Weddings are meant to be a beautiful celebration between committed partners in a relationship, but they can also be stressful.
On top of expenses, decisions about who to invite, and high expectations about a day that is significant to the lives of all involved, people can have some serious attitude problems. There’s a reason why the term “bridezilla” was coined, after all.
That’s why one Reddit thread asked bridesmaids to spill the beans about the bridezillas they’ve encountered. Some of these stories are nuts.
15. This Was Going to Cost Bridesmaids $2K!
“She asked 16 girls to be bridesmaids. In the year and a half between the engagement and wedding, all but 6 dropped out (3 were her sisters). She wanted 16 separate shades of blue and 16 different styles of dresses for each bridesmaid then threw a fit when the store didn’t have that many options. She demanded everyone pay for a week long bachelorette party in Vegas (including her share) and then got mad when some people opted out (I was a single mom/college student at the time). Her parents gave her a $20,000 budget and she ended up spending $100k and demanding they pay for it- they took out a loan they are still paying off. She wanted everyone to have the same shade of hair so she asked the two blonde bridesmaids to dye their hair (they declined). She paid for nothing for the bridesmaids (traditionally the brides pay for something- the hair/makeup or the dress) but demanded we purchase specific shoes, jewelry, dress, etc plus hair and makeup. And stay the entire weekend at the hotel she was getting married at. All told, costs for the wedding- not including a gift- was well over $2k per bridesmaid. This was mostly amongst college age women in a poor/middle class area. She also had three separate engagement parties/bridal showers.
Final straw for me was when she demanded to see my toast a month prior so she could edit it. She ended up rewriting it totally.
I skipped the wedding totally and ended our friendship. They did end up getting married and 6+ years later he seems absolutely miserable.”
14. “She Wanted to Be the Only Blonde”
“Bride was blonde. All bridesmaids except for me were brunette. 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.”
— kmmurky
13. She Wanted All the Attention
“I was almost in a bridezilla wedding… I had an ectopic pregnancy (baby attached to my tube, which then burst, and I almost bleed 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. UPDATE: My cousin is on Reddit! She wrote me a scathing email about how mean everyone was to her, and I needed to update this and tell everyone it was her second wedding and she wanted it to be special this around.
Also I needed to defend her… instead Hi Jessica! Keep sending this to Grandma, I really don’t care! ?”
12. Why Are People Like This?
“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.”
11. Some People Don’t Recognize Gifts When They Get Them…
“My wife’s best friend is a florist by trade, gifted her services to decorate her friends wedding. (Big cost savings)
Wedding goes as planned all is good. Afterwards Bride & Brides mom get pissy at florist friend who didn’t give a gift in the wedding card, “didn’t even cover her/husband’s plate” Let’s conveniently forget the $1000 in floral products gifted to the wedding, it’s a rift that never healed between them since.”
10. Read the Room, Bridezilla!
“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.”
9. Two Plane Flights Are Expensive
“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.”
8. She Was Worried Glassed Ruined the Aesthetics
“My ex best friend was a trip. This story is just one of the many, many reasons i no longer speak to her.
She tried to make me and another bridesmaid walk down her outdoor, uneven, tulle-covered aisle WITHOUT GLASSES. She told us the morning of the event, so we didn’t have any time to get contacts or anything. She threw a near-hysterics fit because she was convinced that we would “ruin the aesthetic of her wedding”. I told her that she would have a single groomsman walking that aisle if she made me walk without them. She started bawling but her mom was able to get her calmed down enough for her to agree to let us wear our glasses so we could actually make it down the aisle in one piece.
Her mom essentially said that she’s more skinny and beautiful than either of us and no one would be glancing at her bridesmaids anyways because we aren’t important.”
7. He Hogged Attention By Getting a Heart Attack
“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?!!!?””
6. This Deserved the Friend Break-Up
“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.”
5. She Lied About Everything
“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.”
4. This Friend Wasn’t Invited Because of Her Weight
“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.”
3. The Bridezilla Was Also Her Boss!
“My first job out of college, a colleague got engaged and asked three colleagues to be her bridesmaids (in addition to one friend from high school). I had only known her for a matter of months, but I didn’t feel comfortable saying no because she was one of my bosses.
In addition to being in a wedding for someone I barely knew, which is shitty in its own right, there were so many horrible things about this nightmare bridezilla wedding. First, I ended up hosting both her bachelorette AND her shower because no one in her life planned anything, and she showed up to her own shower an hour late, hungover and wearing pajamas when she mandated that everyone dress for a luncheon. She ordered our dresses from Etsy (as opposed to any bridesmaid dress company) and they looked like seafoam green raw silk pillowcases with holes cut for the arms and head. They tied in giant bows in the back and we all looked like literal infants. She wouldn’t let us wear heels with said “dresses” because the groom was kinda short and we all had to buy new flats in a specific shade of gold. She wanted us to wear our hair in a really ugly, extremely complicated updo — and said we would have to pay to have one of the hairstylists do our hair (we refused). The wedding was on a Sunday in an extremely inconvenient and faraway location, and it was not the Sunday of a long weekend. The rehearsal dinner for this SUNDAY wedding was THURSDAY and started at 4 in the afternoon, requiring everyone to leave work in the middle of the day. She forced us to stay at an expensive hotel in the area the night before the wedding for no apparent reason and refused to pay for our hotel room.
Fun times!”
2. She Told This Bridesmaid to Get a Credit Card
“My best friend just got kicked out of being a bridesmaid because she couldn’t spend the $1500 to go to the bachelorettes party, all the other costs were killing her.
The bride told her to take out a credit card to pay for it. One of our friends made the best comment over the situation, ‘she (the bride) just did you the best favor ever kicking you out of the bridal party’.”
1. And This Always Happens
“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.”
A lot of weddings are probably quite lovely and fun experiences for all involved. Unfortunately, these events don’t “bring out the bridezilla,” they only seem to make it clear who was already a narcissist.
Have you ever participated in a wedding only to find that the person turned out to be a bridezilla?
You can vent in the comments if you’d like!
