Mum wants to wear my wedding dress

Jacks_xxx

I don't know if this will be any help at all, but I'm an "If in doubt people come before things" type of person.

If I thought my mum would look bad in my dress then I'd try to put her off and persuade her in a different direction, but otherwise I'd try to be as generous of spirit as she was when she bought the dress for me.

I don't know what I'd do about hubby's feelings on the matter. I'd try and find out why he felt so strongly that Mum wearing the dress would damage or taint it I guess.

gizmo111

I'm assuming thatyour mother will have a photo of you in this dress somewhere around the house on display that her fiancee would have seen - use the bad luck for the groom to see the dress before the day line - sounds like she has made some mistakes with men and will want this marriage to work so that may clinch it for her.
At the end of the day it is only a dress that is likely to never be worn again, so if she has it altered is really that much of a problem?

ailuro2

To save any arguments, tell her you got it all unpacked and it looks really really big for her, and that you'd hate her to look so bad on her wedding day so didn't bring it.

If she insists it would fit keep telling her NO, it's your big day, your h2b won't mind if you spend a bit of money on a dress.

Take the tiara and bouquet with you, so she has them when she tries on the new dress.;)

MrsE_2

OP your daughter probably won't wear it. It will be dated by the time she gets married.

Its only a dress, is it worth bad feeling for a dress that will prob live in the loft forever?

ceridwen

I don't think personally that a wedding dress worn by an older generation person would look old-fashioned - leastways possibly only one of the shorty 1960s wedding dresses - but not any of the others.

Certainly my own mothers' wedding dress was elegant (though she was an age at the time where she could have worn a "girly" one if she had wanted) and was a very stylish dress - but then my mother usually has good taste in clothes anyway and is quite an elegant lady. It wouldnt have looked out of place when I was in the "marrying age group" and still wouldnt look out of place nowadays.

Re the "feelings" about wedding dresses. I do understand why some people would think "Oh...its just a dress" - but I think most of us regard it as a bit more than that. Some cultures place quite high "value" on them. An Italian friend of mine told me that her sister was quite seriously ill for a while and their mother went and pledged to the Priest that if her other daughter got well again - then she would give her wedding dress to a younger woman who was too poor to buy her own. Her other daughter DID get well - and the wedding dress was duly given to a woman the Priest nominated:D Now I personally thought that was a lovely thought. The dress was clearly a "prized possession" of hers - hence she had promised the Priest he would have her most prized possession "if the Saints granted her prayers for her daughter".

caseystar

If you really don't want her wearing it then be honest with her. If you lie and she finds out the truth later on down the line it could cause so many unnecessary problems and arguments in the future. Offer to go shopping for her very own dress which she can keep forever to remind her of her special day.

mookiandco

Its not so much whether my daughter wears it or not, its the principle. If its out of date/she doesnt want to wear it so be it.

Its also that we feel that she doesnt place any value (other than monetary) on the dress and because this is another one of her pie in the sky weddings and I feel it would taint it. Maybe once she wears it for this wedding, she'll see it as 'her' wedding dress and want to wear it for the 5th, 6th and 7th wedding. I'm not sure i'll want it back if she wears it anyway as it wont feel like mine anymore. There wont be many people at her wedding who were at my wedding because quite frankly not many of them want to come but as it was only 2 years ago, I expect that people will know its mine.

I felt like a million dollars at my wedding and I feel that she is trying to 'steal my thunder'. She is quite competitive and I think jealous of all the comments I got on my wedding day and she just wants that for herself.

My husband's views are also very important to me. He's not very fond of my mum because of alot of things she has done in the past so I expect that has something to do with it. He's already decided he wont be coming to this wedding but thats a whole other thread!!!

ceridwen

Well - I was being a bit too tactful (okay - unusual I know for blunt ceridwen....) and not making one of the comments I was thinking - which was "Well - at least my mother wouldnt try and steal my thunder like that.....". I would see it as my mother "trying to steal my thunder" too - and I dont believe its a mothers place to do that to her daughter.

Its a mothers place to turn up at her daughters wedding poshed-up in a nice new (not too flashy) suit and hat and help keep the day "organised". Its a mothers place to go with the daughter when she chooses the dress - and help her decide if she's "tossing up" between a couple of different dresses and tell her which one suits her best. I dont think its a mothers place to borrow her daughters wedding dress (even if its for a second wedding - assuming daughters' father had been the first wedding) - and certainly not for any subsequent one.

I'm glad O.P. sees what I am getting at in the other comments I've made to date...:) - and can see where I'm coming from....as she seems to be thinking along very similar lines here...

ceridwen

O.P. - another point I think its worth making here is that I am a bit concerned in case your mother tries to guilt trip you into lending her your dress by saying that she paid for it.

Of course she darn well paid for it - why wouldnt she?

Things might be/I think they are possibly rather different for the generation now in their 20s/30s and I suspect they pay a high proportion of their wedding costs. But - I think even someone in the younger generation would probably expect a contribution of some description towards their wedding costs from their parents and paying for the wedding dress is entirely appropriate.

But then I'm the Baby Boomer generation myself and quite definitely middle-aged by anyone's definition and we knew that ALL our wedding costs would be paid for by our parents if we were girls. My parents and I never discussed it - but I certainly assumed at the time I was in the "marrying age group" that they had enough savings set to one side to cover the cost of a reasonable wedding for myself if I had ever got married. Its never been discussed subsequently - but I think they almost certainly did have the money set aside for that and only subsequently used it in other ways once they and I could both see that marriage didnt look very likely for me. Its true that my generation didnt have such expensive weddings as the current one does - so it would be expecting a lot to expect the £20k average that people spend on weddings these days from ones parents - but mine would have been a lot more modest than that if it had happened.

So - if a dress is all the mother paid for - then she probably wasnt covering very much and its no big deal for a parent to pay for it - unless its one of the £5,000+ dresses. For a standard type wedding dress - which I think is £500-£1,000 mark? - then thats totally fair enough for her to have paid for that for her daughter and certainly what I would have taken it for granted I would have done in her position. Personally - if I'd been in mothers position - I would have gone in with my credit card and told daughter "I can cover the cost up to £2,000 of the dress - if you want anything dearer then would you mind covering the difference yourself?".

coolcait

Ceridwen, don't let having a rant about the OP's mother blind you to a couple of facts:

- it's not the OP's 'wedding dress'. It's the dress she wore when she renewed her vows, six years after she got married;

- a lot of 'wedding traditions' have changed since you and I were younger. More people are getting married more than once. Daughters are attending their mums' weddings. Most brides still wear white, whether they are virgins or not. More couples pay for their own wedding, especially those who have already moved out of their parents' home.

- in fact, the whole idea of 'renewing your vows' is a fairly new idea.