Mom Asks If She Was Wrong To Pay For A Stranger’s Wedding Dress, But Not Her Daughter’s
It was a heartfelt gesture, but one that put her relationship with her daughter at risk.
Cate Bligh / Unsplash A mom who found herself at odds with her daughter posted to Reddit questioning whether or not she was in the wrong for paying for a stranger's wedding dress — but not her own daughter's.
The mom explained that she and her husband had both grown up in poverty and worked hard to make sure their kids wouldn’t have the same experience. Though she said they made it a priority to teach their children the value of hard work and didn’t spoil them, they did pay for a few important things for their kids, such as their first cars and college tuition.
The parents also paid for their first two kids’ weddings, with one exception: their attire.
In her post, the mom explained that when their third child, Michaela, was preparing for her wedding day, they gave her the same treatment as their first two. They accompanied her to try on the dress, but she was on her own when it came to payment.
While they were out dress shopping, the mother met another bride-to-be and her mother, who had been through some struggles trying to find the right gown. Both the bride and the groom are from low-income families that had to rely on loans to pay for the wedding. Additionally, they found very few plus-size options for the future bride, and the ones they did find "had just been awful," the mom explained.
When the bride thought she finally found a dress she liked within her budget, it turned out to be more than $1000 over the budget, plus another $1400 after modifications to make it plus-size. After watching her defeatedly take off the dress, the mom made the connection to her own past.
“I grew up poor and I was also a chubby kid,” she wrote. “I was bullied and I was very unhappy. I always wanted more and in this bride, I saw myself and I didn't want her to have to settle for a dress that fit versus a dress she loved.”
The woman was so moved by the woman's experience that she offered to pay the difference for the stranger's dress.
Overjoyed, the bride accepted the proposal and invited the woman to her wedding out of gratitude.
Photo: antoniodiaz / Shutterstock
However, the woman's own daughter was outraged that her mother paid for someone else’s wedding dress while not paying for hers. The mom explained that the daughter refused to speak to her parents and even uninvited them from the wedding.
“We’re so hurt and confused,” the woman wrote.
Many people accused the daughter of being ungrateful.
The cost of a wedding is no small expense, with a study by The Knot finding that couples spend an average of $30,000 on the big day.
Add to that college tuition, which can add up to over $500,000 for a bachelor's degree, and a car, and these parents have already shelled out over half a million per child. People on Reddit pointed out that her "fit" over a wedding dress after having everything else paid for is rather "entitled."
"You are paying for her freaking wedding! The only thing she has to buy herself is her dress," one person wrote. "Your daughter is acting very entitled. Tell her you are no longer paying for her wedding, as you are no longer invited. I bet she changes her tune REAL quick."
Though some people criticized the mother's decision to pay for the other woman's dress in front of her daughter, the mother clarified that she did so quietly.
"Michaela didn't know I'd paid for the dress while we were at the bridal shop. She was in the fitting room doing a last-minute try-on and I took the opportunity to go to the payment counter during that time. So, Michaela didn't lose any of my attention, in fact we were all done, she'd picked her dress, we'd celebrated, she wasn't in the same part of the shop as us," the mom wrote, explaining that her daughter's "dad accidentally revealed it" during dinner.
This mom's good deed made another woman's day which will lead to memories for years to come, and hopefully, a cooling-off period will allow her daughter to see the goodness in her mom's altruism to both herself and the other bride.
Jonathan Alfano is a writer who focuses on news and entertainment topics.