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Wedding Shop Employees Reveal The Scariest Bridezilla Moments They Ever Experienced

Wedding Shop Employees Reveal The Scariest Bridezilla Moments They Ever Experienced

Wedding Shop Employees Reveal The Scariest Bridezilla Moments They Ever Experienced

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Weddings are one of the most coveted, beautiful traditions we have as human beings: two people, joined together for life. A beautiful cake, the all-too-familiar wedding dress and tuxedos, and of course, the fun of the reception after. But the weddings don't come cheap. And with the expensive nature of the wedding, comes the stress. And from the stress comes the Bride or Groom-zilla.

Redditor RedFrizz tempted fate when asking:

Wedding Shop workers, what are your worst bridezilla stories?

Here were some of the answers.

Wedding Shop Employees Reveal The Scariest Bridezilla Moments They Ever Experienced

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Florist- We had a bride and her mother show up at 9am. They wanted to order a bridal bouquet, a mother of the bride cattelya orchid corsage, a boutonniere for the groom, and six smaller ones for the groomsmen. The wedding was scheduled for noon. Yep, three hours from then, and they wanted them ready by the time they were done with thier makeup appointment at the beauty parlor a few doors down. The bride was flipping through the FTD sample book and pointing out the style and flowers she wanted. Think garden roses with long sweeping trails of stephanotis and variegated ivy, all three of which would require at least a week's advanced order with our suppliers. She was absolutely gobsmacked that we didn't carry extremely expensive and highly perishable flowers at all times. Same with the catteleya orchid for the mom's corsage. My boss told them that since they didn't place an order beforehand they would be limited to what we had in stock, and simple styles that could be assembled quickly. The bride and her mom kept pointing at the book and arguing that we should have those specific flowers in stock. My boss eventually took the book off the desk and tossed it behind the counter.

The bride vacillated between tears and petulant whining that we were going to ruin her big day. My boss, who had a bone deep loathing for brides in general, told her she had ruined her own day by not ordering her flowers before her actual wedding day. The mom tried chewing out my boss for her lack of customer service skills. My boss told her that she was welcome to go down the street to Vons and ask their flower department to make thier order with whatever they had in stock. The mom said she'd do just that, and reassured the bride that she'd have her flowers done by the time her appointment was over. Both women stormed out.

I figured that was that, but my boss told me and the other girl to start on six simple dendrobium orchid bouts. Meanwhile she threw together a ribbon wrapped bridal bouquet with some white roses that were nearly past their prime and some more dendros. Sure enough, twenty minutes later the MoB slunk back in and meekly asked if we were still able to assemble what they needed. We did. We also charged her a very large b-tch tax- ahem, rush fee.

Show Some Restraint

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I am a florist and serviced a bridezilla and groom without a hitch on my end. On their end? They Had to go out of state to get married because they had protective orders against each other!

Volcanic Sash

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My mom and I saw a great bridezilla freak out while shopping for my wedding dress a few years back. We were in a small, local shop when another mother-daughter duo came in. The attendant who had been helping us went up to greet them. The mother said they were here to pick up her daughter's dress, so the attendant looks her name up in the computer, frowns, and says, "Ma'am, you never bought the dress."

"What are you talking about?"

The attendant shows the lady the notes on her computer screen. "You said you wanted to think about it, and asked if we could hold the dress. We held it for two weeks, but when we didn't hear back from you, we assumed you didn't want it."

"Well, we want it now."

"It's been over eight months", the attendant explained, "We sold the dress a long time ago. But I can order you another one, and have it expedited here in a few weeks."

And like a Mt. St. Helens of entitlement, the eruption began. "This is unacceptable!" The mother shrieked. "We have her alterations scheduled in two hours! The wedding is a week away! I can't believe you sold her dress!" The bride, meanwhile, is slumped against the desk and sobbing like someone killed her dog.

My mom and I are just open-mouthed staring at this point. The attendant was trying to be diplomatic, but is clearly as baffled as we are. "Ma'am, we had no way to know you wanted it. You never called. You never put down a deposit. The dress isn't yours until you pay for it."

After some more screaming from the mother and wailing from the bride, they left. The shop attendant came back over to us and I asked her, "Does that kind of thing happen a lot?"

The poor lady just deflated. "All the time."

It baffles me to this day. How do you schedule alterations on a dress that you never purchased? Why would you wait until a week before the wedding to pick up your dress? How do you make it to adulthood without knowing how basic buying and selling transactions work?

TL;DR - Turns out dress shops can't read your mind, and you need to actually pay money for a wedding dress before it is yours. Go figure.

Parental Destruction

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I worked at bridal shop and I have to say that I never really had a terrible bride. It was always the moms, grandmas, sisters and friends that were terrible. Either they hated what the bride would pick out for them to wear or they would hate what she was picking out for herself to wear. We have kinda strict appointment guidelines when it comes to time and a lot of brides that would bring entourages wouldn't find a dress because everyone would bombard her with their opinions and overwhelm them.

The worst thing I've ever witnessed was when a bride that always struggled with her weight came in. She was overweight and had been working extremely hard on it over the last year. It was a slower day and we all loved her story and wanted to make that day special so we all decided to help. She finally found a dress that she loved and she started crying along with most of us. Then she looked at her mom and asked for her opinion and her mom looked at her and said "you look fat in it". We all stood there in silence and the bride lost her happiness. She asked to be assisted in taking it off and they left.

It was one of the saddest days that I had experienced there.

Don't Mess, Princess

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I worked at a mom/pop shop. We had a bride who was polish, who my boss called 'polish princess', she wasn't my bride but they picked a very bad consultant for her. Made worse by the fact that this girl wanted stuff added to her dress that wasnt done by the manufacture so we had to do it all in house. To give you an example, she wanted lights, those tube lights? I think that's what they are called, all around the bottom half of a dress that we had already spliced with two different dresses.

Side note: my boss loved anything that meant money.

Anywho, we spent months fixing and refitting this dress because she not only lost 45lbs from her first time being measured, which brought her 4 dress sizes less than her original, she also got a massive boob job, bruskia. Well, after finally fitting her into her gown, on the last week she decided the lights that took our poor 70 year old seamstress two months to sew in, looked tacky. She was crying and throwing herself at her mother in a tantrum, screaming in polish all this crazy s*. She ripped the bottom of the dress and ultimately had to buy a dress from David's bridal because my boss finally got smart and kicked her out. Just a mess. She made our seamstress cry!!!!! The b-tch.

Atten-Butt!

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I worked at a high end bridal shop in my early 20s. One day, I had a bride-to-be shopping for a gown and she had brought her Mom, Aunt, and sister (who had just become a new mom) with her to her appointment. The sister was obviously a little jealous that attention was no longer being lavished on her and her new baby, and instead the bride was the now the center of attention. As I was fitting the bride in a $2500 Lazaro Bridal Gown, the sister decided to change her newborn's diaper in the dressing room & proceeded to hold the shit filled diaper up to the gold- hued gown and exclaim "look the colors almost match!" I excused myself from the room for fresh air and to regain composure. In my experience- the brides were rarely the problem- the family was!

Mom-rriage

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most of the times...it's not the bride. It's a mother of the bride or maid of honor.

I work in alterations. Most of the time, it takes more than one appointment to get things perfect. Bride comes in for her 2nd appointment for us to do any adjustments. She needed a couple of things adjusted.

Her mother told me I ruined her daughter's marriage.

Not wedding...but marriage.

All I could think was if needing to adjust something on your dress and having to come back for one more appointment make you think someone ruined your perfect life with someone...well...good luck to her groom.

So Much Screaming

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Oh I work as a wedding server, awesome job I love it. As soon as someone says bridezilla this one story where the manager of our hotel had to shut down the wedding halfway through comes to mind. This was the bridezilla of all the bridezillas I've ever seen.

There were a lot of little things leading up that were casual bridezilla until the wedding took a sharp turn. At one point she accused the wedding server staff of stealing her veil... then the manager found it in her room and also showed her the card swipes to her room proving only she had been in the room that day.

About 20 minutes later she was screaming at some poor front desk employee accusing her of stealing her wedding boots. Manager intervened and after a long talk the photographer told them he had a photo of the boots on the staircase of the church, and asked if she had worn them since... when she said no she told our place it was our job to have picked them up and made sure she had them (the church was not related to our place at all).

THEN shortly after she started opening the wedding gifts frantically inside the ballroom and screaming at anyone and everyone, guests included, saying someone stole her wedding certificate.

After that , our manager gathered the wedding staff and told us to take off our uniform jackets, Empty them in front of him, then to clock out and go home. Which we all did, none of us stole anything , and we heard next day the maid of honor had the certificate and after we left the wedding was shut down completely. Room left as is for the bride to come back to in the morning.

Registrar Woes

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I used to be a "Bridal Consultant" at a retail store which basically means I helped couples scan things onto their registry, although the training for it just meant I knew how to use the scanner and the computer and my actual job had nothing to do with bridal shopping. This one couple came in to start a new registry, which quickly turned into only things the bride wanted. Anything the groom wanted to put down on the registry was deemed as "childish, stupid, ugly, unpractical, never-going-to-be-used". I was cringing during the entire appointment, she kept asking for my input/opinion on everything and I felt so bad for this guy. His bride-to-be seemed so selfish and entitled, couldn't believe the fact that he was soon to be married to this woman. The poor man just wanted a waffle maker, who doesn't want waffles?!

Christmas Caper

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I work at a hotel that does a huge amount of wedding business, and we had an engagement shower with the plan being that the couple would be having the wedding with us as well. This involved the bride-to-be and to an extent, her mother.

Anyways, we knew there were going to be issues because neither the bride or groom ever smiled. She was always complaining about how he was "wishy-washy" with picking a date and he was always silent. The MOB was your stereotypical Brooklyn Jewish Mother and had her hand in EVERYTHING to make sure things were perfect for her little princess. (My experience has shown that the MOB/MOG are exponentially worse than the actual people getting married.)

Well, the engagement party starts, and everyone, except for the couple, seem to be having a great time. Then, halfway through the party, we suddenly heard the girl scream at her fiancee "WE WILL NEVER HAVE A CHRISTMAS TREE IN MY HOUSE, SO YOU CAN GET OVER IT!!!!"

And from there it devolved into a shouting match between the couple, who moved from the banquet room to the lobby so their "guests" couldn't hear the argument. (Didn't work. They heard everything.)

Apparently she was Jewish and he was Protestant and not once in their relationship had they discussed religion. They went at it on and off for two hours. She was screaming at the top of her lungs about how their (non-existent) children would be raised Jewish, and how his traditions didn't matter. Her mother standing at her side and nodding in agreement and interjecting occasionally with a "that's right" or "you tell him".

He was pleading (in a good attempt to be quiet, but was obviously frustrated) for her to at least compromise to let him at least invite his pastor from his home town for the wedding, and that their (non-existent) children could possibly do things with his parents for Christmas, even if they didn't celebrate.

The guests just kept partying, pretending nothing was happening, but you could see on all of their faces that they wanted to leave, but couldn't since they would have to pass by the couple to get to the only exit.

Only after two hours and the argument eventually devolving in to her INSISTING her children would never see a Christmas tree in their whole lives so they wouldn't be confused (good luck with that one in this country, lady) the groom finally, dejectedly said "Well then maybe this isn't going to work."

She threw her ring at him and said, (I swear to god) "THEN WHY THE HELL DID YOU LET ME MAKE YOU PROPOSE?!?!?!?!?!?!" She then changed her mind, picked up the ring and said "Whatever. I'm keeping this." and stormed off. Her mother looked at her ex-potential-son-in-law, told him he was an idiot for letting her baby go, and went after her.

I've NEVER seen a banquet room clear of people so fast. Within fifteen minutes, everyone was gone, and it was a ghost town, and from the looks of it, everyone took their "Gifts" with them.

Worse still, it was the former-bride's family who had hosted and were staying at the hotel, so we spend the next two days "commiserating" with them about how awful the groom was as they moved their daughter out of his apartment.

Dude dodged a bullet.

Don't Cheat Your Guests

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Restaurant manager story.

The wedding dinner was on a Sunday so instead of the usual 1 manager on, we had the banquet coordinator come on for a few hours to make sure everyone was happy. They were a rich couple and we wanted more of their bssiness. Their menu was $119 a person and they had $80 bottles of red on the table.

So guests start to arrive and order obviously start ordering drinks. At this point bride and mother see this and approach the head server. They tell her that everyone except the head table are to get separate bills. That they are not planning on paying for anything but what's at the head table. Server finds us, tells us what's happening and banquet manager heads over to figure out what's going on. Seems that the bride and mother decided that their guests should have to pay, and they didn't want to be the bad guys so they expected us to have to tell the guests. They also decided that since they are their guests at their wedding, they will drink and eat what they are eating.

We tell the people that have already arrived, half of them laugh thinking it's a joke, once we told them the truth, they laughed and left. My job became to stay at the front and tell all the people arriving for the dinner that they are going to be responsible for their whole bill, and what the costs were.

Final guest count was 20 people. Most left once I told them what the costs were. We ended up threatening legal action against them since they signed the banquet sheet stating that they agreed on 60 dinners. Best part was they paid the full 60 dinners, plus gratuity, and only had 20 people there because they wanted to save some money.

Other end of the spectrum was a Muslim wedding. We had to even cover the wine in glass storage in their wedding dinner room. The parents who were paying the bill felt since it's their money, it's their type of wedding. Except the bride and groom showed up the day before, left a credit card and told us to have an open bar ready for any of their guests. Alot of people went upstairs to the bathroom that day which oddly enough was right beside the bar

Demands

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I worked management at a resort in a popular tourist town. When weddings are booked at our venue with the event coordinator we can hold certain number of rooms for guests attending. A manager was always required to check in the bridal couple and I had been given a heads up by the coordinator on Bridezilla.

They wanted a room on the highest floor and closer to the beach, they were booked into the Honeymoon Suite. 3rd floor, ocean views. Nope, she wanted higher and closer. Had an absolute meltdown at the front desk when I explained there was nothing higher... Or closer.

A colleague of mine ran for the event coordinator when she started screaming at me and her husband to be. He was very apologetic and trying to calm her down. She was placated and sent off with keys, less than 30 minutes later she was back and demanding we empty the rooms next to and below her. Honey those rooms cost $640 a night and we are fully booked!

I was lucky enough to not be working the night of the wedding but I heard all about her abusing the wait staff, kicking the band out for playing a song she didnt like and the screaming match she got into with her mother in law. What a peach!

All up the wedding was about $40,000 and she made everyone miserable. The groom left out front desk staff and box of wine to apologise for her behaviour.

Not the only Bridezilla, but definitely the craziest I had

All That Work

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Worked for a wedding photographer here.

Wonderful couple, seemed made in heaven. Their wedding album WITH OUT pics cost 2k. Thing was made from mirrored glass, weighed a ton. It was my job to order the 60 - 8x10's the bride wanted used. This album had no protective sleeves, so every single pic had to be sprayed with a chemical coating and left to dry, in dust free area. If it did not dry with a smooth, dust free finish, I had to remove the chemical coating and try again. I spent most of that week, in a tiny closet sized room, in full respirator mask and protective gloves & Eyewear, spraying those damn pics. But my God, I have to say, it was the best job ever! When done, this couple spent over $5,000 on that one album....It was GORGEOUS!....and they divorced before the year was up. DUH!

The Cake That Goes Wrong

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Baker here. I wasn't present for the freak out, but it was my fault so...

A few months back, I had a bride who wanted a Navy to white ombre cake made with white sponge. Now, dark, rich colors like that in white cake f-cking suck. they always taste terrible because they have so much gel coloring in them to get them right. However, you can do it, if they're willing to have the dark layers be chocolate. Navy is especially easy, thanks to blue velvet. I tell her this when we're planning. "But I want white cake!" I tell her I'll do all but the last few in white sponge. She agrees, and I make the damn thing and drop it off.

I come back to pick up the staging stuff the next day, only to find my whole f-cking cake sitting there.

Apparently when they cut into the thing and fed it to each other, she freaked out over it being chocolate, and refused to let any of the cake be served. Apparently she forgot that she had agreed to have the bottom tier have two layers of blue velvet, so she threw a massive f-cking temper tantrum over 'the cake being wrong' and how I ruined her wedding, then locked herself in the bridal suite. if she wouldn't have been a little psychopath and let the staff cut the cake like they should have, she would've seen that 90% of the cake was white sponge like she wanted.

Can't You Change Those?!

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Wedding band member here.

Had a bride flip her sh-t at me and my band mates because our instruments weren't white or salmon coloured to fit in with the decorations and she was saying we would ruin the photographs. Even though I was playing during the reception and all the photos were already taken.

A sunburst jazz bass, blue Stratocaster and a red drum set aren't going to ruin your pictures darling.

Momzilla

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Wedding coordinator here! I've found the mom's are usually worse than the brides. I worked a wedding this past summer with a ridiculous momzilla. During the rehearsal, she handed me the box of decorations and said "don't you dare make this look tacky". On the day of the wedding, she arrived and came up to ask me where the wedding programs were. I told her there weren't any programs in any of the boxes and she proceeded to b-tch me out for losing them and then decided that I stole them. She also asked that we build a water station for the guests, but instructed that she didn't want the guests to have access to it until after the ceremony. It was 90 degrees that day and the ceremony was outside so that did not go over well. And when the guests complained that they were thirsty and we weren't letting them go to the water station, she told them how horrible we were and made a big deal out of opening the water station early, like she was the hero. Thank god they only booked the venue for the ceremony so she was only my problem for about an hour.

The next day my boss handed me an email the momzilla sent her. She wrote about how I lost the programs but then in the same sentence said she found the programs in her hotel room later that night and made a comment about how I should've gone to her hotel and gotten them. She also complained about how I wouldn't give her guests water and how the photographer was the worst person she's ever worked with. She actually wrote "don't bother remembering her name, she'll never work in his town again" about the photographer. Her letter ended with her complimenting the venue space and saying something along the lines of "I think I would be a great addition to your team of event coordinators! Let me know when I can start!"

B-tch was blatantly trying to take my job. The worst part is that my boss actually hired her. Needless to say, I quit working at that venue.

This isn't the worst story I have, but it's one of the most memorable.

Jekyll/Hyde

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I worked as a wedding planner and coordinator and one bride stands out to me because she was so inconsistent with all the vendors. She was a complete sweetheart to me during the planning phase and I never saw any of the crazy until the day of the wedding. It was honestly like a Jekyll/Hyde moment.

She wanted a big wedding, around 300 people, and spent a lot of money on the venue and food and wanted the best for everything. No complaints about paying for it either, never asked for discounts or anything like that. And since she wanted the best and seemed to have a really large budget, I referred her to a popular baker for the cake. I let her handle the logistics for the cake since I've worked with this baker before and never had any problems. I figured they would do the standard cake tasting, pick a design with the baker, and I would see a gorgeous masterpiece on the day of the wedding.

Well, that didn't really work out. For some reason she didn't want to tell the baker that it was for a wedding. I'm guessing she read that you can save money by ordering a regular cake because some vendors will automatically add an extra charge if it's for a wedding. (By the way, this is true to some extent but the extra charge truly is there for a reason. Whenever something is for a wedding the vendor puts in much more care, stresses about the timing, execution, etc. way more than usual, and often times will go all out and use premium materials or add upgrades. Not all of us are just adding extra charges for no reason.) Anyways, she decided she didn't want to pay for a wedding cake so she told the baker it was for a birthday party. The baker asked how many people the cake would need to serve and she said "around 50". She also didn't want to pay the delivery fee so she had her sister pick up the cake on the morning of the wedding and bring it to the event.

At this point it's important to mention that we live in Texas and this is a summer wedding. By the time the cake got to the venue (about 6 hours after it was picked up from the bakery), it didn't look all that great anymore. Some of the decorations had melted, the cake got a little banged up in the car ride and there was icing on the inside of the box, the entire cake was sagging on one side. It was also way too small for a wedding of her size. I saw it and it looked like a complete disaster. But at this point we're about an hour away from the start of the wedding and there's no possible way to fix this. The bride comes into the reception room with her makeup all done and sees the cake and completely flips out. Screaming, crying, throwing things, collapsing on the floor. Complete meltdown. Threatens to cancel the whole wedding if we can't fix it. We try to calm her down as much as we can and grab the makeup artist before she leaves and ask if she can help fix the bride's makeup, which is a mess now. The bride sees herself in the mirror and has another meltdown because she ruined her hair and makeup and now wants to have the whole thing re-done. After she gets everything done to perfection again, we're about an hour behind schedule. I let the guests come inside the reception room to wait because it seemed cruel to force everyone to sit outside in 100 degree heat, but when she saw that everyone was inside she had another meltdown. She spent the entire wedding sulking with a scowl on her face, and refused to take any pictures with people. Her new husband kept coming over to hug her and try to cheer her up and she would either yell at him or give him the silent treatment. Most of the guests left very early because the atmosphere felt so uncomfortable. So pretty much a waste of the $200,000 budget for a lavish wedding, all because she wanted to save a couple hundred bucks on the cake.

It's All In The Sewing

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Retired Master Seamstress checking in. Not Bridezilla but Momzilla. I was making her daughter a custom bias cut gown and had limited fitting time because the bride lived one state over. Now bias cut gowns are the devil to begin with. We (mom and I) would work on details between fittings. I would say our working relationship got very frosty. Each time the bride came for a fitting she lost weight. Tape measures don't lie. And she was not a big girl to begin with. Mom would scream that her daughter did not lose any weight. After the third fitting, third fight and the third rebuild of a very complicated gown, I finished it and told them to take the gown and do what they wanted with it. It was gorgeous but hung loose. The girl lost over 3" over the course of 7-8 weeks. I lost hours of my life, and the $$ for the work. The deposit took care of the materials ($140 per yard silk, venice lace), so there is that.

Whiskey To The Nines

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Bridal consultant here! My most memorable appointment was a party that showed up completely sh-ts-to-the-wind HAMMERED. It wasn't unusual for bridal parties to have a little "tailgate" style party in our parking lot before coming into our store. Often they'd have mimosa's or a shot or two to loosen up before the scary gown search. This party must have finished a full bottle of whiskey between the five of them. They didn't appear too sloppy when we first got started but about half an hour into the appointment it was pretty obvious that they were way to drunk to be in the setting they we're in. I had to prop the bride up with her nose in the corner of her fitting room to lace her corsets because she couldn't stand, and each time we stepped out onto the stage the bridesmaids would scream, Beatlemania style, until they were red in the face. Eventually my manager came to me and said, very sternly, "Sell this girl and get. them. out of here." The appointment ended when she fell for a gown $700 over budget, her drunkest bridesmaid swiped her own credit card to cover it, and then one of them (not sure which) sprayed a brown bodily fluid of some kind over our ENTIRE toliet.

Canapé

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Photographer. During more than a dozen years in this business, I've had almost nothing but fantastic clients, real sweethearts, and consider myself lucky.

The exception was a New York bride who was pissed because it rained cats and dogs on her wedding day (not sure if she understood I wasn't in charge of making the weather). She had wanted to take golf carts to the beach with the wedding party to do fun photos there, but that clearly didn't happen. Her foul mood spoiled a bit of the wedding. Good thing everyone else still appeared to be having a good time regardless. She managed to stay (barely) polite to her vendors, but weeks later unleashed on me because I had delivered, among I don't know how many hundreds of photos, two shots of the DJ. She calculated that those photos, based on my fee, had cost her $14, IIRC, and was almost comically displeased about that. She also flipped her wig because, she told me angrily, she'd observed me eating a few canapés during the reception --- and at three dollars apiece, how did I not understand those were not intended for the hired help!

I offered to refund her $23 and inquired where she wanted me to send the check. At that point she calmed down a bit, possibly realizing how ridiculous she was being, and then volunteered that maybe she was being a bit irrational at the moment ... because she was pregnant. Of course, I offered my congratulations. She grudgingly told me to keep the check.

I did put a baby gift (a silver rattle) in the mail to her a few weeks later. I hope she and her husband and the baby lived happily ever after!

Old Wives' Tales People Still Believe For Some Reason

"Reddit user the_spring_goddess asked: 'What is an old wives tale that people still believe?'"

Close up of an owl tilting their head to side, looking bewildered
Photo by Josh Mills

The old wives' tales.

They are the stories of legend.

I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.

Where did they originate?

WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!

You don't hear about them as much anymore.

It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.

But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.

Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:

"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"

"Wait an hour to swim after eating."

What a crock!

So many summer hours wasted.

I want revenge for that one.

Say Nothing

Giphy

"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."

LonelyMail5115

"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."

I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA

Say Something

"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."

Severe_Airport1426

"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."

crappycurtains

"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."

AlbinoShavedGorilla

Body Temps

"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."

chriseo22

"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."

"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."

apocalypticradish

Arms Down

"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."

Fatmouse84

10 Years Actually

Unimpressed Uh Huh GIF by Brooklyn Nine-Nine Giphy

"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."

REDDIT

"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."

Gecko-911

I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.

This tale is haunting.

High/Low

Hungry Debra Messing GIF by Will & Grace Giphy

"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."

LeastFormal9366

"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."

IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI

The Cursed

"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."

"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."

SmoreOfBabylon

Stay In

"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."

"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."

worldbound0514

Dreams and Facts

"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."

"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."

mattshonestreddit

"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."

Darthdemented

Cracked

Getting Ready Episode 2 GIF by The Office Giphy

"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."

Choice-Grapefruit-44

"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."

MacyTmcterry

I love my knuckles.

Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.

lottery tickets
Erik Mclean on Unsplash

A lot of workers daydream about some day winning the lottery and being able to say goodbye to their job.

Far too many workers are unhappy with their job duties, workplace dynamics or company culture.

But with a taste for luxuries like housing and food, they keep plugging away, year after year.

However not everyone feels that way about their job.

So what are these compelling careers?

Keep reading... Show less
Therapist talking during session
Photo by Mark Williams on Unsplash

Some people stand firmly stand behind their beliefs that everyone would benefit from therapy and that therapy is life-changing.

It's because of the totally life-changing truth bombs their therapist had dropped during their sessions.

Curious, Redditor anonymiss0018 asked:

"What is a little bombshell your therapist dropped in one of your sessions that completely changed your outlook?"

Communication Issues

"'If you don’t have these problems with any other person in your life, why do you think you’re the problematic person in this one?'"

- maggiebear

"I love this. I have a 'friend' who I always seem to run into misunderstandings with. Every time we had a conversation, it somehow turned into a debate even if it was me talking about my day. The conversations were never easy."

"I always evaluate myself first and take into consideration his critiques. He was very good at convincing me that I was contradicting myself or wasn't good at communicating my thoughts."

"I NEVER had this issue with ANYONE else in my life. I kept trying to figure out where the miscommunication was coming from. In the end, I just minimized contact and now I don't run into this issue."

- chobani_yo

"I read this quote somewhere once (and probably have it a bit wrong): 'It's a waste of time arguing with someone who is determined to misunderstand you.'"

- Reddit

Emotional Regulation

"'You can’t control your emotions, but you can control what you do with them.'"

"At the time, I was a young adult who had learned zero healthy emotional regulation skills (only suppression and shaming) growing up, so this blew my mind."

- lil_mermaid

Tough Relationships

"'It sounds to me like you are trying to convince yourself to stay with your girlfriend. I'm not so sure it should be so difficult.'"

"At the time he said this, I remember it was like he said, 'The earth is flat.' I thought he was crazy when he suggested relationships don't need to be difficult. But eventually, I started to realize I was trying to change myself to stay with this person rather than just being who I am."

"It took me three more months to finally break up with her but from that day on, I vowed to never again abandon myself just to be with someone I had convinced myself was better than me."

- metric88

High-Stress Situation

"I was at a high-stress time, and I asked her how people live like this."

"She replied, 'Oftentimes they have cardiac events.' She said it as an urging to care for myself as much as possible."

- KittenGr8r

The End of Alcohol

"I was struggling with my alcoholism, and we were discussing how I had been cutting back."

"She asked what I would consider success, with regard to my drinking."

"I said I wanted to get to a point where it wasn't interfering with my daily life. I wanted to just be able to have a glass of wine at holiday dinners or family gatherings."

"She simply asked me why. Why was it important for me to drink at those times?"

"It was as if she'd turned on a light. Alcohol had always been a key ingredient in every family function, for my entire life. When I smell bourbon, I think of my uncle. When I smell vermouth, I think of my dad. Alcohol ran through almost every happy childhood memory."

"But, even more than that, I was very afraid of the explanation I'd have to give when family and friends asked why I wasn't having a drink. I had tried to quit before but failed. What if I admitted my problem, only to fall off the wagon?"

"When she asked why I didn't want to completely quit, it was the first time I saw that last part of the big picture. I'd be willing to drink myself to death in order to avoid being scrutinized, or judged for possible future failures."

"That was the day I quit. I've been sober since May 6th, 2017. 2,407 days."

- sophies_wish

Acceptance vs. Enjoyment

"'Accepting something doesn’t mean you have to like it.'"

"That took away a lot of my inner conflicts about situations because I could accept a situation without expending energy internally fighting against the injustice of it."

- alibelloc

Emotionally Immature Parents

"You are not responsible for your parents' emotional wellbeing. They are independent adults who have been on this earth for many more years than you."

- SmokedPears

Not So Lazy

"'Why do you think you're lazy?' Then she listed off all the things she knows I'm doing for my family, my job, and my life."

"It kind of blew my mind when I struggled to come up with an example."

"She also described family dysfunction as water. Some families are messed up in a way that everyone can see the huge waves across the surface. Others are better at hiding it, but there's still a riptide that you can't see unless you're also in the water."

"It made me realize that trying to keep the surface from ever rippling doesn't erase what is happening underneath."

- flybyknight665

The Harm in People-Pleasing

"'Why do you make people more comfortable when you are uncomfortable?' when talking about people pleasing and fawning."

- ERsandwich

Agree to Disagree

"'Stop trying to get everyone to agree. When you need everyone to agree, the least agreeable person has all the power.'"

This really changed my outlook on planning family events."

- freef

Grieve and Start Anew

"For context, I had a major TBI (traumatic brain injury), seizures, strokes, and all around not a fun brain time when I was 28."

"They said, 'You have to grieve the loss of yourself.'"

"Most people wanted me to go back to how I was. The f**ked up truth is that part of my brain is dead. The person everyone (including myself) knew died. I needed to grieve the loss of myself."

- squeaktoy_la

Multifaceted Identity

"They told me that my job and career is just a way to make money; it's not my life or identity. That took a lot of pressure off me."

- unfairpegasus

Breaking the Cycle

"They validated me."

"'You always talk about not wanting to do to your daughters what your mom did to you. You worry about it so much in every interaction you have ever had with them."

"But your children are 19 and 21 now. They are happy and healthy and they trust you because you’ve never abused them in any way. So I just want to validate for you that you really have broken that cycle of violence."

"You did that. And you should be proud of it. I’m proud of you for it.'"

- puppsmcgee74

The Grieving Process

"I was constantly bringing up how I felt like a completely different person after my mom died... like there was a marked difference between before and after her death."

"But once, she was asking about my hobbies, I got really into describing all the things I loved to do or at least used to do before I got into a deep depression."

"She was like, 'Wow, you seem very passionate.'"

"And I just sat there like, 'Well, I mean, I can't change what I like to do, they're still fun to do.'"

"And it's like she knew when to take a step back, because it was like, wow, I may be super depressed about my mom passing, but I'm still me. I'm still my passions and those don't go away."

"I don't know, maybe it only makes sense to be, but it really started getting me back on track."

- Hannibal680

Sharing the Load

"I've never really had friends. I've had colleagues and classmates and housemates and people who have hung out with me, but I never really felt close to any of them."

"And I did that thing you see on here sometimes; I stopped reaching out to see if I would be reached out to, and I wasn't, which I took as confirmation that they didn't really want me around, or at the very least, that they wouldn't mind my absence."

"I was talking to my therapist about people I'd been close to in college, and she told me to pick one and talk about him. So I did. After I shared some basic stuff like his name and his major etc., and a couple of anecdotes, she asked me what else I knew about him."

"And I couldn't answer. It wasn't really a broadly applicable bombshell, but she said, 'What else?' and I started crying because I realized that for as simple as the question was, my inability to answer spoke volumes."

"I've never had good friends because I've never been a good friend. I'm withdrawn and reserved and I always made others do the work to drag me out, without ever extending my own friendship in a meaningful way in return. If I wanted to have meaningful relationships with other people, I would have to build them."

"I'm still working on this, but I'm trying to make more offers and extend more friendliness to others in my daily life."

- Backupusername

The discoveries in this thread were incredibly touching and profound; it's no wonder these were lasting concepts for these Redditors.

It's important to keep ourselves open to inspiration and insights from others, as we have no idea how their experiences could help us, or how we could help them.

Aerial view of a church in a small town
Sander Weeteling/Unsplash

There's something comforting about living in a small town.

It's characterized by close communities where neighbors know each other by name and there is an abundance of kindness extended to others.

Gift-giving is a commonality, as is the sharing of recipes, and people going out of their way to help each other in a time of need.

The pace of living in small towns is also a striking contradiction to city life, where crowds of people go about their busy lives without much interaction.

Curious to hear more examples of what small town living is like, Redditor official_biz asked:

"What's the most 'small town' thing you've witnessed?"

These are positive examples of a tight-knit community.

Live Updates

"We have a village Facebook page. Every time the ice cream man drives into the village, the entire page goes ballistic. People send live updates of where the van is and which direction he's heading. The ice cream man has started accepting DMs so he knows which streets to go down."

– PyrrhuraMolinae

Brush With The Law

"I’m from a town of less than 2,000 people. When I worked at the grocery store there people would often drop off stuff for my family members because they didn’t want to drive all the way down to our house. I no longer live there but recently got a call from my daughter. She had been stopped for speeding and handed over her license and insurance which happens to be in my mother’s name. The officer goes 'Hey, you’re Donnie’s granddaughter! I ain’t gonna write you a ticket but I’m telling Donnie when I see him tomorrow cause we’re going fishing.' She replied 'I think I’d rather have the ticket.'”

- Reddit

Roadside Catchup

"The traffic on the 'main street' of my town is so sparse, two drivers going opposite directions can stop and talk to each other for a few minutes without causing any problem."

– anon

When things go wrong, people take notice without incident.

Bank Robbery

"A guy robbed a bank and everyone knew immediately who he was and the teller got mad at him."

– AlexRyang

"A local bank was robbed and one of the tellers told the police to bring her a yearbook from about ten years earlier and she would be able to point the robber out. He had been in the grade before hers in school."

– Strict_Condition_632

Wise Woman

"When I worked at the bank in town there was an older lady that had worked there through 5 mergers."

"She knew everyone, there was a young guy yelling at me one day. She walked out of the back and he immediately quieted. She went off about telling his grandmother that he was treating young women like sh*t. She also said that if he didn’t straighten up not one girl in town would ever marry him she would make sure of it."

– ilurvekittens

Intoxicated Local

"Town drunk was paralyzed and used a motorized wheelchair to get around. I was driving home one Saturday night and said town drunk was passed out in his wheelchair doing circles almost directly in the town square. Had to call his brother who came and picked him up on a rollback truck. Strapped him down and drove off into the cold dark night."

– DoodooExplosion

Grazing Over To The Bar

"In my former small town, there was an older guy who'd lost his license after getting a few DUIs. Every day, he would ride his John Deere lawnmower to the corner bar around 3PM and sit around watching TV and sipping his beer well into the night. Then he'd head the couple miles back home on his mower. He even had a little canvass shell he put on when it rained or got too cold."

– brown_pleated_slacks

It's not surprising how small town people behave differently than those who are from metropolitan areas.

Welcoming Committee

"I lived in a small town. When I moved there, people would ask, 'Whose house did you buy?'"

–MoonieNine

"Move to a small town. 30 years later, you are still the new guy."

– impiousdrifter

"I lived in a small town for most of my childhood but I wasn't "from there" because my grandparents weren't from there."

– raisinghellwithtrees

"Worked with an older guy, relative of the owner of the business, he was 73. I asked him if he was a local, he said 'no his parents moved here when he was two.'"

– realneil

A Busy Day

"Lived in a town of about 5,000: A woman walked into the DMV on a Friday, saw that there were 3 people ahead of her and left to come back another time when they weren't so busy."

– KenmoreToast

Who Let The Dogs Out?

"My dogs got out while i was working. the police called my niece's elementary school (she was a 5th grader) to get her to round them up and take them back home."

– mediocrelpn

"There was a small kennel behind the police station for runaways. They called us saying they had our dog, and moments later our dog showed up home. He broke out of jail."

– Worried_Place_917

While life in a small town sounds appealing, I don't know if I can ever live in one.

I'm so used to life in big cities, I think it would be quite unnerving to adjust in a neighborhood where everyone literally knows your business.

I would be paranoid.

And I'm sure the same could be said of life in the big city.

Would you consider making the switch to life in a different setting?