When one of her bridesmaids was “fired” from her role and subsequently disinvited from the wedding, Kate felt like she was in for a few months of testing. “I was a bit shocked by the intensity of the whole thing,” she says of the run-up to her friend Stella’s wedding. “I think weddings are something you should look forward to and enjoy, but I was upset by the stress of it all. It didn’t seem like she was enjoying it.”
Kate was tasked with planning the bachelorette party for about 25 friends. The bride made it clear that she wouldn’t have to pay for it. “I didn’t fully understand how much of a sense of entitlement she had in terms of how she felt she should be treated as a bride-to-be,” Kate says. During discussions about where to stay that would accommodate everyone within the budget, Stella told Kate that she wasn’t doing a good enough job as a planner. “She said, ‘You’re not performing to the level that I would expect.’ In retrospect, it sounds ridiculous, but we were in the middle of it at the time.”
She told me what a bad friend I had been and that I should be grateful that she had asked me to do it.
On the Saturday night of the weekend, after a few long days, they went to a nightclub, but the guests were tired and had too much to drink; they were exhausted. “She wasn’t happy about it because she wanted it to be a night out, a legendary experience,” says Kate. “She got really upset and we ended up with her in the toilet, crying and saying it wasn’t good enough.”
Kate was told that it was her responsibility to make everyone enjoy themselves more and that if the other singles still didn’t look like they were having a good time, they would have to be thrown out—not out of the nightclub, but out of the rest of the weekend, so that the bride-to-be wouldn’t have to see them the next morning. “I got really tired of it,” Kate says, putting it mildly.
For the wedding itself, Kate paid for her bridesmaid’s dress and the hair and make-up artist. In total, she thinks she spent well over £1,000 on her friend’s wedding. Except they are no longer friends. Some time later, she says: “I was let down. It was like the maid of honour being excommunicated.”
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With wedding season in full swing, disgruntled bridesmaids may be counting the cost – financial and emotional – of being part of a bridal party. A recent post on the Reddit forum questioning whether it was normal to pay $300 (£240) to attend a hen party was the latest in a series of horror stories to be posted there and go viral. On the Reddit board r/weddingshaming, bridesmaids share tales of being forced to diet, spend a small fortune or have weekly check-ins.
Kate was one of many women who responded to a Guardian appeal asking about the tough experiences of being a bridesmaid. She was worried that her story might sound a bit misogynistic – “the bridezilla stereotype” – but she knows Stella’s behaviour “wasn’t fair”. Of course, the problem isn’t exclusive to women, she adds. “Men behave appallingly too.”
Jo was asked to be a bridesmaid by a childhood friend she had almost lost touch with. Her initial surprise made her say yes, but then she tried to back out of it: “We had a really awkward conversation, where she told me what a bad friend I had been and that I should be grateful that she had asked me to do it.”
She suggested that I could bypass my pregnancy; I could induce labor early, or something like that
Jo had short hair, but the bride-to-be insisted she grow it out. By the wedding, five months later, “I had this non-bob, non-pixie, really awkward haircut.” When the bride’s mother saw Jo, she was unimpressed, as if Jo hadn’t tried hard enough to grow her hair out. After that, their friendship became as distant as before.
Other respondents described being surprised and hurt by the hierarchy—who gets chosen as maid of honor or best man—which sometimes left them reevaluating decades-old friendships. Some found themselves last-minute backup choices. One woman was thrilled to be asked, only to find that six others had turned her down. Another had to go on two hen weekends, one abroad, for one wedding: “It’s going to be a real test of whether my friendship with the bride can survive the wedding.”
Others discuss the tyranny of the WhatsApp group, where everyone greets each other’s hen party escalations with enthusiasm and heart emojis, rather than pointing out that the agreed budget has long been forgotten. One woman who loves being a bridesmaid – she’s had the pleasure eight times in 10 years – says it’s mainly so she can be instrumental in keeping hen party costs down: “All eight of my experiences haven’t been as financially ridiculous as some of the hen parties I’ve been invited to as a guest.” A survey last year suggested the average cost of being a bridesmaid in the UK was £665.
This isn’t a recent phenomenon. In the 1990s, Julie was so exhausted by the endless demands placed on her as a bridesmaid that she showed up at her friend’s wedding three weeks after giving birth, exhausted and in pain, nursing her newborn in the toilet with her dress around her ankles.
The bride, Val, had let Julie keep her diary open for about 18 months – and her annual leave – while she decided exactly when to have her special day. During that time, Julie became pregnant. Val chose her due date for the wedding but insisted that Julie be there. “She suggested I could work around it; I could induce early or something,” Julie says. “I said, ‘No, that’s not going to work.’”
A bachelorette party at seven months pregnant was no fun, especially since Julie was the designated driver. She managed to get out of the subsequent bridal shower, where everyone had to bring gifts – which was a good thing, because she went into labor. Julie ended up giving birth three weeks early.
Why didn’t she just back out of the wedding? “Because I was still trying to maintain a friendship. At that point, she made it clear, ‘If you don’t come, I’m never going to talk to you again.’ It was like, OK, this is so important to her, I can swallow it.” The friendship eventually ended a few months later, when Julie refused to go to a post-honeymoon party. Val sent her a letter, saying, “You clearly think this baby is more important than me.” Julie laughs. “I’m like, Oh well.”
It’s surprising, says wedding planner Mark Niemierko, how many relationships between brides and bridesmaids don’t last. He says it’s especially common among people in their 20s. “It’s not that they’re going to have a fight, but if you ask them in 10 years, ‘Would that person still be a bridesmaid or best man?’ they wouldn’t. That’s just life; you move on.” So if you’re feeling the pinch of unreasonable requests and sky-high costs, it’s worth remembering that in 10 years, you might not even be friends anymore.
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For many people, being a wedding guest can feel like a chore, no matter how much you want to celebrate for a few days. “You have to figure out your outfit, you might need time off from work, transportation, maybe childcare,” Niemierko says. For bridesmaids, the tasks—shopping for and trying on dresses, planning the bachelorette party, taking interest in everything from caterers to playlists—can seem endless.
In the U.S., it’s common for bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses, Niemierko says. He’s also seen the rise of the bridesmaid-to-be-anointed party: “It’s another excuse for an event. People are invited over for tea or something, just to be asked.” It could catch on here, he adds. Niemierko has seen bridesmaids take on the role of keeping the bride calm on the day, while others are “reluctantly forced into the role of planner.” Then there’s the friendship politics, “where someone has to be a bridesmaid or it’s going to cause a lot of drama in the friendship group.”
Perhaps reflecting the uncomfortable truth that being a bridesmaid can be a bit of a pain, brides are having fewer of them. “Generally, they’re done with the whole ‘I’m going to have six or more women in the same dress’ thing. I would say it’s become more popular to have just one bridesmaid.” Or, better yet, choose only children: “It’s more stylish — and they’re cute.”
I couldn’t complain about the price because everyone just said how nice it was
When Elena was asked to be a bridesmaid for her friend Ava, she didn’t expect to spend so much. But Ava made a lot more money than Elena, and the expenses spiraled out of control. The designer dress she wanted Elena to wear (and pay for) was the equivalent of two months’ rent; if she had paid for her hair and makeup on the day of, she could have paid for another month’s rent.
“I didn’t say anything,” Elena says. “I was too embarrassed. I didn’t know how to present the issue without sounding like I didn’t want to be a part of it. I admit I should have set boundaries, but I just didn’t know how.” She couldn’t afford to buy her friend a gift on top of everything else, which made her even more anxious.
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For Kat, being a bridesmaid three times a year was a huge drain on her finances. She had to put some of the cost on a credit card and live frugally all year long to afford it. She ended up spending about a quarter of her annual salary on these weddings.
It had become commonplace among her group of friends for bridesmaids to pay for their own dresses and go on hen weekends abroad. “Me and one of the other bridesmaids used to moan together, but generally I felt like I couldn’t moan about the price because there was a bit of groupthink going on, where everyone just said how nice it was.”
At a bachelorette party, she ordered a bowl of soup because that was all she could afford. “I felt honored to be asked, but frustrated by the cost,” she says. Just as her finances were getting back on track the following year, she was asked to be a bridesmaid again.
Some names have been changed