Brides and grooms spend a ton of time and money planning their big day—but what if it turns into a total disaster? Well, these Redditors know exactly what that feels like. Here are the worst weddings they’ve ever witnessed.
1. Does Anyone Have A Plan Here?
I was invited to the wedding of a girl who I went to high school with. We weren't particularly close friends, and we hadn't kept in touch, so the invite came as a surprise. I guess I don't even really know why I went.
The wedding was in a church, and the guest turnout was significantly smaller than I think it was meant to be. The priest said the bride's name wrong at least twice during the ceremony and joked about how the groom might have been better off becoming a man of the cloth than getting married.
The reception was in the church basement. There was assigned seating (as is the norm at weddings), but within ten minutes, everyone from my table had relocated to a table that was meant to have been for guests who did not come.
My date and I sat by ourselves for over an hour and a half while we waited for the bridal party to make their way downstairs to the reception. When they showed up, the DJ seemed confused and sort of rushed through the announcement.
Then the bride and groom argued (quietly, but near my table) over whether the mother/son or father/daughter dance should happen first. They decided on mother/son, and that dance commenced without any sort of announcement or warning—and since the dance floor was basically behind the tables, no one even knew it was happening until it was practically over.
Right before dinner was served, two of the three bridesmaids left. The bride was in near tears the entire time. We waited until the buffet started, and we snuck out the back and went out for dinner instead. Worst four hours of my life.
2. Family Matters
While in high school, a recently graduated friend got pregnant and "had" to get married. Both sets of parents were incensed that their good religious children slept together before marriage, and both sets of parents were convinced that the other parents' child was to blame.
His parents thought the bride was loos, her parents thought the groom was an "opportunistic” jerk. Then there were the cultural insults thrown around—mostly by his family, since they were white, and the bride's family was Hispanic.
When the father of the groom asked if the bride's family planned on serving "dirty rice, heh" at the reception, I thought the grandmother of the bride was going body slam the idiot out the door.
So, we get to the day of the wedding and the bride's six brothers spend of the day skulking around. The groom's family continued to try to convince him that he should "at least wait until the kid is born so you can find out if it's yours or not" right up until he went to stand at the altar.
After a very quick ceremony, the whole crowd heads off to the reception being held in the rec room of an apartment complex. The bride and groom try to make the best of it, but there was no dancing or even music (because of their religion) and the food was just snack-type stuff.
It was a whole room of unhappy family members sucking down red punch and bad attitudes.
But it got so much worse. The groom's sister (who was a good 15 years older than the groom) had volunteered to provide the wedding cake, as she'd been making really fancy cakes for family birthdays for years.
The bride was kind of excited about this since it was really the only gesture of welcome she got from the groom's family. Well, the sister took off right after the ceremony to go and pick up the cake, and after an hour, she had still not shown up.
After another thirty minutes, the bride was ready to just break a chocolate cookie with the groom and be done with it. Then the sister arrives—and when they saw what she was carrying, they gasped. She was carrying 3 store-bought coconut cakes. There were also three of the smallest store-bought cakes ever in existence AND they were obviously not fresh cakes.
Like, they had discount stickers on the boxes. Each cake said it served 6 people and there were over 70 people at the reception. Here was the kicker. Again, they were coconut—which the bride was allergic to. The groom's sister had obviously spent an hour or so driving around to different stores looking for the worst of all cakes for this wedding.
She never even tried to explain why she did not make the cake herself as she had offered to do. I don't think the bride stopped crying for days and the groom just looked like he wanted to shoot his whole family. This wedding was 30 years ago but after some internet snooping, I believe the couple is still together and had several more kids.
3. Supremely Bad Timing
I was at a wedding two years ago where the happy couple-to-be was also best friends with another married couple, so naturally made the other couple the best man and maid of honor. Three weeks before the wedding, the other couple ended dramatically through him cheating and were going through a nasty divorce by the time the wedding rolled around.
The whole wedding became centered around the best man and maid of honor and their dismal attempt at looking happy for the new couple. The best man even had his new girlfriend rock up at the reception. Awkward as heck, but there was definitely a sense in all the guests of “Oh my God, what's going to happen next?!?”
4. Nice On The Outside, Ugly On The Inside
My cousin’s wedding was in October in the north of the US. It was an outdoor wedding, and it was about 35 degrees and windy. Bridesmaids weren't "allowed" to wear jackets, and the groomsmen were only in vests and dress shirts, so everyone was freezing.
Having planned the wedding in the summer, the programs were printed on fans. There were no microphones, so no one could hear the service over the wind. Oh well. The reception was super nice and was clearly very well planned out by the bride, with cool centerpieces, handmade favors, nice food, and all that.
The problem was that the bride (not my cousin) was such a stereotypical "bridezilla" the previous months that no one wanted to be there. For instance, in the previous two weeks she uninvited her sisters and parents two or three times and then re-invited them.
So, after dinner, the dancing starts. That’s when the revenge came. Within 15 minutes, literally, the bride’s entire family leaves. My wife and I are two of maybe 6 people dancing. We take a break, and the DJ comes over and asks us what we want to hear and begs us to keep dancing.
After an hour, there are only about 30 people still around. Of 200 guests. The bride spends the next 20 minutes dancing alone, as my cousin doesn't dance. Finally, she approaches the DJ, gesturing and slicing her throat, and the reception abruptly ends.
Only 8 people are left. All from the groom’s family. I've been to "worse" weddings, but this was the worst experience because everything was so nice-looking and set up to be a blast. I've never felt so uncomfortable.
5. Nickle And Diming
My cousin’s wedding was the WORST. My cousin and her husband live about three hours away from her and his respective families. So, everyone gets to the reception and finds out there is no dinner, only hors d'oeuvre. And by that, I mean there was a tray of cold meatballs, cold mozzarella sticks, and two turkeys for around 120 people.
Half the guests left for about an hour to go get something to eat. The cash bar was crazy expensive, like $6 for a bottle of Miller Lite. Then, they start SELLING dances with the bride and groom for $50. Sadly, I saw people finding the envelope of cash they were giving as a gift and taking money out.
6. Kathy Would Like To Be Excluded From This Narrative
The bride doesn't show up after 2 hours of waiting and then calls to tell the groom that she changed her mind. The groom starts crying and his mom shouts "Shut up! I told you to marry Kathy but noooooo Kathy was too fat huh? You just had to chase a model! She couldn't even wipe her butt with those nails, much less cook your dinner. Why would Jessica want you? You're broke and you're ugly. Kathy wouldn't have stood you up because she is ugly too. Serves you right".
The groom continues to cry while the guests stared in shock. But here’s the “best” part. Yes, Kathy was there. Just like everyone else, though, she was afraid to confront the mom. She did hug him afterwards.
christinarosepix, Shutterstock
7. Everything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong
My uncle's wedding, many years ago, was so awful that the whole thing was sort of beautiful.
An hour after the wedding was supposed to start, neither the bride nor the groom was there. All of the guests were there though, among them my cousin, a young handsome athlete who'd injured his leg and was on crutches.
The bridesmaids, the bride's sisters, got into the sauce. They started relentlessly hitting on my cousin, who tried to get away from them but couldn't escape them on his crutches. My uncle finally showed up. His car had broken down and he'd had to hitchhike, in a white tux, to his wedding.
The bride eventually showed up even later. She'd apparently stepped off the curb to leave and broken her heel off. She'd had to go back and try to fix it with glue. On her way back out the door the SECOND time, she'd stopped to give her hair an extra spray...and accidentally sprayed it with a can of Lysol instead, causing her to go shower and entirely redo her hair and makeup.
When the bride and groom were FINALLY both there...they realized no one had brought the music. So, everyone walked down the aisle in total silence with woozy bridesmaids and half of the original guest list present.
…The wedding went better than the marriage.
8. A Whole Lot Of Nothing
My brother-in-law’s wedding was a disappointing sham. Everyone on our side of the family had to drive three hours to the bride’s hometown so her whole family could attend the wedding. When we get there, the bride and Maid of Honor are cooking the reception meal because the Mother of the Bride decided last minute that she didn't want to.
The ceremony starts, and absolutely no one from the bride’s family is there. The reception has no drinks, no music whatsoever, and we had to watch a 20–30-minute belly dancing performance because one of her friends was a belly dancing instructor.
My boyfriend and I were the only guests out of about thirty that had brought them a gift, literally. There was a gift table with no envelopes or gifts at all on it. The bride’s mother left the reception early " because the thrift store was closing soon".
By the time the reception ended, my boyfriend and I ended up helping the bride and groom clean the reception hall because everyone else left. But the most devastating revelation was yet to come. We later found out that it was just a ceremony and no real marriage because the bride wanted to stay married to a previous husband for financial reasons.
This wedding was just a sham to convince her family that she had finally settled down with a good guy.
9. What Happens At The Bachelor Party Should Stay There
As a waitress, I've seen a lot of stuff at weddings. Amongst my favorite is the best man who got up and started his speech, re-telling all the details of the bachelor party night. The bride's family had flown in from Africa (unsure of the nation).
They were all in traditional dress and we were only serving drinks to certain tables because of their religious beliefs, I believe. The poor bride was hiding her head in her hands while the best man talks about the groom climbing on stage at a trashy joint and eating a banana out of a bikini bottom.
Rule number one of giving speeches at weddings: Never re-tell bachelor party stories.
10. Getting Cold Feet
I once attended a wedding of a couple that objected to Vatican 2. That is, they didn't believe in doing the service in the vernacular, so the entire service was in Latin for like, three hours. I could have been fine with that, but there was more.
First, it was in winter, and the church didn't have heat. Everyone was freezing. Second, after the wedding, the bride freaked out and got an annulment. She had other fiancés before, and they would always fall through before the wedding. This was the first one she actually went through with.
We think she panicked before the consummation. She didn’t believe in it before marriage but wasn't ready when she did tie the knot. She is finally married though and just recently built her dream house with her husband. Most of the immediate family ended up skipping that wedding after the last one.
11. Good Enough
My cousin got married in an Eastern Kentucky small town. It was at least an hour's drive from any hotels. 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 in the aisle.
It was above 90 degrees 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. But no one brought ice.
The bottles were stored, warm, with no ice, in bright orange 20-gallon buckets with rope handles. Which were placed on either side of the aisle. They did not do any kind of insect treatment in this field before the event. Mosquitoes and chiggers, are everywhere.
The reception was held in the middle school cafeteria just down the road. They reused the prom decorations for their reception. Because in this town, apparently, the high school prom happens in the middle school cafeteria.
It smelled like old macaroni and cheese. The provided meal was quartered squares of bologna and ham sandwiches on wonder bread with a spread of condiments. The wedding cake was from Wal-Mart. I should specify at this point that money was not an issue. They had a fairly large budget. They just thought this was good.
12. The Gift That Keeps On Taking
When I was stationed in California for language training, my then-boyfriend and I had a couple of mutual friends who decided to get married. Now these two were some of the sweetest, kindest, and most generous people I have known, but darn they were not very intelligent.
I mean that in the sense that they both were book-smart but just kind of vague and ditzy. The bride was white, and the groom was mixed, a Black father and white mother. The bride's family was very “Southern” and did NOT approve of their perfect little girl marrying a Black man.
They would not pay for anything and didn't even give them a gift. The wedding was held in a small church that both the bride and groom attended, and the reception was held in the parking lot with food being served from the back of a truck.
Now, it sounds like it could have been a cute country wedding, but it was not. There were maybe 15 total guests including the families. My boyfriend and I were the only ones who brought a gift, and I am so glad I splurged. We bought them a complete bathroom set with the rug and bathroom accessories and stuff, so it was a big basket that looked so out of place with no other presents.
There were no chairs or tables for the reception, no music, nothing. It was literally a bunch of people awkwardly standing in a parking lot, eating some BBQ from a local BBQ shack, and watching the bride's family members try to ignore the groom's side.
It was sad, but the bride and groom seemed to be oblivious to all of the tension and sincerely seemed joyful about their wedding. Last I heard, he was still in the service, and they had 2 kids together and were happy.
13. Mail Order Mess
My dad's wedding to his second wife. She was a mail-order bride from Ukraine, and just married him for a green card and to get an education here. Once she did, it went downhill fast. She divorced him and took half of his assets and their house.
The whole thing was a sham, and everyone knew it from the get-go. The ceremony was bad because everyone was apprehensive about the whole thing. It’s hard to be joyous and happy for their union when you're trying to convince the groom not to go through with it.
14. Nobody Does It Like The Mormons
I went to a Mormon wedding ceremony and everything about it was strange. The pastor unraveled this crazy long scroll and claimed to have a family tree tying him back to Adam. Then he randomly picked a young man in the audience to start the ceremony with a prayer.
The guy looked around and said, "who, me?" It was so wheels off.
Oleksandr Yakoniuk, Shutterstock
15. Suffering For The Big Day
I was super young, but my mother dragged my sisters and me to a wedding of an old college friend of hers. The groom was either Greek Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox and the bride was converted during the mass held before the wedding ceremony.
The bride was in some sort of traditional headdress that looked amazing and weighed a ton in addition to the polyester wedding gown and corset. The church was inhospitably hot (that's mostly what I remember), and the services were in a different language.
Part of the wedding ceremony involved the bride and groom circling the altar several times at a brisk jog. Well, I could have predicted the disaster that happened next. The bride passed out on lap two, and the groom and her bridesmaids held her up while the priest (who didn't drop the beat at her fainting) kept droning on.
When it came time for the actual verbal exchange of vows, the bride was slapped lightly and wakened long enough to mumble incoherently. Her father told the priest that she agreed to the wedding and voila.
The poor girl was summarily carted outside by her parents to await the ambulance that someone thought to call, and her mother half took the bride out of her gown and corset and ripped the headdress off with such force that it tore out a chunk of hair. Good times.
16. Slim Pickings
One was in Atlanta in the middle of the summer and the venue had no AC and not enough chairs. So, we ended up standing for the entire "wives must serve and obey their husbands" type ceremony.
After that, we go to the reception, which was dry, and it was a buffet, but with servers serving the food. I go up with my dinner plate and there was a meatball station with two types of meatballs. You got to pick one type and then the server asked if you wanted one or two.
Think tiny cocktail meatballs, not big meatballs.
Next was the veggie station, where I had my choice of one or two asparagus spears. There was no dancing or anything either. People ate their two meatballs and left. It was brutal.
Kubatina Katerina, Shutterstock
17. Poor Lil Sebastian
My brother's wedding was pretty bad. The ceremony was small, very religious, and an hour from the reception venue. The reception was doomed from the start. they decided to have an "open house" style reception. When pressed for a count, they estimated roughly 300 people.
This would be fine, except the reception was in our parents' backyard which does not have parking for 300 people. Also, they decided that since it was open-house style, they would just serve appetizers. Oh, and it was a dry wedding.
Me and my other brothers flasked it and my brothers are lightweights, so they got obviously tipsy really quickly. They didn't really do any decorating until the night before, and that mostly involved making the backyard look like a giant tulle monster had thrown up.
They didn't help my parents get the backyard landscaping looking decent at all in the weeks leading up to the wedding even though it definitely needed it, so they left it all for the rest of the family to do without even asking.
My mom was freaking out because all of her friends from church were going to be there. They also decided to hold the reception in the early afternoon way before the backyard usually gets shade and they had metal chairs so nobody could sit down at the tables they had put out without burning their butts.
Everyone just tried to squeeze into the small spot of shade that was there and spread out slowly as it grew. But there was one more ridiculous thing. For some reason that I still haven't figured out, they had a mini horse there.
They never explained why, and they were pretty much the only ones who took pictures with it, so while people were milling about the saddest mini horse in the world was just in the background chewing on some hay by its lonesome.
18. Angry Brides
I went to a church wedding in Korea. I had been to other Korean weddings and knew that most people just show up to drop off their gifts (money) and then hit the buffet. Attending the actual wedding ceremony isn't really required/expected for most guests.
What surprised me about this one was sitting in the church for the actual ceremony and how nobody who even came in was paying attention. Everyone was on their iPads or smartphones. I saw lots of people just playing Angry Birds and a few just full-on having phone conversations during the ceremony.
Just blew my mind. These weren't children, these were middle-aged adults. Why even go inside if you are just going to text message or play cellphone games?
19. When It Works, It Works
Two friends were married with little planning. The wedding was to be held in a lovely park in Ohio, but it was pouring rain that day, so it was quickly moved to the bride's dad's tax business office. Someone was posted at the park to direct people 10 minutes down the road to this place.
Once we arrived, we found that the bride and her dad were having a tiff. He decided that he didn't want this to happen. He hadn't supported it much throughout, but this was the last straw, I guess. After some whispered drama in front of the guests, it was decided my dad would walk her down the aisle.
Someone played a cassette tape with the wedding song. But then the bride (a legally blind albino) lost her flowers. I will never forget the sight of her patting around to find them. Someone else found her flowers for her…but it was a funeral spray from Walmart.
Anyway, the tape was restarted. As she started walking up the “aisle,” the tape ate itself, and someone else managed to scrounge a classical music CD from a desk. Somehow, she managed her way up the aisle.
Although the groom was a much bigger dude than her, they managed to mix the bands up and hers got hopelessly stuck partway down his chubby finger. His finger started swelling, and there was a bit more panic and drama.
After the wedding, we gathered in the gray and blue lobby of the tax firm and started to cut up the only wedding food—a Kroger cake. My dad was incensed that there'd be a wedding with no food, so he gave my cousin $40 and told him to go get some KFC.
My cousin got lost, and we stood around in this partially darkened building for over an hour waiting for KFC and chatting with the family. It was surreal, but you know what? That was over 14 years ago, and they still look at each other with the same amount of tenderness in their eyes. Screw fancy weddings.
20. A Big Imbalance
My mother got married to a man from England when I was four. We immigrated over there (we're originally from Canada) and the way it works is you have to get married within six months or something or your marriage visa expires, and you get kicked out.
They had decided to have a really small, no-frills wedding due to a lack of time and the fact that none of my mom's family could afford to come over. My mom didn't even get a dress; she wore the white suit dress she had from her high school convocation.
It was agreed that I would walk her down the aisle as I was her only family, and her husband’s friend would be her maid of honor. We opened the door to this big ugly church. When the doors opened, my mom was horrified. The groom's side was filled with people, while there were two people sitting on her side.
I remember holding her hand and walking down the aisle and feeling absolute dread even at the age of four. We were so alone and so alienated. Anyway, they got married, and then for a “reception,” her husband left us at the church without a ride home while he rushed off to play a game of rugby with his mates that he absolutely could not cancel.
We walked home in the rain. Their marriage did not last.
21. Copycats Don’t Prosper
A friend of the family, Sarah, was getting married and informed all of us that she absolutely loved my cousin's wedding and wanted to copy the venues, caterer, and DJ. My cousin's wedding was beautiful, practically perfect, and went off without a hitch. This was not the case for our friend.
Sarah's maid of honor was her sister, Lindsey, and she was the biggest attention seeker I’ve ever seen. You could just tell that it physically hurt her that her sister was getting married and getting the spotlight for once. The wedding starts and Lindsey comes down the aisle wearing high heels that she clearly can't walk in.
She managed to make it to the altar okay, but during the ceremony, Sarah accidentally stepped on Lindsey's toe. Her reaction made my eyebrows shoot up. Lindsey throws herself on the ground and starts screaming "MY TOE!" Over and over again in her deep smoker's voice for several minutes.
After she realized that she wasn't getting the attention she wanted she just stands up, curtseys, and says, "Okay, Carry on”. Just when we thought the ceremony was getting back on track, people start whispering and pointing at one of the groomsmen, who is white as a ghost and swaying back and forth.
Three seconds later, he passes out and just barely misses hitting his head on the tile floor. So, they sat him in the first pew and gave him some water. He managed to get back up for the vows though. Then the limo that was supposed to take them from the church to the place they were going to take pictures and then to the reception venue showed up half an hour late and had no air conditioning.
This was the middle of July in the Midwest. Sarah pretty much sweats all her makeup off and her hair was ruined. The caterers didn't show up for cocktail hour, apparently, they got lost and couldn't find the giant hotel or the banquet hall right inside the main door.
Then at the reception, the DJ had technical difficulties and could only play CDs. It didn’t let up. People got food poisoning from the chicken entree. Sarah got a glass of cabernet spilled on her dress. And the cake collapsed before they got to cut it.
At least they had an awesome 2-week honeymoon in Bora Bora. Apparently, nothing went even slightly wrong after the ceremony and reception ended. But the whole wedding was like a scene from a movie, it was so bad.
22. To Have And To Hold Off
I attended a female co-worker's wedding. She and the groom were both very young (teenagers) and very religious. The father walks the bride down the aisle, and it looks like we're in for a beautiful ceremony. Nope. Once they arrive next to the groom, the father proceeds to give the groom a lecture on how he will now be responsible for the spiritual well-being of the bride.
How he (the father) has been her "spiritual leader" her whole life up to now, but the groom is taking over. While giving this speech, the father managed to strike a terrifying figure, one of those, "You take care of my daughter or I will hurt you" types, only the message was "If my daughter falls off her Christian path, I'm coming after you, buddy”.
The groom began to cry as he was being lectured, and it could not have been more awkward for the entire congregation. We watched the father dress down the groom, speak as if the bride had no control over her own life, and cause the poor boy to spend the rest of his wedding red-eyed and runny-nosed.
23. Not The Right One For Me
I was 15 and at my 26-year-old cousin's wedding. We are an Indian family. His fiancée, also Indian, drank a ton at the reception and made out with the best man in a closet. Someone opened the door and pretty much everyone saw them walk out of the closet.
It was jaw-droppingly awkward. He got the marriage annulled.
24. A Blood Bath
My ex-wife's uncle. He was in his fifties, and his bride was in her twenties and younger than his daughter from his first marriage. The bride was also pregnant at the time of the wedding. There was an undercurrent of ill-disguised fury permeating the wedding venue.
It all got worse during the wedding party. The top table ate the ENTIRE buffet, leaving nothing for the other guests, so somebody was forced to take a run down to a local takeaway. About 20 minutes into the disco, one set of in-laws trod on the foot of the other set of in-laws, refused to apologize, and both sides came together like a battle scene in Game of Thrones, all to the sound of “Karma, karma, karma, karma” chameleon.
Blood was everywhere, the DJ pulled the plug, and everybody was thrown out of the community center. It wasn't even 6 pm and guests were still arriving. The guy sent out for the takeaway food arrived shortly after with arms full of fish and chips and a half-empty parking lot. Best wedding ever.
25. Raw Emotions
My cousin's wedding was a doozy. The ceremony and reception were at this gorgeous hotel on the top of a mountain. The ceremony was held outside. It was beautifully staged, but a gusty day. We couldn't hear a word of the ceremony.
The women were trying to keep their dresses and hair from flying all over the place, while the men kept getting smacked in the face with their ties. Then it was time for the reception. Our plates came to the table. When I started eating, I nearly screamed. We cut it into half-raw chicken.
We asked for new plates, only to be told they didn't have any extra, and the kitchen had been closed since the entrees were done. My husband and I were in from out of state for the wedding and had carpooled with another cousin.
We were starving, so she gave us her car and directions to a nearby Subway. We slipped out, as we didn't want the bride to realize what had happened and be upset. As we were finishing our subs, we get a call from my non-bride cousin telling us to get back there ASAP, as she needed to leave immediately.
We pull up to the outside of the hotel, and my non-bride cousin is outside yelling at yet another relative. An uncle then starts getting in my cousin’s face. At this point, my mother steps in and breaks it up. My cousin leaves.
5 minutes later, authorities show up as someone called about the fight. The groom then comes out and yells at everyone, and the officers end up leaving. Somehow, we kept all of this from the bride, who had no idea that all of this ridiculousness was happening at her wedding.
26. Cher Gets Married
It was an outside wedding in Central California during summer. It was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Bad music. No open bar. The maid of honor (the bride's sister) gave a really long and dumb speech in her "valley girl" talk.
Every sentence had that high cadence at the end and that kind of drags out the last word. Sort of like "I can't believe you found such a great guuuyyyyyy. I'm so proud of youuuuuu. This is a beautiful dayyyyyyyy. Blah blah blah blahhhhhh”.
27. God Help This Wedding
My cousin had a dry wedding because members of her church crowd were heavily against drinking. Keep in mind that our family enjoys drinking—we have been making our own moonshine for decades. After the food was served, her church friends hauled out of there as fast as they could, leaving only my family of drinkers.
The DJ we were tormented by was someone random from her church who had obviously never worked a wedding before. My family lingered around a bit but left soon after that and the reception was empty by 9 pm.
The people from her church that she had paid to help clean up had left right after the food as well. So, by the time I was leaving, she was cleaning up with her new husband. I stayed to help because I felt bad and she asked me to, but her wedding was awful. 0/10
28. A Beached Wedding
My cousin had to get married on the beach in Queensland in November and didn't have a rainy-day plan. Of course, it poured. The wedding still went ahead on the beach. Meanwhile, the reception was held at the local football club’s upstairs hall to save money.
Nothing wrong with that, except for one problem. They charged heavily for ALL of the drinks, including a markup on bottled water. There wasn’t enough food, a food bar that didn't have enough for all of the guests, a gender reveal cake cut (she was pregnant with her second child) that turned out to be wrong (it was a pink cake, she ended up having another boy) and there were only about a dozen chairs for a wedding with 50-ish guests.
We ended up sitting on the excess gym gear outside. About half the guests had to travel a minimum of an hour's plane ride to get there.
29. Nobody Is On Their Best Behavior
The best man (20-something) was making out with the Justice of the Peace (she was at least in her 50s, maybe 60s). This was bad enough as is, but the fun really began when the justice's husband came into the reception hall and got a little ticked off.
Shoes were thrown and the best man was chased away by the old man. The marriage lasted about a year...I guess it really was a bad omen!
30. Don’t Save The Date
My two friends had a wedding on a Wednesday. Apparently, it was because that day was the bride's parents’ anniversary. However, everyone who attended had to work the next day. One of the groomsmen hadn't turned off his phone and we could all hear him getting text messages during the ceremony. That was far from all. It was a dry wedding and there was no DJ.
The groom just expected one of his friends to play some songs from his iPod. I think he played “Gangnam Style”, and something called “The Wedding Wobble” and then couldn't figure out what else to play, but it didn't really matter because everyone but the couple and me and my date left by 8 pm.
Oh, there was more. The worst discovery came later. We come to find out that the newlyweds have nowhere to stay on their wedding night. They lived in a tiny apartment with several roommates who they were fighting with, and the electricity had been shut off for days.
I watched the bride frantically opening envelopes, trying to scrape together enough money for a hotel room, and almost breaking down in tears when all of the envelopes contained Target gift cards. I ended up paying for a room for them to stay in at the hotel with me and my date.
I don't remember them even saying thank you. The marriage didn't even last a year.
Monkey Business Images, Shutterstock
31. Couldn’t Keep It Together For One Day
I went to a family friend's wedding and a bunch of us caught the groom with the maid of honor in the parking lot during the reception. Needless to say, that marriage didn't last.
32. Shading The Big Day
I've been to a few outdoor wedding ceremonies in summer here in Queensland, Australia. In case you don’t know, it's ridiculously hot and humid in the summer. For some reason, these weddings are always without chairs and just go on and on.
All dressed up in your finest, feet going numb in stupid heels, and dripping in sweat for hours is not pleasant. Dear god people, keep it short or give us shade and chairs.
33. Second Time Is Not The Charm
My friend got married just after high school. Her reasoning was "If you sleep with more than two people you're doomed”. So, she got married to the second guy. He quickly showed his true colors. The night before the reception, he blows her up over the phone because she didn't pick up the socks for the wedding day for him and now, he had to go out in the morning.
The other bridesmaid and I spent the night before consoling her. Her mom and dad tried to convince her up until the point we left the house that she could pull out. On the way in the car, we drive past an old house, and her dad suddenly remembers that someone he went to school with died in there and then he tells us that story ON THE WAY TO THE CEREMONY!
Seriously, time and place. She wanted an outdoor ceremony even though it was raining and there was no undercover area beside an old, corrugated iron roof. Everyone stood under there and couldn't hear the entire ceremony, so people just talked through the entire thing.
During the first dance, the last brutal insult came. Her husband interrupted the song with "AO technology" and crumped into it while the wife was mortified.
34. Keep It Classy
I'll make this short. Camo vests on the groomsmen. Pause for the bride’s smoke break during the ceremony. Half the guests were in jeans or PJ pants. Finally, a make-your-own ham and cheese sandwich bar.
Oh yeah and it was at a fairly hillbilly "golf club," so there was nearly a fistfight between a young Black groomsman and some old white club members.
35. Crossing That Ex Off The List
My husband and I went to his ex-wife's latest wedding at the request of their kids. This was her 4th or 5th wedding with her grown children in attendance. Floor-length white Cinderella wedding dress with everybody in tuxes. This is from a woman who lived off disability, welfare, and child support.
The groom's sister realized the bride had been married in this same church before. She walked through the lobby shortly before the wedding and asked, "Come here often?" I nearly wet myself laughing. The photographer wasn't pleased about something so as his revenge, my husband and I ended up in a lot of photos…who doesn't want their ex-husband in their wedding pictures, right?
We made sure she changed her name, and the kids were happy; I think the bride and groom ended up cleaning up the rented reception hall themselves because his family was not cooperating. We came home grateful that we'd just run down to the courthouse.
36. If You Like Pina Coladas…
I worked at a catering gig at a wedding because I really needed cash. The night was pretty regular for a wedding, and it was all going smoothly…until we brought out Pina Coladas during the dinner. This is where all heck broke loose. The guests were going through bottles and bottles of this stuff.
The caterer I was working with seemed to have an unending supply. People started getting rowdy, and as I was bringing out more drinks on a large platter, this little kid, who must have been eleven or twelve, shoves a chair into the side of my knee, knocking me down and dropping fifteen glasses of Pina Colada, which I have to then clean up on my hands and knees, avoiding glass shards.
Later that evening, I saw that same kid going through glasses of Pina Coladas. I went to get some fresh air during a lull in the chaos with some of the other guys I was working with, only to see a wedding guest chunder straight Pina Colada all over the sidewalk, then stumble back into the hall.
37. Playing The Waiting Game
My husband's youngest brother got married in a Mormon temple. While everyone else was inside watching the ceremony, we were standing outside—his entire family besides him and one brother are still Mormon.
It was April in Salt Lake City, so it wasn't freezing, but it wasn't exactly warm, and the wind was blowing. They were scheduled to come out of the temple at 1:30, so we got there at about 1:45 for pictures. They didn't come out until after 2:30.
We stood outside getting dirty looks from all the other wedding parties. Just as we are about to go back to the car to wait them out, one of his brothers calls and says they're on their way. His mother then gets offended that we didn't wait in the lobby with all the children who were too young to go to the temple.
Then we got lectures about all the blessings we missed out on. Another 45 minutes of photos in the shadow of the temple and on the stairs, and then we all headed to the reception at the bride's family church in Pleasant View, which is normally a 45-minute drive.
But because of the late schedule, we are at the beginning of rush hour. Then there was a big wreck on the highway. Those of us who knew the streets were able to take backroads and it only took about an hour and a half to get to the church, but many people got stuck and it took them almost 3 hours to get there.
So, all the time that was set aside for family photos before the reception was lost. In addition to all the regular downsides to Mormon wedding receptions (no drinks, thousands of children running around, being held on a carpeted basketball court), about 3 times more people than expected showed up.
The receiving line lasted for the entire reception and was occasionally interrupted for family photos as family members who had been stuck in traffic arrived. They did the receiving line until every single person had been greeted. It was almost 10:00 pm by the time they finished.
Then they crammed the cake cutting, first dance, and daddy-daughter dance into about 15 minutes because people wanted to go home. I don't even remember them tossing a bouquet or garter because people were leaving.
It was the longest freaking day and by far the worst wedding I've ever been to. On the upside, it made me realize how awful it is to be invited to wait outside someone's wedding and helped me conclude that I will never wait outside another temple. Ever.
38. How The Danish Do It
I had a good time at this wedding but that's partially because I was drinking the whole time. My college roommate, Lauren, met this guy in Denmark the year after she graduated college. They started a long-distance relationship and got married about a year and a half after meeting.
The majority of the guests were coming from out of state or out of the country (read: Denmark). This is when the wheels started falling off. It didn't occur to her to arrange transportation or even directions to and from the ceremony, which was at a state park half an hour away from the hotel where we were staying and where the reception was being held.
Again, 80% of her wedding guests had flown in from other states and COUNTRIES for this wedding. I found this out when I was helping her get ready and she asked for my phone so she could Google where the park was about the hotel because the groom's grandpa had asked her for directions.
I hitched a ride with my friend who had driven up, thank God. The ceremony was held next to a pretty waterfall, but it was hot as heck and mosquito season. Also, as the bride walked down the aisle, the ancient speaker that someone was sitting on a chair and holding a mic too so that it was amplified more went kaput, so she walked down the aisle in silence. It just kept getting more dire.
No food was served at the reception other than small bites and a chocolate fountain. The wedding ceremony was in the afternoon and the reception was all evening. She didn't even provide a small buffet of anything moderately substantial.
And trust me, money was not an obstacle. She spent $8K on her dress and $2K on her flowers. So, we stopped at a Dairy Queen Grill & Chill before the ceremony for chicken strips and shakes. She only had an open bar for 1 hour so all of us would wait in line, get the two-drink max, and then just get in the back of the line to drink while we waited our turn for the next drinks.
The dance floor was the size of a small walk-in closet but that didn't matter because the DJ would literally play one song and then the groom's uncle, the MC of the event apparently, would introduce a video from someone on the groom's side of the family who couldn't make the wedding but had put together a 5–7-minute video in another language congratulating them.
It went the song, GREETING FROM BJORN, song, CONGRATULATIONS FROM THE KNORKELSENS, song, HALLO AND LOVE FROM SURKIN AND MURKIN ABBALICIOUS for 3 hours. Anyway, I got to drinking and decided to shut down the club with an impromptu speech in which I quoted Jimmy Eat World lyrics.
Someone showed up in jeans. I did a shot in someone's hotel room with like 10 rugby players from the groom's side. I remember finding a cat somewhere. I woke up in my cocktail dress to QVC on my TV with my hand in between the pizza slice and the cheese that came on top of it. The end.
39. Resting Groom Face
My friend's wedding was a few years ago. Nothing extremely bad happened during the ceremony, but everybody noticed something strange on his face during the whole thing. He never smiled...NEVER.
This was supposed to be the happiest day of his life and he always had that angry face the whole time. This became even more evident a couple of days later when his wife posted several pictures of the wedding on her Facebook page.
When 10-20 people are smiling in a picture it's easy to spot the only person not doing the same...In this case, the groom. In all the pictures it's the same face.
Depiction Images, Shutterstock
40. Too Fast, Too Furious
This past September, my older half-sister got married. Her younger sister is a total brat and was extremely jealous that her sister was getting married first. The younger sister was set to get married the following October but bumped the wedding up to a week after my sister's wedding out of spite.
My sister was eventually forced to kick her out of the wedding party because she kept complaining about how she hated the dresses, she wasn't wearing those shoes, etc. So, the younger sister’s hastily made wedding rolls around and it was just...ghastly.
The invitations were from the dollar store, and instead of gifts we were asked to bring food and drinks...as well as our chairs, since they were having the reception in the backyard. The dress she wore was a dress she wore to someone else's wedding two years prior.
The decorations were also dollar store-bought. The cake was made by a friend of hers and the icing was sagging off the side. We didn't even stay for the reception. I thought it was a very just outcome. She did it to herself and her parents got to save some money. Oh, did I mention it was Superman themed?
YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV, Shutterstock
41. After These Messages, We’ll Be Right Back
Let me take you back to January 2012. It was a really hot summer here in the southern hemisphere. The couple got a church reservation for a Saturday afternoon. The groom was a bit angry because his favorite soccer team was playing that day...this will be the center of the problem but let me explain the rest.
I remember we were driving to the church and listening to the soccer match because the team playing was one of the 2 big teams in our country and everybody was laughing at the situation. When we arrived it was half-time, so we enter the church, and the groom was waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle.
This church had some OLD speakers that the bishop used to talk to the people in attendance. As soon as the bride enters the room, they put the wedding music on the speakers but there was some heavy interference from…the soccer match! It was hilarious as you could hear the narrator's voice and the commercials. OH MY GOD THE COMMERCIALS
I remember I was in tears. The bride was red with anger, and everybody was trying not to laugh.
42. Seeing Double
My cousin’s wedding was pretty bad. She had been with her boyfriend for six years before he proposed, and they had waited until they were 28 and had their careers/schooling taken care of to get married because they wanted to do it right.
She had been planning her dream wedding for a YEAR; it was going to be perfect. And then it all imploded. Her little brother knocked up a girl and, as is tradition in my family, he had to marry her. So, a month before my cousin was supposed to have her perfect wedding, her parents decided to give the EXACT SAME wedding to her brother.
Same church, same reception hall, same EVERYTHING. They went all out and paid for an extravagant wedding for their son who had just turned 19 and had been with his girlfriend for 2 months, when their daughter was getting married next month!
To make matters worse, at her wedding a month later, instead of having a live band like her brother did, she had a DJ, and he was awful. He used CDs for some reason, and during the first dance with the bride and groom, the song skipped for a good 15 seconds.
She was understandably devastated and cried in the bathroom for the next 30 minutes while everyone waited around awkwardly, unsure of what to do.
43. Better Have Been An Important Call
It was during the church ceremony, just before the couple exchanged vows when some guy's cell phone went off with a pervasive sound. He answered the phone and started talking in a FULL voice in the middle of the congregation.
The minister stopped the ceremony and asked the guy to please turn off his phone or take the call outside. The guy started YELLING back, creating a scene—and was escorted out by the ushers.
Although I couldn't see her face, I was told later that the bride was in tears, and that it pretty much ruined the ceremony for her. Judging by the look of disbelief on everyone else's faces, I can understand why.
Ignatios Kourouvasilis, Pexels
44. Not A Precious Moment
I didn't go to the ceremony, but I went to the reception. It was a precious-moments-themed dry reception, but here’s the kicker. No one knew it was a dry reception until after they got there. The bride and groom failed to mention this part.
It was tacky and incredibly boring. No one danced, apart from like 4 old people and a couple of kids. The precious moment's ice sculpture was nearly half melted by the time people started rolling in. It was a disaster.
I'd hate to be that couple because everyone probably knows their wedding as the most boring thing they've ever been to. Everyone left early.
TranStudios Photography & Video, Pexels
45. The Past Comes Back To Haunt Him
A male friend of mine got married. He had a prior conviction. The bride knew and had forgiven him. I was the only person on the groom’s side who knew about this. The bride's brother did not like my friend much, and a few weeks before the wedding did a background check on him.
The brother discovered the conviction and told everyone on the bride’s side about this. The bride told her family not to say a thing to the groom’s side, since most of them were pretty elderly and this information would upset them.
Well, the wedding turned out to be the most humorless and miserable affair ever. The hatred from the bride’s side was palpable. No one smiled, no one laughed or said anything nice about anything. No dancing, no happiness from her side. They went through the motions and did the least possible.
Some more savvy people from the groom’s side could see the wedding just tanked but did not know why. Fortunately, the groom’s mother never got wind of anything, and did her best to soldier through the debacle.
Soon after this, the bride got so fed up with her opinionated, interfering family, she simply cut off all contact and has not spoken to them in 8 years.
46. Don’t Want To Miss My Shows
An ex-boyfriend's aunt got married in her living room once. It was the third marriage for each of them, and everyone was in jeans and T-shirts. The whole ceremony lasted about 3 minutes, and the god darn TV was on the whole time.
47. Runaway Bride
It was the wedding of my aunt. Everything was going great until we got to the "I do" part. When it was my aunt's turn, instead of saying "I do," she yelled "I can't do this!" and ran out. That's pretty bad, right? It got worse.
As she was running out her fiancé turned around and yelled "What about the baby?!" That was how we found out my aunt was pregnant.
48. A Bad Omen
I attended one last week where the bride said IN HER VOWS that she didn’t think it would last, and that they fought too much but she thought she would like to at least try marriage. Later on, when fireworks went off during their first dance, the base of the firework fell over and set the carpet on fire.
49. Going Out With A Bang
My father was the best man at a wedding once. It was a beautiful ceremony, and the bride is the last one of her family to get married. Her father is swelling with pride and clearly the happiest person in the world. It all went so wrong. Shortly into the reception, he has a heart attack.
My mother (the maid of honor and a nurse practitioner) goes along with the ambulance, doing CPR all the way, while the bride's mother pulls my father and the groom aside and insists that the celebration will continue, and it would be a happy day.
He ended up passing in the hospital. There could be worse ways to go out I guess though. My father ended up throwing out his prepared best-man speech. Somehow, he didn't seem to think it would cut it anymore.
50. That’s So Extra
There were no tables and chairs at this wedding. Like, none. They had an open bar but NO chairs. Everyone had to put their drink on the ground and hold their plate to eat. It was crazy.
Everyone just assumed that some sort of terrible thing happened when the tables and chair people didn't bring them. We soon found out the infuriating truth. Afterward, I asked the bride what happened, and she just said, "Oh we would have had to pay extra for that”.
Sources: Reddit,
