A fairytale wedding can be the most memorable and important experience of a bride’s life. Every detail including the wedding dress, event space, hair, and makeup must be perfect. Pre-wedding stress is completely understandable, right? However, when accommodations do not go as planned, brides can take their frustrations a smidge too far, and become furious with the wedding planner. These wedding planners share how they handled complete bride meltdowns, insane accusations, and cringe-worthy behavior. Content has been edited for clarity.
The “No Budget” Bride
“One day, I heard the door open to the office and I popped my head out while the receptionist was explaining our policy of walk-in clients. I noticed it was the bride, groom, and both sets of parents. I politely introduced myself and said if they were willing to wait a few minutes, 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 was crying and I heard her say, ‘But don’t they know who WE are?’
I ignored it and went back to my office to grab my notepad and pen. I explained how much services cost, and how we do business at our office.
Then I asked the number one question every family should have an answer to, ‘How much is your budget?’
Their reply still haunts me to this day.
‘Whatever our daughter wants, she will have for this wedding.’
I received a list from the bride and looked it over, and my eyes went wide at their demands. They ended up signing the contract and paying for our services. I usually never took work home with me, but I took the bride’s list home and calculated how much it would cost. The total came out to just over one million dollars. The next day, I gave the bride’s father the list. He was in complete shock at the price of the wedding.
After our conversation, her dad became a lot more reasonable. I told him to give me a number he could afford and between him and the groom’s father, they agreed to pay two hundred thousand dollars total for the wedding. We decided to meet on a Friday to revise the list of demands.
During our meeting, I handed out the list and then I wrote what the overall budget was. We started to go through the list and reached a fair consensus on what the wedding necessities were. The bride had a complete meltdown and threw a tantrum. After I explained we couldn’t give her everything she wanted (in her budget), she calmed down a little and they all left.
Throughout the time leading up to this wedding, the bride’s behavior became worse. Full-on bridezilla. She didn’t understand our office was busy and we have other clients to help. Finally, two months before her wedding, it came to a showdown.
The next morning, I heard my phone ring. It was our receptionist, she informed me the florist just called to cancel. Shortly after, the venue called and canceled. We needed to cancel our services with the bride too, as the bride became completely unreasonable. I notified my boss about the situation, and she pulled out the bride’s contract and made a copy. After she highlighted the portions regarding her negative behavior, she typed up a letter of termination of services. The bride returned her payment to us minus the deposit.
The following Friday my boss was out with an urgent situation, and I was getting ready to leave the office when bridezilla and her family came storming in. All of the family members were screaming at the receptionist, and I finally had enough.
I told them, ‘If you don’t get your spoiled and entitled attitude 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. Her reply?
‘Aww, I wish I was there too!’
I didn’t keep up with the wedding, but the other couples we worked with went off pretty good.”
“I Felt Like I Was Trapped In Some Horror Movie”
“I am not a wedding planner by profession, but I was involved in planning one wedding as a school friend of the groom. I was known as an ‘artistic soul’ during my school days, so the groom asked me if I could decorate the hall, flowers, tables, and make gifts for guests. I gladly agreed to do so, because their budget was allegedly tight. I didn’t know the bride well, but she seemed like a nice person and didn’t seem overly demanding. I decorated the hall in a purple-white combination as the bride demanded, and she was delighted with every detail.
After the wedding ceremony, we all went to a small hotel where a gala dinner and a party were organized. Dinner went normally, and then the trouble started. The bride and her bridesmaids began to complain about the quality of the food, the guests’ clothes, the choice of music (she chose a band to play and set the schedule), and the color of the tablecloths.
The bride told me, ‘I need there to be pink tablecloths instead of purple and white!’
I then explained, ‘Changing the tablecloths in a room already occupied with people isn’t exactly realistic, I’m sorry.’
She started sobbing! One of the bridesmaids tried to calm her down, so the bride tore her dress. A friend of mine and I protected the poor girl from other people’s sight and took her to a room reserved for newlyweds. We tried to fix the dress, but it was ruined beyond repair. We found replacement clothes for the bridesmaid and headed back to the hall where the party took place. When the bride saw us, she cried hysterically again because her bridesmaids no longer had dresses that matched.
She exclaimed, ‘You deliberately ruined my day!’
Every bridesmaid, including the one in replacement clothes, sided with her.
By this time, most guests had been drinking for a while. The groom and his friends danced with each other instead of their wives and girlfriends. This, for some reason, made their wives and girlfriends unhappy, so they all started to get hysterical. This was just another reason for the bride to get angry and start crying.
I’ve had enough, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and went to the garden. About ten minutes later, one of the bridesmaids found me outside. The situation had become even worse. The groom’s father, who had been drinking and was unusually cheerful, climbed onto the stage where the band was playing. He tried to shove money into the bands’ trousers and shirts. The groom’s mother screamed, while at the same time she tried to get the money out of their clothes. Banknotes flew all over the hall, the bride cried again, and everyone quarreled with each other. The waiters tried to separate some women who fought in another part of the hall. I just stood at the entrance, paralyzed by disbelief, and then it was midnight.
At midnight, the family had a strange tradition of giving the bride and groom gifts. The bride opened presents and thanked guests, all while she smiled and pretended to be happy. She received an envelope with each gift and forwarded each envelope to one of the bridesmaids, while the others carried gifts to the bridal suite. Since I was not familiar with this tradition, I left my gift for the newlyweds earlier in their suite. I was a little embarrassed, but I have to admit I felt relieved 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, that is, the bride probably expected larger amounts. It was just another reason for more crying, hysteria, tearing clothes, and screaming.
I felt like I was trapped in some horror movie, and 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.
The bride told me, ‘It was my dream wedding, and it went perfectly!’
They also had a video documenting the above events and offered to watch it together.
Well, thanks, but no way.”
The Spoiled Bride
“I had been on the job for two days and got a call from a really angry bride who accused me of ruining her wedding.
I asked her, ‘What’s your name?’ which prompted her to become angry.
She said, ‘I should know who she was since I ruined her wedding registry.’
I let her go on for about another five minutes and then I finally asked, ‘Do you even know what my name is?!’
She answered, but said the name of a previous employee.
I explained, ‘That was the name of a previous employee. If you would like to come to our office, we can straighten out this ordeal in just a few minutes.’
She immediately refused.
She yelled, ‘People are buying cheap items, which are NOT on my registry! It is all your fault the guests are buying the wrong gifts!’
I clarified we could only show a copy of the registry to her friends and relatives and make suggestions, but we could not tell them what to buy. Then she really went around the bend.
I grabbed a piece of cellophane and started crunching it near the receiver and said, ‘I can’t hear you! I think I’m losing phone signal!’
Then I hung up. Some people will be idiots no matter how much you try to accommodate them, in this case, she needed to be put back in her place and regain whatever dignity she might have left.”
“Being A Bridal Makeup Artist Is Not What I Want To Do In Life”
“My sister’s friend was engaged to be married. She wanted a lavish wedding, but at super cheap costs. She bought her bridesmaid’s dresses from Wish, which were tacky, badly made, and badly fitted. One of her bridesmaids was a little too big for her dress, so she was forced to diet until she fit into it.
She had not one, but two bachelorette parties which were paid for entirely by her bridesmaids. She then whined when my sister (who had just finished a sixteen-hour shift at work) was late to one of the parties.
She insisted my sister dye her hair from pink to brown so she wouldn’t upstage her. My sister absolutely refused and was removed as a bridesmaid from the wedding, and completely from the bride’s life. My sister had no regrets.
I was doing the bridal and bridesmaids’ makeup, and she insisted her bridesmaids were not, in any way, to have better makeup than her. She also told her bridesmaids to their faces they were in no way allowed to look more beautiful than her, and they were totally okay with it.
We planned on her exact foundation shade, and I went out and bought the product the next day (about thirty-five dollars), only to discover the morning of the wedding she’d used fake tan the day before. I could not use the expensive foundation I had bought specifically for her anymore. So, I had to improvise with the products I had available.
I went hundreds of miles out of my way for this selfish, entitled girl so she could look beautiful for the lowest price possible. We did multiple makeup trials, and I drove over one hundred miles in total throughout preparing for the wedding. I work fifty to sixty-hour weeks just to afford the roof over my head, so this was stressful and expensive for me.
She then complained about me to her hairdresser when she thought I was out of earshot. After she complained about me, she came to have her makeup done. I made her look pretty decent, but after her bad attitude, I put so much makeup on her so she’d have to remove it with a towel afterward. Then I packed up my stuff and left.
A proper makeup artist would have charged her around five-hundred to eight-hundred dollars for this. I received less than one hundred fifty dollars (it would have been less, but her bridesmaids chipped in). I decided, after the wedding, that being a bridal makeup artist is not what I want to do in life.”
A Bride Who Took Selfishness To The Next Level
“I worked with a man who married a few years ago. He and his wife-to-be spent a year planning their lavish wedding. A few months into the engagement, they found out the bride’s cousin (also a bridesmaid), was going to start in-vitro fertilization to hopefully become pregnant. She and her husband had struggled with infertility for a long time, and could finally afford to begin in-vitro fertilization.
The engaged couple was furious with the cousin for not waiting to start her family because they didn’t want her to be hugely pregnant or risk going into labor on their big day! They thought this couple should have postponed starting a family because a bridesmaid who was ready to pop might detract some attention from the all-important bride.
What happened next? The cousin made it to the wedding and ended up going into labor the next day. No problem, right? Wrong. As my coworker told me this story, years later, he was still bitter about it! He told me how selfish they had been to not wait, and how much the nine-month pregnant woman at the wedding and the excitement of the birth the next day had taken away from their ‘special day’.”
A Tell-All From A SHOCKINGLY Honest Mother
“The absolute worst bridezilla was my daughter! First off, my daughter oftentimes lived above her status, even though we lived in a financially depressed area. So, my daughter got engaged and planned her lavish wedding. She chose her bridesmaids, three of her sisters, and a few of her friends she had barely known for three years. She chose a bridal salon for bridesmaid dresses located an hour and a half away from where everyone lived. She bought her wedding gown locally off the rack, and it was cheaper than the bridesmaids’ dresses! She complained about how everyone worked different shifts and could not take a day off work to pick out dresses, and everyone arrived at the bridal salon on different days.
Next, she wanted a bridal shower at a hotel that was close to an hour and a half from where everyone lived. And she wanted all of the bridesmaids to pay for an expensive catered meal for about twenty-five people. Plus, she chose her own ‘gift’ for the bridal party to buy for her, which was expensive outdoor furniture.
She chose to have her bachelorette party in a destination one state away at a casino. She also expected bridal party members to pay for the trip, but several members refused to go or pay.
Next, it was time for the bridal party members to pick up their bridesmaid dresses. My daughter told the bridal salon to only use her phone number when they called to let her know when the gowns came in. The day arrived, and we were notified the gowns were ready for pick up. I called my daughter and told her I would pick up the gowns from the bridal salon, but she made fifty excuses about why I wasn’t allowed to pick up the dresses. After we argued back and forth, I gave in and let her pick them up.
A week before the wedding, she informed everyone two people were coming to the house to do everyone’s hair. The stylists were going to charge seventy-five dollars each! The hairstylists arrived at the house about four hours before the wedding, so they had plenty of time to finish everyone’s hairstyles correctly. When the stylists were finished, it looked like children did the bridesmaids’ hair. It was terrible! I had repinned most of the bridal parties’ heads before we even got to the church!
One woman in the bridal party found out she was pregnant just before the dresses were ordered, so by the time the wedding took place she was nearly months pregnant. After the bridesmaids got their hair done, they all got dressed. My other daughter, who paid hefty alteration fees, put her gown on and couldn’t figure out why it was so large and it didn’t fit her. The pregnant friend offered to swap gowns with my daughter, but my daughter wanted to wear the dress she originally purchased. We checked to see if the shop gave my daughter the wrong-sized gown, but the size tag was cut off the gown! At that point, we knew exactly what happened. My daughter’s friend ordered her bridal gown a few sizes larger not knowing how big her belly would be by the wedding. The gown she ordered was too big. So, the bride gave her friend her sister’s gown, and neither of them said a word! I found this to be one of the most disgusting, shameful things I had encountered with this daughter.
Numerous other events happened during the wedding which actually made me ashamed to call her my daughter.”
“She Believed Posting About Other Events Would Distract From Her Wedding MONTH”
“The bride of a wedding I attended asked her guests to not attend any other weddings before hers. She even believed if her friends and family posted about other events it would distract from her wedding month. Yes, wedding MONTH. She planned her wedding for about three years. When one of the bridesmaids got engaged during her three-year planning, the bridezilla purposely scheduled her more stuff to do so she wouldn’t have time to plan her wedding.
People defended the bridezilla and justified her actions as ‘being under stress’ but I failed to see how it was anyone else’s fault. No one forced her to spend forty thousand dollars on her wedding. She has made it difficult for everyone else to even be excited for her anymore.”
A Bride With A Bizzare Request
“I have relatively recently dealt with a bridezilla. She married my husband’s cousin, and my husband performed the ceremony. Of importance, I have a nice camera and take lots of pictures, but I am not a professional.
First, she demanded I do photos for her inside even though I was not the professional photographer they hired.
I asked her, ‘Wouldn’t taking pictures be breaking the contract with the photographer you hired previously?’ and wiggled out of the situation.
She texted me at eight in the morning and demanded my husband and I get to the ceremony site an hour earlier than we previously agreed upon. So we rearranged our schedules so we could arrive an hour earlier. The cousin arrived a few minutes later. She and the girls arrived fifteen minutes late.
Then, she handed me a ratty stuffed animal and told me I needed to carry him EVERYWHERE so he had a good view of the day. It just felt weird. Luckily, most everyone knew it was hers and not mine. Later, she freaked out on me because I left the stuffed animal alone at the reception table while I went to the bathroom.
When the night was over, I was exhausted and planned to sleep until noon the next day. At eight in the morning, the bride texted me and wanted the pictures from the wedding. I told her to give me a week.
The demanding behavior continued after the wedding. I made it clear to the bride that her behavior was unacceptable. Neither my husband nor I have spoken to her since.”
“I Had No Idea How To Please Her”
“When this event occurred, I lived in Belize and taught at a school. I went right after university and stayed for several years. While I was there, my closest friend was getting married. She wanted me at her wedding, so I bought a plane ticket to go back to the United States for spring break.
I got there on time, my dress fit, and all was well. On the morning of the wedding, we all got our dresses on and went to help the bride. She wanted to see how we looked, so she had us all lineup. Her one complaint was that I was more tan than all of the other women. She asked me to change my tan, but how? I couldn’t.
I had no idea how to please her. Of course, I was tan. I wore sunscreen every day, but I lived in the jungle! Some tan got through the sunscreen.
So, I had to remain tan, over which she huffed and rolled her eyes repeatedly. The other bridesmaids were also mad about it on the brides’ behalf. It was a great time!
We are still friends now and I have never reminded her of her ridiculous request.”
Bridesmaids Or Wedding Planners?
“A former friend expected her staff (bridesmaids) to do everything! She tried to cut corners with cost by having a complete do-it-yourself wedding, the food included. It was ‘our gift to her’ to pay for the wedding food for over one hundred guests. On top of paying for the food, she expected us to spend our own money to create artificial flower bouquets and every decoration for the reception hall. Finally, she requested we create gift baskets her guests could bid on to help pay for the honeymoon.
She even assigned us what to buy her as a wedding gift. I found the item she requested at a different store for a much cheaper price, and she had the nerve to demand the difference, in cash. This girl was a total spaz and (supposedly) at the last minute she decided they weren’t going to have a wedding party.
I swear some brides watch the show Bridezillas as a guide of how they’re supposed to act or something.”
