This was years ago but I had to share the story where I was tragically shame worthy.
I attended an Indian Wedding in the United States as a +1 to a very good friend who was going through a bad breakup and didn’t want to be around his Ex, her family, and her friends alone (same community, no way to avoid each other).
Generally in Indian weddings, especially lavish ones, there’s NO WAY to upstage the Bride…
But no one told me that the Bride had decided to forgo Indian attire and wear traditionally Western bridal wear.
The ceremony was a small intimate, gathering between the bride, groom, and they’re immediate families. Most of us were only invited to the reception, which was MUCH LARGER with about 250 people.
We arrived about 20 mins late to the reception because of an accident near the George Washington Bridge. So there we were, entering about 10 mins after the Bride and Groom…. And me in my big puffy, WHITE AND BLUSH, very bridal looking dress. So horribly awkward that every woman who got near me glared like they wished I’d disappear. Believe me, I wanted to. I tried to stay in my seat as much as possible and only get up for things like toasts or to use the bathroom. It was so obviously Bridal looking that when I was exiting the bathrooms an old man said “oh excuse me, I didn’t know there was more than one wedding taking place here today”.
I eventually told my friend it was best I left because the Bride didn’t deserve to feel disrespected. I asked my friend to please get her mailing information so that I could send her a big gift as my way of saying sorry and she told him “No Thanks”.
Even though it wasn’t on purpose, that day, I was definitely TA
Indian wedding dresses are traditionally bright red and very elaborate. Lots of folks wore pastels (not white) to my Indian friends' wedding and it didn't look like anything because the bride was so obviously the bride.
I chose white for my wedding. My spouse is a white American, and I wanted to have a bit of that tradition, while also remaining true to my own. But generally, when invited to an Indian wedding, we recommend that you avoid red, black, and white. For my wedding, we encouraged all guests, both Indian and non, to wear traditional lehengas and kurtas.
BUT, we included a note on the invitation asking guests to avoid red, black, and white, and we included websites where they could find appropriate attire and appropriate accessories. A lot of non-Indian guests showed up in the traditional attire, and it was the BEST.
Edit to add link to something that is very similar to what I wore
My friend did something super similar! She even had a recommendation for the tailor she used and we all got a discount for altering our sarees and kurtas (they specifically only wanted bridal party in a lehenga style (that's the flowy big bell skirt?). I would never have an opportunity to dress in those clothes otherwise and it was amazing. I felt so feminine and beautiful in those fabrics! Not to mention the other outfits and pomp for the Mehendi party.
Probably one of the most memorable weeks of my life!
You are the type of event planner I love. Going to the extra effort you put into making sure everyone knew exactly the vibe for attire is so nice of you.
I fell down a rabbit hole of research about Indian weddings a few years ago and I LOVE the traditional attire/decorations I’d see in all of the photos. Everything is so elaborate and detailed. I would genuinely feel very blessed to be able to attend an Indian wedding; I’d be awestruck the entire time 🤣
Yes, I'm Indian and this would have been considered appropriate at every Indian wedding Ive been too. I even had what would be considered a low key and simple outfit. This is a really simple lengha and doesn't read bridal at all. I wore blush pink to my reception too, and I wouldn't have thought twice if OP had worn this as a guest. Honestly it's not her fault, and I respect her for trying to make amends. I think the bride is being a bit much. It was an honest mistake and an easy one to make. Especially within the context of Indian weddings.
I'm Not Indian and know little about the culture, but if I was attending an Indian wedding I would still avoid anything that looks white/bridal, esspecially when it's in a western country, just because
I agree. I'm from another culture where red is the main wedding color, but in today's globalized world, you never know how the bride is going to dress. So it's better to avoid white AND red (traditionally white was avoided anyway because it's the color of funeral attire/death).
I’ve only been to three Indian weddings. While red and colors like bright magenta can be the norm, it isn’t as common in modern times. In one of the weddings, the bride wore a white sari with some small red details. But at each of the three weddings they did multiple outfit changes and one of their outfits was western or blush/white.
It’s not even about the color for OP - it’s also the puffiness of what she wore.
Different Indian cultures have different practices. My SO is from a region where a white sari IS the traditional outfit, whereas I’m from a region where a red lehenga is.
This is actually a chole lehenga chosen by a different friend for me to wear to Her wedding, I thought I’d get extra use out of it since it’s not the same friend group. This is not even close to over the top for Indian weddings.
I think I'm the mirror image of your story! I'm Black and married to an Indian guy and had a dual Western/ Indian wedding. But I chose a blue Saree for the Western ceremony because the whole white dress idea never seemed to fit me. My sisters wore orange Lehengas at my request but all the Indian women wore blue Sarees. Because who would wear blue as a bride?!
10 years later and I can laugh it off, and I appreciate how much red is the color for special events. But in my family wedding photos it's definitely hard to tell who the bride is.
You might wanna throw this as an edit on the OP before you get a million questions. People don't always know that what looks bridal to the western world won't remotely look bridal in another context and I doubt most commenter's know this was a chole lehenga. Some might have thought you just grabbed a blush formal gown and called it a day.
You just so happen to get hit with the worst cross-cultural luck in the world 🥺
I thought so too but she's gotten so many comments of people losing their mind saying she shouldn't wear this kind of outfit to any wedding ever to err on the side of caution. Which is the most American-centric mentality ever 💀💀 like girl, nobody cares about western etiquette rules when attending an Indian wedding. I doubt any of these commentors avoid wearing red to weddings on the off-chance there's people from a culture where red is the traditional bridal color. OP had no way to know what context she was walking into!
The bride had to have understood, though? It’s an Indian wedding, ffs! It makes sense that you were wearing a dress you had previously worn to another Indian wedding.
This is a completely understandable mistake. And how are you upstaging the bride? You’re still not actually the bride.
I’ve very luckily been to a lot since many of my friends in the US are Indian. Where I live in Mexico we also get dressed our best for weddings. I actually just donated a bunch to a place that gives them out for prom for lower income students.
Edit: I didn’t get food that night because I shuffled out but I love Indian food
I’m dying to see the front of this dress. And where do you live in Mexico?!? Was this an Indian wedding in Mexico because that’s a minefield of cultural bombs, lol.
I'm an immigrant who became an American, and boy are we special when it comes to thinking the world revolves around us. I'm not amazed but still annoyed people don't understand other cultures celebrating their own events wouldn't remotely care about what Americans consider "inappropriate" 🙃 it ain't applicable people.
I think if it’s an Indian wedding in the US though it could go both ways. Brides could go either the traditional Indian route or some do go more western style, as was the case here exactly. I also live in a western country and have been to several Indian weddings- I think 2/3 the bride has only worn Indian style and the other third they’ve either worn western style or had outfit changes to incorporate both styles.
My understanding of Indian weddings is that a lot of the attendees wear their own (indian) wedding dresses to get some additional use out of it because it's impossible to upstage a desi bride.
Which would imply no color rules that say you can't wear bride color?
Is that not the case?
Take that 'understanding' with a pound of salt though, I'm white American, so my exposure to the culture is limited to a few friends and the internet. I could easily be wrong.
My understanding is that most do not wear red. Iirc, there are several dresses worn by the bride at the wedding, and not all are red. But it’s very possible that not wearing red is a case of cultural mixing, among Indians in the West.
I mostly know so much because I love bridal shows and the Indian brides have the most amazing weddings, lol. I watch for the dresses and the gowns at those weddings are beyond divine.
I really don’t get how there was an issue. Even if the bride was wearing blush/white, her gown should have been sparkly like anything, super constructed and ornamental, the kind of thing you’d see at a fashion show.
Given the glares, which is odd because the family should have immediately recognized OP’s lehenga and the colour taboo isn’t as big a deal, I wonder if the bride’s family struggled to pay. So her gown was plainer, and she only had the one, and OP unwittingly made that very obvious.
I thought that was ribbon. I’m Indian and didn’t recognize that it wasn’t a gown: I think the sepia tones make it harder to pick out detail if you don’t go full screen
She called it a dress in the post, which was very confusing to me (I even called this out in another comment that it looked like a two piece...like did it connect in the front or what?).
A blush lehega with white trim is very different than the "big puffy, WHITE AND BLUSH, very bridal looking dress" she described in the original post.
Agreed. It is truly stunning.
Ps. I’ve been to a few Indian weddings & white was NEVER the color of the brides dress so I get the mindset & completely understand the cringe! Lol
THIIIIS. 99% of the time at an Indian function this outfit would 1) be considered rather tame and 2) the pride is almost always in something very vibrant or jewel toned or sometimes gold.
I sincerely hope the Bride laughs about it these days, I just retold the story because a post I saw…. Though I definitely reconfirm dress codes these days.
The biggest “what?” was “Texas Fall Formal”
OP I'm Indian and I want to let you know this doesn't look bridal at all. It's so simple looking and pastels are sooo popular for Indian guests. Plus the dress is so simple. It's an honest mistake to make. If I was the bride I would have absolutely understood and laughed about it. Please don't stress.
This outfit has a very bridesmaid feel to it, idk why people are bashing you because an indian bride will never wear something this simple even for their engagement ceremonies. It was just bad luck but you did well :))
It’s not as widespread a cultural norm as people think. In my Indian subculture, it’s common to wear off-white/white at even Hindu weddings, though the outfits look nothing like Western wedding gowns of course.
I just went to an Indian wedding that took place in the UK. The colour scheme assigned to all the guests was white/cream/gold, in line with the traditional clothes for that particular part of India.
Honestly, this shouldn’t be OP’s fault. What she wore looks appropriate for a fancy Indian wedding. Most guests are wearing much more lavish “ball gowns”, sometimes including sequins and lace.
The color is the mishap … not all Indian brides will wear white, and they should usually specify in the dress code if it’s going to be traditional or a bit westernized. A blush ball gown esque dress wouldn’t look out of place at all if it had been a traditional wedding.
Well, the thing is, the other guests seem to have gotten the memo and dressed appropriately. I’d guess that there was a dress code sent out, but OP’s date, as a man, didn’t think too much about it and didn’t feel the need to let OP know.
Probly the nicest thing she had. Indian wedding attendees wear dresses from their home country typically. This is like, not that nice compared to their attire
I actually own some amazing sarees and gowns, I actually wore this because it was kind of last minute and wanted to be underwhelming because I only knew the Groom as a friend of my friend through very quick meetings. My hair, shoes, and earrings were simple and very casual compared what I’d usually wear to Indian events or Mexican ones.
I had asked my friend what the dress code was and he said “you know, normal Indian attire”…. Now I never attend events now without personally reading the invite😩
She wasn't. I don't know why she didn't just put this in the original post, but below she explains she's wearing a lehenga, not a dress, that an Indian friend had picked out for her to wear to their wedding earlier, and she re-used it for this one.
So it's a blush lehenga choli with white edging on the lehenga and dupatta. It wouldn't look like a regular wedding dress to either Western or Indian people.
I think she's overstating it a bit. It's a blush dress with white piping, and while it's a bit puffy, it's not bridal puffy. Mayyybbbeee I could see it as a bridal gown at a Los Feliz or Brooklyn Yard wedding. Maybe. The dress seems fine for an Indian wedding (she called it a dress, but it seems to be a two-piece, right? maybe it's connected in front).
But of course Indian wedding dresses are very very different, as I'm sure you already know. What feels fine for one kind of wedding would be suddenly wrong for another, and I'm guessing she didn't notice how "bridal" it could be ready as until she got there and realized it was a Western wedding. Guests would be fine wearing a sparkly red dress for a fall or winter Western wedding, but they sure as hell wouldn't wear one to an Indian wedding anytime of year.
Edit: lol. Saw further down this is a lehenga an Indian friend had picked out for her to wear to THEIR wedding, and she was re-using the outfit. Now I'm extra confused why anyone would have confused her for a bride wearing a blush lehenga.
Valid. I would have spent the entire time sitting down and trying to borrow a shawl or a coat or something until I could flee. And ducking every time I saw the photographer.
Aw damn. You missed the best part. I’ve filmed some weddings, and the most fun I ever had was with the Indian receptions. So much color! And, oh my dog, those folks know how to get down. Man, if I could keep up the energy, I could film those all day.
that's crazy. If you show up looking like a bride leaving immediately is the only sensible thing. You can't draw more attention. Literally walk int eh door, realise you fucked up, turn around and leave is dramatically, like multiple magnitudes less bad than walking in sitting down and not leaving till after stuff happened because it would 'draw more attention'.
Every second someone stays when they are intentionally or unintentionally outshining the bride is much worse than just leaving.
If you walk in, realise and turn around then everyone understands it's a fuck up.
Not if you don't sit down first. They were late. They weren't already sitting there when the realisation happened. It was as they walked in. You tirn around and leave and that draws much less attention than walking in and taking a seat.
As an Indian I would say you're unintentionally NTA. You were operating under the assumption that Indian wedding means Indian attire, and you're right, there is no way to upstage us. Infact we love it when our guests dress to the nines instead of dimming themselves down.
However, this was just a sad miscommunication. Had you known, doubt you would have dressed the way you did.
I actually wore this previously to a Gujarati* friends wedding, but with a light teal dupatta and gold jewelry. I honestly thought I wouldn’t even be as dressed up as the rest of the guests.
I’m using text to talk because I’m cooking food for donation. I’m sure half of my responses aren’t spelled correctly since my phone is set to type in Spanish.
But yes you’re right, gujarati
😆 no I just like to cook and it gives me time to think and I donate food because there’s plenty of people who are hungry and I’m lucky enough to not be one of them.
Infact we love it when our guests dress to the nines instead of dimming themselves down.
Not to get too off topic, but I wish us Americans had this mindset 😭 so long as you don't wear white in a western wedding, the idea of upstaging the bride is baffling to me. You can't upstage the bride--she's the only one in white! The center of attention! The only one walking down the aisle, middle of all pics, getting the spotlight for a dance, etc.
I love when my friends dress up all cute for my birthday, I can't imagine asking them to tone it down for my wedding. I also generally like fashion so people wearing interesting or gorgeous clothing would be such a delight.
I went to three family weddings in a row a year ago and all three had similar instructions along the lines of "wear whatever makes you feel beautiful! The fancier the better!"
Everybody was dressed super fancy and nobody was confused who the bride and groom were, because, you know, we're not dumb lol
I wish our friends had dressed up for our wedding. Our dress code was cocktail and at best we got “not jeans.” Except for my wife’s grandmother in law, who dressed like she was attending a funeral in the 1800s.
What I find hilarious is the argument "you don't want to confuse guests about who is the bride". Tf? Why are you inviting people who don't know how you look like? Or are they dumb?
To the point, I would be really disapponitned if my giuests wouldn't look the best. Weddings are often and for most people the only opportunity to dressup and I love to see it.
Yeah I get this is a faux pas because society says it is, but it’s a pretty baffling thing.
The only reason it really matters is because people say it matters. Everyone making a fuss or saying “can you believe that?!” is making it a bigger deal than it needs to be. The bride can be in whatever. It’s their wedding none the less
Honestly, it baffles me even the white thing. Like, even if everyone wore white, you’re still not upstaging the bride… she’s the bride! She’s the only (besides her spouse, lol) that’s getting married, lol.
Yeah, I know I’m a MAJOR outlier in this, but I literally wouldn’t care at all if someone wore white to my wedding. Wear what makes you happy, if it’s white, so be it, I’m just glad you could be there to celebrate with me. That said, I of course would NEVER take it upon myself to wear white to anyone else’s wedding out of respect given how taboo and frowned upon it is, as I definitely wouldn’t want to upset/insult the bride or anyone else, but the whole “upstaging the bride” is still a mindset that I don’t think I will ever understand. A bride is so much more than a white dress, and I find the different cultural traditions that view weddings as a day for everyone to look their absolute best (all with no views about competing with the bride while doing so), to be so beautiful and admirable. They are doing weddings the right way IMO.
Thank you so much for chiming in. I wonder if other commenters who aren’t familiar with Indian weddings are aware of the culture. Not saying I’m an authority whatsoever but I’ve been to several Indian/Pakistani weddings and this was my experience as well! OP just had a really unfortunate miscommunication like you said
I agree, honestly this is on her date for not communicating the dress code. I had a "simple" wedding and my reception outfit was low key....but if OP had shown up wearing this I wouldn't have thought twice. This style was sooo popular a few years ago for wedding guests
I’ll answer the question of “Why” here since I can’t seem to edit the post.
This dress is a Lehenga, it was actually picked for me by a Gurati friend of mine to wear to her wedding. To her event it was even more dressed up with a light teal dupatta and lots of gold jewelry.
Dress your best is the Normal for Indian weddings, and unless you’re told not to, and this outfit is very casual compared to most weddings I’ve been to.
This wouldn’t even slightly be considered Bridal in 99.9% of Indian weddings.
Even if the Bridal had gone with a White Lehenga it would have looked like this
Im from a multiracial country in south east Asia with many Indian friends and have been to many indian weddings. I definitely saw a lehenga when i saw your pic
You are correct that this is nowhere near the embellishments a bride would wear. Your colors are totally fine for an indian wedding as most brides would wear reds, and lately more other colors like blue, greens, turquoise, purples and browns. And also white but if you’ve seen an embellished white bridal lehenga, yours doesnt even come close to it. Plus all them gold jewelry hanging all over.
The only thing that made me do a double take is the design of your skirt. Which is likely also why the other guests did a double take. It’s extremely western bridal. Like you could wear an embellished white typical lehenga bottom and no one would care. But the tulle and the irregular design just screamed bride. That’s why people were looking at you. It’s the skirt.
If i were in an Indian wedding and someone showed up in that skirt, my eyes would bulge out too
So im sorry to say but yeaaa… haha. I know that skirt got the pass with your previous friend but it wouldn’t fly in other weddings.
My friend got married in India a decade ago and about 50 of us Americans who had never been to an Indian wedding all ended up getting saris & lehengas for the events in Bombay. I will say we did all tend towards less embellishments, and more plain and geometric designs, tulle if we could find it. Western sensibilities.
One of the women had found basically the same skirt design as OP'S pic, but in a mint with silver contrast fabric, which was frankly stuuunnnning. I still wish I could've gotten one too, but we went to different stores. Anyway, maybe that's why OP'S friend picked it out; it's a bit more western-y.
South Asian woman here, it looks very western bridal to me - can see how it would look out of place if the bride was wearing a western style wedding dress!
I'm from Spain, so I really don't understand the whole "upstaging the bride" thing. Everyone dresses the best they can here at a wedding. If someone looks fancier than you, it's cuz you picked a more subdued dress, because that's your style! Plus... who cares what a guest is wearing, everyone supposed to be looking at the two people getting married. No one cares what everyone else looks like.
Are other wedding guests allowed to wear white dresses in Spain? I’m from Cyprus and I understand what you mean about the upstaging, everyone looks their best at Cypriot weddings too. But no one will dare look like they’re the ones getting married that day so no one wears a white/bridal looking gown.
Not full white proper wedding dress, but I've seen cream, white with other colour details, etc. I mean if someone showed up in a full wedding dress then yeah, everyone would go "esa está mal de la cabeza" (literally "she's wrong in the head lol)
To be fair, you are absolutely running that risk if you invite friends to a surprise wedding lmao (among other risks, like people not being able to make it)
Why’d they decide to do a surprise wedding, do you know?
I know someone who turned her engagement party into their surprise wedding. It was the bride’s second marriage and the party was on April Fool’s Day. I thought it was clever.
My friends did that with their housewarming, not even their parents knew so her dad didn’t even turn up! They are a SUPER casual couple though and the bride didn’t even wear white, one of her friends was wearing a white dress and forced the bride to swap in the end 😂
That’s smart. It greatly reduces the risk of a guest wearing white, as brides tend to wear white to engagement parties, so it’d be uncouth for a guest to do so.
The Bride had an incurable illness and the MIL felt her son deserved better than to be “stuck with someone with poor health”.. so they got engaged in secret and threw a surprise wedding (without the MIL present).
They were saying it was the bride running the risk of someone else wearing white to a surprise wedding, because you don’t know what you don’t know. They weren’t judging the ex.
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direction spark close nutty long tub unpack childlike frame wipe
That same friend who invited me had a huge going away party when he moved to Dubai, I only went for few mins to give him a gift because I was so embarrassed to see her face.
I mean at the least he could have stuck up for you that you would never have worn that if you knew the dress code. The way I read her saying "no thanks" about the address and gift thing sounded like they didn't explain anything. I feel like they did you dirty by not immediately going to the bride and explaining with or without you in tow. I get you were trying not to be seen as much.
If I was your friend the second I saw the situation I would have made it my business to let the Bride and Groom know if they should be upset with anyone it should be me.
this comment section: westerners not understanding non-western wedding culture. it ended up being a faux pas because op assumed it was a traditional indian and that's a whole separate tifu, but if she was operating under the assumption that it was traditional, she would have been fine. even though i'm not indian, even i casually knew that traditional indian weddings are lavish. op herself said the dress was used in a different indian wedding without issues, and i assume her friend knows more than you guys.
i'm also not western. i'm korean, and if i was to have a traditional wedding, the wedding faux pas wouldn't be wearing white, so i understand where this is coming from.
westerners not understanding non-western wedding culture
Also not understanding that non-western cultures aren't thinking about westerners 24/7. People telling her "why would you wear that gown to any wedding" are so baffling to me. Do you guys check every possible faux pas for every culture before attending an event? 💀 or do you just follow the cultural etiquette of the event you're attending? Hmmmmm
omg i know. i work in translation, and none of our editors are korean... i legitimately saw a conversation between two editors in the public channel in slack like, "i can't believe these authors didn't consider their western readers before publishing in the west." the novel was originally written in korean for a korean audience long before they ever even considered it would be translated! and if you're reading a korean novel by a korean author, they're going to write from the pov of someone who grew up in korean culture! what do you mean they should have considered their western readers??
I actually hate when things get changed before us release :( makes me sad no magic genies have offered me every language skill, so I could consume all media in the form it was made and intended.
i think you're thinking of china? don't quote me on it, but i've heard several times (in korean) that the chinese like red weddings because of their belief in red being the color of fortune. in korea, i've only ever heard to avoid the color red at weddings. it's an eye-catching color that pulls attention from the bride and groom :) (i guess it's kind of like the white faux pas in western weddings now that i think about it, but it's not as commonly recited as the white thing is.)
This seems like one of the cases where the "no white" rule breaks down and people outside of the culture shouldn't be judging harshly. Western assumptions can't be extended to other cultures in every scenario.
This reminded me that once in my early 20s as a “new” girlfriend at a big friend-group wedding I coincidentally wore a dress exactly like the bridesmaids 🫠 I looked like I was trying to fit in like a psycho, it was maybe the second wedding I’d ever been to and I was just mortified. Plus I’m tall and fair and unable to really fly below the radar (at least back then lol).
I have a similar story. I was invited last minute to a wedding as a plus one and didn't know anybody at the wedding. I ended up wearing a cream dress which I at the time felt was more beige but it was definitely cream.
It was freezing cold out so luckily I ended up wearing a brown coat over it for the first half of the day. It didn't even dawn on me until like months later that I probably shouldn't have worn that dress to a wedding.
Nobody said anything to me so I'm hoping it wasn't actually a big deal but I definitely was a bit mortified after the fact.
I really hate the idea that if someone wears white to a wedding it's intentional. I know first hand that sometimes it's just a dumb mistake.
I really hate the idea that if someone wears white to a wedding it's intentional. I know first hand that sometimes it's just a dumb mistake.
I don't understand how we're expected to come into the world with innate knowledge of wedding rules. I had never even heard of the "no white" rule until my mid-to-late-20s.
There are other nitpicky rules that are talked about on this sub that I'd never heard of anywhere else, and people rip these women to shreds for intentionally breaking these rules in order to upstage/disrespect the bride. Like, huh?
Don't wear anything pale? Don't wear red? Don't wear the same colors as the bridal party? (How am I even supposed to know what the colors are?!)
If the bride/groom care about enforcing these rules, they should send a note clarifying them along with the wedding invitation. Don't just expect that everyone knows these things and that they're being malicious if they break them.
Why didn’t your friend clarify things with you, the wedding party(bride and groom especially) and anyone else that was an ass to you? That honestly sounds like a shit friend.
To be clear she wore an INDIAN white outfit (lehenga) to an INDIAN wedding expecting the INDIAN bride to wear BRIGHT colors.
She didn’t wear a western white wedding dress to an Indian wedding, because even if she wasn’t mistaken for the bride, she still would have looked odd.
Not sure if I believe this story overall but if it were true, this is the way OP meant it.
I wish the story were different.
I left as soon as I could without drawing more attention and went directly to the first bar and tried to drink off the embarrassment (in the dress). I actually woke up in the dress with a great big hangover to match my embarrassment.
My friend is a fairly nonchalant guy and was like “who cares”, I even tried to get her address or wedding registry from him and a few other people to send a big fat “I’m so sorry” gift but was shut down. I would have sent a $1000 and an explanation
It's gorgeous and as mentioned, not white. I'm not seeing the problem. OP also seems familiar with Indian culture, where the bride wears red. It's an unfortunate misunderstanding that they went with Western tradition unknown to OP, but not her fault in the slightest.
Yeah genuinely not seeing the problem or why the bride was upset. The brides’s dresses are always a surprise, and if you choose colors outside of the norm, yes you might be wearing the same as someone else
This wedding also started on time and not an hour late either? They didn’t follow any Indian customs then 😂 It’s a beautiful outfit OP. So sorry for the fiasco!
I don’t know if I’m in the minority or not, but I don’t think this is your fault. You did your best and in my honest opinion, the dress in the pic doesn’t actually look very bridal to me? The skirt part a bit, but it’s two pieces and looks like gold beading on the bodice. Definitely not “traditional” bridal attire. It’s kind of shitty that everyone treated you poorly.
I’m attending a friends wedding who is Indian ethnicity, but not born in India, so I asked which bridal wear she is doing (Indian or western) for this exact reason. I knew another Indian couple where the bride wore western and groom wore Indian, so I know it’s a real risk now!!
It’s totally not your fault, since your friend literally chose this dress for you to wear at her wedding, but oh. my. god. I would die. Good for you for sticking it out with your friend. It’s too bad the bride couldn’t understand how this the mix up could have happened, given that she must have been to multiple traditional weddings where wearing a pastel lehenga would have meant blending in. I get it was her day but she should have taken it up with her guest and not the +1.
I’ve been to many Indian weddings (with in a relationship with one for 10 years) and your lehenga would have been perfect. Your friend really did you dirty. He should have communicated the dress code with you.
But to be fair I have seen Indian aunties wear Indian outfits to Western style Indian weddings and one one bat an eye.
Thank you for sharing this!!! Most people wouldn’t but getting a first pov account of this kind of story is perfect for this subreddit. So many people on here say “okay what were they thinking?? Wearing/doing that??” And now that you have the other side of the story, people are like “wouldn’t have shared this 🤭” you admitted you were the AH, geez what do the people want (an explanation? She just gave one)
Anyway
Obviously you made a mistake and got humbled enough at the wedding itself. I can see the communication gap, especially if this was a dress that your Indian bridal friend helped pick out for their own traditional Indian wedding. Ahhhh this would be hard to live down, thankfully you didn’t know anyone well I’m assuming since you were just a +1!
Story definitely fits in the sub, and does make me giggle. I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that reception
Yikes! To also make it worse for OP: the person she was +1 for wanted to avoid their ex/family, poor dear was being a good wingwoman & unintentionally added more drama to the event. Altho, it’s a beautiful & appropriate dress and it’s likely it didn’t attract as much attention as it felt. Unless I misinterpreted- the bride didn’t sound particularly distressed by her presence tho, she declined the apology/gift. Bless your heart OP & thanks for sharing!!✌🏼
What a beautiful dress! I don’t think it looks like a wedding dress at all, as it’s mostly pink with white trim (at least in this picture). Bridesmaid I could see, but I don’t see a bride in this picture. I’ve never been to a traditional Indian wedding, but I’ve seen photos from an acquaintance’s attendance, and this dress is totally appropriate!
It would make a lovely bridal gown as well, but just by this picture, I wouldn’t assume bride.
I’m sorry but you don’t look overdressed or look like a bride. I don’t get the whole she tried to upstage the bride. Thank god people put effort into wedding attires.
Usually I agree there’s no way to up a bride in an Indian wedding and we don’t have rules like others shouldn’t dress in a particular color or whatever!
This dress doesn't look white or particularly bridal style to me. Plus the fact that it was picked out for you by another bride of that culture for you to wear to her own wedding is proof enough that it doesn't scream bride.
Are you sure the women glaring at you weren't just on your friend's ex's side and mad a pretty girl was accompanying their friend's ex so soon after the break up? Maybe you being there was ruining an attempt on their part to get them back together.
Mistakes happen. Embarrassing moments plague us all. It was an honest mistake it sounds like you handled the situation as appropriately as you could in the moment. It sounds like you have a kind heart and a good soul. Please don’t let this situation weigh heavily on you any longer. The hard thing about life is that the best lessons we learn are from our biggest mess ups. 💕
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u/goober2143 Jul 15 '25
This might be the most horrid yet noble confession I’ve seen on Reddit