Her wild-eyed bouquet bashing of Mr. Big. Her coy, downcast eyes as she manipulatively wheedles an unplanned marriage proposal. Her steady blind eye to all the groom’s concerns as she marches resolutely toward the ceremony in a big, flashy, couture dress. Having just viewed the Sex and the City movie, we couldn’t help but wonder: is Carrie Bradshaw the biggest Bridezilla of all?
Like most women, Carrie starts out innocently enough. After a no-frills proposal (we think she read our guide to Inducing I Do) she blithely eschews a diamond ring in favor of a bigger closet and determines to wear a “sweet” little suit from Goodwill for her ceremony. But when all is said and done, Carrie, like so many brides who get caught up in the wedding whirlwind, is standing in a decadent couture gown, surrounded by doting bridesmaids, throwing a fit over cell phones as she is about to be jilted by the man who’s wedding concerns she’s summarily steamrolled.
When you think about it, Carrie is a Bridezilla pretty much from page one. She coyly coerces a proposal that was clearly not what Mr. Big had in mind. She embarrasses him with a flashy, 200-guest ceremony when all he wanted was something simple. And when he calls her the night before to talk out his wedding misgivings, Carrie gives him a cruise-director pep-talk, not the consoling empathetic ear of a soulmate.
But…she’s not bad. Not really. All the things Carrie does are things pretty much any bride has done (minus the Manolos and the Vogue Spread, natch). As always, Miss Bradshaw has a knack for breaking down stereotypes about women, and this movie arguably topples the most au courant of all. What the Sex and the City the series did for mistresses, the Sex and the City the movie does for Bridezillas. It humanizes them, honing in on the inexorable factors to show that, no matter how outlandish, any other behavior seem impossible under the circumstances. It brilliantly draws out the ugliest consequences (Natasha’s accident, Carrie’s altar-jilting) and the most dreamily impossible results (Carrie and Big ending up together, Carrie and Big ending up together.) As Carrie so forlornly puts it over her Valentine’s Day dinner with Miranda, “I let the wedding get bigger than Big.” If that’s not the universal apologetic of Bridezillas everywhere, we don’t know what is.
Hopefully, with the help of women’s most humane heroine, Sex and the City will contribute to a more sympathetic portrayal of Bridezillas, and put an end to the flame-breathing harpies of We TV once and for all.
Yeah, she ignored him, but shouldn’t they have compromised ? I mean they ended up with everything HE wanted ? is that really fair either ? what if she had changed her mind and she wanted the 200 people, and the dress and the Bridesmaids ? Shouldn’t they have found some sort of middle ground ?
Good point Cara! I wonder what a compromise would have looked like for them. Maybe a small wedding held in Carrie’s new closet, hee hee.
Thanks for your post, I added it onto my list of SATC articles. I agree, Carrie was definitely a bit of a bridezilla, but not in the stereotypical way at all. It was much more subtle. And Cara has a point that Big got it all his way in the end. Although at that point, I think they didn’t want to go through the publicity of another big scene with everyone wondering what might happen… Besides, maybe they threw a party later. It was interesting to see that the characters had changed a little from the show. Big seemed more tolerant (aside from the wedding freakout) and Carrie did too. A little bit older and wiser.
When all else fails, let’s blame the woman. It’s always the woman’s fault isn’t it? She steamrolled a propoal out of him?!? Really? After 10 years? Mr. Big finally proposes just because Carrie happens to look at him a certain way while making dinner? Give me a break – or a cosmo! The point is Carrie had never been married before. It’s not her fault that Mr. Big had been there twice before, once B.C. and once with Natasha (the stick figure with no soul) whom Big married after he told Carrie he never wanted to get married again! I don’t live in NY, but 200 people isn’t a BIG (pardon the pun) wedding where I come from. I’d say it’s about right for the average guest list. So Carrie is Bridezilla for getting a little Carried away?!?
Well when you wait 41 years to say I do and invest 10 of those years with one man, I think you get to have a decent wedding without the groom freaking out from embrassment and leaving you at the church. If he were that concerned about appearances, he should have mentioned the “been there done that” situation upfront so she knew where he stood. After all, his wedding announcement to Natasha was a big story in the NY Times, even mentioning how they met, the sax player playing “When a Man Loves a Woman” as Natasha walked down the isle, etc.
Sorry, sore subject for me. I got married later also to someone married twice before and did not do the big wedding because of that and other reasons. Now I’m getting divorced and missed out on all that, so never really got to be “the Bride” and never will. : (
You only live once people! Go to Europe when you’re young & single; travel; pursue your dream job in the place you want to live; have the wedding you want; go on the honeymoon; have the number of children that you want, and take lots of pictures and video along the way to remember it all!
Last, but not least, when you look your best, have your picture taken by a professional photographer – just you, so when you’re old you can look back and say “damn I was hot!” : )