What to Know
Critics think the dress Dolores Catania chose to wear to her son’s wedding screams “monster in law.” On August 1, The Real Housewives of New Jersey star attended her son Frank Catania Jr.’s wedding. Photos circulating online made it look like she committed a major fashion faux pas.
Although Dolores’ dress was actually light blue, it looked very white in some of the photos from the ceremony. And besides, there are other reasons why her dress (and behavior) rubbed critics the wrong way.
People think Dolores was trying to “upstage” the bride.
Frank and his wife, Nicole Perricho, tied the knot in Portugal. They got engaged in February 2025, and Frank’s mom seemed supportive. “Sooooo beautiful!!! ❤️❤️” Dolores wrote in the comments when Nicole announced their engagement on Instagram.
However, on their actual wedding day, critics thought Dolores’ dress made it look like she was trying to steal the spotlight. People shared photos from the special occasion on Instagram. In some of the images, Dolores’ dress is clearly a pale blue. But in others, it looks white. The dress also had a large flower on the front, making it look more like something a bride might wear.
One image in particular sparked a ton of backlash on Reddit.
In it, Dolores is, of course, wearing her white-looking dress, but she’s also standing in between the bride and the groom. Critics concluded that this was “not a good look.”
“this photo speaks volumes,” one critic wrote in response. “she will be in competition with his wife for the rest of their lives.” Some people who saw the image don’t actually follow Dolores, so when they saw the photo, they thought she was the bride at first. Yikes.
“it took me a solid sixty seconds to realize the bride was on the outside,” someone commented. “I was so confused because the woman in the middle looks like she’s wearing a wedding dress lol.”
“Dolores looks more like the bride than the bride,” another commenter concluded.
The way that Dolores was standing in the photo also garnered a lot of criticism. “I’m cackling at her being in the middle,” someone else wrote. Another person noticed, “the space between her and the bride is larger than her and her son.”
To these critics, the situation seemed like a much larger issue than a fashion faux pas. They saw it as a sign of what’s to come. “Like the bride is the actual third wheel,” a critic argued. “Dolo is totally gonna be a monster in law.”
“Tacky,” someone else added. “Her daughter in law is in for a challenging time.”
People think it’s giving “boy mom.”
And they’re actually embarrassed for Dolores. “That’s a special breed of BoyMom for ya,” a critic commented. In response, someone else added, “As a boy mom x3, I’m embarrassed & ashamed. Why do they have to give us a bad name?”
Obviously, people were not all that impressed. But some fans did jump to her defense. After all, the dress really was blue, not white. Perhaps the bride was not bothered by Dolores’ dress choice, and that’s all that really matters. “I’m sure she got their approval,” someone wrote in her defense. “Some people just don’t care about these antiquated rules.”
It’s also possible that Dolores didn’t realize the dress would look so much like a wedding gown. Still, people saw it as something that could’ve easily been avoided. “It looks like it has a hint of green..” one person pointed out. “But here’s my thing, WHY do you need to wear something so close to white on this day?”
Unless you’re prepared to deal with the “boy mom” and “monster in law” allegations, it might be easier to just avoid pale dresses. “It wasn’t white,” someone else said. “It was like a light blue. Personally I stay away from pale colors like that for weddings bc they can photograph white like this.”
