TidyDancer's bridezilla thread part 2

[TidyDancer]

New thread. :)

Confetti! Wow, what a website! Thanks so much to whoever posted that link, absolutely hilarious. They are all barking there and every bride seems to want to ditch one of their bridesmaids.

Also, don't see how Gluezilla can possibly come back with a response to Tidys excellent message. I think it might now be all over.

Great response Tidy
That confetti site is

Yes, the Confetti site was a frightening eye opener into the world of bridezillas. All the "it's my day" and "if they don't like it, they don't have to come" followed by whining that people aren't coming.

Wedding stuff seems to be completely out of orbit now. It used to actually be about getting married with your family and friends around you - now it seems to be all about the show.

That's a very good and clear response. You've not cut her out of your life, or burned any bridges as far as I can see but you have explained to her (again) why it has upset you.

I have experience with a falling out over a wedding - my best friend announced she was getting married when I had just found out I was pregnant.
She asked me to be a bridesmaid and I said I didn't know if I could - I mean I'd love to but I was going to have a very young baby and it was my first, and neither of us knew what to expect.

Also we lived a really long way away and it would mean travelling, and I wasn't with the father properly so wouldn't have any help, I knew he wouldn't want to come.

So I kept trying to say, I probably can't do it, but went along with the planning as well, helping decide on dresses, finding some in our branch of the shop, and so on, even though I didn't think I'd be able to go. I kept on saying I don't think I can, she kept saying 'well do your best and please try to' and it went on, wavering between yes and no for months.
The nearer it got the more convinced I became that I couldn't make it and the harder I tried to tell her this but the harder she tried to persuade me, and didn't seem to be able to understand.

In the end, it was a disaster, as though we'd decided I wouldn't be a bridesmaid, I was still invited, and it finished up with me trying to say no right up till the last minute, and her only realising I meant it a few days before the wedding. She was very, very hurt, I had an 8 week old baby and was all over the place, she said she cried because she didn't want to get married without me there which I didn't understand at all, at the time - I didn't get how I mattered so much.

She wrote a lot of letters, alternately angry and sad and kind and cross - I didn't write anything - and then about a year later she wrote saying she was pregnant, and I called her and we got slowly back on track.

It was a huge, huge misunderstanding and she felt I'd done everything wrong but I'd been like a rabbit in the headlights, and yes I'd got it wrong, but I hadn't meant to. I was just a thicko with a baby on the way and very little support.

Thank God we did stay friends then - she went on to have another baby, I had another, we were very close for a few more years and then, suddenly, when she was in her early 30s she died.

I still think back to the wedding fiasco (she had a brilliant wedding, a lovely husband, millions of friends) and feel sorry for not being there. She was very gracious.

I hope you two do stay friends and somehow get through this blip.

When I was planning my wedding I used to read the confetti and you and your wedding boards as a sort of cautionary exercise, to remind me that the moment I started angsting about favours and everything matching I would be straying into truly lunatic territory.

Based on that experience, I think that Horry's surmise up thread is very likely the kind of response that would be given on those sites to someone who has made such a huge mistake as sending save the date cards before finalising the guest list - oh well, if they're local invite them round with bubbles and nibbles to help you decorate the hall and have a laugh before your big day.

Implication being that the desperate non-guests will be happy to settle for half an hour basking in the bride's glorious presence to make up for the massive disappointment of not being invited. This seemed to be a standard belief on those boards - the bride's time is so valuable and her attention graciously bestowed on lucky recipients only.

I hope she snaps out of it after the wedding and an apology comes your way OP - seems unlikely she will realise it beforehand unfortunately given how obtuse she's been not once but twice (and possibly about to be a third time!)

Marking place

Good response tidy and you have not lowered to her level.

Oooh you bitches! When I got married I was a regular on Confetti and have actually met and retained some bloody good friends from there.

Maybe things were different a couple of years ago?

Maybe we made friends because we weren't pink and fluffy...?

Rooners that's so sad

that Confetti forum is a real eye-opener...

Very dignified response.

I'm amazed she hasn't got error of her way yet.

I'm loving this quote from a no kids thread on confetti.

""Omg have you gone and upset the parent mafia??? Good lord! This often happens when your friends have kids, they suddenly become self righteous know it alls""

Love to revisit her in a few years and see what her opinion is then. :)

Nice one, Tidy. Can't wait til she responds!

No it doesn't sound quite the same BUT I think it was the right thing, to keep it level and not go off on one.

I kept reading the replies suggested by people, imagining it was me on the receiving end, having committed a faux pas.

You've got to give people the benefit of the doubt in some situations, that they may just not GET what they're doing is wrong.

Really sad Rooners :( Very glad you got your friend back though.

there's alot of threads about 'firing' errant bridesmaids who haven't quite grasped the enormity of what is about to occur ie: tedious diva marries boring git.

DP and and I are planning on getting married at the registry office and then having a massive party with curry for all guests.

thanks Angelico.

I think that if you have never got married, or even if you have, there are very different schools of thought about how it works and how important it is - I never got the thing about wanting to be the centre of attention, at all, it would make me squirm - I'd far rather do it in jeans at the register office and then fark off on the back of a bike, no party, no fuss, no big dress.

But other people feel very differently.
I dunno.

ubik we recently went to a wedding like that, really low key, wedding ceremony at City Hall, champagne in the park next door, reception at a beautiful pub just outside the city (not booked out the whole pub, just a function room), buffet lunch, no speeches, no decorations, no table settings, no hanging around for hours and hours, no bloody Youtube video montages or dance routines...

It was a really lovely day, so laid back. Everyone was so happy for them.

Not coincidentally they have been together for donkey's years and have a baby on the way, so it wasn't like The Big Day (TM) was the main focus of their entire lives.

Excellent succinct reply tidy. I'm off to Confetti for a mooch whilst we await gluezillas response

Reading Confetti now. Hard to believe it's real. One bridezilla described learning you've been Chosen to Be a Bridesmaid as "the initial euphoria." That was in a conversation about how to fire a BM who wasn't performing up to par.

God, that Confetti forum has done more than anything else in my life to reinforce my belief that I never want to get married

I've just the first thread and all of this.

I'm stunned anyone could be so rude.

I loved your reply Tidy, dignified and to the point, and you can do no more.

Oh, don't say that Thurlow. Really plenty of people have lovely, friendly, lo-key normal weddings (like me), it's just that by definition the people who had or are having them are not on the Confetti website.

I'm going to a reception next month that is a buffet lunch in the garden for family and friends, children welcome. It will be fabulous and informal (men aren't even wearing suits) and a wonderful family reunion.

The whole recent wedding culture is a mystery to me, from adult bridesmaids, extravagant hen/stag dos, strops, favours (what the hecky peck are those) to drunkenness.

And I know many people will say that everyone can please themselves, which is of course true, but so many people on here or elsewhere seem to be feeling trapped into doing expensive things because it's the done thing, when lots of us have never even heard of what that thing is.