r/bridezillas

My cousin and I used to be extremely close. We talked every day, and she was my MOH. When I got married wanted to be very involved in my wedding planning, so I shared ideas with her, and she helped me put together invitations, work through details, and figure out things that needed to get done. I loved getting to go through my bridal era with her support.

She got engaged two months before my wedding. I was so happy for her. I helped her fiancé with the proposal, helped plan the engagement party right after, and me and my husband even helped him pick out her ring. I wanted to be just as supportive of her as she had been of me. But once she got engaged, everything changed.

Suddenly, my wedding seemed to become a chore to her. She started complaining about certain things we were doing at our wedding because they “stealing” ideas from her wedding, even though we had already been planning our wedding for almost a year and she had been involved in those plans herself. She also told me that she doesn’t care how much money our grandparents gave them, she’s not inviting extended family, like I did. She also constantly talks about how it will mostly friends than family since she has so many. It felt like my wedding stopped being something she was happy for me about and became more of a competition. She didn’t ask me to be her MOH. After I got married, if anyone even mentioned my wedding or anything about it she would glare at me. She is the type that can turn any topic into something about her big day.

We’re now married and have been for a little over two years. We recently bought our first house, which we’re fixing up and making our own. Her only real comment about the house has basically been that she would never buy a house as old as ours and that she is going to custom design her own.

I feel like every major milestone has become a comparison. If we do something, she needs to explain why she would do it differently or better. And I’m honestly not interested in competing with her.

I wish we could go back to how things were before the engagement. I’m starting to worry that every big life milestone from now on is going to turn into some kind of competition that I never agreed to participate in.

Has anyone ever had a bridezilla go back to normal after the wedding?

I’m one of four bridesmaids plus the MoH. We threw the bride her bachelorette last week, mainly planned by the MoH. We live in Europe, where big American-style bachelorettes aren’t really the norm, but the bride told the MoH she wanted a proper celebration and that it had to be a surprise. The bride used to love partying, but since meeting her fiancé she’s said she’s in her classy “old money aesthetic” era. She also specifically said she didn’t want to get drunk or go clubbing, so we planned around that.

Another bridesmaid, “Mindy,” has become increasingly close to the bride over the past few years. She’s very opinionated and assertive, while the MoH is much more non-confrontational. Ironically, Mindy disliked the groom until only a few months ago, repeatedly saying he wasn’t “cultured enough” for the bride and laughing off the idea that he might propose anytime soon.

But ever since becoming a bridesmaid, Mindy has suddenly become extremely involved. She regularly communicates with the groom, dominates our group chats, criticises ideas while contributing almost nothing herself, and delegates tasks despite doing very little. She constantly says things like, “I talked to the bride” or “the groom told me…” almost as though she’s showing off how close she is to them. It’s gotten to the point where she feels like the bride’s bodyguard and spokesperson.
For example, I recently had a misunderstanding with Mindy and the bride over the guest list. They assumed I’d make the bride feel guilty for not inviting this person, but I thought she had already invited them and was asking me about un-inviting them. The bride asked for my opinion, and before I could even answer, Mindy interrupted with, “Be careful what you say to [bride]. You know she’ll overthink it.” That honestly threw me off.

For the bachelorette, Mindy repeatedly insisted that the bride wanted something very “classy,” with absolutely nothing tacky or “ratchet.” Combined with the bride herself saying she didn’t want to get drunk or go clubbing, we took that seriously.

The MoH therefore planned an entire day: spa, breakfast buffet, dinner and pictures at a bridesmaid’s decorated house, then drinks at a bar. The MoH, another bridesmaid and I spent about eight hours shopping, cooking and decorating. Both of them are pregnant, one heavily so, meaning I obviously handled the heavier work. Mindy said she was too busy to help.

We did secretly ignore Mindy on one thing. We know the bride well enough to know she’d find things like penis straws and pictures of her fiancé’s face funny, so we included them anyway—and we were right. She loved them.

Then, a few days later, the MoH called me crying. Apparently, the bride told her she was disappointed because the bachelorette wasn’t “fun” enough. She had wanted to walk around the city dressed as a bride-to-be, go bar hopping, play games and have people see that she was getting married. She now wants a second bachelorette done “her way.”

We were both shocked because that’s almost the opposite of what we thought she wanted based on everything she and Mindy had told us. We also suspect she may have changed her mind after finding out the groom will be going out drinking for his bachelor party.
The MoH now feels like she failed and wasn’t good enough. She tried explaining that Mindy’s insistence on keeping everything classy influenced the planning, but the bride dismissed it and told her she should have “had her claws out.” The MoH also feels she can’t really talk to the bride about Mindy because the bride seems to enjoy the attention and the idea of people “fighting over her.”
And to top it off, on the date the bride wants to redo her bachelorette, basically the only bridesmaid available to go with her is Mindy.

Me and the MoH are now just waiting for this wedding to be over because it’s stressing us out.

I have a friend who got engaged. For context we’ve known each other a fairly long time (about 10 years) and while she is not my closest friend I thought there was a chance I’d be in her wedding but I also understood if I wasn’t cause again we were not the closest but we were in the same friend group. Her birthday party was coming up there happened to be a snowstorm that day and myself and other people couldn’t make it out. However I have two friends that got there before the storm hit and I saw on Instagram that she had given them bridesmaid boxes.

Flash forward to next weekend it happens to be a different mutual friends birthday party. This friend proceeded to bring bridesmaid boxes for other people to this person birthday party. They went into another room and I could hear them opening it and getting excited while I was sitting outside awkwardly. it truly was one of the more awkward experiences of my life. I later found out that her initial plan was to hand out all the bridesmaid boxes at her birthday which when you have other friends coming that aren’t in it feels so odd to me. I found the whole thing to be a little mean and self-absorbed. Not being in the wedding is fine she can have who she wants but I feel like it’s pretty common practice to either have all the bridesmaids together when you ask or to ask them separately doing it in front of others feels mean especially at another persons event (her maid of honors birthday party) I haven’t looked at her the same since and have kept my distance a bit tbh. She invited me to her bachelorette and I find myself not wanting to go after all that