Bride's Mom Defends Her Decision to Wear White Wedding Dress to Her Daughter's Ceremony: 'Felt So Beautiful in It'

"As soon as I tried it on, I was like, 'This is what I'm wearing,' " mother-of-the-bride Cathy Caradimitropoulo said

After a mother-of-the-bride wore a white dress for daughter's wedding, but the gown choice stirred up online criticism she wasn't expecting.

Cathy Caradimitropoulo found the perfect dress for her daughter's special occasion — a white lace one-shoulder design with petal-shaped embellishments on the skirt — and was excited to show it off to her friend. "I felt so beautiful in it," she told Today.com. "As soon as I tried it on, I was like, 'This is what I'm wearing.' "

But Cathy didn't get the enthusiastic response she expected from her friend. "She said to me, ‘That looks like a bridal dress,’ ” she recalled. "And that’s when I started to panic. I was like, ‘Should I start looking for something else?’ "

Surprisingly, though, the one person who would be justified in vetoing Cathy's fashion choice — her daughter Marisa Iodice — was all for the white dress.

Related: Bride Surprises Mom by Wearing Her ‘90s Wedding Dress: See Her Sweet Reaction!

Marisa told her mother she could wear any color she liked — and even pointed out that Cathy would blend in seamlessly with her all-white bridal party.

“When we saw our mom in the dress, we knew she’d found the one,” Marisa, a 30-year-old teacher in New Jersey, told Today.com.

Marisa's sister Alexa Caradimitropoulo chimed in: “She looked absolutely stunning. Who cares about the color?"

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Alexa, 28, shared a video on TikTok of her mom strutting her stuff in the dress with a big smile on her face at Marisa's ceremony. The clip went viral, quickly racking up more than 10 million views.

"My mom walking down the aisle of my sister's wedding is everything," Alexa wrote over the video, adding in the caption: "She looks like she's walking the red carpet."

Related: Groom's Mom Wears Princess Gown and Tiara to Son's Wedding After Invitation Says to 'Upstage the Bride!'

While the sisters were proud of their mom's fierce fashion moment, some people criticized Cathy's decision to wear a bridal look to her daughter's wedding. “The way we all know she is THAT KIND of mom,” one person wrote in the comment section.

"Very poor taste trying to upstage the bride," someone else added.

Another said, "It's giving main character," while yet another person jokingly referenced the 2005 film Monster-in-Law. "They made a whole movie about this 😌. Jane Fonda’s finest," they wrote.

Still, many people raved about Cathy's dress and her obvious confidence wearing it. "Wait, why do I feel like your mom is a full-on celebrity here? You can't convince me she's not," someone wrote.

A second person simply commented: "Slay."

Cathy told Today.com it was not her intention to steal her daughter's spotlight on her wedding day. "Everyone who knows me knows that I hate being the center of attention," she said, explaining that she wanted to break away from conventional mother-of-the-bride looks.

"Traditional mother-of-the-bride dresses are very plain and dowdy,” she told the outlet. "I wanted something that matched my personality."

As for Marisa — who said "it's crazy the things people worry about" in response to the backlash — she just wanted her mom "to look and feel fabulous." And from her point of view? Mission accomplished.

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