This letter comes from Dear Prudence at Slate magazine.  You can read the full post here.

My sister got married recently. Some weeks before the big day, she pulled me aside and asked me to dye my bright blue and purple hair a more innocuous color so that I wouldn’t stand out too much. She wouldn’t listen to reason as to how I love my hair, nor as to how the process of bringing it to a more natural color would be difficult, expensive, and damaging. At the suggestion of a friend, I invested in an excellent honey-brown human hair wig, similar to my actual hair texture and length. Her big day went off without a hitch and she never even seemed to notice my “innocuous” hair. At the end of the reception, after nearly everyone had left and my family and I were helping tidy up, I removed the wig.

My sister freaked out. She’s still angry and says I violated her trust, and that for the rest of her life when she looks at her wedding pictures of the family together or of me in the background, she’ll know that there’s blue and purple hair under there, and it will infuriate her. I don’t see any problem with what I did. I didn’t want to change my hair color for ONE day in her life, and I even invested in a hair-piece specifically meant to give her peace of mind. I hadn’t considered telling her about the wig beforehand, simply because she was busy and, as long as I showed up with “normal” hair, it should have been fine. How am I in the wrong here? Did I owe it to my sister to actually color my hair for her wedding? I wasn’t even a bridesmaid.

 

—Sister Wigging Out

Dear Wigging Out,

Oh siblings. Don’t you just love the sibling drama. You think that you’re doing something nice for them, and then BOOM!  You’re getting yelled at.  You did nothing wrong. Your sister is over-reacting.  I blame the stress from the wedding. Wedding planning can be overwhelming… so I’ve heard.  Now, I do agree with her saying you needed to change your hair color.  Even I wouldn’t want that in my wedding pictures. However, you came up with a great solution.  You found a nice wig.  I imagine the wedding pictures went off without a hitch.  She should be thankful.

Just give her some time.  She’ll get over it. One day you’ll both look back at it and laugh.  I’m laughing already.

~Jana Leigh

**Photo credit: sheknows.com