It’s not easy being a bridesmaid – and it’s even harder to say no to your pal when it comes to her big day. After all, she’s only going to do this once (or so she keeps telling you) and she wants it to be special. Are you really going to be that person who ruins her nuptials by laughing in the face of her (incredibly reasonable) demands?

Of course not. And so, leading up to the wedding, the conversations tend to go something like this…

“Can you pay for your bridesmaid dress?” Sure thing.

“Can you book time off work for the hen party?” I suppose so…

“Can you organise a bridal shower for me?” I thought that was an American tradition, but I guess I can.

“Can you stay up the night before the wedding and craft favours, buttonholes, and the like?” Hmm… I can’t think of a reason why not.

“Can you sleep with the best man?” Of c… wait, what?!

Oh yes.

We’ve been told, time and time again, that the bride needs to enjoy her Big Day. That we need to be understanding, and amenable, and willing to bend over backwards for her – because the reward, come the end of it all, is to be there with (and, more importantly, be there for) your best friend on her special day.

Except, sometimes, it just isn’t worth it. Especially when your friend has transformed into a horrifying bridezilla overnight. As much as we don’t appreciate the word when annoying sexists assume every single woman with a ring on her finger turns into one, or when unscrupulous wedding planners use it to justify whatever they’ve messed up, there’s no denying some brides are the embodiment of it.

Long-suffering bridesmaids have taken to Reddit in their droves to reveal their horrors and here, we’ve chosen 15 of the craziest and most unreasonable bridal demands:

The bride who fat-shamed her bridesmaid over text

As you can see in the screengrabs provided, this Redditor was contacted by a bride-to-be when one of the bridesmaids dropped out of her wedding.

“You’re the only one who can fit in her dress,” the bride pleaded. “Everyone else is either too small or too short. I desperately need you to step up here.”

When the back-up bridesmaid said that she didn’t feel comfortable doing so – and implied that she was offended by the bride’s comments – her relative completely lost her cool.

“Wow. This is my wedding day. I can’t believe you’re making this about you,” she raged over text. “I could care less if you’re offended or not. You’re being so selfish and self-centred.”

She then demanded that the Redditor transfer her the money for the dress (oh yes, she wanted her to pay for the so-called privilege of being a last-minute addition to the wedding party) – and, when the hero of our story refused, she completely lost her cool.

“You’re too fat to be a bridesmaid,” she snapped. “I can’t believe I wasted my time asking you.”

“Have a great wedding,” responded our Redditor calmly. “Let’s hope no one else backs out before then.”

The bride-to-be’s response? “Fuck off fatty.”

Jesus.

The bride who overcharged her bridesmaids so she could pay for her wedding dress

An unnamed social media user revealed that, several years ago, a friend asked her to be a bridesmaid in her wedding.

“There were six of us plus the maid of honour, so seven in total,” she said in the post, which has been shared on Reddit.

“The bride had picked out her dress already, one for the maid of honour and one for the bridesmaids. The dress itself was lovely but a bit expensive at $400 (€350) each since two of us were still in college so money was super tight.”

In the post, she went on to explain that she hadn’t been able to go with the rest of the bridesmaids to pick of the dresses, but planned to go by herself the following weekend.

As she was leaving the shop, though, there was a misunderstanding over the payment – one of the people working in the shop didn’t realise that the dress had already been paid for by the maid of honour the weekend before.

“As I’m walking out the door, another person working there yells out, ‘hey, that will be $200!’

“I was stunned and totally mortified. I apologised and explained how I thought the maid of honour had paid for it the weekend before, [but] the shop owner came running over to diffuse the situation and confirmed the dress was paid for already.

“I turned to walk out and suddenly realised she said $200 not $400. Long story short, the dress was only $200.”

The hero of our story confronted the maid of honour about the price, and her fellow bridesmaid soon spilled the beans.

“Apparently, the bride and maid of honour plotted together to charge us double to help pay for the bride’s dress.

“I let the bridesmaids know and four of us dropped out of the wedding immediately.”

The bride who wanted to pimp out her pal

19ButterflyBaby94 was stunned when her bride friend demanded that she sleep with the best man. “In her words, ‘Jake’s saying he won’t go unless there is a guarantee lay for him. I know you’re single and everything…’” she reveals.

“I thought it was a joke at first. It wasn’t. I, of course, said no. Surprise, Jake still showed up as best man without the promised booty. And boy was I glad I said no, because this guy was 300+ lbs of greasy hair and an odour that could only be described as diabetic p**s .”

The bride who really believed that being a bridesmaid is a full-time job

Dinken_flicka84 was literally asked to quit her job so that she could be there for the bride on her big day. “I was already spending so much money and time, so she figured I could sacrifice my career, too.

“I literally told her to eat a dick.”

The bride who didn’t want any happy couples to hog the spotlight

“I was a bridesmaid and my significant other was a groomsman, and we were banned from looking at, speaking to or dancing with each other for fear of ‘out-cuting’ the happy couple,” says The Mackeroll. “We’d been together for five years at this point.

“We didn’t do it, but the request alone was outrageous.”

The bride who wanted a free dinner

Writing under the handle NotASugarBabyButOK, one bridesmaid explains how she was asked to get involved in wedding planning whilst she was taking a course at culinary school – and you can sort of guess what happened next.

“[The bride] wanted to know if I could help with dinner,” she reveals. “I said sure, and asked her what she wanted help with, figuring it was prep work for someone else to do.

“No, she wanted me to handle the whole dinner. As in cooking for 200 people, as a 19-year-old having only done a year culinary school. She also wanted me to help pay for the food I’d be making, as their gift. She wanted me to make caesar salad, potatoes au gratin, and roast enough ducks for 200, by myself, and pay for about half of it.

“I was learning how to be a pastry chef. I explained and she just stared at me blankly. I told her I could do the cake easily enough, but she insisted she wanted a ‘real’ cake, from a bakery.

“I told her there wasn’t any feasible way I could do it, not only because that’s fucking crazy, but because I literally wasn’t trained to do it, and I got disinvited from the wedding.

“They apparently served bagged salad, boxed potatoes and roasted chicken from Walmart.”

The bride who demanded a hen party in Miami

“My sister just came home from a weekend trip to Miami that the bride demanded she attend,” shares WillWorkForCats. “Why Miami you may ask? To get drunk and spend time in the sun, and party all night? Apparently not.

“She forced her bridal party to go to Miami (on their own dime) to go to some spas, and be in bed by 10pm.

“She also only booked two hotel rooms with one bed each, for eight women.

“I advised my sister to get some better friends.”

The bride who wanted zero blondes in her wedding party

Admitting she bowed to her bridezilla’s demands, CharmedIsTheOne says: “My best friend asked me to dye my hair from blonde to brown, because her other bridesmaids all had brown hair and she wanted to be the only one with blonde hair.

“She did pay for me to get it done at a professional salon, so I didn’t mind too much, and her photos did look amazing after. However, I definitely have a few friends who thought I was crazy for agreeing to that request.”

The bride who was just an awful, awful human being

This is, without a doubt, one of the worst stories yet. HulaGirl4737 explains: “I knew a woman who was a bridesmaid in a relative’s wedding. She was married and had been trying to get pregnant for a while. Finally, her and her hubby got lucky and she conceived.

“The bridezilla got furious and kicked her out of the wedding because she would be pregnant in the pictures. Three months later, sadly, my friend miscarried. The bride called her with a response along the lines of, ‘Good, well now you can be back in the wedding.’

“Needless to say, she did not even attend it.”

The bride who turned on her own sister

GooperChickenFace was a bridesmaid for her own beloved sister – but that still didn’t save her from the bridezilla requests.

“She demanded that I grow my fringe out months before because ‘I don’t want anyone’s hair blowing in the wind, it all has to stay perfectly still’,” she begins.

“Also, I’m quite pale so she insisted I had to wear fake tan. I originally went bought a pale tan colour but the morning of the wedding she made me pile it on. It was pretty hot that day so subsequently, it stained my pale pink dress.

“Was still an amazing wedding, regardless. Also, I like to think that when I get married I have two ridiculous request cards. Two things she has to do and I’ll bring up her wedding if she refuses.”

And the bride who turned on her own sister, part two

“My older sister got married when I was 18 and a broke college freshman,” shares OPKC. “She found a dress she loved that was way out of her budget. She tried to get me to agree to split the cost of the dress with her and [said that I could] wear it when I got married. (I didn’t even have a serious boyfriend at the time.) She tried bullying, threats, and the silent treatment when I refused.

“She was the oldest sibling, and I had spent my entire life getting pushed around by her. She is a ‘win at all costs’ kind of person and will get revenge on anyone who crosses her. It was the first time I’d really stood up to her. I eventually cut her out of my life in my mid-thirties.

“It’s been about 5 years since I cut off contact with her, and I don’t regret it.”

The bride who decided to body-shame her friends

Yeehasmush was ordered to lose weight for the wedding by her bridezilla pal – and she knew exactly how to handle the situation.

“I was a size 8 at the time, and the bride called me the ‘fat’ bridesmaid,” she explains. “She wanted her all bridesmaids to be ‘skinny.’ So I laughed in her face and figured if my fat ass was the thing that was going to ruin her wedding then I was determined to keep myself in cheeseburgers and milkshakes to spite her.”

The bride who turned on her own sister, part three

Another formerly loving sister, another bridezilla transformation. ShinyShinyRedThings explains: “[My sister asked] for my measurements, a photo of my tattoo, and if I have any requests for the dress. I said, ‘I need to be able to wear a bra. If you don’t want to see my tattoo, get a dress that covers it.’

“She orders a dress two sizes too small, backless, deep plunge front… unable to be returned/exchanged. She says, oh, you’ll be able to fit in it by the wedding, right? I lost 15kg to fit in it (back to my high school weight, I was 28) in nine weeks. It made creaking noises as I zipped it. Somehow, it didn’t split straight down the back. Why ask for measurements if you’re going to ignore them?! Oh, and remember my tattoo? It was sprayed with makeup until it looked like a giant bruise. I looked like I’d been abused, and the body paint ruined my husband’s suit.”

And, as if that weren’t enough, the demands continued: “She made me (very pale) get a very dark spray tan (then complained it was still lighter than the other bridesmaids’ tans), dye my hair (it was an auburn, chin length bob – but I had to have a brown up do!). I refused to pay $300 for a full set of hair extensions, so had to wear hair pieces. They looked like dead guinea pigs. I named them Gertrude and Stanley.

“She still brings up how I ruined her wedding video by almost falling over in the background. We had to wear six-inch stilettos. On sand.

“I got so damn drunk that night.”

The bride who made her sick friend wear a wig

ILookLikeHyde may not have been a beleaguered bridesmaid himself, but his girlfriend was – and the way she was treated by her bridezilla is truly appalling.

“My friends were getting married,” he explains, “and my girlfriend and I were both in the wedding party. The bride’s mother suggested that my girlfriend get hair extensions to be in the wedding to not ‘ruin the photos’ for her daughter.

“My girlfriend has very short hair, because she has Grave’s disease. Her hair has become very brittle and started falling out in clumps.

“I’m sure it wasn’t intended to be rude, but telling somebody that have to put on a wig because you don’t think they look good enough to be in your daughter’s photos seems pretty terrible to me.”

The bride who turned her bridesmaids into Cinderellas

MysteryPeeps was left absolutely shell-shocked when her cousin transformed into a monstrous bridezilla overnight.

“She called us all to dinner and did a ‘bridesmaid proposal’,” she reveals. “My cousin then told us that we were going dress shopping THE NEXT DAY and we had to be there or we couldn’t be in the wedding. The wedding wasn’t for another year. A couple girls had to call into work, but we were all family so saying no would have been a kiss of death to our aunt. The only bridesmaid that was a friend dropped out after that.

“We found out at the dress store that some of the colours she had chosen were being discontinued, meaning that we HAD to buy the dresses asap. I was on a very tight budget (my husband had been laid off for months and just started a new job the week before) and I couldn’t afford to drop the $200 on a dress at that moment. Her mom ended up buying it.

“Fast forward a year and she demands not one but two bachelorette parties and wants one out of state, and of course expects the bridesmaids to pay for the whole thing. Again, lots of girls had to take off work for this. Also, most of her bridesmaids and friends are pregnant, underage, or have young children (meaning we had to line up child care for two entire weekends, because the wedding went until late that night).

“Then she told me last minute that she expected my daughter to be a flower girl. She had bought everything so it wasn’t that big of a deal but now I had to plan how to get my daughter there on time when I hadn’t planned on her coming at all. Apparently she had planned on waiting and telling me the day of the wedding!!! And her mom had told her she needed to warn me.

“Also she expected us to stay behind and clean. And when I say clean, I mean everything: sweep, mop, all of it. I think she was kind of offended that I left early but I had gotten a call right before the wedding that my great grandpa was dying. I stayed long enough to eat so I wouldn’t black out on the way home (I’m diabetic and hadn’t eaten that day) but he was dead before I even made it onto the highway from the venue.”

The bride who destroyed her friendship over a wedding

Sharing his girlfriend’s tale of woe, Hertz037 says: “My girlfriend was supposed to be a bridesmaid for a friend, but we found out about a week or two before the wedding that my girlfriend’s mom who lived in the same state as the wedding (not where we live) was terminally ill and didn’t have much time left.

“We decided to spend that weekend with mom instead, and not once did the friend ask how my girlfriend was doing, if she needed anything, nothing. Just pestered her for the dress which my girlfriend bought so her replacement could wear it.

“Way to throw away a friendship…”

And the bride who didn’t care about her friend’s modesty

A traumatised ViralPlant reveals that her bride pal ordered her to “wear the mini orange and red dress that was cut at a cross at the middle”. Not so bad, right? Wrong. She explains: “When I sat down I pretty much had my underwear on display. She refused to let me wear anything else so I had to sit with my bouquet on my lap and hope not to flash 350 guests whilst sat on a stage some five feet above ground level.”

Images: Getty/Eric Ward/Thomas Ae/Tamara Menzi/Genesssa Panainte/Unsplash/iStock