Planning a wedding is stressful, but planning a wedding with a bridezilla? Life-ruining. From tantrums over table settings to meltdowns over money, some brides take “It’s my special day” way, way too far. Need proof? Just keep reading these so-bad-they’re-irresistible bridezilla stories from Reddit.
1. Just Walk Away
My brother's fiancé went off on my mom in front of my sister and me, all because he was 45 minutes late to the rehearsal due to his best man's car tire blowing out. "Where is your jerk of a son?!" she screamed. The dude should have never shown up for the wedding. Not only was she a bridezilla, but she was also a total utter sociopath. Soon enough, the disturbing truth came out.
She had completely fabricated her life. Her parents—who didn't show up for the wedding—called my mom to tell her the truth about it the day after the ceremony. She had a rap sheet a mile long. But my brother, who just wanted to believe that people can change, stuck it out for seven years. Don't ever, ever do that.
2. Worth Every Penny
I married a bridezilla and she ruined my life. After the wedding and vacation were over, I told her we needed to pay the debt we just accumulated—she wanted a huge wedding and she got it. We had a budget for the wedding and we should have had no debt at the end, but in the last few weeks before the wedding, she suddenly had to spend a ton of money on wedding stuff I had never even heard of before.
And when I say she spent a ton of money, I actually mean that it all came out of my pocket. So yeah, I wanted to start paying it off. She said she didn't have much on her credit card and I could easily pay it off in a couple of months if I just picked up some of her bills. I agreed... but that ended up being the worst decision of my life.
Three months later, she had her credit card paid off and she told me she wanted a divorce. You’d think we could get an annulment, but no. Annulment is very uncommon where we live. We looked into it, but we didn’t meet the criteria for one. Instead, we had to go to a quickie divorce lawyer who just puts paperwork together, and then we had to do everything else.
Maybe the worst thing about all this in retrospect? She comes from an upper-middle-class family and has a trust fund.
3. Joke’s On You
I was a bridesmaid in this winter-themed wedding. We all wore blue silk dresses with white fake fur capelets and MUFFS. At one point, we were getting ready for the ceremony and the bride said to me, “Hey, let me see your muff." I batted my eyelashes and joked, "I've waited so long to hear those words from you!" That didn’t go down how I wanted at all.
The look she shot me could have felled a moose. She started going off on me about how I was not taking things seriously enough and suggested that I should go hang out with the groomsmen instead if I was going to make lewd jokes. Yeah. Maybe I should have.
4. Warning Signs
My cousin married a bridezilla. He comes from a very poor area but has become successful after moving out of his hometown. His wife, however, was already extremely wealthy; you even could say excessively. They married after a year of knowing each other, and boy was it a surprise to hear about their horrific wedding plans.
They spent $250K on the wedding, including catering by seven different restaurants. Their food was from different cultures and cooked in front of you, almost like a hibachi buffet style. They even had servers in tailed suits and white gloves serving Taco Bell after midnight. Basically, it was the most lavish wedding I’d ever been to, and she was OBSESSED with the details. Well… that ended up being a HUGE red flag.
Once they got married, she was spending more money than he could make. She was getting mad because he wasn’t making enough, while she wasn’t working at all. When they got divorced, she gave him a cruel ultimatum. He could either get his ring back or keep the dog. He kept the dog. Oh, and there was one more parting gift.
Her sister, a lawyer, helped her file a restraining order on him and they haven’t spoken since. Screw her, but man, did he dodge a bullet there. They finished the divorce papers exactly one year and one day after their wedding. Once a bridezilla, always a bridezilla.
5. Age Is Just A Number
My uncle married a bridezilla. She had a huge spending problem. She still went clubbing in her 40s thinking she was 20 and ignored all her day-to-day priorities to party. She also acted like she was better than everyone else, which is probably why she had a hard time keeping friendships. The final straw was when she cheated on my uncle with a man ten years her junior. My uncle is now married to a different woman and he's the happiest he's ever been.
6. Harsh, But Fair
My sister was labeled a bridezilla by the staff at her venue—I heard them talking about her. The thing is, she was totally justified. The chair coverings were red when they were supposed to be brown. There was no mirror in the bridal suite. The photographer was late, and the make-up artist was very late, hence the issue with the mirror. And the issues didn't stop there.
Oh, plus the buffet was totally wrong—not a single dish she chose was there, and they charged $25 a person for what was supposed to be a four-tier chocolate fountain. It ended up being a small, plastic contraption that she saw the staff unbox from Walgreens on the day of. On top of it all, the wait staff was half the number stated in the contract, and the DJ refused to honor the playlist she selected.
So, yeah, she lost it at the venue.
7. A Hair Don’t
As a hairstylist, I've seen a few bridezillas. This one affected me directly. So mid-week, a woman came in and asked about up-dos for a wedding for the upcoming weekend. She told my boss that she wanted something "funky" done with her hair. My boss then booked this witch with me. Saturday morning rolled around and she got in my chair so we could get started.
I was nearly finished when she started complaining that she wanted more of a classic Audrey Hepburn style. At this point, it was too late to change anything.... plus my next client had already arrived. She completely lost it. She said I wasn't listening to her and then called her mother to talk some sense into me. She was almost in tears wondering how she was going to explain her hair to her future in-laws.
Her mom showed up and basically told her that her hair looked beautiful. Then she paid me and dragged her out of the salon. A total what the hell experience for everyone.
8. Servant Of Honor
My best friend, who is normally very sweet and quiet, was super rude when she got married. First, she told me when I would be having her bridal shower. She set a date without consulting me in any way and decided on all the details—it would be at my house, I would be serving so-and-so types of foods, etc. I was in the middle of my honors year of my bachelor's degree in another city that was a 15-hour drive away.
Well, she set the date to be right in the middle of my exams. She also planned on making all sorts of DIY things for her wedding to save money, like an aisle runner, centerpieces, arch, veil, etc. I came into town the night before the wedding and she said to me, "I didn't have time to get anything made, so I need you to do it." I stayed up all night sewing and arranging flowers while she slept. But it gets worse.
It was in the middle of winter, and when we arrived at the hall, the floor hadn't been cleaned and it was covered with salt stains. There was nothing to clean it with but a bucket and a cloth. So after staying up working all night, I had to clean a floor on my hands and knees. I was exhausted, sore, and I hated every minute of her wedding. I didn't talk to her for months after that.
9. Bride’s Day, Bride’s Way
I attended the wedding of a family friend's daughter, so I didn't really know her. It was a night-time reception, with the ceremony immediately preceding. When we went into the reception, we were expecting a buffet or something to be set up, but there was nothing. Later, we found out that there was no food for the 120 guests.
Instead, there was a cheese spread, a fruit platter, and vegetables with dip. After an hour, people were really hungry and some people started to leave because they were expecting to be fed and didn't want to stay. When the bride found out, she absolutely lost it. She ran across the room in her dress and blocked the doors, screaming about how everyone was ruining her wedding. She kept screaming, "Bride's day, bride's way!" It was such a scene that her father had to peel her off the door. I don't know where the husband was; probably cowering. After that, the people who didn't know her all left. I heard through the grapevine that she was inconsolable the entire night... She got trashed and threw up—hopefully on her dress, but I’m not sure.
Oh well, Bride's Day, bride's way!
10. A Whole Lot Of Baggage
My sister was a self-centered jerk during the six months before her wedding, with her coup de gras being the wedding day itself. I know it was all nerves so I don't harbor any grudges, but ugh, I wouldn't relive that day for any money in the world. My strongest memory is her holding a bag of her stuff and SCREAMING on the church steps:
"Why am I holding something? WILL SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY I AM HOLDING SOMETHING ON MY FREAKING WEDDING DAY??? Someone better take this out of my hands immediately."
11. Sister Act
My sister was a bridezilla. She announced her two-year engagement and asked me to be the maid of honor. I then got the opportunity to move across the country to pursue my career. It was 18 months before her wedding, and her reaction was chilling. Instead of congratulating me, she said, "You're going to leave me here to plan my wedding all by myself?"
It was as if I had signed away my right to have a life for the “honor” of being in her wedding. Oh, but that was just the first salvo. She made us all spend hundreds of dollars on specialized dresses, and even the bachelorette party had a dress code and a steep price tag. For 10 years before her engagement, I had consistently had blue, green, and purple hair, but knowing that she is conservative, I let the color grow out.
I had natural color but a short bob with an undercut and even that just wasn’t good enough. She went on about it constantly. In the lead-up, we talked every few days to discuss her wedding—despite the problems, it was the closest we'd ever been. Then, as soon as she was married, I got radio silence. She even forgot my birthday.
Needless to say, we don't speak anymore.
12. Monster-in-Law
According to my mother-in-law, I was the bridezilla. We had a maximum limit of 36 people, including ourselves and my son. My mother-in-law gave me a guest list that included—you guessed it—36 names. She assured me that not everyone would come, but that they would be very appreciative of the invite. I felt totally grossed out.
Still, I left the decision up to my husband, since it was his family after all. Needless to say, they all got invites. Then, I had asked for RSVPs to be given a few months before the wedding. Since the mother-in-law had used up all of the room on the guest list, I had to reduce my side to four people, with some on hold until I knew the exact numbers. I was starting to come to terms with it, but then she did something that made me absolutely livid.
I finally lost it two weeks before the wedding when I still didn’t have RSVPs. She said she would work on it and get back to me. A week before the wedding, she outdid herself in the worst way possible. She said one family also needed to bring nine other people because they were going on a family trip and our town was on the way so they would all be here anyway.
I flat out said no and called her out. I cut off the guest list and said that I was inviting the rest of my guest list and whoever hadn’t RSVP’d wouldn’t get a chair or plate. Right up to the day of the wedding, they were making changes. We got married at a Chinese buffet so that it would be the simplest planning and everyone would have something that they liked to eat.
My dress was $40 off Amazon. My flowers were $20 from Costco. We had a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for the wedding cake. Yet she still makes it out that I was the bridezilla.
13. A Rollercoaster Of Emotions
My co-worker married a crazy bridezilla. Here’s just a taste of what happened leading up to, during, and after the wedding. The moment he proposed, she lost her desire to sleep with him. According to him, she also basically stopped acting like the woman he fell in love with and started acting like her real self.
A week after he proposed, she quit her job. According to her, her full-time job was now planning the wedding. The wedding was horrible, but I'm getting there. She then had a fight with his mother because she demanded that she pay for half the wedding while getting zero input on anything.
Like, the groom’s family wasn’t even allowed to contribute to the guest list, which ended up being 95% of the bride's friends and family. The bride, who was 30 years old, subsequently egged her future mother-in-law’s house. When the bride and groom had a spat about the egging, he went to work the next day. That's when he received a disturbing video.
The video was of her screaming and sobbing as she buzzed her hair off in the bathroom. I worked with him, so he showed me the video. I strongly urged him to have her assessed by a psychiatrist. In response, he made a stupid joke about how intimacy with a crazy girl is the best kind and I pitied him. There's no amount of patience in the world that would help me survive a relationship like that.
Now we get to the juicy part: the wedding. It was in a pool "clubhouse" in summer, and it was much too small for the 150+ people they invited. Someone forgot to turn the AC on until after the place was packed. A lifeguard showed up in a swimsuit to turn it on, but it did little given it was already sweltering.
Two rows of chairs in the clubhouse were ribboned off with “reserved” signs on them, so no one sat in them. They were later occupied by the six bridesmaids, leaving about a dozen chairs open once the wedding started. The one groomsman, who was the best man, stood by the groom and didn't sit, while elderly people were left standing as there was no way to get to the chairs once the ceremony started.
The bride showed up 90 minutes late. She was unhappy with her hair and makeup, so she took it all off and did it herself. All the guests were standing for 1.5 hours just waiting for her. The groom was literally standing at the altar sweating his butt off in a wool suit, and he was clearly not sure if she would show up.
He looked like he felt sick. When the bride did show up, it somehow got worse. She burst into the clubhouse, marched down the aisle, and snapped at the officiant to "hurry up and get started." During the prayer while the religious groom had his head bowed, she turned to wave at everyone (I don't pray so I was looking up), then she told her mother to go get her some water.
She drank a bottle of water during the prayer and kept grinning and waving at people in attendance, paying zero attention to her groom in front of her. When the ceremony was over, tables were crammed into the clubhouse…and apparently only family and immediate friends of the bride had seats at the tables. The rest of us were to stand outside during the reception. I didn't see a dance, a speech, the cake cut, nothing.
The food was served outside where there were bugs everywhere. The bride made the groom get her food over and over. He meekly stood in line with the other 150 people, until people insisted he go sit and let them get food. Nope, she told him to do it, so he said he had to be the one to get it for her.
She never left her table to greet any of her guests. And when it was over, it went nuclear. Apparently, they had a massive fight as they were leaving the following day for the honeymoon, with the bride laying all the failures of the wedding she planned at his and his mom's feet. She threw his luggage out of the car and tried to drive to the airport by herself.
However, he had their tickets and jumped on the hood to stop her from driving off in his car. He then got fired about a month after the wedding because he kept showing up late and leaving early to deal with her personal crises. One year after the wedding, I got a thank-you note for my wedding gift, and it revealed the whole story.
It was signed by just the bride with a note that said, "As you may have heard, Ryan and I have had a bumpy start in our first year as a married couple, and we're separated now. Thanks for the lovely gift." They divorced a couple of months later.
14. Start The Way You Mean To Go On
This was a groomzilla. A friend of my father was remarrying, and it was both his and the bride’s second time around. They were both in their early 40s, and it was an arranged marriage. The guy was an utter mess. He demanded that every event be at top-notch hotels with obscenely expensive catering and hired string quartets and whatnot for the entertainment.
This was mostly paid out of the bride’s family’s pocket, I might add. The parties on the nights leading up to the main wedding event were opportunities for him to make a rather public jerk out of himself, talking at the top of his voice everywhere he went and showboating the entire time. But the kicker came the next day.
The bride was missing from her own wedding reception. Obviously, it was very odd and conspicuous, and the few relatives from her side made some non-committal excuses about her not feeling well, etc. Turns out, this idiot had divorced the poor woman right after he had his wedding night fun. He said that he “didn’t like her enough,” and that’s an almost literal quote.
The marriage was officially over before the festivities even ended.
15. You Need More Than A Priest, People
As a minister, there’s only one ceremony I had to walk away from. I received a call from my sister-in-law that one of her friends was supposed to get married and the priest had passed the week before. They didn't want to change the date or move anything, so they asked if I knew anyone who could help out.
I said, "Sure, when is the wedding?" It was supposed to be in an hour. Okay, no problem—I was on my way home from work where I had finished up an important meeting, so I was already reasonably well-dressed. I called home to say I was going to be late. When I arrived, it went wrong almost immediately. The "happy couple" looked at me and asked if I had proper priest’s vestments.
Um, no, I didn't, and if I did, I probably wouldn't be carrying them in my car. This is, after all, was an emergency. Still, the bride asked if I was able to go buy some and come back. I told her that I didn't even know where to buy garments like that. The groom then told me that if I couldn't even try, then maybe I should leave. So I did. Oh, but it gets better.
My sister-in-law told me they later cornered a priest at the church and told him he had to marry them, or they would sue the church for a breach of contract and that it was the moral thing to do. They divorced nine months later when her "surprise" baby was of a different ethnicity than he was. It didn't help that he had a side-piece as well.
16. Mother Knows Best
The store I worked at was a women’s formalwear store, so I have plenty of bridezilla family stories. More than once, we had mothers physically fighting over dresses for their daughters, including two moms who were sisters. These ladies came to blows because their respective daughters ended up wanting the same dress.
The worst moms weren’t actually the obviously rude moms, though. They were the 40-something yoga moms who’d spend the entire time body-shaming their daughters. There was even one yoga mom who, instead of approving of her daughter as she tried on dresses, spent the entire shopping day trying on dresses herself. No, really.
17. Telling On Yourself
I have to confess, I was a bridezilla. It was a small wedding, like 50 people, and it was going to be a casual celebration in a park. Everything was handmade or from the dollar store. I only ended up with a dress from a David's because the first little bohemian dress I ordered was more of a shirt, and my mom refused to let me wear it.
At the bridal shop, my mom told the lady not to tell me any prices, but I told her I would only consider dresses under $200. I tried on one dress and cried because I loved it so much. My mom bought it, and I later looked it up and saw it was $3,000. That changed everything. No more wedding at a park. Instead, we booked a small venue. We served pizza and pies still, and the groomsmen were still wearing polos and shorts.
The bridesmaids were in some Rue21 dresses I bought for them. That’s when it all unraveled. I only became a bridezilla on the day of. None of my family showed up, so my husband's side was full and mine was empty. Even our friends sat on his side. I was already primed at that point, and then the wheels came off.
Our MC read the speech I wrote before we were even at the altar, and our camera lost battery so we didn't get the recording, I tripped going up to the altar, and I had herniated a disc a week before the wedding. I was miserable and in so much pain. I cried so hard afterward. It felt like it was terrible; like everything was ruined, and I took it out on everyone.
I did my best to hold it together as much as I could, but I was so relieved when it was over. If I could do it all over, I would change everything; especially how I acted. None of that excuses my snippy behavior or my crying constantly on the day. Being stressed and upset didn't give me the right to make others feel bad.
18. All In The Family
My mom was a mother-of-the-bridezilla. She’s generally pleasant, with her annoying habits here and there—but man, she was a nightmare during the wedding planning. The woman cried because we refused to have a receiving line...when we got married in our backyard. The reception was on the other side of the yard. Why the heck would we have a receiving line?!
She was beside herself for the better part of an entire year worrying what we would do if it rained—we had a giant tent, and we ordered like 20 umbrellas. She also had a cow that the hem on her dress had gotten pulled loose by the ridiculous rhinestone stilettos she chose to wear (to a wedding in a yard...on grass). I told my maid of honor to get her some duct tape and my mother, again, cried her eyes out.
To this day, she complains about the fabric runner we used for the aisle because her heels dug into it, saying how silly of a choice that was. Everyone in the wedding party was aware of it and wore wedges or flats, but she snorted that that wasn’t elegant. She LOATHED that I wore ballet flats. She was also appalled that our rehearsal dinner, which was at our home, consisted of takeout from our favorite local pizza and sandwich place.
She decried it for being “borderline trashy.” Thankfully, following the ceremony, my brother gave her a talking to and all was well for the party thereafter.
19. My Way Or The Highway
My mother-in-law was a momzilla. My wife wanted a regular-sized wedding—nothing fancy, just a cozy celebration at a historic venue she loved. We had planned for about 100 guests at most, and we planned to do a lot of the work. Suddenly, my mother-in-law started to pressure us about having to invite tons of people, since she’s loaded and a social butterfly.
She also wanted us to change the venue, the photographer, etc. I didn’t care since I just wanted to make my wife happy. I did my best to adjust. Then, one day, about two months before the wedding, my wife had a breakdown crying because of all the changes from her mom. That's when I had enough. I told my wife I would handle her from now on.
I called her up and read her the riot act, telling her to cool it or we would just get a courtroom wedding and forget about the religious wedding, which was a huge deal to the family. She fought me for weeks. The whole family fought me. I told them all to pound sand. We had our original wedding; I was folding invitations and favors the night before until 3 am, but by heck we got it done.
Of course, my mother-in-law still changed the DJ and photographers without me knowing, so we had completely wrong music, and we have yet to see the pictures (16 years later). To this day, we have minimal contact with the family.
20. All About Me
My brother married a bridezilla. She yelled at my mother on the day of the wedding for asking her where she wanted certain decorations put at the reception site. For what it’s worth, there wasn’t a written plan, so my mom had nothing to go off of. She never thanked my parents for financially contributing to the wedding, either.
She also accused a bridesmaid of trying to upstage her by getting a spray tan before the wedding. My brother wanted me to be part of the wedding party, but she told him to his face that I was too pretty to be a part of it, and that all of her bridesmaids had to be less attractive than her. Oh, but she was just getting started. She yanked my sister-in-law’s jacket right off her back at the reception because one of her bridesmaids was cold.
The list goes on. Well, they got divorced about a year later because apparently her demanding attitude carried over into the marriage. Needless to say, the rest of my family had a little party when we heard about the divorce.
21. Sibling Rivalry
My sister was a bridezilla. She asked me to be her bridesmaid. The dresses were hundreds of dollars, and my mom ended up paying for them because she knew I couldn't afford them. 70 bucks in alterations later, the stupid dress finally fit. I lived in Edmonton at the time and my sister was in Abbotsford, BC, which is far away.
She demanded I fly down for her bachelorette party. Fine. 300-dollar for a flight there. I stayed with my mom until my sister kicked me out on the night before her wedding. Apparently, she wanted a "special night" with her TWO maids of honor and I was “just” a bridesmaid, so I couldn't be there. Whatever.
During the bachelorette party, I was told I needed to bring drinks for myself and the bride. Fine. I went to the store and she ran up 100 bucks on my card with what she wanted. Whatever, it's her wedding. She proceeded to drink none of it; then went to bed at the hotel early because she was angry for some reason. She then gave my bottles, all 100 bucks of it, to her husband for his bachelor party the next night.
But that's not all—she also got angry that my gift for them wasn't off her registry. I looked at the registry and there was nothing under 200 bucks. I mean, this witch even put a 900-dollar vacuum on there. When all was said and done, HER stupid wedding cost ME over a thousand dollars.
She then didn't speak to me for years after, and even when she did reach out, she only wanted to tell me that she didn't actually want me as a bridesmaid and that I ruined her wedding. She said she only asked me out of courtesy and that the spot was actually meant for her wedding planner, our cousin. At this point, we don't keep in touch. Her wedding ruined our relationship.
22. Mr. Wrong
I married a groomzilla. I bent over backward to make the wedding as magical as he wanted, even though I would have been happy in someone's backyard with a potluck. In couple’s counseling seven years later, he made a disturbing confession. He admitted that he never really wanted to marry ME so much as he wanted a huge show and party.
Everyone liked and approved of me, so he wanted them all to see he was making a good choice and be envious of him. He wanted them to be proud of him. We used up most of the money I got from a car accident settlement on the wedding. It could have covered a down payment on a small house. After all that, he asked me for divorce in 2020.
23. Tux-e-Don’t
I spent four years of my life working in a formal menswear sales and rental chain, where the average wedding gown from the bridal shop started at $3k. My most memorable bridezilla was this woman who came in with her fiancé. Poor dude never said a word. She wanted a very specific color of shirt to match her "diamond white" gown.
She also wanted it in a mandarin collar, with a mid-range shawl collar and two-button jacket. 14 of them. Okay, pretty straightforward...but when you're renting shirts, particularly these shirts because they were newer so some were closer to white and some were VERY ivory, I can't guarantee that every shirt will even be the same color, let alone that exact shade of "diamond white."
I explained this. Twice. And she still signed off—but she emphasized the shirts WOULD all be the same color, and they WOULD be the right color. Okay, lady. I'll do my best. Cue six weeks later, the Thursday before the wedding. Bridezilla comes in with her poor fiancé. We pull out the tuxes. OF COURSE, the shirts are exactly as I warned her they would be.
There were several shades, and only one was her perfect color—and it wasn’t the groom's shirt. She lost her ever-loving mind. Crying, pounding on our glass countertop, WAILING at the top of her lungs. She got so agitated she shattered our front counter with her pounding.
We called the authorities and officers detained her. The groom took his and everyone else's tuxes and left. On Sunday, I happened to be accepting returns. The father of the groom came back with 14 unworn tuxes. He explained that the bride spent 24 hours behind bars after my spineless manager refused to press charges.
At the rehearsal dinner, the bride threw some insane temper tantrum, complete with throwing glassware, swearing, and finally punching the groom in the face. He decided not to proceed with the wedding. I will never forget that woman's crazy eyes or her insistence on the perfect colored shirts from a $90 rental. It was truly wild.
24. Total Eclipse Of The Heart
I ended a friendship with a bridezilla who desperately wanted me to attend her wedding. She had it scheduled for the weekend of the eclipse in 2017, which was something I had planned for literally a decade. She asked me what my plan was, and I told her that I would be flying to the Missouri/Kentucky area. She wanted me to fly to Idaho instead, which was where she lived.
I would have, but all flights, hotels, and rental cars in Idaho were completely booked out. I couldn’t get there even if I wanted to. In response, she said I didn’t care about her or her wedding and that I didn’t want to see her on her big day. She claimed I put the eclipse—something I had planned on seeing for 10 ten years—before her “Lenny,” who I had known for six months.
So I ended things really fast after that. But from what I see, she still posts photos of her wedding to this day. Like, every day she posts different wedding photos. It’s almost like she stopped living after her wedding.
25. Big Little Lies
They had the expensive $75k wedding. Afterward, they split—and the astonishing truth came out. It turned out the bride never turned in the paperwork to make their marriage official. The groom didn't even know he wasn't married until he wanted to file for a divorce. The bride never returned the gifts either, even though they never got married.
She'd just lied to everyone about it...
26. Happily Never After
I married a bridezilla. In the 18 months that we were married, she was such an unfit mother (too many instances to list here) that when the divorce was finalized, I got custody of our kid AND the kid she had prior to our marriage. Also, she was a blackout drinker and cheated on me with several different men. But the final straw was brutal.
I had to travel out of state to check on my grandmother. I came back a day early, saw used Marlboros in the ashtray—not her brand, and I don't smoke—and then I heard grunting and groaning in the bedroom. Yep, there she was. And there he was. And there HE was. Devil's Triangle. Contacted a divorce lawyer the next day, finalized it as fast as possible.
27. Toxic Waste
My ex-best friend was a bridezilla. She always had a short fuse, but I put up with that side of her because I cared about her dearly. I met someone who I was engaged to for three years, and even before that, we’d been friends for four years.
Before we got married, she used to stay over at our house all the time, and we all got along. Then she met a guy. After being together for about four months, they got engaged. That's when everything changed. She would talk to people in a really posh voice as though she was above everyone, and she even went out and bought a horse to appear like she had money.
She asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding, and of course, I said yes. I really wish I hadn’t now. A couple of months after that, we met for coffee and I told her I was pregnant. I thought she’d be as happy as I was, as we’d been trying for a while. Nope! According, to her I got pregnant just to ruin her wedding and take the focus off of her.
Um... ok. Once we got pregnant, we planned to finally tie the knot before the baby arrived. We decided to do this on our anniversary. We envisioned a really small friends-and-family wedding. This was only three weeks after her wedding—not ideal, but we wanted it on our special day.
When her wedding day arrived, she had it in a church. She’s not religious at all and he was a very vocal atheist. Still, she had an expensive wedding dress and booked out the most expensive hotel in our local city. It was a huge affair. That’s fine, it was her special day. I was there for her through it all—I did everything a bridesmaid was meant to do even if I did have morning sickness.
I kept a smile on my face holding her ridiculously long veil up for most of the day. Then my wedding day arrived, which was a very small registry office affair that was perfect for us. She sat there looking like she was chewing a lemon and didn’t smile once. Afterward, she spoke with my mom who’d she’d known for years. My mom said, “You’re probably used to all this by now,” or something like that. She replied, “Yes, but mine was a lot grander.”
When she came to the reception, she accused my other best friend from childhood of playing footsie with her new husband under the table! My friend was not like that at all, and she’d only caught his foot while crossing her legs. I let that one slide...but later on, when I finally had my baby, she did something that made my blood run cold.
She visited for the first time in about six months and said, “Oh, it’s got red hair." She didn’t even refer to her by her name at all. That was all she had to say, so I cut her off at long last. It was the best thing I ever did. I hadn’t noticed how toxic she was until that moment. Now my husband and I live in the same little house we did before we got married. We did not have any debt at all from the wedding and we are still very happy six years after our wedding.
She, however, got into loads of debt from her wedding. Her husband also lost his job for gross misconduct, and she had to sell her horse. Now, six years later, I heard they’re living in her dad’s basement.
28. Nothing Hurts Like Family
I worked at a popular bridal store and I dealt with a few bridezillas while I was there. The biggest issue we had was the plus-sized section. These women would come in convinced they looked awful in everything. They would find a dress they loved and we would talk them up, but it would unravel in an instant.
They would come out and their family would act so vicious. The disappointment and pain was palpable as their excitement melted away. They'd throw comments like, “Oh NO, you look ginormous in that,” or “You can’t wear that! Your arms show and you know how flabby they look!” You could kick out mom or talk the bride up in the dressing room, but you could tell they still were in pain.
29. And Your Little Dog Too
My sister decided to marry a guy she’d been with for less than four months. It was her second marriage and it was a spur-of-the-moment decision with less than one month’s notice. Flying across Canada is expensive...Anyway, I had just started a new job and it was imperative that I be there at work during her wedding.
Like, there wasn’t the slightest option for time off, or I would have been let go. She didn’t talk to me for over a year. Well, the marriage lasted less than the year, if that. She took him for everything—he lost his house and his car, and he drank himself out of his job. She took his dog and told him it had been run over. She’s a peach. Single, if anyone’s looking.
30. Cold Feet, Cold Manners
I’m a wedding planner. The bride was in her late twenties, while the groom was in his mid-thirties. From what I understood, they had never been in relationships before; at least, not serious ones. On top of that, they were in a long-distance relationship and never actually lived together. Since the groom was living in another city, consultations and communication were done with the bride only.
She seemed a little awkward, although generally nice and easy to talk to. When I got to the ceremony, the groom was very stressed. I figured it was the normal pre-ceremony stress and he would warm up to me later, but nope! Once we got to the reception venue, I wanted to chat with him and check if everything was okay.
I can't remember what I said exactly, but it was something like, "Hey! I could tell you were very stressed before the ceremony! How are you feeling now?" For some reason, he took it the wrong way and refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening. He asked his mom (remember, he was in his mid-thirties) to tell me to leave the reception because he didn't like seeing me walking around, even though I was just doing my job.
After asking the bride if that's also what she wanted, she reluctantly agreed and asked me to come back later. I ended up sitting on a chair in the hallway for 30 minutes like a child until he gave me permission to come back and complete my job. He also refused to do the couple portraits after the ceremony. The bride managed to convince him at first, but after 10 minutes, he was done and refused to cooperate.
Needless to say, they ended up with very few good photos! Something tells me he grew up very sheltered and didn't know how to act with people, but who knows. To this day, I have no idea if they're still together, but one thing is sure: I will never work with them again.
31. You Can’t Choose Your Family
I had a momzilla; my mother-in-law. She had insisted that she was a "traditionalist, so since I was marrying her daughter, she said she would be paying for the whole deal. That was fine with my wife, so it was fine with me. My mother-in-law took no further role in the planning process.
Then, very late in the game—after 18 months of planning—my wife sent her the seating plan just to make sure it would be workable. After what sounded like a robust discussion over the phone, my wife came to me and told me that her mother wasn't happy with the seating plan. She was demanding that she sit at the bridal table, or she'd pull her money.
I called my mother-in-law back and asked her to explain the problem to me. She got very emotional, ranting about how it was the "tradition" she wanted to follow. She was threatening to withdraw her money if she didn't have her way. I took a second to consider my options and told her that it was fine—fortunately, a seat at the bridal table had just opened up. But then I continued with a slam dunk.
I said that spot was mine, and I wouldn't be needing it. I then hung up the phone and handed it back to my wife. On the day of the wedding, my mother-in-law sat where she was told.
32. Better Off Alone
She told me she regretted marrying me a day after our wedding because it wasn't exactly how she wanted it to be. She also told me, on my birthday, that she was going to have an affair. When a few of my closest friends passed away in a short period of time, she told me to “get over it” because “life goes on.” She then filed for divorce because apparently I never loved or cared about her. She wants nothing to do with me.
33. Do Not Disturb
I married a groomzilla. I wanted to elope because I didn’t like the idea of being stared at by people. He demanded a wedding of 200+. He had my parents build a giant gazebo on our farm and said he’d help pay for building costs. My dad and I built it by hand with our neighbor, and he wasn’t anywhere in sight for what was a year-long project.
Shortly after the wedding, we retired to our hotel and he didn’t want to get intimate. I was like, okay; it was a long day, I get it. But later, three months into a dry marriage, I walked into an awful sight. He was getting it on with our 60-year-old male neighbor. I opened my bedroom door, saw him, and said I was sorry. I then shut the door, got my dog, and drove home to my mom and dad who lived a state away.
Why did I say I was sorry and not yell? I will never know.
34. Master Manipulator
I was married to a manipulative narcissist. She got a hold of me in college when my parents didn't deliver on their promise to provide financial support. Now, that would have been fine since I could have made plans and changed how I did my schooling or something, but no. They promised a certain amount of money per month but only gave half.
I had rent to pay, so I basically stopped eating. I had no furniture in my apartment—I slept on egg crate foam. She saw this and I guess she felt bad because she started feeding me. Eventually, we would end up sleeping together in her nice warm bed. Then, later on, I moved in with her because things were going well…Little did I know that was when things would hit the fan. I owed her now and I could not get away.
She convinced me that she "needed" me and that I had to be there to support her in her every endeavor. Every single one. I went to her classes with her, I went clothes shopping with her, and I didn't go out with my friends because she needed me to sleep. She made me feel so obligated to her that my life almost fell apart. I felt so indebted to her that I let her treat me like garbage.
But the worst thing she ever did was emotionally blackmail me into getting married. "If you actually loved me, you'd marry me." She knew I was a sensitive person who genuinely cared about other people, and she used that to say if I didn't marry her I was an evil person who didn't care. The marriage lasted two years. She kept us financially off-balance by moving us around a bunch.
At some point, I got a good job and finally managed to get my own car and everything. I started building a new life, but she still tried to pull her old shtick on me. I had been going to therapy and she dropped out of our joint sessions because she didn't like that therapist. Eventually, we got divorced, but what's messed up about that was that after we were separated, all she wanted was to get me back in the sack.
I noped the heck out. That would be all I needed, to get my estranged wife pregnant. She never knew I was sterile…heck, even I didn't know at that time. All she wanted was a baby and she probably would have left me had she known. She got a new boyfriend and, get this—she moved with him out of state. One day, she called me up and said, "I want to thank you for breaking up with me in person, like an adult. My current partner just took the Xbox and disappeared."
She's a monster and I regret ever meeting her.
35. Love All Of Me
She paid for a life-size portrait of herself in her wedding dress. It was very important at the time. The marriage lasted one year before she cheated. I hope her future suitors take that as a clue.
36. Cutting It Close
I'm a bridesmaid in an upcoming wedding. So a few weeks before the actual ceremony, I decided to knuckle-cut off all of my hair because the heat was unbearable. When my friend, the bride, saw it, she was really upset with me because she envisioned all of the bridesmaids with up-dos, which I never knew about in the first place.
Still, if I had asked for her permission to cut my hair, I would have been denied.
37. The Wedding Planner
I think I was a reverse-bridezilla. I've been married twice—the first time around, I had a medium-sized, stressful church wedding. My parents probably spent $20k on the whole shindig, about 20 years ago. The marriage lasted less than five years. The next time I got engaged, I was like, yeah...been there, done that on the whole "big wedding" thing.
My parents had already been tapped enough and I still felt bad that they had to shell out for a wedding when the marriage was over so quickly. I said we should go to the court and maybe have a nice dinner at a restaurant afterward. However, my husband, who was a little younger, had never been married and his (huge) family was all excited over the idea of a big, white wedding for their only boy.
So he dug in his heels and told me that he really wanted a wedding. My compromise, which I did not expect him to take me up on, was that if he really wanted a wedding, he could plan and pay for it himself. This backfired on me so hard. He excitedly agreed. Well, folks...I'm here to tell you that he did as good as his word.
I was 100% checked-out of the entire wedding planning. Zero stress level. I was a few months pregnant and working, so this was very agreeable to me. I literally only showed up when he asked me to, like when he said I needed to pick out a dress at David's Bridal. I pointed to the first reasonably priced, reasonably attractive gown I saw, tried it on, and was out the door with it in 15 minutes.
Our wedding day arrived, and my husband-to-be had gone ALL OUT. His whole family had pitched in, and they had produced a band, a sit-down dinner, flowers, a cake, horse and carriage, photographer, everything. Considerably more fun than my first wedding, and less money spent overall. I never had so much fun in my whole entire life.
Everything was a surprise because I legitimately had no idea what he'd arranged. My parents were so thrilled that they didn't have to pay for a big wedding again that they sent us on a pretty nice honeymoon instead. So I guess I married a groomzilla? But it was pretty awesome all around, so I honestly have no complaints!
38. Better Without You
My ex was a bridezilla and our wedding was probably in the $20k plus range. She is very much a person who wants to appear like everything is going great. She wants to hear about your gossip, but she doesn't ever open up about herself. One day, all her secrets came tumbling out. She cheated on me after less than three years of marriage.
She seemed repentant and appeared to try. We had a couple of kids (that look just like me, thank goodness), but then she cheated on me again. I divorced her, which she is still furious about. I'm now happily married again to a woman who loves me and treats me well. Honestly, I didn't know love could feel this good or that I was worth this much.
39. If I Could Turn Back Time
My brother-in-law married a bridezilla. She made him spend something like $45k on the wedding, and within a month she was cheating on him. They managed to somehow stick it out to have two kids, but she left him for one of his high school buddies after three years. They're divorced now, but she's a giant piece of trash and ignores her kids most of the time.
40. Money Talks
My first marriage was to a bridezilla. She 1) drank before the ceremony, 2) wouldn’t dance because she was “too anxious that people would make fun of her,” 3) tried bragging to my cousins during the dinner that our wedding was better than theirs, and 4) invited her “ex” boyfriend to the ceremony. I later found out she had been sleeping with him both before and after our wedding. But that wasn’t even the cherry on top.
She later took the money we had received as gifts—money we were planning on using for a house down payment—and spent it on random stuff. Actually, she had a ton of debt she kept from me. I left her a year after I found out and never looked back. Now, I’m happily married to a great woman. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but there were a lot of red flags I should have noticed.
41. Take The Money And Run
My uncle married this lady who was an insane bridezilla. She put him into an enormous amount of debt because she wouldn't settle for anything less than her perfect dream wedding. Then, she had the marriage annulled after the fancy honeymoon, saying she didn't want to be his wife but she always wanted to have her dream wedding. Witch.
42. A (Sad) Tale As Old As Time
My husband’s long-term, childhood friend married a bridezilla. She is Evangelical and religion is pretty much her life. Meanwhile, he was agnostic and a very big metal-head geek. They asked us to be part of their wedding entourage. My husband and I are both tattooed, and when we arrived at the wedding, we were his only friends present.
Everyone at that big wedding was from her church. The preacher kept saying to him that his old life was behind him now and his new life was just about to begin, yadda, yadda. But while he was giving his sermon, everyone kept looking at my husband and I like we were beasts. Worst day ever.
She is that kind of person who wants to be an influencer. EVERYTHING is on her Instagram. Their relationship seems perfect there, but he always seems so unhappy and so apathetic. When we actually talk to him, he always brings up how they are so different.
She made him stop talking to us. Eventually, he got out of every friend group we had, and he stopped answering my husband, who is very sad he lost his friend. Even worse, I believe she is the one replying in the few weird messages he does get.
43. Keep It Simple, Stupid
Kind of the opposite end of the spectrum. My wife and I eloped a few months before our "wedding" and kept it mostly a secret. Then, on the day of, we just focused on having an awesome party for us and our friends. Well, our pastor canceled last minute and stood us up for the rehearsal. My wife checked into the hotel the morning of.
Lady at the hotel counter: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
Wife jokingly: "Yes, a pastor."
LAC: "...Our omelet chef is ordained..."
LAC: "Hey TONY! You busy tonight?"
Tony:…"NO"
Wife: “Ok!”
44. Buyer’s Remorse
My first wife was a bridezilla, but I didn’t find out the true extent of her wrath until just after we were married. During the honeymoon, reality hit her like a truck. She realized she just wanted the big wedding, which she had, but not the marriage. The next two years were a nightmare until she finally tapped out. I was young and stupid, so the thought of divorce never crossed my mind.
I don't know why it didn't. I guess I just assumed I'd be miserable the rest of my life. When she told me she was leaving, it felt as if the weight of the world was off my shoulders. On a happy note, her parents were still paying off the wedding when we divorced. That's what happens when you give your daughter everything she wants…like two freaking wedding dresses.
45. Get Out, Girl
I married a groomzilla. This guy had costume changes planned for the wedding and reception. He would yell at the wedding planner over menial things like serving fruit kabobs so that people would maybe get enough to eat. There was zero compromise—he made a lot of promises for things I had been wanting after the wedding and they never materialized, like a beach vacation and such.
Turns out, no compromise at the wedding meant no compromise anywhere else, so I left him after four years of marriage. Best decision ever!!!
46. Fool Me Once
I married a groomzilla. He is a lovely, sweet, and thoughtful man; but boy did he lose it at the wedding. I would have been more than happy with a small wedding—literally, I would just three special people there. He needed 200+. As far as I was concerned, we could eat off paper plates and have a big bonfire to burn them afterward. But no, he needed personalized moist towelettes.
You get the point. He is a lovely person and I love him dearly, but I will never marry him again.
47. You Think You Know Someone
I had coordinated a bridezilla’s wedding. My cousin's six-month-old baby had passed a few days prior to the wedding. I called the bride and told her of my family situation, and I assured her that my assistant would be stepping in for me so that I could attend the funeral. Her reply made my blood run cold. She told me to send my assistant to the funeral and that I had better be at her wedding.
I told her I would be sending her a refund and that now no one at all would be coming to her wedding. The groom ended up leaving her after this whole thing went down. Suffice to say, he really dodged a bullet there.
48. Read The Room
I knew a woman who was a bridesmaid at a relative’s wedding. She was married and had been trying to get pregnant for a while. Finally, she and her husband got lucky and she conceived. The bridezilla got furious and kicked her out of the wedding because she would be pregnant in the pictures. But that's not even the most tragic part.
Three months later, sadly, the woman miscarried. The bride called her with a response along the lines of "Good riddance. Now you can be a part of the wedding again." Needless to say, she did not even attend it.
49. You Get What You Put In
My ex-fiancé was super normal…until we got engaged. She went from wanting a small, simple wedding with less than 100 guests to a grand hall and wanting to invite everyone she ever exchanged more than three words with. She even wanted to import flowers. But the final straw was when she scheduled an appointment with a real estate agent to SELL MY HOUSE to pay for the wedding.
Also, her family was loaded but they weren’t going to contribute anything. I broke it off, and she got engaged again one year later to an attorney…Unfortunately for her, she didn’t read the prenup before signing. They got married and divorced one month later. She got nothing and is still alone.
50. The Grandmother Of Tantrums
I had a friend who threw a temper tantrum complete with screaming and foot-stomping because her grandmother had the audacity to pass a few hours before her wedding. She said it would throw off the seating arrangements since there would be a big empty space. She is currently halfway through her second divorce.
Sources: Reddit,
