Most people know there’s one wedding rule you simply don’t break unless you want everyone talking about you afterward.

These newlyweds already held a small legal ceremony weeks earlier and planned a larger celebration later with friends and family. The invite explained that the couple would exchange vows again during the event, so everyone treated it exactly like a normal wedding celebration.

Everyone, apparently, except one guest.

Right before the vows started, one of the groom’s friends arrived with his newer girlfriend, who walked into the venue wearing a white silk dress that looked far too close to bridal attire.

And somehow, things only got worse after people asked her about it.

Read on to see how it all played out.

Plus one wore a white dress because “it wasn’t a real wedding”

Two of my very good friends got married last autumn.

They had their legal ceremony around four weeks before their wedding celebration. The legal wedding was just the bride and groom’s parents, while the celebration was friends and family.

There was no ‘ceremony’ portion of the day, but before food and the party aspect. It was confirmed on the invite that the couple would re-exchange their vows in front of their guests.

Then, the woman walked in.

Come the day of the wedding, everyone was arriving and milling around before the vow exchange was due to start.

Around 5 minutes before the beginning, when most people had sat down, a couple walked in. I recognized the man as one of the groom’s friends, but not the woman. She was, I’d come to find out, the relatively new girlfriend of the friend (started dating 6 months or so before the celebration).

She was wearing a pure white halter-neck silk dress. Everyone else (female) was wearing standard day wedding guest attire: midi/maxi dresses, some florals or seasonal prints, a couple of jumpsuits or matching pantsuits. This woman stuck out like a sore thumb.

After a few drinks, people started asking her questions.

After the vow exchange, a couple of the groom’s friends asked the friend what his girlfriend was thinking. He supposedly said words to the effect of, “I said this would happen but she didn’t want to hear it,” before slinking off to the bar.

A few drinks later for everyone involved, I gather that someone asked the girlfriend directly why she was wearing what surely was some version of a wedding dress in itself.

The girlfriend, assuming for some misguided reason that she was being praised, and said that since it “wasn’t a real wedding,” it was fair game to wear the dress, and “perhaps it would give [boyfriend] a clue on what they should be doing soon” (the boyfriend, upon being told this, immediately ordered and sunk a double whisky).

The family planned some revenge.

It goes without saying that the bride was wearing white – a lovely white summer dress that made her look beautiful.

I gather from the side of both families that it was suggested and nearly actioned that someone do the classic ‘spill red wine on the guest’s dress,’ but the bride intervened and said that it would only give her chance to bring more attention on herself.

The only other defense brought by the girlfriend after the fact was that the invite didn’t say that white was a banned color.

Other couples are being more specific on their invitations.

Yes, it didn’t, but we were all English. In England, at a religious English wedding, there are no blurred lines concerning culture and significant colors that she didn’t know about beforehand.

I know that for at least one wedding happening this year, the engaged couple have had a wedding invite mocked up especially for the friend and girlfriend.

In said invitation, there’s a photo of the dress she wore to this wedding with a big red cross through it. There was also text accompanying to say that if [girlfriend] thinks to wear this again, they won’t even make it through the front door of the venue.

Wow! That woman had a lot of nerve.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who treat every social outing like a weird competition.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit feel about what she did.

It sounds like it won’t last much longer.

The guy should’ve thought it through.

This person isn’t wrong.

For this reader, weddings should have bouncers.

This woman knew exactly what she was doing.

Nobody accidentally wears a white silk dress to a wedding in England and then doubles down by claiming it “wasn’t a real wedding” because the legal ceremony already happened weeks earlier.

And the comment about hoping the dress would “give her boyfriend a clue” probably explains the whole thing better than anything else.

She wanted attention, and she definitely got it.