They say a happy bride is the best bride. To me, this once felt like a redundant statement. It’s her wedding, duh. Of course, she’d be happy. But then I met the pissed-off bride, the I-am-doing-this-for-my-parents bride, the bored brides, and the most infamous one of all — the bridezilla, who makes people regret showing up. She controls everyone around, shouts at the staff, turns her girlfriends into her slaves, and every time someone doesn’t fall in line, she snaps, “You’re ruining the best day of my life!”
It’s not always her fault, to be honest. Ever since she was a baby, she has been told that her wedding is going to be the most important day of her life. To finally get to the mandap, smiling with her Prince Charming, she has kissed too many toads. In the dating app era, where most people are waiting for their matches to reply, she has won the ultimate prize. Shaadi ka laddoo isn’t enough, she wants shaadi ka sushi. Plus she’s reeling under the pressure of looking like a goddess, the most beautiful woman to walk the earth — so she makes sure none of the other women at her wedding party outshine her. To her horror, her maasi’s daughter shows up wearing her own shaadi ka joda. Of course, she’d be mad.
It’s almost radical when a bride actually enjoys her wedding. She can’t ‘throw it out’ on the dance floor without the chachas and mamas glaring at her as though she’s trampling all over the family’s reputation. And what horror it is for introverted women to be the centre of attention. Imagine sitting on the stage for hours, hands placed on the lap, and back erect at all times (can’t be seen slouching in pictures) and forcing smiles for every guest even if your cheeks hurt. There’s also a lot of bending down to touch people’s feet. Getting married is a back-breaking project after all. Then, if a bride loses her cool over the temperature of the water offered to her, it makes total sense.
At one Indore wedding, a 30-year-old marketing professional was marrying into a Brahmin family. There were too many rasams to arrange, gifts to buy, and many decisions to make. Plus hyper controlling parents on both sides of the family. How can she please all of them and have the wedding of her dreams at the same time? By doing everything on her own. So much so that her phone was buzzing while her face was planted between two makeup artists. It was like a scene from Hunger Games when they spend too much on difficult, wonderful costumes before getting right under death’s sole. “On top of that, she was stressed we were not practising enough for her sangeet and wouldn’t let me sleep,” said her sister. It’s literally the minimum entertainment value the bride was seeking in the middle of the most horrid overtime of a modern woman’s life.
This bride was a messenger between two families and forced to be the devil’s advocate every time. Basically she wanted to please both families. Is she ladkiwali or ladkawala? The third thing, the bride herself. It’s a serious business, so she can’t be having fun.
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Beware, she will get mad
The year 2025 was one of wedding tourism for me. From Gurugram, Kochi, Bengaluru to Lucknow — I was everywhere, dipping into the free booze and dal makhni. The brides were some of my closest friends, or girls I have known all my life. And they all were acting out of character on their wedding day. Stressed, overstimulated and so fragile that a slight mistake in flower arrangements could break them. My childhood bestie — who was getting married to her boyfriend of two years — scolded me for having too much fun. Then she got annoyed because I was tired. How dare I catch a nap in the middle of her 12-hour pre-mandap rituals and endless photo shoots? But by dawn, I saw her bawling her eyes out — when her Rs 70,000 worth of makeup had melted, and the sindoor was everywhere in her hair — because her back was killing her. If this was the “happiest day of her life”, then I had to be a lot kinder to her.
Sympathies aside, there’s a lot of ridiculous Bridezilla behaviour that doesn’t get called out. Indian women now demand extravagant bachelorette parties and trips. Friends, who can’t even afford to travel to their hometown, take out loans to make the bride-to-be feel special in Bali. Everybody eats what she likes, drinks as much as she approves, and literally dances on her command. Even the girls who abandon their friends as soon as they land a boyfriend expect those same friends to forget everything and join in the celebrations.
In the jungles of Sri Lanka, one such bride-to-be turned feral — like a hungry tiger. No one was allowed to make a sound while walking. Anything could set her off. The reason, as it turned out, was that she was on a strict diet for her big day.
And not just her friends, the sun, the moon, the sky, and every bartender in town, and centuries-old architecture have to bend to her ways. A queen bee went to Greece for her bachelorette party. She posted a million pictures with her girls at the Acropolis of Athens and a scathing review of the historical landmark. Apparently, it involved too much walking or something. Poor her.
Speaking of tall asks, members of one wedding party were expected to shell out Rs 15,000 each for a pre-big day dinner meant to “celebrate” the couple. What are these insane demands? Just because you are getting married, the whole world has to go bankrupt? What’s worse is that this wedding party wasn’t told that they would have to pay until after the dinner, after they had ordered several repeats of their cocktails. A subreddit called ‘wedding shaming’ is one of the few outlets for frustrated guests to air out their grievances. Ghastly scenes unfold behind the scenes. Brides uninvite pregnant friends, ban children at the wedding, and force bridesmaids to wax out every hair on their bodies. They run the show like the Navy.
Sometimes attending your friends’ weddings is the worst thing you can do for yourself.
And where does the groom figure in all this? In most Indian weddings, it’s considered a win if he shows up on time, dressed in the outfit the bride picked out. Society, after all, doesn’t like stressing out sweet boys. So it tells sweet girls instead: this will be your big day. And you will be perfect.
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(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)