The opening line of ‘Bridezilla’ introduces two questions: a marriage proposal, and the possibility of a mysterious sea monster off the shores of the coastal city where Leah, the protagonist, resides. Leah assents to her partner’s lukewarm proposal, but spends the entirety of the wedding planning fretting over her decision. There was a time she imagined a fairytale wedding on a beach, now she’s not so sure. She’s not sure about a lot of things. Her trajectory throughout the story is one of indecision and uncertainty. Reading “Bridezilla,” I became so wrapped up in Leah’s anxiety that I almost forgot about the sea monster, until, well, I didn’t. On its surface, ‘Bridezilla’ is about a woman getting cold feet; but lurking beneath that familiar premise is a chilling fable about the very contemporary anxieties of planning for a future in the midst of impending ecological collapse.
First published in Lesser-Known Monsters of the 21st Century, Tin House, 2022. Also available to read online at Oprah Daily
A Personal Anthology 