Some people have a “dream wedding” in their head that they plan to execute, regardless of the circumstances. There is nothing wrong with going all out for your special day, but there is a point where one’s vision starts to interfere with someone else’s literal bodily autonomy.
A bridesmaid asked the internet for advice after her refusal to bleach her hair for a wedding caused some drama. The bride would not take no for an answer and was ready to argue over the bridesmaid’s hair. We reached out to the brunette in the story via private message and will update the article when she gets back to us.
A big, themed wedding might sometimes be more trouble than it’s worth
Image credits: Nataliya Vaitkevich / pexels (not the actual photo)
Drama ensued when a bridesmaid refused to bleach her natural hair just for a weddings aesthetic
Image credits: Emma Bauso / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Black Star / pexels (not the actual photo)
The bridesmaid gave a few more details in her post
Image credits: bleachdyeproblem
Brides are often demonized for wanting things done a certain way
The term “bridezilla” gets thrown around a lot, normally unjustly. After all, unfortunately, brides do tend to perform most of the work when it comes to planning and organizing weddings. It’s not hard to see how this can end up causing some amount of entitlement and resentment. After all, a wedding is a big undertaking, not just emotionally, but also financially and logistically. Sometimes, no matter how much you try, your guests will end up just doing their own thing.
However, as entitled as a bride might feel, there have to be limits, and another person’s body is a pretty clear one. The term bridezilla, a combination of the word bride with the suffix “-zilla”, as in Godzilla, was coined in 1995, by Boston Globe writer Diane White. She was writing about, you guessed it, brides who had unreasonable demands.
This can be a difficult knot to disentangle, as often women end up demonized for wanting their own wedding to be a certain way. After all, it is supposed to be a very special day, one that theoretically will never be repeated, so you can’t exactly blame someone for having a vision for it. But it’s also always important to temper one’s expectations. After all, no matter how much you plan, things can always go awry, as various stories on the internet have shown.
Image credits: Terje Sollie / pexels (not the actual photo)
Being picky and demanding isn’t necessarily a bad thing
So one should hesitate before rolling your eyes and calling someone a bridezilla for being picky. That being said, while asking someone to bleach their hair might be a tad much, the real issue was just how defensive this bride became when she was told no. It’s hard to imagine guilt tripping someone who is ostensibly your friend with phrases like “you will ruin the photos” when they don’t want to change their body for you.
To put things into perspective, this might not be the worst “bridezilla” story out there. For example, a few years back, there was a bride who decided to set up an entrance fee for her guests. The price? A cool $1500. Perhaps not shockingly, when the guests refused, she not only called off the wedding but the entire marriage. Bridezilla indeed.
That particular bride might be an outlier, but some brides do have way too many demands of their bridal party. For example, we’ve written before about a bride who wanted her bridesmaids to fork over hundreds of dollars for hotel rooms, one-time use shoes and custom dresses. Asking your bridal party to do these things is still in the realm of acceptability, but getting angry when they refuse is taking it too far.
Image credits: KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA / pexels (not the actual photo)
Fortunately, this story seemed to have a happy ending
In this case, we simply have a bride who is perhaps too stressed out to really see just how far fetched her ideas are. Altering one’s hair and wearing contacts just for the photos goes beyond “dream wedding” and veers into the territory of obsession. It might look good for her, but most people wouldn’t care at all when looking at your wedding photos, so it’s questionable if this is worth ending a friendship over. Particularly when the photographer might not even show up.
Fortunately, the brunette shared an update later, which can be found below. Fortunately for all involved, the bride made the decision to scale back her expectations. So perhaps her wedding won’t look exactly how she wanted, but instead she will have a wedding with her friends present, which seems like a good deal, all things considered.
Image credits: Eko Agalarov / pexels (not the actual photo)
Some readers were surprised and wanted more info
Most thought she was in the right to refuse
The bridesmaid later shared an update
Image credits: Los Muertos Crew / pexels (not the actual photo)
Image credits: bleachdyeproblem
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