My Bridezilla Moment

I thought that I might be able to avoid having a "bridezilla" moment but unfortunately, even as a seasoned wedding planner I am not immune.

For those of you who do not know the term 'bridezilla', here is the definition according to Wikipedia:

A bridezilla (a neologistic portmanteau of bride and Godzilla) is a difficult, unpleasant, perfectionist bride.

Webster goes into a littel more detail:

Horrific, bulging-eyed bride prone to screaming spells and spontaneous fits of hysterical rage. Bridezillas are known to drop blows over seating charts, get bug-eyed at the mere mention of carnations and view hurling champagne at their wedding planners as a form of hazing.


And you can't help but enjoy this description from Bridezilla.com

Exceptionally attractive, confident women who know what they want and can’t be bothered to sugar coat because they are obviously on 100 calorie- a- day microbiotic diets and can’t even sneak a pack of Splenda if their life depends on it. Bridezillas are both blessed and cursed with a higher vision of perfection than most mediocre, David’s Bridal wearing, Gerber daisy carrying mortals and have no choice but to impart this vision exactly to the masses. It is this motive that drives them to demand nothing less than excellence from their staff-err, wedding party.

In college I was an art minor with a focus on graphic design. I decided pretty quickly that I was too much of a perfectionist to be a good graphic designer. To make any money, you have to get projects out quickly and that seemed impossible for me. I would spend hours trying to find the perfect font or the exact matching color. These skills of perfection do come in handy as a wedding planner but as a bride but it has also been a curse.

I was searching for the perfect script font to use on my wedding invitations and came across Bickham Script. While researching this font to see how it looked in different sizes and letters I stumbled upon Burguess Script. I fell in love with this font immediately and knew this was the one. The flourishes are breathtaking and I could loose myself for hours admiring the playful yet elegant swoops and swirls.

After spending hours and hours searching for a download for Burguess Script, I called upon one of my bridesmaids, who is also a wedding planner, and enlisted the help of her mother in law who is the queen of fonts. I met my bridesmaid at her mother in law's home and she began a search through her catalog of many fonts and online. We had no luck in finding a free download and only a few websites offered you the font at the price of $100. Yes, for only one hundred dollars this beautiful font can be yours. After a relentless search, I felt defeated and extremely frustrated.

I wanted this font. I needed this font. I had to have this font! (Hello Bridezilla!)

My bridesmaid, and fellow wedding planner, could feel the disdain and see the ever haunting 'horns' creeping upon my head.  She pulled me aside and said, "Chelsey if you had a bride that was stressing this much over a silly font what would you do?" I reluctantly laughed as I told her that I would tell my bride to relax, that we would find something else that she loved and to not fret over this simple thing. She responded with, "Yes. Exactly. Let's move on."

I went home and was still upset about the font. I did not want to spend $100 of our already tight budget on a typeface. It seemed ridiculous and unnecessary.  However, after countless hours of searching and hundreds of fonts later, I finally just broke down and bought it. I absolutely love the font and when I saw it printed on our Save the Dates, I had no buyers remorse. They were perfect and exactly what I wanted.

After my 'bridezilla' moment I ran across a quiz "Are you a Bridezilla?" on WE TV. I decided to take the quiz out of humor and here is my assessment:

Well you've almost got a spot on team Bridezilla... but not quite. You're sort of like the water girl - you're supporting the team and you're learning a lot.

Clayton may disagree, but as of now, I am not on team Bridezilla!