Let’s Talk About Bridezillas

Let’s talk about the concept of “bridezilla.”

It’s the idea that weddings inherently turn perfectly nice young women into some sort of fire-breathing, plate-throwing, tantrum-screaming monsters. That women develop this malady through their own lack of character, a high budget and the desire to achieve a selfish fantasy in which their every whim must be met.

I hate this concept. It needs to go.

First, as Slate so humorously describes, it is a really bad portmanteau. “Godzilla” and “bridezilla” don’t even sound alike, so it doesn’t make sense from a language standpoint.

Second, it is a term used to judge, cut-down, and control others. “Bridezilla” is a term that comes out when a woman–only a woman, you never hear about “groomzilla,” do you?–doesn’t perform to your expectations. It is a weapon.

Personally, I have heard it several ways.

• “Oh, don’t worry about it! I’m sure that Major Wedding Problem will work out! You don’t want to be a bridezilla now, do you?”
• “Don’t get all bridezilla about it, but I need you to…”
• “You’re really acting like a bridezilla now.”

Every time, it came up–sometimes “jokingly”–as a way to brush off my genuine concerns, to minimize my experiences and stress, and to manipulate me into being something else.

Okay, by now you may be rolling your eyes and saying, “Geeze, she must really be a bridezilla if this is going on!”

And maybe someone objective would say that–but I really don’t think so. All throughout wedding planning, this term has been hanging over my head: don’t be “like that.” I’ve tried to be accommodating wherever possible, and I truly don’t care about things like what color napkins we use or if we use live flowers or not.

Now, will I agree that there are women who do go overboard? Absolutely! But we already have words for unreasonable people, tons of them, and the act of being unreasonable is really not limited to women in this situation. The truth is, some people are bitches all the time.

The other truth is, weddings are extremely stressful and there are a lot of competing values at stake: what you want, what you have money for, what your parents want, what your SO’s parents want, what your neighbor who isn’t even invited to the wedding thinks a wedding should be like, etc etc. (Seriously, I had a family friend call to ask me the color of my guest book, because this was apparently critical to her preparations. Really?!)

I mean, how often do you plan an expensive multi-hour event for hundreds of people? It’s not like you know how to plan a wedding going into it; you’re stuck browsing Pinterest and getting sucked into the DIY rabbithole as you try to navigate all this.

And the wedding industry is literally built on people telling you you are not good enough, that if you don’t have XYZ, your wedding will be the worst and you’ll ruin “the memories.” I am shocked by the mountain of pressure that gets dropped on women when we get engaged (and on the men, but to a lesser degree, in my experience). (This article in The New Yorker does a good job analyzing this.)

In my own circumstance, the accusation of bridezilla-dom came from the then-maid-of-honor. What had I done? I told her I was upset that she went dress shopping without inviting me. Without even telling me. I felt left out of my own wedding, and when I told her–honestly–about my feelings, she came back with that. “You’re really acting like a bridezilla.”

It hurt. It hurt deeply, and I cried. It was an insult from someone dear to me, and I didn’t feel like I’d deserved it (particularly because the dress I was suggesting she wear cost all of $50).

That was a low moment. But it wasn’t the worst thing to come from wedding planning. There have been a lot of stress-tears, and grief-tears (which came when she decided to drop out of the wedding rather than wear said $50 dress). Wedding planning is hard, but, really, it’s just a party. And I’m not a monster for feeling hurt.

I’m looking forward to the marriage, and an end to this madness.