To the uninitiated, sure wedding planning sounds complicated, but it’s hard to imagine just how many conflicts and emotions go into the process until you’ve experienced it for yourself.

There’s so many things to think about, so many people to try to accommodate, and so much that could go wrong.

And when handled carelessly, someone will likely end up getting hurt.

The bride in this story was trying to plan her wedding in a cost-effective manner, and was largely succeeding.

But then she made a decision – one that would hurt her relationship with her mother and lead to a significant setback.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for wearing my mother-in-law’s old wedding dress instead of my own mother’s?

I (a 28-year-old woman), am getting married to my fiancé (29, male), in March.

When we first got engaged, my fiancé and I decided that we would pay for the wedding completely.

Since I wanted to save some money, I decided to wear a second hand wedding dress.

I was having a lot of trouble finding a wedding dress that I wanted to wear in my price range, so I decided to wear my mother’s old wedding dress.

But over time, her plants started to change.

On a phone call, my fiancé mentioned to his mother that I had struggled to find a dress, she suggested that I take a look at her old one.

I didn’t take the suggestion seriously at first, but decided that I should take a look anyways.

The dress was absolutely gorgeous. My fiancé’s family have a significant amount of money, and the dress perfectly fits the whole “old money wedding” aesthetic, it’s also excellent quality and was probably very expensive to buy.

My future mother-in-law insisted I take the dress for free, since she’s never going to use it again.

That decision, though, was the start of a whole lot of drama.

I was ecstatic and immediately called my mom to share the good news. I expected her to be happy that I had found a beautiful dress while also saving money.

Instead, she was furious.

She feels insulted that I chose my future mother-in-law’s dress over hers, and accused me of using her dress as a “backup” until I found something better.

She’s upset that I would allow my mother-in-law to provide such a sentimental and important item, rather than having it come from her.

Read on to find out how everyone was feeling in the aftermath.

It was never my intention to offend my mother in any way, I simply fell in love with my future mother-in-law’s dress.

My dad thinks it would make everyone’s lives easier if I simply apologize to my mom and wear her dress.

I’m also now worried that my mother may try to retaliate in some way, and I certainly don’t want to ruin the friendship that she has with my future mother-in-law.

AITA?

Sure, the bride could have been a little more tactful with her mom when it came to announcing that she’d be wearing her mother-in-law’s dress instead.

But the way her mom is behaving isn’t great either – though it’s quite understandable that she’s hurt when her dress has been passed over for a rich woman’s one instead.

However, her daughter is over the moon with the dress, and she’s received it for free too. She should absolutely wear the dress.

Let’s see how the Reddit community responded to this.

This person thought that she wasn’t wrong for wanting to wear the other dress, but that she could have handled things better with her mom.

And this person explained that her mom might feel rejected and shown up.

Meanwhile, this Redditor empathised with all parties, and suggested a compromise.

It’s clear that this bride is excited for her wedding, and she will (hopefully) only get married once, so it’s absolutely the case that she should wear the dress that makes her feel happiest.

But at the same time, her mom’s feelings are hurt. She was probably honored that her daughter wanted to wear her dress, and excited about the connection it would create between them.

So to have her dress passed over in favor of a wealthier woman’s dress must feel quite painful, and might even make her feel like from this point, she could always be second best.

And no one wants to feel like that.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.