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We began seeing this intriguing letter in our inbox in February 2002, when countless readers began forwarding it to us to ask if it was the real thing. Was this yet another glimpse into the machinations of a bridezilla, a gal so caught up in the plans for her wedding that she turns into a monster? Or was it something else? Example: [Dear Abby, 2003] Bridezilla tales are nothing new to the Internet, and usually after blossoming briefly to horrify the masses, they quietly fade into obscurity. This one, however, gained a shot in the arm when it appeared in a Dear Abby column in September 2002. Readers sent the much-traveled e-mail to Abby, seeking her comments. She offered no opinion on whether the story was true but replied: Abby's observation was dead on. It also brings us back to the was this for real or not? element of the tale. You see, if this had been a hoax, it would have been designed to make its purported author look especially heinous. And there's a strong chance that's exactly what happened. A couple of small sections of the earlier e-mail were left out of the Dear Abby version, namely: (In the February 2002 original, all the participants had different names: The curly-haired friend was Lindsay instead of Allison; Leisha and Sissy were the gals who needed to lose weight, not Judy and Molly; Addie, instead of Babs, was the paintball-loving two-fisted drinker who was soon to marry the problematic Adam, not Scotty; and the now-nameless bride signed herself as Jenny.) A careful reading of the original reveals little digs are made at Addie (Babs) throughout the piece. Granted, brides do not always get along famously with their bridesmaids, but this level of barely suppressed hostility is unusual. The unrelenting Addie-bashing should sound a few distant warning bells in those tempted to take the letter at face value, because the behavior doesn't fit the occasion. Addie drinks too much, has food problems, is marrying a loser, is dead from the waist down, should have her hair straightened because another bridesmaid preferred by the bride also has curly hair, and has to be reminded to dress properly for the shower on Saturday to head off her turning up in shorts and a dirty T-shirt. The letter wasn't so much an It's my wedding and here's how I want to run it missive as it was a bashing of one girl. Some mailings identified the bridezilla in question, so we asked her about it. She replied that while she'd been made the goat of this affair, she hadn't written the letter; the piece had been the work of a disgruntled ex-boyfriend of Addie's. This fellow had somehow gained access to Addie's e-mail account, fabricated a letter supposedly written by the bride, and propagated it as if it were something Addie had received and was now forwarding to others. In this way, everyone in Addie's address book got to see all the little digs at her. Is this a reasonable scenario? In an oddball way it is — it certainly better explains the Addie bashing element of the letter than does the bitchy bride construct. Bridezillas are generally far too lost in what's going on with them to spare much attention for any member of the wedding party other than themselves. A true bridezilla would barely recognize that her bridesmaids had lives outside of the wedding, let alone be capable of diverting the focus of attention from herself to any of them. Jenny's explanation may be plausible, but since we can't prove the story one way or the other, we'll leave this one marked as Undetermined. The letter in question appeared in the May 2002 issue of Cosmopolitan as a sidebar to a larger article about bridezillas. All the names were changed once again. The current bridezilla tale echoes an older e-mail similarly transmitted across the Internet in 1999. Please note that the claims of this letter's having been penned in all seriousness by a real bride have not been substantiated, but the piece did run in Harper's magazine in 1991. Harper's presented it as: From a letter sent by a Youngstown, Ohio, bride-to-be to her bridesmaids and ushers in 1976. Since then, copies of the six-page, single-spaced letter have been circulating nationally among engaged and newlywed couples. Those who've yet to have their fill of bridezilla stories will find many, many more stashed in the archives of Etiquette Hell, your one-stop shop for horrifying accounts of people behaving badly.
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