NOT WHITE
‘You’ve got to be malicious,’ people yell as bride poses up with wedding guest & no one can tell whose big day it is
Would you let your guest wear something like this?
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The post, posted three days ago, explains: “Bride is on the left, and her friend is on the right and not with the bridal party so the dress she wanted was all her choice.”
The user who posted it added: “BFF or not I would not like my friends doing this, and no one else wore a colour like this.”
The bride can be seen wearing a long white gown with a plunging neckline and floral embroidery while her friend wore a white, strapless, floor-length silk gown.
The white wedding dress tradition goes all the way back to Queen Victoria who popularised brides wearing a white ensemble on their special day when she married Prince Albert in 1840.
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Since then, it has generally been frowned upon for guests to wear white due to the potential of upsetting or upstaging the bride.
However, the fashion taboo hasn’t stopped Reddit users from defending the friend for wearing the colour.
One user penned: “I don’t understand the outrage here, as we do not have any info. What if the bride agreed?
“There are countries, cultures, where wearing white to a wedding is not a big faux pas, even if the bride is wearing white. And some people just do not care.”
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Another said: “They look pretty cosy and friendly in the photo. Are we sure it wasn’t a black and/or white-themed wedding?”
A third wrote: “The bride took pics with her so she isn’t too upset.”
Wedding Dress Drama: Guest Asked to Leave Over Outfit
Plenty, though, saw it as an error of judgement with many bashing the guest for her choice of dress.
“You just KNOW she spent the night saying ‘it’s not actually white, it’s just champagne’,” said one Redditor.
A second said: “I thought they were a couple and thought it was cute until I noticed what sub I’m in, oh.”
A third penned: “To wear white to someone else's wedding, you've either got to be as dumb as a box of frogs or malicious.”
“Screw that selfish guest,” a fourth said.
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Dos and don’ts of wedding dress codes
By Josie Griffiths, Fabulous deputy editor and bride-to-be.
I’ll never forget the wedding I went to in October 2022 where a guest wore a white dress.
It was ill-fitting, knee length and looked nothing like an actual wedding dress, but that didn’t stop everyone judging her.
The rules on wedding guest outfits - which are annoyingly loads stricter for women than they are for men - are meant to be about “not upstaging the bride”, which in reality is quite hard to do on someone else’s wedding day.
But if you get it wrong as a guest, you do end up looking a bit silly, and in front of loads of people who don’t know you personally.
It’s just not the occasion for your new white dress, as much as online stores love dumping them in the 'wedding guest’ section.
I’d avoid anything too tight/short, and ditch super formal gowns unless the dress code calls for them - you don’t want to be in a full length sequin gown at a smart casual event.
Personally I don’t like black dresses either, it isn’t a funeral.
Otherwise you should be pretty safe. Technically wearing red means you’re in love with the groom, but that’s the kind of rule most people would scoff at nowadays.
I do always check what colour the bridesmaids are in, just to be safe, after the Spanish wedding where I watched them walk down the aisle in the exact same dress I’d had in my Asos shopping basket just weeks earlier.
If in doubt, safest to just double check with the bride… but if you’re already doubting your dress that might be all the answer you need.
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