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But first, a shout-out to Jen, aka Operation Pink Herring;  CONGRATS!  SURPRISE!  And CONGRATS again!  In case you don’t read Jen (and if that is the case, add her to your feed-reader immediately!), a few weeks ago she got engaged to her amazing boyfriend on a spontaneous trip to Barcelona.  Swoon!  Isn’t that the most romantic thing?  Today is her surprise virtual engagement party, and all around the Internet her friends and admirers are dedicating their posts to weddings, bridesmaids, bling and such.  So, here I go.  (Big breath, this is actually a little more frightening than I initially thought!)

A few years ago in one of my political science classes there was a Bridezilla who routinely drove me up-the-wall crazy.  I am of the opinion that she was not a hundred percent in her right mind, and seemed to have a severe disconnect between the two sides of her brain.  Her every-day uniform was a button-up shirt and sweater vest, pearl earrings and necklace, shorty-short nylon gym shorts and beat-up running shoes.  What?  No, I’m serious.  It was completely bizarre.  When it got colder she swapped out the shorts for those pull-away gym pants, and the end result was not much better. 

At any rate, one day she was gushing about her wedding (which was still about a thousand years away) and talking about her bridesmaids.  Now, I have been a bridesmaid several times, and it is an incredible honor.  I dutifully stood in line for my brothers when they got married, and did everything I could to assist the bride when I was asked to “maid” for a few of my good friends.  I was under the impression that one picks her bridesmaids because of a deep, lasting relationship and emotional connection.  These are her sisters, her best friends, the women she cannot live without.  Ummm, Miss Bridezilla seemed to have another criteria.

She blabbed to our entire class that the reason she chose the bridesmaids she did was based on their size.  She wanted everyone in her wedding party to be at least 30 pounds heavier than she was so that, by comparison, she looked incredibly thin.  (What the?  Are you for real?)  She chose their dresses to accentuate any problem areas and make them seem even more rotund.  (Seriously?)  AND -if the first two offenses were not bad enough- she chose to swath her wedding party in shiny turquoise with sequins, which, as you can imagine, does nothing to hide anything and makes for incredibly cantankerous bridesmaids. 

My first thoughts:  “Why would she want her wedding party in sequins?  Wouldn’t all that shine detract from her -incredibly horrible and all-together gaudy- wedding ring?  Hmmm…. and I wonder if she’ll wear those beat-up running shoes with her gown.  Oooh!  Maybe the bottom half of her dress will be nylon with sparkly Adidas stripes, you know, for a slimming effect!” 

My second thoughts: “I’m going to get struck by lightening.  The Goddess of Matrimony is going to hurl a bejeweled bolt right at my head.  ‘Dear Matrimony Diety; before you destroy me for my remarks, please consider shocking this girl for her bitchy attitude.  Love, heidikins’”

As Miss Bridezilla sat there in class, (in pearls and nylon gym shorts) rambling on about how fantastic she was going to look on her wedding day, it occurred to me that a) her wedding photos would still have a half-dozen grumpy bridesmaids in sequined turquoise; b) her BFF’s would most likely be hurt by her choices and c) her groom-to-be would have to deal with the fact that in planning for the rest of their lives, the thing she thought about the most was herself.  Poor guy.  I felt like someone should warn him, or at least tell him to bring sunglasses so as not to burn his retinas from all those sequins.

Congrats again, OPH!  And may I offer a word of assvice?  Don’t dress your bridesmaids in turquoise sequins; you won’t be labeled a Bridezilla and no one will try and suffocate you with the bridesmaid dress from your own wedding.  (Although, wouldn’t that make a great Bridezilla story?)