I am a disabled veteran, and when this happened, I was solely depending on a walking stick. I could not walk more than ten feet maximum without assistance. A friend asked me to be a bridesmaid at her wedding. She quickly proved herself to be a bridezilla from Hell, and everything had to meet her vision. Everything had to fall within her very rigid scope of what the aesthetics should be.
[Bride] made a couple of what she claimed were innocent comments about my walking stick. I offered multiple times not to be a bridesmaid and to assist in any other way I could. She refused every offer and insisted that I had to be a bridesmaid.
Then, I heard from another close friend (also a bridesmaid) that [Bride] was very upset that I was insisting on using my walking stick. She had commented that she was just going to hide it, and then I would just have to go without it. Looking at the mutual friend’s face when she said that, [Bride] tried to laugh it off as a joke.
There was no doubt in my mind that she was going to try to make my walking stick go missing, so I made arrangements.
Sure enough, the wedding rolled around, and while I was getting my hair and makeup done, my walking stick disappeared. I was not happy.
Me: *To everyone* “I have to have my stick back. I cannot walk down the aisle without it.”
Bride: “We don’t know where it is! We’ve looked everywhere. You’re just going to have to make do.”
Me: “So, after you joked about taking my walking stick, it goes missing, and you want me to make do?”
Bride: “You’ll just have to do what you can do to get up the aisle.”
Cue malicious compliance.
I texted my boyfriend. He went out to the car and brought in a mobility scooter that I had rented just in case I needed it. I had him put it out of sight but where we could get to it easily, and then he or the other bridesmaids physically supported me. We made our way to the back of the hall for the start of the ceremony.
[Bride], who had been talking to her father and not paying attention, did not see the scooter until she started to walk up the aisle. There were her three bridesmaids: two standing tall and me sitting on the most hideous-looking mobility scooter I could find, multicolored with sparkles.
If looks could kill, [Bride] would have planted me. Within seconds of the ceremony ending, my walking stick had been found. [Bride] and her new husband brought it over to me.
Bride: “Your walking stick has been found. Now you can get that god-awful scooter back out to your car.”
I mustered up a tear.
Me: “I’m so sorry, but I am in so much pain from having to try to walk without my walking stick that there is no way I will be able to go without the scooter.”
I am very proud to say that the scooter is in over 90% of her wedding photos. Unfortunately, I do not have any of the pictures. I wish I did. I know that there was one photo taken of the other two bridesmaids on the scooter with me attempting a drunken version of the Hokey Pokey.