How To: Handle a bridezilla

Is a Bridezilla driving you crazy? Whether the bride gone wild is your sister, daughter, or BFF, you can stop the insanity. Here are some tips offered on how to deal with an out-of-her-mind bride.

You Will Need:
• Understanding
• Tranquility
• Time-outs
• Passive-aggressiveness
• Limits
• A catty question about her weight (optional)

Step 1: Cut her a little slack
Cut her a little slack. Planning a wedding is stressful and time-consuming – especially these days, when the bride is apt to have a full-time job and be paying for part of it herself.

Step 2: Find your inner Zen
Meet her hissy fits with Zen-like calmness; there's no sense in both of you getting riled up. Think of her as a toddler who needs to wear herself out.

Step 3: Give her time-outs
Whenever you need a night off from her histrionics, turn off your phone and tell her the battery died. Little white lies are perfectly acceptable when sanity is at stake.

Step 4: Be passive-aggressive
Be passive-aggressive: Forget to do some of your assigned tasks, or do them incorrectly. Yeah, it will make her even crazier. But it will make you feel so much better.

Step 5: Set limits
Set limits. It's one thing to rise above her generalized bad behavior, but you shouldn't put up with personal attacks – or the assumption that you'll go merrily into debt celebrating her marriage.

Trivia: A bride-to-be scarfed down nine mini-cakes in two minutes to win $25,000 in a contest sponsored by the TV show Bridezillas.