Weddingbee boards

Disclaimer: This is not my MOH, I was one of the other bridesmaids. And I'm not particularly looking for advice, just to get it off my chest and hear some sympathetic comments from people who've had similar situations. And this is super long, sorry!

I was a bridesmaid this weekend for a friend, and while the wedding weekend with all its parties and get togethers was beautiful and fun (and an hour behind schedule at all times! ), there was one major annoyance -- the MOH. She was promoted after the original MOH had to drop out, and while I understand the bride's reasoning for choosing her (the groom's sister wouldn't have worked out and the rest of us were all college friends that she didn't want to put in a hierarchy, and her husband was the best man), I really wish that for the bride's sake, this woman had been able to set aside her self-centered, drama queen attitude for just three days and just supported the couple unselfishly.

She freaked out about her dress -- we all made our own, and she picked a different pattern because she was pregnant, and thought she looked stupid because of the sticky-out poof in the front that her belly had not yet grown into. I understand not wanting to look dumb, but she made it HERSELF out of a pattern she picked HERSELF (I'm two weeks more pregnant than she is and I made the original pattern work just fine) and instead of gratitude towards the bride's concern and trying to figure out if we could alter it in a day, she threw a tantrum, complete with footstomping, until her mother told her that she could at least look stupid with her mouth shut. This woman is 26!

She also chewed out the bride in the midst of our frantic getting-ready period about the garter that she had made for her over a year ago, never fit, and couldn't be altered to fit, even though with two cranky babies and 8 women running around in one small hotel suite doing hair and makeup there was more than enough drama to go around. She was nowhere to be found when the bride was needing help getting dressed, so I ended up doing that (the other bridesmaids were either tending to their babies or still getting their hair done), and maybe she is angry at me for this, but the bride chose me to ride with her to the church (I'm glad I did.. we were able to just sit and breathe deeply and pray together on the way over, and I think MOH would have just gotten the bride more tense). She had her own car to drive over anyway, but she got lost, arrived storming mad, screaming at her 3 year old daughter (flowergirl) when she wanted to just say hi to her mom she hadn't seen all day, and when my husband (an usher) asked her to calm down so he could tell her not to prick her finger on the corsage pin we'd used to fix some lace on the bride's train, she started ranting and raving about how she COULDN'T calm down, blah blah blah.

She refused to listen to directions on how we were to carry our Bibles (we had them instead of bouquets), and ran down the center aisle of the church in the middle of the ceremony because she forgot the ring, even though there was a prayer coming up she could have ducked out in while everyone had their eyes closed. She made more of a scene trying to keep her daughter under control than her daughter was making herself, and handed her (3 years old, remember!) the bride's bouquet to keep her amused... she ended up banging it on the ground and causing some of the jeweled bits to fall out.

There was more miscellaneous drama throughout the evening, including nasty remarks and attitudes to her mother, her father, her husband, and her daughter... she couldn't even take a compliment about how sweet it was to see her daughter and father dancing together at the reception without responding with some sort of negativity.

The last hurrah of this woman's drama was during the gift opening the morning after... she had been recording the gifts and their givers, and once the material gifts were all opened, a smaller group was sitting with the bride and groom as they sorted out the checks for endorsment and which bank they needed to go to. There were maybe 5 envelopes left when someone came over to say that her husband needed to leave, and she threw her hands up in the air and said "Well, I guess I'll just have to be in two places at once!" When someone suggested that someone else record the last few checks, she repeated that she just HAD to be in two places at once, and only grudgingly passed on the recording duties to someone else. Apparently no one else could do it?? UGH!

I know she wanted to feel involved, but her self-important attitude and whining about how and when she wasn't happy with her role overshadowed everything she DID do to help (she was one of the only local bridesmaids, and I'm sure she did lots the rest of us couldn't do because of distance), and just alienated her from the rest of the bridesmaids and a good chunk of the men's side of the party as well. I am just happy that the bride took what whining she did see gracefully, and that there was a lot of it she didn't see... the rest of us complained amongst ourselves, but tried to avoid making an issue to the bride and groom about it, because we knew they didn't need the extra stress.

Oh, and I was not a perfect bridesmaid by any means, for full disclosure... I was hopeless with makeup, fell asleep or was sick during most of the late-night prep work after the rehearsal dinner, had a hormone/overtired sobbing fest in the suite at 3am the night before, and because I hasn't planned on staying in the suite with the bride the night before (lots of logistics issues there), had to have people running around finding underwear and toiletries for me as I didn't have a car. So I'm not trying to set myself up against this girl for comparison, I just was feeling crappy today because of our late-night flight home yesterday and wanted some venting therapy. I feel better already.