15 Signs You're a Bridezilla

"I've fucking HAD IT WITH YOU! You're an awful friend and don't support me at all!"

My friend Hennessy's voice rang out through the apartment corridor, and she reached a screeching pitch that I didn't even know was possible. This was the fourth time I have seen her have a tantrum this week.

It was Tuesday.

Looking at her, I realized that I could no longer pretend to ignore the truth. Once, not too long ago, she was the most even-tempered person I knew. That person seemed to have died after being gobbled up by the marriage monster.

Being a bridezilla consumed her, and had turned her into someone that I didn't recognize. Without any more words, I tore off my dress, grabbed my sweats, and wished her the best for her marriage. From that day on, I never spoke to her again.

Years later, she tried to reach out to me. I declined her calls. I always wondered if she realized how much of a selfish brat she had been during her wedding planning process.

Truth be told, I know I'm not the only one who turned their back on Hennessy after the wedding. Hennessy had lost most of her friends and soon after, got divorced with nowhere to turn to. She was baffled as to why people wouldn't talk to her after the party.

Sometimes people don't realize how bad their bridezilla behavior is. I like to think that's what happened to Hennessy. Make no mistake about it, if you find yourself exhibiting signs you're a bridezilla in the making, it may be time to take a step back and breathe.

Worried you'll be a Hennessy? Speaking as someone who has been a bridesmaid to a bridezilla before, these are the most common warning signs that women display when they're getting into bridezilla territory.

You are expecting your bridesmaids to do serious wedding work for free.

Wedding planner? More like "hole in pocket," right? Nah, rather than hire staff to do the major heavy lifting in your wedding, you're going to tell your bridesmaids to do that stuff for you.

One of the most obvious signs you're a bridezilla deals with the way you treat your bridal party. Your wedding party is not a team of your personal slaves. They are your guests, for crying out loud!

I've seen bridezillas (Hennessy included) drag bridesmaids into the kitchen to have them cook meals that should have been catered. I've seen them demand bridesmaids act as wedding planners, too.

If you treat them like they can't say no to any request you give them, you are a bridezilla and your friends will not forget your actions.

The amount you want your bridesmaids to pay is ridiculously high for their income, and you're not willing to budge.

Look, I get it. Weddings are expensive and so are the dresses that come with them. There is a limit, however, to how much you can expect your entourage to spend before they end up saying they can't do it anymore, not to mention all the ways to minimize costs for your bridesmaids.

If you have a basic budget that's over $400 to $500, you'll start noticing people drop out of your party. If you refuse to budge on dresses or have a budget that's several thousand dollars per person, you probably are a bridezilla.

You've flown into a rage after a minor party detail wasn't up to snuff.

Someone couldn't make it to your wedding, now there's a chair you have to get rid of. The flowers weren't quite the right color for your decor. Things go awry, and with most brides, they'll just roll with the punches.

One of the more telling signs you're a bridezilla deals with how you handle small hiccups. If you flew into a rage and started to scream over a slightly off-kilter bouquet, an empty seat, or a small trinket that didn't live up to expectation, you're a bridezilla that's probably ruining her own party.

You straight up ask people to pay for the wedding and/or the honeymoon.

This might not initially appear to be one of the more alarming signs you're a bridezilla, but I can assure you that it is. What's worrying me is that this trend seems to be taking off with a number of different social circles, and many brides-to-be seem to be okay with this.

I've heard of brides billing their guests, brides auctioning off bridesmaids positions, and brides starting up their own GoFundMe's in order to pay for their wedding. This is not acceptable behavior, nor does this make you look like a good bride.

You've hurled some pretty horrible insults at people who refused to cater to your every demand.

Planning a wedding and getting married is stressful, but that doesn't mean you have the right to take it out on your wedding party. Most bridezillas make themselves known when they decide to blow up at a friend or family member.

Usually, this is the time when they start saying things they regret later. If you call your friends "lousy," tell them that they are "worthless" or that they "can't dance their way out of a paper bag," you should expect them to stop talking to you.

The entire time leading up to the wedding party takes hours of time out of everyone's month.

Do you insist on having hour-long meetings with the bridal party? Is it absolutely mandatory that you all go to a bachelorette party, a plastic surgery party, and multiple day-long shopping trips within the months headed up to your big day?

Believe it or not, demanding way too much time from your friends' schedules is one of the earliest signs you're a bridezilla. Your friends have lives outside of the wedding, and if you can't respect that, you might need to re-examine your life.

You've fired people from the wedding party because they didn't look the way you want them to.

This is one of the more disturbing trends I've seen in the wedding industry lately. I've heard of a lot of women who, upon getting married, fire bridesmaid friends because they were too fat, too thin, didn't have the right hair color, or were too old.

Sadly, I've heard of bridezillas that have gone so far as to tell people to get plastic surgery or lose 20 pounds in order to get into the bridal party. This is not acceptable behavior, people!

I want to point out that the people who helped you through life are always beautiful, no matter what they look like. This is because they have beautiful personalities. If you don't treasure your friends regardless of their looks, you probably don't deserve them in your life.

Everything has to be in your vision, or else.

For a lot of women, nothing quite is as important as being able to see their vision of a perfect wedding come to life. However, in the real world, your groom and family might also need to have a say about the way your wedding unfolds.

Most bridezillas turn into bridezillas because they have a serious vision that involves every little detail being planned by them. Simply put, bridezillas won't budge and that's what tends to cause most of their rage fits.

Bridezillas need to have full control of every little thing, so they can have "the perfect wedding." If this sounds like you, you probably are going to become a bridezilla as the wedding process progresses.

You told people not to throw parties, get pregnant, or have a wedding any time near your wedding.

How anyone thinks this is acceptable is beyond me, but hey, it happens. Apparently, this is a thing that happens with women who are worried about getting "upstaged."

Multiple stories on the net discuss how bridezillas have requested that their guests don't get pregnant within the year of their wedding—not to mention that some pitched fits about having weddings happen months before theirs.

Make no mistake about it, if you think that getting married means that your friends have to give up an entire year to you just because you're getting hitched, you are a bridezilla.

People have told you that you're out of control.

I remember telling my friend Hennessy that she was a bridezilla and that her behavior was not what it should be. She then told me to go fuck myself.

It takes a lot for friends to confront you about your behavior, especially when the friend in question is typically very mellow. Should you find people telling you that you're out of line on a regular basis, it's pretty safe to assume you're a bridezilla.

You critiqued and shamed your guests' presents.

We all have had a friend or family member that gives subpar gifts, and this is even true when it comes to wedding presents. However, it's safe to say that most of the people on your guest list are giving you something out of the kindness of their hearts.

What I'm trying to say is that no one is obligated to give you a gift, even if it's tradition. They're even less obligated to gift you what you want. Bridezillas typically won't realize this, or if they do, won't care.

It's normal to feel a little let down by certain presents, especially if your guests went rogue from the wedding registry. Only a bridezilla with a particularly tacky concept of manners though will go so far as to critique and shame a gift.

Under no circumstances is this an appropriate reaction. It doesn't matter if the gift you got was worth only 50 cents, you still don't shame people over a kind gesture.

You tried to foist diets and weight loss programs on your guests.

"I just want all my bridesmaids to be a perfect size six! Is that too much to ask?"

Yes, Hennessy said this to me, too. At the time, I was a size eight. I was also very fed up with her behavior—as were her two best friends, both of which were over a size 12. She had decided to make everyone lose weight through a Keto diet, despite many of us having dietary restrictions that would put our healths in jeopardy if we followed her orders.

Sadly, this is not the only bridezilla who decided that it's okay to boss around her friends when it comes to food. If you're a bride, that doesn't give you the right to tell people what to eat or drink.

People have been dropping out of your wedding party at a breakneck rate.

You remember watching Survivor, and seeing people getting voted off the island one by one? Yeah, your wedding party should not be like that at all. People are generally thrilled to be a part of the wedding party, and will work to make sure it's a good day for you.

If you're noticing that your wedding party regularly loses bridesmaids, you need to take a look at your own actions. Are you throwing tantrums on a regular basis? Did you insult people, or put unreasonable financial expectations on them?

You have to remember that it's not just "your big day." People want to have fun at weddings too, and if they feel hurt by you, they won't want to participate in your party at all.

The professionals who you hired pulled out of the wedding.

It takes a special type of bridezilla to be so insufferable, so awful, that people won't even accept payment to stay in your wedding. Wedding industry professionals are used to seeing women have outbursts and act like bridezillas from time to time, but even they have their limits. Haven't you been on the sidelines and seen the look of disgust on the wedding planner's face, thinking about all the things a wedding planner won't tell you, the bridal party, or the "happy couple."

If you somehow manage to tick off a wedding professional until they break character and breach your contract, you really have gone out of line.

The groom ditches you, citing that you've become someone different while planning the wedding.

One of the most telling signs you're a bridezilla can be found in how your wedding or relationship plays out. You see, when you act like a bridezilla during your wedding, people assume that that's your real nature—even if you're not usually like that.

Every groom who married a bridezilla tends to wonder whether they're making the right decision when they watch her have a meltdown. There are plenty of grooms who, upon seeing one too many tantrums or hearing one too many verbal beatdowns, decided that they didn't want to marry.

Many people tend to see bridezilla behavior as a sign that their wedding will be a disaster (as well as what's to come in a marriage), and they wouldn't be wrong for thinking that way. If you read bridezilla horror stories online, you'll also notice that they involve a serious amount of updates involving divorce within a year.

When I mention these things, I'm not saying that you shouldn't want your wedding to be your way. What I am saying, though, is that you might not like the price it comes at.