AITAH for communicating 4 weeks in advance what colour the bride will wear to our wedding?

A man is preparing for his wedding in three weeks, where his bride will wear red, which she chose recently. After informing guests, his cousin becomes upset because she also planned to wear red and accuses him of being inconsiderate for not telling her sooner.

She demands to cancel her attendance, which complicates the arrangements. read the original story below…

‘ AITAH for communicating 4 weeks in advance what colour the bride will wear to our wedding?’

I (34M) am getting married in 3 weeks. It is not going to be a typical wedding with the bride (33F) in white, but she has chosen to wear red. She decided on the colour last week, after considering several options.

She also decided on the colour because the place where we are having the wedding dinner is a place where the restaurant’s policy does not accept wedding celebrations and they asked us to be discreet. Besides, my future wife has never liked to have a conventional wedding.

It is going to be a small wedding, about 30 people. We asked for confirmation months ago and a cousin of mine (33F), with whom we have always been friends, started to make excuses for not coming: that the wedding is in a city far from where she lives, that she doesn’t like weddings (although she has been to weddings of many common acquaintances) etc.

Finally she said she would come to the wedding and we counted her and her partner as guests at the celebration. Everything was going well until last week, when we announced that the bride would be wearing red (and as protocol suggest, no one should wear the same colour as the bride).

Then my cousin calls me angry because the dress that my cousin has chosen for the event is also red (It’s the same dress she was wearing in the last wedding she was invited from a common friend), that if the bride is also wearing red I am an AH for not telling her before and asks to cancel her and her partner’s table,

when we are already out of time to correct the number of people attending the celebration with the restaurant (so we will pay their menu anyways). So, AITAH for communicating 4 weeks in advance what colour the bride will wear to our wedding?

Here’s the comments of Reddit users:

DinaFelice −  YTA for changing the dress code 4 weeks ahead of time, at a point where your guests may not have the time/energy/resources to get alternative clothes. Also, YTA for repeatedly pressuring your cousin to come. An invitation is not a summons, and she is allowed to decline for any of the reasons stated (or no particular reason at all)

[Reddit User] −  YTA. If you were going to have an out of the norm dress code situation, you should have included that in the invitation.

Serendipnick −  YTA. If you’re going to do an unusually-coloured wedding dress, it seems like you’re really pushing it to say no one else can wear that colour. You’re not going to look at the wedding photos of your 30-person wedding and be confused about who the bride was.

deepwood41 −  Yta, People should have been told at the time of the invitation. Yes, 4 weeks is enough time to change your outfit, but lots of people budget for new clothes for a wedding or buy something on sale when they can afford it.

I would be upset if I had a planned outfit and now had to get something new. At a minimum you should have told people you would telling them the dress code by X date

TA_totellornottotell −  YTA. It’s fine if she chose whatever she is wearing 3 weeks ahead, but you guys became the AHs when you forbade people from wearing the same colour with only 3 weeks of notice.

Your issues with your cousin are irrelevant, as she actually has a valid point with respect to the dress code, and you are very much the AH on this matter.
If you want to not be AHs, you would claw back any changes made to the original dress code, and just let people come dressed as they had originally planned.

I know you wrote in your comments that you can figure it out if she comes wearing a red dress and that “it’s something my cousin is assuming”, but in other parts, you say it is protocol not to wear the same colour and that you guys will think it’s weird.

Plus, why even announce the colour of her dress either way (especially when you mention the protocol after noting that you announced the colour). You should have kept it to yourself, but since you didn’t do that, I don’t think you guys are in a position to have any kind of opinion on anybody that comes wearing red.

NixKlappt-Reddit −  YTA Many guests buy their clothes several months/weeks in advance. To cross out a color only 4 weeks before the wedding is quite short notice.

Wonderful_Horror7315 −  YTA Why didn’t you communicate the no red rule as soon as it was a rule?

MyDogsMother −  YTA if you’re expecting her to get a different dress. And “we think it’s weird and will side-eye you, but we won’t turn you away” is not a solution. You clearly expect her to get a different dress. I’m actually going to a wedding in approximately four weeks, and I have already bought a dress.

And for the record, saying the wedding is far from where she lives is not an “excuse” for not wanting to come. Were you going to pay for her travel? I suspect not.

And perhaps the fact that she was hesitant to come despite going to other people’s weddings has something to do with the really ungenerous tone of your post. It seems like you don’t like her — why didn’t you just let her not come?

oakfield01 −  INFO: Did you include that nobody should wear red or is that something your cousin is just assuming because that’s the typical rule? If you told everyone not to wear red, the YTA for the last minute notice.

If you didn’t and you and your bride are fine with someone else wearing red, I’m going with NAH, although you should communicate that to your cousin.
I’m not a huge fan of the rule that no one should wear the same color as the bride.

Usually that’s white and to be honest there are a ton of white dresses that look nothing like a wedding dress. Not sure what your bride’s dress looks like but is it just wedding dress that is red or does it look more like a traditional dress? Could you just put your cousin at the end of the photos?

Traditionally photos with family at weddings have the bride and groom in the middle family sounding from closest to more distant relatives. Plus there’s only 30 people who are coming to your wedding. Who is going to confuse your cousin for the bride?

Useful_Experience423 −  Crikey, what a storm in a teacup! ESH/YTA for the dress situation; your fiancée is being a bit of a diva announcing it only 4 weeks from the event. She knows people have lives and obligations they can’t just drop to go shopping for her wedding, right?

That’s said, it’s 4 weeks away not 4 days. YTA for pressuring your cousin to attend though. She clearly doesn’t want to, so stop giving yourself a headache by forcing the issue.

Was it wrong for him to share the color in advance, or should the cousin have chosen another dress? What do you think? Share your thoughts below!