Who pays for the bridesmaid dress when a bridesmaid is asked to step down?

Who pays for the bridesmaid dress if the bride has asked a bridesmaid to step down but already bought the dress?


For context: One of my friends is getting married in Dec and I was originally asked to be a bridesmaid. I met this friend through her fiancé, who is the godfather to my 1st child & close friend to my husband (also a groomsman in the wedding). Over the last 6 months she has gone from being a bit of a complainer to Major bridezilla- often using me as her emotional punching bag, treating me terribly, telling me I’m not doing enough (I have 3 kids under 5 with the youngest being 7 months old and have still been majorly involved in planning and at every event), and generally just doing many things I can’t agree with or condone. This culminated in her asking if I was mad/upset when I handed off running a fb event to another bridesmaid, and I’d had enough. I told her my issues as nicely as I could, making sure to not attack her and having my husband proof-read and suggest changing anything that could come across the wrong way. My ultimate goal was to fix things so I wasn’t feeling so hurt & attacked constantly and she could remember were friends, I’m not “the help”, that I’m there to make her day easier and support a friend I care about. She reacted terribly, attacking me and harassing me- and told me I didn’t know what it was like to have a wedding where people I cared about were missing (my wedding was overseas and only 2 family members and 3 friends were able to make it.. my dad couldn’t be at my wedding) and that I’d never been through anything as hard as her (my husband lost his job due to covid and we have 3 kids, which she knows......). I know this is a stressful world we live in right now, but going through hard times doesn’t give you a right to tell others they aren’t having as tough a time & you don’t have to treat people badly even if you are in a rough patch. Anyways, now it’s affecting my husbands friendship with her fiancé/godfather of our eldest daughter and she is saying she is unwilling to even be civil and doesn’t want me to be a bridesmaid. Totally fine with me as it was becoming too stressful and her day should be about her, but I let her know I still supported her and want her to be happy. Now I will have to buy a dress to wear as a guest, but I have already bought the bridesmaid dress ($250 non-refundable) and paid for a multitude of other things (around $600 on top of the dress). Because she asked me not to be in the wedding anymore and given our strained financial situation with covid, is it okay to ask her to pay me back for the dress??