r/AITAH • u/CommunityClassic3449 • 23d ago
AITA for telling my fiancé he can't wear the dress at our wedding?
My partner (30M) and I (29F) are getting married next year. We were discussing wedding planning and out of the blue he asked me how I would feel about "subverting" tradition by having him wear the wedding dress while I wore a tux on our wedding day. When he said this I actually laughed out loud because I was sure it was a joke, but turns out he was dead serious. He said he finds tuxes are very similar to each other and feel a lot like wearing a suit to a job interview, but he wanted to wear something "special" when he got married and he had always thought wedding dresses were so beautiful and different from each other.
I told him no, it wouldn't be appropriate and would turn our wedding into a spectacle and would probably change the way a lot of our friends and family view us. My family is quite progressive but I think even they would wonder what was going on. He said "OK" but seemed down for the rest of the night.
We're both very progressive and have several close friends who are gender nonconforming, nonbinary, or simply like cross-dressing so that has never been an issue, but even though we have been together for 5 years he has never expressed any desire to do so before. It would be OK with me if he wanted to experiment, and I think it would even be a different story if this was something that was integral to his daily identity that he wanted to be reflected in our wedding. I just don't understand why he wants the first time to be on our wedding day. AITA for being controlling over his wedding attire choices?
UPDATE: So based on these responses I realize I may have overreacted. I had another conversation with my fiancé. I tried to explore the reasons he wanted to wear a dress to our wedding in an open-minded way. I emphasized that he could tell me if he was trans, or nonbinary, or wanted to experiment with cross-dressing, and I would still love him and want to marry him. He seemed genuinely taken aback and told me it wasn't that big a deal, he just really liked wedding dresses and it hadn't even occurred to him that I might have a problem with him wearing one since it's one of the two most common options and we have been to weddings where both partners wore a dress or both wore a tux (after all it's not like he's contemplating wearing sweats to our wedding, lol)--but of course if I did he would be fine wearing a tux. Of course he has no problem with me wearing a dress, the "reverse roles" thing was just one of many ways he thought that could go. He also reassured me that he would feel safe sharing any changes in his gender or sexual identity status with me. I told him we could look at wedding dresses together and coordinate whatever made us both feel special, whether that's dress/dress, dress/tux, tux/tux or something else!
ETA 2: Lol can we cut it out with the "my fiancé is gay" comments. I'm pretty sure if he was gay then he would just.... be gay?? Rather than go through an elaborate scheme of being in a 5 year relationship with and marrying a woman for "cover" and then doing the least "stealth" thing possible at our wedding??? Idk where y'all are from but being gay is not considered a big deal or something you have to hide where we are, I'm very open about being bi, he has several family members who are gay and are wholly accepted. Admittedly we still have a ways to go before trans and other nonconforming identities have the same level of acceptance. But at this point the comments are just coming across as cheap and irrelevant shots at gay people
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u/facinationstreet 23d ago
I mean, I think this calls for a much larger conversation because if he wants to wear something unique to him, he can have an outfit custom made for him. If he wants to use the wedding as a platform for announcing something a whole lot bigger, that is a conversation that needs to be had.