Mom Forces Daughter to Pay $1,000 for 'Ugly' Bridesmaid Dress

A mom on Reddit is making her daughter pay for an expensive bridesmaid dress after she backed out of her sister's wedding last minute.

"I have a daughter, Emma (16F), who was supposed to be a bridesmaid in her older sister’s wedding. My oldest wasn’t planning to have Emma in the wedding party," she revealed in her post.

"It was Emma who really wanted to be a bridesmaid because she was excited and wanted to be involved. My oldest agreed to include her, even though it meant extra costs and adjustments," the woman continued.

She said that she agreed to pay for Emma's dress, shoes and fittings for the wedding, which were about $1,000 each.

"The wedding is in a month Emma suddenly changed her mind. She [is] refusing to wear the dress since she thinks it is ugly, saying it is unflattering on her," the mom shared.

"She said she felt uncomfortable, wasn’t close to the other bridesmaids, and didn’t want to participate anymore. I reminded her that she had been the one pushing to be a part of the wedding, but she was firm and backed out," she went on.

She explained that the dress cannot be returned, so she is making Emma pay her back the $1,000.

"Emma is upset and says it’s unfair, claiming we’re punishing her for not wanting to do something she wasn’t comfortable with anymore. Multiple family members think I am too harsh," she said.

Many commenters backed up the mother's decision to make Emma repay the money.

"Frankly how she feels about the dress doesn't matter. The wedding is about the bride and the bride picked the same dress for all the bridesmaids and didn't even want Emma there. Emma pushed for this so she should either suck it up and wear the dress or she should take responsibility for her decisions and pay back the cost of the dress," one person wrote.

"She's not being punished, she is just having to face the real world consequences of changing her mind. Making her pay back the money is the right course of action for a 16 y/o to learn from," someone else agreed.

However, some people wondered if there was more to the story that Emma didn't share with her mom.

"Did you dig deeper into 'all of a sudden Emma changed her mind?' I suspect older sister or a bridesmaid said something to her and was mean," one person suggested.

"There's so much missing here about how she came to any of these decisions and what you as parents did to explain the choices to her, that we can't honestly say of it's fair or not to make her pay for it," another person said.