When Brides Attack

For many women, the bridezilla is in the details. Here’s how to avoid getting mired in the minutia

By Hannah Seligson
CTW Features

Oh, the bridezilla, also known as the friend you thought you liked, until she became so possessed by the exact hem length on your dress that it’s become almost unbearable to be around her.

And that behavior is child’s play compared with the fictional bride-to-be (part of a Canadian marketing campaign), who reached new bridezilla heights in a widely circulated You Tube video called “Bride Has a Massive Hair Wig Out.”

In the clip, the bride, wailing about her Shirley Temple hairdo gone wrong, goes to an extreme even the most controlling of brides could not imagine: She cuts her hair off one hour before her wedding.

Kelly Bare, the author of “The F Word: A Fiancée Shares Her Story from ‘I Will’ to ‘I Do’” (Citadel Press, 2007), gives brides-to-be advice about how to handle the months leading up to their big day without tearing their hair out ¬– or cutting it off.

Think beyond the wedding day

Bare says it’s critical not to irreparably tarnish your reputation, and most importantly, your relationships with your family and friends. “The idea is to keep your relationships with these people intact,” she says, “so think about how you behave with the long-term in mind.”

Stay involved in other people’s lives

A typical bridezilla behavior trait, Bare says, is to become so consumed by your wedding that it’s all you can talk about.

“Try not to see your wedding as the most important thing. So that means continue to feed your interests – keep that weekly dinner or yoga date with your friends.”

Make a list of priorities

This doesn’t have to be a long list, Bare says. “Just separate them into low, medium and high,” she says. “At our wedding, for instance, we decided against giving out favors, but it was the process of making a list that helped us figure what to focus our resources on.”

Simplify, simplify, simplify

Bare says the decision to have all of her wedding events in one place was the key to simplifying.

“We had the rehearsal dinner, ceremony and party all in once place,” she says. Bare’s other suggestion would be to start with a really beautiful place. The more stuff that is built in, the less stress you’ll have. The other key to simplifying, Bare says, is to minimize mailings.

“The fewer pieces of paper you can send out, the better,” she says. “I even think people can skip save the date cards. Instead, just update your Web site with a few quick key strokes.”

Divvy up the labor

Bare says that while most brides find wedding planning not to be the most egalitarian of activities, that doesn’t mean your husband-to-be can’t take ownership of certain aspects of planning the wedding.

“Sit down and have a concrete conversation about how you are going to divide up the tasks,” she says. “It sounds very contractual and unromantic, but the nuts and bolts of how the wedding is going to be planned need to be discussed.”

Hannah Seligson is a writer based in New York and the author of “New Girl on the Job: Advice from the Trenches” (Citadel Press, 2007).

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