‘She completely took me for granted’: What happens when bridesmaids realise they actually hate the bride?

No one likes to conjure sexist images of ‘bridezillas’ run amok, but it is true that being the bridesmaid to a friend can lead to resentment, feuding and all kinds of outrageous self-involvement. Olivia Petter meets the women whose wedding day responsibilities ended up being a funeral for their friendships

‘She was so rude to us. It made me never want to be a bridesmaid again’ (iStock)

Alice*, 35, knew things were going to be difficult when she received a torrent of WhatsApp messages from the bride-to-be. She’d suddenly decided she no longer trusted her own sister to plan her hen do, and desperately needed Alice to step in and save the day. Oh, and she also had three weeks to do it. “I pulled it together somehow,” Alice recalls. “But on the day, the bride behaved horribly, acting as though she hadn’t wanted a hen do at all and cringing at all of the activities she’d asked me to organise. Everyone found it very awkward and confusing.”

Despite having been close since teenagers, the pair fell out shortly after the wedding. “She just seemed to completely take me for granted and expected to take without any giving whatsoever,” Alice recalls. “It made me think it was better she was out of my life.”

It might sound extreme, but bridesmaids falling out with the bride has become a common – if often unsaid – story among millennial women. One survey from 2014 found that as many as one-third of British brides lose contact with a bridesmaid after they get married. Anecdotally, meanwhile, stories are rife. Just ask anyone who’s been a bridesmaid.