"Totally Not Appropriate For A Wedding": TikToker Faces Backlash Over A Wedding Guest Dress, Netizens Say It’s “Basically White”

At the wedding, the bride is the center of attention. Usually she is the most dressed-up person, and to make her stand out even more, people don’t usually wear white if the bride’s dress is the traditional white one.

But people think that even if a wedding guest is not wearing white, but something similar to it, like a light pastel, it is also inappropriate, as was evident from their reactions to a woman showing a sage green dress and describing it as “quite possibly the most beautiful wedding guest dress ever.”

More info: TikTok

"So just to prove to the internet that I know what my colors are, this is a white top and this is the dress–it's clearly green. Personally, if someone wore it at my wedding I'd be saying how beautiful they are and can I borrow it. But of course everyone has their own opinions."

The woman who posted the video is Lauren Candy, a content creator from Bristol who shares everything that has to do with lifestyle, fashion and beauty. She has over 260k followers on TikTok and nearly 130k followers on Instagram.

Quite often she uploads fashion hauls and she recently started demonstrating more spring fashion. When the weather gets warmer, usually, the wedding season starts, so to help out her followers who are looking for what to wear, she shared a find that she thought was perfect.

It is a long dress that covers her ankles with ruffles and floral embroidery from ASOS DESIGN. On the website, they specify that the color is sage green, although looking at the pictures, the hue of green is very faint.

This is exactly how the dress came across in Lauren’s video as well and people lost their minds a bit, because some of them disagreed that it was suited for wedding guest attire as it is too light and can be confused with white.

The interesting thing about it is that the dress is actually intended as a bridesmaid dress, as on the ASOS website the name of the item is “Bridesmaid cami embellished midi dress with embroidery in sage green.”

The dress does seem quite light but in the comments, Lauren explained that she had a filter on and in real life, the dress was clearly green. To prove her point, the TikToker uploaded another video and compared the dress to a top that was clearly white, highlighting the green color of the dress.

Then people argued that regardless of how the dress looks in real life, if it seems so light on camera, it would be disrespectful to wear because it would look too similar to white in pictures. Others argued that wedding dresses don’t usually have floral embroidery, so it would be fine.

Another thing to consider is how color comes through your phone or computer screen, because there were people who said the color was clearly green, while others saw a muted tone of white, and when that’s the case, you can blame the person’s eyes or the screen distorting the real color.

When Lauren posted the color comparison video, people couldn’t argue that the dress was not green, so they started a different debate on whether it’s appropriate to wear any light colors to a wedding in case it washes out into white in pictures.

While a bunch of people were arguing about what is appropriate to wear to a wedding, others were opposed to color requirements for wedding guests in general. But it’s a dress code and just like it is not appropriate to wear a bikini at the office, but at the beach it is the only thing people wear, weddings usually have an unwritten rule of not wearing white.

Wedding Wire says that not only should you not wear white, but also shades of it like ivory, off-white, cream, eggshell, vanilla, bone etc. You should also think twice before choosing something champagne or gold if you don’t know what exactly the bride will be wearing, because it is becoming more popular to wear gowns leaning towards white.

They also touch upon pastel colors like the sage green dress Lauren suggested for a guest outfit: “Usually pastel hues are considered not only appropriate but encouraged in guest attire, particularly for spring events. However, we’ve seen one too many wedding guest dresses in barely-there pastel hues that end up looking white or ivory in photos—not cool.”

That is why it would be smart to photograph your outfit in sunlight and check how it will look in photos and then decide if it’s too close to being white. Some people in the comments of the TikTok said that if there is doubt, better be safe than sorry and choose another dress.

Other questionable choices according to Wedding Wire are beaded, sparkly or metallic dresses because coming to a wedding so bedazzled might be taken as a try to steal the spotlight. The same goes for neon colors.

Another thing to consider is to ask what color the bridesmaids will be wearing so you won't look like you wanted to be one when you’re not. Great advice is to look at the wedding invitation color palette as it might give you a hint.

A wedding is a joyous occasion and it is understandable that the guests want to look their best too, but it’s more than likely they can achieve it without wearing white or anything too extravagant just to make the bride feel like she is the gem of the event.

Do you think pastels should be included in the list of forbidden colors for a wedding? Do you think it’s too much effort to make sure that your outfit doesn’t look white in photos? Would you wear the dress that Lauren considered to be perfect for such a celebration? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.