Wedding planning is not for the faint-hearted. And although much of its burden goes directly to the newlyweds, a solid share of stress comes to the bridesmaid, aka a good or best friend or two, or ten, who have been there since the beginning of the romance.
But everything is more or less survivable unless the bride turns into a bridezilla. Watch out for the first signs—delusional and stubborn behavior, lack of patience, and sacrificing others for their personal gains. And who is better equipped to share what it’s like surviving a bridezilla wedding than the bridesmaids who’ve been to nuptial hell and back?
Let’s see what they had to say when one Redditor posed the inquiry “Bridesmaid of Reddit who was involved in a bridezilla wedding, what happened?” and it’s not gonna be pretty, let me tell you that.
#1
The bride was blonde, and all the bridesmaids were brunette except me, so the bride asked me to dye my hair brown for the wedding because she wanted to be the only blonde.
Image credits: kmmurky
#2
I had an ectopic pregnancy in which the baby attached to my fallopian tube, which then burst, and I almost bled to death. Well, my friend got engaged shortly after that pregnancy, and when she asked me to be her bridesmaid, she said that I would be 'required' to wait to try and have another baby until after her wedding...""Not because there would be a small child at the wedding, and not even because she didn't want me to be 'fat' at her wedding. But because if I lost another child, it would take the attention away from her engagement and wedding! I was so shocked that I declined and haven't spoken to her since
Image credits: MommaBearJam
#3
My best friend left me out of her bridal party because I was overweight and her mother thought that would limit bridesmaid dress choices and throw the wedding photos off
Image credits: volcanicpale
#4
She wouldn't let our friend — who had breast cancer and was in chemotherapy — sit down after walking down the aisle
Image credits: CasuConsuIto
#5
It was 10 degrees Fahrenheit in February, and the bride insisted on outdoor photos WITHOUT COATS because 'we can't hide the dresses!' Even the photographer told her no, and she pitched a fit! Years later, she still complains about how her bridesmaids ruined her wedding
Image credits: Hexagogo
#6
The father of the bride had a heart attack, and as he was being carried out on the stretcher, the sobbing bride yelled, 'How could you ruin my wedding like this?!'
Image credits: remberzz
#7
After the ceremony was over, the bride informed us that in order to save money, the wedding party wouldn't be served a meal along with the rest of the guests. She said, 'You already had the privilege of being in my wedding —what more can you ask for?
Image credits: ligamentary
#8
I lost some weight between the time I agreed to be a bridesmaid and the wedding. Well, the bride threw me out of the wedding party because she wanted to be the skinny one on the stage!
Image credits: Reddituser
#9
My best friend just got kicked out of a wedding because she couldn't afford to spend the $1,500 to go to the bachelorette party. The bride told her to take out a credit card to pay for it!
Image credits: awayfrommymind
#10
She reached out after the wedding to ask me how to return my gift for store credit
Image credits: ligamentary
#11
My ex-best friend tried to make me and another bridesmaid walk down the uneven outdoor aisle WITHOUT OUR GLASSES, saying they would 'ruin the aesthetic' of her wedding! And she told us the morning of the wedding, so we didn't even have time to get get contacts! Her mom was able to calm her down by reassuring her that she was skinnier and more beautiful than both of us, so no one would be looking at us anyway.
Image credits: Suitcaseofsparks
#12
She had her bachelorette party the same weekend as my birthday, but we weren't allowed to do anything for my birthday on the trip, not even mention it. Well, on my actual birthday, some of my friends got some balloons and a little cake from the hotel. They tried to keep it a secret, but Bridezilla came into the room, saw everything, went completely silent, then walked out, pissed
Image credits: rational_adult
#13
The final straw for me was when the bride demanded to see the toast I'd written...so she could edit it. She ended up rewriting it altogether, and I ended up skipping her wedding.
Image credits: hotel_girl985
#14
I didn’t make it to the wedding. I was best friends with the woman, literally we did everything together. She assembled her wedding party and didn’t invite me. She threw me my bachelorette, witnessed my marriage, etc. I found out later I wasn’t invited because I was overweight and her mother thought that would limit bridesmaid dress choices and throw the wedding photos ‘off’. At least I know, dodged a bullet.
Image credits: volcanicpale
#15
When my friend was a bridesmaid, she received an astonishingly detailed itinerary of how to behave on the wedding day, with notes like "9:52am: Compliment the bride on how she looks on this, the most important day of her life". On the actual wedding day, the bride repeatedly got angry with my friend for not adhering to the itinerary. This was after several months of the bride expecting my friend to be available at a moment's notice to take care of any wedding chores. They haven't spoken since the wedding day.
Image credits: ChestnutMoss
#16
I couldn't attend my friend's last-minute destination wedding because I had to travel to visit my dad — who was dying of cancer — to handle hospice arrangements. She was pissed, and tried to guilt-trip me because I couldn't afford both plane flights. That was the end of our friendship
Image credits: theuncannyvalleys
#17
My wife's best friend is a florist, and she gifted her services to her friend's wedding. Well, afterward, the bride and her mom got pissy at her because she didn't give them an additional gift. Let's conveniently forget the $1,000 in floral products she gifted to the wedding! It's a rift that has never been healed
Image credits: Hard_at_it
#18
The bride — who was one of my best friends and very frugal — asked me and her other bridesmaid to HAND-MAKE all of her wedding decorations! I put in 15 hours a week hand-making decorations while also working and going to school full time!
Image credits: SpectralShifter
#19
Planner here. Bride invites ex boyfriend to wedding because “he’s just a really good friend”. During reception her husband of 2 hours goes to the bathroom, she plants a kiss on him. Notices I saw and promptly reminds me to mind my business. At the end of the night, catering informed me they hadn’t settled their bill. If they didn’t get payment that night there would be an additional fee charged. I run outside and let them know before they drive off. Two days later I get a call from groom who informs me the bride is extremely upset with my “unprofessionalism” and wants a refund. She wasn’t happy that I “made a scene” by running outside to tell them about the bill, in an effort to save them from additional charges. I asked him if he was aware of the scene she made when she kissed ex BF on the dance floor while he went to the bathroom. He hung up.
Image credits: Imabigdiva
#20
Not a bridemaid, but a witness to one.The bride got walked out on by her entire bridle party, except her maid of honor. Of course it was because no one loved her, and everyone wanted to ruin her day, not because she ripped a bridemaids dress from the neck down, in an open area, because it was too white ... it was the dress the bride insisted on all the maids wearing.
Image credits: BARDLover
#21
My dad had the audacity to die 6 weeks before the wedding, and she couldn't understand why that superseded her wedding details for me. I met my husband at her wedding, haven't spoken to her since.
Image credits: J-squire
#22
Bride insisted we (bridesmaids) make all the decorations but got pissed because they weren’t up to her high standard. All of this a month before the wedding because she procrastinated the whole thing. Wanted to plan the bridal shower herself cause she thought we were incompetent. During the bachelorette party we went to a decently fancy restaurant and bride was pissed because her little sister (bridesmaid who helped with nothing) “only ate simple foods so we should have just went to mcdonalds”. To this day she keeps saying how she wants to do the wedding over again because of how horrible everything went. There is so much more to this but I’m already border-line exposing myself (we are still currently friends) by saying all of this haha. It was not a good time and I myself don’t want to have a wedding after being a part in that disaster
Image credits: missxdi
#23
I've had colorful hair for years now. It's quite the investment-- I go to a salon to get it done, and buy high quality products. When my best friend asked me to be her MOH, my hair was neon pink. Three weeks before her wedding, she requested that I color my hair to a natural color. I was SHOCKED. She offered to give me $100 to get it done (lol). I had justttt gotten my hair done (a plum/red color, quite tame in comparison to what I've done in the past)If I had just randomly went from brown to lime green out of no where I might understand her frustrations, but at this point I hadn't seen my natural color in like 3 years!
I never changed my hair, we got into a screaming match at her bachelorette party and she drunkenly revealed that her mom hated my hair and would not stop bitching about it. We cried and hugged in the club bathroom and all was well.
Her mom didn't speak to me at the wedding and I'm okay with that.
Image credits: sweetvi0let
#24
Not a bridesmaid, wife was a cousin to the bride. This happened a few months ago. Bachlorette party a few days before wedding, my wife didn't go but her sister and other family went. A couple male strippers there, lots of alcohol. Suddenly bridesmaids realize the bride is missing. They find her in her hotel with one of the strippers...who happens to be black. She freaks and tells everyone she was raped. Cops come. Stripper arrested. Wedding canceled. Everyone feeling sorry. Detective on the case doesn't believe her story and bride finally comes clean. Her mom and my wife's mom still believe she was legit raped by the stripper.
Image credits: thegauntlet
#25
I had to wear very high heels that didn't fit right, which was made even worse by the fact that I never ever wear heels. Her ceremony was well over an hour and the bridesmaids had to stand on the stage the entire time.Taking those heels off after the ceremony was simultaneously one of the worst and greatest feelings ever. My feet wanted to murder her.
Image credits: _birdnerd_
#26
My best friend got married and she was actually very calm throughout the whole planning process and on the wedding day. However, the day after the wedding she texted me and sarcastically said “thanks for the wedding present”. I was planning to get her a present with my next paycheck. However, I was in such shock she texted me that. Especially after I spent ~$800 (dress, alterations, shoes, nails, makeup, hair, hotel room, etc.) to be in her wedding. It felt like all she cared about was gifts.
Image credits: smnth123
#27
Picked $400 bridesmaid dresses. Destination bachelorette that cost over $1200. Insisted on a super expensive spot for the bridal shower. Registered at william Sonoma. I was a broke ass college student with limited funds. But managed to pay for all this crap and give a gift.Bonus points: her husband forgot his entire [friggin] ux and didn't figure this out until a few hours before the ceremony.
A few minutes before the ceremony when she screamed at me for like the 500th time that day I snapped and told her either she cut her [mess] or I was getting in my car and going home.
She cut her [mess] . The rest of it went fine.
Image credits: Notatumor1990
#28
She kicked someone out of the wedding party who couldn't make it bridesmaid dress shopping because she was sick and had to go to the hospital
Image credits: SashWhitGrabby
#29
This wedding is in like 2 weeks... The bride has recently asked me if I would mind not wearing any makeup because only the maid of honor and her really wear makeup. I was pissed and confused... The bride doesn't wear makeup ever. At the last girls night, I suggested we mess around with makeup and see what you'd like for your wedding. She refused, saying she's not going to wear it.What the hell kind of request is that? Like do you think other women attending the wedding aren't going to wear makeup. Plus, your [friggin] moh wears pyramid scheme make up in green and black in normal day life. What the [hell] do you think she's going to wear to your wedding???
Image credits: bellsonlywish
#30
I bartend at a catering joint. “Bridezilla” would honestly describe like 40% of brides at our weddings. They can be extremely demanding, always blamed us, the bartenders, for the limitations of our venue or their own contract. Ran out of the special order scotch on our bar? You shoulda ordered more bottles.
Image credits: WaffleKing110
#31
Was dealing with a break up that girlfriends knew about. While in her car on the way to a dressshop go try on bridesmaids dresses, she's asks when I will be getting married. I softly tell her, "I'm not." Her reply, "bitter." Suggesting I was bitter that I was not getting married. To her credit, I saw her in the gym weeks later, guess she was doing the bride diet of excessive exercise and limited calories and accepted my hurt - surprised feelings and apologized#32
Not a brides maid but one of the groomsmen. The groomsmen were forced to work through the entire post-wedding ceremony, cleaning up peoples shit and trying to make sure things go well. When we tried to hide and take a break, we got yelled at by the bride and her mother to keep working. Needless to say I no longer talk to them.#33
The bride had 16 bridesmaids, and she wanted 16 different styles of dresses in 16 different shades of blue for each of the bridesmaids. She threw a fit when the store didn't have quite that many options#34
Bride started crying because the table cloth was the wrong shade of purple. So she thought the whole wedding was “ruined”. Never mind that she was marrying a nice man, all her friends had flown in for the wedding, her family was all there etc etc. But no, the table cloth was the wrong shade. We spent an hour consoling her and fixing up her makeup, while the guests waited#35
I was in a wedding where the bride planned two separate bachelorette weekends for herself and got mad at anyone who couldn’t/wouldn’t spend two 3-day weekends at ~$500/each away from their husbands/kids/jobs.The week leading up to the wedding the temp for the big day was forecast to be a high of 10*F (February wedding, NE US). Bride was insisting on outdoor photos without coats “because we can’t hide the dresses!” Everyone, including the photographer, tells her hell no. Day of she pitches a fit when we refused to do more than one quick photo.
Afterwards, she stopped talking to 75% of the bridal party because of their refusal to accommodate her outrageous demands. To this day, years later, she still complains about how her bridesmaids ruined her wedding.
#36
Friend asked me to be a bridesmaid in her shotgun wedding that was to take place in a little over a month. She has us order semi-expensive dresses and they HAD to be altered to a certain length. Shoes had to be ordered. Toenails had to be painted neutral color and fingernails had to be French manicure. We weren’t allowed to paint our own nails-we HAD to get them done at a salon. Hair HAD to be done professionally by her hairstylist. And we were not, under any circumstance, to have bikini tan lines visible. Mind you, this was right after summer. I lived in an area where beach attire was usually the only attire and everyone had visible tan lines.I eventually had to tell her that I could not afford to have everything done professionally with such short notice. I would be happy to do my hair and makeup. My hair was so short I couldn’t do an updo. She told me her mom could pay and then I could pay her back. That was the final straw.
I sent an email to her telling her I could no longer be in her wedding. She was pregnant, about to get hitched, and now I was adding to her list of problems. I valued the friendship and told her such, but just couldn’t do what she was asking.
I hadn’t heard from her for YEARS. Until one day she sent me a message, asking for me to buy from her MLM campaign. FFS.
#37
She got pissed at her mother in law for wanting to throw a second bridal shower for her (plan it, send invites and everything for her. Bride does nothing, walks in, gets free [things] , leaves). Won't even go. Cant remember what idiotic thought process decided that.Demands her 20-something year old bridal party flies from Seattle to her hometown of bumf*ck nowhere West Virginia for a weekend to do the bachelorette party. Won't help them pay for their airplane tickets. They also have to fly back there A SECOND TIME for the wedding a couple months later
#38
Granted I am 25 and just getting settled into my career, but my best friend expected me to spend over $2k on her bachelorette party-this was to fly to a resort and didn’t include food/activities/etc.Granted she and most of her friends are in their 30s but there was no way I could pull that off on top of everything I had spent just being in the wedding. I participated in everything I could but heck no I couldn’t drop that kind of money.
#39
Bridesmaid to a bridezilla here. The bride spent a lot of time crying and carrying on whenever she didn’t get her way because “it was her wedding and we should all do exactly what she wanted.” Which is not to say we didn’t- we sure did. She wanted everyone to justify her irrational and horrible behavior because it was all about her. She didn’t enjoy it much when I told her she was wrong for kicking someone out of her bridal party , terminating the friendship, and pitching a fit because a girl couldn’t make bridesmaid dress shopping because she was sick and had to go to the hospital.This is also coming from the same woman who got angry and didn’t speak to me for months because I didn’t come see her to congratulate her on her pregnancy when I was home on furlough for a week at Christmas.
#40
Not a bridezilla story, but I was in 3 weddings in the span of one year and one interesting thing I noticed was that there is always one bridesmaid that the bride stops being friends with after the wedding. You can start to see which bridesmaid it's gonna be about half way through the engagement.#41
One friend is getting married in the beginning of the year. Her former “best fraaaand” has been super jealous ever since Friend A got together with her man and has been actually happy.So, we’ll call her B, and it will become apparent as to why, got with a guy early in the summer. Within weeks, she gave up her lease and moved in with him. Think three weeks. It’s been less than six months, and they got engaged. Because A got engaged a few weeks ago, B got engaged last week.
B? Just HAD to set her date before A. She HAS to get married FIRST. The only planning she has done? She has reserved a crappy “party room” in a run-down municipal building.
She could wait, save money, and have a decent wedding on a budget. But no, the B has to get married FIRST, so she can rub it in A’s face that she’s HAPPIER, god damn it.
My money is on B announcing her pregnancy at at A’s reception.
#42
It was a best friend of mine who was very frugal, so I figured she was going to have a reasonable wedding and bachelorette party. I had shared my monetary concerns with her too, that I worked and went to school and couldn’t take off much time. She didn’t have that many friends so It was only me and one other girl as bridesmaids. She asked us to hand-make ALL her decorations for the wedding (I put in 15 hours a week hand making decorations, all outside of working and going to school full time). Then she planned a week long bachelorette party out of town, also asking us to foot the bill, not to mention our dresses which I wanted to find something affordable (but she picked designer matching dresses that we had to pay for...never worn It again, been trying to sell It online). I spent nearly 1k on the whole ordeal, not to mention I did her hair and makeup for free for the wedding. I just felt largely taken advantage of and unappreciated. We are no longer friends because we ended up working together (after the wedding) and she tried to screw me over at work. It all makes me very reluctant to agree to be in someone’s wedding again, even someone I thought would be considerate of everyone else’s budget and time#43
Had to tailor a men’s sized tie down to fit my ten-year-old child because the bride refused to let him wear a child’s sized one because it wouldn’t “match.”from Bored Panda https://bit.ly/2PDNg5Q
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