Getting married is not for the faint of heart. Many people want the perfect fairy-tale wedding and to look like a princess on their big day, but behind the scenes of every extravagant ceremony is a stressed-out bride, groom, and wedding planner. With the stakes so high, tensions run deep, giving birth to the feared matrimonial monster: The Bridezilla. Here, wedding planners, workers, and guests reveal their worst Bridezilla stories.
1. Kissing Cousins
My cousin got married to this horrible woman who wouldn't let me and him take a picture together because she was jealous. I was eight years old, their flower girl, and also HIS COUSIN. She also got into a screaming match with her sister-in-law because she had a bigger engagement ring. Oh, and the Bridezilla was from New Orleans, and wanted to have the wedding there. There was just one problem.
She insisted on having the wedding there even after it got screwed over by Hurricane Katrina. Finding a hotel was a delight, according to my parents. She then made her husband, my cousin, skip our grandmother's funeral because she "didn't like her anyway". Honestly, no one has forgiven him for going along with this. But then the piece de resistance came.
She cheated on my cousin with her high school sweetheart after my cousin paid for her lap band surgery. She was a treat. I don't miss her at all.
2. Family Matters
I am a wedding and special event planner in a major city. I own my own planning company, and I have been in the industry for about eight years. I have so many horror stories, but this one takes the cake. I had a bride who openly spoke utter and complete trash about the groom’s family, in front of his face. She would say that they were "crazy, unclassy, and annoying".
Well, come the wedding, her family was actually the hardest family I ever had to deal with, and the groom’s family was absolutely lovely. On top of all this, the bride yelled at all of the vendors all day, resulting in the videographers leaving after just one hour of shooting and the photographer crying in the bathroom. The groom and the bride’s cousins apologized to me for her behavior all night.
3. See Spot Rage
I’ve worked as a caterer for decades and this is my favorite wedding diva story. The mother of bride found a single spot on a knife on a single place setting. She then made an obscene demand. This woman expected the entire $60,000 reception to be free. She was not writing the check so she got shot down pretty quickly. But there was much rage.
4. It’s The Little Things
I worked for a catering company that catered for super, super rich people's weddings and events. There were a lot of little things that happened at the weddings we did, mostly rude rich people who thought that because we were the help, we should be treated like dirt. The one that sticks out in my mind is a wedding that we did at night.
We had been there for hours, and our main duties were done. However, we still had to clean up, and to do that we (of course) have to gather all plates, cups, silverware, and napkins. Well this one rich witch of a woman had been a piece of work all night. Complaining about everything and just being a pain in the butt to all of us.
We were all very polite and put up with her, but when we came over, she refused to give up her place setting—where she had gathered all the dishes and napkins, and would not let us take them. That meant we were stuck there. After an hour past when we should have left, we were all just sitting around, exhausted at 12 am and waiting to leave.
Every time this woman would take a step away from her seat, one of us would dash in and grab as much as possible. And every time, she would dash back to her seat. Finally, she had only one napkin left...she got up to dance, with the napkin in her hand! My boss was a 65-year-old, amazing woman who was sweet and wouldn't say a foul word to anyone or do a thing to offend a soul. Until that one moment changed everything.
She marched up to this woman, looked her straight in the face, grabbed the napkin, ripped it from her hand, smiled sweetly, and wished her an amazing night. I will never forget the anger and disbelief on that witch’s face. She immediately made a beeline for the mother of the bride, while we all made a run for our cars. Good riddance to you, lady.
5. Don’t Harsh My Vibe
I work for a planning company, and we had a "dadzilla". He was the father of the bride and he was pretty much an idiot all night. Toward the end of the evening, he asked that I play "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. They didn't have a DJ; I was using my phone hooked up to our ancient sound system to play music for their reception.
I obliged, and he decided that he wanted to sing along. Whatever. Well, my co-worker decided to unplug the mic because he was, in her words, ruining the song. I didn't care one way or the other, it was no skin off my back if he wanted to warble along, but whatever, my co-worker clearly disagreed. She cut off maybe the last 30 seconds of the song. I came to regret this deeply.
Cue months of angry phone calls and demands of a refund because cutting off the song "ruined" his daughter's wedding. This in spite of the fact that his daughter had both warned us about him and apologized to us for him. He showed up one day to pick up the remainder of a few decorations they had left behind and claimed that my boss was supposed to have left a $450 check for him and he wouldn't leave until we paid him.
I had to deal with this guy harassing me for money for probably 45 minutes before he finally gave up and left, claiming that he was going "straight to the courthouse" to sue us in small claims court. We haven't heard anything since then—he was probably put off by filing fees, would be my guess—but my husband still asks for "microphone guy" updates every once in a while.
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6. Who’s Your Daddy?
Wedding DJ here. For me, it wasn't the bride—it was a Groomzilla. Some background info: This was the bride's second marriage and for some reason, the newlyweds decided to invite her ex-husband, I guess because he was her kid's father and they wanted the kid to see the wedding as a thing the whole family was involved in? I don't know their reasons, I just know that this was a HUGE mistake.
The dance floor emptied out early and everyone was having fun in the photo booth or mingling outside…Except the baby daddy and the groom. They're sitting at a table alone and appear to be having a raucous, laughing conversation. But then it took a grim turn. Suddenly, their faces are getting angry. Groom now has his finger in the daddy's chest, "HE CALLS ME DAD NOW! I'M HIS FATHER!" Groomsmen come running in to hold them both back. Groom flips the freaking table over. Bride is now in tears. A magical night.
7. Let’s Go To The Tape
I used to shoot wedding videos for a business that covered anything related to a wedding. So one day, I heard that I'm getting assigned to another wedding this weekend. No one told me there anything was special about the ceremony, so I show up and see it's an Indian wedding. No big deal, I think, I can handle this. I did not handle it.
In a typical wedding, we would mic up the groom, and the bride and groom would stand in front of the preacher and the one mic would get everyone's audio. Except in this wedding, the bride and groom sat on a swing and the person officiating the wedding was pacing back and forth. So my audio was completely messed up—loud one second and quiet the next.
On top of that, the bride and groom had eloped months earlier and this was all for show. So what did the bride and groom do? Sat there and talked about all their guests behind their backs. So not only could I barely hear the guy talking, I had way too much audio about how the bride's mother's cousin was a promiscuous alcoholic.
Then we go to the reception. The reception lasted eight freaking hours. 8 hours. I brought enough batteries and tapes, but Jesus that was a long time. I sat a camera up at one end of the hall for a long shot, then a slightly closer shot from over the DJ booth, and I was doing handheld camera work. Every few songs, I'd move my long shot camera to get a different angle.
Now we go into the edit phase. This is really the only time I ever interact with the couple and where we spend any amount of time together. So I'm editing and we have a standard format we follow. A montage in the beginning, ceremony footage, first dance, father-daughter dance, mom-son dance, cake cutting, random footage of people dancing, testimonials and well wishes, etc.
Basic stuff. It usually ends up being about two-four hours once everything is done. Theirs was five hours long. We gave them a copy, and the next day all heck broke loose. The bride stormed into the store, demanding the rest of her wedding. I have no idea what she's talking about and besides, I don't get paid for any re-editing work.
We gave her an hour longer than any video I'd ever done, but that wasn't enough. She wanted all eight hours of the reception. Edited together. So I loaded all my shots up, and did huge cuts where I'd stay on a shot until it sucked, then I'd change it. Some shots wouldn't move for three songs. Basically, there was no way I was spending a lot of time on this.
We finally finished and exported the video to DVD. But she had one more nasty surprise in store for us. We called her in and she wanted to watch it in the store...and she brought a note pad. As she's watching, she's making an "edit list" of things she wants me to change. That list ended up being three pages long. I stood up, looked her in the face, and said, "This job isn't worth it. I quit".
That was the last wedding video I ever edited.
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8. Someone Needs Therapy
My worst bride was an Ivy League-educated shrink. She tried to play head games with absolutely everyone involved in the planning of the wedding. Frequently had fits. She and I butted heads because she wanted a carpet running straight from the bottom of the stairs to the doors of the chapel. I told her it wasn't possible, since they didn't line up.
She kept on asking me if I was sure, even after I showed her exactly what I meant. Her response chilled me. She narrowed her eyes and told me she thought I had a problem with the truth. She was very controlling with the groom as well. I remembered their names and looked them up on Facebook a while back. They're divorced and he appears to be happily remarried.
9. No Such Thing As A Free Bride
I had one horrible bride who I planned an amazing wedding for. She raved about how much she loved the food all evening, but the day after the wedding, she enacted her diabolical plan. She wrote a bad review about the caterer on Yelp and told me she wouldn't remove it unless they gave her a discount. She's a horrible person.
10. Just Say No
I work in a mobile bar that travels to different weddings in our region of the country. We had this couple that were a bit strapped for cash, so we did their wedding for cheap. Anyway, they were so nice to begin with, but a lot of their guests brought their own drinks to the venue, which wasn't allowed. We confiscated them and promised to give them back at the end.
One of these guests was the groom's father, who brought a whole keg of ale. At around 10 pm, most of the guests were leaving, even though the party was supposed to go on until 1 am. That’s because the bride and groom had gone off the deep end. They had obviously partaken in substances and were pretty smashed and out of it.
We weren't selling any more drinks so we decided to leave early, refund the customers a bit of money, and leave all the confiscated booze behind. The bride (who booked us) was cool with this so we proceeded to head out. Well, it turns out that the groom was not okay with that. Just after we packed up, he started demanding drinks and the phone numbers of all our female staff.
We said no, of course. Eventually, we had packed everything in to my boss’s trailer and were ready to leave. We all ran to the car park as the groom was getting really angry at this point. It was about to get so much worse. My boss pulls away just as the groom comes out of the venue and starts hurling chairs at her car and trailer, screaming nonsense and swearing.
But I was in another car, and he hadn't noticed me yet. I turned the key in my car, which of course didn't start. He noticed me then. I kept trying the engine, and after a few tries it finally started. I turned on my headlights—and there he was. 6'2" of messed up groom standing with lock-eyes in front of my tiny car. I couldn't get around him as he kept running in front of me, so I decided to drive straight at him and hope he moved out of the way.
He didn't. Instead, he jumped onto my car and eventually fell off the curved hood. Never looked back. Screw that guy.
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11. Food Fight
I had one horrific couple that didn't care about anyone. The groom was 30 minutes late for the ceremony, but it was no big deal, because the bride was TWO HOURS late. After the ceremony, we had to shorten cocktail hour to make up for lost time. We hoped the couple would hurry up and treat their guests with respect, but nope. While en route to the reception, they got wasted in their limo, and both ended up falling asleep.
They were both so late for their own reception, I had the venue serve dinner without them. Their parents were furious. The bride’s parents left early, and the couple didn't arrive until 11:00 at night. Half of their guests left before they arrived, and they yelled at me for allowing dinner to start before their arrival. This was a 400 guest wedding.
12. Married In A Snap
I had a bride rent our facility for her "classy" wedding. She was a TOTAL nightmare, easily the worst bride I've ever dealt with. She refused to make eye contact with any staff member and got people's attention by snapping her fingers at them. Oh, but she got her comeuppance. She made a complete and total fool of herself when she and her groom showed up plastered to the reception. But that wasn’t all.
A rumor had started to spread that she was pregnant, which is why they were getting married. She furiously denied this in a speech to everyone gathered at the wedding. The baby was born five months later, and weighed a healthy 10 lbs, so no one bought her story that he was premature. It now costs a lot of money to get married at my place of work, and all brides must sign an eight-page contract basically promising not to be a jerk.
13. The Bodyguard
My sister-in-law was trying so hard to keep from going Bridezilla on her wedding day, but people were going full idiot on her...Here she is with one person doing her hair, another painting her face, and her doofus cousin is asking, "How do you operate a coffee machine? Because I am 26 and have never learned to make my own coffee and feel NOW is the time to learn and the BRIDE is the one to teach me".
Then someone else comes in and says they've run out of parking directly outside. Should they park further down the road? No. Just stay in your car, you tool. Then she tries to present all of us bridesmaids with matching jewelry she bought us, and her cruddy friends are saying stuff like, "I like my own jewelry better". I realize she is starting to go squinty in one eye...I knew what I had to do.
I suddenly realize she doesn’t need to be a witch on her wedding day, because she has ME. I tell the bridesmaids how lovely the matching jewelry is and of course we will wear them, regardless of what we brought, because none of are thoughtless selfish witches who would insult a bride’s gift that way. Right? Right?
Then I parked my butt in the dining room doorway, popped out a breast for some preventative breastfeeding of my four-month-old, and made anyone who came down that hall run their stuff by me before they got access to her. And if it was something stupid like, "I've somehow forgotten how to find my own parking and I think someone being prepped by a team of expensive consultants should hold my hand through the process of accepting this," I told them to get real and screw off.
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14. Picture Perfect
I work at a facility that we rent out for weddings. We probably host like eight weddings a year, and weddings bring out the worst in people. You can have the calmest, chill person on your first meeting, but by the time that the wedding rolls around, that bride will be a witch on wheels. But nothing compared to this one horrible Bridezilla.
She was obviously on her second or third wedding. She kept trying to use everything for free, even though she had signed a very specific contract that stated what she could and could not do. She pitched a fit over that. Then, on the day of the wedding, she threw a nuclear meltdown fit when her bridesmaids got tired of taking photographs after three hours and went somewhere to get warm.
She started screaming at the photographer that she was going to keep taking pictures and to heck with all of them.
15. You’d Better Sit Down For This
I had a mother-in-law-zilla one time, who, after seeing and approving of the chairs that we provided, caused a scene of epic proportions after she decided that the chairs weren't good enough anymore. The bride was sobbing by the end of it, being consoled by the monster-in-law, who simply kept telling her, “It'll be alright, even though everything is ruined by these GREEN chairs".
16. The Ghost Of Girlfriends Past
I have extensive experience as an events coordinator, including private events such as weddings. The worst I've personally witnessed had a groom’s baby mama (and ex-fiancée) come to the reception uninvited. She grabbed the wedding cake, chucked it at the newlyweds, and began screaming about how he was an absent father while she smashed bottles of wine on the ground.
Everyone was stunned at first, but the ex-fiancée was ultimately restrained by the groomsmen. We called the authorities, and she was charged with assault and destruction of private property. No cake was salvaged sadly. The bride was a huge fan of donuts since childhood, though, so we ran out, grabbed boxes upon boxes of them, and they celebrated “cutting the donut” during their midnight lunch.
They ultimately enjoyed the remainder of their night, but the bride’s gown was destroyed, and a good amount of the linens were ruined. At least their wedding was definitely memorable. In the end, the parents of the groom asked me to arrange a lovely (and secret) private dinner for the newlyweds and their bridal party to make up for the fiasco.
As a side note, when we had the private dinner, I found out the outrageous truth. See, the ex-fiancée was a close friend of the groom’s cousin. I guess the cousin was recently divorced, and always felt passed over by the family, so she took the ex fiancée’s side. The cousin ended up giving the wedding info to the ex, and well, she showed up.
Honestly, the cousin probably would've gotten away with slipping the information if she didn't start spurting off that the groom “got what was coming to him". I think the mother of the groom paid for the dinner as an apology for insisting the (now married) couple invited his entire family, including crazy cousin Gemma. As well she should have!
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17. Penny Pinching Princess
I’m a caterer. One bride who just got married is a lovely girl and fun to talk to and work with, but I feel like every conversation I have with her leads back to "I want to do [really cool thing], but I only want to pay [less than 1/4 of what [really cool thing] would reasonably cost]". I've made some suggestions to her, but it's like she's waiting for me to offer her something for free just because she wants it. No...doesn't work that way.
18. Maid Of Dishonor
My sister made me her maid of honor. This was a little weird, actually: We never talk. We grew up together but barely know each other, and she never spoke to me in high school or while she was in university. But she calls me one day, while I’m away for a debate tournament in university, so I’m a poor student at this point.
She lets me know that “Since her fiancé’s brother is getting him his wedding band, wouldn't it be so cute if I bought her HER wedding band?!?!?!" It wasn't a question—she demanded it. All of a sudden I'm "her sister," meaning I guess that I have to do all these things that she's seen in movies and in magazines for her.
Plan this party, plan another party, help countless hours doing this, buy the dress she wants you to buy, etc. The best part is that she let me know that "at least she was letting us choose how we were going to have our hair for the wedding—a lot of people don't actually let their bridesmaids choose!" Thank God, am I right? So generous!
It was the tip of the iceberg, and it was all awful. She went back to not talking to me ever after that, then she had a baby, and it was the same thing again. Worst of all, although I was angry about it openly to my parents and to her, no one heard me, or more importantly, everyone decided I was being a brat. That doesn't make any sense and isn't fair, but it’s how it is.
I was 18, and this was a turning point in my relationship with both her and my mom—I've distanced myself a lot. It makes me sad, but it's what I had to do.
19. Seasons Of Change
A bride once called me, having a meltdown, because her friend got engaged as well and was planning to get married in the same year as she was. Apparently, it was her special year and not just her special day. She threw a huge fit that this girl was only getting married to “steal her thunder". Yes, because no one else can have a life at the same time as you.
Her friend’s date wasn't even in the same month or season. Hers was in October and her friend’s was in June...
20. Unfashionably Late
I freelance as extra help and event management for a wedding planner in Nashville. The worst wedding that we ever worked was a Persian wedding. The ceremony was held in a Baha'i faith center, and the reception was an hour away in a Jewish community center. The family was neither of these religions. They used the venues because the groom's family was cheap. Like really, really cheap.
They also decided not to pay the extra money to have full kitchen access, which meant that the Kurdish Kebab caterers were getting hot water out of the coffee machines. It was a disaster from the beginning. The groom's sister, who was a raging witch according to the planner, got in a car accident on the way to the reception.
The bride and groom showed up at 10:00 pm instead of 7 pm. The wait staff was only contracted until 10 pm, but thankfully were happy to stay and work with the wedding planning crew. But the invitations said 6 pm, so all of the American guests showed up at 6 pm and were waiting for the newlyweds for four hours! We were also given strict instructions to wait for the couple before we started serving food.
My boss asked me what my opinion of working with the family was. I told her that I wouldn't recommend them to Satan himself.
21. Perfect Timing
The Bridezilla pulled the “you'll do it if you really love me" card and demanded her fiancé rent a massive equestrian park with stables, vast fields, riding rings, and the whole nine yards—as if her $20k diamond ring wasn't enough. Only problem is, a massive rainstorm rolled in, and the stables only had one small building to cram into.
Oh, and did I mention her several dogs? They all peed and pooped inside the venue, all over the velvet carpet. One even pooped while they were walking down the aisle.
22. If The Dress Fits…
My mom worked in a bridal salon when she was in college, and sizing was a nightmare. One day, a woman named Sandra came in to try on gowns. She tried on the large sample dress, and had it pinned to see how it would look on her if it was her size. She said this was it, so my mom took her measurements, and figured out what size she needed to order.
When my mom told her dress would be a size 8 based on her measurements, Sandra threw a fit. "That's impossible! All of my other dresses are a size 4! I have been a size 4 since I was 14. I am not an 8! Order me a 4!" My mom tried to explain how sizes vary from designer to designer and that, while she may be a 4 normally, with the designer of her dress her measurements are considered an 8.
She said it's just a number, and if it's too big it can be taken in. However, a 4 couldn't be taken out...Sandra took none of that. Despite all protest, she demanded a 4. A couple of weeks before the wedding, her size 4 dress arrived. It wouldn't zip (duh). Bride had a meltdown. Mom had to apologize and reorder a larger dress at the bridal salon's expense.
23. Rogue Relative
How about a Momzilla? I was the planner for a wedding and had been working with the bride and groom. A few months into planning, the groom’s mom calls me to change the date of the wedding. I thought it was kind of weird and called the couple to confirm the change. NOPE! Couple did not know anything about the date change and said to completely ignore the groom’s mom and call them if she tried to get in contact.
24. Bite The Hand That Feeds
My sister fired her wedding planner and canceled the rehearsal dinner. The poor photographer ended up stepping in to be the one to tell us when it was our turn to walk down the aisle, time to cut the cake, who should toast, etc., because my sister was toasted and the rest of us were just clueless. He was also a top-notch photographer.
So what did my sister do to the man who saved her wedding? Betray him. My husband and I were considering buying some of the photos he took of our family, but he ended up taking all of my sister's pictures off of his site because she was screen-capping and sharing them with the watermark cropped out instead of buying them. So classless.
25. We Don’t See Eye-To-Eye
I worked a wedding where I basically had to play a game of telephone all day long. I'm a photographer and came onsite the day of the wedding to meet with the planner/coordinator, who promptly told me to be careful around the bride. Now, let me tell you, planners have seen it all, and this doesn’t usually happen. But this Bridezilla was beyond nightmarish.
Apparently at the rehearsal the prior night, the bride thought the coordinator was taking too much of her time (after two questions), and relayed through her bridesmaid that the coordinator was no longer allowed to speak to the bride or even look her in the eye. All communication would have to go through a family member from there on out.
I had worked with this coordinator in the past and knew her to be a consummate professional and pleasant person to be around. She had actually assumed the bride would get over her tantrum the day of the wedding, but nope, still no talking or eye contact. The coordinator tried her best to keep the wedding day going smoothly and on time, but it was really tough to do so through proxy.
Taking photos took forever because I had to make sure a bridesmaid or sister was always with us to tell the couple where to stand and how to pose. It was one of the most awkward jobs I ever had. I also should mention that when I came onsite for the wedding, I was able to locate the bride by the sound of her screaming at her hair and makeup artists.
By the time I came into the bridal suite, she had switched to screaming at her bridesmaids for looking prettier than her and made them change their hairstyles to "look uglier". After I was done with the getting-ready portraits, I found the groom outside on a balcony just staring into the sun with the longest sigh I've ever heard in my life.
26. All Eyes On Me
My mother-in-law and my mother were turning into huge Momzillas, so my wife and I shut them both down and took over. Planned and executed the whole thing ourselves. Printing, decorations, the works. But then my mother got a horrific revenge. Upset that the whole day wasn't about her, she outed my deeply in the closet gay brother at the wedding.
Suddenly, everyone was talking to her about how she had this terrible burden to carry. My wife and I encouraged them to leave the reception and kept our friends there to carry on the party. And my brother. Great party. If you need any more information about my horrible mother, here’s more: she forgets my birthday; she once gave me a gift of flip flops....both left. From a dollar store. Weddings don’t always bring out the worst in people—sometimes the people are just awful already.
27. Buyer’s Remorse
I work at a fancy country club. The weekend I started working, we had a large and expensive wedding for the daughter of one of the club's members. Just this past week, we got an email from the groom—three months later—wanting to "adjust the invoice" due to X, Y, and Z that had gone wrong with his wedding. As I read the list, I burst into laughter.
Pretty much everything that he mentioned was either a) out of our control, b) corrected when it was mentioned to us, or c) never mentioned until now. I'm honestly not sure what my manager is planning on doing about it because...how are we supposed to correct something that happened three months ago? It seems like a blatant money-grab.
Oh, and the parents of the bride had nothing but wonderful things to say about the wedding for weeks afterward, so...yeah, my guess is money-grab.
28. I, Bridezilla
Okay, I'll admit it. I was the bridezilla at my first wedding. What can I say? We were young, and we had more money than brains. My then-husband was also a horrific jerk, but I was in love with the idea of being a picture-perfect bride. I tried not to go full Bridezilla but eh, I managed to do so anyway. The stress was incredible, given that we were doing a high-falutin' wedding in a beautiful but resort-y location.
Everything had to be just so. I believe the final cost of that darn wedding was somewhere north of $17,000...in 1990s money. I can't even imagine or calculate what it would be today. I remember getting to the altar and wanting to pitch a fit because the groomsmen were wearing vests that were minutely the wrong color—a plum-ish color instead of the ocean blue I'd requested.
My groom, who hadn't yet graduated into full-on physical aggression, gave me a warning shake of the head. And since we were at the altar, I managed to rein myself in and not make (more of) a jerk of myself. If I could talk to my 26-year-old self now, I'd slap her silly for being as dumb as a stump. That custom-made dress you insisted on? A $299 David's Bridal gown would've worked just fine.
Boutique wine with custom labels? Right. Buy a couple of cases at the local discount store. Nobody cares; they just want the free booze. Passed hors d'oeuvres followed by a gourmet, plated luncheon? Yeah, go with the buffet, because after all those drinks with the custom labels, nobody is going to remember what the heck you served anyhow.
I have since learned my lesson—making sure you're with the right person is so much more critical than trying to impress people with some stupidly fancy wedding that nobody will remember in a week's time. You want to be a princess for a day? Buy a costume and hit up Disneyworld.
29. Trainwreck Right On Time
I worked for a few years as a wedding singer. The worst disaster I've seen was directly caused by a bride being a Bridezilla. If you've ever been to a wedding, you know that weddings run behind schedule. This bride was adamant that everything be exactly on time. Of course, it being a wedding, everything was running behind about 30 minutes.
At 7:55, she could no longer handle that the wedding was running late and decided to skip ahead to the Hora, the traditional Jewish wedding dance. The Hora was scheduled for 8:00 pm. We (the band) and the wedding planner suggested that we should not skip ahead, but she was having none of it.
With her face red with effort, she screamed at us that the Hava Nagila would start at 8:00 pm and not a minute later. Well, she was paying us, so we did what we were told. It went so wrong, so fast. We started our Hava Nagila at precisely 8:00 pm. The guests rose and began to form a circle as they have done countless times before. But something was amiss…
The groom was nowhere to be found. The bride was alone in the center of the circle. As if on autopilot, the guests danced and sang on while the bride's expression changed from confused, to horrified, to crushed. It was a train wreck. They finished the dance without the groom ever arriving. The bride was sobbing uncontrollably.
The groom was outside because the wedding was running 30 minutes late. He knew the schedule and thought he had time. In the end, it was the bride's own stubborn insistence that led to the tragic ending. She was the captain on her own Titanic, and we were the band playing as it sank. I sometimes wonder how that marriage worked out.
My #1 advice to people getting married is to enjoy their wedding day. No matter how much you plan ahead, things will always go wrong. Instead of trying to control and manage everything, spend your wedding day celebrating with your guests. No wedding ever goes perfectly. Considering you ideally only do it once, do your best to enjoy the ride.
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30. Music To My Ears
I’m a musician, and I played a wedding last year where the bride and groom were fantastically lively, beautiful people. I couldn't help but like them even though in the lead up I probably only spent an hour in their company. Anyways, the bride wanted me to play at the ceremony, just acoustic guitar and singing outside the church, for the guests as they walked in.
They invited me to the wedding and reception so I wasn't just there for an hour and then went home. About a week before the wedding, the bride asked if I'd also mind playing their first dance song. I of course said yes, since I was going to be there anyway. She wanted me to play “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran. So fast-forward to the day of the wedding.
Everything is going according to plan, and about 10 minutes before the first dance is due to happen I go and get my guitar. This is where it all unraveled. The groom’s mother followed me and basically confronted me, telling me not to play that song. Instead, she wanted me to play “Can't Help Falling in Love” because it was her favorite song. I very politely informed her that my agreement was with the bride and groom and therefore I'd play the Ed Sheeran song.
She wasn't happy, went on a rant, and she ended it with “I'm paying for this wedding, and I don't care what that witch wants, you will play what I tell you to or you won't get paid". So I told her, of course, I would play her song, after all me being a poor unemployed musician I couldn't possibly have any other gigs or a source of income, and was desperately relying on the $150 that an hour of singing at a wedding ceremony would bring me.
And then I got up to play, did what the bride wanted, and made sure to stare at the mother-in-law for a good 30 seconds. I figured it was best to not ruin the happy couple’s day, so I waited until they got back from the honeymoon before I told the bride what had happened. And bless her cotton socks, she transferred me $300 on the spot for my troubles.
31. A Father’s Love
I've worked as a waiter at one of the more fancy wedding reception venues in my city and we get a lot of old Italian, Greek and generally European family weddings. For this one wedding, the groom got mega plastered and smashed a bottle of cognac on the dance floor and literally tried to set it on fire. The function supervisor tried to tell him very politely that he couldn't.
He got upset about that and started screaming "This is my wedding and if I want to burn this place down I will". Officers were called. At that same wedding, it was speeches time and the bride gets up to say a few things about how her deceased mother was an inspiration to her, etc. General heartfelt wedding stuff. Her father stands up after, and ruins the moment with just a few words.
"You ungrateful little witch, you're the spitting image of your mother. Never thanking me for anything. I paid $40k for this and I don't even get a mention in your speech? Screw you and your dirt husband". Security stepped in at this point and tried to calm him down, so he takes a swing at security and gets kicked out.
32. Everybody Just Calm Down
I briefly worked in event production. I had the pleasure of being at this event working a plain old photo booth at a beautiful church. It’s a simple gig. The weather was gorgeous, the view was gorgeous, and everything was great. The second I get there, one of our photographers comes up to me with a glass of champagne, chugs it, and says, "I’ve been here since noon".
My jaw dropped. It was now 8:00 pm. In the distance, the bride was screaming and cussing up a storm. I talk to the photographer a bit longer and I find out that the bride punched her mother in the face during photos, the bride kicked out the groom’s best man, and she cussed out our videographer. This woman was going mad.
To put it in perspective, halfway through the reception the bride shouted for her “idiot husband to get our money’s worth at the photo booth". Later that night, I watched her shove a groomsman to the ground when he asked her to calm down. She eventually broke into tears randomly at some point. At the end of the night, she tipped me $150. When she wasn't having a breakdown, she was chill.
33. Detail Oriented
My cousin’s friend has forbidden her bridesmaids (my cousin is one) to use anything other than a very specific brand of fake tan any more than a set number of times in the month preceding the wedding. They aren't allowed to be more tanned than the bride, artificially or naturally. They also have to wear a very specific pair of tights—a set thickness and color—or the bride will lose her mind.
34. Who Am I Without You?
We had one groom who was an hour late to his own wedding. Yes, this is a jerk move, but the bride’s response made my jaw drop to the floor. This woman, who had seemed perfectly reasonable before, laid down on the floor, pulled the back of her dress over her head, and started singing nursery rhymes to herself until he could be located.
35. Star-Crossed Lovers
I work at a men’s wedding rental store. One day, a young couple comes in and is picking stuff out. As usual, the guy is pretty “I don't care about this". Brides are never happy about this attitude. We go through for a bit, but when it comes to picking vest styles, they get into a huge argument right in front of my colleague and me.
Eventually, the groom throws up his hands and says, "If we can't decide what colors, then we just shouldn't get married!" He then walks out of the door and leaves in his car. The girl starts crying in our store, while we are just bewildered. My colleague asked if she was ok. She said she was having someone come pick her up and walked out the door crying.
Never saw them again. Hands down a famous story in our store.
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36. Nice Try, Honey
I make custom, one-of-a-kind, wedding dresses. One of my many notable interactions: A girl asked me if I would send her an $1,800 dress for free because "I'm really pretty and I'll send you pictures of me wearing it at an event". I explained that while I did custom dresses, I couldn't possibly make one that would fit over such large balls.
37. To Your Health
I worked at a venue for wedding receptions. One time, a groom wouldn't drink because he had severe "Asian red face" so he avoided drinks all his life. Well, the bride convinced him to drink the champagne toast. Big. Mistake. Turns out he was severely allergic and almost went into anaphylactic shock. The bride got into the back of the ambulance in her wedding dress.
38. That’s What I Want
A girl I went to high school with got engaged. Her parents offered her three options: $50,000 for a wedding, $50,000 for the down-payment on a house (and a small, intimate wedding), or $25,000 for the wedding and $25,000 for a house. She chose the $50,000 wedding. Weeks before her wedding, she told her parents that she was having second thoughts.
Parents said, "Everyone has jitters. The wedding is paid for. You're getting married". So she got married. The marriage lasted two months, and the reason was incredible. She had been cheating on her fiancé/husband for over a year with a co-worker. Why did she pick the expensive wedding?!
39. Little White Lie
I remember our wedding planner told my wife these insane stories, completely unbelievable, about Bridezillas. They were laughing, having fun about it, and my wife swore she wouldn't be like that. And it was almost like the planner was trying to push it as far as she could, like she was trying to see just how much my wife would believe.
After the first couple of stories, I stopped laughing and tried to figure out what I was hearing. And there was some whopper at the end about the Inn having to call the authorities because the bride was going to gank someone with the cake knife, all because some tiny little detail was wrong with the icing.
Anyways, my wife walks out and I said something to the woman like, "Was that all lies or just most of it?” She laughed and said, "I just tell them this stuff so they don't get any crazy ideas. You'll thank me later".
40. Photo Finish
This bride was a very large girl, and insisted that her bridesmaids wear ridiculously bulky dresses in order to not make her look so big in the photos. The groom-to-be joked that maybe she should lay off the cake (ok, jerk move), and she berated him for a loooong time. Which, yeah maybe he deserved, but those poor bridesmaids didn’t.
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41. Say Cheese!
My friend is a photographer who often does weddings. A groom once punched him in the face for the most insane reason you could ever imagine: because the groom decided that the photographer was "taking too many photos of the bride". Weddings seem to bring out the worst in humanity.
42. Can I Get A Rain Check?
I work for a florist and event coordinating shop, and we have several pretty high-end venues we are exclusive with. Lots of money breeds lots of entitlement, so we get pretty horrendous Bridezillas on the regular. One I remember was a woman who was very sweet up until after her wedding. We had to substitute peonies (every bride and their grandma's favorite flower) because they weren't in season.
To get them she would have needed to pay a ton, so she opted for garden roses instead. It rained on her wedding day, not like "maybe we should make a rain call," like tornado sirens and things falling over. The power went out and the hotel used all of their backup generators to light her ceremony and reception for the three hours the power was out.
The rest of the hotel guests just had to be rich by candlelight, I guess. None of that was her fault, but none of it was ours or the hotel's either. Nature gonna nature. She tried to sue not only us for “messing up her bouquet" but also the hotel for not letting her ceremony be outside and for not letting her ceremony be in "the prettiest area" of the inside of the hotel.
Thankfully, we always have two coordinators meet with brides from this venue, and we also record consultations and have contracts notifying all parties. So she couldn't do anything to us in a courtroom. She did, however, decide to blast us on Yelp, Facebook, and any other social media medium she could find while she rage-typed.
Thankfully, we threatened to sue her back for defamation and she removed them all. The hotel has similar practices but also a ton of money to throw against her in court, so they basically told her to bring it and she backed off.
43. Flowers Of Evil
I'm an event coordinator for an all-inclusive catering company. We manage rentals, staffing, food, venue set up and clean up, etc. However, we don't provide decorating or floral services. My story is with a mother-of-the-groom-zilla. We are preparing the venue early in the day, and I'm there keeping everything on track with the team.
She shows up in full makeup and gown (bedazzled, mauve, taffeta...Need I say more?), a few drinks in, demanding that we place the flowers and decorative plants pronto. I didn't want to distract my team from what we’re actually paid and contracted for, so I decide to appease her. She has several cut flowers and greenery in buckets that she wants me to pick up and disperse over all the banquet tables, head tables, all that.
About three minutes into this arduous task, I break out in burning red hives. All over my wrists, forearms, between my fingers. "Oh my god, what kind of plants are these? I'm apparently very allergic!!!" I ask. "I don't know, we cut them from the backyard". You're kidding me. She ended up mailing us a thank you note and a $10 tip. Thanks?
44. Grimace For The Camera
I’m a wedding photographer; I've seen my fair share of crazies over the years. The worst situation I ever had was with a couple who started arguing right after the vows. Typically, you shoot the bridal party in the morning getting ready, and if you're lucky enough the men will get dressed on time and let you take a few snaps of them all suited and booted.
On this particular day, the men were already hitting the sauce pretty hard and they ended up at the church stinking of drinks. I could tell the bride was angry as I was shooting the ceremony. She wouldn't look at her husband throughout the entire service. The groom, in all fairness, kept himself pretty well composed, but he was still stinking.
The poor guy was nervous. Roll on to after the ceremony where the bridal party gather at the prearranged shooting location, right before the reception. At this point, the bride and groom had about 30 minutes of alone time in the limo to conduct a full-blown argument. When they pulled up to the location, I got them to roll the window down for a champagne toast.
All I was getting by then were smiles through gritted teeth. It was awful. I tried my best to ease the mood, but this bride was in no mood for any wisecracks or enjoyment. The moral of the story is, don't argue on your wedding day or you'll end up looking back at angry photos.
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45. A Little Over The Top
I just worked a wedding this past Saturday where they had booked for 100 people. When they gave me the guest list—I work at a country club with a security gate and we need everyone's names so they can get in—there were 117 people. I told them that I would have to charge them for 117, because that's how much food we would have to prepare.
Cue an annoying phone call from the bride being all, "every time we talk to you it seems like there are more charges". Well yes, but every time you talk to me you add something, like guests or bar packages.
46. A Case Of Cold Feet
My friend is a wedding planner. He is a good-looking, straight male who has an amazing eye for design and detail. He can do everything from wedding dress design and execution to flowers, you name it. And his services are not cheap. He had a bride who called him up a few days before her wedding and told him she couldn't go through with it. Her reason why was chilling.
She started by saying she was in love with someone else. Then the conversation went something like this: Bride: "I can't marry him, I just don't love him anymore, I think I'm in love with someone else!" Him: "What do you mean you're in love with someone else!? Your wedding is in 5 days!" Bride: "Well....I'm in love with you. You just GET me! I've never met anyone else like you!"
Him: "...Do you know how much your parents are paying me to get you?!" She ended up getting married five days later and it was never mentioned again.
47. Don’t Take His Word For It
The bride wasn't happy with her husband’s vows, so she requested a "time out" in order for him to go to the backroom and come up with better ones. When the guy marrying them politely explained that he was on a very tight schedule, she called him a "lying jerk” and huffed back up the aisle into the room where her husband was.
We kept everyone else seated, and she appeared a few minutes later with freshly written vows for her future husband. He read them, and the wedding continued as planned. Again, uncomfortable.
48. Keep Your Friends Close
I worked in stationery design in the wedding industry a while back. Invites, wishing wells, menus, you name it. If it was wedding-related and on paper, we sold it. Some of the customers we got were class acts, I can tell you. The worst was a detailed consultation with the bride and groom about their invitation design. Over the next two personal consults and many phone calls, I primarily dealt with the bride and her maid of honor together.
After the last revision, the maid of honor came in to make a relatively major change, insisting that the bride wanted it that way. Idiot me made the change, and the order went to print. This turned out to be an enormous mistake. As it happened, the bride and her maid of honor had a falling out, and the maid wanted to get back at her ex-friend.
Apparently, she had approached several of the wedding services acting as an agent of the bride and pretty much screwed the whole event over...
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49. Party For One
I work as a hotel manager, and we see Bridezillas all the time. The worst was when a bride was so upset that she couldn't fit all of her bridesmaids on one shuttle back from the reception that she tried to physically assault the driver. He got his revenge immediately. He left her on the side of the road when she tried to BITE him. And here's the kicker:
When the groom found out and came to get her with his parents, she was still in such a foul mood that they left her there, too.
50. One Wedding And A Funeral
This was my worst for sure. I’m a wedding planner. We had an unexpected passing in the family. Our 6-month-old nephew died in his sleep, and I knew the funeral was going to be the day of my client’s upcoming wedding. I gave her a call to explain the situation. She’s clearly not paying attention to the call or the words I’m speaking, because I hear her laughing with friends in the background.
I get irritated and tell her I’ll call her later. I call back that night and again tell her what has happened and that I’d be sending an assistant to cover for me so I can attend the funeral. She tells me that I need to send my assistant to the funeral and that I better be at her wedding. It took me a few seconds, but I calmly stated that I’d be sending her money back and that no one would be covering for me.
Nicest way I’ve ever said screw off. I really wanted to slap her.
Sources: Reddit,
