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NEED TO KNOW
- Bride-to-be Kyra Bowyer is sharing her advice to fellow brides on how to deal with difficult in-laws after she butted heads with her soon-to-be mother-in-law over her wedding guest dress choice
- The mother of the groom wanted to wear an “over-the-top” silvery-white gown to the upcoming nuptials instead of the dress she and the bride previously agreed upon
- “Stand up for yourself, and do not feel bad to stand your ground on what you want for your big day!” Bowyer advises
A woman is encouraging fellow brides dealing with difficult in-laws to stand their ground and set boundaries — and is using a personal family dress dispute as an example.
Kyra Bowyer, 27, will marry Cory Ogden, 25, on Nov. 1 in College Station, Texas. Three weeks before their barn wedding, the bride-to-be received a text message from her soon-to-be father-in-law asking for approval on his wife’s desired wedding attire. The groom’s mother’s dress choice left the couple speechless.
“I just needed to show someone what the f— my in-laws just texted me,” Bowyer began a TikTok video showcasing screenshots of the text conversation. Her post has nearly 2 million views.
The bride received a photo of a sparkling beaded silvery-white gown. The high-neck dress features cut-out sections around the torso and a thigh-high slit on one side. Some commenters compared it to Taylor Swift’s bejeweled Oscar de la Renta dress she wore at the 2022 MTV VMAs. The majority agreed — it was fit for a gala, not a barn wedding.
“Did our wedding get moved to Vegas without me knowing?” Bowyer asked her father-in-law, assuming he was joking because her mother-in-law already picked out an appropriate “perfect blue” dress that matches the wedding colors “months ago.” However, he was serious.
“When I first got the text, I knew immediately to call my fiancé because I couldn’t wrap my head around them being serious about asking,” Bowyer tells PEOPLE. “My fiancé, his literal response was, ‘I….I’m mind blown right now.’ It was internal shock to both of us.”
She continues, “Going from this beautiful rustic chic country wedding to seeing this full glam dress — I was just lost.”
Bowyer thought the gown was “too close to white and way too over the top” for the wedding, so she texted back explaining such, as shown in another TikTok video. Her future father-in-law replied, “It’s actually a tan.”
Kyra Bowyer
Even though the gown — which is actually the couple’s cousin’s pageant dress — has some nude mesh material, Bowyer still thinks it’s “not for a wedding.”
“I’m very big on you don’t wear white to a wedding,” Bowyer said her second post about the dress dilemma. “I find it disrespectful.”
Bowyer explains that her relationship with her fiancé’s mother “has been back and forth a lot” because they’ve “gone through rough patches.” On TikTok, she listed some of the “drama” with her fiancé’s mother, which included her disinviting her from her own baby shower for her rejecting her request to invite 13 more people to the wedding, and saying Bowyer’s wedding dress “wasn’t flattering” on her.
“We usually end up just brushing it under the rug, which now looking back it’s not normal to do,” Bowyer tells PEOPLE. “As grown ups, it’s my job to hold people accountable for how they not only treat me but my fiancé as well. We love her and we always always will because she’s our kid’s grandma and my fiancé’s mom but boundaries will be set 100%.”
Bowyer never expected her videos about Ogden’s mother to “blow up the way it did.”
“I see so many influencers say, ‘I post because it’s a platform to vent on,’ and I agree with that!” she says. “You have no idea how many people relate to you, your issues, your life until you post, and boom now all of these people have similar stories!”
Bowyer’s advice for brides experiencing similar conflicts is to set boundaries.
“My advice to brides dealing with difficult in-laws [is] boundaries,” she says. “It’s hard. But we get one day, guys. We plan, we stress, we pour money into this perfect day we’ve dreamed of. If no one will be our voice we have to be our own. Stand up for yourself, and do not feel bad to stand your ground on what you want for your big day!”
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Ogden’s mother, who is in her late 40s, recently bought two new dresses, and might wear one of them to the wedding. Bowyer is admittedly “nervous” because she has no idea what the dresses look like.