It's not your wedding, so shut the hell up.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I think that my anger over this situation is righteous and plentiful enough for the Pit … but those people scare me, and I don’t have quite the rapier wit necessary for a good pitting, so MPSIMS it is.

I have always been under the impression that when a friend or family member asks you to be a bridesmaid in their wedding, it is understood that they are in charge, and you should just be thankful you were asked. My friend S has been the most accomodating bride I have ever seen–we had input on what our dresses would look like, she doesn’t care how we wear our hair, we don’t all have to wear the same jewelry or shoes … we just have to show up, really.

One would think that this would make the entire bridal party happy, right? Wrong.

From day one in the Great Bridesmaid Dress Search of ‘05, one bridesmaid, C, has been fighting S and the rest of us every step of the way. I’ve been in two weddings before this one–in both cases, I was told what I was wearing. My sister-in-law, in fact, gave as her bridesmaids’ gifts a basket containing the nail polish, earrings, and pantyhose she wanted us all to wear. (Fantastic gift, huh? :rolleyes: )

S has scheduled the wedding for October, and she wanted a very fall theme for it. Her plan was to have us in an autumn color–brown, or orange, or just something that evokes that changing-foliage image. C wanted red. Bright red. Strapless. We went shopping, and C wouldn’t even try on a brown dress.

For the record, C has brown hair and brown eyes and a nice tan and would look fabulous in a brown dress … but Og forbid it have straps. I, on the other hand, have red hair and pale skin and a fat ass, and would look ridiculous in a bright red strapless dress–but I was willing to wear one, if that was what the bride wanted. C almost talked her into it, too. It’s a good thing I have internet access and little to do at work. I found a better dress, and I found it in brown, so take that, Nazi Bridesmaid!

Now we’re having shoe issues. sigh The Maid of Honor is 5’10. I am 5’ even, the groom’s sister is 5’4", and C is 5’6". The bride is four feet, ten inches tall, and a little sensitive about her height. C wants to wear five-inch platform shoes, and is responding to requests that she limit her heel to two inches with responses like “You want me to look like crap?” and “But Cathy’s five-ten, what does it matter?” Today’s prize was “But flats make my feet look big.” It’s a floor-length fucking dress. Who gives a damn?

The bride, as you may have noticed, has something of a problem with confrontation, and is mortally afraid of hurting anyone’s feelings. I have offered repeatedly to take C out back and kick the shit out of her. I have also made sure that S knows that if and when I ever get married, I will have no arguments–you do what I tell you to, or you don’t get to be in the wedding. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.

I have spent the majority of my day assuring S that she is not being overly controlling by doing something as trivial as trying to make her wedding the best day it can be. I have offered to politely remind C (who I’m relatively sure doesn’t like me anyway, and hasn’t since Junior High–it’s 'cause I’m smarter than her, I believe :wink: ) that this is not her wedding, the day is not about her, and that all she is doing is making S more stressed out, which is the last thing she needs with less than three months to go.

I have also offered to pay for C’s dress out of my own pocket and have it altered to fit S’s cousin, just because I’m so sick of her shit.

Make me feel better–tell me your BridesmaidZilla stories. Keep me from killing her outright just to save my friends some aggravation. :slight_smile:

2

Oy. As an avoider of confrontation, I’m always in favor of eloping. Weddings can tend to bring out the worst in everyone.

3

I don’t have any Bridezilla stories.
I say you take her out back. It’s the least you can do for your friend the bride.

4

This is insane! It’s not her wedding - where the hell does she get off making demands about this stuff?? You’ve got to submit this to www.etiquettehell.com. (Don’t visit the site unless you have a few hours to kill!)

5

Here’s the Queen Mother of all bridezilla sites.

No matter what a bride does or doesn’t do, someone isn’t going to like it.

6

'Tis good stuff, that eloping.

7

Speaking as a bride less than two months before her own wedding, I can confidently say for polite brides everywhere:

Take her out back and hit her with a brick. Repeat if she still spouts nonsensical baloney about how the shoes make her feet look under her floor length skirt. If her mouth opens again with anything other than sweet, reasonable, accomadating compliance, add another brick and repeat.

Who the hell knew that trying to avoid becoming Bridezilla apparently translates into a number of brains as “OMG she doesn’t know what she’s doing - QUICK! TAKE OVER IMMEDIATELY!!”?

8

She also mentioned today that she’s pissed she’s not the Maid of Honor. If she were, I would have politely declined participation–I know what she’s like, and there’s a reason no one has ever asked her to be in a wedding before.

9

Only Mostly Missus is in full swing to get our wedding (next June) planned with as much as early as possible, to make sure the neccessarily last minute crap is the only thing happening at the last minute. We have the venue (with catering included, though obviously we haven’t yet tasted), the DJ, very nearly the photographer, very nearly the flowers, she has her dress, and we have the wedding party (more or less) set.

And everybody in the party is cool. On her side, her best friend Maid of Honor will have bright blue hair (thereby being the “something blue”), and there will also be a college friend and my sister. On my side, the girl who set us up is my Best Man (sadly, not getting her in a tux), as well as one of Only Mostly Missus’ male friends and a good friend of mine.

Oops, did I say everybody is cool? I forgot Only Mostly Missus’ queen bitch little teenage sister, who does not like the perfectly attractive (and rewearable) bridesmaid dress decided on unanimously by Maid of Honor, Best (wo)Man, college friend, and my sister. Who does not like the tasteful calla lillies the bridesmaids will be sporting. Who does not like the shoes. Or the wedding theme. Or, well, anything that the lovely Only Mostly Missus wants for HER OWN WEDDING. And the little bitch is being quite vocal about every thing she disagrees with, “every thing” of course being everything.

Letting Queen Bitch into the party at all was a concession Only Mostly Missus made (and knew would have to be made anyway) as part of her parents’ funding. But she is quite ready to toss out Queen Bitch on her wide corn-fed ass, demoting her to the level of regular wedding guest, which would probably be met with great wailing by Queen Bitch (who paradoxically wants to be in the wedding party, but doesn’t want anything to do with any of the wedding party obligations), but ultimately will not be fought too hard by the parents if Only Mostly Missus does do the right thing (which, being of the same personality as the OP’s bride S, hating to confront anybody, no matter how badly they deserve it, she will be hard pressed to bring herself to do).

I’ve already sworn to pull Queen Bitch aside at some point and remind her this is not her wedding, and that indeed not only do I seriously hate her selfish whiny shit (which has probably leaked its way into her fat head over the past four years anyway), but so does Only Mostly Missus (who more or less tells her so on a daily basis in fiendishly subtle ways that Queen Bitch’s crayola-sharp wit cannot even begin to grasp).

10

I have a friend who is about 5’10". She used to own a set of 3" heels in fluorescent pink. Obviously the shoes were dyed to match the bridesmaids’ gowns. The funny part was the comment that the bride got mad when she realized just how tall this made my friend. My friend had never been a big fan of the dyed to match shoes- or the three inch heels.

Mostly unrelated to the above. My sister-in-law opted to let her bridesmaids wear the white sandals of our choice to her wedding. (floor length gowns kind of hid our feet anyway). The funny thing is that looking at the wedding pictures, the bridesmaids are all about 5’4" tall. The bride is two or three inches shorter, the groom just over 6 foot, and the groomsmen range in height from 5’2" to 6’7". The pictures are kind of funny to look at because the bridesmaids are all so identical (at least in height) and the groomsmen are so NOT identical.

11

If the bride can’t put her straight, you, the MOH and the other bridesmaid need to do it. Give her the ultimatum…bride’s way or the highway and make sure she knows you all mean it.

I’ve got things easy…my sisters are the bridesmaids and my parents are paying for everything. I know that with my parents and me against them, they have no chance of pulling stunts like that…so far, thank Og they haven’t tried, although it did take them 8 MONTHS to find shoes they liked!

There’s a friend of Irishfella’s who was at a wedding, the bride tripped over her train on the dancefloor. So to distract attention and save her blushes he stripped to his underwear and breakdanced…I’m a little worried about him…everything else is fine!

12

The maid of honor should feel free to discuss matters with the Best Man, whose job is essentially “Special Minister Without Portfolio”. He’s there to FIX stuff, because that’s what guys do. If she’s being problematic, he and the MOH are on call. They are even allowed to lie, cheat, and steal when it’s in the best interests of the bride, groom, and parents (in that order).

13

Hit her with a brick, then hit her with a shovel if she’s still standing. This is ridiculous. Who the HELL cares whether they look spectacular at someone else’s wedding? I have so far worn bright red for one, and a slinky bias-cut lavender (oh, og, the pain) dress that showed every pound. Neither colour did I like.

It doesn’t matter whether you want to wear the damn clothes! The bride is being perfectly reasonable and the bridesmaid from hell should be tossed out on her ass.

For the record, my bridesmaids picked their own bloody dresses, and the colour prescription was ‘try not to clash with each other’. I didn’t even look at their shoes. I assume they were wearing shoes, because it was December.

P.S. Five inch platforms?!

14

Much as I love our best men, I have a feeling their solution to any problem would be to get the person as drunk as possible in the hope that this would make the problem magically vanish.

Hey, it worked with their landlord when the rent was late, it’ll work with everyone :dubious:

15

Not only that, and maybe I’m a little old-fashioned, but red? Nuh-huh…red is for the bride or not at all, IMHO.

16

Wow. Just…wow.

I like the “bridesmaids gang up on her and point out whose wedding this is” approach. (Although the “hit her with a brick” strategy is appealing.)

I’ve been fortunate to be in pretty reasonable weddings. And should I ever get married, it’ll be very laid back. Or else.

GT

17

I don’t think my bridesmaids had any complaints about me (at least, none that I heard through the grapevine). Due to odd body shapes, I just picked a skirt (floor length, chiffon), and gave them about ten choices of tops. I told them to wear any black shoes they wanted (the dresses were black), and we paid for their hair - I figured since I wanted their hair professionally done, it was only fair - but I didn’t tell them they had to have updos or whatever - I just told them to choose their own styles, but we’d pay for it. I’ve been in enough weddings where I’ve had to do my own hair because I didn’t have any money and hated it, so I didn’t want them to have to worry about that.

I think we all had a good time - we’re all still friends ten months later, which I think is the true sign of not being a bridezilla or bridesmaidzilla. (Momzilla is a totally different story…).

I feel bad for the bride, but she’s got to speak up. One of the best lines I ever got from anyone to use in regards to unwanted comments about my wedding was “Thank you for your input. I’ll take that into consideration.”, and then went ahead and made the choice I wanted anyway.

If the bridesmaid is being THAT much trouble? Boot her ass. No bridesmaid is worth that amount of stress - she’ll get enough of that from family :smiley: .

E.

18

I’ve never heard this - can you explain this one? Just curious - do you mean brides are supposed to wear red undergarments or something? (My bridesmaids wore black, but my junior bridesmaids wore red, so I’ve never heard that sentiment before and you’ve got me wondering!).

E.

19

When I read “It’s not your wedding, so shut the hell up” I wondered how you’d met my mom.

My brother’s getting married in October and my parents have done nothing but bitch about it. My mother is pissed that my brother didn’t include her in choosing the restaurant for the rehearsal dinner, although the wedding is in Fort Worth, a city she knows next to nothing about, and my parents live in Houston. My parents are pissed about the size of the rehearsal dinner. They’re pissed my brother didn’t invite their next-door neighbors, although he barely knows them. The list goes on and on.

My mom is also planning four changes of clothes at the reception because, really, why shouldn’t the day be about her? :rolleyes:

20

Red is an eye-catching color, and therefore (if, say, worn as a guest) “detracts” from the bride’s big day. If all your Jrs were in red, though, that would lower the distraction level (although, technically from a pagan standpoint, they should have been in white… ;)). In certain pagan traditions, and certain Asian ones, however, the bride wears red. In the case of the Asian traditions - I’m speaking specifically of the Chinese here - it’s because white is the color not of purity but of death…not exactly something you want to be evoking at the altar! I’m not sure where the White/Red/Black pagan thing comes from…Ireland, Brigid, I think…but in that tradition Red is the color of the “Mother” aspect of Maiden, Mother, Crone.

Anyway. Babbling.