Yep, dare to speak above a meek whisper and you’re branded a Bridezilla. I mean, at some point you have to make decisions. Or are asked a direct question and expected to answer accordingly...and yet that makes you some sort of monster. I guess you’re supposed to play some sort of shrinking violet/confused little girl game, let the vendor or other trusted adult guide you, then speak? I found the process really fucking weird and difficult (like I was in a play in the role of Bride but I was horribly miscast). But the chicks who go apeshit and declare “IT’S MY DAY!” can shut the fuck up. :)

I guess you’re supposed to play some sort of shrinking violet/confused little girl game, let the vendor or other trusted adult guide you, then speak?

It is SO weird. I used to be an event planner, so I took on my wedding with the same attitude — I assumed I’d negotiate, play hardball when necessary and be given direct answers to direct questions. 

The condescending treatment I’ve received from some vendors has been shocking. “Oh, but of COURSE you’ll want XYZ. It really adds to the ambiance, you’ll be so happy you splurged.” Or, “Well my goodness, you have so many questions!”

Actually, the main reason I picked our venue was because the lady running the place saw that I just wanted answers to my dang questions, sat down at a table and said, “OK let’s talk details and pricing,” and proceeded to answer my questions clearly and honestly. I chose my photographer because he was chill and didn’t try to strong-arm me into extras I didn’t want.

My husband, who later showed himself to have very strong opinions about weird wedding details, made fun of me for a while for being a “bridezilla” because I just wanted to get stuff done. Like, we need to pick out a venue THIS WEEK so we can get the date we want. Can we look at venues? Set a budget? GET SHIT DONE??? It’s very easy to use the bridezilla thing when a woman offers any opinion strongly about the wedding, which is weird. If I had been planning a similarly sized party my opinions would have been perfectly reasonable. (I seriously think it would all have been cheaper too - every time I said the W word vendors started to get all worked up and demanded appointments and consultations and shit and I just wanted to make sure someone could provide me with some simple tulips, for God’s sake. If I had to do this again I would tell people I was throwing a fancy birthday party and suddenly surprise them with a wedding.)

I also did corporate event planning (and had helped friends plan weddings) so I had an idea of what things would cost, how to negotiate, and that it doesn’t hurt to ASK about adjusting the contract to reflect actual services (i.e. we didn’t do engagement photos but wanted our photographer to stay through the reception to get lots of dance floor shots and guess what? it was fine and he wasn’t horrified!) but I think everyone expected I’d just sign and hand over a credit card or a check without thinking. NOPE. You’re gonna have to talk to me!

That sucks. Sorry. 

At least my maid of honor is great. 
“I think it may be easier to elope.”
“I support you.”
Amazing

My groom is the same in a lot of ways. He has lots of ideas, but really doesn’t have an eye for logistics. 

We’ve had a lot of this type of conversation:

Him: Let’s cater BBQ!

Me: OK, well BBQ isn’t as common in the Midwest as it is in TX, and I wasn’t able to find a place that would cater for a party of 300, deliver, serve, and provide clean-up. But hey, why don’t you price out some options, find out how much it would cost to hire a delivery driver, servers, and a clean-up crew and add it to the caterers spreadsheet I created. I’ve already priced out three other catering options. Then we can compare prices and make an informed decision. Also, you’ll need to communicate with the venue to make sure they approve of the caterer, because that’s required by our contract.

Him: FINE! If you don’t WANT BBQ, just say it! Why can’t we do this TOGETHER? Why do I have to do all that work just to have *my* ideas considered? Besides, my dad can just pick up the food the day of in his rental car, and WE can serve it to our guests. It would be fun! Also, who cares if it’s more expensive? It’s our wedding!

Me: I researched the shit out local catering options. It wasn’t fun, but I did it. You can do the same.

Him: FINE! Forget it.

Dad can pick up the food for 300 guests in his rental car? Oy.

I was horrified when we were visiting venues and the people giving tours would say things like “oh you’re SO LUCKY that your man is here with you.” As if I ever would have put down thousands and thousands of dollars to reserve a place my future husband had never even seen.

Or when people would ask if I’d picked his clothes and I would blank stare them and they would be like “well he has to match, right?” Um no...he is a person, not a floral arrangement, and he was going to wear whatever made him feel pretty, just like I got to.

Sorry...my wedding was like 2 years ago and clearly I am still fired up.

I had similar experiences with vendors (we’re planning ours now). They would repeatedly refer to meetings as if i’d be the only one attending and it was so bizarre to us

Hahaha! Totally understandable. We were in a similar boat: we’d get to a vendor appointment and hear some version of “Oh man, you’re really racking up points today coming along with the little lady!” GROSS. I did do a lot of recon to narrow down with my mom or a friend, mostly because in the early days he was traveling and we needed to book stuff quickly, but I didn’t sign a contract or book a single thing without his input. I also did some clothing recon because he wanted to wear a tux and I checked out different deals at various shops and gave him the rundown but if he wanted to sew his own Dumb and Dumber outfit that was on him. :)

“Vendors kept telling me all he’d care about was the booze and MAYBE the music”

This happened to me all the time when I planned my wedding (I’m a guy). I got asked about booze. Everyone addressed everything right to my wife , who would just point to me and go back to her phone. 

“He also calmed my mom the hell down, praise Beyonce, who was in pretty serious momzilla territory.”

This did not happen to me, unfortunately. Even though my mother-in-law doesn’t give me anywhere near the amount of bullshit she gives my wife, she still tried. Since we’re not blood, I had no problems with holding the whole wedding hostage, since she wanted a production more than my wife and I did. 

No we did that too. It’s possible. The only drama involved in our planning was from my best friend and his mom. We agreed on pretty much everything. And also planned everything together.

No, you’re the majority, but that’s hard to turn into a clickable article.

My husband and I did that. But then his mom stepped in. On the one hand, she’s an amazing decorator and had terrific ideas and resources. On the other hand, my little backyard wedding turned into a medium-large full church wedding with hotel venue reception. It was a good time, though! (Afterwards, my beloved spouse said, “Well, but, you got the wedding you wanted, right??” And I gave him the first serious side-eye of our marriage.)

Zing!

Go you! When I started dating my now-husband, he hid that he likes shopping, cares about style, is emotional, etc. I told him to embrace the things he liked, and he surprised me by sewing us both matching chili-pepper printed night pants for Christmas. Men shouldn’t be pressured to be the breadwinner, ‘manly’, or the head of the household. People need to be able to acknowledge their strengths and weaknesses, as well as dis/likes. Gender-roles can be really fucked up.

Keep on being you, you awesome person :) 

My boyfriend is a director of photography, so obviously has strong aesthetic vision for things. He loves thrift shopping and putting together outfits. I work in fashion, so I’m always showing him clothes I like and such. A few weeks ago, he “came out” to me about how much he loves fashion and clothes. I was like... uh yah. I know dude.

You sound a lot like my dad, who is a very gentle, bookish, sensitive man who is palpably uncomfortable around ‘manly’ men and who was always the softer, more nurturing, more emotionally intelligent one in my parents’ marriage. Just about the only stereotypically male interest he has is an adoration of football. It was an absolute blessing to grow up with a dad who I could have long emotional discussions with and who wasn’t afraid to cry in front of me or play dolls with me. There’s nothing wrong at all with being interested in traditionally male pursuits or not naturally being an emotional or open person but it’s going to do everyone a lot of good when we can move past toxic masculinity.

Thanks. Your dad sounds like a great dad. I’m honored you’d compare us. Now, lest I paint too flattering a picture of myself, I’ll also cop to struggling with anxiety and my temper - downside of being more emotional. My amazing and patient wife has really helped me see that while yes, emotions are good, we don’t have to be held captive to them either, and with her & God’s grace I’m improving on those fronts. But anywho, you’re quite right that there’s room for all sorts of flavors of masculinity. We need more than just vanilla.

Like, nah dude, the bridesmaids don’t need your opinions about what we should wear. Go sit down somewhere.

But why? I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of groomsmen who have had to deal with what the bride wanted them to wear. What makes this different?

Mansplaining, duh.

Because the dude has awful taste. And the bride wanted the bridesmaids to be able to pick their own dresses.

Yeah, I’m curious exactly what the groom’s thoughts about the bridesmaids’ dresses are. Like, if he’s concerned about the color or dress style or whatever, think that’s just as valid as the bride being concerned about the groomsmen’s suits. But if he’s getting weird about women’s bodies in dresses (like, men DO tend to have issues with objectifying female bodies and having a lot of opinions and unexamined assumptions about what women “should” look like), then I think it’s valid to say “sit down and shut up about this.”

You know, I kind of agree with you, but at the same time, I’ve started looking at wedding stuff lately and there are SO MANY CHOICES you have to make about every goddamn stupid thing.

I was thinking, just, pick the venue, food, music, and not stress out about it, but no, the venues don’t provide anything. So you have to rent chairs, linens, tableware, etc from a party company, who has 30 different choices you have to pick from! You have to pick a caterer, which there are like 50 of in the area, and once you pick that, then you have to decide if you want table service, buffet, stations, etc, and then choose from all the different choices they have for each of those options. Pre-dinner cocktails & appetizers y/n? I really don’t give a crap about any of that other than that the food should taste good, but you have to make some choice about every one of 10,000 details.

Well, the thing about this is that those choices do have to be made. Obviously you can just go to the courthouse, but assuming that you don’t do that and you want a wedding wedding, where you celebrate with loved ones...someone has to pay attention to all those details. And honestly, if one member of the couple doesn’t concern themselves with those details, I think that member of the couple is pretty inconsiderate and/or doesn’t really care much about the marriage (barring situations in which said member didn’t want a big wedding, or went into the whole thing saying, “Look you can do this if you want, but it is not my deal”).

We didn’t even have that big of a wedding, but I would have been really hurt and sad if my husband had just said, “Whatever you decide is fine” and gone on his merry way. Because fuck that; we both decided to have a wedding, and now we both have to plan it. When people (usually men in this case, because weddings are pretty gendered in our society) say things like, “I just don’t care about table decorations and tuxes,” what they really mean is that they think those details are beneath them and women’s work - because I bet they would not like it if the table decorations were dripping severed heads and the tuxes were lime green with frills.

OK, I’m sorry, I have a lot of thoughts about this because my wedding was earlier this year, and while my husband was a great and equal partner in things, the men in my family were just the worst about it, and I have had to defend my husband’s involvement to them a number of times.

I tried really, really hard to avoid this but my groom honestly just didn’t care. He enjoyed the food and cake tastings and was given full veto authority but it honestly just didn’t matter to him, he just wanted to get married and have a party.

Yeah same. He agreed to everything because he just didn’t really care that much. If I had been a total bridezilla with bad taste I’m sure he would have stepped in but that wasn’t the case so it never was an issue.

We operate on a “I hate it” or “whatever” system. If he hates something he’ll say something, outside of that it’s usually a “Sure, whatever.” This applies to home decor (outside of his office space), his wardrobe and worked out great for our wedding! Sometimes I feel bad but he really just doesn’t care. Now if I tried to make some sort of technology decision for the home, that would another story.

Same! It makes life simpler in many ways. Now that we are starting a business however I wish he had just a few less opinions lol. Like just do what I ask one time!

Uhh is this a family member or is there some other reason why you know this person?

Sounds like a divorce lawyer’s wet dream

He isn’t my friend. Rather he is a friend of my husband’s who we never see anymore, but they still work together so he receives the daily download of how much he despises his fiancee and how miserable she makes him. I am spared having to hang out with him (surprisingly, he is a really nice, just terribly flawed, human) because his fiancee hated us immediately.

That’s not a groomzilla, that’s a fucking terrible human.

Mmm I feel you girl. My fiance is in the stage where he doesn’t know what he wants... but he knows what he doesn’t want. So I’m putting in hours of research on venues, photographers, dresses, etc. and I show it to him and he’s like “meh” or “um no” or “maybe”... without actually putting forth any ideas himself or putting in any work to come up with some concrete options. It’s making me caarayzay. 

YES. So yes. I spent hours and hours on Pinterest and then Google, picking out things and then finding them, usually with his tastes in mind. Then he’d just be like, uh no not that one. Aughhh.

This was my husband. He did not want to plan and opted out of the planning (just wanted me to tell him what to do), but ended up vetoing weird little things but would not offer up any constructive alternative. When probing for more ideas to replace the vetoed one, he’d get cranky and get huffy: “I said I didn’t want to do the planning”. I ended up having to do the “you either all in or you’re all out” convo and that veto privileges only work if you put effort into the planning.

To this day mine will say that “the bridesmaid necklaces were ehh” with no ability to describe what “ehh” means. I caved on so many things (including that damn cake) but for the necklaces and dress I told him to deal with it.

That was beautiful; thank you for sharing and I’m so sorry for your loss.

That’s kinda sad! I know a lot of people find it slightly tacky, but for you guys a vow renewal might be nice, as a do-over?

We’ve talked about that a lot, actually.

I’d say in your case that would be totally fair and a great idea :)

My husband and I had a similar conversation about his facial hair. He asked how he should wear it for the wedding. I said however he wanted to wear it. People still occasionally look at our pictures and ask if I “let” him have a beard at our wedding.

(I was secretly very relieved that he went with the beard though. That’s what I’m used to, and he would have looked funny without it.)

We’ve had the same sort of discussion. His previous wife was super controlling and didn’t involve him in any of the plans (or, any other major decision in their life together). It took me awhile to figure this out but it has opened the door to a lot of good discussions, and not just wedding-related.

My fella had opinions. It was awesome!

We sat down & dscussed the wedding before anything else. Turns out, he wanted a swanky wedding, and I wanted a cook-out. We opted for swanky (I can be very fancy). He dealt with the invites. He picked the venue. I researched the venue options but, he had final say. I dealt with all the foodie stuff (marble cake, and stick that fondant where the sun don’t shine. Give me my buttercream!).

We each had one “thing” to splurge on. His was a tuxedo. Mine was wedding party gifts. Inside for a great photographer, neither of us cared about flowers.

10 years later, we still get cards thanking us for a wonderful wedding!

We are a awesome team ;)

I love this! My husband and I were on the same page with what we wanted: a fun party with amazing food and a great photographer. He actually picked our photographer and took the lead on our menu as well. Looking back, we both loved our wedding, and so did our guests. I’m really glad we collaborated and it wasn’t just “my” vision.

This sounds so much like my fiance, and I love it! I mistakenly thought he didn’t care about all the details (he’s been married before), but I will show him options for, say, flowers—and all the sudden he has opinions on roses versus orchids I never knew existed! Yeah, he has some crazy ideas—“So, I’m thinking the morning of the wedding we should go surfing (he’s not a surfer—he’s been a grand total of once—and I got a black eye when my board smashed me in the face. Not ideal for wedding photos. Not to mention, you know, I’ll be busy doing wedding stuff like getting the venue ready, hair, makeup).” but overall I’m thankful he has opinions and it will truly be a day that represents us personally and our relationship. We each picked our one splurge (me: photographer; him: band), and the rest of it has been easy to plan and figure out together. Helps that our wedding is super casual (family-only weekend at our favourite place, a beach resort a few hours from home; then a big-ass party 3 weeks later with extended family and friends for drinks and dancing) so there’s not the ordeal of choosing a caterer, menu, decoration, etc.

My girlfriend says she’d be happy to get married in Reno or Vegas on a whim, but I’m not sure I believe her. She desperately wants to be married and laments that she should have been by the point in her life (she’s 30.) She watches a lot of those bridal shows on TLC so I think she’s more into the MOSTEST SPECIAL DAY than she admits, and would probably regret eloping.

But then again, I could be projecting my own issues. I’ve got shit self esteem and the idea of throwing a big party and being (adjacent to) the center of attention is terrifying to me.

I must disagree with your wedding cake assessment. Given, I haven’t been to a lot of weddings, but mine was freaking awesome. Although Mr. Snuffles and I couldn’t agree on the cake, so we ended up with a smaller bridal cake AND a groom’s cake, and we still fight over whose was more delicious. The problem is fondant - fondant is gross. Buttercream icing FTW.

You have been going to the wrong weddings. Every one I’ve been to had the most delicious cake ever.

I mean, definitely talk to her about it, but if you do get married in Vegas and then she regrets it, you could always do a vow renewal later. And also, if she wants a fancy wedding but you are anxious about it, you could do a small event, so that you have all the trappings of the wedding, but without you feeling like you’re too much on show. You should both be happy with it!