Etiquette Hell = Where the ill-mannered deserve to go

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Back in November my sister "Krista" and my best friend/ex boyfriend of 2 years."Brett" tied the knot, but not before Krista had her chance to grow her own set of horns.Oh, and not to forget, Krista and Brett met through me. Brett cheated on me with Krista and well the rest was a horrible history. About 1 month before the day, Krista called me and told me that she was getting married. She then asked me to be a bridesmaid. Reluctantly, and knowing that I would regret it later, I said sure. We ran down to the bridal shop where she got her dress and showed me and the other bridesmaid what we were wearing. A periwinkle princess style, spaghetti strap dress that had chiffon "drapes" covering the bust, underarms and trained down the back. On the mannequin they looked great! However the mannequin was a size two. Me and the other brides maid are eights, they looked like hell. We got fitted and were writing down our orders when the lady that was helping us looked up and asked, "will it be cash, check or charge?" Her and I looked at each other in utter confusion when we hear from across the store Krista yelling "Oh yeah I forgot to tell you, you are paying for your own dresses" by that time it was just too late. So we just sucked up the $140 and were going to deal with it later. To make matters even worse, the MoH showed up and tried on her dress, she is a size 2 and of course the dress looked great on her. Come to find out she was actually the one who picked it out knowing good and well she would look better then us. On top of that, the MoH was the new GF of one of the groomsmen who was ALSO an ex of mine!

Next came the Bachelorette party, three of us had put in about 100 bucks for the alcohol and "entertainment" just for Krista to show up, announce the fact that Brett and her just had amazing sex, stay for one and a half hours drink some, watch the stripper dance and then said that she missed Brett and that they had planned to again sleep together that night. So she left, we were pissed but quickly got over it. Loads of things to do, and a large house that was ours for the night. We weren't going to let her ruin our night. Well, Krista called me one day and began telling me about how excited she was that she was getting married and then said to me "Well sense you are in the wedding party, I guess "Brandon" can come" (Brandon was my bf, now my fiancé). Then I had to break the news to her that I might have to go in for surgery the day before the wedding. The surgery was extremely important for me to have and when I told her that there might be a complication with me being in the wedding, her response wasn't, are you ok? what's going on? It was "YOU'RE RUINING MY WEDDING!!!" At that point I had just about had it! But wait, it gets even better!!! Ok so I don't have the best vision in the world...and I have these really cool retro glasses that look killer on me. So, Krista continued to tell me that I couldn't wear my glasses cause they clashed with the style of the wedding, sorry but I kind of need to see!!!. THEN...I died my hair a really deep red color with blond highlights...she got all pissy and told me that I have to pay to change it cause once again it will clash with the dresses! At this point I told her off...and her response was "I didn't mean anything I said...I was just joking around. You should know that, you've know me long enough." So the night before party came around, what was suppose to be our "girls night" turned in to the bride and groom doing their thing, the MoH and her bf (my ex) doing their thing while me and 5 other girls sat and watched the movie we went to see. After the movie all the guys were going to go out and us girls were going to re-live our elementary school times and have a slumber party. BIG FREAKING SURPRISE, Krista cancelled our girls night cause she was "tired". Come to find out at the ceremony that they had driven all the way back to Brett's house (almost 2 hours away) so they could have an empty house so once again the could have pre wedding sex. Thanks for giving me the chance to vent...
Bzilla0108-03


Earlier in the year my fiancé and I attended a wedding of an acquaintance of his. The ceremony was in the afternoon in one city and the reception was in the evening in another city 1.5 hours away! Stupidly, we attended both. The ceremony was devoid of any emotion, they just seemed to go through the motions. After the ceremony, there was a receiving line outside of the church and when I congratulated the groom, (shook his hand) he asked loudly, in front of his new wife, "What, no kiss?" My fiancé stopped dead in his tracks and I was mortified. So I kiss this guy on the cheek (I had never met him before in my life, mind you) and he proceeds to kiss my other cheek with his wife shooting eye-daggers at ME! Fast forward to the reception. The speeches basically consisted of the half-drunk incoherent members of the bridal party one-upping each other with insults. Apparently a couple of years ago the groom had delivered quite an inappropriate speech at his brother's wedding and his brother and wife figured it was "payback time" Painfully entertaining is the best way to describe it, really. During the dancing, at least two of the groom's cronies-I mean groomsmen came up to my fiancé and asked him "where he found this one" and how he could get such a "hot chick" (moi) to marry him. I was sitting right there, heard every word, and they were talking about me as if I was a new car or something. My poor fiancé didn't know what to say. The finale was the garter toss. The bride sat in a chair, the groom got on his knees, lifted the hem of her dress, and pulled out a handkerchief and put it over his nose before he went for the garter under her skirt. Unbelievable.

Bzilla0117-03


My husband and I married in our early 30s -- my first, his second. He had already told me horror stories of his first wedding, which he described as a three-ring circus with all the bells and whistles. He had determined that he would never again be forced into formal wear, and really preferred to have a small ceremony with just our immediate families in attendance. Since my family was not well-off and I had some savings, I was paying for the wedding and reception, with him springing for the honeymoon. I insisted on a real wedding, since I only wanted to do this once in my life, but deferred to some of his wishes and planned a lovely, late-morning service at which I wore a tea length lace gown and he wore a business suit. The reception was brunch at a terrific local restaurant. The whole affair was simple, elegant, and relaxed. I was delighted with the way it turned out, and only slightly disappointed that our honeymoon ended up being a weekend in New Orleans instead of something along the lines of the tropical week I knew his first one had been.

Fast forward through 8 years and two wonderful children . . . and my husband decides that it's time to move on to Number 3! They waited two years after our divorce was final in order to let some of the talk die down, and then announced their wedding date. I assumed (since it was the third time for each of them, and they were in their 40s) that they would elope to Las Vegas, or maybe have a civil ceremony. Silly me!! I was informed that this would be a full-out, down the aisle, long gown and tuxedo affair. The bride's two daughters and my own son and daughter would be "attending" their respective parents in floor-length dresses and a rented tuxedo (so my son would match his father). This was to be followed by a catered reception, including dancing and an open bar. In addition, they would be taking an extended honeymoon to the Caribbean. Are you beginning to understand my feelings of being cheated??

Now for the kicker. Two weeks before the Big Show, I received a call from the bride-to-be, saying they were trying to save money where they could on the wedding, and could I send over to my ex's house the black peau-de-soie pumps I had recently purchased for my daughter, as they would be "just perfect" for her to wear with the dress that the dressmaker was sewing for her to wear in the wedding!! I guess it will be a star in my crown one day that I didn't slam down the phone, but graciously sent them along and told my children to behave themselves and have fun at Daddy's wedding!    Bzilla0117-03


Maybe its just me being too sensitive..but... My cousin, with whom I grew up, whom I idolized until I was 10, shared everything with and loved more than anything in the world announced that he was getting married to his fiancée of ten years. Of course, we were all delighted for them both. They already have two kids, aged 6 and 4. They announced the wedding in November and the date was set for the following January, two months later(?!!) The bride, lets call her Cammie, has always been renowned for being a little bit moody. Nothing too obvious but moody nonetheless. You always hear little stories from various sources through the years about her little escapades. "Cammie did this and Cammie said that...etc etc" I always found her really nice to be perfectly honest. (Until a few weeks before the wedding and we were in my aunts house and both her and my cousin, lets call him "Matt", were getting ready for a night on the town. I had graciously said that I would baby-sit even though it was my best friends birthday. Anyway, Cammie was struggling trying to dry the back of her hair in the lounge when I innocently said to her "Would you like me to dry it for you?". Well she nearly had a seizure, she said "NO!, I am quite capable of drying my own hair, Thanks!" To which I answered "Well then, you are quite capable of looking after your own children then" And with that I walked out and let her standing there. Anyway, all that was sorted out and my sister ended up babysitting and I went out with my bestfriend)

Anyway, back to the wedding day. We had driven for 5 hours the day before to be here in fierce conditions. We didn’t mind that, we were here for Matt, not her. Myself, my fiancé, my sister, her boyfriend. My two brothers, their girlfriends, my parents, my aunts and uncle, their children, even my granny traveled to be there. We arrived at the church that day, and Matt looked really nervous, turns out the B-WORD-THAT-RHYMES-WITH-ITCH told him that she was having second thoughts through a text message!!! He was as white as a ghost! Anyway, she turned up and looked radiant so all earlier episodes were forgotten and there were a few tears shed as well. The ceremony was beautiful, she looked fantastic and everything went really great for them. Their two kids behaved wonderfully. Her family sat at one side of the church and we sat at the other. There were only about 15 on her side and about 30 on ours. But they had announced from the start that it was only close family invited and their partners. The meal was great and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was only about 55 people at the reception, 15 of which were her family (half of them left after the church) and the worst part was that we were all in a room that would hold about 300 people. We were all bunched into a corner and the rest of the room was bare. Matt looked strained and pale throughout the meal and everyone could see her mouth moving at 90miles per hour at the Top Table. She was sounding off on her wedding day! And he was just sitting there taking it! She wanted a big wedding, with lots of presents and lots of singing and dancing, yet she only invited a grand total of 55 people. Anyway, the speeches went well and everyone had a few more drinks in them when Cammie started floating around to each table talking to everyone, doing the rounds. I was sitting at the table between my sister and my fiancé when we heard her from behind a pillar speaking sternly to Matt, saying "This is supposed to be a wedding not a f*****g funeral, get your family moving" She was talking about his family not dancing immediately after consuming a five course meal and about 10 drinks, when her family hadn’t even bothered to turn up and had ignored everyone throughout the whole ceremony, and then some of them left early without saying goodbye!!!!?????? The cheek!!! I had to be held back from decking her right there and then. After about half an hour, we all got out dancing and we pulled all the crooners out as well until all forty of us were on the floor, leaving the full table of her relatives sitting there looking morbid, as if they were at a funeral! Eventually, I waltzed up to her, looking at her family: "What’s up with them, anyone would think they were at a funeral". Well you should have seen her face!! She knew that we had all heard her from behind the pillar and she was mortified!    Bzilla0127-03


I have a story of an ungrateful bride who is a classmate of mine. I'm not very good friends with "Amy," but when I received a wedding invitation from her I planned to purchase a gift for her from her registry. She was registered at a department store which listed the registries online so I chose to purchase my item there as they could ship it to her parents’ address rather than her school address. I had decided on a budget of $30 for this gift as that is what I was spending on gifts for other classmates who were getting married around the same time. I really didn't see any one item on the registry that I wanted to get her, but as several of the nice serving spoons/spatulas listed were around $5 each, I decided to get six of the various pieces offered. Well, apparently, the items were shipped separately to Amy so that she received one spoon in one package and then the remaining five a couple of weeks later. Before receiving the latter package, however, she had spent a lot of time complaining to common friends about how cheap I was for sending her the one spoon and how she never liked me anyway. She even called my house to leave a sarcastic message about how "generous" I was to give her a $5 gift. Surprisingly, after the other five items were shipped to her, I never received another "thank you" call or note.    Bzilla0204-03


My sister Charlene got married in May of 2002. In our defense, her Bridal Shower and Bachelorette party was given by family members due to the make up of her bridal party which was her 2 sisters (Dana and myself) and her 2 soon-to-be stepdaughters (Daphne and Sheila). The Bridal Shower went off beautifully. The only hitch being that the bride had a splitting headache, which she graciously endured. The Bachelorette party was another matter. I had put a great deal of work into planning the Bridal Shower. By the time it was over, I was pretty burned out and not interested in planning yet another wedding-related party. Thankfully Charlene told me that she definitely did not want a Bachelorette party. I can understand why as my sister was 40 years old and really past the age of partying 'till you puke that goes on with most Bachelorette parties. However, her future stepdaughter Daphne insisted that there should be a Bachelorette party. Keep in mind that Daphne is 26 years old and still goes out to the bars almost every weekend. I had a feeling that she was planning the Bachelorette party more for herself then for my sister.

As I said since I had had enough of party planning, Daphne decided to take the role of Bachelorette party hostess, especially since she was the one that had insisted that we have this party. She frequently emailed me during this time asking my opinion to which I usually just said yes to whatever she had in mind. I was mostly interested in letting her make most of the decisions and giving myself a break. At first Daphne decided that the Bachelorette party would take place in various nightclubs in the city (we live in the suburbs about 15 minutes drive from the city). The bride got wind of this plan and told Daphne that she really did not want to go into the city and could we just go to one or two bars near home. Daphne agreed to this. It was also decided that the Bachelorette party would begin at a very popular restaurant outside of the city and then continue on to a near-by bar.

Unfortunately the day of the Bachelorette party was the day before Mother's Day. No one had thought about his detail until we arrived at the restaurant. The restaurant was mobbed which was not surprising seeing as Mother's Day is one of the busiest weekends for dining out. This particular restaurant does not take reservations, so when my sister Dana and I went up to the hostess to add our party to the waiting list, we were told that the wait was 2.5 hours! Needless to say our group wasn't very happy about a 2.5-hour wait for dinner, as it was already 6:00PM. The other thing that was making our group a little irritable is that the party hostess Daphne and her sister Sheila were missing from our group! The bride knew that Daphne and Sheila were going to be having brunch with their biological mother. No one had a problem with that. But Daphne and Sheila knew that our meeting time at the restaurant was 6:00PM, yet they had not shown. After discussing the situation for about 20 minutes amongst ourselves, we all realized that trying to get a table at a decent restaurant in the area would probably be a waste of time. We decided to re-group back at the bride's home.

At this point Daphne and Sheila still had not shown so the bride attempted to contact them via cell phone. She was able to get a hold of Daphne and tell her that we were all going back to the bride's house. After hanging up the phone, the bride looked at me and very dryly said, "They're drunk." Apparently one of the reasons that these two did not show up at the appointed time at the restaurant is that they were getting sloshed. Fine, I can see not driving while you are drunk but I can also see not getting drunk if you have an engagement to get to that you yourself have planned! Back at the bride's house we decided the easiest thing to do was order pizza. After my sister Dana and I picked up the pizzas, Daphne and Sheila finally show up. About an hour into this "party" my sisters Dana and Charlene (the bride) get into a fight that includes screaming at the tops of their lungs at each other. Knowing my sisters as well as I do, this is not unusual. I am used to this sort of behavior and I know that it blows over quickly and everything is back to normal. At this time Daphne and Sheila had been out on the porch smoking. One of them had walked into the room during the fight and immediately turned around and gone back to the porch.

About a half-hour after this fight, I realized I hadn't seen Daphne and Sheila for a while. I remarked on this and the bride shrugged her shoulders. I got up and went to the porch to find it empty. I look around for their car and realized it was gone. Daphne had left the party that she had planned without saying one word to anyone! I returned to the party and related to the rest of them that I thought that Daphne and Sheila had left. Up until this point the bride was not real happy with Daphne and Sheila's behavior but this made her fume. The rest of the night was spent pretty pleasantly, though. However there were a few angry phone calls made between the bride and groom. It turned out that after Daphne and Sheila left the Bachelorette party, they called the groom (their father) who was at his bachelor party and had the nerve to ask him if they could join the guys! He told them no, thankfully. One more thing, Sheila and Daphne did apologize to the bride the next day, although reluctantly.     Bzilla0223-03


 I love your page. I'm not anywhere near being married but I get a good laugh every time I read it. I have one for you and it involves a wedding I was working at. I used to work for a restaurant that also had a big banquet hall in the back and we were sometimes required to work weddings and whatever else was going on back there. The last wedding I ever worked was a HUGE affair with 10 bridesmaids and 10 groomsmen 2 flower girls, a ring bearer, 2 personal attendants ( who walked down the aisle also), a maid and matron of honor and 2 best men! So the announcing of the wedding party took at least 10 minutes then we started serving the food, this was a sit down, black tie affair. The bride's family had paid for a 5 hour open bar and it was well taken advantage of, by the groom especially! At one point he had 3 bottles of beer in front of him and 2 glasses of some mixed drink. Needless to say, by the end of the night he was plastered.

The poor bride was almost in tears because the groom was embarrassing not only himself but her with his behavior. He came up to me and put his arm around my shoulders and asked what I was doing after work??? Hello!! Didn't he just get married?? He then proceeded to tell me that the only reason he was marrying the bride was because she came from money and he wanted to marry rich. I could see the bride watching me and she had fire in her eyes so I very calmly took his arm from my shoulders and told him that I had to get back to work, and please leave me alone. He then grabbed my upper arm and said "Don't leave, I'm talking to you!" I screamed and threw the drink I had just picked up in his face. This stunned him enough for him to let me go and I ran into the kitchen where I told my boss what had happened. He went out into the banquet area where the bride was consoling the groom! She then told my boss that I was flirting with her new husband!!! I was walking around the room picking up dishes and empty glasses, I wasn't there to pick up men! So I had to stay out of the room until the "happy" couple had left. I didn't get into trouble for this because others had seen what happened but I ended up quitting because I was so upset by this that I couldn't work another banquet. I don't know what happened to that couple but I hope they're happy now and I also hope he has stopped drinking! Bzilla0306-03


When I was getting married, my in-laws lived about nine hours away (by car) from where the wedding would be held. I had few expectations of people on this day. I hired a coworker's children to serve food and do the cleanup, because I was tired of my aunts doing it at each family wedding. I let my best friend choose a nice dress from her closet to wear, rather than ask her to buy something new (she didn't have much money, and it's just one day!). My only requests were that immediately family members arrive early enough on Friday for pictures.

Because the wedding was going to be somewhat rural, and an hour away from the city, we made plans for wedding portraits to be done in a photographer's studio on Friday afternoon, and the wedding was on Saturday. My in-laws refused to leave home on Thursday, thus ensuring them adequate time to prepare for wedding photos. They didn't want to pay for another night in a hotel. Instead, they left Friday morning and arrived Friday evening, well after pictures were going to be completed. I foolishly decided to do pictures only of me, my husband, and our two friends who were standing up for us, and left my parents and brother out, so things would be "fair." Of course, NOW I wish that we had done formal pictures with my family.

Then the wedding day came. His parents refused to show up at the site early to help decorate, but my parents and aunts and uncles all got up early to get the place ready for the early afternoon ceremony, and told me later what a good time it was to do that with family all together. The wedding went well, the reception was good, lots of pictures got taken by people using the disposable cameras we'd set out on the tables. Then that night, I drove back down to the house my husband and I had shared (we had driven to the wedding site separately, as I needed time to get ready). Eventually, he called to say he was spending the night at the hotel (an hour away) because he doesn't get to see his brothers very often and he wanted to spend time with them. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it? That was eight years ago. I'm now divorced and dating again. Bzilla0402-03


Hello this is one of my stories, I work in the office at a florist and on Monday a bride who had already placed her deposit with us came to the shop to see a "Sample" of the flowers for the table centerpieces. However she has yet to pick out a flower or a color scheme with us and our floral designers cant do a sample until she gives us a clue to what she wants etc. Anyway my boss was in the middle of their meeting and she’s complaining about not having a sample ready and wanting us to order every single shade or color of roses that exist on the earth so she can pick out what color she wants to go with etc. Because she cant tell from a picture and the colors that we do have available, and we always have a shade of red, pink, white and all the normal standard colors !!

So my boss gets a phone call about how her SIL is being taken off of life support ( because she has cancer and has been sick for a few months) So another office girl takes over the meeting but that’s not good enough for bridezilla because she got very loud and starting yelling about how unprofessional my boss is etc. Even after being told that it’s a family emergency etc. And the bridezilla's tears are flowing -the works, a true bridezilla moment for sure. So the boss tells her that we cannot be her florist and refunds her deposit I couldn’t believe how rude she was!

Bzilla0402-03


After reading all the wedding etiquette breach son here I thought I'd pass along my own Wedding from Hell Story. My older sister is a very flighty &, shall we say, overly zealous about marriage, type of gal who's always thought getting married would "fix" everything. Obviously, this is a terrible reason to get married, but that never stopped her. When my younger sister & I went to visit her at college the older sister dropped the bombshell that she was engaged to a guy we'd never heard of, who was in the military at a base 3000 miles away, & whom she's originally met at age 15 at youth camp one summer & has only seen in person only 3-4 times since. She swears us to secrecy. We sit on the secret, hoping that very soon she will come to her senses & call this thing off.

Well at Thanksgiving, not 4 weeks later ,she drops the a NEW bomb on my family over the holiday meal...she's MARRIED to this stranger. Apparently she had taken the rent money my parents had sent her & flown across the country to marry this person. She showed us her wedding video, which was horrible looking, they were both wearing jeans, and the soundtrack was marred by the constant overhead roaring of jet taking off at the base. She then insists that since she is graduating from college in December she would like the traditional cash gift my parents give us for college graduation to be put towards...guess what?...a traditional white wedding! My parents agree, apparently having lost all their reason & sanity at the outrageousness of my sister's demands.

The "bride" or "new wife", whatever, schedules the wedding for New Year's Eve...of that year, less that 6 weeks away! So my mother & I (as the only relative living nearby with any time to give) get to work. We decided no shower for her as she skipped over all the other traditional crap to elope with a stranger, plus we knew she had NO females friends (owning to being a bit "easy" with other girl's boyfriends in college), so we figured any shower we might have throw would have been pathetic. My mother, smartly so as to not be accused of deceiving everyone, announces this is a "affirmation of vows ceremony" and, on the sly, tells everyone about the elopement & her desire to throw a "ceremony" for her first daughter. I'm sure several of the invitees thought this was weird, but everyone knows the "bride" is a flake & has always done stuff ass-backwards.

We plan the wedding reception at out my mother's house, which is pretty large, and decided to cook everything ourselves. A week before the wedding we get an RSVP from the groom's family, who informs us that only his mother & sister will be coming as they despise the "bride" and are against the whole thing. My mother, mortified at the though of only 2 people sitting on the groom's side, the begins inviting EVERYONE she works with in an effort to fill up the church on both sides of the pew. The "bride" complains she has no friends to do anything for her, but we can't exactly magic friends up for her out of thin air, so she's "stuck with just" us to plan her wedding for her. She was still in college in another town getting ready to graduate, so she did NOTHING to plan the wedding, except pick out her dress, which made her look like a sausage stuffed in white satin (with a HUGE butt bow). I also was in college, taking exams but managed to go shopping for the bridesmaids dresses for myself & other sister, got shoes, made a million trips to the church & the grocery store to get all of this done.

Thankfully some older female relatives showed up 3 days before the wedding, so we spent hours each day in the kitchen whipping up a pretty good buffet for the reception. The day of the wedding the "bride" grouses non-stop about not having a professional hairdresser due to the holiday, but of course she was the one who scheduled her "wedding" on a day when most businesses are closed.

At the church, she gets a relative to do her hair, very pretty I thought, but as soon as the relative leaves she pulls it down & beings to swear & wrestling with her hair. I tell her to please be calm & be thankful our mother is a professional cosmetician who can make her look just beautiful. My sister literally SPAT at me & then stomped on the hem of my bridesmaid dress (which I’d paid for myself), ripping the underskirt & unraveling the hem halfway around. She then burst into tears, saying I've "ruined her wedding." We had no sewing supplies or a seamstress available so I grabbed a stapler & did the best I could on my ragged hem, then stood on the opposite side of the room to avoid anymore ugliness. She keeps doing her hair over & over, and winds up walking down the aisle, 20 minutes late, with the ugliest French braid I have ever seen. The groom's mother & sister spend the entire wedding looking like they sucked lemons, and in every wedding photo they are shooting dirty looks at the "bride."

At the reception everything goes pretty well, except for the two groomsmen who busted into the champagne like it was going out of style and we wound up running out 1/3 of the way through the party, and a catering assistant we'd hired from the local college to get stuff ready while we were at the church challenged my mother to vodka chugging contest in front of everyone. A few times during the reception my sister whispered in my ear that she was angry that the gift table was looking rather empty & "how dare" all these people show up without a gift. When I pointed out that most people send gift before or after a wedding, and don't bring them to a wedding, she pinched my arm so hard she left a welt & hissed that I was just jealous of her happiness.

After the bride & groom left I, & some of my college friends who'd I'd invited to flesh out the sparse guest list, walked to the edge of the property to have cigarettes as I knew smoking really offends my mother. An elderly relative saw us smoking as he drove off the property & promptly called up the "bride" to tell her what we doing pot as her reception. The "bride" apparently cannot resist yet another opportunity to yell at me, as she come BACK from the hotel (on her "wedding" night!) to berate me in front of everyone. Even when I pointed out I was only having a cigarette & showed her the pack, she once again screamed that I had "ruined her wedding" (even though she had already left) and pushed me down.

In spite of all this I stuck around to clean up after the reception (which lasted until 1am!)...and of course neither I nor my parents ever got so much as a verbal or written thank you for all the work or the presents we gave her in addition to throwing the "wedding," which wasn't even a real wedding at all! When the marriage broke up less than 1 year later I have to say, without any embarrassment whatsoever, that I actually grinned right in her face.

Bzilla0420-03


Okay, maybe PART of this was actually my fault, but at the time, I really was broke. A woman who I considered to be a good friend got engaged to a guy no one really approved of. Still, in an attempt to be supportive, I agreed to be a bridesmaid. Well, weeks went by and nothing further was mentioned about the ceremony until one day, a couple of months before the wedding, the bride dragged us all to a clearance sale made up mainly of tacky, off-the-rack dresses she could lay her hands on. Eventually she settled on a fluffy monstrosity which, even on sale, wasn't inexpensive. Keep in mind that at the time I was pulling in approximately $12,000 per year and money was extremely tight. No purchases were made that day and, again, nothing more was said about purchasing the bridesmaid dresses.

So a couple of weeks went by and she called to inform me that I needed to give her payment in full for my bridesmaid dress THAT SAME DAY so she could go buy it. Since it was so last minute and it wasn't a pay week for me, I had to tell her that I just didn't have the money right then but that I could give it to her when I got paid. Rather than understanding the situation (she made even less money than I did), she proceeded to curtly informed me that I had some nerve spending my money on other things when I knew she was getting married (I had stupidly mentioned having met another friend for dinner a few days before) and that I should have been putting money aside for her wedding/my dress (apparently her wedding was more important than me paying my rent, and I was also informed had no right to go to restaurants, etc. with other friends once in a while because I had known I had to buy a dress). After a rather lengthy tirade, I was informed that I was no longer a part of her wedding because I was "so selfish". She never spoke to me again, but I'd be willing to bet that marriage ended in divorce.    Bzilla0319-03


First off, let me thank you for setting up a place like this to let us overburdened slaves to the Bridezilla vent a little. Where should I start? There are so many things I could complain about. First of all, she's completely unorthodox to this family. She's from a completely different place, a completely different family life, and has completely different mannerisms...mannerisms that are frightening as well as disgusting. So, here's the story of my experience with the Bridezilla, it may not that good, or complete (because I do not know the whole story, this may skip around, but you'll understand) but, it's my story....and it's a bad one.

Bridezilla has been completely overbearing ever since my crazy brother fell in love with her. She's loud and rude and self-centered like you wouldn't believe. So, the "transformation" into a Bridezilla wasn't ever noticeable, because we all already felt she was a "-zilla" of some kind right from the start. (Rudezilla?) It all started with THE RING. She refused to even THINK about the wedding until she has HER RING. So my brother spends countless dollars on a ring, now we can finally set a date. The date: in the summer. The place: 7 hours from MY family's home. But she HAD TO HAVE IT at HER house. A tiny house on a one-way street. Where are all 150 people she invited going to park? I don't know, and, sadly, neither does she.

Now it's time to pick out the dresses. I am a bridesmaid (sadly) and I picked out my dress (what little I was given to pick from) at least a year prior to the wedding. Bridezilla has 4 bridesmaids and 1 maid of honor. We're all wearing different colors and there's three different styles of dresses. Mine and another bridesmaid has an open back, whereas my sister and another bridesmaid has a closed-back dress. This style was for them especially because they both have scoliosis and Bridezilla "didn't want to make them wear something that would embarrass them", even though neither girl is deformed in any visible way, and Bridezilla didn't bother to tell them why they didn't have a choice of style to their dress.

Christmastime and everyone's giving Bridezilla stuff she needs for her future...gag me... For my sister's Christmas present, her boyfriend of almost 4 years proposes to her. We are all so happy for her! But what does Bridezilla have to say about it?? "Well, she better not be getting married too close to MY wedding." Poor you, Bridezilla. That's exactly why my sister is getting married...to steal your thunder.

Time for the invitations to go out. I come walking through the den in MY house (where I always seem to see Bridezilla more than I do my family) and she commands me to sit down and help her write out the addresses on the RSVP cards. Whish she printed out on our computer, along with the invitations, with our ink and never once offered to repay us or thank us. Come to think of it....I don't ever recall a single "thank-you" for any of the bending-over-backwards we've done. But, she knows EVERYTHING about 'proper etiquette'.

May comes and it's a month to the wedding. So my wonderfully talented aunt sets up a gorgeous shower at her house. Everyone is there that was invited and everyone looks so nice. Even me who is a bit of a tomboy and detests dresses and skirts. The shower was set to start at 2:00 PM sharp. Bridezilla comes in around 2:30 or so in a oversized red T-shirt, a pair of ripped jeans, and a worn-out pair of knock-off Birkenstocks. She doesn't apologize for being late, she just sits right down at the presents and asks when we can start.

This brings me to the registry. Bridezilla registered for a ridiculous amount of things at a ridiculous amount of stores. My sister told me she even registered for things like : nasal strips, foot-care products, and Wal-Mart things like that.


Bridezilla knows everything bout weddings, she told my sister so herself. She told my sister what was and wasn't proper etiquette. Funny, then, because she came to her shower dressed like that and registered for all those stupid things. My grandmother (who REALLY DOES know her etiquette) said all you really register for is your silverware and linens. Bridezilla brushes this off as "our Southern etiquette is different from her proper Northern teachings".

Proper or no, she still FORBADE me to do anything "drastic" to my hair, because she already told her hairdresser what kind of hair I had. This may be why I'm going Wednesday to get my hair cut....about 10 inches of it. This was my story of the Bridezilla in my house.     Bzilla0602-03


This story begins on a trip to a movie that my new bride (at the time) and I went to with some friends. My wife wanted to see a specific movie very badly, so we invited our mutual friend Brent and his friend Kevin. Kevin had a girlfriend that he was going to bring and Brent, feeling odd man out, finally asked this girl that he had met at college to come along with him. So the six of us had a great time together.

Fast forward a couple years and my wife and I have become very good friends with Brent and Julie mostly because Brent is one of my best friends. We spend lots of time together and when my wife has our first baby the two of them are there to experience it with us. Julie seeing the post "child birth" experience cries her eyes out and we all have a wonderful time.

Fast forward a little less that a year. Brent tells me that he is finally going to propose to Julie, Sharon and I congratulate him and since he is doing it on Valentine's day the same day I proposed to my wife, we invited the two of them to join us for dinner after the big event. Everything goes without a hitch. Julie asks my wife to be the Maid of Honor, and I am going to be second groomsman. The date is set for two years down the road so Julie can finish school. One of the concerns Julie had about my wife being in the wedding is her getting pregnant again, because she didn't want someone that was "fat" in the dress. My wife assured her that we were not trying to have a second one yet. But oops we did. The due date was for April and the wedding wouldn't be until June. This is when the Bride started to morph into the reptile.

Julie made several comment that she didn't like that my wife would have the child so soon. She complained that my wife wouldn't be there for her in times of need because she would be dealing with the pregnancy. At the same time, Julie's dad said that he didn't want to pay for my two year old daughter’s meal at the wedding even though she was going to be the flower girl, and that he didn't think a two year old should be a flower girl anyway. We agreed and said that we had no problem with her being taken out of the wedding and that we understood the meal situation and didn't expect her to be fed, that we would feed her.

My wife, feeling a little angry at Julie started to think about quitting. I told her that these were our friends and reminded her of some of the silly things she said when she was planning our wedding. My wife redoubled her efforts and began calling Julie to try to get together to look at bridesmaids dresses and offer any help with the planning. Julie rarely called back and when she did complained that she didn't have time and when she did have time she was too tired. Finally, my wife and I discussed it and we agreed that my wife would offer to step down as maid of honor. When she called Julie, Julie emphatically said that she didn't want my wife to step down or quit, that she needed her.

About two weeks later my wife gets a call from another friend of ours, Kelly. Kelly begins to talk about planning the shower, seven months away and how she doesn't want to be called a matron of honor and that she hopes my wife won't feel like she's stealing her position but is just helping out because Julie thought she needed to take more time with her pregnancy. My wife asks Kelly what she is talking about. Kelly replied "Oh, my God she didn't call you!" It turns out that Julie called Kelly and asked her to replace my wife as Matron of Honor, and Sharon would just be a bridesmaid. My wife nearly went through the roof, she was so mad that Julie, but again I reminded her that it was her wedding and Julie can be a numbskull but that she is still our friend and it will all work out in the end.

A week later my wife and I come home from my parents’ house to a message from Julie's mother telling her that she is out of the wedding. My wife was so furious that Julie would not call her herself that she said that she was not even going to the wedding. I told my wife she had to go, because I was still in it. She said OK but under protest.

Meanwhile I was talking to our friend from the original date at the movies and he told me that while he and his girlfriend were out with Brent and Julie, Julie made the comment that my wife got pregnant of purpose to show her up! which is patently absurd, and although it sounds like something Julie would say, I must take it at gossip, even still I think it is noteworthy. Now nearing the end of January, my wife has not spoken to Julie in two months, and although I had tried, I had not talked to Brent either. With the exception of flowers sent to us as a condolence to my uncles passing, we had no contact.

At this time I was starting to wonder if I was in the wedding. In the last week of January, my wife was rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-Section. My son was born three months premature. As the weekend loomed and our son was give a better prognosis for living I began to call the second tier of friends and family that I thought should know. I called Brent and Julie. I couldn't believe it when they showed up at the hospital that morning, but I was grateful. As I took Brent to see my son in the NICU (you have to look through glass) Julie stayed behind with my wife who was lying in bed. Determined not to take pain pills, she was extreme pain, but Julie instead of seeing how she might help my wife, began to unload on how hard her life is trying to plan a wedding while going to school and working part time. Julie then asked if she could use the bathroom because something she ate didn't sit to well with her. She went in and threw up all over. Then they left.

We did not talk to them again until my son came home 72 days later. That's when I got a call from Brent telling me when and where to go for the tux fitting. Dutifully I went. When I got there both Julie and Brent’s Father were there. Brent's dad asked how everything was going and asked if my kids were coming to the wedding. I looked at Julie’s dad and then said to Brent's father, that my daughter would stay home, but I will most likely have to take my son, who was still on a monitor. Julie's dad just glared at me, which I just shrugged off. After being fitted for the tux, I left. It was the first time that I didn't get together with my circle of guy friends and go have some fun afterward.

A week later we received the invitation to the wedding. On it was a listing to the website where we could read about Julie and Brent's history together and to see the names of the bridal party. My wife went to the site and read the history of there first date including who went with them excluding us. Then she read about the proposal and how they had a wonderful time at dinner, by themselves. Finally, the bridal party's names were listed and nobody had been filled the place where my wife would have been. I was going to be standing alone. I asked my father for his advice, he told me that I should make it easy on Brent and just bow out, which I did. A week after that was Brent's bachelor's party. We had a great time, all us guys again, but I had to ask Brent if it was OK to bring my son, because at this point I don't know what is going on with this stuff. He said absolutely that my son and daughter were both welcome. I told him that I was going to leave my daughter with a babysitter, but my son would have to come. Brent's father was there too, and he wanted to know if my kids were coming, I told him that only my son and he said why not both. I told him I didn't feel comfortable taking my daughter to the wedding, he asked why and I smiled as I looked over at Julie's dad. Brent's dad frowned and said "well, what are ya' going to do with them." (Brent and Julie's father got in a fist fight later that night, but not about my kids... I hope).

Two weeks go by and I come home to my wife on the phone with Brent. She tells him she has to go and turns around to tell me that our son is not invited. Julie has decreed that no children are to be at her wedding, including the bestman's and third matron of honor's son (more on the matron of honor in a minute). The best man however lives out of state and the only relatives he has in town are his parents who are going to the wedding, so they have no babysitter for their kid.

Meanwhile Brent told my wife that Kelly, the girl who replaced her as the matron of honor, in a fit of rage finally let lose on Julie at the bridal shower, telling her that she needs to get some perspective on life and that although she hopes all the best for her in life, she never wants to speak or see Julie again. Then promptly quit the wedding. So Julie asked Carol the bestman's wife to be matron of honor. My wife asked Brent if he was sure he wanted to go through with this after all, and he said yes. She told Brent that she can't speak for me, but that she would not be going to the wedding at all. When I heard what my wife said, I agreed with her and I did not attend either.     Bzilla0604-03


One for the Bridezilla files... My twenty-three year old cousin, let's call her Kate, began planning a wedding for late June. She called me up and asked me to be a bridesmaid. I said that unfortunately, it simply wouldn't be possible, because I had a number of things to consider at that point, not the least of which being my three provincial exams. (Provincial exams, for those who aren't Canadian, are final exams for standard Grade 12 subjects(in my case literature, English, and chemistry), and can often make the difference between getting into the university of one's choice and having to settle for the local community college. A single provincial is a pain in the neck; three is sheer hell to study for.) I had a feeling that after paying for my grad dress, photos, class ring and all other paraphernalia of a grade 12 student, my parents wouldn't especially want to shell out 300$ for a bridesmaid's dress I'd likely never wear again. Furthermore, I'm not very close to Kate, since she lives two provinces away, I see her maybe once a year, and we don't get along very well when we do see each other. Clearly, I would be incapable of fulfilling a bridesmaid's duties and she'd probably rather have a friend than myself in her wedding party. So I wished her all the best and said I'd be happy to attend her wedding after my exams.

To my surprise, she called me up a week later and asked again! When I reminded her that Shakespeare, essay-writing and Boyle's Law loomed a mere week before the wedding, and I would be absolutely incapable of driving a thousand kilometers to get there in time to be anything other than a guest, she asked me if I could possibly write my exams some other time. I was aghast. There's a reason they're called provincials - the same exam is written by every student in the province on the same day. The only valid excuse for missing a provincial is if you're at death's door. After I stammered out that I could no more change the date of my exams than I could the date of Victoria Day, she became sulky, accused me of acting brattish, and hung up on me. Now remember, if it had been at all possible for me to be a BM, I would have, but I was hardly going to sacrifice my scholastic future to be in my cousin's wedding.

Anyway. The day after I finished the last of the Devil's Three, I crammed myself into the family car and drove two days in order to attend Kate's wedding, which went quite well, until Kate chose to exact her revenge on me at the reception. After criticizing my eyebrow ring (which I'd had for two years - hardly a new development), she said, loudly, "Oh, Maggie, you're a guitarist, aren't you? Why don't you play something for the guests?" Further aghast. First of all, I play electric bass. I only know a few songs on guitar by heart, none of them suitable for a wedding. I rather doubted the band knew "Anarchy in the UK" or "Stranger Than Fiction" in any case. Second, I had no idea it was in any way appropriate to put a guest on the spot like that. Third, and most important, while I love playing, I am <I>terrified</I> of performing in public. I lock up in front of an audience of ten, let alone a hundred and fifty. Kate knows all of this - I'm sure it was her reaction to not getting her own way. I promptly refused, and had to listen to, "Oh, come on, you can't be that bad. Play something," for the rest of the evening, until one of the bridesmaids and my cousin Tom, Kate's brother, came to my rescue. I'm afraid to ask what they went through between the engagement and the wedding, but I'm sure they could tell you some pretty good horror stories too. I refuse to ever get married and succumb to bride-itis, which turned my normally considerate and polite cousin into hell in a white dress.     Bzilla0620-03


I don't know where to start. My brother married the biggest you-know-what on the planet. Looking back on it, I'm actually GLAD I was banned from their wedding at the last minute. It saved me the embarrassment of witnessing the circus that was their wedding.

It all started in Feb 2002, when my brother's fiancée asked me to be a bridesmaid in their wedding. I was pregnant, due in May, the wedding was scheduled for July 2002. The bridesmaid gowns had to be ordered in March, so we had to guess what size I would be 7 weeks post-pregnancy. This is not hard for me to guess, as it was my second pregnancy and have always been thin. I told her to get me a size 12. She agreed.

Or so I thought. She got me to pay for the gown, shoes, bra, etc. Then she tells my Mom that she is ordering me a size 22 instead of a size 12. She is ordering a 44A bra instead of a 36D. And even the shoe size she did not believe...she changed it from a 7 to a 9 1/2! She told everyone that I was "just trying to be the thinnest bridesmaid".

I probably should point out that 7 weeks post pregnancy, I turned out to be a size 8, so the gown would have had to be taken IN.

In any case, three weeks before the wedding, I get a call from my brother. He tells me not to bother coming to the wedding, because Melissa does not want me there. He said nothing I could say would change things, because she had already done so much bitching and whining to her family that she was unwilling to let me "show my face" at their wedding. Apparently she had filled her family full of lies about me (the groom's sister!), and she did not want to be exposed as a LIAR on her wedding day. I later found out that she had told her family that I was schizophrenic, and that's why she didn't want me in the wedding. (A lie, of course).

Several months after the wedding, I found out the real reason she excluded me from their wedding. It seems that right after she had taken my money for the dress and shoes, she ran into some friend of hers from kindergarten. Literally from kindergarten. They had not seen each other for 15 years. She promised this friend a spot in the wedding. So, in order to have an even number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, she had to get rid of someone. It happened to be ME.

The long and short of it turned out pretty simple. My brother, the spineless coward that refused to stand up to his HUGE bride has not heard from me since the conversation 3 weeks before the wedding. NO LOSS THERE. He needs to wise up.      Bzilla0706-03


My husband's close friend of several years has gone through several "engagements" and break-ups over the past few years. We (my husband and I) have liked all of the women, save the last one. The first time we met her was at a fancy restaurant that a group of us had decided to splurge on. During the course of the meal, she whom I will name "Danielle" fondled the him, or "Gatty" under the table but in plain sight of the rest of us. Later that evening she announced to us that she had slept with my husband's boss, and had recently undergone a breast reduction, but "don't they look perky now?" Needless to say I thought that Danielle was a little too trailer park for me, and decided that I would limit my attendance at functions that she would be present at.

Two months after beginning dating, the pair announced their engagement. My husband and I congratulated them, but in the privacy of our bedroom later that night, placed wagers on how long this one would last. Shortly after announcing the engagement, we received a phone call from Gatty, and he asked my husband to be groomsman in his wedding which would take place in 18 months. Then, over the phone, relayed through my husband, I was asked to be a bridesmaid. My husband accepted and I, didn't say anything. I decided to give it a week and let them know - especially because I needed to overcome my negative feelings about the bride and whether I wanted to stand up for her for the sake of her husband to be. I was pregnant as well (this is important).

Within 3 days Danielle calls me and says, I found the bridesmaid dresses, they are located at such and such store, but you have to buy it before the end of June (3 months away) or they won't be available. Now being that I would be 7 months pregnant, I had no idea what size to buy. I also felt that a 13 month deadline for dresses in advance was a little premature, and that being asked to put out money that soon, with Gatty's history was not in my best interest. I decided to decline the bridesmaid role on the basis that I was going to be too busy with two young children and that the expense would be too much - at least that is what I told them. I told them both immediately and that was fine.

At a Super Bowl party that Danielle and Gatty threw, Daniella lifted her shirt and let the men check out her breasts, for the scars that the reduction had left. I had not attended this party because of baby sitter issues. There were only men and this piece of work.

Approximately four months later, my husband gets a phone call from Gatty stating that because I am not in the wedding party, they don't think that it would be right to have him in it. In other words, your wife is a bitch and so we will ostracize you too. Needless to say, my husband is very deeply hurt, while I am livid. My husband has been there for this young man when his life was in the toilet, helped him move, lent him money, offered advice friendship and career advancement opportunities and now has become so enamored by this hussy that he would let go of his friendship. I will admit that I have a hard time with this girl, but I accept her, because my husband is Gatty's friend. There have been no confrontations and I have been careful with what I say and do. At this point, I wish them nothing but rain and mud, broken down vehicles and lousy food. We will not be attending this wedding, and if I do send a gift, it will be a broom for the bride to ride to the reception on after the church.     Bzilla0714-03