A wedding dress is almost like a sacred thing. It’s associated with so many positive memories. And the odds are that you spent a pretty penny on it, as the average wedding dress can cost thousands of dollars. So, it would hurt for you to see anyone damage such an expensive, sentimental garment.

One anonymous woman asked the popular AITAH online community for some impartial advice about a particularly tense situation in her family. The author shared how her sister, who is getting married soon, wants to borrow and drastically alter her dress. Bored Panda has reached out to the author for further comment, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from her.

Wedding dresses often hold a lot of sentimental value. Not to mention that many brides spent a lot of money on them

Image credits: Rewan Ahmed / pexels (not the actual photo)

A woman shared how she and her sister had a falling out over her wanting to borrow and alter her wedding dress to save some cash

Image credits: SHVETS production / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Liza Summer / pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Budget-Jaguar-1990

The average wedding dress costs a lot, but there are lots of ways to save cash if you’re creative and patient enough

WeddingWire notes that the average cost of a wedding dress in the United States is around $1,000, typically ranging from $280 to $1,650. Naturally, you can find dresses for way less and far more money, too. It all depends on your budget, financial goals, the idea behind your wedding, and thriftiness.

A good rule of thumb is that the simpler a dress is, the cheaper it will be. The more elaborate the design, the more it’ll hurt your wallet.

Expensive fabric with lots of fine details is, well, expensive. Other things that add to the cost of the dress include alterations, accessories, undergarments, as well as cleaning and preservation after your Big Day.

However, a study conducted by The Knot found that the average dress in 2023 cost far more, standing at around $2,000. Around a fifth of brides went with custom-made (and thus more expensive) dresses.

Of course, there are ways to get around the dilemma that the author and her sister are in without leading to massive fractures in the family. If the primary motivation for asking to borrow the dress is financial, well, there are lots of options to save money.

For one, there are tons of thrift shops and discount wedding dress stores out there. With a bit of patience, some good recommendations, and a dash of creativity, you can definitely find some wedding garb that suits you. Besides, if you plan on drastically altering the dress in the first place, then you don’t necessarily need to use someone else’s sentimental piece of clothing for that little project.

If you absolutely must have a super expensive dress to alter and aren’t willing to look for any compromises, then you can always ask your family members for some money. Your older relatives are likely to be happy to pitch in to make your Big Day even grander.

Alternatively, if their own budgets are way too tight to lend you a hand, you can always look for some other areas of your wedding where you could cut back to finance your dress.

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Maybe you can save a few hundred doubloons on the decor if you go for different flowers and bunting. Maybe you decide to go for a slightly cheaper caterer. Maybe you don’t need five wedding photographers to document every single second of the ceremony and reception. There are endless trade-offs to consider here.

Being someone’s family member means respecting their boundaries, not just making demands

Image credits: Kaboompics.com / pexels (not the actual photo)

It’s a tough call on what to do because a lot is riding on this one dilemma. Broadly speaking, whatever the author chooses, whether to honor her boundaries or give in to the demands, is bound to affect her future relationship with her sister very much. No matter what that decision is, there are bound to be consequences. And that’s a ton of pressure.

On the one hand, the wedding dress is the author’s property, and she can do with it whatever she likes. She paid a lot of money for it. Not only that but the dress clearly has sentimental value, so she doesn’t want it to be drastically altered like her sister proposed, involving shortening and dyeing it.

There’s also the social aspect to consider. It’s not a great feeling when you’ve clearly laid out your boundaries, yet the people close to you keep pressuring you to change your mind. Relenting and giving up on those boundaries might feel like betraying yourself a bit. And it’s not a good feeling when your relatives try to manipulate you emotionally.

On the other hand (playing devil’s advocate here a bit), on an objective, cosmic scale, a dress is just a piece of clothing. At the end of the day, what truly makes us happy are the positive relationships we develop in life, not how many possessions we have. While keeping some sentimental items will remind you of the good old days, if these things aren’t used and only collect dust in the closet, are they really all that valuable?

No dress, however stylish, is worth missing a sibling’s wedding over. But this idea is a two-way street. The younger sister is mulling the possibility of not inviting the author to her wedding unless she ‘shows her support.’ Uninviting someone because they tell you ‘no’ isn’t fair. Real love means respecting each other’s boundaries, not just making sacrifices for each other all the time.

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What would you personally do if you were in the author’s situation, dear Pandas? Would you continue enforcing your healthy boundaries or would you give up the dress so you could attend the wedding? Have you ever had anyone make unreasonable demands of you in the run-up to their wedding? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Most internet users were very supportive of the author standing up for herself. Here’s the advice they gave her

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However, a few readers shared some less-than-popular insights. Here’s their interpretation of what happened

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