Unleashing My Inner Bridezilla!

I am not one to draw copious amounts of attention to myself.  I guess you'd call me more of a wall flower.  I don't need the spotlight to feel special or important.  If that were true, I'd be a stand-up comedian and not a teacher. Although, the jobs do have similarities.  Making thirty kids laugh and enjoy a lesson so that they hardly even realize they're learning can make you feel pretty special and important.  But, I digress.

I had been taking this same wall flower approach to my upcoming wedding.  You may have heard mention of it over at It's My Mynd! from Wily Guy.  I was trying to be a well-behaved bride.  When the engagement photos took over a month to be delivered by the photographer, I remained calm.  When the engagement announcement took almost two months to appear in the local newspaper,  I was cool as a cucumber.  When a bridesmaid had to drop out for personal reasons, I put on my best impression of a stiff upper lip and soldiered on with the business of planning my wedding.  I was not letting anything ruffles my feathers too much.  But, I've found the straws that broke the camel's back.  Enough of this $#!%.  I am unleashing my inner bridezilla!

Everybody has an opinion about my wedding.  Some opinions I have to listen to, some I don't.  I have to listen to my mother's opinion because she's the one paying for all my wedding wonderfulness.  If she wants to send out one hundred twenty invitations to two hundred twenty two possible guests, then I'm going to let her do that because she's the one who has to foot the bill for all those hungry guests.  Other opinions, though... not so much.  In the last two weeks, I've had to handle a bridesmaid revolt and a sibling trying to make my big day about him, not me.  

Bridesmaids Behaving Badly

Another eclectic bridal posse

The bridesmaids attacked first.  My maid of honor (or MoH) is an incredibly organized, type-A kind of gal.  She arranged for a bridesmaid meeting after the holidays for the girls to get together and start talking bridal showers, bachelorette party, and other wedding details.  This was necessary because I went a little eclectic with my choice of bridesmaids, much to my MoH's dismay.  I had chosen my BFF, whom I've known since my first job fifteen years ago, my college roommate (different friend circle), and a co-worker with whom I've become close.  Unfortunately, none of them really know each other too well.  I was invited to come up at the end of their meeting to hear their decisions and answer any outstanding questions.

Apparently, one of my bridesmaids was being uncooperative with the others.  She was poo-pooing everybody's ideas for the bridal shower, but had no ideas of her own to offer.  She's the only bridesmaid I have whose house was big enough for one big bridal shower with friends, family, and co-workers.  She wasn't willing to let the girls use her house.

She was fine with the dress I chose for them when we were all together trying on dresses in December.  At least, she was until she heard that my maid of honor got to pick her own dress in January.  Then she started lobbying for all the bridesmaids to be allowed to pick their own dresses and claiming that she wanted to find a used dress on E-bay to save money.  The other bridesmaids might have appreciated her financial concerns, if during the bridal shower discussions she hadn't insulted them by saying that she was in a better financial position than either of them to afford to pay to have the bridal showers at a restaurant or community center.  God love my other girls!  They didn't call her out on her bull$!#%, cuss her out, or even slap her upside her head, which would have been my first response.

My MoH tried to use the dress thing as leverage to get the house for the bridal shower, so she proposed the different dresses idea to me.  Doing my "I don't want to upset anybody" thing,  I cringed and almost went along with it.  Luckily, after the wild card bridesmaid left, my other bridesmaids filled me in on the rest of their afternoon in argumentativeness.  Is that a word or did I make it up?  Either way, it seems to apply.  My MoH called the wild card later to talk bridal shower locations and the wild card reneged on the offer of her house, so I revoked the different dress resolution.

"Identical dresses for everybody!" said Bridezilla.

Sibling Rivalry

All siblings have rivalries, right?  There's always some friction when a family has more than one child.  There's jockeying for position, favoritism, and a lot of hurt feelings over trivial matters that took place in the distant past.  My own family is no different.  My brother and I are a classic case of sibling rivalry.

This looks like a cozy family photo, but I'm sitting on his feet.

My brother is the baby of the family.  He's spoiled, thoughtless to the consequences of his actions, and inconsiderate to the feelings of others.  He's also having a difficult time with married life right now as his wife is a passive-aggressive psycho.  I am the oldest child, which makes me the responsible one, the one left cleaning up his messes, and the one who has to suck up her feelings so the baby can have his way.  My brother recently tried to apply this family dynamic to my wedding.

I want my nephew, Squirt, to be the ring bearer at the wedding.  Who wouldn't want an adorable red-headed ring bearer?  My brother's wife, who recently caused a rift between my brother and the rest of the family, doesn't like the idea.  Squirt had some trouble being ring bearer at her friend's wedding when he had just turned four.  But, he's five now.  Some maturing has occurred, plus all of my honey's nieces and nephews are going to be in the wedding.  I didn't want to leave Squirt out.  He's my little man!

So, when I got engaged and my brother wasn't speaking to any of us, I put the Squirt on my wedding website as the ring bearer.  His wife got upset that I didn't ask them and had my brother tell me to take the kid off the website.  I wasn't happy, but since I had to take a bridesmaid off the page before the save the dates went out with the wedding website information anyway, I did it.

Here comes the annoying as h-e-double hockey sticks part.  Friends who knew about the website before the save the dates had seen that Squirt was going to be the ring bearer.  They'd asked my brother and his wife about it and they confirmed he was going to be in the wedding!  Then, the friends visited the wedding website after the save the dates and saw that Squirt wasn't listed any more and asked my brother about it.  So, my brother calls me and asks why I took Squirt off the wedding website.  What?!

It seems he doesn't remember telling me to take Squirt out of the wedding.  He claims he told Mom his wife wasn't happy about the ring bearer deal, but that he never said my nephew couldn't do it.  Now he wants me to ask his wife to let the Squirt be in the wedding if I want him in or to say nothing about it ever again if I don't want him to participate.   And all of this in the name of making his life easier in his dealings with his difficult wife.

Stop trying to make my wedding about your marital problems!

He called me on the phone to ask me why Squirt wasn't on the website and to tell me to ask his wife's permission to include my nephew in the wedding.  What the heck does he want?  I don't get it.  You can't be mad I took the kid off the website (at your request) and then call me all mad because people are asking you why I took his name off the website.  So far, I haven't done anything.  I didn't change the website and I didn't ask his obnoxious wife for anything.  But, I have a feeling we'll be having a long talk soon.

Now Hear This!

LAINEY IS DONE PLAYING NICE WITH PEOPLE!

(who are trying to steal the happiness from her wedding day)

I WILL FIGHT TO PROTECT MY WEDDING!

 If you have a problem with that,

then go ahead and call me Bridezilla!

I'm linking this to the handsome gentlemen at Dude Write for their Dudette Write III competition, where I'm hoping to be nominated for one of their coveted (Wo)Man Card awards.  Hopefully, my days of "always a bridesmaid and never the bride" are over there, too.