Bridesmaids behaving badly -- a new Pash contest!

[Sharon Naylor]

It's not just the Bridezillas who lose their minds during the wedding planning months....sometimes it's the BRIDESMAIDS who act like brats, refuse to pay for their dresses, pout and sulk when you talk about the wedding, say inappropriate things, and have an All About Me attitude.

So share your stories if you have -- or have heard of -- a bitter bridesmaid who's behaving badly. I'll PM select entrants to send out signed copies of my books THE BRIDESMAID HANDBOOK and THE ULTIMATE BRIDAL SHOWER IDEA BOOK for you to give to your GOOD bridesmaids

And perhaps we can all help you solve your bridesmaid problems at the same time!

Happy planning!

[ladedah]

Does having two of your bridesmaids send you resignation letters via certified mail count as "bridesmaids behaving badly"?!?!?!?!


Well....I don't need to enter the contest...but I would "donate" my story to another deserving bride

[Cowboy's Girl]

Not that this is the worst, by any stretch, but...I have a bridesmaid that found out she was pregnant after purchasing dresses. I am ecstatic for her...absolutely no feelings of, "Gee, I wish she would have gotten pregnant after my wedding" Since she has become pregnant, though, all she talks about is how she is going to handle the wedding day (she will be 3 1/2 months along) She has already had to exchange her dress for a bigger size (which she wondered if I would pay the difference on, since the dresses were on sale when we bought them and they aren't now) and at my recent bridal shower, she spent the entire time showing everyone her ultrasound and talking about what a trooper she was for not ditching out on the wedding, even though she is pregnant. (how sweet of her
Like I said, this is nowhere near as bad as some brides have had it, but it still makes me laugh!!

[Sharon Naylor]

I had to laugh at that one, Cowboy's Girl! I can just imagine the look on that bridesmaid's face as she held herself up as a hero...

[Sharon Naylor]

Don't we have any more stories out there? Hmmm....perhaps I was too cynical in dreaming up this contest.

How about if I change the contest to the BEST bridesmaids out there -- wanna share your stories about the super-helpful things your bridesmaids are doing, who drove 50 miles in a snowstorm to help you pick out your gown, who's got your back? Just let me know if you like this one better...

Prizes are 10 autographed copies of my NEW novel -- "It's Not My Wedding (But I'm in Charge)" which is about an assistant to a celebrity wedding coordinator and how she has to go through CIA-level security to keep the paparazzi away. If you liked my first novel, you'll really like this one.

[munchkin]

I have a bad bridesmaid story, if you would still like one. It was my cousin's maid of honour actually.
When we all showed up for the wedding, my cousin was still out getting her hair done. Her maid of honour had decided that she didn't want to go along, and instead would get her hair done herself. Well, the bride came home first (the wedding was in her backyard), and headed upstairs to get changed. Then, the door opened again, and there stood the maid of honour. With her her hair done exactly the same as the bride's, down to the little white flowers in her hair. My cousin was gracious, but asked her to at least take the flowers out so that they didn't look identical (she had decided not to wear a veil, so it was extremely obvious that the hair was the same). The maid of honour refused, and stormed off to get dressed.
The ceremony was lovely and the maid of honour had taken out half of the flowers so it wasn't quite as obvious.
Then the reception began.
The maid of honour decided to get extremely drunk and hit on the bride's brother, also my cousin. Said bride's brother had his girlfriend there as well. Well, the maid of honour wasn't taking no for an answer. She hung all over him, tried to sit on his lap, tried to feed him cake. No go.
So she decided to jump on a table and do a striptease. In the middle of the reception. With our elderly grandmother sitting a few tables away.
We all stared in shock, the maid of honour was grabbed off the table, and escorted out. That friendship was obviously over, and we never heard anything about her again. Unfortunately my cousin now has photos of her in her wedding album, but we do laugh about it now, 5 years later.

[justnmary]

Originally Posted by munchkin

I have a bad bridesmaid story, if you would still like one. It was my cousin's maid of honour actually.
When we all showed up for the wedding, my cousin was still out getting her hair done. Her maid of honour had decided that she didn't want to go along, and instead would get her hair done herself. Well, the bride came home first (the wedding was in her backyard), and headed upstairs to get changed. Then, the door opened again, and there stood the maid of honour. With her her hair done exactly the same as the bride's, down to the little white flowers in her hair. My cousin was gracious, but asked her to at least take the flowers out so that they didn't look identical (she had decided not to wear a veil, so it was extremely obvious that the hair was the same). The maid of honour refused, and stormed off to get dressed.
The ceremony was lovely and the maid of honour had taken out half of the flowers so it wasn't quite as obvious.
Then the reception began.
The maid of honour decided to get extremely drunk and hit on the bride's brother, also my cousin. Said bride's brother had his girlfriend there as well. Well, the maid of honour wasn't taking no for an answer. She hung all over him, tried to sit on his lap, tried to feed him cake. No go.
So she decided to jump on a table and do a striptease. In the middle of the reception. With our elderly grandmother sitting a few tables away.
We all stared in shock, the maid of honour was grabbed off the table, and escorted out. That friendship was obviously over, and we never heard anything about her again. Unfortunately my cousin now has photos of her in her wedding album, but we do laugh about it now, 5 years later.

That takes the cake!

[whiddle]

deleted

[feb-bride]

I have a "good" bridesmaid story. My best friend was one of my bridesmaids. When I got married, she was already married and had a young child, so she was pretty busy with life.

Whenever I need any wedding-related help, she was right there for me. She helped make favors, even going so far as to re-wrap the miniature candy bars with aluminum foil because the original wrappers clashed with my wedding colors. When it was time to prepare the invitations for mailing, she hand-addressed all of my outer envelopes because I don't have the nicest handwriting. When I wanted opinions on possible reception locations, she came with me to look at all the reception sites. She came with me when I reserved the ceremony site. She attended all of my pre-wedding parties, knowing that I didn't expect her to come to anything except the bridal shower (since she was one of the hostesses). All this, and she lived almost an hour away. She offered to basically be there 24/7, and I did NOT expect this of any of my bridesmaids.

On the day of the wedding, she showed up really early to help decorate the reception hall. She kept me calm the entire morning and arranged for her sister to do my hair and make-up so I wouldn't have to drive across town to the person who normally did my hair. In short, she was INCREDIBLE.

[sparklesweetie]

I've got a bad story.

I asked DH's sister to be a BM so it would include some of his family too. Plus, she would stand on his side to kind of even things out. So she says yes and is all excited and what have you. However, I noticed as time went on that she never offers to help me do anything wedding-related, or really wants to talk about it. I just brush it off thinking she's just got other stuff going on in her life.

Then comes time to order the dresses (she was no help in picking them out either). Everyone else had been to the shop to be measured and put their deposit down, even my BM from Wisconsin. Except her....she could never seem to find the time to get over there. I offered to take her several times, let her use my car, etc. Finally it's down to the wire and I tell her she can even just go to the local dress shop and get measured and I can call the measurements in. Nope, doesn't happen. So I end up having to go over and measure her myself. And then I also end up paying the deposit b/c she spills out some sob story about not having it and the dresses needed to be ordered like yesterday.

So...the dresses come in. I go over and pick them up because all of them are paid for...except hers. (And guess who still hasn't paid me back the deposit?) So I leave her dress there and tell her it's in and she needs to go pick it up and will have to pay the remaining half. This is somewhere about a month before my wedding. Time goes on and we're on to the bachelorette party which is the weekend before the wedding. Guess who's dress is still at the dress shop?

So....feeling in a bind I go and pick it up and pay the remaining balance and take it with me to the bachelorette party. She shows up after dinner and halfway through the comedy act, with no real reason why she was late. After that we go to my friend's house to change to go out where she tries on her dress...and realizes that it's WAY too big.
Now seeing as how it's a week before the wedding, I know there is no way she can get it altered. She does say though that she'll get it fixed. At this point I'm still wanting to have her involved in some way because she is my DH's sister.

Two days before the wedding - she tells me she's called every alteration person in town and nobody can get her in. (Big shock there.) So I went and picked the dress back up from her...and now have a brand new $160 dress that I'll never be small enough to wear hanging in my closet.

On to the "rehearsal" dinner (we didn't have a rehearsal, but I wanted everyone to get together). My MIL tells me when she gets there that A isn't coming b/c she has a kidney infection. But lo and behold, who shows up halfway through dinner? Yep. And know where she's going after she leaves the resturant? Out bar hopping. Yet she couldn't be bothered to put on decent clothes and join everyone for a nice meal. At this point I decide SIL or not, she's done.

Then the wedding day - she actually shows up at the reception hall to help decorate, but only remains for about thrity minutes before taking off.
I don't remember anything in particular happening at the ceremony, but midway through the reception she disappears. Then she comes back in more casual clothes (fine, I can see why she'd do that) but takes off again like 20 minutes later. To go where you ask? To the bar. Doesn't offer to help clean up or see if I need any help.

Then she has the gall to tell my sister later on that she was so upset that she couldn't be in the wedding and is almost in tears when she's telling my sister this. My sister (bless her brass balls, lol) just looked at her and said, "Well, if you'd have went and gotten measured like everyone else did then you wouldn't have had a problem now would you?" (Insert choice words in that sentence if you wish, lol.)

To this day, over a year later, I have yet to hear an apology from her. Or see any money for repayment. So that's my bad should-have-been-bridesmaid story.

[seansgirl]

MOH troubles. Well This is how I first came to write on the forum.

My MOH let me know that she was pregnant soon after I told her that we were getting married. That was great news because she had been trying for several years. I only met her a year before I started planning for my wedding and sinc eI was new to a small town I thought it would be nice if I had her stand up for me. That was all great. From there however it just turned to a freak show. Apperantly she was all about her. She used to phone me about once an hour to chat. I bought a dress for her thinking it was beautiful and that it could be altered to fit her. She went totally enraged when I said it is funny the dress fits me perfectly and there is no room for alterations for the belly. She told me that I was being selfish and that I didn't want her to look good, I told her if I didn't want you to look good I would let you wear the dress. she was a 24inch waist pre pregnancy and Iam a 27inch so 3 inch belly at 7 months pregnant, I didn't really think so. So anyhow she continued to freak out over this dress she had never seen it only a picture of it becaue I had shown her what I orderd and did so because it was a great price and thought if there was the smallest chance it would work that would be great. Anyhow she still was bent out of shape and kept telling me that I just wanted her to look bad. Anyhow a few days past and then on one of her phone calls to me she told me that she was "allowed" to spend up to $200.00 for a dress. Okay with me that is great. Or so I thought. Since she would be around the 7 months pregnant stage I showed her several styles of dresses that I thought would be good for her tiny build and took into consideration the baby belly. That was good. Showed her the colour and that was all good too. Until she got it in her head that she would just go shopping while on a trip. She bought a dress and she was very happy so I went to her house to see it.... UG it was green multi colour tie dye. Great dress for someone but not me, not my wedding it had to be the sorriest looking dress in the store, not only was it ugly it was all frayed. I didn't say anything to her about my dissapointment I just went home and cried and found PASH.
I found a tacktful way to ask her to step down because it wasn't only the dress it was her. But was still in a catch 22. I told her it would mean more to us to have her there then to have her run off her feet for the day and that if she would be willing still to sign the registery I would find someone else to stand up with me. That worked, a bit She would be so negative about everything. My daughter ended up helping with preperations for the wedding she folded 200 little favor boxes stuffed them all with tissue and filled them with hershey kisses. My daughter is 8. This MOH didn't offer to do anything. Just a whole lot of complaining. Then when I moved to even a smaller town the local girls threw a stagette for me. OMG it was fantastic they rented a limo and we went bar hopping and stayed in a beautiful hotel suite. This really ticked of this woman so then it was like "I'll show her" She ended up throwing a shower and man oh man did it pour. She invited only one of the girls that went to my stagette, because she was mad at the rest of them for taking me out and having fun. When we all went out for the stagette she was clear across the country so she couldn't go. Anyhow I ended up bringing groceries to my own shower because all she did was complain that she bought a cake and that it just cost so much money. LOL I had just ordered the same cake for work and well I didn't realize that would be such an issue for 10 people. (rather small cake wouldn't you think) mmmhhhh how much do you think? Anyhow I got the guilt trip on the cost prior and so I asked what we were going to be having for snacks and that was it a cake and tea or coffee. I just was frustrated so I didn't bother phoning around to see if anyone would bring something and I thought it would be tacky of me to do so. Instead the whole thing just was awful.
Anyhow so no help from her, emmotionally, productivley no nothing. I asked my Sister in law to be if she would stand up with me and I am so glad I did she was wonderful, but that isn't what this is about. So the day of the wedding. Now they shipped the new MOH the wrong dress and everything is still turning our great, mmhhh arrive at the church and the one whose to sign the registry the MOH from Negativityland isn't there. okay fine we will just get the Sister in law to do everything. Even though at rehersal we practised it with the other one. She was to sit with my parents and then get up to do it. Just as the Mothers were being seated 15 minuted late due to her she arrives. in a blue and white stripped dress. Now she was aware of all the goings on and I don't know when she went and decided to change her dress again but when our colours were screwed up, she said well I will just wear the one I already bought. The multi green tie dyed one. Whatever. 15 minutes late!!! ugg this is the short condensed version of this too.
Sorry I am still venting about her but it was just so painful!
I was always taught never to say @$!% even if your mouth was full of it.
So some of the smiles on my face were more of a grimace. LOL

[dekuntz]

I was a bridesmaid in my brother's wedding a few years ago. I knew the bride for years before they met as she was a friend of a friend - they met eachother through me and my friend. The problem was that the other bridesmaids (well two out of three) seemed to think that I was only in the party because of my brother (really who cares if I was?). They seemed to make it their mission to make me miserable, as well as my mother (who was paying for everything) and my cousin's wife (my cousin was the best man but worked shifts and was not able to make it to most meetings re: stag and doe etc., so his wife got a babysitter and showed up on his behalf). Starting from the top:
1. The engagement was over two years long and while we were picking out our dresses we got into a disagreement. The bride said that we could all choose our own dress as long as it was the same colour and designer. The wedding was a Christmas wedding (Dec. 27) and everyone (except me) wanted a dress that had a beautiful summer daisy embroidered on it. I pointed out that the dress would look strange in photos with pointsettas and Christmas trees although I did agree that the dress was beautiful. They got defensive and told me that if I wore a different dress that I would stand out. I agreed stating that if someone should wear a different dress it should be the MOH (I said her name not MOH). Another girl asked me why her and I said because she was the MOH - I did not realize that another girl thought that she was the MOH and had never been corrected by the bride! (They had asked everyone a year before this be in their wedding party!) (incase you are wondering I bought the dress)
2. For the stag and doe I worked my butt off - I donated almost all of the big prizes (and lots of small ones). I kept all of the records on the computer. I made all the signs, made all the jello shooters, collected over 100 hot wheels cars (from garage sales) for one of the games, made one of the other games, called in a favour and had a friend decorate a cake for them, purchased all the decorations among other things. My parents donated all the food for the late night buffet and my Dad and I (mostly my Dad) spent hours making small boxes for the tickets to be put in to win a specific prize. A few nights before the stag and doe we had our final meeting that was mostly a battle between my mom and me vs. almost everyone else (my cousin's wife and one groomsman were all very quiet, one bridesmaid was not there). Our biggest battle was how the prizes were going to be won - I wanted the big prizes to be ones that they had to purchase tickets for (I figured they would spend more money if they were going to win some golf clubs with the tickets rather than a T-shirt) and they wanted the big ones to be door prizes (write your name on the back of your admission ticket and win if it was drawn). I eventually got my way by saying that they could decide how the prizes that they donated were given out and I would decide how the ones that I donated were given out. The one big thing that I did not get my way on was using the boxes that my dad and I had made so people could pick the prize they wanted to win (they were already made!!!!!). After my cousin's wife, my mom and I left they held another meeting (we know because one of the other girls was ready to leave and they said they needed to talk to her and called her back).
3. The bride became very distant with my mom and me so I am pretty sure that the MOH and/or other girls were telling her how difficult and stubborn I was being (the stag and doe was supposed to be a surprise so I could not even talk to her about it if I wanted to).
4. My mom has a natural talent for decorating and throwing parties and Christmas is her favourite so naturally she had a lot of ideas. The bride, groom and I all agreed with many of the ideas and when something had been agreed upon my mother would go out and purchase it. Several times the bride would come back days or weeks later and say that she did not like it (coincidentally either her mother or her MOH also would not like the idea). Since my mother had already purchased things she generally said too bad - this is what you wanted and this is what you are going to get and I agreed with her (some things could not be returned - and the bride did agree with it). At one point my mother offered to write them a cheque and they could do it all themselves - they did not agree with this as the amount she was going to write the cheque for was about 1/3 of what she was intending to spend. Once again I agreed with my mother so I was the bridesmaid from hell because I should have agreed with her.
5. I complained about my dress too much (they sized me wrong because I am tall and they gave me the size dress size of my hips which I later learned is almost irrelivant because they are so much lower than my waist) and after I got it fitted properly I could not get it off because of the invisible zipper and where the seams were. I had to have a 60 year old man (my tailor) and his chubby assistant pull the dress off me in a small changeroom (the curtain was half open) while I tried to put my shoulders in positions they were not meant to go into (and I was not wearing a bra). It honestly took about 10 minutes and there were other people waiting to use the one change room. Other girls had problems getting their dress off too so I should not complain!
6. I was told to grow up several times by the bride's mother (I had some choice words for her too but I bit my tongue)
7. All of the girls got together to make the favours on night (at my house) and everyone but me had gone away together a few weeks before. They talked about it non stop and when I tried to change the topic to something that I could join in they quickly changed it back. Hours of listening to this was getting to me so I was a little on the irritated side by the end of it and was not a good hostess or good company.
8. I had to work two nights before the wedding and that was when the bride had arranged for someone to come to her home to do manicures. I originally said that I could not go but we realized that there was enough time in between my day job and night job that day for me to get a manicure. The bride knew that I was going to be a few minutes late and when I showed up (literally 2 minutes late) the girl doing the manicures had already been there about 15 minutes and had started a pedicure on the MOB. I explained that I needed mine first because I had to go to work and I wanted enough time for it to dry and the MOB told me too bad - I should have been there earlier - she was getting a pedicure (absolutely necessary since there was snow on the ground and she had closed toe shoes!). I tried to leave without getting a manicure and was called a few names so I lost my temper and shared a few choice words with the MOB and MOH (who was sticking up for the MOB). I left with a manicure - the girl doing them decided to fit me in and make the MOB wait - I don't think she wanted to lose the money from a manicure!

There are a lot more examples that I could give about why I was the bridesmaid from hell but I think that I have gone on long enough. The wedding was beautiful, I bit my tongue at the rehersal party and at the wedding, the bride and I have fixed our friendship without me mentioning any of this to her (although I wanted to tell her some of it to defend myself). I don't really blame her as she was stressed and seeing things from one side only. Almost all is well...except now I am the bride and I am not sure if I want her in my wedding party as she does not get along with my MOH and I don't want anyone in my wedding party (my MOH or her) to feel the way that I felt, and I don't want to go through what she did with everyone talking behind peoples backs and the wedding party not getting along.

Advice from the Bridesmaid from Hell to Brides dealing with one - please try to talk to the trouble girl - she is probably very frustrated about something in her life (maybe wedding related or maybe not) without blaming her for problems that have come up that may or may not be her fault.

Advice from the Bridesmaid from Hell to other Bridesmaids from Hell - try to talk with the bride and if that does not work or is not possible don't feel bad if you have to step down from the wedding party - life is too short to spend a year of it looking over your shoulder, defending yourself, and trying to cover up your true emotions. I still feel like I should have resigned as a bridesmaid - it was not worth it as I did not have the opportunity to enjoy any of it.

[khemosabi2]

This is a bridemaids from hell story (she was actually the MOH, which makes it even worse!):

My college roomie decided to get married the summer after we all graduated from college. She was marrying her high school sweetheart. She had 7 (!) bridemaids and a MOH. Since she had a sister, we all knew that her sister would be the MOH. The only problem was that her sister was 20 yrs old at the time and therefore not old enough to drink alcohol. The rest of us were well over 21.

So, it comes time to plan the bachelorette party. Usually, the group of girls goes out for a night on the town. But we do have the bride's underage sister to consider. So it's decided that we are going to spend the weekend in Philadelphia. We all carpool down there Saturday, check into the hotel, and then race over to the harbor for a cruise on the river. So far, so good. We get back from the cruise and decide to hit up the local male strip joint (called the Cave). The bride's underage sister uses a fake ID to get into the strip joint/dance club. And this is where it starts to get ugly....

The MOH consumes so much alcohol that we find her slumped in the corner of the club. The bride rushes over to make sure her sister is ok. She's not. Various strangers stop by and ask if the MOH is on drugs. Ugh! So we all decide to call a cab and get out of there (it was early!). They load MOH and the bride into the first cab. Myself and a few other girls catch a second cab. We beat the first cab (with bride and MOH) back to the hotel. Turns out that the MOH threw up in the cab and they had to pull over. But they make it back to the hotel.

You would think this story would end there, right? Oh no....everyone gets back to the room. MOH is in the bathroom trying to recover but she blacks out. The bride freaks out and calls 911. Before you know it...they are 2 Philly paramedics and 2 police officers in our room. The police started questioning the rest of us....we're not sure what to say. They load the MOH up in the ambulance and take her to the hospital. The bride rode along and the rest of us stayed at the hotel. We all decided the party was definitely over (it never really started) and went to bed.

The next morning we found out the MOH was very close to dying from alcohol poisoning. She was supposed to be arrested for underage drinking but the police got too busy and had to leave. The bride never got to finish her bachlorette party and officially banned her sister from drinking at the wedding. The MOH left us all an apology message on our voicemails....about 5 or 6 days later. She didn't feel she owed anyone an apology. I'm sure the bride made her do it.

And the whole day of the wedding, the rest of us to got to listen to the MOH whine about how unfair it is that she can't drink.

To this day....the bride doesn't understand why I can't stand her sister.

[Sharon Naylor]

Munchkin and Khemosabi! Ladies, I've e-mailed you to let you know that you get your pick of ANY one of my wedding books, signed and sent to you for free. Thanks so much to you and to everyone who entered the contest!

[clairon13]

i know i'm late in the game, but i've also got a bad BM story. i am a triplet, and i fully intended for both of my sisters to be maid/matron of honor, w/ 3 additional BMs. my parents were not invited or involved in my wedding due to some family issues, and my 'younger' sister lived w/ them at the time. she was very half-hearted about being in the wedding and never could find the time to help, which was fine for the most part b/cs i was doing it all myself anyway. i just wanted her to be happy for me and to want to be involved in celebrating. anyway, she got fitted for her gown, but told me she needed me to pay the down payment, which i did (i also did it for my other sister). the down payment was about $55 (1/3 of $160). then, she never picked up her gown when it came in.... i asled er to several times then finally asked her if i needed to get it for her and deliver it and she said no, she'd do it. the night of the rehearsal diner, she didn't show up, and i called her and she made up an excuse (car broken down or soemthing). she also did not show up the morning of the weddng either... and i had bought the dres that mornign thinking she'd actually be at the wedding.... nope. so i was out that money for no reason... she called the next day to say sorry and offerd another flimsy excuse. i was so hurt and saddened, but i think it might have had to do w/ my parents and her not wanting to make them mad or something. but still, she's my triplet sister!!!

[Lauren80]

Off topic, but I'm glad to find another triplet on here. I have a triplet brother and sister.