Photo by T Rex and Flower, via Stocksy.
A Google search of the term âbridezillaâ populates nearly 3.2 million results in the US. The top pages read like tabloid headlines. One sensationally teases a roundup of the most âhorrifying bridezilla moments.â Another forewarns a bride-to-be of signs that she might be turning into the dreaded monster of wedding lore. Urban Dictionary defines bridezilla so crudely, I wonât even repeat it. There is even a WE tv reality show dedicated to the sexist caricature. The description for season 11 of the show: âThe craziest, most over-the-top brides wreaking wedding day hellâŠthey vow no one will get in the way of their 'perfect' day!âSomewhere between the reality TV boom and our obsession with perceived perfection thatâs fueled by social media, the archetype of the bride has evolved from fairytale princess to vicious beast. But if youâve ever been that bride, you know painfully well that this trope of the brideâs ugly transformation is rarely actually about narcissism and princess-like entitlement, as implied. Rather, it's the result of ridiculous expectations, sexist double standards, and a cultural tendency to infantilize women for knowing what they want.A recent survey found that the average cost of weddings in 2017 was a staggering $33,391. The spend-per-guest also rose to $268 from $194 in 2009, while the guest count decreased, indicating a focus on each attendeeâs personal experience. Considering the unforgiving spotlight of social media, who can blame a bride for stressing over all the little details? And heaven forbid a guest submits a story about your wedding to Hell of a Wedding, where others can vote on exactly how tragic and embarrassing your ceremony was.Wedding planning is the ultimate challenge in project management. The sheer magnitude of coordinating timelines, balancing budgets, catering to everyoneâs needs and wantsânot to mention trying to inject some semblance of yourself and your fiancĂ© into the eventâis in itself enough to send you over the edge. So, yes, when itâs been a long day at work, the to-do list is never-ending, the venue wonât return your emails and calls, and your âgood friendâ bails last-minute because thereâs no seat for her new girlfriend (true story), you might just snap at the slightest dissent.âBefore I got engaged, I always thought of a âbridezillaâ as a high-maintenance, extremely demanding type⊠who wouldn't ever compromise on anything,â admits San Diego bride-to-be Katie Rucke. âNow I wonder every day how someone like me, who has been told ad-nauseum how nice I am, screamed at my younger sister, also my maid of honor, at my nephew's third birthday because she and another sister told me they didn't like the flower girl dress I picked.âThe issue is, unless you are the person planning the wedding, you never know the full story. You wouldnât know, for instance, that when one of my friends had a severe anxiety attack in the midst of planning her wedding, it was largely because, on top of everything, she was caught in the middle of her feuding father and brother at the same time that her mother was being admitted to the hospital for a major surgery, and her fiancĂ© couldnât help because he was living in a different state.At another friendâs wedding, the caterer screwed up the vegan meals and her wedding coordinator forgot ceremony programs, leaving guests to sit through an hour-long Vietnamese wedding without understanding a word. Months later, sheâs still seething. Not because of those hiccups, thoughâbecause, like so many other brides, despite all the things she let go, she was still slammed with that infamous b-word for openly expressing frustration.Weeks after my own rollercoaster of an engagement culminated in a successful wedding, I couldnât believe the physical and mental weight that had been lifted from my shoulders. The three-day Indian affair had been utterly beautiful. We were showered with love by our friends and families, and we had been spared the ultimate bad fate: Hurricane Harvey hit Houston exactly one week later. For the first time in nearly a year, I felt at peace againâexcept for one thing. Nearly two weeks after the event (including four heavenly days on the beach of Puerto Vallarta), I thought I could return to normal life. Instead, I was suffering from body aches and unshakable fatigue, rendering me physically incapable of sitting upright at work. The doctor confirmed I wasnât pregnant, nor infected with the flu or Zika (minor scare). Diagnosis: My baseline stress level had been so high for so long, my body was crashing now that it wasnât in constant âfight or flightâ mode. Tens of thousands of dollars later for a big, fat Indian wedding, and I was still paying for it.But it wasnât the burden of finances or responsibility of project management that did me in. Iâve worked high-stress jobs before and have always been good with money, so these werenât new challenges. Never in my life, though, had I been tasked with maintaining the happiness of so many family membersâboth mine and my fiancĂ©âsâand to an extent that was literally impossible. No matter how many concessions I made nor how sweetly I followed up with incomplete tasks, I was met with inconsiderate resistance and a lack of urgency at every turn.Though I became increasingly intolerant of taking the bullshit, I maintained composure, speaking in measured tones, all the while making clear: I was no doormat. Secretly, though, I had spiraled into total despair, trapped by the fact that the bridezilla stereotype had made it so that any personal agency or anger I expressed could be so easilyâalmost inevitablyâflipped around and used against me. Even though I had all but completely lost sight of my own wishes to please everyone else, I was made to feel selfish for the occasional executive decision I did make because I justified it with the hated, âItâs my wedding.â It literally was my wedding, but of course the statement is always understood as a signal of a tantrumâpart of our incessant tendency to infantilize women, rendering them whiney little girls.This tendency becomes glaringly obvious when you consider the experiences of professional wedding plannersâwho make these kinds of decisions for a living, and yet often still get treated as if theyâre being unreasonable when they make clear they know exactly what they want.âMy breaking points recently have just been about making sure both families are happy⊠I still weigh the options and consider all perspectives, but sometimes the bridal vote just outweighs the majority,â says bride-to-be and wedding planner Amy Patel.Fellow planner Michelle Fernie-Oley says of her own experience, which was televised on Say Yes to the Dress: âI got slammed on the internet for having a five-second freak out. When I watched my reaction to a missing detail, I just saw myself as going into boss/wedding planner modeâŠbut others saw a crazed lunatic panicked over picture frames that theyâd assumed meant nothing.âNormal, everyday women donât morph into fanged monsters simply because the table linens arenât impeccably pressed, or their bridesmaids are two minutes late to hair and makeup. Plenty of said women, however, might lose their shit at any one of these insignificant details because theyâre human. And thatâs what humans do when theyâve been tested in every emotional, mental, and physical mannerâby everyone and their mother. And the fact that they're called names for doing so, reveals a double standard: These strong-minded, self-respecting women who stand their ground when theyâd otherwise be steamrolled over by vendors, in-laws, siblings, and crappy friends? Theyâd get a rallying cry from both women and men (the good ones, anyway) if they exhibited the same fierceness in a boardroom, or a Wednesday night spoken word performance. âLean in!â theyâd say.
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Planning nightmares
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Infantilizing family
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Sexist double standards
On top of that trap, women are pressured their whole lives to achieve a perfectly orchestrated, ridiculously elaborate wedding replete with show-stopping decor, dress, food, and moreâand to do it all with a smile on her face, as she also juggles a million other things in her life. Do it all, and do it flawlessly, but donât you dare crack under the pressureâitâs unbecoming of a lady.To be clear: The solution to the âbridezillaâ issue isnât to tell women to avoid having elaborate weddings, or that itâs their fault for having a wedding at all. Itâs actually just to stop being condescending toward women for simply wanting what weâve told them to want since they were little girls, and make a little space for female frustration.