Bride Loved Mom’s Mother-Of-The-Bride Dress. The Internet Did Not
Beverly Norberg tried on 30 mother-of-the-bride dresses before she found “the one.”
“My husband and son were with me in New York, and their faces lit up when they saw me,” Norberg, 55, tells TODAY.com.
Bride Sydney Marie Slavens, 28, had the same reaction when her mom FaceTimed from the fitting room of Manhattan’s Flora on Madison. Not only did Norberg look beautiful, but the blue taffeta ball gown featuring a drop-waist and embroidered flowers, checked all of Slavens’s boxes.
“I’m all about texture,” Slavens, a wedding photographer in Orlando, Florida, tells TODAY.com, noting that she wanted Norberg to stand out. She also liked that Norberg would be her something blue without being too obvious. And Slavens knew Norberg’s look would photograph well next to her Ines Di Santo silk dress
But of course, the internet had thoughts. After Slavens shared footage from her nuptials on social media, Norberg was accused of trying to upstage her daughter on her special day.
“People got cruel to the point where I stopped looking,” Norberg says.
“I deleted one of the videos because it got to be too much,” Slavens adds.
Reactions included:
- “Was confused at first? 2 brides? I think mom’s gown is a wedding dress. Why though?”
- “It’s gorgeous. But too much. The bride should have the only wow dress. Mom looks like she’s getting married or going to prom.”
- “If my mom wore that I’d be scared she’d outshine me!”
- “i thought the mom was the bride and u guys were doing a guests wear white type thing. u guys are so pretty tho.”
- “She looks gorgeous, you look gorgeous. Period.
- “It is very clearly blue!! And it’s STUNNING.”
- “It looks like a bed sheet.”
- “She looks like the bride.”
- “No. Too hard to tell who the bride is.”
- “I thought that Mom was the bride and the daughter was a bridesmaid. The mother’s dress definitely looked more like a formal wedding gown.”
“There’s this old-fashioned notion that the mother-of-the-bride needs to look matronly with longer sleeves and covered shoulders, and the whole industry centers around that,” Norberg shares.
Norberg says that’s why it took her so long to find her Nadia Manjarrez ball gown.
“I’d be out shopping and call Sydney and she’d be like, ‘No. Boring,'” Norberg recalls. “She wanted me to make a statement.”
Mission accomplished.
link
