Melania Trump's Look At Ivanka's Wedding Reminds Us She Doesn't Always Try To Upstage The Bride

It's no wonder TikTok-ers have taken to the platform en masse to ask other users to weigh in on their wedding guest outfits. Picking a look can be so much trickier than everyday dressing. There are dress code color rules for weddings, there are themes and venues to consider, and then a ton of questions: Is the event casual? Dressy? On the beach? Can you dance in the dress? Does it reveal too much skin and does it look too close to the bridesmaid dresses? With all these factors to consider, even the first lady has a hard time getting it right, but not all the time.

For her step-daughter Ivanka Trump's wedding, Melania Trump's wedding-guest outfit reminds us that she doesn't always try to upstage the bride, as she's been accused of doing on more than one occasion (see below for evidence). For the 2009 nuptials between Ivanka and Jared Kushner, Melania selected a floor-length purple satin gown. The dress fit the former model beautifully: It was low cut (many of Melania Trump's outfits were rather daring and revealing before she became first lady), ruched at the waist, and featured a sparkling brooch placed near the hip. But one of the best, or should we say "most appropriate," things about it was the color. The rich purple didn't compete with the bride wearing white.

Based on the flowers and the cake, it looks as though Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner went with a white motif with a few soft-pink splashes thrown in for their New Jersey nuptials. That meant that guests were pretty safe in whatever they chose to wear. Not only did Melania Trump not wear anything even nearing white, she also managed to look completely different from the mother of the bride, Ivana Trump, who wore a champagne shade.

Purple, the color of royalty, power, ambition and wealth, has featured at a number of Trump weddings, in fact. Ivanka wore a lilac bridesmaid dress for brother Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding to now-ex wife Vanessa Trump in 2005. And Ivanka looked stunning in a deep-grape hue as a bridesmaid at Lara and Eric Trump's wedding in 2014. Though Melania has worn shades of purple on a number of occasions as first lady, we have yet to see her revisit the hue as a wedding guest.

We actually wish Melania Trump had leaned back into purple as a wedding guest option rather than some of the inappropriate looks she chose instead. For example, for Rudy Giuliani's 2003 wedding, she wore a sheer, revealing black dress. But that's nothing compared to the outfits she chose that feel like they were selected from a designer's bridal collection. And as we (should) all know by now, wearing white as a wedding guest is a cardinal no-no, except when the dress code explicitly requests that guests wear white.

For Eric and Lara Trump's wedding, she opted for a muted gold low-cut gown (that threatened a serious nip-slip incident), which had a fitted bodice that flared out from the thigh, giving it major bridal vibes. In 2022, Melania Trump wore another inappropriate dress for step-daughter Tiffany Trump's wedding. This time, the offending look was in the cream family. The Grecian-inspired gown was beautiful, but unfortunately it looked way too close to a bridal dress and had critics accusing her of trying to upstage the bride. This is one instance when we're relieved she didn't wear purple, actually, as that's what the mother-of-the-bride and Donald Trump's second wife, Marla Maples, wore for her only daughter's wedding. Crisis quasi-averted.