They say one’s wedding day will come and go, but the memories will last a lifetime. That rings especially true when the day doesn’t go as planned. Tipsy guests, feuding families, and general mishaps all come together and turn the big day into a big disaster that is hard to forget. Read on to hear about some “I do’s” that left people wishing they hadn’t.
1. All In The Family
I photographed a lot of weddings for people who were filthy rich. A few years ago, I worked a church wedding for a fairly large group. The bride and groom were in their late 20s. The best man was the groom's uncle, who was in his 40s or 50s. The ceremony began without a hitch; however, the bride looked extremely nervous. I was trying to get photos where she looked happy, but she wasn’t giving me much to work with.
Halfway through the ceremony, she started to sway slightly. They got to the vows, and about three words in, she lost her breakfast all over the groom and herself. A commotion stirred as the bridal party rushed to her aid, and she started sobbing. I stopped taking photos at this point and started listening to what was going on. I figured she was sobbing about ruining her wedding, but in truth, she was keeping a dark secret.
Through her wailing, she admitted that she had morning sickness. She continued crying, as the groom repeatedly pointed out they hadn't slept together yet. As another wave of vomit came out, the groom asked her who the father was. She just gave a long guilty stare at the uncle. The groom turned to the uncle, and without missing a beat, socked him right in the face. The uncle went down, and chaos ensued.
2. You Can’t Picture This One!
I was the photographer at my childhood friend’s wedding. We had grown up one block away from one another. Our parents knew each other and liked each other, but he was a bit difficult as a kid, so we lost touch about the start of puberty. When I got the call about the wedding, I hadn't seen the guy in at least 15 years.
My mom was the one who called me about it, and she actually asked me to be in his wedding party. I told her we hadn't even spoken in a decade and a half, and I really didn't think it was appropriate to be in his wedding party. My mom told me that he didn’t have any friends over the years, so this would be a personal favor to her and to his mom.
As part of the favor, my mom and I would do the photography for the wedding as our wedding gift. Reluctantly, I agreed. I went over to meet everyone, and within seconds, I came to a horrifying revelation. I suddenly knew why they needed me so badly. The guy hadn’t brushed his teeth in years. They were one solid mass. His bride was massively overweight and overbearing beyond belief. I sucked it up.
Out of the blue, after the ceremony, the bride decided she wanted to have a white limo take her to the Hilton. It was June. There were no limos to be had, and the Hilton was booked. The groom’s older brother, who was the best man, was furiously trying to find something because the bride was in full meltdown mode. In a fury, she ripped her headpiece out, taking about a third of her hair with it.
She stormed into the back room of the hall. The groom said he was going to try and talk her down and went back there with her. A few minutes later, the double doors of the backroom slammed open, and he came running out—streaming blood and screaming. There was a butcher knife through his palm. His bride tackled him from behind and yanked the knife out of his hand.
She looked like she was going to end him in front of the assembly. The best man and I both tackled her. The groom slipped out and ran to his car. After biting the best man, she squirmed free and was going after the groom. He backed out and put the car into drive. She leapt on the hood and grabbed the wipers. He gunned it, and as he exited the parking lot, she rolled off into the street and hit the curb.
We ran up to her and found her all scratched up and bawling. The wedding got annulled the next day.
3. The Show Must Go On
I was the event planner for a wedding between two fairly wealthy families. The bride had decided on a rural, "shabby chic" aesthetic. She wanted the wedding to take place on her family’s property, in a historic barn. This caused a flurry of issues. Not only did the barn need to be cleaned, but we would need auxiliary tents as the barn wasn't large enough. The property also lacked electricity and running water.
The latter was solved with a bank of generators, tubs of water for catering, and a side tent with porta-potties hidden inside. The bride had been quite a bridezilla, but it was my job to deal with those things. The ceremony had ended, cocktail hour was shutting down, and professional photos were taken. We were preparing to transition to the bridal party’s entrance.
Their entrance would be followed by the first dance and the cake cutting. While all that was going on, dinner would be staged, so every aspect was being carefully timed out. I was speaking to the caterer when I happened to glance over and saw the most curious blend of expressions pass over the bride's face. She frantically waved down my assistant.
A few moments later, my headset beeped on, and my assistant said, "We have an issue.” The bride had a mishap and needed to use the bathroom. She was wearing a huge, full ball gown with a fitted, strapless top that had an embellished mesh. Underneath, she had a shaper garment, hoops, and slips. We had already realized there was zero way of her going to the bathroom.
We had issues getting her into the limo, and having her use a porta-potty meant one of us would have to get personal. That was my assistant's job. I radioed everyone to expect a fifteen-minute delay, and they headed towards the tent. Fifteen minutes passed, then twenty. Finally, my earpiece beeped on, "The previous issue is more than we anticipated.” I ran over to find my assistant looking horrified.
It seems as if the bride had been using some health shakes in an attempt to fix last-minute bloating. This had mixed poorly with the cocktails from earlier, and she had eaten a fairly decent breakfast. The substance that had come out of her body, as a result, defied explanation. Not only did she have a rather profound accident, but the smell was unrivaled. It was a substance no human body should emit. Oh, but that wasn't the worst part.
What sent it all over the edge was that the shaper the bride was wearing was a latex deal. It came down over her thighs and up to her bra. It was waterproof, and the poo had just sort of filled it, like a water balloon. My assistant had opened up the snap crotch and just released the evil down the bride's thighs. She quickly sealed it back up.
She, and the bride, vainly tried to wipe up the goo with toilet paper. This just spread it around, so they gave up. I now had a shell-shocked assistant and a crying bride. You could smell her four feet away. The bride was just flipping out because she was making her guests wait, and she had a choreographed dance waiting to happen. She wanted to be introduced NOW.
Her manicured nails had diarrhea residue embedded in them. I started scraping it out with a fabric stain wipe while the bride insisted that the show go on immediately. I gave in and signaled to start introductions. The groom looked vaguely disconcerted by his new wife's odor, but I told my assistant to distract him until they took the floor.
The introductions happened, the dance started, and then we were met with some fresh horror. The dance was a choreographed number, and as the groom spun his bride around, hand on her waist, he squished the poo up the insides of the waist trainer, up, and out the back waistband. We watched as an oily stain spread across the mid-back of her gown.
As we were reeling from that sight, the groom set his hand firmly in the middle of the poo stain. It was evident that I had to take action as soon as the couple left the dance floor, so I left my assistant in charge while I made preparations. She kept radioing me, telling me that the stain was spreading and that she could smell the stench from her spot by the DJ.
Then the couple started cutting the cake. They were feeding it to each other, both with poop-stained fingers. Each was looking downright repulsed. As they left the dance floor, I had someone rush wet naps to the groom and bring me the bride. I had my staff close down the support tent, and I pulled a tub of clean water from the caterers.
She walked in to find me in dish gloves and a poncho, like American Psycho. For five minutes, I was sponging down a sobbing, undressed bride while I questioned every life decision that led to this point. The diarrhea was everywhere, spread in a thin layer across her body. It may have been the most disgusting thing I ever dealt with. With the bride now clean, I threw away the waist shaper and scrubbed down her $15K gown in a plastic basin.
The inner lining was a loss, so I cut it out completely. The bride got dressed again, and I offered her a Xanax. The support tent stunk like a sewer and stayed closed for the remainder of the event. The groom was a sport. He never directly said anything but asked if we could cancel the garter toss as he didn't want to go under her skirt. Pictures from the event appeared in a magazine. The still photos were beautiful.
4. A Multitude Of Problems
My cousin planned a multi-day wedding event. The idea was that family was supposed to come for the long weekend, and wedding activities would go on for days. Events ranged from flower picking to laser tag. However, the actual marriage was on Friday night, with family and close friends present. It was complete with dinner and toasts immediately afterward.
They had a bunch of second-string guests arrive on Saturday for the official reception, which was a dry pot luck. This distinction was not clear in the invitations, so guests were left confused. Some had driven a long way and were wondering when the bride and groom were actually going to get married. I had to tell them that they were already married the day before and that day’s reception was one where there was no booze and guests had to bring their own entrees. It was awkward.
5. A Brother’s Bridal Ballad
I went to a wedding that was held at a Napa Valley winery during the tech boom of the 90s. The groom was a venture capitalist on the climb, and the bride was a brittle, glossy blonde. Both were prone to using tech-speak in conversation, and their wedding invitation was in the form of a merger announcement on a mocked-up Wall Street Journal page.
Still, the guy was a friend, and my date and I went to show our support. The first really weird thing that happened was that the bride's twin brother came out before the wedding, got the bride to sit on a stool in front of everyone, and serenaded her, on his knees, with a guitar. The song was a love ballad that he wrote. It was filled with such longing that everyone stood frozen with discomfort.
He sang about how beautiful his sister was, how any man would be lucky to have her. I can't remember the whole thing, but this lyric seared itself into my brain, "Lips touching, tongues dancing. They give each other a look that can mean just one thing.” And the most cringey part of all? It wasn’t done for laughs. He was crying as he sang, and everyone watching looked like they wanted to drop through the floor.
Then, during the wedding, there were chairs set up in a lovely courtyard garden, with an aisle down the middle leading to a pavilion. We all seated ourselves on the chairs, which had white upholstery. When the ceremony ended, the minister said, "And now, I ask each of you to reach under your chairs for the small, white envelope you will find there.
“Each one contains a live Monarch butterfly. We will release them into the air and let them soar free as a symbol of the love these two have for each other." Once again, everyone froze. Whoever had set up the area had put the envelopes ON, not under, the chairs—little white envelopes on snow-white chair seats. Open-mouthed with horror, all the guests reached down and found the envelopes.
Most of the butterflies were squashed, as they had been sat on for the better part of 45 minutes.
7. The Couple Had A Small Problem
The best man staggered up to give a speech, saying how beautiful the bride looked. But it was all downhill from there. He then continued to say that she would have trouble with the groom in bed because he had a micro member. He then started yelling that while being dragged off. The groom slumped his head into his hands out of utter embarrassment. His bride got up sobbing and ran out.
Apparently, this couple had both been saving themselves for marriage, so she didn’t know. I felt horrible for both of them. It was the most awkward thing I ever experienced at a wedding.
7. The Hatfields And The McCoys
I was a bridesmaid at my then-friend’s wedding. She, and the groom's entire family, were always fighting. The groom was the spoiled youngest child in his family, who was always referred to as the baby. My friend was the awful woman who was stealing the baby away from the family. There was also this huge blow-up between the parents because the bride was from a very well-to-do family and the groom was not.
At the wedding itself, the bride was continuously being called names by the groom’s adult sisters, the groom’s mother was in constant hysterics, and when she wasn’t making a scene, she was glaring at the bride, and everyone was wasted except for me. In fact, I was loudly criticized and shamed by the bride and her friends because I couldn’t drink due to my epilepsy.
After that, I decided that I had had enough and left.
8. A Surprise Gift
The bride and groom had been together for a long time and were trying to have children for years with no luck. They got engaged and began planning this massive wedding when they found out that she was finally pregnant. By the time the wedding day came, the bride was about seven months along. The guests were having a blast at the reception.
However, no one had seen the bride and groom for a while. People went looking for them, with no luck. A few minutes later, the groom appeared—and everyone gasped in horror. He was carrying his new bride in her completely blood-soaked wedding gown. He carried her out to a waiting ambulance that he had called from the bathroom they were in.
The bride gave birth to a baby that was very premature but alive. She suffered blood loss and was unconscious. The baby was taken to a nearby hospital that was equipped for preemies. The bride was taken to a different hospital, which was pretty far away. The groom spent his wedding day going back and forth between the two hospitals.
When the bride woke up, she insisted on going to the other hospital to see her baby. The first pictures of them as a family are of them looking down at their teeny baby, with the bride still wearing her tiara.
9. The Fighting Irish
Many years ago, I was working as a barman in an Irish hotel. The hotel was struggling, so we took a wedding booking from a notorious family. Their daughter was marrying a member of a similar family from the other side of the country. The families were very large, so the wedding was huge. About two hours into the reception, things took a crazy turn.
The first sign something was wrong was that all the women suddenly made a beeline for the door. Thankfully one of the floor managers had seen this before and quickly pulled the waitresses out of the way. Once the women were clear of the floor, the men started laying into one another. I saw a bottle fly past, and we pulled the shutter down over the bar. It was the closest thing to a massacre I'd ever seen.
There were easily fifty men knocking the heads off of one another. Someone drove a car into the emergency exit. Chairs went through windows. The fight spilled out to the rest of the hotel while the staff was locked behind the bar or in the kitchen. We called law enforcement, who took their time getting there in hopes that the brawlers would tire one another out.
Finally, when it was over, we had to comp every other guest. We spent the rest of that night, until about four in the morning, cleaning up blood, glass, and human waste. The place never recovered. We had to cancel the next three weddings due to the damage, and once word got around, we couldn't get any more. It shut down soon after.
10. When Doves Cry
I went to a wedding that was held in a barn. The barn door was open throughout most of the pre-reception setup and the ceremony itself. At the end of the ceremony, they released a dozen doves. They didn't realize that if you're releasing doves, don't release them anywhere near open ceiling fans. Half of them flew back in, hit the metal fans, and exploded.
There was blood everywhere. The bride was sobbing, and the groom was mad at the dove guy. It was chaos. My wife and I just left—there was no saving that.
11. Rap It Up Champ
My wife was the officiant at a wedding. The bride was gorgeous in a revealing bridal gown, and the groom was in baggy jeans, a T-shirt, and a trucker hat. He was also plastered. He took a shot, chased it with Old English 40, and said, "Let's do this," like Rocky Balboa. As soon as my wife started the ceremony, the groom turned to her and said something utterly chilling.
He said, "I'll pay you $100 to shut up." He pulled out vows he wrote himself and started rapping them—badly. The pain went on for a good two minutes while both sides of the family looked like they wanted to crawl under the lawn to escape. The bride stood there frozen in horror. It seemed no one was expecting this free-form verse.
My wife skipped whole sections of the ceremony, declared them husband and wife, got the paperwork signed, and we got out of there fast.
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12. A Sobering Ultimatum
A couple of years ago, I went to a wedding where the groom and groomsmen began drinking at 9 am. I wasn't in the wedding party, but about an hour before the wedding, I got a call from the best man. The officiant had stopped by and said that if they weren’t going to sober up, he wasn’t going to perform the wedding. I headed up to the room they were in and began trying to sober them up.
Somehow they sobered up enough to get dressed and go to the wedding. They stood up there swaying but made it through; however, the bride was not happy. Then came the reception. About 10 minutes in, one of the groomsmen decided he needed a drink to calm his stomach. That's when the nightmare began. While looking toward the bride and groom, he started to projectile vomit all over them.
I'm not sure how he is still alive after that.
13. A Sign From Above?
I went to an elaborate outdoor ceremony with tents set up and a string quartet playing. Just as the bride and groom reached the altar, dark clouds started to roll in with distant booms of thunder. As the couple was about to take their vows, it started hailing golf ball-sized hail. The downpour was so heavy, and the winds were so strong that you couldn't hear a word they said.
The lawn turned into a slippery mud pit to the point where the dance floor began floating away. As they got to the “I do” part, lightning hit nearby, and everyone's ears were ringing. Part of the tent collapsed, and everyone ran for the main house or their vehicles. They finished up the vows in the main hallway, and the marriage lasted six months.
I think someone was trying to tell them something, and they wouldn't listen.
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14. Into The Woods
My cousin’s wedding was in the middle of August during a sweltering heatwave. They had it in the middle of the woods, with mosquitoes as far as the eye could see. Most people didn't have a place to sit, and those that did, had a nice splinter-filled wooden table, the kind you would set up for camping. But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
Their toddler was screaming throughout the entire ceremony, and the bride, who was nine months pregnant, was cursing the entire time about how hot it was. She smacked her dad as they walked down the aisle because he stepped on her toe. My brother's job was to walk up and put two goldfish into one fishbowl as a sign of partnership, except one of the fish was a goner.
He dropped one live fish in and one dead fish. Need I say more?
15. She Went Out Partying Till The End
One wedding guest decided that the wedding wasn't enough fun, so during the ceremony, she was downing pot brownies. During the cocktail hour, she loaded up on drinks. In the middle of the dance floor, she began peeing herself, then fell backward and hit her head on a pylon. She was knocked out with pee dripping from her legs and blood coming out of her head.
The band kept playing, people danced around her, and others helped. The medics arrived, and while they were wheeling her out, she lifted one arm and made the rock horns sign, moving it up and down to the music.
16. A Final Celebration
I didn't know the family of the bride very well, but I was a guest at her wedding. Her father was overweight but otherwise seemed healthy. Well, mid-ceremony, the worst thing possible happened: He had a freak heart attack on the spot and dropped dead at age 57. People at first thought it was a joke but quickly realized it wasn’t. It was all pretty horrible.
The bride was understandably inconsolable, and the groom was shocked but did his best to comfort her. They followed the ambulance to the hospital, and everyone just kind of stood there in the church for a while. The bride had her maid of honor encourage everyone to go to the reception hall, regardless of the situation, because she felt bad for her guests.
I don't know if anyone went. When everything calmed down, about a month or so later, the wedding party and a lot of the guests organized a barbecue for the couple so they could finally celebrate their wedding.
17. Blowing In The Wind
My second cousin got married in Vermont in the springtime, and the weather report called for a "chance of showers." As a result, they rented a huge, circus-sized tent to cover the meadow they were going to have the reception in, which was next to a pond. It easily covered all 80 attendees, along with the tables and chairs.
The ceremony beforehand was in a church about two miles away. The bride arrived via motorcycle as her dad was in the local Harley Davidson club. During the ceremony at the church, it started to rain outside. As it was just a drizzle at the time, the bride and groom hopped onto the backs of their motorcycle escorts' bikes and rode off to the reception venue.
About a minute after they took off, the light drizzle turned into a full-on tropical storm with wind, sleet, and hail. They did not turn back. They rode through the storm to the venue. When the rest of us arrived, we found quite a scene. The tent had come off of its moorings. The groom and groomsmen all had their shirts off and were wrestling the tent back into place.
The bride was completely soaked through her white dress and waited for a change of clothes to arrive. The wind blew so much that the pond had two-foot waves crashing over its edge and splashed one of the tables near the bridesmaids. The rest of the guests and I ran up to help with the tent. Just as we were getting it back in place, the wind gusted in the opposite direction and blew one of the bridesmaids into the pond.
18. At Least Nana Saw The Nuptials
I was at the wedding of a good friend. It was a beautiful ceremony, but at the reception, the bride's grandmother wasn't feeling well. They had to have the paramedics take her out. She died on the way to the hospital. At least she saw her granddaughter get married. Unfortunately, the great-grandmother was there too and had to see her daughter pass at her great-granddaughter's wedding.
19. Get It Right For Kristin's Sake!
The priest during the ceremony kept calling the bride "Elizabeth" despite her name being Kristin. The bride and the maid of honor tried to correct him, but he was so old and hard of hearing that he just kept continuing calling her the wrong name. It was a disaster through and through. This wedding also had the parents of the groom show up halfway through the ceremony.
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20. Need A Ride?
I was the best man's date to a wedding. There were seven bridesmaids. Three of them got into a car crash on the way to the rehearsal dinner. Fortunately, no one got hurt, but the car was totaled. One of them went home and didn't even attend the wedding. No one had arranged transportation for the wedding party from the hotel to the rehearsal, so I offered to drive.
I was kicked out of my own car to make space for another bridesmaid because "that's what the bride asked for.” Keep in mind that I didn’t know anyone other than the best man at the wedding. The rehearsal dinner didn't start until 11 pm, and most of the bride and groom's families didn't come because they couldn't wait that long to eat. And then the morning of the wedding dawned and sheer chaos ensued.
First off, the bride was several hours late to the ceremony. The horse and carriage that was supposed to transport her had gone to the wrong hotel, so it was delayed by over an hour. Eventually, they picked her and the wedding party up, but on the way to the wedding, one of the two horses fell into a ditch and broke its leg. The other horse had a heart attack and passed. The flower girl, who was on the carriage, had to be told the horse went to sleep.
To top things off, the bride's sister had a severe allergic reaction to the food at the reception and had to be rushed to the hospital. It was a mess.
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21. It Was All A Bit Too Much
I went to a wedding for some friends at some very generic meeting hall. The ceremony went off fine, and all seemed normal. Then, the reception started and it all fell apart. We were served raw chicken and the driest cake I've ever had. But that wasn't the worst of it. As the reception went on into the night, the groom kept drinking and drinking.
Eventually, he started getting belligerent and demanding. He announced that all the women needed to come out on the dance floor and "freak" him. After some more drinking, he started to get very affectionate with some of the bridesmaids. He got a little too touchy with one and wouldn't let her go, so she bit him in the ear.
He then demanded that everyone take the woman and throw her out of the wedding. All of the commotions got the bride's attention, who started yelling, "You're ruining my wedding!" The groom started cursing at her. The bride’s uncle tried to intervene but got backlash from the groom. Eventually, the bridesmaid that bit him calmed him down by sitting on his lap and letting him poke her cleavage with his finger, and giving him little kisses.
22. What A Bunch Of Balogna
My cousin got married in a small town in Kentucky that was at least an hour's drive from any hotel. Their wedding was in late June, in the middle of a field, in full sun. His wife designed the flowers and decorations, which amounted to some really sad-looking shade plants wilting in the sun, still in their plastic pots with hooks attached, just sitting by the aisle.
It was scorching hot out, and they were forty-five minutes late starting the ceremony. While we were sitting there, cooking in the sun, sweating through our nice clothes, they provided bottled water to help us cool down. The bottles were stored, warm, with no ice, and placed on either side of the aisle. Not only that but there were mosquitoes and chiggers everywhere.
They had a fairly large budget but decided to hold the reception in the middle school cafeteria just down the road, which smelled like old macaroni and cheese. They even reused the prom decorations for it. The provided meal was quartered squares of bologna and ham sandwiches on bread with a spread of condiments. The wedding cake was a sheet cake with a team logo on it.
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23. The Bride Thought It Would Pass
I was a guest at a wedding where the bride and groom had been together for 11 years. They were high school sweethearts and excited to marry each other. The ceremony went great. It was quick and emotional—everyone cried. The bridal party was taking pictures, and my boyfriend, who was in the wedding party, asked if I could bring him a drink.
As soon as I got there, all the groomsmen were standing around while the bridesmaids and groom were flocked in a circle around the bride. She was sick to the point where she couldn't stand up and had to be helped into the reception. This came out of NOWHERE. The couple came in and did their first dance.
They danced with their parents, served dinner, and then announced that they were going to the hospital. They missed their entire reception. The wedding continued well into the night because that's what they wanted. As we were getting ready to leave, we ran into them coming back to the hotel. It turned out she had a kidney stone.
24. Unscripted
I was the best man at a wedding. Two weeks prior to the event, the bride’s mother and stepfather began asking me repeatedly for a script of my speech. They wanted to make up audience cue cards like they have when they film live TV. Needless to say, I never gave them a copy of it. The whole thing made for a few very awkward conversations when I finally met them at the rehearsal dinner.
25. Whose Wedding Is It Anyway?
I was at a wedding where the bride's mom wore what was basically a wedding dress. Not only that, but she insisted on walking her daughter down the aisle, along with her ex-husband, who was the bride’s father. There wasn't enough room for all three to walk comfortably. After the wedding, we found out that the photographer had become enamored with the maid of honor, so more than half the pictures he took were of her! There were no portraits of just the bride and groom.
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26. Meal Mixup
During the reception, the hotel brought out the wrong main meal. Rather than just shrug it off and get compensation later, the bride insisted they cook the whole thing from scratch—for 100 people! This essentially brought the reception to an end as now all the guests had to wait an extra 2-3 hours for dinner. Many guests waited in the bar all night, then went home without ever seeing the happy couple.
27. It All Came Out At Once
The bride had been drinking. She had a bit too much and ended up vomiting and peeing on her wedding dress. The groom became angry that guests were fighting and threw a glass through a window. To top it off, an engaged couple broke up, and the lady took her ring off and threw it at her now ex-fiance. This all happened at one wedding.
Officers came and shut the whole thing down before the clock struck midnight.
28. No Respect
A service member was marrying a woman who was not in the military. He invited all of his buddies from the service, so there were lots of dress uniforms in the house. The time came to cut the cake and smash it into each other’s faces. The bride took her piece and raked the cake over the guy's left chest, smearing all of his ribbons—a major no-no. We couldn’t believe it.
Most of the dressed service members just left. The wife thought it was hilarious; however, the groom was embarrassed. The marriage didn't last.
29. The Sister-In-Law Got Snubbed
I went to an outdoor wedding, in June, in Southeast Texas. It was 100 degrees and humid. It rained all day up until about 20 minutes before the ceremony. The poor bride and her entire party look wilted, and the guests were complaining about the heat. The groom’s sister, who showed up in jean shorts, flip-flops, and a Budweiser shirt, caused a scene by screaming at the bride.
She threw red wine on the bride when she told her she couldn't sit at the table reserved for the bridal party because she wasn't a part of the bridal party. She cursed at the bride in front of the whole reception. And then the unthinkable happened. For the finale, during the sparkler send-off, the bride's dress caught fire because an inattentive guest hit her with the end of their sparkler.
30. Bitter Sweet Boredom
I went to a wedding where the bride walked down the aisle to a boombox playing “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” The ceremony lasted two hours and involved an extremely awkward "mixing sand" portion that took thirty minutes. This was followed by candle lighting that lasted twenty minutes. It was unbearably long and boring. Then the entire thing shifted to a local convention center banquet hall for the reception.
The room was huge, and they only had about 100 people in attendance, so we only filled about a sixth of the space. The DJ in the corner blasted music so loud that it was uncomfortable to be on the dance floor near him. There was a cash bar that only served wine, and as a final slap in the face, they only paid for two hours in the banquet hall.
So, the reception lasted equally as long as the ceremony. It was just an absolute nightmare.
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31. Mass Exodus
I went to a friend's wedding that was being held in a multipurpose center at an apartment complex. The two families all got wasted on cheap drinks before the wedding, which was bad. Then, during the ceremony, two people started getting into an argument, which resulted in the entire bride's family just up and leaving. About 40 people just got up, walked out in the middle of the ceremony, and went home.
32. Game Time
After dating for four weeks and engaged for another four on top of that, a girl from my high school decided to get married. She emailed out invites on a Tuesday for a Sunday wedding to take place in her mother's backyard, which was actually the common area for the trailer park. They started at 12 pm on Sunday so they could be finished before the football game started.
There were no chairs for the guests to sit on. The ceremony took about 45 minutes. The bride and groom read three different sets of vows/inspirational thoughts they found online. They only had 15 minutes left for the reception before football was to start. They had four pizzas delivered, along with two 20-piece chicken wing bundles and three bags of chips for 40 guests.
There was no silverware, no plates, napkins, or drinks. At 1 pm, the bride’s dad came out yelling for people to leave so he could focus on the game.
33. A Serious Arrangement
I worked for a non-denominational wedding venue. One day, we had an arranged marriage for a devout Muslim family, so there was no booze. The bride and groom had never met before, only Skyped, and the bride didn’t speak any English. It was basically a first date held in the middle of a lot of sober, unsmiling relatives. It was supremely awkward and completely devoid of fun. The couple even left early.
34. “I Do” Disaster
My brother got married a few years ago, and it was a mess from day one. He and his bride had estranged everyone in my family before the wedding. My parents, who were funding pretty much the entire event, ultimately decided to cut off their support about three months before the wedding. As a result, my brother and his fiance wrote an email to everyone invited, calling out my parents for their “lack of support.”
This fractured the family. Ultimately, only the most immediate members of my family showed up. The day of the wedding was a continuation of how horrible everything leading up to it was. My brother and his fiance stiffed the officiant and failed to pay the caterers for food. Because of that, we were literally only served a few platters of vegetables, which my parents paid for on the spot.
His whole relationship was a disaster, but the wedding was an especially bad episode for our family.
35. Life Is Just A Rodeo
My cousin got married at the rodeo grounds of a very small rural town in Wisconsin, which kind of sets the tone for the wedding. The ceremony was fine, but then after the ceremony, the entire wedding party went bar hopping for FOUR HOURS while all of their guests were left with no food or entertainment at the rodeo grounds.
Eventually, the bride's stepdad single-handedly got the food set up and let everyone eat. However, the bride and groom lost their minds when they got back because people were eating without them. Some guests just left because they got tired of waiting. The bride, who was pregnant, walked around all night with a pack of smokes sticking out of her cleavage and also drank heavily. It was just miserable.
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36. I Don’t Get Paid Enough For This
I was a DJ for a wedding that was just rough. To start, the groom wanted to have the Raiders emblem projected on the ceiling during the reception. They had hired me, as well as a band. The groom's family insisted that the band play first and only play cumbias and that my set be exclusively Latin music. The bride got mad, but she didn't hire me. So I tried to compromise the best I could.
The bride got sloshed and started dirty dancing a little too heavy with some guys. The groom went to fight the bride. She swung and missed, hitting the maid of honor, who ended up on the floor with a bloody nose. It turned into an all-out ghetto brawl with guns being pulled out. I packed up and left as law enforcement arrived.
37. The Greatest Show On Earth
I have officiated a few weddings, only one of them really went badly. The bride was raised Jewish, and the groom was raised Catholic, but both were atheists. He only proposed because his family pressured him. She only said yes because he asked in front of her family. Her family was quite wealthy, and they had hired an impossible wedding planner. The whole thing was destined to be an expensive circus.
The only aspect the bride and groom got to control was hiring me, their friend, to conduct a custom ceremony. We wrote something together that they liked and signed off on. The rehearsal was held at botanical gardens, which were beautiful. However, we did not get time to rehearse the ceremony because the ballerinas were having issues nailing their choreography, and the violinist took a while to set up.
The next day we started the ceremony. Twenty minutes before we were to begin, the wedding planner told me they were going to mic me, but we didn't have time to do a sound test. There was also an A/V crew filming the whole affair from multiple angles because they were going to make DVDs. When the couple got to the altar, I started talking, and a train drove by, blaring its horn.
I wanted to wait until the horn stopped blaring to start the ceremony, but it kept going and going, and after a minute, I had to start talking to get the show on the road. When I began, there was a giant burst of feedback that momentarily drowned out the train. When it finally calmed down, I started the ceremony in earnest, but there was an awkward time delay with the speakers.
I could hear my own voice with a delay playing a few seconds after I actually said it. I had the ceremony memorized, but at that point, I just started reading off the paper, trying to think straight. Meanwhile, the train continued to honk its horn. There were awful performances during the ceremony with ballerinas—a wedding present from some aunt.
It felt like it took forever, and the couple just stood at the altar and watched five minutes of dancing. There was also a violin solo, another wedding present, during the ceremony. The train blasted over both of them. We finally got through it and to the reception, which was basically all about the family without any regard for the couple or what they wanted.
The bride's family had a whole PowerPoint about how great they were; there was even a musical tribute to an uncle. The bride had learned a song to play on the piano, just for him. During the cake cutting, the family noticed the bride had switched to more comfortable shoes, and the wedding planner declared she had ruined his wedding. I found out the next morning that the couple had agreed to split up the moment they got home.
38. This Is A Wedding, Not A Frat Party
Our good friends were getting married, and the whole college crew was there. There was an open bar. One of my friends got wasted and couldn’t control the volume of his voice. The bride’s parents were introducing the new couple to everyone for their first dance when his voice suddenly cut in. All you could hear was someone swearing at the top of their lungs.
My friend was talking to someone else, but the entire wedding fell utterly silent. After that, he caught the garter belt and ran around with it on his head, screaming. Shortly thereafter, he was yelling at an officer as he started a fight at the hotel.
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39. An Unwanted Promotion
The best man checked himself into a mental ward the morning of the ceremony without telling anyone, so I was "promoted" to best man about four hours before the wedding. I had to write a speech while doing all the stuff he was supposed to do. The ceremony was being held at a park at the top of a mountain. There was no cell service.
The bride was over an hour late, and no one had a way to reach her without driving for twenty minutes to get service. Everyone thought she bailed, and some people were talking about leaving when she finally arrived.
40. Too Much Celebration
The celebrant attended our wedding with his wife. They were both in their 60s and desperately in love. They also completely ruined my wedding. He showed up with a sound system straight from the nineties to set up in the park where we had the ceremony. We wanted the ceremony to be short and sweet, but the celebrant began reciting this long, dreadful poem about marriage. We suspected he wrote it himself.
Then the sound system started to cut out, and the celebrant's wife started yelling, "Can't hear you. It's CUTTING OUT, celebrant!" We soon realized she was seriously plastered, and she had a flask of something in her bag that she kept swigging from. It was only 4 o’clock in the afternoon. She heckled us during the whole ceremony. Nobody could stop her. It was ridiculous.
41. Gender Gap
I went to a wedding that had the sides segregated by gender instead of the bride’s and groom’s sides. So, women were seated on the bride's side and men on the groom's. Since I was friends with the groom and didn't get along with the bride, like many other friends in attendance, it was awkward, to say the least. We all lined up after the ceremony to congratulate the happy couple.
However, instead of sitting together, the couple were each on opposite sides of the room. The bride had a table in front of her so you could drop off wedding presents. Females were herded toward the bride whether they knew her or not. She glared at anyone who didn't drop a big gift on her table or a card with money. Everyone was finally allowed to find their date only after going through those lines.
42. The Priest’s Copulation Oration
The ceremony was performed by a priest who spent the entire 45 minutes talking about how ravishingly beautiful the bridesmaids were and how all the married couples should celebrate the wedding by "having lots of copulation." The bride and groom were told to make an appointment for a baptism in nine months' time. Then, there was more talk about "intimate copulation."
The bride and groom, who were both modest people, were beet red. Guests didn't know whether to intervene or laugh.
43. Smokin' Hot
I was volunteering at a hospital, and they had rented out the one hall for a wedding. I was in the kitchen as they needed people to carry some heavy things. The bride was very eccentric and was being a bit of a bridezilla. She wanted over 200 candles on the front table—we had approved 50. She got her way and had what looked like a bonfire in the middle of the room. A recipe for disaster.
The groom took his spot, and the bride came walking in. She clipped the table, sending hot wax and fire to the floor. We tried quickly throwing a rug over it, but it burned through, and we had to use a fire extinguisher to put it out. She kept walking, and while she was on the altar, someone pointed out that her dress was smoldering.
The groom patted it out and said something along the lines of, "I told you you're smokin’ hot." I laughed, as did other people, but she did not. The ceremony was canceled and pushed to another day at another venue. The bride tried to blame us for the fire and attempted to get out of paying the hospital for the wasted food and staff. I felt bad for that poor groom.
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44. Jailhouse Rockin’ Reception
One of my best friends met his wife through an inmate pen pal program. He was incarcerated for having several infractions in less than a year. I visited him a few times, and he had mentioned her, but it didn't seem serious. Three days after he was released, he called me at 2 am, telling me he was getting married. He said I needed to get downtown in the morning to be his witness.
I thought it was a joke or something, but sure enough, the next morning, they were going ahead with it. We lived in Vegas, so they did the stereotypical Vegas chapel with a drive-thru type wedding and were married by an Elvis impersonator. My buddy was wildly hung over and had to stop during the ceremony twice to run out to the street and puke.
It was hilarious, pathetic, sad, and weird all at the same time.
45. The Groomsman Elevated This Wedding
The bride, groom, and the entire wedding party were sitting on an elevated platform, in view of everyone. The father of the bride was giving a speech in front of the raised table they were all seated at. Suddenly, the groomsman sitting next to the best man projectile vomited off the front of the table, just missing the dad. But he wasn't in the clear yet.
In his haste to stand up and get to the bathroom, he fell off the back of the platform and proceeded to throw up all over the floor while writhing in pain.
46. Winter Wedding Woes
A couple of friends of mine had already been married by a justice of the peace but wanted to have a nice reception with all the trimmings. I started to have a bad feeling about it when the bride insisted that a January wedding in Virginia should take place outside under canopies. I told her, “January is cold,” but she said they would have space heaters.
The tents she wanted had no sides, so essentially, the heaters would be useless. However, the worst was yet to come. When the date came around, an epic storm hit. One of the outdoor tents collapsed in the snow, and the other had to be taken down as it started to blow away. The wedding and reception were moved inside to the groom's aunt's hoarder house.
So, in her beautiful gown, the bride was photographed standing in front of a stack of boxes filled with trash.
47. This Wedding Was Subpar
I was a groomsman at a wedding where the chapel was in the middle of a golf course. To get to the chapel, you had to take an elevator down from the clubhouse. All the groomsmen had spent the day drinking at the clubhouse, so when wedding time rolled around, we were running a bit late. We took the elevator down, and it got stuck between floors.
Ten groomsmen and a groom were stuck in a standard-sized elevator. We called for help, and the person answering told us the mechanic had gone home, so it would be some time. One of the groomsmen was claustrophobic and did not handle that news well. After about an hour of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a controlled panic, we all really had to pee.
My best friend had an empty flask. He went in there and filled it to the brim. By then, there were some bad vibes in that elevator. Finally, the mechanic came and did his magic. We got to the main floor and sprinted across the golf course to get to the bathroom. At that point, we were about an hour late—but it was about to get SO much worse.
As we were running to the john, the groom got struck in the head by an errant golf ball. He screamed and plopped to the ground. He was there dazed with a bloody head. We called his dad, who came running over from the chapel. Around this time, the golfer who hit the ball drove over in his cart, asked if we were okay, then drove off, leaving 11 tipsy dudes and one with a cranial hemorrhage behind.
The groom’s dad ran over and drove him to the emergency room. The wedding was canceled.
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48. Boomerang Bride
I went to a wedding where the groom had dated a girl for about six years. They broke up, and six months later, he was now marrying his rebound. It was doomed from the beginning. When people got the invite, they glanced at it and assumed he was marrying the long-term girlfriend. When they got to the chapel, they didn’t know who on earth the bride was.
It was an insanely expensive wedding with about 200 people. The bartender spent the entire reception trying to hit on the groom's 14-year-old sister by plying her with drinks, and I was assigned seating at a table full of the groom's idiot college brothers. To top it off, they wanted the guests to take pictures between the ceremony and the reception, which was four hours.
They didn't serve any food until the wedding party arrived. The couple split within a year or two.
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49. Indecent Proposal
When I was 18, my older brother was getting married to a wonderful woman, so everyone was incredibly excited when they announced that they were getting married. The wedding day came, and everything went wonderfully. The bride looked beautiful, their vows made everyone cry, and everything seemed to be going according to the plan. Then, the reception came.
I was a bridesmaid, my older sister was the maid of honor, and her boyfriend was the best man. I made my speech, and as I was making it off the stage, my sister’s boyfriend jumped up to make his speech. His speech was short, and then he asked my sister to come up to the stage. She seemed a little hesitant, but I told her everything would be alright.
When she got up on stage, her boyfriend got down on one knee, gave a speech about how much he loved her, and pulled out a ring. Everyone went red in the face with anger. My father got up, fists clenched. Both my mother and sister burst into tears. Other guests began shouting at him. My sister just went off, furious as to how he could be so stupid to propose on another’s wedding day.
She dumped him, and he got kicked out.
50. You’ve Got Mail
I attended a wedding once that seemed okay. The party went well, and although a few people had gotten a bit too tipsy, everything was just as a wedding party should be. Then, a few days later, all who attended received a mysterious letter. It contained a bunch of complaints about how the guests had behaved. The bride and groom had been sitting for a couple of hours thinking of everything that they found problematic about that day.
They actually wrote it up as a complaint to all guests. Since all the complaints were for really small things, and lots were mere rumors, this led to a lot of angry guests calling each other on the phone, and more angry letters were written in response. All that we remember from that wedding today is that aftermath and has turned into "the wedding that must not be talked about."
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