"My new mother-in-law wore white to our wedding."
Yup. Cannot believe this happened to me. I arrived at the wedding venue and started to say, "Wow, you look gr...." and midway through my sentence, realized what the hell she was wearing: an all white, floor-length, chiffon dress.
I quickly left to go find my bridesmaids, who hadn't seen her yet, and they offered to give her a shawl to cover up but that would likely have made things worse and potentially interfered with the, otherwise, wonderful day. We were all in complete disbelief it was happening but everyone kept their cool.
His mother had sent me a picture of a sage green dress months before the wedding and it was perfect. So the surprise was even more of a shock when she showed up in not only a different dress, but a white one. She even had a matching shawl. What's crazy is my new FIL had a sage green tie and pocket square that matched her previous outfit, so we're curious if he even knew about her antics.
Our photographer is changing her dress to sage green in all the pictures and I cannot wait for her to see what we did. Funny enough, the dress looks great in sage green. We're waiting a few days to bring up how disrespectful this was to them and just flying high off the fact that our wedding was absolutely perfect in every other way and we're finally married after 6 years of being together and 1 year of planning!!
...But she's still absolutely horrible for doing this (it was SO intentional) and yes, everyone was talking about it. I'm not going to let it destroy our relationship but it's certainly going to tarnish it for a bit. Never ever saw this coming!
Edit: We are based in the US where it is, unless otherwise stated, extremely well-known to not wear white and it is very disrespectful to do so.
I will not be speaking with her, my husband will be. We talked about it last night and he is going to eventually bring it up. Right now, we are so happy and thrilled with being married, we're riding on cloud nine and it's not the focus. Oh, and we're damn exhausted!
During family pics, I requested a pic of my mom, my daughter, and myself. My mom asked if I wanted her to join and I said nope, I made a point of doing the bare minimum of pics with them and didn't interact with her the entire night-I don't even think I hugged her or acknowledged her beyond that initial one sentence.
That felt like a good level of passive aggressive behavior right back at her. The photographers and videographer also seemed to make a point to exclude her, it seems! I will update you all with the reaction to the photos when we get them!
Here's what commenters had to say.
I would not tell her how upset you were about her dress. What she did is - at best - passive aggressive and rude AF. I would say nothing, show the photos, and if she asks, “Oh, our photographer did that because for some reason your dress looked white in the photos! We didn’t want you to be embarrassed since everyone knows only the bride wears white!”
I wouldn’t even bring it up. Just let the edited photos speak for you.
Noodle-Mama OP:
I won't be making any noise but he will be approaching it with them, eventually. I already made a point of not interacting with her all night and only took the required pictures necessary.
There was a point where my mom, my daughter, and I took a pic and my mom asked if I wanted her and I said oh no thank you. I don't think there are really too many pics I need to worry about! The photographers and videographers totally knew what was up :)
Is your hubby an only son? Yikes.
Noodle-Mama OP:
Yup. And they ADORE him and he is pissed. Curious why on earth she would do something so stupid that could potentially alter their relationship!
My mil did this. Absolute insanity. She wore a white lace dress to another wedding and it ended up being the same exact dress the bride wore. She claimed to have no idea why that would be an issue.
Noodle-Mama OP:
Right?!? We are so curious if her husband knew or not. And if he did know, how in the hell did he not stop if. They both know how much effort I put into planning every detail of this wedding and how important it was to both of us!!!
The next day, OP shared this update.
So he first called his dad, because he was curious if dad even knew about the white dress situation. We were kind of hoping he didn't know and it was a surprise to him too. GUYS. He IMMEDIATELY got defensive and started blaming US. I sh!t you not.
He said because we didn't keep them in the loop on the wedding and they didn't know anything that was going on, that it was our fault she wore white. His parents call 1-3 times a week for the most part and have for the past 6 years. They absolutely knew what was going on from the phone calls, my text messages, his messages, the wedding website, they knew.
He stated that his wife had brought with her to the wedding the sage green dress, a rose colored dress, and the white dress, because they didn't know what the weather was going to be like and in the end, she didn't like the long sleeves of the dress she originally sent (despite knowing the wedding would be in AUGUST in a high-desert climate of the western US).
His dad threw the blame at us that he didn't even know what color suit he was supposed to wear (a tan suit with any colored shirt of his choosing) and he guessed and "happened to be right" - which is a total lie. The male family members were all instructed to wear a tan suit, and my dad/brother/nephew/son all wore tan. And then the dad says his mom wants to talk. And JFC, the list of reasons why:
"I asked my friends and they all said white was fine, no one was going to mistake me for the bride. I follow someone on Instagram and she says wearing white is totally fine (and she sent the link to him). My family all wore white to other people's weddings and no one cared. Other people were dressed way worse than us at the wedding (no one else wore white, everyone looked fantastic).
We didn't know that wearing white was not allowed. She didn't say we couldn't wear white in the dress code on the wedding website (note how they now know what was going on, despite saying they had no clue). We never talk anymore so we don't even know anything about what was happening."
She then said, "Well now I'm only going to have bad memories of the wedding and it's your fault and why did you bring this up just to hurt us". Just complete and utter victims here! Needless to say, he is not speaking to them for quite awhile and this has drastically altered their previously close relationship.
What's SO interesting is I went through my text messages because my husband asked me when she sent the original dress, which was back in February : "Well I found something and I hope you approve...it is definitely boho" and I said I loved it, to which she responded, "Good, I already got it...I am not a chiffon, fancy person. This is within your color palette too".
Her dress was white, dressy, and chiffon. And they aren't stupid, they know white is not something you wear, and it's exactly why she didn't show me it to approve.
I feel terrible for him that they are treating him like this and reacting in such a juvenile way. It's absolutely shocking, considering he's an only child and has been nothing but their pride and joy. They also have never shown any negativity towards me and we both thought they were excited and happy for us. In the end, this is just really sad :(