Dear Moonhorse and the Celestial Heard; ever watchful from the moon, please forgive me if witty opening remarks have been replaced by a spinning head from the absolute rollercoaster the last few weeks have been. Strap in Moon Cult and our fearless leader of the moonscape, it’s gonna be ride to rival Coney Island! So please make sure your seatbelt is securely fastened and shoulder restraint is in proper position because this is gonna be a long one.

When we last left Bridezilla (Megan) her bride-to-be (Felicity), the very beleaguered coordinator/dressmaker/bridesmaid (Angie) and increasingly harried maid of honor (myself) we had left at our first official wedding planning meeting that involved tantrums, kink negotiation (or rather lack there of) and near blow ups that also nearly resulted in improvised throwing weapons, but it was all just the little psychotic Hors d'oeuvres before the veritable feast of insanity that followed in the last two weeks.

Where to begin with it all? Well, as it is a wedding I’ll start with invitations. At the first meeting one of the first things discussed was the number of guests. The first number was around 200 guests which seemed like a lot to me but then I only had about 50 at my own wedding. When Angie asked why so many Megan said that she wanted to send some invites out of courtesy. Angie, having coordinated several weddings, said that is more what announcements are for, say there is someone that you are pretty sure wouldn’t be able to come like a friend or family member on the other side of the country, an announcement that you got married is more usual. Or in Megan’s and Felicity’s case it was because they have the misfortune to come from highly conservative, right-wing fundamentalist families. While Megan’s family has more kin in that annoying person that accosts you with a Gideon Bible while trying to walk your dog and you’re far more interested in bagging your furry friend’s poo than converting, Felicity's family is one crazy deacon shy of them stripping naked and running through the streets screaming prophecies. The kind of religious assholes that can compartmentalize hypocrisy and justify abuse faster than the speed of dark… Light thinks it travels the fastest but no matter how fast light travels it always finds that the dark has gotten there first. (and props to anyone that got that)

Needless to say these family members do not support Megan and Felicity’s relationship. Megan still wanted to send invites out to them, hoping against hope that her family in particular would come to some kind understanding and come to the wedding. Even though these family members (mother and other older relatives) basically cut contact with after she came out to them. Megan never stopped hoping that they would come around to her side, and while I understand that, I am also a pragmatist and know that people like this are more than likely never going to come round, especially when, a few years ago, she came out as bisexual, polyamorous, and that she was going to be bringing one of her then partners (a transwoman) to Thanksgiving all in one message. Even if Megan’s parents weren’t right wing conservatives, that seems like it would still be a lot to digest all at once and after her family cut contact with her she bombarded them with messages trying against all signs to the contrary that they would one day see things her way till they basically sent her a cease and desist letter saying they were not going to respond to her messages or even read them anymore.

This is too often what happens when members of the LBGTQ community come out to their family members. I cried with Megan over all these developments but as she continued to send her messages, I begged her to try and start letting go for her own sake; you can only beat your head against a brick wall for so long before you start giving yourself brain damage and insanity would be expecting it not to.

So when it came to the matter of invitations vs announcements both Angie and I suggested very virulently to only send announcements to these family members but again Megan got very defensive saying that she felt like we were pushing her to do something she didn't want to do. That phrase would become a theme through out all this. I seriously pushed for just announcements more than Angie did, because I knew what kind torment Megan would put herself through again and A.) Why would she want to go through all that again and just give herself more emotional burden to cope with? B.) Why would she want openly homophobic people at her wedding? C.) Most importantly, (and I used this metaphor BTW) You know how in D&D a vampire can't enter a place without an invitation? Well she would be handing an invite out to two whole clans of them that could very well make a scene on her big day to try and ruin it and they would have a reason to be there to do it because, hey, they have an invitation right?

Angie said if she really must then because it was a formal invitation they were sending out, to just make it the invitation, no extra message, no trying to persuade them to finally accept and support them because, frankly, it's never gonna happen. I suspect that maybe Megan was holding out some hope that their families would receive their invites and seeing something as joyous as wedding happening their hearts would grow three sizes that day and as the heavens opened and the angels bowed down they wouldn't be homophonic, semi-cultish bigots anymore. And while I would dearly love that for both of them, I would also dearly love a week in Wine Country with Chris Evans, but we don't always get what we want.

Not long after this I get a message from Megan with a screen shot of a block of text she had sent to Felicity's mother and asked my opinion on it and if I could give Felicity advice and ideas on the message she was going to send to Megan's mother. I went Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and all of his carpenter friends, what in all the fucks was going on? Megan explained that is was in fact quite simple: Have the two of them send invites/messages to to each other's families so they wouldn't feel like they were being pestered, for some reason Megan thought their families would be more likely to read/accept an invitation if it came forms their partner, and more to the point they wouldn't tell each other if their respective families responded to the invitation so they could be surprised if their families did end up coming the day of.

I literally stared at that text for three minutes because I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or not. Was there any medication I had forgotten to take that day, or was there indeed something I had taken and really shouldn't have? Maybe, I was in fact, suffocating at that very moment and the lack of oxygen to my brain had conjured this bit of what-the-fuckness because in what parallel universe, alternate Earth, diagonal galaxy, or Nexus Event Timeline did that make one iota of sense? So once I had made sure the TVA weren't coming to arrest me, I asked Felicity her opinion on the whole sorted affair that was about to become a shinning example of that phrase 'Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes.'

Felicity, in a triumph for rational thought everywhere, said that she would just as soon say fuck off to the whole lot of them, but it was something Megan wanted to do. Felicity this entire time had been near non-verbal at all the meetings and chats because she had already been married before and had the big wedding experience and wanted to give Megan that chance for the big wedding. Which is extremely sweet and caring of her but it was also letting Megan go off the rails. So I told Megan to call me, told her that this was making me hugely uncomfortable because not only was she ignoring the good faith advice I had given her, advice that she had asked for, advice I had given to her not to be malicious or push her in certain direction but to save her grief and repeating that rejection that she had already suffered through. Now not only was she ignoring it, she was asking me to take on that emotional baggage and manage it for her. This was not an okay thing to do. If she really must do this thing, than she had to be honest with herself what kind of mental strain she was setting herself up for and be prepared to deal with it. She got very defensive and very mad when I brought this up and mentioned doing announcements instead "I don't want to do announcements!" she finally yelled, "I never wanted to do announcements and it felt like you were pushing me into something I didn't want to do!"

I felt every fuck I had to give begin to drain away through the phone as the words reached me and not even trying to disarm her indignation with some clever negotiation trick, I deadpaned her. My voice very flat I informed her that I was calling to talk to her about why I was upset, because it is what adults do, we use our words and communicate rather than grow resentful and glare like a teenage edge lord squinting through raccoon heavy eyeliner. To my amazement she calmed down and let me speak and after I gave her my reasons for why this was bad news bears she relented and even apologized for trying to put it on me. She did in fact send those messages and invitations but a gloomy Facebook post lamenting that she couldn't get half of her family to not see her evil told me that she had gotten her answer.

Moving on from that dumpster fire again a few weeks later another cigarette got tossed onto the heap. I mentioned in the last installment that I had been part of a sword fighting group previously. Well I had gotten it into my head, because I am not immune to bad ideas, that it would be fun to do a staged fight at the reception as part of the entertainment. Megan always loved seeing me fight and I figured it would be fun, especially if took an old idea of "kidnapping" the bride and having her honor defended for the entertainment of the guests. I did find a partner, Luke, who like myself had combination of theatrical stunt work and martial arts training. Besides the more theatrical swordfights I had twelve years of Okinawan style karate training and currently am training in Historical Medieval Battles or HMB, basically mixed martial arts with Medieval weapons and armor.

Unfortunately Luke had to drop out of it as his sister was also getting married the same weekend and it is a destination wedding. And anyone would understand it would be incredibly entitled and rude to expect him leave his sister's wedding early or make him do a red eye to just to do a silly bit of entertainment right? ... right? I was about to find out just how bad an idea this was.

When Luke fell through I recommended just canceling the fight and enjoying the party but Megan had become seriously attached to the thought of this performance. She suggested their now roommate Jay to take Luke’s place. The only problem was I knew Jay through the old group and while I had absolutely no problems socially with him I knew there was no way I could do a sword fight with him. I have diagnosed PTSD from everything I wet through in that sword group, Scumbag 2.0 aside, this group was also crawling with unhinged idiots, from psycho ex-Marines with anger issues to classic neckbeards, I genuinely believe that more than a few of them were trying to seriously injury or kill me when we did a fight, and Scumbag 2.0 just liked seeing me be hurt in multiple ways. Once you have felt that you were literally fighting for your life and still have lingering injuries from it, that experience does not leave you. My elbow reminds me of it whenever damp weather moves in.

I tried to gently tell her this, it wasn’t a matter of Jay’s character or that I didn’t want to do the fight but if I was put in such a scenario, fighting someone I remember from those experiences, using the same techniques learned there, personal fighting style is comparable to a personal calling card and sense memory is huge part of it, that it could be down right dangerous for me to partner Jay. I knew my fight or flight impulse would be full in action and flight would not be the option I would take. To this day friends and coworkers know not to startle me in a joking way, the last guy at work that hid Behind a corner and went “boo!” At me got hit with one of the bricks I was carrying, so safe to say, it was an all around bad idea. Besides the PTSD trigger that it would be, I did not want to leave any door open that might lead to the mental state I was in for those 5 years. It was so bad that I would sometimes black out; loose entire days, not remembering anything from the time I got up in the morning to the time that I came back to my senses. My doctor said that it was a form of dissociation caused by stress and trauma, basically my brain had endured the maximum amount of stress it could and shut down for the day. The worst part was I have no idea what I did or how I acted during those episodes. In an worst case scenario what would happen if my PTSD was triggered by this fight and I did blackout? Thusly while my mental health triggers are not Jay’s or my fault it is my responsibility to manage them and it would be grossly irresponsible for me do this fight with Jay.

Her response very nearly made me drop out of the wedding. She messaged me vouching heavily for Jay’s character, something that I told her was not a factor in it, and that she wished I could separate the people of the group from what happened with Scumbag 2.0 because “I wish you could find a way to separate the bad shot you went through with Scumbag 2.0 from the rest of the group because they don’t have any reflection on what you went through with him. They don’t deserve to have that negative emotion attached to them.” Well no fucking shit, no a few of them in fact don’t deserve the association but they also don’t deserve to get hurt because of it as a trigger is not something that you just find uncomfortable, its something that makes you relive a horrible experience and for someone that goes on constantly about her anxiety triggers, trying to guilt me into ignoring mine that could result in someone getting injured was beyond entitlement. But she had a solution for it, she asked “is there anything metaphysical we could do to keep you from freaking out?” Meta-fucking-physical. She literally asked me if I could Magickkkk away my PTSD.

I don’t even have a joke for that. I’m going to assume everyone knows why that’s stupid and move on.

After I told her these were not the actions of a friend and we’re our situations reversed I wouldn’t insist on her doing it. There was radio silence for the rest of the day which suited me fine. To my amazement when Megan messaged me again she was apologizing for her initial reaction. Later Felicity informed me that she had sat Megan down and explained how PTSD triggers work. Felicity also stated that Megan doesn’t understand how PTSD triggers work but, and if I’m wrong here someone with better education on it feel free to correct me, but it sounded like horse shit and not the glittery kind. If she could understand an anxiety trigger and go on about her own than the full explanation of why and how mine works should have been as clear as a Swarovski crystal.

After some discussion and apologizing from Megan, I agreed that the fight could still happen but under my express terms: I would be the one to choose/approve my partner and they would come to me for practices. Its currently still on the ropes as the local guy that I approved hasn't gotten back to me yet and the guy I do want is from another state and he is will to do it and do a few practices but Angie is against it not wanting him to put himself out for it, which I understand but since he is the one offering I don't see why I shouldn't take the offer and get Bridezilla off my back.

After that it was Angie's turn for gloves off. Via our wedding planning group chat Angie had to tell Megan that with her combined duties of coordinator, bridesmaid, and dressmaker she wouldn't be able to do the elaborate hair and makeup that she wanted. There was a person that had offered to help as a hair and makeup artist but Megan at first didn't want her to as she is a friend Will's friend and they met through him. Which I found ironic since it was only a week or so before that Megan was chiding me about not projecting the negatives feeling you have for one person onto another because they are connected in some way.

I offered to get ahold of a friend of mine who is hairdresser and if she would do Megan's hair and makeup, but it wouldn't be a free service; professionals need to be paid, something they seem to be forgetting through all this. For something that would be a 2 hour job, the $125 that my friend quoted sounded pretty reasonable, but it was shot down by Megan saying she didn't want to pay for anything extra. Things started to heat up when the picture of what she wanted for hair and makeup were shared on the chat and Angie thought it was the first time she had seen them. Megan insisted that she has shown them before and they had talked about it. For once Megan was right she had show the pictures as suggestions but it was months ago and with everything else Angie was doing, I'm not surprised that she forgot about it. We kept trying to find a solution, hair and makeup has to be done in a specific place at the venue as per policy so there's only one room to try accommodate two brides. Angie was trying to explain how she had everything timed out, with all of us starting at 9am to get the show on the road.

But then Felicity started to get upset, not understanding the timing, the planning or what changed when Angie had said before that she could do the hair and makeup. Not surprising after several months of an uphill battle trying to get this wedding planned, and having to explain for a third time that she had too much to do, Angie started to loose her cool. With doing the work of fulltime jobs as coordinator and dressmaker, she is also going to school fulltime, a household to manage, and is disabled from going through cancer three times and a stroke a few years ago. Felicity said after "That came off a little strong for my tastes, my question wasn't rude." Angie, being truthful, told her that she was getting very upset and feeling attacked, she had been trying very hard to make this all work for the two of them and it had been an uphill battle all the way, she was doing an enormous amount of work it was going unnoticed and unappreciated.

It was like touching a match to the fuse of to a ton of C4. I could type it all out but this is already a huge post, in short Angie made her feelings known and was done being driven around like unpaid help and wouldn't stand for it anymore. Megan and Felicity felt like was attacking them and it was triggering them. Round and round it went till Angie finally told them they could either have her as coordinator and let her do her job or they could come pick up the stuff she had for the wedding at her house and they could organize everything from their.

While this was going on Megan PMed me asking if I could get Angie to calm down and asked "do you think I attacked her?? She attacked us! I need your honest opinion!" I knew indeed she did not want my honest opinion. I was always on Angie's side as we are getting each other through this stupid shit, but I knew it would just cause more drama if I told her to calm her tits and stop being bridezilla, which in turn would cause more problems for Angie. So I told her that everyone's nerves were frayed and we needed to chill, take a breath, and revisit the conversation when everyone calmed down. That seemed to placate Megan but then she decided to play her own version of Mean Girls and wanted me to say something in the group chat about how Angie had attacked them and basically how they were right and she was wrong. I said I wasn't going to gang up on Angie as everyone was arguing at some point but Megan said that I needed to say something as Felicity had stomped off and "She won't come back to the chat until you're ready to honest about it."

I PMed Angie herself, first asking if she still wanted to deal with all this or are we ready to wash our hands of all this? Because I may have to do some bullshitting in the group chat if that was the case. Master diplomate that she is, Angie managed to get everyone to leave it till the morning and like a freaking miracle worker, and soon to be one helluva therapist, the next morning she completely disarmed Megan in the chat. Using the language of therapy and even got a phone call into Felicity that managed to get everyone back to the table. Felicity is actually pretty chill and reasonable and the one that usually has the rational thoughts making her very easy to talk to when she dosen't have Megan around micromanaging everything. Everyone made up and were making nice again, Megan even started to act like a human being and letting Angie do her coordinator duties and it seemed like sooth sailing from there.

I was actually going to end it here earlier this week. It seemed like it was all going to be fine and we could get through the last few weeks relatively unscathed.

Oh Murphy will your Law never stop being applied?

This last bit of drama concerns the dressmaker who is making Felicity's dress. A very close friend of mine, Joanne, who I have known since I was 16 and is like a mother to me. Joanne is a professional tailor and dressmaker and she made my own wedding dress and thusly I recommended her for making Felicity’s dress. After the initial appointment to get measurements and figuring out fabric and how much would be needed it was taking several weeks to get said fabric. Joanne gave her resources to look at, when Felicity got worried about finding the specific fabric she wanted myself, Joanne and Angie sent her web links for what she needed till finally, having no contact from Felicity, Joanne asked to get a hold of her and ask her where the damn stuff was as there is less than two months left.

On our group chat I asked Felicity if she had gotten her fabric yet as Joanne was starting to get antsy about time. All seemed well at first, Felicity wrote back that she ordered her fabric that same day and it would be in within the week. I said great and relayed the info to Joanne who was happy to hear it was underway. You would this all was well and good but then Megan chimed in “Felicity asked Joanne for her help choosing fabric 10 days ago but Joanne never got back to her.”

I knew in my bones that was not true. Joanne has been a tailor for everything from silly costumes to full on historical clothing for professional reenactors for over 17 years, and all that time she has done it with more integrity than you would find in someone swearing fidelity to the Queen of England as they receive a knighthood.

Wanting to do due diligence I asked about what Megan had said and, because Joanne doesn’t put up with any kind of bullshit, she told me flat out that it was a lie and she was no longer going to do Felicity’s dress because she would not work with people that start drama. That of course set off another load of C4 but it was more quickly put out as there was evidence to be gathered. Megan was trying to put it down to miscommunication and technical error, their cell phone coverage is not always reliable so the message may not have sent, if that was true than Joanne would be willing to return to making the dress. I asked Joanne for a screenshot the last message she had from Felicity, which was one asking about where to check for fabric online the same day as her first appointment. Again I relayed this to the group chat and asked for similar screenshot of the message that Felicity had sent 10 days like Megan had said.

Surprisingly, somehow that message was accidentally deleted. With no proof Joanne did indeed quit and I cannot blame her. This whole situation, besides being an attack on Joanne’s integrity and trust in her client, also just need not have happened. There was no argument and no issue till Megan decided to try and shift blame for the lateness of greeting the fabric onto Joanne, which also just proved her right about needless drama being started. Though, frankly, I need to take my own responsibility on this bit. I didn’t need to ask Joanne about what Megan had said and I knew that the drama was high with these two and more over I was motivated by my anger over a slander against my dear friend. Did I white knight? Yes. Did I absolutely need to? More than likely no. Even Angie had warned me to just leave it alone but my emotions got the better of me and now more work has been made for Angie. As it is a simple gown and I have made more than a few dresses in my time as well, Angie and I will take a weekend to do a marathon session with the sewing machine. I will man the pin cushion and sheers while Angie wrangles the machine and we will put Buffalo Bill to shame but here’s hoping we keep a little more of our sanity even if we do end up doing the Silence of the Lambs dance once or twice.

Thank you To all that managed to get to the very end of this. It was hella long and hella of a ride and it’s still not quite over yet.