All Brides are Bitches, so Handle with Care
It’s that time of year again. Shops are full of pastel colours and prom dresses, women are failing at crash diets, flights and hotel prices are soaring and everyone is running around screaming ‘Watch out! Bridezilla is coming…!’ Yep, it’s Wedding Mania Month. In fact we are slap bang in the midst of silly season, with most couples marrying early June through to mid-September, and brides accross the land are getting more stressed and anxious by the minute.
If you are unfortunate enough to work with brides and, brace yourself, mothers of brides – then you will know that from the moment a sparkly diamond ring is placed on a woman’s finger, right through to when she says ‘I Do’, something happens to the nicest and calmest of girls. As a normal girlfriend she was chilled, happy, loving and carefree and then…once he’s been down on one knee….BRIDEZILLA attacks.
So why do perfectly normal women go mental as soon as they have a wedding to plan? Why are so many weddings called off at the eleventh hour by grooms with cold feet? And why do wedding planners charge so much to deal with these demented loons?
I have been speaking to those in the know who have shed some light on this strange phenomenon, and shared the goss on their craziest bridal encounters! Welcome to the madhouse, welcome to the land of Bridezillas…
The Ex-Bride
“I thought I had it under control. I had 18 months to plan the big day and my Pinterest board and spreadsheets were filling up nicely. Every evening my fiance and I would sit down and check we were on budget and he would say yes or no to my ideas and list of suppliers. It was all going swimmingly until the three day countdown, then the whole thing turned to shit. All our money, all my dreams and over a year of my time was culminating to one big day and I finally cracked. This was going to be the big day I would look back on for the rest of my life and I was petrified of getting wrong.
Then disaster struck!
During the last minute preparations for the wedding my sister hole-punched the holes on the wrong side of the place names (Oh no!), my mum went into a strop as I said she could help with the serviette folding and she wanted to put the lace around the glass candle holders (Disaster!) and rain was forecast (That’s it, it’s all over!). I actually screamed the Bridezilla cry of THIS IS NOT ABOUT ALL OF YOU, IT’S ABOUT ME!! At which point my husband-to-be held me tightly by my shoulders and looked me in the eyes hissing ‘come on, you have made it this far. Don’t lose your shit now’. But it was too late…I had crossed over to Bridezillaland. It was inevitable. My lasting memory of my big day? Stressing because my place names were now slanted to the wrong angle and the coach driver had forgotten to hand everyone their free bottle of water. I guess the ceremony went well and everyone had fun, I wasn’t really noticing, I was too busy mentally ticking off my To Do list and running around stressing. ”
The Wedding Planner
“I have never had a bride who wasn’t a nut case in the end. I love my job, I really do…but mainly October to May when the bridas are all sweet and enthusiastic and still at the ‘choosing venues and colour palette’ stage. Then summer approaches and so do the Bridezillas. Luckily us wedding planners understand why it’s such a big deal to these women, most of the time they are spending their life savings (or even worse, their parents’) and they want it all perfect and have just one chance to get it right. Which is where we come in. We are meant to be the planners and the back up, but most of the time we are professional nerve calmers and peace keepers.
Last year alone the following happened:
– The time the groom liked the proposed wedding food at the caterers tasting day, the bride didn’t. She screamed at him and then ran off in a flood of tears. It was only a selection of canapes!
– The time the bride got bat-shit crazy because her fiance wanted to accompany me on some wedding errands instead of watch her get her wedding make-up trial done.
– The time the bride dropped the F-bomb at her mother on the morning of the wedding as she couldn’t do up the wedding dress so I had to come to the rescue.
– The time the bride got so nervous on the wedding morning that she drank too much and threw up on me and, obviously, I was left to clear up the mess.
– And of course I have the great pleasure of dealing with the ushers and bridesmaids that try and do my job for me (when they really don’t know what has been planned and decided).
But it’s all in a day’s work, and it’s worth it a few weeks later when you get to see the photos and receive a lovely letter of thanks. Except for the time one bride wrote to say that after we had left she caught her husband shagging her lesbian (!) cousin in the toilet at the reception. Bastard groom couldn’t even wait until his new bride was out of her dress…there’s no hope for some couples. Although to be fair she had been a bitch Bridezilla running up to the big day!”
The Wedding Florist
“I can just about deal with the brides, but the mothers of the brides are a different story. There was this one wedding at an extremely expensive venue where the bride had obviously wanted to get her interfering mother off her back and had given her the job of organising the flowers. Simple enough, right? No! The mother wanted to outdo everything and everyone. Her budget was one thousands pounds…by the end she spent over fifteen!
I’m all for people going crazy over flowers, but we had to hide the transaction from not only the bride but also her father. The Bridezilla had a bigger, more ferocious, mother! In the end the brief of ‘pretty country flowers with a rustic fairy tale theme’ turned to twenty tables with a tree (yes, tree!!!!) sprouting out from the centre creating a canopy of shade over the guests with small glass candle bubbles, butterflies, birds and fairies (yes, fairies!!!) hidden in the tree which was studded with fairy lights and had a base of moss and tiny flowers at the centre. No idea whether any plates or cutlery actually fitted on the tables, but the mother of the bride was happy as her part in the big day got to over shadow the grooms’ parents’ contribution and the flowers looked even more spectacular than her own daughter did. Just what every bride wants. Cheers, Mum!”
So if you, your friend or (I’m so so sorry) fiance is building herself up to becoming the Bridezilla of 2015 then stop her. Quick! Show her this and remind her that she can’t possibly allow herself to get to these heady heights of hysteria. It may be THE day, but it’s still only ONE day. And you know what makes it perfect? Having fun with all your friends and family and celebrating your love for your other half. Yes, don’t forget about him…he’s pretty important in the whole marriage thing.
