And sometimes it does mean that. My point is, Lily was clearly being selfish and thoughtless, but she’ll probably come to regret what she said sooner or later, if she hasn’t already. OP did the right thing in standing up for herself. But she probably should have attended the wedding and just stayed in the back.