to think that being a bridesmaid to a high maintenance bride is actually really shit?

[WhatToDoToday6]

Just that really... I've never wasted so much time, money and energy in my life!

And my bridesmaid are all very lovely and generally sane. Can't imagine how it works with a more dysfunctional grouping.

@SoozC shocking isn't it. I think we've all (there are a few of us) been waiting for that gift, or thanks, or SOMETHING but I honestly don't think it is coming. I think we all feel the same way and it has dawned on all of us fairly recently that our 'thanks for being there for me' isn't coming. She even wrote a note in the invitation saying that she didn't want gifts, just money to go towards their honeymoon...

Really do not understand why people enable this, especially when they cannot afford it or have a child due or have children or have just bought a house or something like that. You just say, 'So sorry, it's lovely to be asked, but I've done some budgeting and I just can't afford it,' and if they're so shallow they end a friendship over that, they were no friend to begin with, no loss. Why are you getting her a gift at the expense of your baby who's due in a few months? A bottle of champers from Lidl for a tenner and tell her you are skint due to needing stuff for the baby since you've already allowed her to bamboozle you all into all this extra stuff.

I'm so glad that I got married in a registry office with 2 witnesses! None of this malarkey!

@PitchBlackNight well absolutely, but when it dawns on you last minute just how much money you have spent over the past 8/9 months when you add it all up having not realised beforehand what a mug you've been taken for it is a little too late then! I'll happily admit that I'm a complete fool!

Some people have no manners and no shame and because nice people like you go along with it they get away with it.

For my wedding we paid for the wedding parties outfits, accommodation and breakfast the morning after, I even put stamps on my rsvp cards because I’ve got consideration for my guests, but then I was brought up with good manners.

You just thought that you were doing the right thing and being supportive, OP.

Yanbu
I hate weddings in general now
Most of my friends and I all got married 7-10 years ago and there was no lavish hens, pretty weddings, but not OTT.
Now I hear of weeks away in Marbella, bridal showers, home hens, fucking rehearsal dinners WTF is that all about??
A weekend or a night away somewhere local(ish) is extravagant enough.
BIL got married abroad about 5 years ago and we had no choice but to go. If we'd have said no it would have caused a huge rift.
The journey and hotels for us and DC cost £1500. That was before I bought as much as a sock. Then spending money whilst there. I was just off mat leave and we were totally skint. I spent every minute of that trip resenting it. It was so stressful I wish I'd had the balls to speak up and say no.

What really winds me up is this self centred bridezilla attitude that many brides take on. It's so fucking annoying. No one gives a fuck really about your wedding, outside of your family and close friends.
When I get an invite through the door now I roll my eyes with dread. Rant over

I bought her a gift months ago before she sent out the notice about wanting money. I can't take it back but she will have to deal with it. It was only £20 and shan't be giving her anything else.

Why the fuck do I do this to myself? I'm a mug. A stupid, stupid fool!

Surely shes paying for clothes and shoes, even if you're doing your own hair and makeup.

Yadnbu... a yellow dress?!
Can we see it?

Ahhh so true, I lost a friend over this. She threw a paddy when I said I couldn't go wedding dress shopping on certain date as I was scattering my god sons ashes with my other best friend. She got her fiancé to call me and have a go at me.....I then blocked her from my life.....best thing I ever did......NOT being her bridesmaid haha

Don't give her a cash gift and if she queries why then explain that you're skint after paying for all the bridesmaids items.

Jesus Christ TwinkleMerrick

Those two deserve each other.

I bought her a gift months ago before she sent out the notice about wanting money. I can't take it back but she will have to deal with it. It was only £20 and shan't be giving her anything else.

Anyone who touts for money for their wedding is a cow. Bet she cuts you off for not fronting her cash. Lesson learned, next time someone asks you to be a bridesmaid, say no.

blue, my h's brother did that. We were not able to go. Just no way. So we said no. He got all pissed off. Too bad. We had just bought a house and had exhausted our credit. We were working all hours to pay for some vital repairs the house needed soon after we moved in. You can't get blood out of a stone. His brother married this incredibly rich girl and they got married at her parent's holiday home in the Caribbean.

Absolutely not @villainousbroodmare

That’s a piss take. I paid for everything for my bridesmaids. Dresses, (admittedly cheap but they had cool dresses that they chose and have worn since) hair, make up everything! Didn’t want presents either!

Feck.

Yellow? Hide a hip flask in your corsage and you won't be so worried about looking like a jaundiced liver.

And at 6 months pregnant I can't even enjoy the free wine on the table 😭

The only time I had a run in with a bridezilla, I immediately returned the £60 gift I brought & exchanged it for something fabulous for me.

I showed my face at the evening do with a card & £0 & never saw her again

She should be paying for your dress, shoes and hair, if she’s chosen them all! She sounds like a cheeky fucker. But you sound lovely.

The wedding I am bridesmaid for is a bloody circus and all about having the biggest, best wedding possible.

They'll have split up within a year . . .

I feel like there’s a set of unwritten rules that normal people know about weddings, like don’t choose a venue that’s going to bankrupt your guests in travel and accommodation costs and if someone’s doing you a favour you don’t expect them to pay for the privilege, but these rules have completely bypassed the CFs who see the big celebrity weddings in magazines and assume that they’re entitled to get married in a castle and that everyone else should be happy to hand them wads of cash because “it’s their dream wedding”

When we got married we paid for dresses (which I let them pick, I just said the colour and that I wanted long dresses), shoes, handbags, hair (they picked how they had it), makeup, small gifts, hotel & food the night before and spa treatments the day before for my bridesmaids, my mum was very poorly at the time it was organised and I don’t know for certain as she passed away before the wedding but I’m pretty sure she paid a big chunk of my (very understated) hen do. There was no way on this earth I was having my bridesmaids out of pocket and one of them even nicknamed herself “bridesmaidzilla” because I was so far from being a brideszilla it was unbelievable.
When we picked our venue the first question we asked was the bar prices. Been to too many weddings where the venue is gorgeous but the bar is extortionate and people remember that!
I really don’t get this thing where bridesmaids pay for their own dresses, I cut my numbers and didn’t have my 5 nieces as it would just have been prohibitively expensive. I’m lucky in that I was able to do what I did for my BMs but if I couldn’t have done what I did for my two closest friends who were awesome when Mum died before the wedding, I just wouldn’t have BMs!