There is something about weddings that make people behave like psychos. Sometimes it's guests, other times it's members of the family, but the absolute worst cases are when it's the bride. Unfortunately, wedding planners are often one of the prime targets for brides that have descended into madness.
Let's take a look at some of the most entitled bridezillas that wedding planners have had to deal with.
All posts have been edited for clarity.
Outdoor Wedding in Seattle
“It was an outside ceremony at a golf course, with an inside reception.
About an hour before the ceremony, the skies went dark and storm clouds began to roll in.
I always told my outdoor brides we needed to call the wedding no later than thirty minutes in advance so we had time to move guests indoors, as well as any other items like flowers.
In this case, the bride had a beautiful indoor location that was easily used for both the ceremony and reception. Which was why there was no tent.
I suggested to the bride that she should move her ceremony inside.
She said no because she wanted it outside.
I pointed out the clouds to her.
She responded, ‘It’s Seattle. There are always clouds.’
I responded, ‘Well yes, but these are storm clouds and you have two hundred people sitting outside on a golf course.’
She wouldn’t budge and no amount of reasoning would help.
It started to get windy twenty minutes before the ceremony. It was nothing big yet but definitely a sign of bad weather to come.
She still wouldn’t reconsider.
Several guests were seated outside; however, many hovered inside the reception area because it had started to get cold outside.
I pointed that out to her and told her it was our last chance to move the ceremony inside. I also warned her of how much a disaster it would be if it rained during the ceremony.
She still wanted it outside.
It started to sprinkle as soon as the ceremony began. The bridesmaids were getting wet as they walked down the aisle. Everyone’s shoes sank into the grass as they walked. The guests looked worried.
Big gusts of wind began as the bride walked down the aisle and it began to drizzle. The guests tried to use umbrellas but the wind was too strong.
We weren’t even five minutes into the ceremony when the heavens suddenly opened and it began to pour. The guests started screeching and began to move inside. The ceremony was still happening for the bride, but the guests were bailing. Even the musicians grabbed their instruments and went inside.
The bridal party continued to stand there like nothing had happened, much like the band on the Titanic.
There were maybe twenty guests left. Everyone else had bailed inside. It was an open downpour and anyone left outside was soaked.
The officiant began to rush at that point though there wasn’t really anyone left to witness the vows. Before they got to the kiss, the lightning began. At that point, they finally bailed and went inside.
The bride and bridal party spent the reception looking like drowned rats.
The bride was just ruined. She had runny makeup and her hair was smushed. She had rashes on her skin from being wet all night. Heavy ball gowns were not easily worn wet. All the decor that was meant to move inside following the ceremony was ruined; thousands of dollars on flowers and centerpieces down the drain. Literally.
In the end, hardly anyone witnessed the ceremony at all, and they didn’t even get to finish.
The bride apologized to me and said I was right. Shockingly enough, she didn’t complain much about the rest of the evening. It was almost like dealing with two brides. Which baffled me even more. It was like Jekyll and Hyde!”
Short Notice Wedding Part 1
“I had this client book me two weeks before her actual wedding. I regret taking it to this day.
She had no transportation planned to take her home at the end of the night. I asked her repeatedly what her plan was and she told me she just wouldn’t drink and planned to drive to her honeymoon spot. She never told me where it was even though I kept asking.
A massive tornado went through the area the day before her wedding and power lines and trees were blocking every entrance to the highway to her wedding in the boonies of Maryland. I got up early to deal with the issues at the venue, like no electricity on a hundred-degree day. I got a call from her around six o’clock in the morning because she realized she needed transportation to her honeymoon spot.
She finally answered where the honeymoon spot was. Hours away in West Virginia. I called every D.C. and Maryland-based limo company and begged them to find someone to drive into the Maryland countryside at eleven o’clock at night to take them to West Virginia. Finally, someone relented and I called the bride to tell her the price.
She had a complete meltdown.
I had to explain to her that requesting that at the last minute meant she was going to pay whatever they wanted to charge her.
The wedding itself was a complete disaster.”
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Short Notice Wedding Part 2
“The bride hated her hair and makeup and made it very well known to me, even though she had personally booked the stylist. As it was a hundred degrees and in the blazing July sun, the original unshaded area was going to be terrible for the ceremony.
I suggested we move it for her comfort and the comfort of her guests to the beautiful area with a centuries-old tree.
She refused, but as guests arrived they did nothing but complain.
I just decided to move the ceremony to make everyone happy. It was a one-hour traditional ceremony and there was no way that I was going to let people suffer at a wedding that I had been in charge of planning.
After the ceremony, I had to wait outside the bridal suite while the couple had a bedding ceremony. Something I never want to witness again. The bedding ceremony went way over and shortened the reception.
The bride freaked out that she lost out on dancing time because of it and blamed it on me.
At the end of the night during clean-up, the bride’s mother started throwing decor in her car rather than let my team do the clean-up. As soon as she left, I noticed my emergency kit was nowhere to be found.
I called the bride’s mother and she claimed she never saw it, even though it was next to the decor we had started to pile up.
The next week I got a call from the venue saying they saw a car throw a bag out of their window onto the steps of the venue then speed away. Alas, it was my bag and I had to drive over ninety minutes to go fetch it, even though the mother and bride lived super close to me and had my address.
To top it all off, I had a heatstroke and my poor assistant had to drive us home at midnight.”
Dress Shopping Part 1
“The bride-to-be took us out to pick out dresses. The bride’s mother and the groom’s mother also came at her insistence.
We arrived at the dress shop only to find that the bride, her mom, and the groom’s mom had already picked out the dress she wanted us to wear for the wedding when they had bought her wedding dress a few weeks prior.
That was fine but we had been under the impression we would get to pick our own dresses. Whatever, it was her wedding but when we tried the dresses on, we realized that it didn’t look good on two of us because we were all different frames and sizes. We came out to show the bride and two moms, and the moms were in agreement that the dress really didn’t work.
The bride, however, was very upset that we didn’t all magically look great in the same dress. She started making snide, subtle comments about our appearances.
The moms ignored the bride’s attitude and flagged down an employee to help us find some alternatives.
We were in a small city, so their selection wasn’t the best, but the employee found at least half a dozen other dresses that came in the color the bride wanted. We tried them all on, but because we varied so much in body types, most of them didn’t look good on one or all of us. The bride continued to make comments about our bodies.
Finally, the last dress we tried on was generic enough that it looked fine on all of us.
The bride didn’t like it because it didn’t make us look attractive enough. To make matters worse, in her eyes, the dress had pockets. She absolutely did not want her bridesmaids to have pockets. At that point, every single one of us was happy with this choice except her. She reluctantly agreed to let us pick that dress but was very clearly not happy.
Then we went to pick out shoes.”
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Dress Shopping Part 2
“The bride told us we would be wearing the same shoes as her, but in a different color. Weird, but again, we tried not to argue with her.
When we tried them on, there was a snag in her plans. I have very small feet, technically a three in kids, though some size five shoes will fit. The heels she wanted were sky-high and strapless.
When I put them on and tried to walk, my feet kept slipping out. They were also open-toed, so I couldn’t really stuff the front, as I had done in the past. To top it off, I found the front absolutely killed my feet just standing to try them on.
I told her that, and she watched me try to walk in them only to have them flop off.
Her mom asked if they came in a smaller size, but they were fancy dancer shoes, so no, they obviously didn’t make them to fit kids.
The bride responded, ‘Once you start to wear them, your feet will swell and they’ll fit then,’ and walked off.
The bride’s mom assured me that we would figure something out and bought all of our dresses and shoes as condolences for dealing with her daughter that day.
I never got to know how that would have worked out though because the bride and groom simultaneously cheated on each other throughout their relationship and ultimately, called off the wedding. The bride didn’t even have the nerve to tell me herself. I had to hear it from the maid of honor.
We are no longer friends, and it’s sad to me now that the dressing shopping incident wasn’t even the reason why. I can’t believe we let her treat us like that.”
Hometown Heroes Part 1
“This was the one and only time we dropped a client.
One day, I heard the door open to the office and I popped my head out while the receptionist explained our policy of walk-in clients. I noticed that it was the bride, groom, and both sets of parents. The one thing that really stuck out was that all six of them wear wearing their high school coats. I politely introduced myself and said that if they were willing to wait a few minutes while I finished with my current clients, I would be more than happy to sit down and talk to them. I went back to my current clients and finished what business I had with them.
As I walked them out, I noticed the bride had already begun to cry and I heard her ask, ‘But don’t they know who we are?’
I ignored it and went back to my office to grab my notepad and pen. After I explained how much our services cost, I explained how we worked. Then I asked the number one question that every person should have an answer to, ‘How much is your budget?’ The reply still haunts me to this day.
Her dad said, ‘Whatever our daughter wants, she will have for this wedding.’
I received a list from the bride and looked it over. My eyes went wide at some of the things on there. They ended up signing the contract and paid for our services. Typically I never took work home with me, but I took the bride’s list home and calculated how much it would cost. It came out to just over a million dollars. The next day, I took the list over to her father, and after he saw the amount, his eyes nearly bulged out of his head.
At that point, the dad became a whole lot more reasonable. I told him to give me a number that he could afford.
Between him and the groom’s father, they agreed to pay two hundred thousand dollars total for the wedding. We decided to meet that Friday to cut down on the bride’s list.
In the meantime, I found out more details about both families. Basically, both fathers were local football stars and both mothers were cheerleaders in high school. They pretty much peaked in high school. The fathers partnered up to open a new car dealership. They all thought that they were the most popular and powerful in their town, but I heard otherwise. I learned a lot about them in one of our small-town diners.
During our meeting, I handed out the list then wrote what the overall budget was. We started to go through the list and after reaching a reasonable consensus on what we determined were the necessities, we got to everything else. I think we only kept two other things and the rest were thrown out.
The bride ended up having a complete meltdown and tantrum. After being explained the facts of life, she calmed down a little and they all left.
Once they left, I said to my boss, ‘This wedding is going to be a complete disaster.’
She agreed with me and we went to work.
Throughout the time leading up to this wedding, the bride’s behavior became worse. She was a full-on bridezilla with completely unreasonable behavior. She couldn’t understand that our business and the others didn’t just have her as a client and that we couldn’t drop everything just for her. Finally two months before her wedding, it came to a showdown.
That morning, I was with another couple showing them a venue they were interested in when my phone rang.”
Continue Below
Hometown Heroes Part 2
“It was our receptionist that told me the florist had called to cancel. Then I heard the phone ringing in the background. It was the venue. I asked her to get the details and write them down and I would deal with it when I returned.
I read about everything that happened and held a meeting with my boss. Apparently, the bridezilla and her family had been verbally abusive with the venue and every vendor involved in her wedding. My boss pulled out the contract and made a copy. After highlighting the portions that dealt with behavior, she typed up a letter of termination of services. She returned the payment to us minus the deposit. Each of the other vendors came by with a check themselves and everything was mailed off to the bride’s family.
That Friday, my boss was out dealing with an urgent situation and I was getting ready to leave for the venue of another wedding we had that weekend.
The bridezilla and both of her parents came into the office. All three immediately started screaming at the receptionist.
I finally had enough. I slammed the door to my office then lit into them right in the reception area. I started out by calling the bride the worst client I ever had. Then I said that I didn’t care if they thought that the three of them were the most popular and powerful in their little town because they were not big fish in the grand scheme of things.
I finished it up and said, ‘If you don’t get your spoiled rear ends out of my office, I’m gonna call the cops.’
I watched them leave and I called my boss to let her know what happened.
She responded, ‘Aww, I wish I was there too.’
I didn’t keep up with that wedding but the two from that weekend ended up going well.”
“Then The Whole Circus Began” Part 1
“I was involved in planning one wedding when one of my friends from school was the groom. Since I was known as an ‘artistic soul’ during my school days, the groom asked me if I could decorate the hall, flowers, tables, and make gifts for the guests. I gladly agreed to do it because their budget was allegedly tight.
I didn’t know the bride well, but she seemed like a nice, simple person, and didn’t seem overly demanding. I decorated the hall in a purple and white combination, as the bride requested, and she was delighted with every detail.
After the wedding ceremony in the church, we all went to a small hotel where a gala dinner and party were organized. Dinner went as planned then the whole circus began.
The bride and her bridesmaids began to complain about the quality of the food, the guests’ clothes, the choice of music despite the bride being the one to choose the band to play and set the schedule, and the color of the tablecloths. She came to ask me to put pink tablecloths instead of purple and white.
I tried to explain to her that it was not possible to do that at ten o’clock in the evening in a hall full of guests.
She cried.
One of the bridesmaids tried to calm her down and the bride decided to tear her dress.
One friend of mine and I somehow protected the poor bridesmaid from other people’s views and took her to the apartment reserved for newlyweds. We tried to fix the dress, but it was ruined. We found replacement clothes for the bridesmaid and headed back together to the hall where the party was taking place.
When the bride saw us, she cried hysterically again because her bridesmaids no longer had matching dresses. She said I had deliberately ruined her day, and the bridesmaid in the replacement clothes, of course, immediately sided with her.
Most of the guests by then were already quite under the influence. The groom and his friends danced with each other, and some of them took off their jackets and danced holding the jackets in front of them like dance partners. That, for some reason, made their wives and girlfriends unhappy, so they all started to get hysterical.
That was another reason for the bride to get upset and cry.
By that point, I had had enough. I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to the garden.
In about ten minutes, one of the bridesmaids came to pick me up, because the situation had gotten even worse.”
Continued Below.
“Then The Whole Circus Began” Part 2
“The groom’s father, who was totally hammered but unusually cheerful, climbed onto the stage where the band was playing and tried to shove money into their trousers and shirts while they were trying to play.
The groom’s mother was screaming at the same time, also totally hammered, and tried to get the money out of their clothes. Banknotes flew all over the hall.
The bride cried again.
Everyone quarreled with each other and the waiters even had to separate some women who had a fight in another part of the hall.
I just stood at the entrance, paralyzed by disbelief.
Then it was midnight. They had a strange custom of bringing and handing out gifts to the newlyweds in public at exactly midnight. As if by some magic, they all became elated in the same second and cheerfully began to bring the gifts they had prepared for the newlyweds.
The bride was opening presents and thanking guests, smiling and happy. She received an envelope with each gift, handed the envelopes to one of the bridesmaids, and the others carried gifts to the bridal suite.
Since I was not familiar with the custom, I left my gift for the newlyweds earlier in their apartment. I was a little embarrassed, but I must admit that I felt relieved that I didn’t have to stand in line with the other guests.
A little later, the drama continued in the bridal suite. Obviously, there was not enough money in the obtained envelopes. It was another reason for crying, hysteria, tearing clothes, and screaming.
Since I felt like I was trapped in some horror movie, I told the groom I wasn’t feeling well so I had to go home early.
A few days later, the newlyweds came to thank me for the ‘beautiful arrangement everyone is talking about.’ The bride stated that it was her dream wedding and that everything went perfectly. They also had a video documenting the above events and offered me to watch it together.
I declined.”
Destination Wedding
“At the time, I worked for a five-star resort that had a club level for VIPs. I had upgraded the couple to that level for three days. In which the couple was to get married. I had had absolutely no problems with the bride or groom when I planned their wedding. I greeted them upon arrival and took them to their room. The wedding would take place the next day at sunset.
I was at home that night and got a call from the concierge on club level that told me that they had a bride threatening to jump from her lanai four stories up. I had to rush and get over there immediately because she refused to speak to anyone except me. I made the effort to call her and see how I could help but there was no answer. I later found out that the couple had had a huge fight, the groom had left the resort at that point, and the bride refused to answer her phone.
Upon arrival at the resort, I saw that the security department had laid mattresses all around where the bride could possibly land if she did decide to jump. I couldn’t imagine what all the other guests were thinking seeing mattresses piled up on top of all the plants surrounded by security guards. That continued for over twenty-four hours. The couple did not get married the next day and missed their sunset wedding completely.
The following day everything started to settle down. The groom returned and the couple was back in love again.
Of course, I received a phone call because they wanted their ceremony to happen the next day at sunset. I had the duty of explaining to them that they would be charged for two weddings. When the other was canceled all the food, location and staff were all set up and ready for the wedding to happen. They agreed to pay double and I was able to arrange their ceremony for the next day at sunset.
When you go to a destination for your wedding, plan ahead and make life around the days relaxing and bring the family. Weddings should be a time of celebration for the couple and their families.”