Kate Hackett
I swear — weddings are one giant excuse for people to be cruel to their loved ones.
Redditor u/kjally76 had to have known how hard Reddit would come down on her for asking her sister to change her hair, but she posted to the sub anyway. She asked AITA “for asking my (25f) sister (20f) to fix her overgrown/two-toned hair before my wedding?”
She starts by explaining that she’s getting married soon and her sisters are her maids of honor.
My (26f) wedding is in 3 months. Both of my sisters (Sadie 29f, Olivia 20f) are my MOH’s. My wedding is going to be elegant and big, as groom and I have a lot of friends/family and we’ve always dreamt of an extravagant wedding.
Their relationships are all good, but her younger sister has “been difficult”.
I have a good relationship with both sisters, however my younger sister, Olivia, has made the process a bit difficult as a bridesmaid. I chose a light dusty pink for the color of the bridesmaid dresses and let the girls pick what style they wanted.
Olivia, the sister, said the color picked is going to be tough with her complexion so OP suggested a spray tan. As a redhead, already an asshole to me.
Immediately, Olivia says she’s going to feel insecure as she’s so pale and the dress will make her look red. I suggested a spray tan, as the color of the dresses had already been set in stone to match the rest of my wedding but she said absolutely not (fair).
I didn’t hear anything else about the dresses, but now I’m in a predicament with her again and I’m not sure if I’ve made a mistake for making such a big deal of this.
Now she’s got Olivia’s hair, which has evidently undergone some processing and now Olivia is growing it out. There is no blend, so it’s just a straight line of blonde v. brown.
Olivia regularly highlighted her dark brown hair with blonde for years, but decided about a year ago to grow it out and let it get healthy, meaning no dye. A month or so in, her hair didn’t look terrible, more like a balayage, but now we’re around the year mark and her roots are straight up brown and there’s a straight line, no blending, of blonde for the last 8 inches of her hair.
Olivia wants to wear her hair down, but OP is worried about the pictures (eye roll).
Olivia has insisted she has her hair down during the wedding, however I don’t want her roots and hair on full display during pictures, ceremony and throughout the night. I love my sister and respect what she wants to do with her hair, however, her hair is an eyesore and I’ve never seen anyone let their hair look like this for this long.
OP did offer to pay for anything Olivia wanted as long as it was blended a little. Olivia, however, does not want to subject her hair to more processing.
I told her I would pay for anything she wanted done to it, as long as her roots were at least a BIT blended for the wedding. She says that she doesn’t want to put anymore chemicals on it and is leaving it and I won’t change her mind.
Instead of dropping it, OP talked to their hairdresser (WHAT) for options.
I told my hair dresser about Olivia’s POV (we go to the same hairdresser) and she told me that there are plenty of things she can do for her that can make her hair look blended and still be healthy. Olivia still refuses, despite me offering to pay and telling her our hairdresser said she could make subtle changes and preserve her hair.
I should add that her hair is NOT breaking or fried, she simply wanted a break from dying it to get it as healthy as she could and to grow it out.
OP reiterates her point: the pictures won’t look good! And wants to know if she’s a jerk.
This day is one of the most important in my life and having someone in my wedding party with unkept roots is something I don’t want. I’m not asking her to cut it or change the color, just blend/transition the colors. She’s irritated because my other sister and mother have told her that she should change it for the sake of not ruining pictures.
AITA here?
ETA- I am overwhelmed with responses (mostly YTA votes🙃) and I want to add a couple of things.
OP edited to add that her sister doesn’t want to wear her hair up for personal reasons, not medical.
My sister doesn’t want her hair up because she doesn’t like how it looks up. People are inventing medical reasons that simply do not apply to her. She doesn’t like her hair up, that’s her reasoning.
Her dress color WAS made a big deal of until I suggest she can get a spray tan, because I’m not changing the colors of my wedding this close to it. I don’t have enough characters to add in every detail of this fiasco, but it IS dropped now.
She also notes that the dress color is no longer a problem and that photoshop is not an option since her sister will be in so many pictures.
Photoshop is a great solution except she’ll be in every picture of the wedding party. That is so time consuming for the photographer that it isn’t realistic.
OP reiterates that she IS looking for compromises but her sister just isn’t willing to try.
I don’t expect her to dye her hair completely and put bleach on it again, I just asked her to let our stylist do ANYTHING she can to blend the roots. Stylist said she could easily do a gloss with NON permanent dye and then a hair treatment to ensure her hair is still healthy. Sister won’t go for it still (and to answer the question, no, sister does not get her hair trimmed. She is trying to grow it while still not taking the right steps to do so).
I feel like I’m out of options as everything I’ve suggested to compromise with her, she says no. It’s a big deal to me that her hair doesn’t look like a Halloween costume while I’m spending so much time and money for this event.
A stern reminder came from a reader, “YTA. Nobody cares about this except you. The guests don’t care if a bridesmaid has two-toned hair. The wedding pictures will end up in an album that sits out and gets glanced through every couple of years (maybe), or hanging in dusty frames in various family homes. If it’s a big wedding, by your 10th anniversary you won’t even remember the names of all your guests or why they were invited.”
Another person, however, believed OP was NOT the asshole:
“Of course she’s an AH. She tried to tell a bridesmaid what to wear and how to wear her hair, something brides have been doing since they started having bridesmaids. She asked a stylist about nonpermanent, healthy options for toning down two-toned hair. Her sister would not consider any of them or consider wearing her hair up. She also hates the color of the dress. This is a very deliberate FU from her sister for choosing a shade of pink she doesn’t like. Everyone is quick to jump down OP’s throat for valuing her wedding photos more than her wedding. When did she say that? She’s paying a lot of money for a big event; she values EVERYTHING. There is absolutely nothing wrong with worrying about a sister with striped hair starting 8 inches down looking silly at your wedding and in your pictures. I’m sure it’s not the most important thing about the wedding; it’s just the one thing she contacted reddit about. So calm the F down, people. Talk about narcissism.”
