Image copyright Debbie Speranza Image caption Debbie Speranza (centre) with her identically dressed friends, and the bride, Julia Mammone 
 
 For many women, turning up to a 'do' in the same dress as someone else would be crushing, but when you find five other wedding guests have picked the same outfit all you can probably do is laugh. 
 
 So instead of spending the day at a wedding in Sydney, Australia, trying to avoid each other, six friends in almost identical dresses decided to poke fun at themselves and lined up for a photograph with the bride, Julia Mammone. 
 
 Julia also saw the funny side along with Facebook users who have viewed and shared the photo more than 42,000 times. 
 
 Image copyright Facebook 
 
 It was posted by Debbie Speranza, who dubbed herself and her friends "#backupbridesmaids." Laughing at the coincidence, Debbie posted a second photo, and asked: "What are the odds?" 
 
 Image copyright Debbie Speranza 
 
 Slightly overwhelmed at the "outta control" social media reaction, Debbie said she was still amused by what happened. 
 
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 Debbie also shared the photo with the shop where the women had bought their dresses, saying: "You really should start a bridal registry so that your customers can enquire whether anyone else has purchased one of your dresses for the same event - no we are NOT the bridesmaids just the guests." 
 
 That post alone drew more than 10,000 comments with friends tagging each other with memories of similar, if not such large-scale, fashion faux pas. 
 
 Image copyright Facebook 
 
 Jamie-Leigh Austin's friend Laura Frazer said wearing the same dress to a wedding as a stranger was a great conversation starter. 
 
 But Yeng Vang wrote: "My worst nightmare being dressed the same as someone else. I would literally go home and change." 
 
 And Sandra James wrote about turning up to her daughter's wedding only to find she was wearing the same outfit as the mother-of-the-groom. 
 
 Rather than dodging the photographer, she said she was on "such a high" that both women just decided to get on and embrace the day. 
 
 Image copyright Facebook 
 
 But spare a thought for Chantel Lopex-Rubio. 
 
 It can be hard enough to cope when you're at a fancy function wearing the same dress as another guest - or as five others - but how do you recover when you realise your expensive frock is a dead ringer for the curtains? 
 
 Image copyright Chantel Lopez-Rubio/Facebook 
 
 By Annie Flury, UGC and Social News Team ||||| Life went one better than art on Saturday when six Sydney women – who were not bridesmaids - arrived at a wedding reception all accidentally wearing the same A$160 (£95) dress. 
 
 Mirroring the 1993 Alan Ball play, Five Women Wearing The Same Dress, after some initial confusion the six women – whose group photos have prompted amused horror from women around the world - eventually bonded, before dancing the night away. 
 
 "Imagine the odds," Debbie Speranza, one of the six women, wrote on a Facebook post on fashion brand Forever New's Facebook page. That photo has since received 39,000 likes over 9,500 comments. 
 
 Ms Speranza set the scene for the Telegraph two days later: "My cousin and I walked into the reception and saw each other [in the same dress] and started laughing, but then another walked in … then another one … and another one. There was about 200 people.” ||||| Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE A bride's wedding day almost took a turn for the worse when her grandmother's car collided with another on her way to the reception. The bride, who's also an emergency responder, jumped into action. VPC 
 
 Montgomery County Emergency Medical Services paramedic Sarah Ray is photographed at the scene of a wreck on her wedding day. The photo, taken by her mother, has gone viral. (Photo: Marcy Martin) 
 
 CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — Sarah Ray's wedding day took a very unexpected turn after her grandmother's car collided with another on the way to the reception. 
 
 Ray rushed to the scene, hiked up her wedding dress and climbed aboard the ambulance to see what she could do. 
 
 After all, that's what she does. 
 
 Ray is a paramedic, and a photo of her leaving the scene of the crash in her wedding dress has gone viral. She's been interviewed by Nashville news stations and Inside Edition and has fielded calls from national news services and websites such as BuzzFeed. After being posted on Montgomery County's Facebook page Friday, the photo had more than 12,000 likes and 5,300 shares and had reached 1.4 million people by Monday morning. 
 
 She can't understand what all the fuss is about. 
 
 "I just hate that everyone uses the word 'hero,'" she said Monday. "It's not heroic. That's just what we do every day, and it was family. I believe any other first responder would do the same thing. It just happened that I was in a wedding dress." 
 
 The crash happened at the intersection of 101st Airborne Division Parkway and Trenton Road on Oct. 3, just a mile or two from the church where Ray got married that day. Her grandparents and parents stayed behind to help her get all of her belongings from the church and take a few last photos before going to the reception across town. 
 
 Her grandparents and father left in one car. Ray's mother, who is a professional photographer, and her husband were with her when the call came that her grandmother was in a wreck. 
 
 Sisters Lauren Whitman and Sarah Ray kiss their grandmother, June Irish, after Ray's wedding Oct. 3. (Photo: Marcy Martin) 
 
 "The car was totaled, that's all we knew," she said. "We hopped in the car with my sister and her husband and headed to the crash." 
 
 Once there, she saw her father and grandfather walking around, so she knew they were OK. She boarded the ambulance to find that her grandmother had some bruising caused by the airbags but was not seriously injured. The paramedics on the ambulance had the situation under control, but Ray offered the kind of comfort only family can. 
 
 "The first thing she said to me was, 'Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry I ruined your day,'" Ray said. 
 
 But Ray's day was not ruined. Her family was OK, and she hopped out of the ambulance, ready to go to her wedding reception. 
 
 Sarah and Paul Ray are interviewed by WSMV on Monday morning. It was one of several broadcasts they did as her wedding day photo went viral. (Photo: Stephanie Ingersoll / The Leaf-Chronicle) 
 
 She was walking on the side of the road with her skirts gathered in her hands in a light rain as her mother took a photograph of her with the ambulance and a firetruck behind her. 
 
 "She's giving me that look, like, 'Really? You're going to take my picture now?'" said Ray's mother, Marcy Martin. "It was just about the contrast — the beauty of her and then the chaos in the background." 
 
 Ray and her new husband were a little late to their reception, which just happened to be attended by many co-workers who also are first responders. 
 
 EMS Chief Jimmie Edwards was there. He had heard there was a wreck involving one of the wedding guests, and he wasn't surprised that Ray would stop to help. 
 
 He was surprised by the reaction the photo of her garnered a week later, after it was posted on the county's Facebook page with a message that said, "How dedicated are you to your job? Sarah Ray, paramedic with Montgomery County Emergency Medical Services, was photographed on her wedding night working the wreck of one of her wedding guests. Now that's dedication ... she stopped to assist on the way from the wedding to the reception! Thank you, Sarah, for loving what you do!" 
 
 Sarah and Paul Ray took a detour but made it to their wedding reception. (Photo: Marcy Martin) 
 
 The EMS station was fielding media calls from all over Monday. Ray and her husband — who also is a paramedic — were a little overwhelmed with all the attention, Edwards said. 
 
 "She exemplifies our profession," he said. "She is an excellent paramedic. Personally, she's a very humble and compassionate person." 
 
 Her husband, Paul Ray, wasn't in the photo that made his wife a viral celebrity but was cheering her on quietly, amused by the attention being lavished on his new bride. 
 
 "I'm just a husband in the background," he said. "It's been a mostly positive thing. We appreciate the support." 
 
 The two didn't take a vacation. They didn't even take time off. They went right back to work, at different stations and on different shifts. 
 
 "We're not going on a honeymoon," Sarah Ray said. 
 
 "Not this year," Paul Ray said. 
 
 The two are waiting for things to go back to normal, even as they marvel at the places where the photo has shown up, including a popular women's magazine, which shared the county's Facebook photo. 
 
 "It's just been a whirlwind," Sarah Ray said. 
 
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– Debbie Speranza was surprised when she met up with her cousin at a Sydney wedding reception recently and they were wearing the same dress. But both women were even more surprised when they kept bumping into other women also in the same dress—a total of six women at the Australian wedding, which was attended by about 200 people total, showed up in the A$160 (about $128 USD) dress from Forever New. "No we are NOT the bridesmaids just the guests," Speranza wrote on the brand's Facebook page alongside a picture of the six women with the bride, Julia Mammone. She did dub the group #backupbridesmaids when the post went viral on social media, the BBC reports. "Then another walked in … then another one … and another one," Speranza tells the Telegraph. "A couple of the women were a little bit 'ahhhhh' but then we all saw the fun in it." She adds, "It wasn't a setup, I swear. I only knew one of the six women. Three were from the bride's side and three from the groom." The six women and Mammone are scheduled to appear on an Australian morning show Wednesday to discuss the viral incident.