The Mother-in-Law Wore White And Called It "Oyster"

She sent the photograph to the family group chat three weeks before, with the caption "Found something!" and eleven people liked it and nobody said anything, because she is that kind of woman and we are that kind of family.

It was white. Not cream, not ivory, not "champagne". White, floor-length, with a small train — a TRAIN — and a lace panel at the back.

She called it oyster.

My sister, the bride, cried for about ten minutes, and then she did something I have never been prouder of.

She replied to the group chat: "That's beautiful, Margaret. See you there."

And then she rang the venue and changed one thing.

On the day, at the door, every guest was handed a small paper fan, cream, with the couple's names printed on it, as a favour. Lovely. Traditional. Nothing strange about it at all.

Except that the bridal party — eight women, plus my sister — were all in white. All of them. Full length. Simple, cheap, ordered in a panic from three different shops, and utterly, deliberately identical in colour.

Nine women in white, and the mother of the groom.

She was not the bride. She was the tenth woman in a white dress at a wedding where the white dress was the uniform, and she spent the entire day looking like a bridesmaid who had turned up to the wrong hen do.

Nobody said a word to her. Nobody had to.

In the photographs — and my sister has the photographs framed — she is standing at the edge of a wall of white, in her oyster, with an expression that I would pay money to have painted.

At the reception she told my mother, quietly, that she felt "a bit silly".

My mother, who is a saint and a snake, said: "Oh, don't. Nobody noticed at all."

That was six years ago. She wore navy to my brother's wedding. Navy, high-necked, and she asked my sister — asked her, in advance, in writing — whether it was all right.

My sister said it was lovely.