In Defense of Bridezilla
I got married a year ago this weekend, and am still thinking about the pressures of planning a wedding. I think it’s safe to write about it now.
Everyone on my wedding day (and beyond) has assured me that I was not a “Bridezilla” and that I was relaxed the entire day. I can confirm this, because it was a lovely day.
I only got annoyed once, and I simply called my maid of honor over and said, “Here is the problem. Deal with it.” In seconds, it was dealt with. (She’s the best.)
When my brother spilled beer on my wedding dress, everyone froze. I laughed. “I’m married, I don’t care what happens now.”
Everyone had a great time at the reception, and they congratulated me on being beautiful, looking radiant, and most importantly (it would seem), being laid back about the whole scenario.
But I don’t know that I deserved congratulations for merely not caring about wedding things. I never was a party planner, and when it came time for the table settings, floral arrangements, or ring bearer outfits, I delegated. (In fact, I didn’t even see my bouquet until the day of the wedding — how’s that for laid back?)
All I wanted was to get married to the person I loved, have my favorite people there, and eat good food. Beyond that, I trusted my bridesmaids, mom, and friends to help make it pretty and fun.
I know not every bride is like that. In fact, most brides aren’t. Should we punish them for wanting their wedding to be the perfect day, when we have been raised to look forward to our wedding day as *the* perfect day?
We actually like to watch brides fall apart, when it’s not someone we know personally. The idea of a “bridezilla” is so normalized that there are movies and reality TV shows dedicated to bridal meltdowns. But why is it such a thing?
We live in a culture that creates Bridezillas and then punishes them for being emotional. We set the expectations for the perfect wedding, need the bride to plan it all and make it perfect, and then roll our eyes at emotion and tell her to chill out when something goes wrong on “the best day of her life.”
My fiancé (now husband) was completely at sea when it came to planning our wedding. I wanted the planning process to be split evenly, but he came into it knowing next to nothing, whereas I had picked up most of what needed to be done through osmosis (and my eighth-grade Pinterest board).
Men are not expected to help. In fact, they are expected not to help. He didn’t know anything about anything, and no one expected him to. They expected me to know everything and plan everything for MY big day. It was my first rodeo too, but I was expected to simply know how to do it. Multiple times during our engagement, people told him (and me) that the day was about the bride, not the groom.
That’s weird, isn’t it, since we were BOTH getting married?
With 25 years of “when you find the right man, lock him down” under my belt and 2 years of “you are going to have the perfect wedding,” I was feeling just a little bit of pressure to get it right. If I was a little bit more of a people pleaser or a little less phlegmatic, I would have easily become a Bridezilla somewhere along the way.
Even though it’s “only flowers” (or linens, or cupcakes, or whatever), it can seem monumental when you take a look at the attitude surrounding weddings in our culture. Young girls are taught that the wedding day is the best day, marriage will fix all our problems, and to be married (to a man, of course) is the end all and be all of life.
When you’ve been raised with that attitude all around you, you want it to be the perfect day. Nothing can go wrong, and it’s on you if it does. Put capitalism, the patriarchy, and gender norms in a pressure cooker and add a touch of Christian purity culture, and you have the perfect recipe for a Bridezilla.
But things do go wrong. And emotions are already high.
On my wedding day, I was running on two hours of sleep, had just seen everyone I loved (I live far away from my family and most of my friends), and was preparing to GET MARRIED, something I had waited for as long as I could remember. It’s a wonder that I didn’t break down over linens at some point during the day, even though I genuinely didn’t care what color they were.
My wedding was the best. I had fun, I got married, I danced and I saw so many people that I loved. However, some of that day was an active choice to not stress over whether the groomsmen were on time, who was late, or whether the flowers were picked up. I was intentionally chill, and it did take some work.
The only tears on a wedding day should be when walking down the aisle, hugging your mom as she helps zip up your dress, the first dance, or other moments like that. No bride should shed stressed or exasperated tears, if only because it’s rare that a groom does. But if there are emotions around these things, we should let the brides feel them without judgment.
We can’t pressure young girls into expecting a perfect wedding, give all the responsibility to them to get it done, tell them it’s the most meaningful day of their lives, and then be shocked when they have emotions about it. Can’t we all just relax and stop putting labels on women’s emotions?
Let brides feel things, even if it doesn’t come out in graceful happy tears. And for God’s sake, help things go smoothly BEFORE the big day, so she can enjoy her wedding without the extra stress.
