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Louise Thomas
Editor
It’s a well known wedding tradition for the bride to wear her mother’s wedding dress, but one groom’s parents have possibly taken the convention too far.
In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” subreddit, the groom explained that his father lost his first wife named Mia and later remarried his mother. Regardless of his father’s relationship with his mother, he told him “that the love of his life is Mia and he always made it clear.”
“My dad still wears his wedding ring with Mia in one hand, my mom bakes a cake for her birthday, my mom leaves my dad alone when it’s his anniversary with Mia and he’s feeling down, there are many photos of Mia in the house, there are even photos of her in their room because my father never wanted to change them, etc,” the Reddit post detailed.
For his own upcoming wedding the bride’s mother never had a wedding ceremony and thought it would be a “cute idea” to ask his mother if she could wear her dress.
“I talked to my mom about lending her dress to my fiancée and she got really excited and said yes. My mother had spoken several times about wanting to have a daughter to wear her dress and she was very excited when my fiancée asked her to wear it, she even tried it on. That conversation was closed,” the groom wrote.
One month later his mother asked the bride if she would want to wear Mia’s dress instead, but she declined because she had “no connection” to Mia and never knew her. This led to his mother asking him to try and convince the bride to wear Mia’s dress and change her mind.
“My father wanted me to put up the typical decoration to commemorate the deceased, but I told him I won’t do that, so my mother now wants my fiancée to wear Mia’s dress to commemorate her and for her to be present too because she was someone really special,” he wrote.
He explained the connection between his mother and the bride, noting how she sees his mother as a second mother to her and wants a special moment between the two of them. Currently, the groom is questioning whether or not the entire concept of his fiancée wearing Mia’s wedding dress is “gloomy or weird”.
“Being raised in this kind of way sometimes makes me feel confused about what is normal and not in a family, it would be normal to ask my fiancée to wear Mia’s dress in my family dynamic, but I don’t know what someone who was raised normally would do and if I am a bad person for not wanting to have done it,” the post concluded.
After posting many people turned to the comments section to defend his opinion, noting that the bride should not be wearing a wedding dress from a complete stranger.
“NTA. Why would your fiancée want to wear the dress of a woman neither you or she has a connection with? No offense to your parents, but it’s a weird and creepy request and your father wanting you to have some sort of in memoriam at your wedding to his deceased wife is odd,” one commenter wrote.
Another commenter agreed, writing, “Tell your parents if they want to include the long-demised Mia in a wedding, they can renew their vows, and your mom can wear Mia’s dress. She’s so invested in this Mia fairy tale that I’m surprised she didn’t wear Mia’s dress at her own wedding.”
“If it makes things easier, your parents could arrange to have Mia’s favorite song at the reception, and no. No enabling their sick fantasy. No extending the Cult of Mia into your wedding. If your parents refuse to attend, let them stay home with their pretend friend.”
