Bridesmaids Spill Their Stories Of Being In A Real-Life Bridezilla's Wedding

Kasia Mikolajczak
bride and bridesmaids
Unsplash | Briana Autran

Planning a wedding is stressful. I'm finding it out more as we speak. When a woman becomes engaged, something switches in her brain, and the gears start spinning. After all, she has dreamed of getting married for most of her life, so it's no wonder she wants it all to be perfect. Am I right?

However, that doesn't mean she should take things to the extreme. Unfortunately, some brides end up spiraling. A recent Reddit thread asked bridesmaids who took part in a bridezilla wedding to share what happened, and these stories will shock you.

This Unreasonable Request

wedding couple outside in the snow
Unsplash | Konstantin Mishchenko

"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."

Wow, just wow!

This Insane Behavior

bride and bridesmaids
Unsplash | Jamie Coupaud

"Not a bridesmaid, but a witness to one. The bride got walked out on by her entire bridal 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 bridesmaid's 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."

I would have walked out, too.

This Similar Situation

woman grimacing
Giphy

"This makes me think of a wedding I witnessed at a brewery in upstate New York, in December. There was snow everywhere and they got married standing outside in freezing rain. Bridesmaids all had strapless dresses and no coats on. Thankfully they kept the ceremony to under 10 mins but man they looked miserable."

Yikes!

This Odd Request

blonde woman
Unsplash | Velizar Ivanov

"Bride was blonde. All bridesmaids except for me were brunettes. She asked me to dye my hair brown for the wedding because she, 'wanted to be the only blonde.' I suggested that instead I just give up my bridesmaid spot. Thankful to this day since I heard the dresses and bachelorette party cost all the other girls more money than I make in a month."

Okay, right? Like I would change my hair color for this bride, ha, ha.

This Terrible Incident

woman shocked
Giphy | CBC

"Not a bridesmaid, but my mom was a wedding photographer for many years. Long story short, the father of the bride had a heart attack and as he was being carried out on the stretcher the sobbing bride yells, 'How could you ruin my wedding like this?!!!?'"

Wow, this shows who's got their priorities straight.

This Selfish 'Friend'

hospital bed
Unsplash | Bret Kavanaugh

"I couldn’t attend my friend’s last-minute destination wedding because I had to visit my dad out of state to handle hospice arrangements — he was dying of cancer. She threw an absolute hissy fit, attempting to guilt-trip me because I couldn’t afford to make two plane flights. That was the end of our friendship."

Talking about having absolutely zero compassion for someone.

This Wedding Omission

woman saying "wow!"
Giphy | This Might Get

"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."

How shallow is that?

This Unsympathetic Situation

bridesmaid dresses
Unsplash | Christina Victoria Craft

"That was a big issue with the wedding I was just MOH for. The color theme for the wedding was royal purple, lilac, and cream and all the bridesmaids had to wear royal purple colored dresses in a very specific '80s style which you can probably imagine is quite difficult to find. We all ordered our dresses (they were $14) when we found out that one of the bridesmaids couldn't fit into any of the available sizes. She said she would try to lose weight best she could and fit into the largest size by the wedding, but by then the dress was no longer available.

She tried to coordinate with the bride for a similar dress, but none that she found were exactly the same color. She ended up dropping out of the wedding entirely because the bride wasn't satisfied after she'd bought dress number five. You'd think people would be a little more sympathetic."

That's so sad.

This Hissy Fit

bride saying "I'm not happy."
Giphy | WE tv

"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. But no, the table cloth was the wrong shade. We spent an hour consoling her and fixing up her makeup, while the guests waited."

Oh, my!

This Entitled Bride

wedding flower centerpieces on table
Unsplash | José León

"My wife's best friend is a florist by trade, gifted her services to decorate her friend's wedding (big cost savings). Wedding goes as planned, all is good. Afterward, the bride and bride's mom gets pissy at the florist friend who didn't give a gift in the wedding card... yet conveniently forget the $1000 in floral products gifted to the wedding, it's a rift that never healed between them since."

This is what happens when you try to do something nice.

This Jealous Bride

woman in sportswear
Pexels | Pexels

"A friend of mine in college was getting married at 19 because she was super conservative Christian and she wanted to have sex. Between the time I agreed to be a bridesmaid and a couple of months before the wedding I lost some weight. She got super pissed at me because she wanted to be the skinny one on the stage and threw me out of the wedding party. Oh well."

Honestly, all I can do is just laugh at that.

This Crazy Story

woman saying "the audacity."
Giphy | STICK TO SPORTS

"I was the maid of honor. I helped plan the whole wedding, I went to all the awkward parties with family members I had never met. I was close with the bride and groom, not their families. The whole time we were planning she kept talking about being a bridezilla like it was an inevitable phase she would go through. [Fast-forward] all the way to the end. She suddenly decided that her sister needs to be the only one involved, but I can still be the maid of honor. She calls me on the day of the bridal shower and asks why I wasn't there and insists she told me the date. She hadn't.

She fires me on the spot and I don't talk to her again until a few days before the wedding. She tells me that I can still come but she had asked one of her husband's ex-girlfriends, someone she didn't know to be her new maid of honor. Day before the wedding she asks me to be the usher. Says I can show people to their seats, the gift table, the bathroom. I didn't attend the wedding."

Can you believe that? She sounds pretty entitled, right?

This Stepmom From Hell

dad stepmom and daughter
Unsplash | Omar Lopez

"I was a bridesmaid at my father and stepmother's wedding. I was 16. It wasn't so much the wedding day that was a problem, but rather the prep and planning. She spent 8 months before the wedding trying to bully me into losing weight for the wedding pictures. The closer we got to it, the more aggressive she was. Eventually, my dad got on the bandwagon, too. I started dieting for the wedding but I was angry and miserable the whole time. Everything I ate was commented on. If she was bringing home dinner, she would always ask what I wanted and then reply with, 'you shouldn't eat that before the wedding.'"

How can you do that to a 16-year-old child?

This Outrageous Bride

wedding photographer taking picture of the wedding couple
Unsplash | Mariah Krafft

"My wife got roped into doing the photos for her stepsister's wedding. Normally my wife would charge between $4000 and $6000 for this, and we were flying across the country to attend this wedding mostly out of family obligation. So the bride was getting an amazing deal. Over the course of six months bride becomes incredibly hateful on social media, constantly starting drama, was bitchy in her save the dates, and changed venue and locations several times. We knew it was going to be a [expletive] show but we’d committed so we bought our plane tickets and planned to come.

Week before the wedding bride goes totally psycho and posts nasty awful things about half of her wedding party, including my wife. So we decide to cancel the photography and not attend the wedding, wasn’t worth it anymore. Bride's own mother was so ashamed of her behavior that she didn’t attend either. All total they had 8 people at their wedding, and only got cellphone pictures. We had a nice little vacation and visited a lot of friends in the area."

Serves here right, huh?

This Complete User

woman shocked getting a drink
Giphy | Bounce

"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 $1,000 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."

Who needs enemies when you have "friends" like that?

This Total Lie

bride
Unsplash | Cássio Jardim

"The short story is that she lied. She lied to the venue about the number of guests that were attending. Effectively packing us like sardines. She lied about having a 'day of' staff. That meant that all the dates of the bridesmaids spent the day hanging flowers, running to get kegs and waters, pouring the champagne for guests, setting up the entire venue the day before. She lied to the hair and make-up personnel about the number of people who were obtaining services in order to get them to come to the site. This forced guests to get hair and make-up done in order for 'the bride not to have to be charged extra.' She lied to the catering about the number of guests, this caused them to run out of food and alcohol. All in all, I think her lies saved her $1500, but cost her close friendships as her attitude toward the whole situation was indignation instead of being apologetic."

That's not the kind of friend I'd like to have.

This Ungrateful Bride

woman saying "I wanna punch her in the face."
Giphy | WE tv

"Overheard the bride drunkenly tell a mutual friend at her wedding day that if she could do it all over again, she wouldn’t have had me and a mutual friend in her bridal party (I was the MOH)."

I planned her bachelorette party (with a mutual friend) from another country and dropped a lot of money on it personally so she would have the party she wanted. I gifted her a pair of Jimmy Choos for her wedding day along with a beautiful ring with her wedding date engraved. I had to fly to Europe for her wedding, use a hire car to get around, and help with loading/transporting wedding items back and forth.

Apparently her wedding day was ruined because the calla lilies in her centerpieces wouldn’t stay suspended in the water vase like she wanted. And it was all my fault because they slowly floated to the top."

OMG, I never laughed so hard. What an entitled bride, huh?

This Shocking Story

woman sitting at a waterfront
Unsplash | Artem Kovalev

"I was almost in a bridezilla wedding... I had an ectopic pregnancy (baby attached to my tube, which then burst, and I almost bled to death). She got engaged shortly following my ectopic. When she asked me to be her bridesmaid, she told me that I would be required to wait to try to have another baby until after her wedding in 1.5 years... not because there would be a small child at the wedding, not even because she didn’t want me fat at her wedding.. but because if I lost another child, it would take away from her engagement and wedding. I was so shocked I just declined and have never spoken to her since."

I feel like I've lost faith in humanity after reading this.

Oh my goodness, what did I tell you?

bride getting her hair done
Giphy | Jersey Shore Family Vacation

Weren't these stories of total bridezillas quite shocking? I honestly can't believe that some people can be so self-absorbed. I know a wedding is a special day, but you need to treat everybody with respect. No bride has a right to throw tantrums and put unduly pressure on her wedding party and guests. That's not cool at all.