Father Asks If He Was Wrong Not To Drive Daughter To Wedding Due To Her Outfit

Nov 23, 2021

Weddings are usually one of the most special days in someone's life, but the pressure of wanting everything to go just perfectly can put a lot of stress on the situation and lead to drama, especially within one's own family.

And although it's less common for guests at a wedding to feel any tension or drama, it's not impossible, especially if it's a wedding of someone you are close to, like a relative.

One father felt tension among his own family when he and his family were set to attend the wedding of his niece/goddaughter. The tension arose between him and his daughter and it pertained to her choice of outfit. Eventually, the matriarch of the family was drawn into the drama, and in the end, the daughter didn't end up going to the wedding at all.

Told by his wife and daughter that he was to blame for the girl missing the wedding, the man wrote into Reddit's "AITA" subreddit to ask others what they thought. Netizens sided with the father and said that he wasn't in the wrong in the situation.

The father stated that he and his wife have three daughters aged 19, 24 and 28. Jill is the youngest and the only one who still lives at home with them, as she attends a community college nearby. 

On the morning of the wedding, which was the man's niece/goddaughter's wedding, Jill had taken her time getting ready as "she had been out late the night before with friends and [he's] sure she was feeling the effects of that."

Finally, the teen was dressed and ready, but the father found her choice of attire, which consisted of a "black, spaghetti strap halter-top thing with leggings" inappropriate. He told her so and asked her to change into something else. Jill told him that she didn't have anything else to wear and that he doesn't "get to police what she's wearing." 

The dad told her she hadn't been prepared as the floor full of clothes suggested she did have other options and that "it was disrespectful to her cousin, the bride, to wear something [so] revealing and tacky to their wedding."

Jill called her father a "jerk" and said that "if people focus on her clothes more than the bride, that's their problem, not hers. He answered, "in that case, how she is getting to the wedding is her problem, not [his]." He clarified that as long as she stayed wearing what she had on, she couldn't ride in his car and would have to find her own way to the wedding since he didn't wish to arrive with his "daughter looking like she is about to hit a club at 2am instead of attend her cousin's wedding."

He continued, "My wife chimed in at this point and told us both to calm down." She agreed Jill's outfit was inappropriate and offered to help her daughter find something better suited, as the wedding was a semi-formal event that required men in suits and women in dresses.

Jill “scoffed” at that and “went to her room and closed the door.” The father knocked and told her she had 15 minutes to get ready or her parents would leave without her. Jill yelled at her dad and called him an “a**hole.” 

The dad went outside and returned after 20 minutes and Jill hadn’t left her room. So he told his wife that she could leave with him or find her own way there with Jill. His wife “asked what Jill is supposed to do” and the man said “she can take an Uber for all I care at this point.” He ended his post and said:

“My wife reluctantly left with me and I could tell she felt guilty about the whole thing. Jill ended up not coming to the wedding and both her and my wife blame me for it. I don't think I was the asshole here though.”

Reddit users overwhelmingly agreed with the father that he was not in the wrong in the situation. Although some believed he should have let his wife handle the situation with a bit more tact, there were very few users who defended the daughter's actions. One user wrote:

"I put this in a similar category as if your daughter had decided to wear a white dress to the wedding. Yeah there's no law preventing it but that doesn't mean you have to assist in her decisions.

And if she's big enough to decide what she wants to wear she's big enough to call an Uber."

Meanwhile, another person thinks the daughter might have planned it all along. They wrote:

"Script flip: She was too partied out to care about going to the wedding. You did her a favor by not taking her because 1) she didn’t want to go 2) she doesn’t have to be the asshole that didn’t want to go-she gets to blame you. It’s time for a conversation about priorities."

What do you think — who was in the wrong here, the father or the daughter? Let us know and pass this on so others can weigh in too.