One bride wants to be the “most beautiful bride ever.” Another furiously calls off her $80,000 wedding (she later changes her mind). A third banishes her maid of honor from the wedding party–and calls off their friendship.
These mental meltdowns are par for the course on “Bridezillas,” a Women’s Entertainment TV program that showcases brides in the time leading up to their nuptials. The show airs at 9 p.m. Sundays.
TV audiences can delight in brides’ bad behavior, but the vendors that must deal with brides aren’t impressed.
Desiree Moore Dent, president of Calumet City-based Dejanae Events, has worked with enough bridezillas to know she doesn’t love them.
One of Dent’s brides forced wedding guests to wait 90 minutes while she wrote her vows at the last minute. The scheduling problems snowballed from there: By 9 p.m. at the reception, the photographer was still taking photos while the bride screamed at the DJ to stop the music. And to top her own antics, the bride blamed Dent for not having written the vows for her–never mind that she never asked Dent to do it.
“I can do a lot of things, but I can’t write loving words to a man who’s not my husband,” Dent said, laughing. The bride called to apologize the next day.
Lyle Wilson, owner of A Work of Art Florist in Chicago, doesn’t deal with unreasonable brides.
“You know when they start talking what you have to deal with,” Wilson said. “If I think they’re too crazy, I let them go. [I] look at the calendar and say, ‘My calendar is full.’ “
Kristin Kinser, a 27-year-old administrative assistant from Lake in the Hills, says realistic expectations set her apart from the women she has seen on “Bridezillas.” She realizes things may go wrong–no day is ever perfect–and that’s just fine with her.
The show “makes me feel better knowing that I have a better grip on life, and I don’t get so worked up over such mundane things,” Kinser said. “I think a lot of people forget, when they’re planning the wedding, that they’re planning a day when they should be planning a life.”
You may be a bridezilla if …
– You forbid the women in your wedding party from getting pregnant prior to the nuptials because they should know the focus is on you and only you.
– You harass your wedding planner and other vendors, sometimes twice a day, to check up on them and ensure they’re doing their job.
– You constantly talk to and e-mail friends and family about one thing: your wedding.
– Your fiance has little say in planning the wedding.
– You want every aspect of your wedding to be customized or have intricate detailing.
– You’ve called off the wedding at least once.
– You demand that your bridesmaids purchase expensive dresses in outlandish colors or styles that don’t flatter everyone and will never be worn again.
– You plan your wedding with the theme of “I will outdo everyone else.”
– You throw a tantrum when things don’t go your way.
– You give your wedding party a curfew the night before the ceremony.
SOURCE: WE
