Just Give Me a Reason: Bridezilla Edition

For whatever reason, Aron and I were discussing bridezillas. You know, those wild-eyed women who take being Queen for a Day straight to hellions with tiaras, seemingly desperate to make everyone around them miserable? Yeah, I know. Weird date conversation.

“Just…what’s the point?” he asked me, as if I had some magic key to unlocking what goes through anyone’s mind when it comes to white dresses and eternity.

“I think they just really want things to be perfect,” I said. “There’s a control-aspect to the whole thing.”

“But it goes beyond table settings and shoe choices,” Aron mused. “It’s everything. It’s their behavior. It’s everyone else’s behavior.”

“Yeah. I’m really glad I haven’t worked with one.”

“You know, I can’t help but wonder if women – and sometimes even men – get all bridezilla’d on their wedding day because it’s the one thing they can control about marriage. The events of that one day are in their control. But the rest of their marriage? It’s a total crap shoot. Anything can happen.”

For someone who couldn’t give two hoots about engagement rings (I’d just ogled his roommate’s while he muttered, “Oh, I forgot to ask to see it”) and didn’t seem to be terribly concerned about wedding day anythingness, that Ivy-league educated guy just knocked the psychology of bridezillas out of the park.

“Wow,” was all I could say. “Yes. Exactly that.”

And then I wrote a note to write a blog about it so I could share that wisdom here. Because hot damn, what Aron said was smart.

Relationships of any kind – married ones or not – are about not having control. You don’t get to control what your partner does, thinks or says. You don’t get to control how they will change. You don’t get to control what happens to them when they walk out the door. And while you get some say about yourself, you certainly don’t get as much as you’d like.

I’m not condoning batty behavior that is destructive and rude. I just think maybe next time we interact with a bridezilla, we consider asking how she’s feeling and try get to the root of the problem.

Same with anyone in a relationship, really.

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