When attending a wedding, there are certain rules of etiquette that guests are expected to observe, with the most obvious one being don’t wear a white dress. But, one bride got her knickers in a knot and threw her new husband’s friend and her husband out, because she was wearing a gold dress. Stranger still, the wedding invitation had specifically asked guests to wear ‘warm tone garden party’ dress, and the offending dress wasn’t even gold.

I will link the dress, I put gold in quotation markers because I think it’s more bronze/orange but maybe I’m splitting hairs and am TA.

Some context: My (30F) best friend Dan (30M) got married to Lauren (27F) yesterday. Me and Dan have been best friends since high school and despite always being platonic with no romantic interests on either side, his now wife Lauren has always disliked me.

In their three years of dating I have not been allowed to see Dan alone because she feels that it’s suspicious that I want to hang out with him. Honestly I just missed my friend. Despite me being happily married, she’s always kept me at arm’s length. I always figured this was because she’s from a very conservative family. Dan has spoken to her multiple times and after she’ll back off for a bit before reverting to complaining about him being friends with a girl again. It’s not ideal but she makes Dan happy so I made my peace with it.

That brings us to the wedding, originally I was going to be in the groom’s party but Lauren ended up crying saying a wedding is not a place to swap gender roles. Dan was fighting her on this but I told him I’ll just attend as a guest, and not to choose this hill to die on.

The dress code was “Warm tone garden party” and we were encouraged to wear earthy warm colours. I picked out a bronze / orange dress that I thought fit this perfectly and the style even matched some examples they gave, in short I thought I had nailed it.

The wedding went great however at the reception Lauren dragged me aside and said “I cannot believe you would wear gold to my wedding, you’re not the first prize you’re just f**king trashy”. I was so shocked in the moment I just stared at her. She practically screamed at me to leave and she was drawing attention so I grabbed my husband, said good bye to Dan and left.

Dan reached out after and told me he was upset I left his wedding so soon. Laurens mum has texted me saying I ruined the wedding for her daughter and I’m stupid for wearing a gold dress, she’s saying its as bad as wearing white. I was genuinely not aware this was a thing. I want to reach out to Dan to explain but I don’t know if I’m in the wrong here. AITA?

Firstly, let’s take a look at the dress that supposedly ruined the bride’s big day, shall we?

Unsuprisingly, nobody sided with the jealous bride that the dress was in any way inappropriate or gold!

If they thought that was gold then they need to go back to primary school and relearn their colours.

And you need to be honest with Dan. Tell him that you would have loved to stay longer but you weren’t going to be yelled at and accused of trying to upstage his new wife and make more of a scene. And that was never your intention. And that until he can verify that you won’t be attacked for breathing in his presence you are going to step back. You’ll always be a call or text away but you aren’t going to place yourself into the line of fire. (Terra88draco)

WTF? NTA!

That dress is copper, not even close to gold, and I don’t know why gold would be a problem in the first place

Sucks that Dan is upset with you, but he needs to take it up with his wife. She clearly told you to leave so nobody should be holding that against you.

As someone else said, it sounds like Lauren would have had a problem with whatever you were wearing. . (MrsWeasley9)

Others agreed that the bride’s real issue wasn’t the dress at all, and would have likely found something to make a scene about in an effort to push her out of her now husband’s life.

I don’t think it would have mattered what colour your dress was. The (now) wife hates you and was gonna find something to yell at you for whatever you wore. If it wasn’t the dress colour, it would have been something else.

Tell your friend why you left early, and make sure he knows how his wife treats you. NTA

Whilst many people thought that she should tell Dan what had happened, they also thought that she should probably accept that the friendship would likely not continue now that his new wife had the ring on her finger and was clearly hellbent on driving a wedge in the friendship.

NTA. It didn’t matter what you did/wore/said at that wedding, you were cast as the villain a long time ago. You need to be clear to Dan that you are his friend but his wife is out of line and causing drama. Be aware that she will most likely try to cut you from his life now that they are married. (unconfirmedpanda)

NTA. That was clearly a copper dress. Like autumn leaves. Gorgeous. She was clearly projecting. She’s the trashy one.

Clear the air. Tell your friend the truth about the exchange with his bride. Or send him here to read about it. Chances are your friendship is not going to survive his marriage. She and her mother will do everything in her power to ensure it doesn’t. (Cosmicsudterian)

This girl is deranged, and I’m sad for Dan that he’s now shackled to her. Your dress that you linked was pretty much exactly what she described in the invite. NTA, at all. (Turbulent-Ad6554)

Others expressed confusion over why a bride would let what somebody wear negatively affect their big day anyway.

NTA I don’t understand how what someone wears ‘ruins’ a wedding. Someone wore a gold sequin skin tight minidress to my son’s wedding (a spring time afternoon garden party) and the wedding was not ruined. People who wear inappropriate clothing only reflect poorly on themselves, not on the bride or groom or their families. Your dress was not inappropriate – it was beautiful and fit into the color scheme specified by the bride (I also do not understand the whole tell the attendees what to wear but I am old so what do I know). The bride would have an issue with you no matter what you wore. (enchylatta)

Just so I’m up to speed… as a guest I can’t wear:

White (duh)

Black (because that’s mourning the marriage)

Red (because that means I’ve slept with/want to sleep with the groom)

Gold (because no one knows why outside of this bride and her mother)

Orange/copper/bronze (because those are the same as gold) (Kristylane)

Personally, we love user specktacular’s sassy comeback:

What you should have said: “Sorry my dress bothers you. I’ll be sure to wear something better at his next wedding.” (specktacular)

What do you think? Can you see anything inappropriate about the not-gold dress?