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I hate the term “Bridezilla”…

Jill

But this is why the whole narrative of YOUR WEDDING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF YOUR LIFE AND YOU MUST MAKE IT PERFECT AND MAGICAL AND SPECIAL!!!!!! is poison.

Of course, selfish assholes are selfish assholes; sometimes selfish assholes also get to be brides. Somehow, despite our cultural wedding obsession, every wedding I have ever attended — including where I was a bridesmaid! — were not actually put together by proto-Stalins in white dresses. I maintain that while putting weddings together is basically designed to be super stressful and probably causes almost any bride at least one emotional meltdown, the vast majority of brides who were thoughtful and normal human beings before their engagements continue to be thoughtful and normal human beings during the wedding planning phase. Heck, I went to one wedding where the chosen venue — which was in a small town and booked a year in advance — was shut down for tax issues the day before the scheduled ceremony. The bride was of course not happy, but she didn’t flip out; she just focused on finding a new venue, and on we went.

In other words: Bridezillas are actually few and far between, and any normal reaction to the stress of planning a big event is typically cast as “bridezilla” behavior. Really, the women (and men) who are terrible jerks about their wedding are terrible jerks generally. The wedding industry, though, does not help. And it’s totally unclear to me how this particular woman even had 10 friends to ask to be her bridesmaids to begin with.

103 thoughts on I hate the term “Bridezilla”…

  1. She writes “your” instead of “you’re”.
    The woman is an asshole, but that ^ is what almost pushed me into hating her.

  2. I’ve already spent five days of my life at something like this not long ago. I will never get the time back. But I guess some people want to have The Great American Wedding™.

    And you may know us by our class and wealth privilege.

    1. I always figured it’s not even that, but class aspiration. On the Grandest Day of Days a person who wants to be celebrated would like to feel like a class above where they are. But I think it’s less a class thing, at least in any political sense, and more a Fancy thing. And Fancy and Class probably have some kind of relationship, but people everywhere tend to like to add a little fancy to big days. Poor people doing it is just not as good TV because they can’t do things like take out a loan to get fly from Idaho to Hawaii to get married by America’s Only Legally ordained Dolphin Minister (Provided by the Universal Life Church of course) because some people are just reality TV waiting to happen.

      These kinds of people are why I sometimes daydream opening some kind of Anything Goes Wedding Chapel.

    2. Not to mention that what with modern tech, fancy is a lot cheaper in some cases. The relationship between Old Money, New Money, The Upper Middle Class, Yuppies, and Hipsters is probably relevant to this.

  3. And it’s funny, because when I got married I was so focused on NOT BEING A BRIDEZILLA, I let my mother and sister walk all over me, and wound up with a wedding I didn’t much enjoy. I find myself wishing I hadn’t cared if people thought I was being a heinous bitch and stood up for myself more.

    1. Yeah, this is what I was thinking about.

      I mean, no doubt there are people out there who behave like spoiled brats about their weddings (“No, there must be 11 sparkly swans to escort me up the aisle or there will be NO WEDDING.”) but at the same time I feel like any woman trying to organize their wedding (which is a hell of a job even at the best of times) is now automatically labelled a bridezilla no matter what, which sucks. Organizing a wedding can be logistically challenging even when you are not insisting on swans and while the LW doesn’t sound like anyone I’d want to be a bridesmaid for, I can also understand a person getting frustrated with people being flaky and changing their plans, dropping out last minute, etc. Especially if you’ve already paid for them to go somewhere/do something based on their previous commitment. Hell, even if it was for a legit reason, I can still understand being frustrated about it – realistic emotional response, if not the most admirable.

      So no love to this particular bride from me, but I can also see how this could go down from the other side.

    2. I wasn’t a doormat, but we had the wedding my MIL wanted, not the backyard one I wanted. When I finally braced her about it, she informed me that she had thrown showers, baby showers, birthday parties, engagement parties and big weddings for all her friends’ kids — sometimes twice — and she was looking for a little payback. That’s not how she phrased it of course, but that’s the gist. So a >100 attendee party we had, after a church wedding with the “family” priest, showers and rehearsal dinner. The good news? It was hella fun.

  4. Wow, I was actually okay with it for the first few paragraphs – I thought that maybe she was just stressed about the dates, and that actually it was kind of considerate of her to work around everyone’s vacation plans (and I mean, if you’re coordinating parties for 11 ladies, you DO have to get on it early).

    Then I hit paragraph three. Nevermind! This woman is living in an alternate universe where she gets to be a big jerk. Kudos to the potential bridesmaid who posted it online.

  5. I was kind of shuddering wondering what a “bridal show” even is, and then I realized it was just a typo for “shower.” And I thought, couldn’t she have found yet a fourth far-flung, exciting venue for that? Disney World or Jamaica, maybe.

    1. I fail to see why one even needs both a bachelorette party and a bridal shower? Unless the latter is for including mothers and so forth.

      1. I had a bachelorette and a shower for exactly that reason. My mother wasn’t quite up for the sex toy demonstration.

      2. On the other hand, everything was held in the same town and I didn’t insist on my bridesmaid flying across two provinces just to attend a pre-wedding party. If anyone told me I could have the honour of spending hundreds of dollars to attend multiple parties… Yeah, no, not happening unless I somehow magically become one of the 1%

      3. Yeah, if my friends and family had lived nearer I might’ve had both. A shower tends to have games and be during the day and for all women. I didn’t have a shower and my bachelorette party was women going out for dinner and a drinking a bit the night before the wedding.

      4. The thing I fail to see is why she put events in three separate locations. Even rich people have poor friends and family.

    2. I know she meant bridal shower and you figured that out but bridals shows are real things. It’s another term (maybe Southern California regional, I dunno) for like a bridal expo, with wedding service vendors (florists, caterers, bakeries, printers, travel agents, hair dressers, event planners, et cetera) usually with a fashion show and lots of chances for free makeovers.

      Or maybe the whole concept is regional. But there are hot pink signs in cardstock on every major intersection that I drive through right now advertising the next one. They seem to be quarterly.

      1. oh no, not regional at all. We even have wedding shows down here in New Zealand. Where there’s a market…

      2. Yeah, they have local ones here in Des Moines once or maybe twice a year. Like “Wedding Expos.” I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with that. I can see the use of them for people who want ideas or for the vendors and planners to find customers. I just meant it sounded strange as part of an individual wedding, until I realized the type.

        My late mother, a child of the Great Depression, got married in the 1930s in her mother’s house in a nice dress with my dad wearing a decent suit and my grandma probably fixed the food for the reception and they drove somewhere on a short trip for the honeymoon. She was incensed about the increasingly elaborate and expensive weddings of the 1980s and 1990s and railed at the waste of the banquet dinners, etc. I sort of agreed with her about priorities being a little off, but tried to point out to her that a lot of people had jobs doing the banquets, etc. and if couples wanted to treat their friends and family to a nice dinner and dance, it was OK. I suspect a lot more people are going to have to make do with modest plans if things keep going the way they are.

  7. By the way, we don’t have “bridal showers” in the UK. What’s that all about? Are guests in the USA expected to show up to a party just to give the bride some loot?

    1. I think they’re supposed to date from when a young couple would be setting up house together for the first time, and so would need things like flatware, kitchen equipment, linens, etc. Now…yep, they’re pretty much just a party where you give the bride loot.

      1. But isn’t that what the wedding gifts are for?

        Now I’ve remembered I once went to a “kitchen shower” and we were supposed to give the bride kitchen equipment.

        2. In the weddings I’ve been to, the bridal shower was kinda supposed to replace the wedding gifts. As in, if people came to the shower and brought a gift, then they didn’t bring a gift to the wedding. I guess that it is partly intended to reduce what the couple has to deal with on the day of?

    2. EG is right–the traditional idea is to “shower” a young bride with things–linens, small kitchen stuff, etc–that she will need for her new home. (Ignoring the fact that many brides these days are in their 30s and have had their own households for years.) Nowadays, they’re more an excuse for the female friends and relatives of the bride to have a celebration for her (much, much tamer than a hen night or bachelorette party); think little sandwiches instead of penis-shaped lollipops. Most of the showers that I’ve been to have been pleasant, low-key affairs.

  8. I wonder what the over-under is on how many bridesmaids she’ll be able to assemble before modifying her terms.

  9. I don’t know, this whole story fits so comfortably into the cultural narrative that all women are just shallow, vain, meanies doing their damndest to bully some poor unsuspecting guy into getting hitched that I can’t help but wonder if it’s either made up or terribly embellished. There is still a whole lot of pressure put on women to complete themselves by getting married and to have the most epic wedding ever where they look beautiful and perfect along the way. It’s hard enough to negotiate all that when most of the time all you and your intended really want to do is have a fun party to celebrate the big occasion with your friends and family, then you have to worry about getting slapped with the bridezilla label on top of all that.

    Or maybe I’m just suspicious of decisive women who know their mind and what they want getting labeled bitchy/a bridezilla.

    1. I have to agree, the whole bridezilla phenomenon feels pretty sexist to me. I’m sure we’ll never see a Groomzilla show where the dude is ordering the bride-to-be around and criticizing every decision she makes, because that never happens. In this case in particular and in many bridezilla cases I’ve seen, the person involved is an asshole. They were an asshole long before they got engaged and will be so long after the fact. It’s true people (both men and women actually) can get way too caught up in wedding hoopla, but in extreme cases like these it’s usually just assholes being assholes. Unfortunately, it gets put into another display of see how those silly women act???

      1. “I’m sure we’ll never see a Groomzilla show where the dude is ordering the bride-to-be around and criticizing every decision she makes, because that never happens”

        Hey, were you at my wedding? Did you happen to glance in through the kitchen window as my (future ex) husband was berating me 2 days before the wedding because we had previously agreed to NO kegs and now he wanted 2 kegs for all his friends and I had to call every grocery store in a 50 mile radius looking for kegs?

        Yeah. Groomzillas. They exist too.

        1. I guess stereotypically the thing dudes freak out about is the bachelor party right? I remember when the last 3 weddings I was in (bunch of my friends all got married at the same time) had bachelor parties that didn’t include strippers (cus the grooms in question weren’t into that). Giant sections of each family freaked. Apparently 2 day long LAN parties and D&D drinking games weren’t appropriate ;).

        2. I think S.H. was showing some sarcasm there. Of course there are groomzillas, it’s just that THEY are men with serious concerns not worth a tv show. As opposed to hysterical women being hysterical OMG look at that lady, she must be non-neurotypical, I’d never let MY wife/fiancée/daughter/sister ACT like THAT! Suddenly I have so much schadenfreude ! I hope they keep showing this immediately after my Jerry Springer!

        3. I stumbled upon wedding planner to the stars David Tutera’s show about weddings the other day, and he actually had a groomzilla type guy with extremely exacting demands. It was kind of refreshing to finally see a wedding porn show that depicted a woman who just wanted to marry her groom while it was the groom actually being the major pia.

      3. It plays into the idea that a wedding is *her* special day as well.. he just kind of has to show up, and remember the ring.

        The ‘groomzilla’ doesn’t show up because there’s this idea that very little is at stake for the guy. But dear gord, for the ladies, the wedding day is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR.

  10. I was kind of shuddering wondering what a “bridal show” even is, and then I realized it was just a typo for “shower.”

    You’re probably right about the typo but there is such a thing as a bridal show and the bridal show industry is a pretty huge big business. It’s not really any different from an electronics expo like CES or something like Comic-con. A bunch of vendors with all the latest and greatest in bride stuff.

  11. A few of my only-kinda acquaintances from high school have gotten married in the last few years, and fortunately I keep being one of the few oversights on the guest lists, *phew*. I guess the upside to being a socially-hopeless (and apparently intimidating?) introvert is nobody wants to be your friend. 😀 Not a party person, not a wedding person, and definitely not an “awkward socializing and mandatory expensive gift-giving and inconvenient travelling for the sake of people I barely know” person (who actually is?!).

    Then last year a genuinely good friend of mine got married, and I booked it half-way across the country to be there. Worth every moment, worth every penny (not that it cost lots of pennies though – being not rolling in cash themselves, they made sure it was a frugal-friendly event). My friend and her adorable partner treated the entire thing as a way to get friends and family together for awesome hang-outs, eating and dancing. The ceremony itself was private, so it was a reception in a local art gallery that they decorated themselves with goofy crafts, with fantastic catering and a dj playing the couple’s own kick-ass mixes (or someone’s – it was good music!). But best of all, they were two lovely people in love with each other, and their friends and family genuinely just wanted to be there with them. Now that’s how you get a good wedding on.

    1. Side note: I think the issue is not with the “Bridezillas” (or “Groomzillas” – I’ve seen a few!), but the whole cultural expectations about what wedding mean and how they should happen. I mean, the standards are so out of whack to what’s realistic, the only way to organize something that complicated and coordinated is to be a hard-ass task-master. Think of it like stage-managing a major Broadway production.

      But the point is that dream weddings shouldn’t *be* a major Broadway production. >__< Or else the wedding party really should unionize.

  13. Ten sounds like quite a few bridesmaids. Is this an attempt to whittle that number down without offending anyone? People can plan their weddings however, and some people are highly-detailed planners and that doesn’t make them mean or jerks. However, I kinda have to think that demanding schedules for a several-month period is kinda asking for drop-outs.

    1. I believe that 10 is not uncommon. The more attendants you have the more fabulous a princess you are.

      There is a popular show here from the UK called “Gypsy Weddings”. Apparently they regularly have similar numbers of bridesmaid at those weddings.

      1. “Gypsy Weddings”is just a way for shallow and stupid people to mock others who don’t confirm to their limited social mores. It’s a vile peogramme. I just wonder why we dont have a TV show called “Disabled Weddings” so we can all Point and Laugh at a bunch of crips staggering up the aisle.

      2. … Gypsy?

        Is this actual Roma, or just people who don’t know who Roma are? Either way, cannot end well.

    1. Obviously not.

      My husband had a ton of groomsmen (I think 8?) because he just couldn’t bring himself to cut any of his crew of friends from attendant duty. I had 4, and ended up doubling up groomsmen to escort bridesmaids at our reception.

      My husband was actually kind of a groomzilla, he had a very specific vision he wanted for the wedding, and it involved a pretty spectacular extravaganza. Whenever anyone asked me why were having a full mass or a seated 6 course dinner or a 18 piece orchestra or whatever for the wedding I blamed it on my husband. Because I totally just wanted to go to the Daley Center and then have a cocktail party for family and friends afterwards instead of the huge To Do we ended up with.

      But it was interesting to see how everyone assumed it was all me (because I was the woman in the relationship) who was orchestrating the whole thing. Cause that’s just how girls are, doncha know.

      Of course now the spouse is totally like, why did we have that huge wedding, we should have just eloped?! And like the harpie shrew wife I am I just get to say, I told you so. Then again, my only non-regret was the total splurge on my dress, a Vera Wang, because at least I got to control that one aspect of that whole day.

      1. Our wedding was a bit of a production, but because we were young and poor, the work involved was less planning and more doing. Our band was friends of ours, we had the ceremony in a restored Art Deco theatre, the reception was at a modest place and the only ‘splurges’ were an open bar and a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud as our limo. All in all we probably spent less on our entire wedding than one of L—‘s sister’s bridesmaids is going to have to fork out in order to attend hers.

        1. Hahah, my ex and I looked into a Silver Cloud as a getaway car.. ended up with a Blue 91 Pontiac Sunbird. CLASSSY!

          Had a similar experience though.. a lot of our wedding stuff was gifts.. a family friend DJ’d, one of my high school friends did my hair, I wore my mom’s wedding dress, my best friends mom did flowers, my mom and sister prepped the food. Our venue was this theme castle tourist trap thing with a kids playground in the back. We got a discount because we told the guy they could stay open during the ceremony, so we had random tourists watching the wedding. After the ceremony I went down the twirly slide in my dress. Mom was not amused.

      2. My husband was not a Groomzilla, but he was the one that wanted the wedding, and he definitely wanted it a certain way. Meanwhile, as The Bride(TM), I had to deal with everyone in my life who was suddenly a friendzilla or a relativezilla or whatever. I just wanted to go get married at city hall. I really give the side-eye to the whole Bridezilla thing, since in both mine and my sister’s weddings literally everyone else in the family has been like “IT’S MY SPECIAL DAY WHY ARE YOU NOT WEARING WHITE/HAVING A CAKE/HAVING A STRING BAND/INVITING YOUR DRUNKEN UNCLE NEDDY” etc*

  15. Her attitude and tone are horrible, but I find myself thinking its not the worst thing to have those expectations out in the open upfront. I was recently invited to a bachelorette party and I was all nervous about how much I might be expected to spend in treating the bride to drinks etc – I would have appreciated some sort of tactfully-worded note saying something like “we are going to X number of bars and we all plan to treat the bride so we estimate this will cost in the range of Y-Z dollars per person”. If she really wants her bridesmaids to all fly to vegas, etc, its a good idea to tell them that upfront and accept if they say no thanks due to budget – but she needs to think of a better way to say that kind of thing!

    1. Similarly when people invite me out to a restaurant for their birthday I’d like to have some idea how much I’m gonna be expected to spend to treat them to dinner before I decide if I can afford it.

  16. I love how she writes “Each of you individually have a reason and a special place in my heart of why I picked you to be a bridesmaid” and also “so if you already know you cant make one of the parties then we have to find someone else.” You have a special place in my heart, but you are so replaceable.

    1. And also you are so special, but if you can’t afford to come to events in three different cities across the continental United States, all of which require spending money not only on flights and hotels but also on gifts for the bride, then you are no longer welcome to be a member of the bridal party. But seriously you are all so special LUV U!

      1. Yeah, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that she would not be welcoming to bridesmaids children also being in attendance at any or all of these shindigs, either.

  17. This letter and similar accounts of wedding hellscapes (e.g., what deadleaf says above about chaos caused in bachelor party when grooms didn’t want strippers there) should be required reading for all children from age 10 on (if not earlier–though we don’t want to cause too much trauma to the little ones).

    With the popularity of dystopian fiction, there must be a way of making this work.

    It might put a few wedding planners out of work, but just think of the amount of suffering it would end.

    1. What I mean is that it’d be nice if all people involved (brides, grooms, and parents and friends of such) stopped freaking out about it being a certain way. I was a bit horrified by this comment in the letter: “Ever since I could remember I have dreamed about this day all my life.” Really? My first thought is that you’re (or “your”) potentially setting yourself up for disaster or disappointment if you dream your whole life about having one day of fairy-tale perfection.

      1. Exactly, my teenage daughter watches the wedding shows and sometimes I watch with her, but I make a point of mentioning that her dad and I planned our wedding back in my hometown from about 6000 miles away (dual military couple)and that the most important thing was getting see our family and friends and have a great party, not the perfect dress or an expensive engagement ring.

        That what is important is the marriage not the wedding. It makes me kinda sad to here women say “This is the most important day of my life and My Special Day” Ummm shouldn’t it Our special day? And idea that the wedding has to be Just Perfect seems like setting yourself up to be disappointed because perfect rarely happens.

        And the money spent on some of these shindigs is scary….

  18. I too had a reading of “well at least this is trying to accommodate schedules.. Oh.. oh dear. Wow.”
    I got married two months ago and also did the “no no, I’m not going to fight or argue or complain about anything, anything people want to do will be enough, I don’t want to be a bridezilla!” and well, parts of it went craptacular, people whined, people went away saying “well at my wedding I’ll never —.” Even being a cool unfazed bride doesn’t always work out to everyone’s satisfaction. Parts of it were very nice, though, and well, at the end of the day we got a certificate that let the person I love dearly get on my employer-based health insurance.

    As to this letter? I have my doubts it is fake, since I’ve come across people who do have these expectations for their friends: “look if you can’t put your life on hold for me for six months then what kind of friend are you?” But also put this at the feet of the wedding industry, who insist on not only the big showy wedding with as many bridesmaids as possible, but the classic party in Vegas, the elaborate bridal shower, a bazillionty gifts for everyone involved ever, and always larger and larger. Of course coordinating all that requires people’s lives to be on hold, that just makes it more special!

  19. That emails is just… special. I mean, weddings and expectations can turn some people into raving twits (I know one girl whose sister made her get hair extensions so she could have the bride-mandated hairstyle for her wedding… yeeeeah.) but this email is just… wow. I mean, wow. Who on earth thinks that’s ok?? Granted, if she thinks that’s an ok email to send, I’m assuming her friends are already familiar with her personality…

    Cue rant about the “bridezilla” thing:

    Seriously, throwing a wedding is STRESSFUL. You’re expected to basically throw a relatively formal, (usually) multi-course dinner for over 100 people that is planned well enough that you don’t have any last-minute surprises because you’re not there to deal with them. You’re expected to be The Most Prettiest You’ll Ever Be, and to arrange and coordinate for several other people’s outfits while you’re at it. You’re expected to coordinate meals/travels/hotels/etc for whoever needs it. And you’re expected to do this while staying on budget (to be charitable – the expectation tends to be “spend less money! That could be a down payment on a house!”) and yet making it elegant and lovely. And somehow take into account everyone’s opinion of every minor thing you should do. While still staying within plan/budget.

    And you’re expected to do that while being smiling and pleasant and to deal with all the family/planning/scheduling/money issues with the most pleasant demeanor EVER. And a slip in that, including stressed-out “No, I really need an answer on that this week. If you can’t commit to doing that, it’s fine, but I’ll look elsewhere to get it done.” immediately brings out the “bridezilla” commentary as a manipulative shame tactic.

    I just… argh. I was trained as a project manager. At work, if a vendor fails to meet a deadline or commitment, there are actual consequences, and they can be firmly voiced. In wedding planning though, god forbid the bride actually voice dissatisfaction with crappy service; that’s bridezilla territory all over, obviously. Better be a doormat. While still expecting everything to be perfect, mind. ’cause THAT’s a great plan.

      1. Where is it written in stone that weddings must cost as much as a downpayment on a house, involve hundreds of guests, and intricate catering, wardrobing, and decorating decisions?

        I mean, I get that this is apparently normal for large swathes of the American middle class, but it’s irrational, unpleasant, consumerist, and weird. Why would anyone choose to do such a thing at the cost of their friendships, dignity, and happiness for 6 mos+?

        1. It’s not, but it’s important to remember:
          1) There is a fine line that people walk when planning weddings in regards to how many people they are inviting. In some families, people will stop talking over who is and isn’t invited to weddings. Wedding planning is also a great opportunity for your mother or father or uncle to suddenly make a huuuuuge deal over how your second cousins once removed need! to be invited! And of course, if you are a lady and you are marrying a dude, everyone will be mad at YOU for everything.

          2) You have to pay to feed all of those people. 70% of our wedding was food and alcohol. Mostly food.

          3) You have to put them all somewhere. Even if you are having only 30-40 guests, like we did. We had our wedding in a city where we did not live so that our guests could attend (we live in Oakland, CA, but our guests all lived in NYC and Philly). My parents don’t have a big house, and everyone else lives in apartments- so we had to rent a venue. We got married on top of the Philadelphia Free Library- a venue on the cheaper side, and one of the rare venues which allows you to work with the caterer of your choice (we used one of their recommendations because he specifically promised he could work on “a shoe-string budget).

          3) Everyone has their own rules about alcohol- some people think you’re ridiculously cheap if you don’t have an open bar, for instance. We bought some cases of beer and wine ourselves and dropped them off an hour or so before the wedding for the caterer.

          4) Are you going to serve everyone yourself? Fine. If you would like to enjoy your own wedding a little bit, you will need at least one bartender and at least one server. For larger weddings, you will need more staff. Each of those people must be paid, and it’s rude not to tip. Often, the caterer will give you a set number of staff you must pay for, period.

          5) Your guests will have a lot of ideas as to what is necessary in a wedding. “You don’t have a CAKE?” My mother gasped, for instance.

          6) Oh hai, flowers. And lighting! You have to pay for those. Oh yeah, and tables! And linens! And silverware!

          It adds up faster than you can believe.

      2. Yeah, lots of good points about wedding planning. Mine also ended up being not more than 40 people and there is still all these things to consider since no one around has a house/property big enough to accomodate that many people. I got married on the other side of the ocean from my family or we would’ve had problem one.

        However, for flowers we got three-pound bouquets from the supermarket. I was *not* going to spend a lot on flowers.

        1. Yeah, we got about 50 bucks worth of artificial flowere from (local chain craft store that no longer exists) and my friends mom arranged them. Inexpensive, no worries about how to keep them alive. And I got to keep my bouquet… All the way up to the day I found out the ex was cheating and I threw them at his head.

          So there’s that.

  20. Okay, I’m generally all supportive of my fellow human beings and whatever they want to do with their time and money. But *W*eddings? Big stressful, sit down, multi-course meals, fancy white dress, cake-face smushing, flower tossing, baby pictures of the bride and groom weddings? Those Weddings are fucking stupid.

    Sure…go get married. Invite your family and friends to celebrate. Treat them to a nice meal. Have an open bar. Wear a dress you like. Hit your spouse(s) in the face with a desert item. All that could be fun and awesome.

    But all the pressure to have that particular day Meet All Cultural Expectations and Ridiculous Fantasies about What Women Should Be (virginal, property, conventionally attractive, etc.) is bullshit. If people want to participate in that crap go for it, its your dime. But its not okay to demand that your family and friends shell out to meet your expectations.

    I could put a kid through college on what I’ve spent on freaking bridesmaid dresses, specially dyed shoes, hair styling, waxes, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, and flowers. And that’s not including the cost of attending the wedding and a gift. I had one friend who insisted on the day of the wedding that the bridal party have their makeup professionally sprayed on to prevent us from “smearing” during her pictures. That has nothing to do with celebrating her happiness or even marriage…it was making sure we all conformed to a certain beauty standard.

    1. Hit your spouse(s) in the face with a desert item.

      Sand? Cactus? 🙂
      Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

  21. I… I honestly don’t see that much of a problem.

    She wants people to come to her parties, buy her presents, and she told them exactly what she wanted, and gave them a fairly gracious “out”. I’m assuming she’s independently wealthy and most of her friends are as well, and they’re expecting this kind of level 10 extravaganza.

    Would I respond well to this? No, not at all, and then I’d tell her I had an enema appointment or something, and drop out. It’s not like she sprung this on them halfway through.

    1. I agree–other than the poor writing and the (in my view) inappropriate method of communication for this kind of stuff (in person rather than email would be better, I think), she seems to be giving them a pretty clear picture of the high expense and generally horrible experience awaiting them should they accept the “honor” of being in her wedding party.

      People (guests, vendors, families, brides/grooms) have really different beliefs/values about what weddings mean and how they should go, and the assumption that others will share their beliefs seems to lead to a lot of strife.

      At least she appears to be upfront about defining what she wants, and she doesn’t assume that they’ll agree, which is why she’s asking. So, in that sense, good for her.

  22. I’m not sure if this is a thing in other places, but around here (Ontario) the ‘Stag and Doe/Jack and Jill’ whathaveyou has gained in popularity as a way to raise funds for the bride and groom to help cover wedding costs. You go, buy drinks, pay to play games of chance, enter draws for door prizes and all proceeds go to the couple getting married.

    I have a problem with these, mainly because the tradition is to invite every person that the couple has ever known in their life in order to get more people to come and spend money. I get invites for these things from people I haven’t talked to in years. Sometimes I’ll go because it’s usually a good way to meet up with OTHER people I haven’t seen in years but sometimes I just feel like “Oh.. so I don’t warrant an invite to the wedding, but I’m more than welcome to come and spend a whack of money on it?”

    Maybe that’s just me. I can be kind of cheap sometimes.

    1. I hadn’t heard of that trend until a couple in Toronto (I’m not Canadian, more’s the pity) invited me to one of those things… and it was great fun. It made a wonderful excuse to spend Labour Day weekend in Canada, and it was a nice party. I’m okay with this.

      1. I have been to some that are a lot of fun.. and I get that sometimes it’s nice that even when you can’t invite everyone you know to the actual wedding, you can still invite them to the J&J

        It just burns me when people don’t acknowledge me for years then invite me to one of these things, or make it obvious that they are pretty much just inviting anyone they can think of.

        (In some rural areas around here, people go to J&J’s for people they don’t even know, just because what else are you going to do on a Saturday night?)

    2. I think S&D parties can be really well done and fun, and really tacky and stupid. I’ve been to both types. When I was a bridesmaid in my friend’s wedding, she and her fiancé were very low-income at the time, planning a seriously penny-pinching wedding, and could use all the help they could get. The S&D was a really fun and practical way to help them raise money, it was extremely low pressure so none of the guests were asked to contribute anything beyond their means, and everyone seemed to have a lot of fun and no one minded the fundraiser aspect of it. That was a well-done one. I’ve also been to one where I was kind of an old high school friend of the bride, not really super close or anything, but she invited a bunch of us from high school to attend. At one point she asked me to help man a table cause all her bridesmaids were busy with other things. I was not even invited to this wedding! That was really rude of her. I left not long after. (This was a bride who also had a bachelorette party, three (3!) bridal showers, and an engagement party prior to the S&D. I don’t know, I think it’s kind of tacky to have both an engagement party and a S&D. How many frigging events are you going to ask your wedding guests to attend?)

      On another note, if are having a S&D fundraiser, you better have a damn good reason. I acknowledge that I am very privileged – my parents are quite wealthy and will be paying for the large majority of my upcoming wedding, with his parents covering a lot of the gaps. My fiancé and I are making sure to tell all of our friends that we DO NOT WANT a S&D (sometimes his group organizes surprise parties of this sort) because honestly, it would be really fucking tacky of us to fundraise for a wedding that we are not even paying for.

    3. A better idea might be to somehow set up the party to be contributional. If as was said food and drink is the biggest expense by far (and also the most essential element of parties in many a culture) I think the ideal norm would be to make it potlucky. Seriously. The world does not have enough potlucks.

  23. Maybe this is a regional thing or a class thing (or a just not having assholes for friends thing), but I’ve been to all kinds of weddings from hippie barefoot in the park to fancy-pants bourbon bar and scallop station at the reception to Baptist church with cake and punch in the Fellowship Hall afterwards, and I’ve never really encountered a Bridezilla. I’ve had friends who were stressed and emotional about wedding planning (mostly because they were trying to juggle the expectations of both families), but that’s different.

    (I’ve also never been to a wedding where a kid or baby disrupted the ceremony either. Luck on my part? Possibly.)

  24. My husband’s friends told me six months after my wedding that I was a Bridezilla, but they obviously don’t know what one really is. We were having an outdoor, at home wedding in the country where everything was being brought in. It was expensive, stressful and time consumming, and in retrospect I would never do it again. We had a huge wedding party and everyone took the day before off to help set up. While the guys mostly sat and drank beer all afternoon (and it took five of them almost two hours to put together an arch that two of my girls were able to take down, move and put together again in less than twenty minutes), us girls were running around like chickens with our heads cut off.

    In the end my soon-to-be-husband took off when I had an appointment that day (we only have 1 car), we got the wrong tables delivered (only enough to sit 72 instead of 125), our decorator showed up 4 hours late and tried to change the set up plan we’d agreed on, and it was 44 degrees (celcius) outside. I had a small melt down near the end of the day because I couldn’t handle all the things that went wrong, the heat, the drunk guys, though every minute leading up to that final set up day was awesome.

    The wedding itself was great because after everyone was sent home and I went and cried in the bath tub for two hours my mom and sister had finished setting up and it looked like a a fairy tale when I came out and saw the tent lit up in the darkness on our family farm. But because I got upset about the problems we were having, his friends classified me as a Bridezilla.

    1. I feel the pain, things get so super stressful with wedding planning and it seems like if you spend even a second being anything but serene and joyful you are branded a bridezilla. It is completely hosed up.

      I got called a bridezilla for over those cloth chair covers of all things. I have nightmare allergies and my nightmare vision of my wedding was spending the day either hopped up on benedryl or in snotty sneezing fits where my face is covered in mucus and my eyes are bright puffy red and my makeup is dribbling everywhere. Rented chair covers are not only expensive, but they are dust magnets and I don’t want to deal with that on my wedding day.

      So I specified that one of my venue dealbreakers was chairs. I wanted them attractive enough that I didn’t need cloth chair covers.

      And that makes me a bridezilla.

  25. I’m kinda confused as to why you can’t be a bridesmaid if you can’t attend ALL the parties? WTF? There’s only one party you have to be at!

    That being said, I almost wonder if her friends are equally as jerky as her. Sounds like she’s trying hard to cut off the BS before it begins and if that’s the case, I admire her effort.

  26. Bridezilla is a truly evil word that causes misery–if you don’t think so from what you’ve read here, check out comments on the uproxx site.

    I’m with karak. Wild how someone with this much money to throw around could be so illiterate–did she not go to high school?–but I think her message is fair enough, if poorly expressed. Most people on this board wouldn’t want to be in her bridal party but her attendants said yes. It’s honest to tell them about the rigid schedule and high prices, give them a chance to bail if the deal isn’t to their taste. Tomato tomahto.

    1. No, I fundamentally disagree.

      Sure, she’s communicating clearly, but what she’s communicating is an enormous sense of entitlement to turn her friends into free labor for over a year. I do not understand this idea that one’s bridesmaids are to become unpaid help for however long the period of engagement is to be, and are to be considered piss-poor friends if something should come up during that period that prevents them from being 100% available to the bride at all times.

      Not to mention, I never hear of the groom or groomsmen as being expected to work as hard, as long, or as unrecompensed. What the hell kind of culture is this where we expect brides to orchestrate enormous parties, using unpaid female labor coerced from their friends, where people will get drunk, spend lots of money, and display themselves in wear-only-once cocktail outfits?

  27. I think I’m failing to see the ‘bridezilla’ aspect of this.

    The worst I can say about the LW is that she phrases her conditions bluntly, but frankly, not a lot of this seems unreasonable, especially for a high-maintenance event such as a wedding. The whole ‘we need to know NOW’ about possible issues attending the wedding is a bit extreme, but…well, this just reads as a woman who isn’t participating in the culture of nice most women are expected to take part in.

    Honestly the most ‘bridezilla’ aspect of the letter just seems to be the date issue, and the variety of places the woman wants to go for the wedding, engagement party, and bachelorette party.

    1. Eh… I agree that there’s an oppressive “culture of nice” that most women are expected to take part in, but the answer to the that isn’t a culture of awfulness. What’s awful about this letter is that it’s demanding and unreasonable. Expecting all ten — ten! — of your bridesmaids to be at three different events in three different, far-flung cities (NY, Vegas, Vail); to expect them to alert you now to all of their vacation plans in a six-month period more than a year from now; to demand that they reply to your emails within 24 hours even if they’re out of the country or have other things going on; to expect them to shell out for dresses, shoes, accessories, travel, hotels, gifts, shower arrangements, bachelorette party arrangements, and on and on without the right to opt out of even one event?

      It’s selfish and demanding and silly. Yes, a wedding is a high-maintenance event. But it’s your wedding, not something you can fairly expect that 10 other people will halt their entire lives for.

      1. Right, I agree that some of her demands were a bit unreasonable. And I didn’t see the line about paying out of pocket for their own dresses, which…yeah, is really gross. But I don’t really think responding to something within 24 hours is unreasonable? Especially in such a highly connected society that we live in, it’s not hard to drop a line through facebook, text, phone call, what have you.

        1. Incorrect: with that list, a lot of her demands are incredible in their unreasonableness. Focusing on one aspect and saying “surely this isn’t the worst in the world?” is disingenuous.

        2. And actually I do think expecting a bridesmaid to respond to communication within 24 hours is shitty and overly demanding. They aren’t being paid to be at this woman’s beck and call.

          The fact remains that when a bride asks women to stand up for her at her wedding, the theory is they are women that are close to the bride and/or groom, and they would like them to be a part of the ceremony, not that they are minions to serve at the whims of the bride. If an affair is going to be that freaking lavish, there are people you can pay to arrange a wedding and keep the bride from being frazzled without forcing the ‘maids to shell out a metric ton of cash for the honor of having someone dictate their lives for the next year. The thing should be fun for them, too, not work.

    2. I’d say the date issue is the most reasonable demand of hers, actually. When my fiancé and I got engaged, as soon as we had a date set, the very first thing we did was make sure the date didn’t cause conflicts for anyone in our wedding party or immediate family. I mean if I want my friends to be in my wedding, I want to make sure I’m not planning it on the same day they’re attending another wedding or a big work conference or something. It’s not that I would have kicked these girls out of my wedding party if there was a conflict, it’s just that I wanted to make sure the date we were considering worked for everyone that we really want to be there before we got as far as making a non-refundable deposit.

      1. Oh no, I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but I suppose I read it more in the context of ‘know what you’re going to be doing months from now,’ which isn’t something everyone can do. My reading comprehension is bunk today though, so. /shrug

        Hah, I think it’s best I bow out of this thread, I missed some key things in that letter.

        1. Ah, I understand. And yes. That is ridiculous. I couldn’t imagine demanding a detailed schedule from my gals months in advance.

      2. It wasn’t just the date of the wedding being set that was irritating, it was the date of the shower, the engagement party, the bachelorette party all being set in stone, so if something else came up in your life, say another close friend’s wedding, well, fuck them, it seems. Because this bride would probably cut you off DEAD if you missed one of her parties for someone else.

        And then there is this expectation that you HAVE to commit to spending a thus unspecified amount of money toward a shower and a bachelorette party, if you want to be a bridesmaid. Which, if memory serves, the bride shouldn’t have fuck all to do with anyway, so she really shouldn’t be dictating whether or not a potential bridesmaid attendance is required at said parties.

    3. What made me bristle was the references to the “honor” of being her bridesmaid. As if they’re all clamouring to be her bridesmaid. Only the lucky few were offered this wunnerful opportunity . . . Even if the letter was otherwise polite and nice, that would be enough for me to say no.

  28. The one thing I will say in the bride’s defense is that this can’t have arrived in a vacuum, i.e. these bridesmaids must have known what a royal pain in the ass she was prior to receiving these emails, and have no doubt been enabling her to some extent by not challenging her.

  29. I don’t know any people like this, but apparently they exist? Gah. FWIW, my sister and I (and our other brother) are ‘groomsmen’ in our brother’s wedding next weekend (yeah, all the sibs are standing up together…we’re close and our family is nontraditional) and the instructions we got from bro and his fiancee? “Black dress, cocktail-length”. That’s it…it’s going to be a fun time and no one is going to be fussed with stupid pageant-like drama! 🙂

    1. Sounds like my wedding, while the arranging was a bit stressful because I had to do it long distance, and because we had to schedule it for when we could both get leave. I didn’t actually care that much about the details. My bridesmaid were my sister and 2 of my cousins, I gave them money and said “can you show up in blue floor length dress”. Since they all sew they talked and decided to make their dresses from the same pattern in different shades.( I didn’t care if they bought or made them, whatever worked for them) My dad found a place that had a package deal for limos,dinner, bar, wedding cake and florist. I picked out the flowers 5 days before the wedding.

      The party was great and I got to see all my family and friends….I met my in-laws the day of the rehearsal dinner.

  30. The Bridezilla concept is sexist on every level, including the way it punishes women for conforming to sexist standards.

    As a straight woman, you are constantly told that your wedding day is the most important of your life. Not the groom’s life. Just yours.

    And then, when you internalize this, and act on it, you are punished for it. Because it’s bitchy, and also it shows that you are vain and superficial and inferior!

    Inevitably so, because you are, after all, a woman.

    1. And then, when you internalize this, and act on it, you are punished for it.

      When you’re an entitled asshole demanding the ability to control your friends’ lives for several months in exchange for the “honor” walking down the aisle in front of you, then, indeed, you should be punished.

      1. When you’re an entitled asshole demanding the ability to control your friends’ lives for several months in exchange for the “honor” walking down the aisle in front of you, then, indeed, you should be punished.

        Is this approach what feminism is about? If so, count me out.

        To simply slag off on a woman whose behavior annoys us, without examining the social tropes and structures that that behavior is a product of, is (a) superficial and (b) simply reinforcing those structures. It’s like when you simply whack your kid every time (s)he is “bratty,” rather than trying to figure out _why_ (s)he is misbehaving.

        Second, “bridezilla” is a gendered insult, just like “slut” and “shrew,” and dumping on brides for their supposed “bridezilla” behavior is as much a socially encouraged — and misogynistic — practice as the “take my wife — please!” so-called jokes. I mean, it has its own TV show (“Bridezillas”, on the cable network “we,” for those not familiar with USA TV), so we can all snicker and feel superior to those stupid women from the comfort of our living rooms. The roads in my area are full of assholes, but there’s no TV show “Assholes of the Major Deegan.”

        If we want to call ourselves feminist, shouldn’t it make us at least uncomfortable when we find that we are putting women down for the same things and in the same way as the ranking sexists of society?

        1. Yeah, and if I was advocating hitting this woman, that would be fair comparison. But making fun of her for being an asshole is hardly subjecting her to torture.

          Structural misogynist pressures do not relieve an individual of the responsibility of being a baseline level decent human being to her friends. I can indeed acknowledge various sexist pressures on her, and yet still blame her for being a total asshole.

          As for “if this is what feminism is about”–don’t be so melodramatic. Nowhere did I claim that blaming this woman for her assholery is a necessary aspect of feminism, so set your mind at rest. You can exonerate her of all blame and still be in the club. I’ll just think you’re being silly.

        2. I’m with you AMM, which is why I, like Jill, hate the term, “Bridezilla.”

          It’s possible to criticize a woman’s actions (selfish, rude, inappropriate) without resorting to gendered insults.

          I suspect this woman is generally rude and entitled, which is why she views The Most Important Day Of Her Life as The Most Important Day In Everyone Else’s Life, too.

          There’s so much b.s., misogynist crap around weddings and what they symbolize “for women” that it’s hardly surprising when wedding planning gets really unpleasant for the others involved. Of course it is tied up with misogyny and social expectations of women.

        3. What is being said, essentially, is “A plague on both your houses”.

          These kinds of double standards are one of the main things that is wrong with gender for both men and women.

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