People may have different ideas about how to commemorate people close to them when it comes to certain precious things that belonged to them. Some things might seem in need of a certain transformation and revival, while others might seem to keep their special significance by being kept in exactly the shape they are in.

Finally, sometimes the question of who has a final say on the matter needs to be addressed, as well. At least these seemed to have been the aspects relevant to this Redditor’s decision to keep his late wife’s wedding dress in one piece, rather than getting it cut up to make it suitable for his daughter.

More info: Reddit

A man’s daughter accused him of ‘gatekeeping’ his late wife’s wedding dress, as he refused to allow cutting it

Image credits: Dmitry Schemeley (not the actual photo)

The man shared that his wife passed away two years ago

Image credit: u/Potential-Junket-193

Image credits: Oana Lupescu (not the actual photo)

Image credit: u/Potential-Junket-193

The man’s daughter asked to size her mom’s wedding dress up so she can wear it for her own wedding

Image credits: Gustavo Fring (not the actual photo)

The man found that they needed to cut the dress up in order to size it up significantly and refused to consent to it

A man brought it to the Reddit AITA community online after his disagreement with his daughter and asked people online if he was the jerk for refusing to cut his late wife’s wedding dress.

The man shared that his wife passed away two years ago. And since his daughter’s wedding is planned for 2025, she asked her father if she can wear her late mother’s wedding dress. The dress is of a significantly smaller size than the daughter wears, yet she explained to her father that she wished to size it up.

The man looked into it and found that sizing up the dress meant cutting it up. The man refused to allow cutting his late wife’s wedding dress and let his daughter know she wouldn’t be able to wear it for her wedding. 

The man offered his daughter some of her mother’s jewelry, yet his daughter accused him of gatekeeping his wife’s things and hung up on him. The man explained his daughter thinks he is a jerk in addition to his sons being on him to give up the dress.

The man added that he didn’t think his wife would have liked the idea of cutting up her wedding dress.

The man suggested his daughter wear some of her mother’s jewelry

Image credits: Daniel Moises Magulado (not the actual photo)

The man’s daughter accused him of ‘gatekeeping’ the dress and hung up while his sons were also pressuring him to give it up

The man’s post gathered 15.6k upvotes on Reddit in just 6 days and people judged the man wasn’t a jerk in this situation.

The man confirmed that cutting the dress up for him would feel like cutting up a memory or a keepsake, and commenters agreed these to be valid reasons, noting that he has time to process it, in case his stance changes over time.

FlossieOnyx added that she thought it was an okay line to draw, emphasizing that the man’s wife wore the dress in its current state when she married HIM, and for this reason, it is precious to him in the state it is currently in, and not altered.

SilasRhodes similarly noted that while the mother is important to both the man and his daughter, the wedding was particularly important to the OP.

They elaborated that for the OP, the dress is a reminder of a specific important memory with his wife, therefore symbolically the dress has a stronger connection to the OP’s relationship with his wife than to the daughter’s relationship with her mother.

The suggestion brought up by commenters brings us to the point that going deeper into each person’s relation to a specific memento – an object kept as a reminder of a person or event – that in this case was inherited might be supported by M. Mauss’s idea to discuss the gift as a transfer that is based on a relationship between giver and receiver.

This approach was listed by J. J. Goodnow and J. A. Lawrence among crucial studies on inheriting and gift-giving in their book Inheriting As People Think It Should Be – From Money To Mementos.

Similarly, in their overview, scholars brought up an even more relevant approach for the OP’s issue, which is I. Koputoff’s suggestion that analyzing the significance of things requires considering “their lines of movement or transfer: their cultural biography.”

These, in this case, are two aspects that commenters took into consideration as they discussed the history of the wedding dress and the dress’s connection to both relationships – that is, the mother-daughter and wife-husband relationship. As a reminder and part of the wedding, it has a stronger connection to the man, and therefore he gets the final say, in case he wants to keep the dress unaltered or in one piece.

What’s your take on the situation? Please, share your thoughts in the comment section below!

Redditors backed the man, noting that symbolically, the dress has a stronger connection to the man as part of the couple’s wedding

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