Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to tell us their worst bridesmaids horror stories and WOOOOOO-WEEEEEEE did they deliver!!!
Here are the absolute worst of the worst, so brace yourself accordingly:
Please note that some of these stories are from this Reddit thread since they were just too good not to include.
1. "I was in college when a work colleague got engaged. We were casually acquainted and had never hung out one-on-one outside of work, but my BFF was close with her so we were cool. I congratulated her on her engagement and didn't think anything of it. Later, I got a text from an unknown number asking me to be a bridesmaid — it was the same girl who got engaged. Even though this was a huge red flag in itself, I agreed because my best friend was doing it, too, and I thought it'd be fun."
"Everything was chill until about six weeks out, then the demands started rolling in. We were asked to purchase tanning salon memberships and get fake nails for the wedding. We had to attend mandatory dance rehearsals, even over Christmas holidays, because we were going to perform a choreographed routine after the couple's first dance.
When we showed up to the mom's house the following morning to start preparations, it was sheer chaos. The maid of honor had quit the night before, and the hair and makeup artist had canceled that morning. The maid of honor's boyfriend was supposed to get the cake to the reception hall, so the wedding party and friends of the bride and groom mobilized. The maid of honor was also supposed to write the programs, print them, and dress grandma — I did all that. A mutual friend's boyfriend borrowed my car to get the cake from the bakery to the reception. After I got my car back, it turned out there was an accident with the first cake, but luckily, the bakery pulled through on a fix. Only, no one thought to clean the cake from my car. Whatever. Then, at the reception, the bride's mom informed us that we'd be serving food and drinks to all the guests THE ENTIRE NIGHT and were presented with aprons that said 'Bridesmaid' written on the front. NEVER, ONCE, WAS THIS MENTIONED TO US. NOT ONCE. And the groomsmen? Nothing to do but enjoy themselves."
—Anonymous
2. "At my brother and sister-in-law's wedding, one of her closest friends from high school was a bridesmaid and had flown in from Israel. This friend was such a drama queen. She was using the same stylist as my sister-in-law for her hair for the wedding, but hated the way her hair was done, so she made the stylist redo it. Since the stylist had to completely redo this bridesmaid's hair, my sister-in-law had to wait to get her hair done, making her late for pictures and her own wedding. The bridesmaid then 'fainted' at the chuppah, but was miraculously fine later. The bridesmaid claimed it was heat and jet lag, but years later, we found out she wanted to have some limelight on herself for a cute guy to notice her."
—Anonymous
3. "I knew the groom, not the bride. The groom asked me to be in the wedding, and I agreed, only to find out later that he wanted me as a bridesmaid. I'd only met the bride once before this. She got upset with me for saying I wasn't comfortable with that because I didn't know her — it turned out her maid of honor was her sister, but every other bridesmaid was a cousin of the groom's because the bride had no friends."
"The bride and her sister got upset with me for my bridesmaid dress because they said I was trying to outshine the bride (it was a very plain dress, no sparkles or anything), and they even got upset with my shoes for the same reason (black mules with a bow on the toe of the shoe). We had the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding, where I found out there'd been a bachelorette party and I wasn't invited. However, the bride and her sister were still upset I hadn't attended because they said I should've known all brides have a bachelorette party.
The day of the wedding, only one of the cousins of the groom and I were talking to the bride, besides her sister. Come to find out while getting ready that the bride and her sister were part of a makeup MLM scheme and wanted us to buy their makeup. They got upset with us for declining and said something about not being able to afford the honeymoon because nobody would buy their makeup. I had been feeling sick all day and got dizzy during their vows, so I left and went to the lobby where I fainted. She accused me of ruining her wedding because now she had an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen. After the wedding, I found out she told people the wedding was 'almost perfect' but that 'someone' had tried to ruin it and failed. So, yeah, apparently I was a nightmare of a bridesmaid from her POV."
—Anonymous
4. "I had a bridesmaid who made my (the bride) and my bridal party's lives a living hell. I had chosen her to be a bridesmaid because we were very close friends when I had gotten engaged. A few months afterwards, she started blowing all of her money on concerts and music festivals. I politely reached out to her and said, 'While I’m happy you’re living your best life, I just wanted to point out that with the wedding coming up, there will be expenses that you had agreed upon (bridesmaid dress, bridal shower, nails, etc.) when you accepted my bridesmaid proposal.' Obviously, that didn’t go over well. She claimed she would have enough money."
"Well, the first bridesmaid dress try-on we had, she was still on MDMA after not sleeping all night at a music festival. She was always making rude comments to the rest of the group and complaining about having to spend money on things for the shower and the bachelorette party. She started running around telling people that I was a bridezilla (when I really was not) and failed to understand that she was ruining everyone’s experience. By the time the wedding day came, I was just exhausted from her. We’ve drifted apart to the point that we don’t even speak anymore. I always say that my biggest regret in life was asking her to be my bridesmaid."
—Anonymous
5. "I was the maid of honor at my best friend's wedding. However, the bride had two cousins who she was close to growing up, and they had made childhood promises to be each other's maids of honor when the time came. Fast-forward 15 years, and the bride chose me to be her maid of honor — and the two cousins were livid."
"Any time I tried to plan anything wedding-related (bridal shower, bachelorette party, wedding morning brunch, etc.), they would mock me and try to get the other bridesmaids to do something different than what I suggested. I had to enlist the help of one of the bridesmaids to 'suggest' my own ideas so they would agree to them and then we could plan accordingly. The bride caught wind of their behavior and told them why she chose me, but that only made them worse. On the wedding day when I was making my maid of honor speech, they were in the back of the hall, drunk, and yelling loudly about how they loved the bride more and that it should be them up there making the speech. It was so rude. I was so happy on the wedding day, not only for my friend who got married, but to be done with the whole ordeal."
—Anonymous
6. "My friend and I were co-maids of honor for our old friend, and we had to deal with the worst bridesmaid EVER. The nightmare began on New Year's Eve when one of the other bridesmaids started texting us saying we had to start booking things that minute, and listed all the things the bride wanted for the bachelorette party — mind you, the bachelorette party wasn't going to be until August. The bridesmaid said the bride wanted a specific Airbnb (that didn't have enough beds for everybody) in an expensive destination that was not even close to what we'd been talking to the bride about. We talked to the bride, and she agreed on another Airbnb that accommodated everyone. The bridesmaid then got upset that we chose a different Airbnb then the one she sent."
"From then on, the bridesmaid started texting us incessantly about different things for the party for the next seven months. She said she was buying all these things for the bachelorette party. When the final payment for the trip was due (we set up multiple payments to make it easier), she said she shouldn't have to pay because she bought all this stuff (that no one asked her to get). We obviously said no. She then said she couldn't afford the trip now (she picked the destination!), and this was after she had suggested all these activities, like renting a party bus for $1,000. After we got to the destination, we found out the bridesmaid had spent $800 to get her eyebrows micro-bladed when she landed (but she couldn't afford to pay for the trip...). She didn't bring any of the stuff she said she bought for the party (I guess because we actually made her pay), including the one thing we actually needed her to bring that she said she bought — champagne flutes — so we had to go out and buy those. This entire group of girls kind of sucked — none of them bothered to show up for the bridal shower, didn't help plan or set up for it, and had to be hounded for money, but this first girl was by far the worst. And to make things even worse, after the wedding, we were talking to the bride, and she said she had never wanted to go to that particular destination, she just thought the Airbnb had looked cool."
—Anonymous
7. "I was a bridesmaid for my friend who had a joint bachelor/bachelorette party in Vegas. Another bridesmaid I didn't know too well spent most of the weekend telling us about her boyfriend and how he might propose soon. Well, after a long afternoon of day drinking at the hotel pool, her boyfriend must have slipped her mind because she stripped topless and made out with one of the groomsmen...and a little bit more. Needless to say, meeting her boyfriend (then fiancé) at my friend's wedding a few months later was very awkward."
—Anonymous
8. "I was a bridesmaid for one of my best friends in 2010. She chose her oldest childhood friend to be her maid of honor, and she was actually the worst. She came from money, so she had a ton of very expensive ideas for the engagement party, the shower, the bachelorette party — everything. She took over planning for everything, spent the money on everything a week after my friend asked us to be in the wedding, and then sent invoices to each of the bridesmaids for the expenses with very specific instructions to repay within one month."
"I was unemployed at the time and had just enough saved for a dress, one of the bridesmaids was a college student, and one was a single mom working three jobs just to stay afloat. On my birthday, I posted on Facebook asking for music recommendations for iTunes (since I'd gotten a gift card for said birthday). She messaged me and berated me for not being able to kick in money for something wedding-related, but being able to get music off iTunes. I explained my situation hoping she would be at least a little embarrassed, but she just wasn't. After the shower (which was a potluck at a free venue, but we were somehow asked for $400 each), I explained to my friend that if the maid of honor was going to continue acting that way, I wasn't going to be able to stay in the wedding party. She talked to the maid of honor, and luckily, she backed off, but they stopped speaking to each other afterward."
—Anonymous
9. "I was in a best friend's wedding in 2019. We met in 2002, so this is a LONG friendship. My hair had been dyed fashion colors since 2017, which was when she asked me to be a bridesmaid. Then, during the actual wedding planning in 2018, she asked me to potentially dye my hair for the wedding. At the time, that would have actually really damaged my hair since I'd have had to strip out the color, so when I told her that, she then told me I should wear a wig. So, I did, and it was miserable and embarrassing."
"I couldn't afford anything realistic, and she didn't offer to pay for one. (Should she have? IDK, it's past.) I should have just said, 'You know what? I'm happy to do something else so I can still be part of the day, but I don't need to be in photos.' Because that was why she wanted me to wear the wig — for photos. She let me take it off as soon as formal portraits were done, which meant there were TONS of photos of me from the reception with my fashion-colored hair. And I looked fine! However, also haven't talked since. That might actually be what sucks the most."
—Anonymous
10. "I was a bridesmaid, and the dress she picked for all of us cost over $400. ... I ended up borrowing money from my parents to pay for it. Unfortunately, the owner of the bridal shop we ordered our dresses from never actually ordered them; she instead took our money and fled across the Canadian border. So, I ended up ordering the exact same dress from a different bridal shop, borrowing more money from my parents (who were retired, by the way) to pay for it. I didn't get my money back for years until they were able to finally find the bridal shop owner and extradite her."
11. "I was in a wedding that scarred me so badly that when I got married, I refused to have a bridal party. I was the bride's maid of honor. She cried to our classmates that another girl, her BEST friend, dropped out of the wedding (because she was being a bridezilla). When everyone expressed confusion at why I, the maid of honor, wasn't considered her best friend or why she didn't have her best friend be her maid of honor, she let everyone know — in front of me — that she picked me because she knew I'd pay for everything."
"I did, and everything was gorgeous, but after throwing a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, giving her gifts for each, paying for a custom bridesmaid dress to be made and altered along with purchasing her preferred accessories, I was all tapped out for a wedding gift. She made sure everyone got a thank you card BUT ME. The final straw was months later when she was bad-mouthing me to our boss and telling him things she knew in confidence. I stopped speaking to her right then and there. She's on her second or third marriage by now."
—Anonymous
12. "I was one of 14 bridesmaids for my sister-in-law. We had to wear and buy our own designer dresses — I'm talking well over $1,000 for just the dress, not including alterations. The dresses were made for someone who is six feet tall, 100 pounds, and has no boobs. I'm 5'2", curvy, and have DDD boobs. I spent nearly $300 on undergarments to make this work. In addition to the dress, we had to wear silver strappy sandals, but they had to be matte silver, not shiny. We had to get, and pay for our own, hair and makeup. The bride told the beauty team what kind of hairstyle and makeup each bridesmaid was to have. We had to wear real pearl necklaces and earrings that we needed to buy on our own."
"Two years later when I got married, I had her, my sister, and my other sister-in-law stand up for me. I picked a simple dress from Nordstrom that was affordable and wouldn't require special undergarments. I texted my bridesmaids the link to the dress, and 30 seconds later, my sister-in-law texted me saying that the dress 'wouldn't work for her shape.' She told me that if I had my heart set on it, she could have something made in a similar fabric. It wasn't worth the argument, so I told the bridesmaids to wear a knee-length black dress of their choosing instead. My only requirement was that it wasn't strapless. My sister-in-law wore a floor-length strapless black dress to my wedding. I can't make this up."
—Anonymous
13. "I got married on a short time frame, just three months from proposal to wedding. We were college students paying for the wedding ourselves, so we tried to keep everything relatively inexpensive while staying classy. As such, when it came time to choose bridesmaid dresses, I picked an option available online for less than $50, wanting it to be affordable and easy for my bridesmaids. This worked well for five of my six bridesmaids, but apparently, I made it TOO easy for the last one because she just kept putting off placing the order."
"So, the night before the wedding, she showed up panicking at the bachelorette party, not sure how to tell me that she didn’t have a dress. In hindsight, I should have just cut her from the lineup, but she promised to go out shopping the next day and find something that would work, so we rolled with that. Needless to say, she couldn’t find anything that matched, so she ended up buying a coordinating dress and swapping with my sister, who was my maid of honor. She still looked like the rest of the bridesmaids and my sister wore the new dress, and everyone looked lovely, but the stress of the situation definitely didn’t help my anxiety. I’m still close with the rest of my bridesmaids, but five years later, I’m barely in touch with the one who couldn’t be bothered to order her dress."
—Anonymous
14. "My sister and I both had each other and our older sister as bridesmaids at our weddings. It was a 'you can't ask one sister and not the other' kind of situation. For both of our weddings, she was a brat, obviously jealous that the attention was on someone else."
"We were nice and tried to include her in things so she wouldn't complain so much. My sister asked her to be in charge of music for her engagement party, and I asked her to be in charge of photos for mine. These events were four years apart. She showed up both nights having nothing prepared. We ended up plugging in an iPod for my sister's party, and I only got one subpar photo of my husband and I at our party, and no photos of friends or family. She refused to pay for her hair and makeup at my sister's wedding, and my mum ended up paying for her just to avoid the drama. She doesn't wear makeup regularly, and she made the makeup artist's job difficult by refusing to wear lipstick??? I stopped making allowances for her after that."
And finally:
15. "My new sister-in-law had the photographer crop me out of most of the photos of the bridesmaids. And now, when I visit my brother and his wife, I have to stay in a guest room with a giant canvas of my sister-in-law, the other two bridesmaids, and a part of my arm."
Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.