Today, I am at my desk, furiously typing and editing video and consulting a to-do list that’s about the length of said desk. Because in exactly one week from now, I won’t be sitting here. I will be packing my parents’ car with every DIY item and hasty purchase of something that is apparently 100% necessary to get married. 

Yes, my wedding is next weekend. And I am feeling a bit… frazzled.

I’m very excited for what’s in store in approximately 168 hours, when all the planning of the past two years will kick into fruition and I can have an espresso martini. Once we’re officially underway, I’m ready to soak up every single moment and plead with time to move as slowly as possible. I have been looking forward to this for a very long time, and I can’t wait to call my fiancée Anna my wife. 

I also can’t wait to close my wedding spreadsheet tabs, clear the supplies off our kitchen table, and resume spending the weekends with our friends instead of holed up inside our apartment like Gollum, huddled over stationary designs and Zoom calls with vendors while wearing knockoff Betsey Johnsons to break them in for the first dance. 

Now I truly understand why people shell out the extra money for a wedding planner. 

Despite all the labor (physical and emotional), expense (intended and not-so-much), and endless weighted ab exercises (which were kind of unnecessary since, as my best man pointed out, it’s not exactly a stomach-baring gown), I’m glad that we decided to have a wedding. I’m not sure you can call a gay wedding “traditional,” but there will be a ceremony, a cocktail hour, and a reception. Not one, but two white dresses, and a honeymoon on a beach the following week (and thank god for that, because I need to do absolutely nothing). 

Soon I’ll be able to say that I did it, the whole classic shebang. With that lived experience in mind, I also have something I want to talk about: the bridezilla.

The term “bridezilla” was introduced by Diana White in a 1995 Boston Globe article and rose to prominence in the late nineties and early 2000s to describe a greedy, obsessive, unhinged woman planning her wedding in the style of Godzilla stomping on surrounding buildings. In the social media era, I don’t see the term used as ubiquitously anymore, but it has been replaced by subreddits devoted to wedding shaming, TikTok drama, and group chat gossip about matrimonial meltdowns. 

I have long been fascinated by weddings, even when I’m not working on my own. I came of age in the era of TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress, Four Weddings, and the extremely offensive My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I watched, wide-eyed, as my favorite YouTubers tied the knot in wedding vlogs. I made Pinterest boards. I downloaded a guide to Disney weddings. And I joined every single wedding subreddit, from r/weddingsunder10k to r/bigbudgetbrides.

In addition to tips on how to source your own florals, I surveyed the space and saw it was standing on the ashes of countless friendships, family bonds, and called-off engagements. To say that weddings are emotionally-charged affairs would be an understatement. For a number of reasons, including the cost and the emotional stakes, weddings lay relationships bare and can make or break them. Sometimes the villain is someone’s absentee friend group or future husband or mother-in-law clad in a painfully white dress. But most often, the villain seems to be the bridezilla.

I learned that I should not, under any circumstances, let myself morph into this monstrous form. I needed to displace my desires when necessary. I could not cause a scene or demand too much from anyone. And above all, I needed to practice gratitude for the sacrifices everyone else was making for me.

Wait a minute. That kind of sounds like an instruction manual for becoming a #tradwife. Could it be that the cultural institution of the bridezilla is yet another dated, sexist stereotype deployed to scare women into submission and ready them for an existence of serving others before themselves, especially the men in their lives? Do the narrative clichés of wedding drama serve as stand-ins for the most common ways women are measured and pitted against each other? Well, marriage is an inherently misogynistic institution to begin with, so what do you think?

Considering that I am a woman marrying another woman, I wondered if my wedding experience would turn those gendered expectations on their head. Some, but not all.

As my fiancée and I have bemoaned to each other and anyone else who would listen, the social conditioning brides-to-be are subjected to is still in place, regardless if you’re a lesbian feminist or not. In fact, since there are two of us, we’re seeing double. Two insecurities about how we look. Two bridal suites that need to be stocked with expensive clothes and accessories. Two entrances down the aisle. Two potential bridezillas, although I think we’ve both managed to be pretty polite.

The best part about marrying a woman, besides the love I have for her as an individual, is getting to share this workload. Unfortunately, wedding labor, like all forms of domestic labor, is still disproportionately shouldered by women. Like, a lot. The “groomzilla” isn’t a thing, because the groom is barely registered as a part of the equation until the day he puts his suit on, which very well may have been picked out and picked up by someone else. Grooms aren’t expected to handle it all, in addition to physically looking the best they’ll ever look in their life. A TikTok I came across recently showed a woman on the treadmill in her white heels, veil on, weights in hand, watching a “bridal arms” workout video. It was satirical, but barely. “Groom arms” aren’t a thing, either. 

Maybe the bridezilla is testy because she’s been in a calorie deficit for the past six months. Maybe the bridezilla is frustrated because her cousins still haven’t RSVPed even though she’s sent three follow-ups. Maybe the bridezilla is angry because she paid $500 to get her teeth whitened and now her lateral incisor is twinging painfully every 15 minutes. Maybe the bridezilla is stretched so thin at work she’s about to snap, and people keep forgetting she’s off next week. Maybe the bridezilla has just realized this is how the rest of her life is going to look. Maybe the bridezilla is scared she’s making a big mistake.

Of course, this still doesn’t excuse bad behavior from brides-to-be. Women are perfectly capable of being selfish, cruel, manipulative, and so on. But rarely does the raging Reddit comment section consider that a woman acting out of character while planning her wedding might have a reason beyond her being some kind of supernatural entity or an insufferable bitch. 

Women are taught from a very young age that weddings are the “best day” of our entire lives, the subtext of which is that the rest of our days won’t be so great. That’s one piece of propaganda I’m definitely opting out of. I’m very excited for this day, and I know it will be great, because I’ll be surrounded by the people I love the most. Also, when I tallied up everything I still need to do, I put on Lady Gaga’s “The Joker” and stared forlornly into the distance. The Joker is me, indeed.

As conservative pundits in particular keep telling us, more people than ever are opting out of marriage and weddings entirely—or at least waiting longer to have them. I’m glad that women in particular have the freedom to choose. For me, the choice is only possible because same-sex marriage was legalized the day before I turned 18, and I’m so thankful to be a part of the first young adult generation to have these rights. And now that I’ve experienced it firsthand, I have a lot more sympathy for the bridezilla. She’s dealing with a lot.

Now, as I enter these final preparations, I’m ready to take a break. But don’t worry, because I have a lot in store for you when I’m gone. Kylie Cheung is taking over the newsletter next week with an excerpt from her upcoming book, and there will be a spooky surprise the week after. My fiancée and I also recorded a much longer podcast talking about all of this that will go out when we’re on our honeymoon. And next time you hear from me, I’ll be on the other side. (Of the wedding. Not life itself. Everything will be the same. I promise.)