A non-binary teenager was at a loss as to what to wear to a family wedding as the dress code was limited to a dress or a suit, depending on their gender. The teenager asked Reddit whether it was wrong to try and compromise the dress code while remaining true to themselves.
The 16-year-old identifies as “genderfluid,” and they recently attended a close relative’s wedding. The teenager was just a guest and not part of the bridal party.
The bride had confirmed the dress code on the invite, which said, “dresses for women and something formal for the men.”
“I am AFAB, so I was told I would have to wear a dress. However, I don’t identify as a woman, so I wasn’t comfortable with this and asked for a potential compromise on my outfit. [The bride] insisted that I wore a dress,” the teenager said.
So when the family discussed their wedding outfits, the teenager’s parents asked if they had found anything suitable. “I sent them a link to a romper that looks very much like a dress at first glance. It’s genuinely not noticeable unless you look closely at the bottom part, which is not a skirt,” the teenager said.
When the romper arrived, it looked fine, so they wore it to the wedding. For the first part, everything seemed okay until the teenager was “pulled along too hard by a kid and end up tripping and falling face first sprawled out on the floor.”
As everyone nearby gathered around to see what had happened, the bride noticed that the bottom part of the teenager’s outfit was, in fact, shorts and not a skirt.
“She got very angry and started screaming that she had made it very clear I needed to wear a dress and that I was being selfish by going against her wishes on her special day. I’m pretty sensitive and also hate loud noises as I’m autistic, so I start crying because the mix of pain from scraping my leg and her loud voice yelling is enough to overstimulate me pretty badly,” the teenager said.
A cousin led them away to treat their wound while the bride stormed off, still fuming. The bride “didn’t speak to us for the rest of the night until we eventually left at the end of the wedding,” they said.
Although the teenager was reassured by some family members that they didn’t do anything wrong, they are still hung up over it and wonder if it was bad of them to wear the romper.
The teenager said that not attending the wedding wasn’t an option as the bride was marrying a close family member. “I was pretty much expected to be there, and my parents said that I needed to come as well,” they said.
So the teenager reached out to the Reddit community to ask if they were wrong in not wearing a dress for the wedding, but Reddit agreed with their decision.
One user said, “NTA. Dress codes for non-wedding party members are usually for a level of formality, not a prescription for a particular article of clothing. If you can’t even tell the outfit isn’t up to code without a trip & fall accident (I hope you’re okay!), I can’t see what the problem would be.”
Another noted, “You chose a great-looking outfit that made you feel comfortable and suited the occasion; her reaction was mean, unreasonable, and wildly excessive, so don’t you worry, firmly NTA.”
What do you think? Was it okay for the teenager to wear a romper instead of a dress?
Source: Reddit
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