Strangers from distant corners of the internet, friends of the Celestial Herd. You've been summoned here to to answer the call of Moonhorse.

Forgive me if I take a break from the Queen of Foxes for a moment as the next instalment is going to be quite the amalgamation and will take a bit to type up in its full glory and I need to get some bridezilla craziness off my chest as she has gone from general unpleasantness about her "Perfect day" into full on crazy town at the speed of a psychotic horse galloping towards a burning stable. And I thought if anyone knows anything about crazy equestrians, it would be Moonhorse! Everyone's favorite space unicorn because there can indeed only be one.

This story, like so many, requires a little background. So my friend whom I shall call Megan is the bridezilla of this tale. For the most part she is the sweetest and most adorable spaz you will ever come across. That is when her anxiety is not getting the best of her. I know generalized anxiety disorder is sadly on the rise in our society, and, while I may be considered a bit insensitive for this, but I also think that while your mental health is not your fault, it is your responsibility and Megan is not always good about taking responsibility.

Now to introduce Will. Will and I had known each other for years, being my old roommate of many years, close friend and confidant. Will does have a few needs of his own, suffering from epilepsy and depression, and, while Will is most likely the most book smart person I know, he is sorely lacking in the common sense department.

For Example I will relate the story of The Pickled Coffee. Will is a heavy coffee drinker as am I and when the poor coffee is put to such strenuous use it needs to be cleaned on a regular basis lest the whole kitchen start to smell like the regret of a night spent at the bar but waking up to hangover rather a pleasant acquaintance. So going the old-fashioned route I poured some white vinegar into water reservoir on the coffee maker and set it to brew. Well it turns out that Will saw me doing this and thought I was making a regular pot of coffee and thought I had forgotten to put the coffee and filter in. So, not taking into account the strong smell of vinegar, put coffee and a filter and 5 minutes later I heard him splutter and gag as he spit out the pickled coffee.

When Megan and Will started dating it seemed like an odd match to me, but in the end they seemed to be good for each other; Megan, while not good with emotional work was good at being financially responsible and Will had high emotional intelligence to go with his book smarts. Together they made one adult.

Now because it is relevant to the story, Megan and Will are both bisexual, polyamorous, and part of the kink community. All 3 of which are perfectly fine of course, I don't imagine Uncle Moonhorse would allow any small minded assholes in his space station. But as things so very often are, it got complicated. Will and Megan both began to date Felicity and all began to live together. I didn't know about their happy triad until Megan asked me to be a bridesmaid for their wedding; Megan and Will were to be legally married and they would have a commitment ceremony with all three of them.

To make a long story short I at first had to refuse because Will was still friends with a person that ran a group I was part of in the Ren faire. To continue to make a long story short, I was still healing from my past traumas and was making progress when I came into this group. I was getting better about setting boundaries and spotting manipulative people but the guy who ran the group (which was a sword fighting one) was better at manipulation than the first Scumbag I ran into in High school and, even with slow progress I was making, I was still vulnerable to it and that kind of asshole could see it too. So for 5 years I suffered through more bullshit. All of which Will was witness to as my roommate, maybe not the stuff that went on behind closed doors because it was insisted that stuff like that all kept on the DL as to not not think there were favorites in the group (and that it wouldn’t be exposed for the abuse it was) but enough to see my personality change and my hair start to turn white while I doubled over with ulcers. I do not mention this for sympathy about being stuck in the abuse cycle but to give context for this and other elements in the story.

Will tried to convince me that Scumbag 2.0 was a changed person and that’s why he was still friends with him. I said if that was indeed true, then bully for him. He could be decent human being away from me. Eventually Will and Megan decided to take Scumbag 2.0 out of the wedding so I could be her bridesmaid. It was a long road with me putting up with a lot crying and going ‘sorry, but boundaries.’ It was a prelude of things to come.

A few months later I noticed Megan had posted a few strange statuses on Facebook about pain and hurt and someone leaving. Being at work at the time I couldn’t give a lot of time to it till I got home and Megan herself called me up. Will had packed up his things in the middle of the night and peaced out back to his parents. I had her and Felicity come over to my house so they could have company and hear what happened.

There was a lot of set up to all this and Will mom was a starting catalyst for it all as she can frankly a twat about some petty things; cliché mother-in-law drama which I am pretty inclined to believe because I was Will’s roommate for years and one of the reasons we never hooked was because I knew anyone who married Will would also be marrying his mother. The real cincher was that Will’s epilepsy had taken a turn for the worst a few days prior. He had a grand maul seizure that resulted in him hit his head resulting in brain trauma from both the seizure and the fall. Megan said that there was personality change in Will after that and I’m not surprised but nor can I blame or be angry at Will because a traumatic brain injury is not exactly something you shake off.

I have been in contact with Will off and on in the usual causal way friend's chat, I haven't heard his side of the story yet but I would be interested in hearing it. But to get to the rest of the story, since Megan and Felicity were going to be committed anyway, they kept their original date for the wedding but the groom had changed to another bride and I had been promoted to maid of honor. Which, honestly, seemed eminently practical to my mind but I also didn't take the process of grieving into account. Nor how much it would effect everything. Our first official meeting with the coordinator began it all.

It started out with Megan's ring. She had decided to keep the ring that Will had given her, it was a custom job that is very pretty but I had advised to get a different one and send the old one back to Will. Megan at first said that she didn't want a different ring and that Felicity couldn't afford one. I did my best to direct her to different Etsy pages that do gorgeous rings for reasonable prices, $50-$75 dollars and you can get a beautiful moonstone or other semi-precious gem ring in silver or gold. But besides that, who needs fancy jewelry when you've got love? Cliché and soppy, but that's how I felt with the $25 dollar silver and green amber ring my husband gave me.

The coordinator, who is a mutual friend of both of us, Angie, agreed with me. As a professional wedding and event planner (Something she is doing pro bono by the way, a service that would run anywhere from $3500 to $5000 normally) she knows the ins and outs of the legalities of weddings. In our state if an engagement is called off the ring legally belongs to whoever originally gave it. To avoid any legal stress, Angie and myself highly recommended returning the ring to Will. While she assured us that Will said he didn't want it back, she didn't have in notarized writing, another recommendation of Angie's, and I again agreed with because even if Will didn't not do anything, his mother very well might. I also told her that she would be starting her new commitment with broken promise which is just bad vibes all round. Now because all of us are some flavor of pagan, (though I go with a more practical bent on it and I can't stand magic spelled with a k. Magickkk to me is for someone playing at spells and crystals trying to deal with things that should be talked out with a therapist not a tarot deck. But I am more than a bit of a cynical witch. Full pun intended.) Megan asked if there was some kind of ritual I could do to purify/whatever she thought might make it better. I was frank with her and told her no because there wasn't anything metaphysical to be done to make it better as that kind of emotion needs to be worked out either with herself or a qualified councilor, not tinklely-winklely Magickkk. See my previous rant and dealings with the Queen of Foxes.

All this time while we were going over the legalities of everything Megan used the big innocent eyes and the "I don't understand" line and voice. When that didn't work she started on the defensive break down. Anxiously saying that she felt like we were trying to push her to do something she didn't want to do. We tried to assure her that it wasn't that, we were trying to save her grief because of our mutual experience and give her advice, which she asked for in the first place. To make a long story short, this is how most of the rest of the meeting went, we would try to give advice and opinions, Angie is also a talented tailor and is making Megan's dress, but if something wasn't exactly what Megan wanted because it wasn't feasible or not in her budget she would start throwing a bit of a tantrum. For example, Trying to explain that alcohol and drinks are some of the more expensive things on a wedding dinner, and she needed to dial back some of her ideas, like the one of having two specialty cocktails, ones representing her and the other representing Felicity, took nearly 45 minutes of explaining that she would either need more money in the budget or drop the idea while she twisted and turned and wriggled and writhed and indeed gave the big eyes of "I don't understand" and "This is setting off my anxiety." before we were finally able to move on. There were several other events and items that went on like this from color to cake and it was a long night. The climax of which was about an on site cabin that Megan intended us to stay in.

I figured staying in an on-site cabin the night before would be plenty of fun and practical as to cut down on the amount of driving needed. But the lynch pin was Megan had planned this out and made the reservation without consulting any the bridal party who were expected to pay a share of the cost of staying there over the weekend, something to the tune of $200 bucks. Mind you I was already donating $400 worth of lamb to her reception, dad being a sheep farmer, and as a wedding gift I had bought all the materials for her dress and mock up as it was a custom job being done by Angie since they are having an Elven/LOTR theme wedding. Angie is on disability having suffered through cancer 3 times and a stroke by the time she was 40, so $200 bucks is not a minor thing to her.

Besides the money I took note that she said the whole weekend. As in she planned to have the bridal party staying over in the cabin on their wedding night. I said flat out I didn’t want to stay for the wedding night, as not only did I need to get home, myself and my husband would be deeply uncomfortable staying and inadvertently hearing their wedding night. Megan chirped up with “but why not??” Exhibition is on of Megan kinks and as mentioned before she, Felicity, and Angie are all part of the kink community. I have nothing against kink but my husband has a paranoia about being watched or overhearing intimate times, not tin foil hat kind of paranoia, it’s just one of his things, and over hearing people being intimate is downright triggering to me. Megan wouldn’t let the damn subject go of just why I didn’t like inadvertent voyeurism till I finally had to remind her about Scumbag 2.0, a story she knew of by the by, to keep it simple it involved no after care, being tossed my clothes, and being told to get out while they had round 2 that I would have to listen to as they were the “real couple.” Adding to the blood boiling rage of this is that I knew it wasn’t right but I still didn’t leave because I felt like I wasn’t going to get any affection anywhere else. What I didn’t know at the time was that Scumbag 2.0 and his wife were keeping me isolated and gaslighting me. If anyone showed any interest in me and was starting to go somewhere, SB 2.0 would approach them without my knowledge and threaten them and then suddenly they would loose interest in me so I felt like there was something wrong with me so I had better just take what was thrown my way. There is absolutely no way someone dose that unknowingly so when SB 2.0 tried this on one particular guy, that guy came to me and told me what was going on. That guy is now my absolute hero of a husband and amazing father of our baby.

The fact the I had to remind Megan of this was pushing me to a blow up and Angie swooped in and managed to put the kabash of the conversation that had spiraled into defending why I’m not into a certain kink and Megan saying I was kink shaming them and Megan was not letting it go till I either agreed to stay or started throwing something. Angie, also being kinky, reminded Megan that “no kink shaming also means no vanilla shaming.”

Angie herself was very pissed at the whole thing as Megan’s bulldozing went against a fundamental testament of kink where consent is king above all else. I even doubled checked on a BDSM advice subreddit and everyone agreed not being into a kink is not kink shaming and Megan trying to wheedle me into staying was seriously fucked up, and Angie stated this to me as well, because "no" is a complete sentence and it should have been enough without me going into my story.

After the first meeting, which was the beginning of the year, things went quiet for a bit because the wedding is at the end of May, but now with spring approaching more shit is flying and because Angie and I are both locked into this thing we will be there for eachother to get through it but I’m more than certain we will be severing ties with Megan after all this is done.

Thanks for letting me get this off my chest Uncle Moonhorse, if anyone would like to hear more bridezilla there plenty more where it came from.