Hey Ladies

Weddings can be stressful. One of the things that make weddings stressful is the dynamic of the wedding party. Hey Ladies is a depiction of emails and text messages that are exchanged between a bride, the mother of a bride and bridesmaids the year before a wedding. I was so excited to read this book having my own wedding two years ago.

When I was planning my wedding I tried my best not to be a Bridezilla. The time I had been closest to losing it was when I had troubles scheduling with my hairdresser before the wedding. The other potential incident that could have provoked me to become Bridezilla was when a bunch of invitations that were lost in the mail forced me to reach out to people I hadn't heard from after our requested  RSVP date had passed. In addition to people not receiving invitations there were also lot of people received invitations and just did not RSVP. Setting up an online RSVP system and an extended RSVP  date helped solve this problem. But I was hurt and stressed out by this situation.  I didn't take any time off from work until the week of my wedding and having an additional task added to the stress of wedding planning. These are the incidents that got me closest to acting like a Bridezilla. 

However there is a way I still relate to a Bridezilla character in spite of trying really hard not to be one. Planning a  wedding is a lot of work. While the work that goes into wedding planning  is lot of fun juggling a jobs with wedding planning is stressful. Then in the stress of the moment relationships with family and friends who are involved with the wedding can be strained a bit with heightened emotions.

In the book Hey Ladies I did find the bride unlikable and completely selfish. She did not deal well with her bridesmaids not responding immediately to her when she needed something. When people were not replying to her phone calls within 5 minutes she sent out frantic emails. She requested that anything that didn't have anything to do with her be removed from her email chain. Her unlikability was one of the reasons why some people left negative reviews of the book. But thinking about things I sometimes wanted to say but didn't and hearing stories about the brides I thought that it was accentuating the way brides really can behave. I actually loved the book for the ridiculous behavior.

The bridesmaids weren't very likable either.  It is actually not good etiquette to accept an offer of being a bridesmaid if one does not have the time or money to be there for the bride. I know that some of the comments made were because the brides expectations were too high and the planning was downright ridiculous. But the bridesmaids also did not always honor the brides requests. They did things like giving opinions about the date of the wedding and assuming that they could bring a +1 without discussion with the bride when it was not on the invitation were amongst the many pieces of annoying behavior by the bridesmaids. But again the book was meant to highlight the ridiculous behavior women have.

Honestly even if a gal has never planned a wedding she might relate to how groups of women relate to each other. People trying to replan another woman's birthday party and friends who are trying to constantly promote businesses they are trying to start are things that I would have relate to without having been a bride.

My only real complaint about this particular book is that I got it as a digital library book. Years ago I read and owned a book called Always the Bridesmaid that I kept lending to girlfriends who struggled with dynamics of being bridesmaids in friends weddings. This is a similar tale for a digital age that I definitely would want to be able to share with anyone involved with planning a wedding. I will likely be purchasing this book in the future to give as gifts to any friends who announce engagements.