“The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it—and sometimes three.”—Heraclitus
While of course not every marriage is the “Red Wedding,” that doesn’t mean tensions don’t get high. And don’t blame it all on “Bridezillas”; when the Internet asked people to share their worst wedding experiences, it was in-laws, best men, maids of honor, and even random cars who showed up more than once to play the villain. Don’t get cold feet; commit to these 42 shocking stories about the worst things ever seen at weddings.
42. More Like “Best Man They Could Get”
Was a wedding DJ for 7 years. DJ'd several hundred weddings. Seen a lot of stuff.
One horrible thing I've witnessed: I introduce the best man to give his speech and hand him the mic. He starts out by saying, (paraphrasing because this was years ago but pretty close to the quote IIRC):
"Well, there were a lot of things that I didn't agree with in this relationship when it first started, and that I still don't agree with because it's seriously messed up and unbalanced and the dynamic is too one sided, etc. etc. (He's staring at the bride while saying this, proceeds to trail off) ... but…that's not why we're here today. We're here........ to celebrate the marriage between Jack and Ingrid....so I just want to say congratulations, best of luck to you guys, etc. etc."
Everyone in the whole place was just looking around, glancing nervously at one another.
Afterwards, the father of the groom or bride (can't remember which one) comes up to me and says, "Thank you for not cutting the mic. I saw you looking at the head table and at us for direction and when you didn't get it, you didn't act. I appreciate that because I think it would have been even more awkward if he had just been cut off and didn't get the chance to at least come back to congratulating them."
Most awkward compliment I've ever received.
41. Faceplanted
Only horrible for one person. The main hostess for the reception of about 30 guests. She carried in the 3-tier wedding cake, rather than using a cart. She not only dropped it but fell face first into it on the floor.
First dead silence...then a few giggles....and then her emotional breakdown like I have never seen before. She was completely devastated from both the embarrassment and ruining that special moment. We all eventually assured her that we're half drunk and don't care about the cake.
The best part was that she easily collected $1,000 more in tips than she would have had that not happened.
40. Adventures in Wedding-Sitting
I was a wedding butler for 2 years and have worked a little over 100 weddings, and these are some of my favorite stories. To preface this, for those that don't know what a wedding butler is, my job entailed setting up/maintaining/cleaning and taking down weddings. As well as catering to people’s needs regardless of what they were, aside from food and drink, and if it was ever needed (which is was a few times), I was also security.
1) The most awkward wedding I ever worked started out like any other wedding. Roughly 120 people, nice couple, wedding was to take place outside and the reception was to take place in a large refurbished barn.
Everything goes smoothly till it was time for the speeches, at this point in the night I usually slip away to a somewhat secluded part of the reception to eat and listen in case anything goes wrong, still close enough that people could find me. Well, the best man comes up to give his speech and by this point in the evening he was already pretty hammered.
It starts out normal, him talking about how he introduced the bride to the groom and the day they first met and whatnot.
Everything seemed normal, granted he would go on and on about the bride at times but hey some people are like that, so I mostly ignored him till I hear him end his speech with how it should have been him and how he still loves her.
As soon as he said that, everyone went silent and it got really awkward, someone eventually ushered him off stage and the only reason I didn't help was because I was doubled over trying not to burst out laughing.
2) Unlike the first story, the worst wedding we ever had did not start out like most weddings, it started out bad and just got steadily worse.
So 4 weeks prior to the wedding, the bride apparently fell down a flight of stairs and shattered her leg to the point she needed someone to help her walk down the aisle and stand at the altar.
Prior to the ceremony, though, at the rehearsal dinner, of the 80 people scheduled to show up only about 40 actually did, which would sort of make sense if they lived across country, or overseas, or something, but everyone at the wedding lived under 5 hours from the site. Add to this fact the catering company for the evening brought the wrong order and there wasn't even enough food for the people there, and to top it off the bride and groom had hired a somewhat well-known bluegrass band to come play at the rehearsal dinner and they never showed up.
Now that's just the start of it. During the ceremony itself, it hailed the entire time and ended just as the ceremony did. Now it was a rather windy and chilly day, and usually the bride and groom spend a good one and a half hours or so taking pictures around the property because of how scenic it is, but they asked me to cut it short so they could go to the tent reception and finally relax.
Well, I was driving them around on this little limo golf cart thing and the bride and groom jump in the back and the maid of honor is there with them, but no one noticed that the bride’s gown was hanging precariously close to the back wheel.
So I start the cart up throw it into reverse, make sure everyone is on and settled, and as soon as I turn around and start to drive backwards I watch as the bride gets pulled off the cart and I ended up running over her other leg.
I immediately stopped the cart, jumped off, and tended to her but before I could help her up, she shoots up and loses it at the groom and maid of honor for not helping her, and she apologized to me for what happened. I was so stunned I had no clue what to say. I'm very used to dealing with angry people at weddings, especially inebriated ones, but almost all the time they are angry at me or one of the other staff.
Anyways she calms down and I take them all to the reception that is already going downhill and fast. So while I was away the catering company arrived and started setting up food when they realized they brought the wrong order AGAIN and while they had enough food for everyone the only thing to eat at the wedding was grilled cheese and dessert. Not only that but a separate company was hired to bartend for the wedding and didn't realize the event would be taking place outside, and so they didn't bring enough water for the reception and very quickly had to start cutting people off.
The reception continues, they have the speeches, the band actually showed up this time, and everything was going fine. Until this one guest got super wasted and as she was carrying a full glass of red wine back to her table she tripped and doses the bride. This abruptly ends the reception as the bride has the groom help her storm off and everyone slowly leaves about an hour before they were supposed to end.
39. Battle of the Lenses
My dad taking pictures at my brother’s wedding. It doesn't sound bad, but he was getting in the way of the photographer my brother hired.
Every pic he tried to take my dad was right beside him inching him out and pushing him out of the way. My brother and mom were both really mad at him.
38. Is Now the Right Time?
I've only been to one wedding and it was dad's cousin's wedding.
My dad's uncle (the groom's father) did a toast when the groom and bride were at the altar (is this normal? Everyone around me seemed confused), and he said, "I'm glad I made it out here today. I just want you guys to know that I have cancer and I'm going to die soon. Congrats to my son and his beautiful bride. Enjoy your time!"
Everyone was in complete silence. It was the most awkward thing I've possibly ever witnessed.
FWIW, this was in 2008 and the groom's father is still alive.
37. Early Night
I never witnessed this as it was me that was the worst thing at this particular wedding.
I had never touched alcohol in my life, and I mean ever. I was 15 years old and it was my uncle’s wedding. Before the wedding ceremony, my uncle, my dad and my grandad all went to the pub to have a few drinks to start the day (we’re Irish by the way).
As I was going with my dad, I went to the pub. They ended up giving me three pints before the actual ceremony, so I felt drunk before 11am even.
After the wedding, there was a pre-reception for close family and friends, about 80 people, then in the evening, a bigger ceremony for a few hundred people.
The small ceremony was fully paid for, fully catered and meant to be the "intimate" party.
All my cousins and family were at this, and I have a few cousins the same age as me, and a couple of years older than me, all who have been drunk before, but it being my first time, I didn't know how to drink, so I was drinking it like water, and as I said earlier, the smaller party was fully paid for, including the bar.
So with the three pints I'd already had, I think I drank a further 12 pints of lager in about 3 hours.
I was wasted. I was stumbling round, bumping into things...luckily not causing a disturbance or damage, but generally not knowing what I was doing. At 4pm, they had to call for my mum to come and pick me up from the wedding...yes all this before 4pm.
By the time she got there, I was in the toilets being sick constantly...I had family coming in checking on me and every single one of them telling me something different to sober me up, so I was drinking water, pouring water on my face, pouring water on my wrists (apparently cools the blood down?) so as well as being sick, I was drenched cause I was pouring water everywhere, I made an absolute mess of the bathroom.
To top it off, on the drive home, I kept my head out of the car window because I needed fresh air, and I threw up as we were driving past a police car.
I never even made it to the wedding reception because I was so drunk. I didn't drink lager for maybe 5 years after that.
36. Dropping Like Flies
I've shared this before, and in the end, it turned into a story to retell, but the pastor officiating my wedding had a heart attack, and my (now) wife and I caught him as he fell.
We have video of my wife, in her wedding dress, consoling the pastor's wife, who was in tears behind the podium. One of my groomsmen is an ER doc and handled the situation well, and the pastor finally came back around. He was stubborn and insisted on finishing the ceremony (through the sound of sirens of the ambulance coming for him).
Then my brother (best man) passed out minutes later. Apparently, he had put on the wrong collared shirt and it was too tight around the neck. At least the EMTs had something to do while the pastor finished up.
My brother spun and handed the rings off to ER Doc groomsman as he fell, and my wife and I just busted up laughing at that point.
35. Out of Service
Bride and groom were 2 hours late to the wedding.
Neither one of them has a license but had to have a wedding out in the woods. They never thought to contact anyone and ask for a ride to their wedding.
Of course, they didn't pay the cell phone bill and it got shut off. Didn't matter because there was no cell reception where we were anyway.
34. Early Exist
There was one in my family where the bride and groom had taken the money given to them for a wedding to buy a used car, so the wedding was at a relative's house. Nice house, out in the country, like, but still it's a house not a church or a hall so things were a little crowded.
The groom and his fellas show up pretty late and possibly slightly baked and try to hurry up and change into the tuxes. The bride loses her mind and shoulders her way into their room and slugs the groom right in the eye.
Bride and mother-of-bride come stampeding down the stairs in front of all the guests, grab the "wishing well" full of cards (with money), jump into her Camaro and tear off in a spray of gravel. The owner of the house appears and tells people there's going to be no wedding, but since the food and everything is already out, hey, might as well hang out and eat and drink as planned.
My mom leans over to her husband and says in a stage whisper "Could you get our gift and put it in the car?" Everyone about dies laughing at all this and the food and drinks were consumed as though it was just an average family party.
33. Attention-in-Law
My time has come.
Good friends getting married; it was a medium-sized wedding (no more than 75 people, including the bridal party and groomsmen). It was a wedding and reception by a lake, and everyone knew the venue, so we dressed accordingly—shirts and comfortable trousers, sundresses and sandals, etc. Bride's sister-in-law is dressed like she's heading out for an evening of dinner and dancing. Sky-high heels, tight dress, rhinestones everywhere. She looks gorgeous! But it's not comfortable. And we're outside.
The ceremony is sweet... except for the words "bloody bugs... bloody pine needles, damn dirt..." that's being picked up from the small (yet apparently mighty) microphone up front.
Right after the ceremony, we walk over to the gazebo/picnic area where the reception will be, and the sister-in-law starts lobbing her high heels at her husband, screeching about what an awful day it is, gashes her husband's eyebrow open.
While people are scrambling to get him napkins because facial wounds bleed and try to get him into a car to drive him the hospital for stitches, she decides to up the ante. She says, "I can't take this anymore!" and throws herself off of the dock in a dramatic swan dive.
The problem is, the lake at that point was only four feet deep, and marshy, so instead of a suicide, she just sort of... bobs? Along in the water because everyone's more concerned with her husband's eye/face. Sister-in-law's father just turns towards the lake, tells her to get her ass out of there and cut the nonsense.
They pile into two cars and drove off. It was surreal.
32. Unfortunate Timing
I was a banquet chef for about 5 years at a Country Club near Vancouver, where we had 4 reception rooms. Quite often we had more than one wedding on the same day, which could get interesting with parties running into each other.
On New Year’s Eve (this was probably 2003-4?) we had two weddings, one upstairs and downstairs, so no worries normally. I was working the upstairs wedding when the father of the bride had a heart attack during the reception and was rushed to the hospital.
Obviously, it was quite somber, but the guests were still trying to celebrate the wedding, while the mother of the bride and a few family members were with the father. Unfortunately, the family found out the father passed away in the hospital and decided to announce it to everyone.
Right as they told everyone (no joke, like 30 seconds later), the party downstairs were starting a countdown for a "Toronto New Year’s," as many of the guests and family were apparently from there and celebrating it at 9pm for the time difference.
So as everyone in the upstairs banquet room was in shock, they heard 100+ downstairs cheering and singing with joy. To say the least, one of the most awkward moments I've witnessed.
31. Return This Wedding to Sender
My husband and I were invited to the wedding of a military buddy of his.
We were running a little late but weren't too worried. We got onto base and headed for the main chapel (there are three or four chapels on base). When we got to the main chapel, it was apparent that there was no wedding going on.
Looked at the invitation again. It just said, "Post chapel" and gave an address. So obviously, this wasn't the post chapel that the bride had intended, and I whipped out my phone to look up the address. We drove to that part of the base and found the place. It was some sort of administration building, definitely not a chapel.
We were confused, but we found a building with "Chaplain's office" on the directory so we figured we'd been invited to some sort of civil ceremony. The building was locked. Now thoroughly confused and late at this point.
As we were wondering what we should do, we see an older gentleman in a tuxedo wandering around. He's pretty clearly in the same boat. Turns out he's the groom's father, and he doesn't have any more idea what's going on than we do. After a few more minutes, a soldier arrives. He's the chaplain's assistant and he's looking for lost wedding guests (namely the groom's father). Turns out the bride put down the wrong address and the wrong chapel name on the invitation.
By the time we got to the wedding (which they had delayed because the groom's dad was missing), the bride was in tears. I felt so bad for her.
They finally started the wedding, and the chaplain gave an awkward sermon about "being clothed in Jesus' love" and lost his place several times. Finally, as the ceremony was over, and the guests began to applaud, a bat fell down out of the ceiling and died.
Craziest wedding I'd ever been to.
30. Missing in Action
The groom waiting at the end of the aisle, all smiles and happiness, until a bridesmaid came quietly walking down the aisle and pulled him aside to talk to him.
The bride had run off.
29. Hit & Wed
My parents had a pretty disastrous wedding. I wasn't there to witness it, but my parents and the guests tell the stories all the time.
The wedding was in July, they were expecting a hot, sunny day but it ended up being a major downpour. My mother had a taxi scheduled to take her from her hotel to the church, due to the rain the taxi was super late.
As my mother was waiting, in her wedding dress, she gets hit by a car. She gets knocked to the ground, but it wasn't hard enough to break any bones, so she just walks it off. Unfortunately, her dress picked up a lot of the mud from her fall and a big chunk of lace was torn.
It turns out the car that hit her was actually the taxi that was supposed to pick her up.
She finally makes it to the church, my father was in tears, on the verge of a nervous breakdown thinking that she wasn't going to show. Again, because of the rain, about a third of the guests didn't make it. The rest of the ceremony went ok.
At the reception, the hotel was understaffed due to the rain and the DJ couldn't make it (again, due to the rain) so the reception consisted of guests sitting around in a silent room waiting for food. A plus-one soon decides that she is literally dying of hunger, so she goes up and cuts a slice of the wedding cake for herself before my parents had taken pictures with the cake or sliced it. On the positive side, later on they discovered that a restaurant in the hotel had a jukebox, so the restaurant lets them move it into the banquet hall and they're able to pop in some quarters to get music playing.
It was a disaster at the time, but now they look back at it and laugh.
28. Who Knew Love Was So Dangerous?
I've worked in weddings for the last 20 years. I got this.
-Groom's mother has a heart attack on the dance floor and dies before the ambulance gets there.
-Guest dies in his soup right after the videographer tapes his table. The cameraman literally pans to the left, then snaps back, and the guy is out, face in his soup.
-Bride and groom fighting with each other in front of the cake during the cake cutting. It got physical.
-During the formals: we're outside taking a group shot of the bridal party and friends. Most of them are drunk. A man comes over and asks if they could move because he needs to get to his car, they ask him to be patient, he isn't and gets vocal, 6 of the guys kick the snot out of him.
-The bride and groom's families hated each other/did not approve of the wedding. Everyone was drunk from hour one and the photographer and I were just waiting for the fight to start; you could FEEL the hatred in the air. About halfway through the reception one guest says something nasty to another and all hell broke loose. We ducked behind the DJ booth with the DJ and MC and some of the staff as they destroyed the hall.
-In the late 1990s/early 2000s we had a problem with guys walking into wedding halls and stealing photographer/videographer equipment. One of my friends was held at gunpoint while setting up at a hall; they took $20,000 worth of photography equipment. Two of my videographer friends had cameras taken from them during jobs, one was even beaten in a park on the way to video bride and groom formals. Aside from the robbery, the worst part is they lose all the stills/video of the wedding when the cameras are stolen, so the bride and groom have nothing from that day.
-And, finally, the groom's mother also wore a white dress with a train. We were asked to ignore her/remove her from the video as much as possible. Almost as bad as watching that one bride in 8" heels totter down the aisle wasted, with her father holding her up.
27. Good Riddance
Ooooh, I got one.
I went to the wedding of two good friends. Bride was neglected/abused by her mum as a child but decides to invite her as an attempt at reconciliation.
So we're at the reception part of the evening. Mum is talking to Bridesmaid, and (no one knows what prompted this) says to her, "Well I guess it's a good thing you can't have kids isn't it?"
Bridesmaid bursts into tears, Bride grabs a knife to threaten Mum (someone stops her), Mum is bundled into car by her partner, and they disappear into the night.
26. Opposites Contract
Definitely my friends’ wedding last year. They had only known each other for 6 months or so before they got married.
She was Mormon, he was Atheist. We all thought it was really weird. The parents of the bride and groom hated each other. Two moms got into a verbal argument, then it became physical. I don't know who made the accusation, but one said they're only getting married because she's knocked up.
Aaaaand she popped a baby out 6 months later, trying to pass it off as a preemie. Yea no.
25. The Bride Is Always Right
I went to a wedding with my boyfriend a few years ago. His friend was marrying a woman that no one liked. She was awful.
During the ceremony we could all tell that the best man was uncomfortable. As soon as the ceremony ended, the best man burst into tears for about 10 minutes and had to excuse himself. You could tell he just realized that his best friend was gone forever.
We tried to cheer him up and reassure him that he and the groom would still be close, and that the bride wasn't too bad. Everyone present knew it was a lie and we were all just so depressed.
Later, the bride came and yelled at our entire group (all of her husband's friends) because we weren't dancing enough. We weren't dancing because they had no DJ, just a short playlist with the couple’s favorite (not dance-y) songs being played on repeat. I think throughout the whole night we heard the playlist start and end about 5 times.
24. The Wedding Alley
They had practiced their opening dance, a tango, in a large room.
The wedding venue was a long and narrow, small room.
So, 1 step forward in tango style, 3 steps forward but trampling in place due to guests sitting in their way, 3 steps backward trampling in place again to take 2 steps back to reach the other side and start trampling in place again...
And right in the middle of all this, the kitchen starts bringing out food (they hadn't served any food before, so this was after complaints from most guests about being hungry).
So I have video and photos (I was photographer) of the couple trampling, with no guests at all watching them... Not even the bride's mother... Who was destroying a pack of fries with her back turned to the couple's opening dance.
23. One Too Many
The DJ got so drunk that she couldn't even stand.
She didn't have the bride’s wedding song, so a group of people all joined hands and tried to sing the song (some random country crap) for her and she just stood in the middle of the circle crying in her dress, and no one knew the lyrics.
And her father got wasted and started a fight which ended with him destroying a stop sign with his fists.
Let's not forget that those of us in the wedding party got picked up in a NASCAR stretch limo. Classy, classy, classy Florida.
22. Three at the Altar Is a Crowd
The ceremony for my cousin's (the groom) wedding had the most obnoxious priest. I think he was related to my cousin or a long time family friend.
The whole ceremony became about him. Before every reading, he would explain what was about to be read for like 5 minutes, then after the reading, would explain it again for another couple minutes before explaining the next reading.
He gave terrible advice like "If you're having problems, don't talk to each other, talk to me. You have my number." He mentioned multiple times how he had recently moved to Illinois (where the wedding was taking place).
Even between the vows he had to throw his two cents in. After my cousin said, "I Do" he made some comment about "Oh, I thought you were going to do it with more gusto like when you're cheering for the Bears. I DO!!!"
At the end, he just had to mention himself one more time: "And by the power vested in me by the state of Illinois, which I am now a resident of, I now pronounce you man and wife."
What could have been a 30-45-minute ceremony ended up taking 75-90 minutes.
21. The Mother of All Grossness
The groom pretty much made out with his mother. Big, slobbery kisses on the lips.
Then when he was dancing with the bride he spent the entire dance staring over her shoulder at his mother.
20. My Big Fat Greek Funeral
Not witnessed by me, but my ex gf’s mother:
A relative of the bride had a heart attack while dancing to traditional Greek songs (like a big half circle of people running, she was leading the circle).
She died on the spot, rest of the party was canceled. It actually made the news.
19. Best Man, Served Well-Done
It was only marginally bad and mostly funny, but, at some point during the ceremony, the best man took a step backward on the altar to allow the priest to walk past. Right into a candle that was behind him.
Ended up setting his (light blue—yeah, this was the 90s) suit jacket on fire. It was quickly put out—happily with no injury to him other than a lost deposit on a tux and a charred shirt.
Except he spent the rest of the day looking like he'd taken a mortar round directly between the shoulder blades. Much hilarity.
18. A Little Too Much Fun
The groom's sister got sorority girl wasted in the limo on the way to the reception.
She stashed a brown paper-bag with two-fifths of Pucker under her chair for the Lord's prayer. She held my hand the entire time chanting "I need to pee."
She drank heavily all through the meal and then caught the bouquet. The guy that caught the garter had his head shoved up her dress while he was putting it on her. Once he finally emerged from her cavern of drunk doom, he was bright red and ran away.
She chased him around and literally flung herself at him to dance, aka grope, him in front of everyone. She got bored with that and started dancing on the DJs table.
The Bride was mortified and in all but tears, so her brother picked up this drunk mess and tried to carry her outside. This sent the redneck boyfriend into a rage and he picked a fight with the brother. The cops were called.
I just sat there wishing I had popcorn to watch the mess.
17. I Was Just in the Neighborhood…
My aunt's second wedding. She married the guy who lived two houses down from her. That's not the issue, the worst part was the toast at the reception.
Another neighbor got up, "I want everyone to raise their glasses. 15 years ago, we all moved into this neighborhood married to the wrong people; by the end of the summer we will all be married to the right people."
Came to find out 8 couples had gotten divorced and remarried within the neighborhood, or as I call it: played musical spouses. We left very quickly.
16. Definitely Not Better Late Than Never
Wedding went well...reception went well for the most part. Various family members gave speeches, along with members of the bridal party. It was a nontraditional wedding, so the maid of honor was a man.
At his turn at the microphone, he basically confessed his love for the bride and explained how the groom would not be able to treat her as well as he could.
Youtube
15. What Could Have Been
My brother went to high school and college with this girl that he always thought of as a friend. Her grandparents lived next door to ours. I was friends with her little sister. Our parents were friends.... anyway, she gets engaged and starts planning her wedding.
We were invited, of course. A couple of days before the wedding she comes over to our parents’ house because my brother was in town for her wedding and tells him that she will leave her fiancé for him. Like, declares this in front of my family.
He, of course, was all "What the actual heck?" They'd never dated. They'd never kissed. He was never interested in her. She was crying super hard and declaring her love for him and it was weird.
She bawled like a baby to the point where she could barely get through her vows...we knew why. Fast forward like 15 years and she's still married to the guy. They look happy.
14. Shot on Location
At one wedding I attended there was a ceremonial "gifting" of a shotgun to the married couple from the family of the groom. Came out of nowhere and the entire room was sat in stunned silence until the most awkward "are we supposed to clap" applause nervously quivered into existence.
What's scary is that both the bride and groom are extremely heavy drinkers, borderline alcoholics, and the groom in particular gets very aggressive when drunk. I can't think of a worse couple to give a firearm to.
To their credit, the wedding was gorgeous apart from that. Great food and drink, stunning location, and killer cocktails.
13. A House of Fun
Finally one I can answer! I worked on the banquet staff for a high-end wedding reception facility throughout college, here are a few...
-Bride, groom, and wedding party got super drunk, so we called them cabs around 1 AM... the cabs arrived but the bride was nowhere to be found. I was doing a bathroom check and stumbled upon the bride passed out in a stall with vomit all over her wedding dress. I don't think that dress will be passed down to future generations...
-Our banquet facility was a part of a high-end golf course. One couple, despite our fair warning, wanted an entirely outdoor ceremony and reception as a "cheaper alternative" from having to book a banquet hall. Honestly most days it would have been fine, but right as people were asked to be seated, there was a torrential downpour that lasted for about three hours straight. Everyone was soaked (staff included) and a lot of guests straight up left... I felt bad but at the end of the day it was their choice not to have a Plan B.
-Had one wedding with a nice couple from a very religious family. Everything was very traditional, and it was time for dancing, so the DJ started with some slow songs like always but then he "kicked it up a notch" with some pretty vulgar and unedited rap/metal songs... turns out he was looking at the song requests for the wrong wedding. The looks of horror on some of the older people's faces was pretty priceless.
-Had a group of guests close out the bar once and these two guys were both hitting on this super drunk girl pretty hard. Once the cabs showed up both guys were fighting over which guy she should "ride with" and a lot of yelling, pushing, and shoving happened... fortunately my boss stepped in and called the police who broke it up and gave the girl a ride home. Altercations like this were somewhat common so around midnight when we had a big wedding, a police car would just come and sit in our parking lot for an hour or two and be available quickly if needed. This started when there was a full out fight once in one of our lobbies which included thousands of dollars in damages.
12. Baked Out
The groom was a pastry chef by trade. As you can imagine, he went full-bore on his own wedding cake. This thing was a masterpiece. Astoundingly beautiful and intricate, and unlike anything you've ever seen.
And the couple's friends are also about 50% pastry chefs. Lots of professional bakers in the place. All of whom were dying to see this piece of culinary art.
The caterer's assistant dropped the cake in the kitchen before it ever saw the light of day. The only people who saw the cake in its full glory were me, the groom, the best man, the caterer, and the groom's baking staff.
I was watching when it was dropped, and the person who dropped it said, "Well, we'll just serve the sheet cake."
There was no sheet cake.
They scooped up most of it and served it with a giant spoon.
11. Beware the Deserts
My mom used to work at a catering company. The company would make an announcement about what food would have nuts in them and other things.
Well apparently this one time after they announced the food, one lady walked right up, ate like a peanut butter cookie, and went into Anaphylaxis.
So they called an ambulance and she died on the way to the hospital. Apparently she knew full well what was in it.
10. Loose Lips of the Ma
When my sister-in-law and her husband were getting married, my (future) wife and I had just learned 5 days before that she was pregnant. But we had decided not to tell anybody, partly because of the three-month rule and partly because of the wedding.
My mother-in-law was driving me and my wife to the wedding, so we were at her house on the morning of the ceremony. My wife feels sick, so she goes to puke, and my MIL asks if she is pregnant. She doesn’t want to lie so she says yes but makes it very clear to my MIL that she shouldn’t go around telling anyone, especially at the wedding.
When we get to the party after the ceremony, the mother decides to make a toast, and about how she is happy because she will have not 1 but 2 grandchildren soon (my SIL who is getting married is pregnant at the wedding).
So now everyone is looking at my wife and her other sister in a questioning way, my other SIL is baffled and asks my MIL how she knows about the pregnancy, turns out she was pregnant too. It all went downhill from there, and the bride and both her sisters were majorly mad at their mom.
I retreated to the minibar and got drunk with my future-father-in law.
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9. Attendance Is Optional
I was a DJ for about 10 years and I have seen a lot of bad things. At one wedding, I was supposed to introduce the wedding party. The bus showed up around 5:00, and out of 18 people in the wedding party, only 3 made it off. The bride, the best-man, and a bridesmaid. The rest were so hammered drunk that they didn't stumble inside until almost 9:30.
They missed everything. We couldn't have toasts, first dances, cake cutting, nothing, because the groom was passed out. By the time they did make it inside, almost everyone left. The bride was pretty mad about the entire situation. Who could blame her?
Another wedding I attended seemed like it was going great. Everything went without a hitch until the reception ended. The bride came up and told me that she found out the groom cheated on her the night before.
She never signed the marriage license and they just went through with it since everyone was there. What made this entire thing worse was they didn't return any of the gifts and then they split up the next morning.
8. Wedding Bells and Bad Attitudes
My cousin, who is in her mid-40s and married with two kids, got absolutely plastered at my wedding.
Her husband couldn't make it, so she came down with her two kids (kids did not attend wedding as it was adults only). My dad, who was my best man, was so embarrassed by her behavior that he had to leave in the middle of the reception to take her back to the hotel.
After the reception, a bunch of my relatives all went back to the hotel and found my cousin's two kids alone in the hotel room (they were like 12 and 9 years old and they were fine), but my cousin was nowhere to be found. My 86-year-old grandmother went down to the hotel bar and saw her basically making out with some random dude.
Grandma told her it was time to go to bed and cousin refused, so Grandma said it again and my cousin got up, shoved my grandma to the ground and started screaming for security to come arrest my grandma for god knows what. Somehow, they ended up getting her to bed and nobody was hurt or arrested.
This was over 5 years ago, and I haven't talked to my cousin since. I never saw her crazy drunken antics, but I am angry that she embarrassed my dad and made him miss over an hour of the reception (and pushing grandma is never cool).
And the thing is, this type of behavior came out of nowhere (at least to us), so it's not like we had expected or anticipated this particular cousin just going wild at a nice formal event. Just disappointing all around.
9. Mismatched
When my dad got remarried, it was the worst event I'd ever been to. It started four hours late because the bride decided that she just had to have Olive Garden before the ceremony started, so she loaded up all these half-made-up bridesmaids into a couple cars and drove to Olive Garden, where we waited for like two hours for enough space for all of us.
We finally got back to the church and finished with the makeup. None of the bridesmaids had matching dresses because the bride decided on a dress like a week before the wedding, so she said for everyone to pick the closest thing they could find at the bridal shop. And the makeup guy was a friend of hers who claimed to be a runway makeup artist, but we all ended up looking cheap and 80s.
So their ceremony finally starts four hours late with a bunch of mismatched bridesmaids in horrible make up and giant hair, and two of the bride's friends just decided to stand up next to the bridesmaids like they were part of the ceremony too, for some reason.
At the reception, there was a guy with a guitar paid to sing and play, but one of those two friends decided she was going to be the main entertainment for the evening, and she grabbed the guy's mic and started singing in the most awful tone-deaf screechy voice I've ever heard.
Finally it was all over and we could leave, and I went to my car in the parking lot... and someone had slashed my tires. All four of them.
8. This Is a Classy Affair
It was my then-business partner's second marriage, to a prominent lawyer. She was 40-ish but behaved like a Cosmo-swilling sorority sister and was obsessed with optics, image, status. The wedding was a twi-nighter at a banquet / event center in the city.
When my wife and I showed up we discovered the guests had been partitioned into an A-list and a B-list. We were on the shorter A-list who were invited for cocktails, the ceremony, and a sit-down dinner. The B-listers had been told to appear 2.5 hours later for cake and dancing.
During dinner, the already-half-in-the-bag bride stood up and told us A-listers we were her "real friends," the "cream of the crop," and our standing with her was reflected in the fine catered dinner we were eating.
Things ran long and the B-listers began assembling outside. They were not allowed in, but the place had storefront-type windows and you could see what was going on in there from the street. We were having creme brulees. It began to rain and the B-listers had to stand outside getting wet and staring at us while the banquet part of the evening wrapped up. They clearly had not been apprised of the two-tier deal.
The favored A-listers were in acute discomfort. A gang of the bride's alleged best friends, similar sorority types in little black dresses, talked major snark about her for the rest of the evening, mocking her dress, her weight, her choice of husband, and especially the uncool structure of the event.
Finally the door was thrown open and angry damp B-listers straggled in bearing rain-washed gifts. The groom was nowhere in sight and the by-now-drunk bride was doing the electric slide by herself on the dance floor. The room was thick with tension and weirdness and my wife and I slipped out before the cake-cutting. (Later I would tell the bride how nice the cake-cutting, etc. had been and she said she had seen me and all the A-listers front and center.)
The marriage lasted about three years. Four months in, the bride made a serious pass at me in the office. Shortly thereafter the sex was over, and she was sleeping on the sofa (she said). The whole wedding / marriage seemed to be merely a hook for a big party and a pretext for classifying her friends into first class and economy.
7. Not an Easy Mistake to Make
Was a bridesmaid in a wedding. At the reception, we couldn't locate the groom for the first dance. We fanned out to search for him.
I found him… in an intimate position… with his 2nd cousin. His excuse: he was drunk and thought it was his new wife...even though she was in a bright red dress. The marriage didn't last long.
6. Omens Aren’t Always Right
A college friend met a girl through a dating service. They had a very rocky on and off relationship. Still, they end up getting engaged and we attend the wedding. Other college buddies and I make jokes about how long marriage will last.
During the ceremony, when the couple is lighting the unity candle, the wick actually splits in two, leaving two separate flames. Like the universe was telling them, "This ain't happening."
However, it's been over 20 years now and they are still together and going strong.
5. Against All the Odds
My cousin got married ages ago. She was a religious Jew and had apparently made 100% sure the DJ didn't play the traditional wedding march as it was made by a Nazi anti-Semite. Strike one: They played that song. There is video of her looking FURIOUS as it began.
Strike 2: The rings didn't fit. Not like "this is tight" but like "I am a size 8 and this is a 4." Her finger started changing colors due to poor circulation.
Strike 3: The officiant got their names wrong.
Strike 4: The officiant took a step back on the dais...and there was no more dais. He took a nasty spill off the stage, mid ceremony.
My cousin and her husband have been together for almost 25 years now, so obviously these became funny stories to tell and not disasters.
4. Blast That Past
Ex-girlfriend of the groom showed up at the wedding...uninvited and drunk. He broke up with her 10 years earlier and has not seen her in over 8 years.
She was loud and saying very graphic things about what she wanted to do to the groom. The bride steps up, goes all out and punches the ex in the face...knocks the ex out cold.
The bride we know is a normally calm and peaceful person. A few of us carry the ex out of the reception and drop her at her apartment about 20 min away. Bride told my wife that "there is nothing that will ruin my wedding day."
3. Not Everyone Wants an Encore
After the vows and the kiss, as the couple was walking together down the aisle, the mother of the bride stopped the recessional and announced that she and her husband were renewing their vows right then and there. The husband was mortified but went along with it.
After all, they paid for the wedding, and the band, and the flowers, and they didn't want all of that to "go to waste."
Once they had renewed their vows, the bride's mother invited everyone to the "joint reception." Throughout the reception, the mother loudly and repeatedly commented on how many gifts the bride and groom had received and how no one had bothered to bring a gift for the mother and husband. Never mind the fact that none of the guests (nor the wedding party, the planners, nor anyone else) knew the bride’s parents would be exchanging vows.
Towards the end, after a whole night of drinking, the drunken and sobbing mother accused the bride of stealing the mother's "special day," called her a whole bunch of mean things in front of her friends and family, then grabbed the wedding cake and left.
The bride and groom had another ceremony a few weeks later. No parents were invited.
2. Missed Encounters
At a wedding of a college friend of my husband’s, we learned that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade.
We learned this from the women at our table at the reception. We introduced ourselves while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried. My husband had NO idea that she had feelings for him.
She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him.
She repaired herself, then followed us as we tried to leave quietly—her parting shot was to stare at my chest and say, "Well I guess I know what I was missing all along!"
Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed—he was completely clueless and would never have gone to the wedding if he'd know she was obsessed with him. It was bizarre.
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1. Ladies of Honor
Wedding 1—When the ex gf of the groom showed up during the ceremony and, when asked to leave, turned to run and sprained her ankle and needed to be carried out by the best man.
Wedding 2—The Matron of Honor was asked not to drink at the reception, so obviously she chose to get rip roaring drunk, grinding on the buffet table, having sex with one of the groomsmen in the washroom, and eventually had to be told to leave by the Mother of the Bride. But at this point her husband, sick of her behavior, had already left, so she just hung out outside the hall until everyone left.
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