Bridezilla

With my BFF's daughter getting married in May I've had an upclose and personal experience with what the country has come to call a Bridezilla. A rather unflattering term for a woman who thinks she's a princess and makes everyone around her unhappy while she plans her wedding. Usually she's driving her Mother nuts with all of her requests for help and demands for attention.

In the case of my BFF, however, she's been told she's not needed. To quote a recent email from daughter to mother: "Its my wedding, and things will happen how I want them to happen. Not how you want, or how anybody else thinks it should go. You complain I don't ask for help. Maybe because I do not need help. I am well aware what I need to do, how it needs to be done and when it needs to be done by. If I needed something, I told you BEFORE, I would ask.

So what's a mother to do? In the case of my BFF she's opted to step aside and let her daughter run her life and her wedding as she wants it to be. (I can't resist adding here that the daughter has not gotten anyone to perform the ceremony and as far as my BFF knows...hasn't ordered the rings yet). I have to give my friend credit because if it were me I'd want to b*tch slap my daughter right about now. But then my daughter still lives at home and her daughter moved in with her boyfriend 18 months ago...right next door to her future m-i-l. So guess who the daughter IS letting help plan the wedding. You already know the answer. The future m-i-l! At least that's what my BFF assumes because of all the chatter on FB by the m-i-l and those attending the wedding.

Now all of this begs the question. Is this young woman a Bridezilla or just a thoughtless and selfish BRAT? I'm going with the BRAT because I know for a fact that the mother (a single Mom) gave up everything to make her daughter's life as stress-free and comfortable as possible. My BFF chose NOT to teach in public school but to teach privately so her daughter could be enrolled in programs that would be beneficial for her. So now in her 50's my friend will never become tenured but as she says that was her choice and she won't blame her daughter for her decisions.

In closing her email to her mother the daughter wrote: "If you don't want to go to the wedding, then don't. I am completely done with the problems and drama that's happening. Its not making anything enjoyable and I am just not dealing with it anymore." Now that's what I call a wonderfully warm and loving end to any email to one's mother...NOT!! I find this all so incredibly distressing because my friend would give you her last dime if you asked. She's loved by children and animals alike because they recognize a good person when they see one. There's little hope that her daughter will ever 'come around' and ask her mother to share in her joy. But perhaps that's the crux of the whole problem...I don't think this young woman is at all joyful and maybe, just maybe she'll realize that before it's too late.