Sometimes "happily ever after'' just isn't in the cards. For these unfortunate couples, their wedding day quickly turned into their worst nightmare. Whether it's a bridezilla on the loose or a groom accused of infidelity, these Redditors have witnessed everything fall apart—preferably with a glass of bubbling champagne in hand.
1. Missed Encounters
At a wedding of a college friend of my husband’s, we learned that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. We learned this from the women at our table at the reception. We introduced ourselves while we waited for the bride and groom to arrive. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried.
My husband had NO idea that she had feelings for him. She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him.
She repaired herself, then followed us as we tried to leave quietly—her parting shot was to stare at my chest and say, "Well I guess I know what I was missing all along"! Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed—he was completely clueless and would never have gone to the wedding if he'd know she was obsessed with him. It was bizarre.
2. A Scheduling Conflict
I once witnessed a bride show up almost two hours late to her own wedding. This was in Southern California, in an open field with no water and no shade. She shows up and wants to get married in her yoga outfit. The groom got very angry and shut the whole thing down. When she refused to change her clothes, the groom decided to just leave her there looking stupid and they never got married.
I spoke with my uncle and it turns out that the groom had been having some suspicions that his fiancé was sleeping with her personal trainer. When she showed up to the wedding in her yoga outfit, it was all he needed to see to call off the wedding. She ended up getting married to her personal trainer shortly after, and then they got divorced soon after.
3. Baby You’re A Dumpster Fire
I once attended an outdoor wedding where the couple had arranged for fireworks to go off during the ceremony. Unsurprisingly, they also arranged for the song “Firework” by Katy Perry to be blasting out over a speaker while this was happening...over and over again. By the third or fourth time the song played, I don’t think a single person there was thinking about anything other than wanting it to stop.
4. I’m Like A Bird
I was the best man at my sister-in-law’s wedding. After a whole year of planning, all the bride wanted was a ex release while they said handwritten vows to each other. It was a very small, non-denominational wedding. The day arrived in early summer and all seemed to be going well...except something was off with the bird handlers.
They showed up a bit late and were sourcing help from the wedding party to get everything in line. When the time came to say their vows, I helped the handler carry the chest with the doves in it over to the altar where the bride and groom were standing. Vows were just about wrapping up and the handler gave ME the signal to open the chest. I opened it and witnessed a horrific sight.
I saw 20 to 30 LIFELESS DOVES IN THE CRATE! I immediately closed it and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. Too late. The look of horror on the bride’s face was all that was needed. We spent the next few hours trying to cheer everyone up, but by the end of the reception, the entire wedding party had organized and filed complaints on the handler. It was all anyone could focus on.
5. How Do You Like Them Apples?
I once attended a wedding for a couple who had bought an apple orchard to live on after leaving the city, to live a simpler life. They really doubled down on the apple theme at their wedding. There were apples everywhere. On the tables, in baskets all around the venue, on the podium where they got married, pictures of apples hanging everywhere, small fake trees with apples tossed under them, etc.
For cryin’ out loud, the priest marrying them even had an apple tie on! To make matters even more ridiculous, there were apples somehow incorporated into every single dish that was served at the reception. The wedding cake was even shaped like an apple. It was really bizarre and unnecessary. They ended up selling the apple orchard a couple years later because they had no idea what they were doing.
6. Music Makes the World Go Round
I once attended a wedding where the bride and groom sang their vows to each other. Neither of them had a singing voice. The vows were also totally crazy and inappropriate. She promised to do whatever he wanted in the bedroom, and he promised not to always ask where she was going whenever she left the house.
The autotuned microphones were also a terrible idea. Their vow songs shared a chorus and it was awful, yet they expected all the guests to sing along with the chorus. The singing of the vows lasted more than twenty minutes. Calling it twenty minutes of pure cringe would not be an exaggeration to anyone who was there. Kids, don’t sing your wedding vows!
7. A Real Showstopper
This didn't happen at a wedding but at a 30-year wedding anniversary. I was working as a waiter at a hotel and we had ballrooms for private parties and other bigger events. The bride and groom had spared no expense. There were about 100 guests, a five-course meal, an open bar, and a whole day party. We were supposed to close it at 4 in the morning.
It was grand—one of the biggest parties I had waited on so far. After the main course, the husband stood up and gave a speech. A long one. He started out reminiscing about when they had met: their early life together, the hard times they had endured, etc. He then talked at length about how he loved their children and told each of them how proud he was of their accomplishments.
So far, it was one of the better speeches I had ever heard. It was heartfelt, and he had a lot of charisma. He was well-spoken and funny, too. But then it took a dark turn. He looked at his wife again. He told her that he had hated her for the last four years of their life together. He called her a mean narcissist and said she had made him feel miserable to the point where he contemplated ending it all.
He also her that he knew she had a lover. He pointed him out in the crowd, next to his wife and children. He had evidence and was suing for divorce, intending to take everything. He gave her the divorce papers right then and there. Oh, but it got even better. He then announced to everyone that he had gotten his own apartment. He had hired movers to move all his stuff while they were at the party, and he said he would be leaving shortly.
In the stunned silence that ensued, he tipped all staff, dishwashers, bosses, waiters, and busboys $200 each and left. Needless to say, everyone left within the hour.
8. In Sickness and In Health
My dad was feeling sick on the day of his wedding to my step-mom, but he sucked it up and went through with everything. The second he took the veil off of my step-mom, he threw up all over her! Happily, she forgave him for having the worst possible timing. They’ve been married for years now and they're perfect for each other. We make sure that he never hears the end of it though.
9. Tears Of Joy?
The most awkward wedding that I’ve ever attended was one where a friend got married to the boy her parents had made her break up with several years before due to family and cultural differences. Her mother-in-law full-on sobbed throughout the entire ceremony. We all just had to sit there and awkwardly watch it. There weren’t even any drinks to blame the behavior on, as drinking is against their family’s religion.
Other than that, the event was beautiful and the food was awesome!
10. You Can’t Keep This Hoedown
I played in a wedding band for several years. We played a wedding at a farm and they provided us with a greenroom. It was just one of two small rooms built into the side of a barn. After we finished the first set, we and a few of the guests all went back to this barn to hang out. Once we were inside, we could clearly hear two people sharing what should have been a private moment.
We all thought that it was funny as all get out, and started making all sorts of noises to let the couple know that we were there. The noises coming from the couple stopped immediately, but nothing else happened for a while. We all thought that the couple was too embarrassed to come out just yet. They were probably sorting themselves out and bracing for the walk of shame.
More time went by and the couple still didn’t come out. So, one of the guests knocked on the door to ask if everything was alright. The door opened and the best man, who was married, appeared and literally bolted out of the barn as fast as he could with his jacket pulled over his head to try and hide his face. Then, a few seconds later, the bride walked out and started crying her eyes out.
It turns out they had been sleeping together behind the groom’s back for quite a while. The groom got wind of what had happened in the barn. There was a lot of shouting and then I’m not sure what happened after that. We just packed up all of our stuff and got out of there. Eventually, I found out the ending of that strange story.
A few years later we got a request from the same bride and best man to play at THEIR wedding—and that’s not the weirdest part. They were having it at the same venue.
11. He Just Ran Into It
I was helping out at my parents’ restaurant. They were hosting a huge wedding party and everything was going well…at first. I was busy serving drinks and suddenly loud yelling and screaming started right behind me. As it turns out, the bride had somehow found out the groom’s dark secret. How bad was it? Well, he had hooked up with her sister right before the wedding ceremony—and apparently on a few occasions before.
To say that she did not react well would be an understatement. Actually, what happened next kind of reminds of that lyric from Chicago’s “Cellblock Tango”. How does it go again? Oh, yeah. “And then he ran into my blade. He ran into it ten times”. In her anger, the bride grabbed a dinner fork from the table and plunged it into the groom’s chest…several times. We had to call first responders. It was absolutely insane.
Apparently, the (former) bride’s parents are still regular guests at my parents’ restaurant. And, according to my mother, they told her that the groom and the bride's sister now actually have two children together and are planning on getting married.
12. Stage Fright
It was a big wedding with around 500 people. It was all the wife's doing—she wanted a huge $70,000 wedding. I was a groomsman. Pre-wedding, the groom was nervous as heck. There was a lot of pressure for the day to be perfect, and it was her dream wedding, yadda yadda. At some point, a bottle was pulled out. It went from a few "calm the nerves" shots to finishing the whole bottle.
We gave him water, got him in the shower, and then redressed him. Midway through her vows, he puked all down the front of her dress. It was horrible, but it was great to watch. They're going on eight years strong.
13. Timing Is Everything
A wedding guest looking out of the window beamed at the groom waiting at the altar and said, "She's here"! The groom jokingly pretended to run away. Harmless ploy to get a laugh, right? Nope. It went down like a lead balloon because he had actually run away from his life the previous year. He literally just went out to the shops one day and didn't come back for eight weeks…while the bride was pregnant with their first child.
The bride's mother gave him a look at that should have wilted the wedding flowers, and the previously happy chatter in the room turned to frosty silence—just in time for the entrance of the bride.
14. The Show Must Go On
The bride and groom were quite young and had dated happily for several months. The bride was in a hurry to settle down and pushed for engagement; the groom was reasonably happy to oblige but not really ready to take the next step, so he wanted a long engagement. Unfortunately for him, the bride began pushing to set a wedding date almost immediately, and the groom grudgingly agreed.
As the wedding date approached, the groom made it known that he loved the bride, but wasn't ready to settle down yet. The bride wasn't having any of it and complained to her own immediate family, who then started harassing the groom's parents. The groom eventually agreed to go ahead with the wedding if the bride's family left his parents alone.
When he found out about the situation, the minister refused to perform a wedding in which one party wasn't on board. However, the bride insisted that the event go ahead and that they pretend it was real. We all immediately noticed something was up when the minister didn't say the words legally required for marriage, and no paperwork was signed. But that wasn't the worst part.
Then, the groom's parents refused to attend the reception, leaving table one half-empty, and declared they would not be paying for the bar service. Some guests took back their gifts and left. The bride and groom avoided each other the entire time except for a super awkward first dance. The whole thing was surreal. They split up a couple of months later.
15. Beauty Is Pain
The bride and groom decided to "get a few pictures in" right after the ceremony...except they disappeared for about five hours. We all waited at the venue for them, but since no one got any word from them, the buffet wasn't set and the DJ didn't play any music. After two hours, most guests decided to collect some cash. We talked the manager of the venue into serving the buffet and getting the DJ to play music.
So we basically started the party without the couple. When they finally got back, they were in shock—basically, all food was gone, people were sloshed, and everybody had forgotten that this was their wedding. So the wedding itself wasn't ruined, but everything around it, well...at least the guests had a great time when we took things into our own hands.
For what it’s worth, they did actually take pictures during that time. The photographer did his best but to be honest, the couple wasn't that good-looking and they thought he could simply work some voodoo magic on the spot to make them look good. He was angry, to say the least, and actually tried to talk them into going back to their party several times.
16. A Match Made In Heaven
I was a photographer for a wedding once where the bride was marrying a man with two kids from a previous relationship. I was in the bridal suite when the bridal party was getting ready, and all of the bridesmaids were wearing matching silk robes. The flower girl, who happened to be the groom's daughter, was there too.
They asked me to take a group photo of the bridal party, and one of the women in a silk robe was standing awkwardly off to the side. I thought she was just shy or something, so I waved her into the photo. The room instantly got silent. The bride was like "Oh no, we don't want her in the photos"! and glared at me like I should've known that!
Apparently, she was the groom's ex-wife and was only there to take care of the flower girl. But WHY DID YOU GIVE HER A MATCHING BRIDESMAID ROBE?? I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
17. Losing It
I once went to a wedding where the best man performed a skit in which he pretended to have "lost" the groom at the reception. He then proceeded, with over the top gestures and his hands on his hips, to ask the audience, “Hey guys! Aren't we forgetting someone? Well, where can he possibly beeeee"??? The acting was like what you would see at some high school musical.
None of the guests were prepared and silently fussed around with their drinks and silverware. After a couple minutes of suspense, the groom eventually popped up from under a tablecloth. When the whole thing ended, they anticipated like a standing ovation, but instead the whole thing just went over the heads of everyone. A lone voice from the crowd muttered out, "Well, that was kinda weird"... as they made their exit quietly.
18. All’s Well That Ends Badly
It was a big wedding with an open bar, and most of the attendees (including the wedding party) were apparently gussied up white trash. The ceremony itself went on without any issue, but the reception became a big, messy party. It then started to run late, so the catering manager told the father of the bride that they'd exceeded their time and needed to start shutting down.
This led to an argument involving several members of the wedding party. "Do you know how much I paid"?! They eventually complied, but it stirred the inner white trash. The party then spilled out to the hotel bar where people continued drinking. Members of the wedding party were still stewing about the reception getting shut down and tempers were short.
Finally, something triggers the groom and he takes a swing at someone. That person swung back. Then the groomsmen started swinging. Now, it was a full-on donnybrook. The hotel staff managed to get them out of the bar and the fight spilled out into the front entrance of the hotel. The authorities showed up and tried to break up the fight, but the groom then tried to take a swing at an officer and proceeded to get the tar beat out of him.
The bride, at this point, was just standing on the sidelines screaming in support of her hubby. But a few minutes later, she said to herself, "Well, I guess we're doing this". She walked up to a female officer and took a swing at her. She chose the wrong female officer though because this woman was apparently way more yoked than she appeared to be and she took the bride to the ground.
The bride’s face hit a planter on the way down and she busted her nose. She started bleeding all over her wedding dress. By that point, the wagon showed up. Several people were handcuffed and loaded up, including the bride and groom.
19. Bad Reputation
My best friend's mom got remarried and had an expensive, beautiful wedding; but for some reason, she didn't hire a DJ. Last-minute, her mom asked me to manage the CD and gave me a list along with verbal instructions of when to play each song. I tried to warn her that I simply did not follow what she was trying to say, but she told me she had confidence in me.
Apparently, all her life, she wanted to walk down the aisle to some specific song, but I just couldn't figure it out. They had to get walking to match the sunset, so she went ahead down the aisle while I flipped through a series of incorrect songs to the horror and amusement of the crowd. For years afterward, when I called my friend's house and her stepdad answered, he'd say, "Is this the guy who screwed up my wedding? How are ya"?
20. Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off
A couple of years back, I was waitressing at this function lounge that was hosting a reception. The music started but nobody came in for a solid 30 seconds, so the DJ cuts the music. Everyone then heard loud arguing in the foyer for about a minute, and two men later came stumbling into the hall fighting each other bloody. It was the groom and the bride’s brother.
Turns out, the groom's side of the family didn’t want him marrying the girl, and the groom decided at the reception that he agreed with his family. Long story short, more people got involved with the fighting, and officers were called. The bride was, understandably, a crying mess. Still, she decided that if she spent so much money on the event, then they were going to have a party with or without the groom.
Honestly, she was so much stronger than I could have ever been, so good on her for that…but the whole thing was an absolute mess.
21. Head Games
This was one I worked at. After the ceremony, right at the start of the reception, the photographer was taking “jumping” photos of the bride and bridesmaids, so they were all jumping in the air while wearing heels. The bride landed and dislocated her knee, then passed out and kept going in and out of consciousness. We called an ambulance, who turned up and fixed her knee, but she wanted to continue with the wedding.
She then had the first course of the meal and threw up down her dress, and had to sit with her mother in another room while everyone else danced, etc. I felt so bad for her as she spent the rest of the evening crying.
22. Just Making A Quick Stop
For me, the question of the most awkward wedding I’ve ever attended is a tie between my sister breaking her knee at her own wedding while dancing to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and my stepsister having her reception at a truck stop while six months pregnant. In my stepsister’s defense, the food was really good, but wow! Was it ever weird walking through a gas station in formal wear!
23. Not A Good Look
The groom got so sloshed the night before that he couldn't make it to the altar at the ceremony. They still had the ceremony with only the bride and her party, plus one of the groomsmen, who apparently didn't drink. Everyone was shaking their heads the entire time. The groom did make one singular appearance for a few seconds at the reception.
He looked like a zombie and was wearing street clothes, which made things worse as it was no trashy wedding. The bride was a professional dancer for a major label pop star, so that gives you an idea of the type of people that were in attendance. 200 plus people were at the ceremony alone, and probably double that was at the reception. They divorced within six months.
24. Battle Of The Bands
I once attended what started out as a normal wedding for a very religious couple. Then we got to the reception and the food was all sandwich trays from Walmart. When it came time to dance, they put on what was probably a "Now That's What I Call 90's"! CD and the first song was the very mild “Semi-Charmed Life”.
A few seconds into the song, the mother of the bride turns off the CD player and puts in a CD of her own, full of nothing but children's Bible songs. About a minute later, we hear “Semi-Charmed Life” come back on. Then, a few minutes after that, the children’s songs again. They each kept switching CDs every time they had the opportunity.
They repeated this process about two or three more times, as the mom desperately tried to control what her adult married daughter could play at her own wedding. We left.
25. Grin And Bear It
The bride and groom planned a wedding at a Caribbean island resort, and their friends and family booked their trips. Well, everything turned upside down right before the wedding—the groom got caught with some other woman, so the whole ceremony was called off. It was too late to cancel the trips or get refunds, so mostly everyone, including the bride, went to the Caribbean island resort anyway.
The groom did not go, but his family and friends did, and they supported the bride. Everyone put on a brave face, trying to have a good time, but there was obviously an air of sadness about the whole thing behind the fake smiles. Looking back at the group pictures that were taken, it’s heartbreaking. The bride stopped nearly all contact with her friends and family after the trip. I think a part of her just couldn’t come back from the experience.
26. There Will Be Blood
They began the wedding with the groom playing an out of tune guitar and singing to the bride. They were sitting on chairs in front of everyone, a crowd of legit no less than 400 people, and the bride was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Naturally, seeing that made everyone else feel uncomfortable, too.
That wedding also included a foot washing ceremony and, when the bride put her shoes back on, she tripped on her dress and fell flat on her face. Everyone’s jaws dropped. They hadn’t done the vows yet, and the ceremony had to stop for a full twenty minutes so that they could deal with the nosebleed she gave herself.
27. A House Divided
I went outside for some fresh air at a reception and I saw the groom's dad sitting in the back of his SUV drinking Knob Creek from the bottle. I was friends with the groom's family and knew the father well, so I went up and asked him what was going on. We all knew the bride was an entitled, spoiled brat, but she cranked it up to 11 that night.
Everything about the reception was wrong according to her. The food, the centerpieces, the decor, the DJ...everything. Even though everything was prepared exactly the way she wanted. Her behavior was not surprising, since her whole extended family was a bunch of entitled, spoiled brats too. They all gladly jumped on the hate bandwagon. The groom's family was slipping out the nearest door while the bride's family was berating every person they made eye contact with.
I think the only reason the dad was still there was in case his son had an epiphany and ran for it. He was poised to play getaway driver. I ended up sitting with dad until it was over. No way in heck was I walking back into that. My wife and their daughter were close friends (that's how we knew the family) and we had a front-row seat.
The daughter was sloshed and ready to throw hands, and the mom was all over the place too. They just hated this bride and her family so much. My wife basically became their wrangler, with a couple of other levelheaded females associated with the groom's family, to keep them from kicking the bride's behind. These are all upper-middle-class folks on both sides, by the way.
28. With A Little Help From Her Friends
I once went to a wedding where the minister used to date the bride and gushed throughout his whole speech about how wonderful she was. He told the groom that if he ever passed on he shouldn’t worry, as he would step in and take care of her. I was shell shocked while listening to this. I so wished that I could think of a reason to ask the couple for a copy of the video of their wedding, but I couldn't quite find a legit one.
29. International Relations
An English guy was marrying an Irish girl in Ireland. The wedding guests were comprised mostly of her family, including people from Northern Ireland (the Republican areas) and England. The wedding was fine—it was all very romantic and the ceremony was nice. But then at the reception, during the speeches, everything went downhill.
It was all because of the best man speech. The best man was a particularly red-faced, Brexit-voting English man. He proceeded to make the most insensitive offensive speech, filled with “jokes” about re-colonizing Ireland one woman at a time, and how the stag party had been on Good Friday, but the hangover was so bad it led to a Bloody Sunday.
You get the idea. He ended up the speech by making a comment about how the speeches had gone on so long that it was like the guests were on a hunger strike. Throughout all of this, the English groom and his friends and family were laughing. They thought it was funny. Her Irish family was all fuming. I was there as a plus-one of the bride’s older cousin. It was aggressively awkward, and a lot of her cousins and uncles just refused to mingle with the groom’s family at all.
I'm no longer in touch with the guy who took me, so I don't know how the marriage is going. The bride was very kind, and despite his best man's speech, the groom seemed like a nice enough guy.
30. From Weird to Worse
I once attended the wedding of a friend of a friend's. She was a young, super Christian small town naive girl. She meets a much older married man with two kids. She falls in love with him. He does eventually leave his wife for her. He doesn't want any custody of the kids. He agrees to now marry my friend’s friend.
The wedding was held in her hometown church. His vows were over the top about how he has never felt love before, how she is the only woman that he ever wanted to marry, how he's been so lonely his whole life until now, etc. He was literally sobbing through it all. Then, her turn to say her vows comes along...and here I thought it couldn't get any worse.
She's standing there saying nothing for at least three beats. Then, she is handed a microphone and the piano starts playing. Apparently, she has made up her own song to sing to him in the place of reading her vows. So that was interesting to watch, to say the least. Especially in contrast to the heartfelt spectacle we had all just witnessed.
The levels of awkwardness and cringe were already well on the rise. You could feel them in the air by this point. After the ceremony, we adjourned to the church basement for the drinkless reception. Once there, I'm somehow roped into serving the groom's cake. It's two NASCAR car-shaped cakes made with an edible photo draped over it.
It was impossible to cut through the image without mangling the entire cake, so I had to awkwardly peel it off in front of a whole crowd of confused and hungry guests. Meanwhile, my friend is cutting the bride's cake and is serving it with a full inch or more of decorative icing on top of plain cake. No frosting.
The "buffet" was a potluck from her family. Food you'd expect at a kid's party. Pink punch was the only option available to drink. There was also no dancing because of her religion. Then they left for their "honeymoon" at the town's only hotel. This hotel was essentially like a Motel 6 level dump. Nevertheless, they rode there in a fancy two-horse drawn carriage.
31. Over His Cold Body…Literally
One of the most blatant bad omens I’ve ever witnessed occurred at a wedding I attended. Just as the processional music started and the bride was about to enter, the groom's great-uncle keeled over in the front pew and expired! After 45 minutes of futile CPR, they decided to continue with the wedding—complete with a priest who included the late great uncle in every prayer ("Lord, bless Jane and Jim...and Stanley"...). It was a bit of a downer, to say the least. The marriage didn't last long.
32. I’m Gonna Getcha
I was dating this girl who asked me to go to her ex’s wedding. We dated for a few months prior, but asking me to go to a wedding together felt like a serious commitment...I still accepted. I planned for the week off work and we went all out for this wedding. Half the time, I was trying to make the most of our time together, but she always went missing.
Fast forward to the reception. She made a scene in the most unstable and mentally sick way. In front of the groom, the bride, and everyone else, she said out loud: “I’m still in love with you. We literally have been sleeping together all week and I can't stop thinking about you". She quickly got escorted out after that.
The bride was clearly upset, but everyone tried to go about their business. As soon as I left, my “girlfriend” started completely ruining the hall and all the decorations, just throwing a fit on her way out. It was so embarrassing. I figured she was telling the truth since she was missing the whole time, but I’m pretty sure that everyone during the whole thing assumed this was too crazy to be real.
I definitely regret not seeing her true colors before, but when you work so much and try to date at the same time, you have very little time to get to really know some people. Time sort of flies by and you end up dating for a few months. Fast forward a month or two later...she got together with the groom and I’m pretty sure she has no regrets about wasting my time.
She probably doesn’t even feel bad about using me or even ruining that man’s marriage. This woman is seriously twisted.
33. Money Can’t Buy Class
I was a caterer at a really expensive wedding overlooking the Rockefeller center during the holiday season. It was between two prominent New York Jewish families. The bride and groom had way too much to drink and started physically fighting in front of everyone on the dance floor while screaming in each other's faces. Like, the bride was literally trying to throw punches and the groom kept shoving her. But that's not even the worst part.
The groom's mother was also pretty blasted and had come back into the kitchen to blame us (the kitchen staff) for "ruining her baby's big day". Apparently one of the hors d'oeuvres came out a few minutes too late and this was to blame for them starting a public fistfight. I actually had permission to dip early from that shift and was getting into the elevator right as the groom was screaming. He had to be held back by multiple members of the wedding party.
I had to try really hard not to laugh about earlier when his mother screamed in my face about how we should feel ashamed and how she "wasn't going to pay a penny," as though hiring a team of 15 back-end chefs, five up-front-party chefs, two catering managers, and a team of wait-staff was something she could totally pay for after everyone already ate.
I don't know what happened after I left, but I was pleased to leave when I did.
34. Hungry Eyes
I went to one wedding where the food didn't get served until 11:30 pm because of some mistake in the kitchen. The entire event turned into a steady decline of starving people really trying not to ruin the wedding while also wanting to know when the heck they were gonna get fed. Meanwhile, people got over-the-top plastered because they were drinking on empty stomachs and had nothing else to keep themselves busy while they were waiting.
35. What Was She Thinking?
I worked as a wedding decorator for five years. Two years ago, we did the decor for a really pretty ceremony, and halfway through the day, we found out it was a "surprise wedding". The reality is even worse than that sounds. Basically, they were not engaged, but the bride planned the whole thing and the groom showed up at the golf course thinking he was just playing a regular round of golf. Nope.
He walked into his own wedding, saw her standing at the altar, and peaced the heck out. As he should have. Truly one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen in all my years of doing weddings, and I’ve seen A LOT.
36. Branching Out
In November 2018, I attended the wedding of my in-laws' friends. They were an older couple in their 60s who had been dating for decades and finally decided to tie the knot. The husband did a stint in the Navy and so, given the timing of their wedding, he invited a lot of his veteran buddies from across the different forces branches.
During the reception speech, the guy instructed the DJ to begin playing the hymns for each of the various branches, and he asked all the various veterans from said branches to stand up and be recognized. I get where he was coming from, wanting to pay his respects given the calendar proximity to Veterans Day.
The problem was that absolutely nobody knew that he was planning to do this. Including the veterans themselves. They all kind of stared amongst themselves and awkwardly stood up. The civilian guests just fidgeted for the five minutes or so that this went on for. His heart was in the right place, but darn if it wasn't cringey as you can possibly imagine.
Later that night, the bride got extremely inebriated with her girlfriends and spent a while dancing barefoot on the dance floor. At some point during this intense dancing session, she took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up rolling her ankle pretty badly. She ended up in one of those mobility boots for about a month.
37. What A Waste
50% of the people who RSVPed to my wedding didn't come. My brother-in-law who volunteered to DJ didn't actually bring any DJ equipment, so our reception was powered by Pandora. He also said he would capture the ceremony and create a video of the highlights of the reception, but didn't bring his video camera. The florist also forgot to deliver about 50% of the flowers. That was already bad enough, but things just kept getting worse.
The reception venue took everything we discussed and then decided to do the opposite. There weren’t enough tables and no dance floor, among other things. When we tried to get it fixed, the man who was sent to change out the tables stood outside the window of the reception hall angrily drinking from a bottle. It was an absolute mess and no one seemed to care.
I later spoke with a friend who had worked with that man, and he explained that that sort of behavior happens pretty much any time he is asked to do anything, so...We made a CD with a couple of songs on it for my brother-in-law to play before the ceremony began. He insisted that he had something better. It was two songs played on repeat for about an hour.
My immediate family was late to the wedding, including my sister who was a bridesmaid, and my mother and father. They had originally offered to help set up everything that morning, but I guess they just got a late start. My veil got lost the night before the wedding. It still has not resurfaced. After everyone was done eating and the cake had been cut, I dimmed the lights in the reception hall to change the atmosphere to more fun, party vibe and get people dancing. Everyone got up and left.
It didn't go great, but my husband and I ended up married and we're still very happy together. I guess that's the most important thing. Still, I wish I'd saved the money from the whole thing and gotten married at the county clerk instead.
38. The Groom Got Busy
A family friend's daughter got pregnant accidentally, so the "happy" couple decided to get married. On the big day, the guests had congregated outside of the venue waiting for the wedding ceremony when all of a sudden, another woman barged in demanding to speak to the groom. When she started talking, our jaws hit the floor: She proclaimed that the groom had also gotten her pregnant!
Wide-eyed, we watched the drama move to behind closed doors while we all waited outside. After a whole lot of commotion, the wedding proceeded. It turned out that the other woman was right though, and the two babies were due within two weeks of each other. We quickly left the reception. Took some cake. It was good. The happy couple didn’t stay married long.
39. Feels Like The First Time
I was raised in a cult. No dating was allowed, except for the purpose of finding a marriage partner. Even then, the dating process was completely monitored to ensure that no premarital touching occurred. The worst wedding that I ever attended was a small ceremony between two members of this cult. The attendees included only her family, his family, and my family in her grandma's living room.
What made this wedding so awkward was the R-rated kiss that took place at the end. When the official said to kiss the bride, the groom clearly wanted the bride inside his mouth in a very serious way. There was tongue in and out everywhere, saliva and hot breathing, complete with first-date excited grabbing of body parts. Nobody knew where to look for five minutes straight.
40. In It To Win It
My own wedding was a disaster. It rained so it was cold, and no one bothered to turn the lights on. The few pictures I have are dark and grainy. My parents divorced earlier that year, so my dad hated seeing my mom at the wedding and didn’t stick around to get a picture with me. My husband’s mom didn’t even take off work to attend.
The good news is that we just celebrated our 49th wedding anniversary.
41. The Real Deal
I went to a wedding where the bride and groom bought the wedding package on Groupon...which is fine; like, why spend a fortune for one day? But I guess the venue thought they could cut some corners, so they did the worst thing they could have done—they stuck us in a room that smelled so strongly of cat urine that some people immediately left. The only drinks were those from a vending machine.
It was next to an airport, so every time a plane took off, the ceremony had to be paused because you couldn’t hear anything. And the day after the event, every single one of us got extremely sick from the food.
42. A Little Help Here?
My good friend was marrying a guy who we will call Ned. Ned definitely had a drinking problem that everyone swept under the rug. He promised my friend (the bride) that he would keep it under wraps for the wedding; he made it down the aisle fine, but by the reception, he was binge drinking; by then end of the night, he had completely disappeared. No one could find him.
A few nervous laughs turned into mild panic when the lights were turned on in an effort to find him that turned out to be fruitless. My husband decided to go look for him in the parking lot—and made a disturbing discovery. He found him–face down in the dirt. He had apparently done some illicit substances on top of drinking and had got the spins. My husband tried to talk sense into him by reminding him, "This is your wedding dude"!
He got Ned to come inside and accompanied him on the most cringe-worthy walk of shame I’ve ever seen, past the bride's family members. The worst part about the whole thing? Ned was supposed to be the designated driver! He was supposed to drive himself and the bride 11 miles from the venue to their hotel in the bride's grandfather's vintage Corvette.
Ned was too inebriated to drive, so the bride’s grandfather drove them. The bride had to sit on the middle armrest with no seatbelt. Grandpa dropped them at the hotel, and the bride barely got the groom up to the room before he passed out on the bed. The bride had to wander the halls looking for someone to help her out of her wedding dress, since her groom was passed out and she couldn’t reach to do it herself. The word “annulment” was definitely floating around that next morning. As crushed as the bride was, she stuck it out. Three years later though, they are separated and divorcing.
43. The Things These Eyes Have Seen
The bride and groom got way in their cups, then eventually started to argue with each other. They were crying, yelling, and screaming, running out into the courtyard and causing a scene. The best man went to check on them and found them rolling on the ground, but not in a sexy way. The best man threw the bride out of the way, slammed the groom’s head into the sidewalk, and pinned him down. The bride then started kicking the groom in the face.
The best man pushed her away while sitting on top of the groom, and the bride finally stormed off with a bridesmaid. Then, the best man let the groom up, who began kicking trees and breaking the posts off the gazebo. That's when he revealed what had been building up inside of him for months: "I'm going to end myself"! The best man told the bridesmaid to go grab an officer from inside for assistance.
The officer came out and tried to help get the groom to his room since the wedding was at a fancy hotel. The groom proceeded to be disrespectful with the officer and ended up getting detained. The father of the groom then disowned him but also yelled at the bride. The best man and his date ended up taking care of the bride and groom’s child. At least they got to stay in their honeymoon suite for the night.
Source: I was the best man.
44. Lap Dog
I once worked at a wedding reception and watched as the bride got inebriated and sat on some other dude's lap for two full hours, flirting with him while the groom sat there by himself at the head table with a defeated look on his face. I could not have felt worse for this guy. I have no idea what happened to this couple, but I can’t imagine they lasted too long.
45. Last Call
The bride got so inebriated at the wedding that the bar stopped serving drinks before midnight in an effort to cut her off. The groom was also gone. People started leaving at midnight, and the bride got mad and yelled about how they were all "ruining" her wedding because she wanted to dance and drink more, but they all wanted to leave.
I was their designated driver to get them to their hotel. The entire drive there, they fought. She berated him; he cried. That was a long 20-minute drive. I could have scrubbed vomit out with cleaners, but the awkwardness has stained that car forever.
46. Surprise, Surprise
I used to work at a pretty upscale catering hall in New Jersey back when I was in college, and we had one instance where I witnessed a ruined wedding. We all thought it was weird when a couple of the groomsmen got access to the reception room during cocktail hour. It was for “decorating,” they said. Not something we normally saw the men do.
In any case, we got through the main courses just fine, and then one thing became VERY clear to us staff. The bride’s side of the family was VERY conservative. They didn’t drink, they barely danced, and they watched wide-eyed as the groom’s side of the party went wild. Anyway, it came time for the speeches, and about halfway through his speech, the best man stood up.
He said something like, “Hey, bride’s family—I know you think your girl is so sweet and innocent, but if you want to see what they’re REALLY like, look under your seat! That's when things got insane. Well, taped under EVERY chair was a picture of the bride and groom caught in the act. The groom’s family and friends roared with laughter, but the bride’s side was MORTIFIED.
There were so many fights that broke out that night. Did I mention this was in New Jersey? The wedding was pretty much over at that point.
47. Turning The Other Cheek
When the priest equivalent at a wedding I attended said, "You may kiss the bride," the groom leaned in for a kiss—and the bride turned her head! What should have been the most romantic kiss of their lives turned into a peck on the cheek. Even as a child, that set off alarm bells for me. They have been divorced now for a long time.
48. A Dark Turn
I was studying photography and used to act as an assistant to a well-known wedding photographer. One day, we went to a couple's wedding. He shot digital and I shot black and white film. We spent all day with the couple from 9 am through until 2 am the next morning when we left. I could see how genuinely in love they were.
It was only a day, but I got to know them quite well and I really liked them both. The next morning, I got a call from the photographer and his voice was shaky. He hit me with the most gut-wrenching news—he explained that the groom had lost his life that night after the reception party. Three guys had broken into their bungalow to take their wedding gifts. The groom got out of bed to stop them and they ended him in front of the bride. I was in shock for about two weeks.
The next weekend, the photographer and I went to the bride's house to present her with the photos. We'd worked together to get the job massively accelerated so she had the photos of her husband. We did it at our own expense and didn't charge her a penny for the day or all the prints and album. It was sort of the least we could do.
Because my photos didn't matter as much, I'd been able to simply capture those natural moments between them, rather than the staged wedding photos. So they had the normal album pictures but also about 150 snaps of just them being a couple. She was in tears from the moment we arrived until we left a few hours later. She was a shadow of the woman I'd met only a week earlier. That still haunts me.
49. Money Is No Object
After spending ten thousand dollars on four dresses, custom decor, a two thousand dollar custom cake, and then another ten thousand dollars on a honeymoon, a friend of mine didn't offer to pay for the limo she hired to transport the wedding party to the reception. So, on the ride to the reception, she and her new husband acted like they had no money and collected cash from the wedding party on the bus to pay the driver.
It cost $500 for the 10 of us to go about ten minutes away. Then, at the reception, there was not enough food and probably about thirty seats too few for the number of guests.
50. Field Trip
My dad has vintage and veteran cars, and when I was younger, he used to do some weddings with them. I loved clearing out the confetti from the car when he'd get home. One week, he arrived back and there was no confetti in the car...The story was wild. Apparently, on the way to the church, the bride changed her mind, and instead of taking her and her father to church, they asked if he could drop them at the local zoo as it was her favorite place.
So he did and he left them there in full wedding attire. They were going to get a taxi home when they were done. It was in the days before mobile phones too, so I'm guessing people were waiting at the church for quite a while. Also, I recently called my dad to ask him if he remembered this and he seems to think that she was only getting married because she was pregnant and thought she had to. It was the early '80s, after all.
51. Safe And Not-So Sound
This was around 2009 in Tenerife. On the second day of the wedding, the bride went swimming in the ocean. She swam out too far and was basically “lost at sea” for nine hours or so. She eventually found her way back but was in bad shape. Everyone was panicked the whole day and thought she drowned. By the time she got back, there was a twisted development.
Her husband found her phone and read a bunch of messages supposedly from her aunt, but it was clear from the content it wasn’t her aunt at all. She had been having an affair with the best man for years. They got an annulment shortly after. $60,000 down the drain. It was one of the most opulent weddings I’ve ever been to.
52. What A Way To Go
I've been to a few awful weddings, but this one was the worst. I did a dessert table for a wedding at my old country club job once. As I was setting up, people started shuffling in...keep in mind, the actual marriage ceremony was supposed to be going on at that moment, so nothing was fully set up. The couple was nowhere to be found.
It felt more like a funeral than anything else; just people talking quietly amongst themselves. I tracked down the club's wedding photographer since I knew he'd probably have details and I found him chatting with a bridesmaid. Apparently, the couple was super Christian, conservative, and young—like, in their 20s. The groom got sent to a “pray away the gay” camp as a high schooler after getting caught with his best friend.
He was there for a year. When he came back, he met this girl and they decided to get married. Well, he ran into the guy he got caught with like two months before the wedding, decided he missed their friendship, and they started hanging out again. As the wedding got closer, he realizes: “What the heck am I doing”? He started freaking out, and the night before the wedding, he went to the guy's house. That's when it got WEIRD.
He called the bride and she refused to accept that he was not showing. So she went through the whole mess of getting ready and he didn't show up. She lost her darn mind on the speakerphone with him at the church where everyone could hear, all while he was yelling, “I'm gay! I like men! I love him, and my parents can't force me anymore! This isn't about you and you'll thank me in the long run”!
53. That’s Nuts
A co-worker of mine was at his best friend’s wedding. At the reception, there were very specific rules about the food—no nuts was the big one. There were a couple of people there, including the maid of honor, who was severely allergic to them. Well, the venue served something that had nuts, and the maid of honor went anaphylactic. Her Epi-pen wasn’t effective, and she passed on the way to the hospital. Obviously, lawsuits were expected.
54. In The Dark
I used to do catering work, and this one time, my boss sent me to a remote location in the woods on a beautiful river. I found out while we were loading the truck that the boss wouldn't be going and that I was essentially in charge. My boss promised me that everything was taken care of...Little did I know it would be a complete nightmare.
You can imagine my surprise when I arrived at this remote location and literally nothing was set up. We were only about an hour early, so I frantically started trying to get the tent in order. We needed extension cords to run the coffee and tea, but there were none there. We needed tables to set up the food, but there were none. I somehow whipped up some last-minute fixes for the missing things.
Then, just as the bride and groom are arriving, it got so much worse. We blew the fuse for our only power source and the place was plunged into darkness. We reset the breaker and I moved some stuff around, but the fuse blew again. This delicate dance went on for the entire evening—through speeches, the first dance, everything. I think the worst part of the entire experience was when we went to rinse our dishes before boxing them up and found out that the water pump for the place stopped working and needed to be primed again.
At that point, I said forget about it, we'll take them back dirty, and the crew and I spent several more hours after the long ride home doing them. That was the day I worked a 15-hour shift without a break—and still ruined the wedding. Needless to say, I quit that job.
55. Too Much Fun
I worked on a tropical island off the coast of Queensland, Australia, and loads of weddings happened there. Most days, there’d be one or two. One time, this groom’s party came through my bar. They were on the bucks party thing before the wedding the next day, and they were pretty in their cups by 4 pm. I figured they started early and would finish early, given they had a sunrise ceremony.
About an hour later, they left for another bar on the island. Then, the bride’s party came through, equally sloshed. I finished work at 9 pm, then came back three hours later to work in the nightclub. I got in at midnight and started pouring drinks. It was busy as heck with like 250 people in the club. Around 1 am, the bride, groom, and their wedding parties rolled in absolutely destroyed.
They looked disgusting. I had no idea why security let them in because I wasn’t going to be serving them. They left about 45 minutes later, which means they would roughly arrive back at their hotel rooms around 2 am with the expectation that the bride and her party needed to be up at 4 am for hair and makeup. But they all decided to keep partying. “We’ll just stay up all night and keep drinking until the wedding”!
At that point, they had to have been drinking for 15 to 18 hours. It backfired so badly. Ceremony time rolled around and she couldn’t walk down the aisle in her heels, so she tossed them off. The groom and all his friends were inebriated as heck and could barely stand. They tried to say their vows, but the celebrant couldn’t understand them. This was a huge problem.
She wasn’t allowed to marry them because they were too far gone to consent to marriage. The whole wedding was canned. A simple wedding like the one they had cost $35,000, so they used up all that money. They did have the reception, though. From what I was told, the bride passed out about an hour in. The groom threw up everywhere.
The mothers of the bride and groom were both crying.
56. The Best Laid Plans
The bride’s father was 45 minutes late to walk his daughter down the aisle. While we were waiting, the air conditioning broke down in the venue. It was over 100 degrees outside and humid like I’d never felt before. Plus, the place was overcrowded. You could barely move without bumping into someone else and in the heat, that was extra miserable.
I guess the air conditioning problem had also affected the refrigeration or something because most of the food was spoiled. The only food on the buffet was salad, spaghetti, and rolls. Not enough to feed even half the guests. Most people left after the first dance, and two of the bride’s aunts fainted. The bride and the wedding planner were crying.
57. Cleanup On Aisle One
The most awkward wedding that I have ever been to was one where the bride decided to sing as she walked down the aisle. She was not a particularly talented singer, and she was singing over a Carrie Underwood song, so we could all hear the original vocal track at the same time. She finished walking down the aisle about halfway through the song.
She then stood there and sang the rest of the song at the groom, and all we could do was sit there and watch.
58. Runaway Bride
My mother was a church organist and she attended many weddings. I suppose the story that stands out the most was one where the bride said she couldn't marry the guy because she didn't love him. She then ran out of the church in full Runaway Bride fashion. It was a smallish town, so people found out later that she had met somebody new and fallen hopelessly in love with him.
59. It’s All About Me, Myself, And I
When I was eleven years old, my cousin got married for the third time. I never really liked her because she was 37 when I was 11, so we didn't have a lot in common. Also, she was pretty full of herself. The wedding itself was fine. Pretty boring, but fine. Then we get to the reception. We were told we had to sit down as soon as we got there.
Some people found this instruction weird and out of the ordinary, but I had only ever been to one other wedding before this one so I personally didn’t think anything of it. Her other weddings were when I was little, and no kids had been allowed to attend. We all sat down and the bride and groom then made a huge dramatic entrance.
Everyone awkwardly clapped for them as they strutted around the room with actual crowns on their heads. The bride then gets the microphone, hands it to her mom, and asks her to say something she loves about the bride. She then tells her mom to pass it on and says she wants everyone in the room to say one thing they absolutely love about the bride.
Not the bride and groom. Not their relationship. Just about the bride herself. It was one of the most painful things I've ever seen. Everyone was awkwardly trying to come up with things to say about her when it came to their turn. When it was my turn, I just said, "Your eyeshadow is pretty". I felt so awkward and wanted to be anywhere in the world but there.
My older brother said "Pass," which made her force a fake laugh and urge him to say something. He ignored it and she kept insisting, so he said, "Your parents," and passed the mic on. To make matters even weirder, she then had the staff set up a booth where we could all pose and take pictures with a life-size cutout of Donald Trump.
She has since begun posting photos of herself with the cutout on Facebook constantly. She seems to think it looks so realistic, which it doesn’t. She even made a post pretending that she had been caught cheating on her husband with the cutout. She has posted pictures of herself kissing it and of it standing in her room.
These posts are always accompanied with captions like, "Oops, I just got caught with my side piece"! or some other cringy stuff like that. But that's not even the worst part! Even weirder, the husband laughs about it and encourages it. Meanwhile, her daughter from one of her previous marriages deleted her from Facebook.
Nowadays, this daughter often stays with her dad because she just can't stand her mom anymore. Anyway, my cousin and this new husband ended up divorcing a few months after the wedding. The reason was that she had caught him cheating on her with an eighteen-year-old girl who was still in high school at the time.
Since the first time I had met him, I could tell that this guy had always given off bad, creepy vibes. This was to the point where even strangers noticed and wanted their kids to stay away from him. She married another guy a few years later, and they are still together and living happily ever after. I guess fourth time’s the charm!
60. What Happened To Smashing Cake Into His Face?
One of my wife's sorority sisters got married recently. We're not that close and I don't know the groom, but every time I've seen my wife’s friend, she's been belligerent. At her wedding reception, she went even further and got blackout. Apparently, she thought it would be funny to hide under a table at that point…but then she spilled a drink on her dress and started crying instead.
Her new husband tried to get her to come back out from under the table and socialize, and her reaction was terrifying: she ended up smashing a glass into his face instead of the more traditional wedding cake, resulting in a trip to the ER. She almost bragged about it when she told the story to us after he’d left as if she was trying to prove that nobody could tell her what to do. They were going to get a divorce but ended up getting pregnant instead...
61. Thrift, Thrift, Horatio!
At one wedding I attended, the bride kept telling anyone who'd listen that she had booked the wedding through Groupon and that it had been super cheap. Apparently, they hadn't actually even planned to get married until she had seen the deal online. I’m not entirely sure how long it lasted, but seeing as she posted a sarcastic comment about how successful her marriage was on Facebook on her first anniversary, I can guess.
62. Truth Hurts
I was a guest of a friend of the bride, and I did not know anyone attending. It was a very expensive, over-the-top place, and there were several hundred guests at this very Italian wedding. The maid of honor grabbed the mic at the cocktail hour and began her speech, rambling and clearly having had a few drinks. It quickly devolved into her stating that the recently deceased mother of the bride was against the wedding and that was what ended her.
She also said that “Vinny,” the groom, will never give up his sidepieces. The maid was tackled by several people and dragged away. The happy couple separated and divorced within a year.
63. A Lot Of Energy In This One
My brother managed a gas station about ten years ago and had hired the soon-to-be bride as an employee. A little while into her employment, she requested a few days off for her wedding. The date was still a couple of months out, so it was no big deal. About a week before her requested time off, she came into work and had the following exchange with my brother:
Bride: "Wanna see my new tattoo"? Bro: "Uh, sure". She lifts the back of her shirt to reveal a huge, green, Monster Energy "M" covering the whole upper half of her back. Bro: "Holy moly! Wow"! Bride: "Awesome, huh? And my fiance got the same tat"! Bro: "Really"?... Bride: "I know, I know what you're thinking. Copyright, right"?
"But what are they gonna do? It's already on my body! It's ALREADY ON MY BODY! Ha ha"! Bro: "Right. That. That is what I was thinking". Then, at the ceremony, the pair awkwardly gave the same demonstration to all their guests. There are even pictures of it. I'm working on getting a hold of those. It was a camouflage-themed wedding.
She had an open-back camo gown with camo heels. She even had a camo veil. I really wish it had been ghillie suit headgear. The groom had camo pants with camo boots and a camo bowtie. He was, indeed, shirtless. He did wear a camo ball cap, though. I imagine them walking down the aisle, backs glistening in the sun with vaseline over a huge Monster logo.
Just the perfect day that every kid dreams about someday having. They were happily married for seven whole months.
64. Please RSVP
We attended a wedding for a family member who didn't have a lot of money. It was hosted at an inexpensive venue, but it was still nice. My heart broke when only a third of the people invited showed up. You could see the hurt in the couple’s face. They came up to our table and said, “Do you have any friends in the city”? They had all this food for 100 people but only 30 guests.
They were willing to have complete strangers come down just so their money and food wouldn’t go to waste. We hadn’t handed over our card with cash inside yet, so my husband hit the ATM and added another $100.
65. Stairway From Heaven
I'm a wedding photographer. I was at one really fancy event a couple of years ago. It was a typical outdoor deal at a swanky location in the middle of nowhere. The place was really nice—it had a large concrete stairway flanked by water fountains that led down to the altar area, so the bride could be seen by all like she was ascending from heaven.
The ceremony began and the bridal party came down to take their places. Then the bride appeared with her father. She took three or four steps down the concrete steps, then disaster hit. Her shoe twisted on her and she tumbled down a good 12 feet or more. She busted out the majority of her front teeth in the fall, and there was so much blood all over her.
With the place being so isolated, it took a good 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive and she was in intense pain. Ultimately, she was OK and I got an email from them weeks later with the reschedule date. This time, there were no stairs anywhere in sight.
66. Paperwork Woes
My sister-in-law got married last fall and after the ceremony, the new couple got into an epic fight...over the marriage certificate. They didn’t even show up to their own reception until two hours after it started. I found out afterward that the groom and groomsmen did some pretty heavy stuff before the ceremony and continued to sneak off for more during the reception. The groom apparently had a bad trip; he freaked out, had a panic attack, and left without his bride.
67. Young And Dumb
I was invited to a wedding of a friend’s friend because she didn‘t have enough of her own people to get the reception as big as she wanted it to be. Also, the bride and groom were super young—she got pregnant three months after hooking up with him and were marrying for all the wrong reasons. When the party started, the whole atmosphere was forced and strained.
Everybody knew the whole thing was fake in a way, so I decided to spend my time outside instead. I was having a wonderful time…until I heard screaming inside. The bride then ran past us very Hollywood-style, all teary and dramatic. It turned out that the ice cake wasn‘t stored properly, so it melted and came out a little lopsided. The bride didn‘t come back, even though the cake was still really nice. The couple got divorced nine months later...
68. All In The Family
A brawl broke out between the father of the bride, brother of the bride, and some guy who just happened to be staying at the hotel. In reality, I don’t know how much of a “fight” it was; it was more just the dad and brother assaulting some man. So anyway, they were both detained. Cut to the bride sobbing at breakfast because her dad and brother spent the evening of her wedding in the slammer. They faced assault charges for what they did to that poor man.
69. Surprise Ending
I went to a really weird wedding last year. The bridal party had different, fancier meals than the guests and they were all drinking free champagne, while we had to pay for lesser stuff with drink tickets (cash-only, no ATM). There weren’t enough tables to sit at, either—I guess the goal was to mingle and stand to eat—and there was definitely not enough food.
People were hogging the buffet stations and going back for thirds before some people had eaten at all. The bride and groom, who were friends of my partner’s, were really stand-offish and just took photos with their photographer all night. Later on, a fight among the two families broke out in the parking lot and the authorities were called.
We decided to leave, order a pizza, and have drinks in a park. When we went back to our hotel room, someone was passed out in our bed. Ah, New Jersey.
70. Wrong And Strong
My ex-wife's grandmother was in her 90s and in a wheelchair. While we were up at the altar, she wouldn't shut up about the flowers and how they might need water. She was not talking quietly to her neighbor, either—she was yelling in her old lady voice. She didn't have dementia—she was very with it—she just had no volume control or understanding that what she was doing was inappropriate.
"THEY LOOK TERRIBLE"! she yelled. One of the cousins, without saying anything, got up and started to just wheel her out. "WHERE ARE WE GOING"?! She yelled. We all got a chuckle at her, then we went on with the ceremony.
71. This One Takes the Cake
I once attended a classmate’s wedding. They were both young, maybe about 22 or 23 years old. There is apparently a “caking” tradition in some parts of the country where, when they cut the wedding cake, the couple feeds each other a little bit of it and smears some onto each other’s faces as a joke. The bride had absolutely made it 1000% clear to the groom that she did NOT want to be caked.
He did it anyway. And not just a small smear. He full-on smushed the entire slice into her face. She was stunned initially, then got up, with her face full of cake, and yelled “YOU JERK! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT”! She then ran as fast as she could to a back area near the reception. The groom tried to follow her, but the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride stopped him.
So, the groom ended up sitting awkwardly at the head table by himself while half the wedding party rushed off with the bride. She stayed back there for like an hour. They eventually did let him go back there to check on her. We could hear her crying and them arguing. The rest of the reception came to a screeching halt until one of the bride’s aunts emerged and directed the servers to clear the tables and put on some music.
They got divorced two years later.
72. For The Birds
A friend of my girlfriend was getting married. The wedding was quite normal—they got married in the local church, then there was a party in a nice restaurant. The photographer asked the bride and her bridesmaids (my girlfriend was one of them) to go outside for some photos. Some minutes later, one of the bridesmaids came back asking for help. The most unexpected thing had happened.
Apparently, there were some swans that nipped at the photographer and the majority of the people around him were not doing anything other than laughing. In their defense, it was hard not to—the guy who was running around and screaming.
73. Bad Things Come To Those Who Wait
At one wedding, the bride entered to the Braveheart soundtrack blasting on a boombox. It was a civil service that only lasted a few minutes, starting at around 1:00 pm. She then leaves to the same blasting music. The mother announces that the reception will be starting at 5:30 pm. There is no food and no bar, but trays of candy bars will be served. We are also told that the venue is locked until then, so there is no place for us all to wait.
My girlfriend and I then leave with a crowd of people and go to an Irish pub across the street for a few drinks. A bit of a party breaks out there. When the mother finds out about this, we all get told to knock it off and come wait back at the venue in the hall. So we sit in the hall on the carpet for a few hours without drinks or dinner.
The bride and groom finally arrive and enter the venue to an “honor guard” of floor hockey players wearing hockey jerseys and holding sticks above their heads like swords at a royal wedding. More dramatic Braveheart music is playing, of course. The place emptied out pretty quickly, as people either left to go back to the pub or to the fast-food place a bit further away.
Our dinner was lemon squares and a can of Coke from a vending machine in the lobby. Fun stuff.
74. Some Not-So-Friendly Competition
The most awkward wedding that I’ve ever attended was probably my cousin's. The food was really bad. And I mean REALLY bad. Things that were supposed to be warm or hot were ice cold and completely undercooked. There was music, but nobody was allowed to dance because "we don't want people to be distracted by dancing at our wedding".
There were also no drinks served. Not a single drop. But the worst thing was the seating arrangement. They didn't plan on families or friends sitting together. I don't know what they were thinking. I was sitting at a table with complete strangers. They even separated our grandparents from each other. None of us had any idea why.
After an hour, my grandmother stood up, walked over to my grandfather’s table, and they both declared that they were leaving now to the restaurant down the road to have something good to eat. I joined them, as did my parents. It didn't take too long for people to notice that our seats were empty. It was really easy to figure out, since nobody was allowed to dance or walk around in general.
We soon got a call from one of my uncles asking where we were at. After we explained why we had left, he said "You are right. This is ridiculous"! We ended up with 20 guests from the wedding in that small restaurant having a fun evening together. Let’s just say the couple who got married didn’t invite us back to any other events of theirs any time soon…
75. What a Nut Case!
I was at one wedding where the menu for the reception was advertised as nut-free, coconut-free, and lactose-free in order to accommodate a whole host of allergies among the many guests and children in attendance. Despite all that, the chef for the buffet arbitrarily decided "Contracts can’t tell me what to do"!
He took the liberty of putting nuts in EVERYTHING. There were almonds in the salads, pecans in the desserts, walnuts in the chicken. Nuts everywhere! It got really awkward really fast when the bride found out. See, the bride and all of her sisters have severe, life-threatening nut allergies. As a result of this, she ended up having to eat a take out meal from Burger King at her own wedding.
Meanwhile, her sister, who was eight months pregnant at the time, shot up her epipen and snuck out to rush to the ER with anaphylaxis. The cringey, awkward thing was watching the groom try to soothe and cheer the bride up after all this. It was all kinds of awkward. She was seething with just pure unadulterated rage and the guests could only look on helplessly.
The day was saved some two hours later when the bride and groom's kids got silly and hyper, distracting the bride from her anger. It was really tense though, to the point where a lot of people left early because they couldn’t handle it anymore.
76. It’s A Bust
I worked at a wedding in upstate New York as part of the catering company. For context, this was at a summer camp-type place, with a ceremony on the lake and a reception in what could be described as a mess hall. It was in September, so I assume the camp was trying to make extra money after kids went back to school. The ceremony went off fine.
During the reception, however, disaster struck—the owners of the camp realized there was a building fire across the lake. It was a building from the 1800s, and it completely burned down. At the same time, the father of the bride slipped on the dance floor and split his head open. The ambulance got called, and he went to the hospital and ended up with stitches.
The place was a mess with fire trucks, ambulances, etc. The bride and groom then got in a massive fight, and the DJ packed up and left around 8:30. That marked the end of the wedding. I proceeded to drink my weight in Yuenglings and sleep in my car. Made good tips, though.
77. Evil Stepmother
My father-in-law’s wife at the time attempted to ruin our wedding. The week before our wedding, she sent my mother an email saying that I, the bride, was too good for her stepson. She then messaged me that she had decided not to wear the dress that we had picked out together. She refused to come to the wedding rehearsal, then showed up on the day of in a garish, skimpy outfit.
She wouldn't speak to anyone and just sat there with her arms crossed for the whole day. We just ignored her, even when she threw away all the leftovers from the post-ceremony brunch that my husband and his best guys catered (they're all chefs). My father-in-law divorced her the following year.
78. The Big Grift
My cousin attended a wedding where the bride and groom got scammed by the wedding organizer. One hour before the wedding event, there was nothing in the room—no food, no decorations, just a few tables, and basically an unused ballroom. The bride and groom realized the wedding organizer hoodwinked them and took the money to buy a big ol' house.
79. You End How You Start
It started with the best man just absolutely roasting the bride and her parents. Basically, he called them gold diggers in front of several hundred family and friends. Then they cut the cake. Apparently, the groom was told under no uncertain terms not to shove cake in her face. Well, he did it anyway and she stormed off, not to be seen for 20 minutes. The chaos didn't end there, either.
The reception went on as planned, but she got inebriated and passed out that night in the middle of the street while still in her wedding dress. Pure class. They’re divorced now.
80. Pathetic Fallacy
During my second wedding, when the Officiant asked if anyone had “any reason these two should not be wed,” Mother Nature apparently had a reason. A storm was coming, and at that exact moment, a very low-pitched rumble of thunder came from the sky. Everyone just kind of stopped and looked up. I just said, “Maybe try that again”?
Everyone chuckled, he asked again, and no thunder. I should have listened. I found out five months later that she had been cheating on me for a while. We aren’t together anymore.
81. Loose Lips…
I attended a wedding reception and was seated near the cameraman. An aunt of mine was sitting closer to the camera and spent the evening commenting and gossiping about everyone. Much of it came out on the video. The cameraman was great, he did two copies—one edited and the other no holds barred. The unedited version is the stuff of legend.
82. One Bad Idea
The wedding was held at a state park that's famous for its giant gorge and waterfall. I don't know whose idea this was, but someone suggested a photo overlooking this gorge and everybody was game. The wedding party went around a stone security barrier and the maid of honor literally fell off the cliff to her end. It was like 500+ feet.
83. You Make Me Sick
I don't work in the wedding industry but I have a depressing wedding story. I have a friend who I grew up with. She was always gorgeous and incredibly popular with guys and I always thought she was a great person. As I got older, I came to realize she was actually extremely horrible in relationships. Nevertheless, she had been seeing a new guy for two months when one day, I received a wedding invitation in the mail.
Knowing her history with guys, I braced myself for the worst at this wedding. But even I could not have seen this coming. I turned up to the wedding, and it's a gorgeous little backyard-type wedding. It's spring and everything looks perfect. I greeted her family and it was like I had turned up to a funeral. They were all extremely solemn and when I asked about the groom, her mother rolled her eyes and said, "This is a mistake".
The wedding commenced and the bride walked down the aisle. Her face was grey. She looked like she would rather be anywhere else. The couple managed to exchange vows even while the bride did everything in her power not to touch her husband-to-be. She stood a solid meter away from him at their backyard altar. She actually cringed and looked away when the groom choked up talking about how much he loved her.
When the priest finally said that it was time to kiss the bride, my friend did the unimaginable. She took a slow step forward and presented her cheek for the groom to kiss instead of her lips. No one cheered. There was just an awkward shuffling of feet and a few scattered claps. It was the worst wedding I've ever been to.
They lasted about three months.
84. Take A Picture, It’ll Last Longer
My friend is a wedding photographer. While he was waiting at the altar to take photos, the best man gave a shocking announcement. He told everyone that the groom was coming out as gay and that the wedding was canceled. Everyone laughed like it was a best man joke, but no, it was very serious. The bride was on the way in the car, and she was not happy.
All the guests had to wait while they sorted their lives out. In the end, they split the reception room into two and each family had their own dinners. Needless to say, they didn't want the photos.
85. Sham Wedding
I attended a destination wedding in a beautiful setting in 2019. Over 80 people flew in for the wedding, which was a 6-hour flight for many of us. It was very lavish, but I noticed that the bride and groom didn't sign any paperwork after the ceremony and thought it was weird. I was informed shortly afterward that the bride hadn't actually divorced her first husband, so the wedding wasn't a real wedding. No one, except for a handful of the bride's closest friends, knew about it.
86. Second Class Citizen
My husband’s co-worker invited him (plus me) to his wedding. The reception was held at a big park complex with several other receptions/parties happening at the same time. Each had their own banquet room but the outdoor spaces weren’t cordoned off from each other or from the surrounding public park. When we entered the complex building we were asked our names and which wedding, checked off a list, and then each got a hand stamp.
We figured there must be issues with wedding crashers—but I still had a weird feeling about it. After a bit of mingling and watching the wedding party do some photos out the windows, they entered and the two buffet lines opened along opposite walls. We got in line and noticed the servers glanced at our hands. Then I heard one tell a couple behind us that the bride’s line was the other one.
I’m thinking, what?! Yup, guests were fed according to whether they were bride or groom guests. And there was a big difference. The groom’s side had a choice of hot entrees (prime rib or ham), while the bride’s had cold deli tray stuff to make sandwiches. It was obvious that the sides on the bride’s buffet were either homemade or grocery store pre-made stuff and the groom’s obviously higher-end and catered.
They did have shared champagne bottles at the tables, at least. It was so uncomfortable to be sitting there eating with people from the other line. People seemed shocked. I didn’t see anyone make a fuss but we didn’t stay long—we left after the bride and groom dance—before people started to drink more heavily. Later on, my husband mentioned to his co-worker that he’d never seen that at a wedding before.
His reply was astounding. He said his parents didn’t think they should have to shell out for the bride’s side because her family couldn’t afford a nicer meal. I’ve been to some “interesting” weddings, but that was the rudest.
87. Empathy Doesn’t Cost A Thing
This occurred in Austin, Texas. There is a free wedding chapel there with an Italian-sounding name. All the couple has to do is put down a deposit of $200 to hold the date. Once you're married, you go to the office and get your deposit back. And that's it! Free ceremony. Since we booked our wedding over a year in advance, the deposit was $400.
That was fine, since hey, we're getting it back anyway! Cut to six months before our wedding—and tragedy strikes. He was diagnosed with a rare cancer. He passed just one month later. I contacted the free chapel and informed them of what happened. I quite literally received zero condolences and was told that you are only reimbursed the day of your wedding, and not going through with the ceremony would result in forfeiting the deposit.
Even though I literally could not get married as one person was NO LONGER ALIVE, they would not budge. Finally, they sent a check for half the deposit. Mind you, every other vendor refunded me immediately, no questions asked, no certificate to prove it. Including the venue hosting the reception! To this day I can't fathom how a place would want to profit off the loss of a human being.
And how someone could sit there and argue this back and forth all day, again, with no apology for my loss thrown in. I hope it's obvious that this is not about $200 but basic human decency. To essentially penalize someone for their fiancé passing is sick to me.
88. Keeping The Receipts
My friend is getting married. Her maid of honor planned the bachelorette trip. I honestly think she did well. She asked us our budgets and checked to make sure the prices were okay before booking stuff. One of the events she had for us was a lazy day in, which included hiring a private chef to make us brunch. But just before the party, disaster stuck.
Unfortunately, the chef’s mom passed and they will not be able to do the event. Life happens, they’re working on sending the money back. I thought all was good, we’ll either find some private chef willing to book this soon, or we just change plans—no biggie right? Well…not so fast. I cook and bake a lot. Recently have been doing freelance recipes for a paper and decided I’m going to make my own food blog.
Most of the women in the circle know this, including the maid of honor, because I made her baby shower cake. This is where the drama begins. She messages in the group chat, saying, “Sooo…want to be a private chef and cook brunch for us”? Here’s the deal, I really have NO issue doing that, I like cooking for the ladies. But now this trip turned into a job for at least four hours on site.
That’s plus whatever time I need to make a meal plan, list, and buy food. I also know how much the private chef charged since we already spent the money. So I responded I had no problem doing that, but groceries will need to be paid for, and I want $$$—which was still 30% less than the private chef charge. Everyone was fine with that, even offered to help do prep work, grocery shop with me, and clean up after.
I thought we were good—wrong. The maid of honor was “confused” why I’d charge them and by extension the bride. In her mind, I should be doing this because I am a friend, not because I want money. She even said I made her bridal shower cake for free. Well, not true. The bride’s mom actually paid me. So this shouldn’t be an issue.
Then she accused me of causing her extra stress because If I don’t go with it she’ll be scrambling to find someone in time or making a brunch reservation. I told her I’m being reasonable, anyone she finds is going to be five times my price, and she’s putting this on herself. She called me six times in one day over it.
Not long after, I asked about the money we paid her already for the private chef. Specifically, if the PC has already reimbursed her. Again, this is in a group chat. Some hours roll by and someone answers with a meme of the little kid doing math. So then the maid of honor says yes, the chef has. So the natural next question someone asks was, “Well, what do you plan on doing with it? Can you give that money for the brunch, since she’s willing to do it”?
Radio silence from the maid of honor. Then she comes back saying she’s already spent the money on a “bridal gift”. I knew something was up. We asked how much she spent…she won’t say. We can do the math. If you’re giving us $0 back, then we know how much you supposedly spent, dumb-dumb. That’s suspicious. That’s weird.
The group chat is confused because we never agreed to it. It’s rude to spend other people’s money without telling them, etc. She also won’t tell us what it is because it’s “a surprise”. Then again she says it would have been a “wash” if I didn’t ask to get paid. That’s when chaos really breaks loose. The Elle Woods of the group is throwing around words like small claims court.
People have already purchased train or plane tickets (most halfway across the country, or more) at this point. We’re all going just like, “You better have my money or tell me what you spent it on QUICKLY”! No one’s really talking about brunch anymore cause we can figure it out whenever. It’s just food, we’ll be fine. But like—this lady has my money.
One of the women in the chat is the bride’s sister. She texts the bride about this drama. The bride comes back with some disturbing information. She tells us about it in another group chat—one without the maid of honor. We come to find out that the maid of honor has been struggling financially as her husband gambles most of their money away or buys gaming stuff.
They’re falling behind on bill payments. The bride has offered some financial help and as recently as this past weekend offered again. Instead of accepting, the maid of honor said she got some money from her mom (maybe half true) and instead wanted to treat the Bride to nail day for being such a good friend while she’s dealing with her problems.
That was something the bride turned down and told her to save/keep her money. The last text right now in the chat is from the sister that says, “Did you spend our money on your bills”? There is obviously no confirmation for any of this. If she did get some bridal gift worth several hundreds and didn’t tell us, it would be less offensive but she’s still in the wrong for spending group money without a check from us all.
Plus, she was trying to demonize me because she didn’t want to tell the truth. That’s when I decided to investigate on my own. I emailed the women she said she hired as the chef to see if there was any actual transaction. She said she did book with her! But before you cheer too much, last Wednesday the maid of honor called to cancel. As in, the whole bachelorette party is canceled.
I haven’t shared this with the group yet. I’m continuing my fact-finding mission and will come to the party with receipts.
89. Mas Drama, Por Favor
My wedding is this winter and since my engagement earlier this year there has been nothing short of telenovela-esque drama. My father disowned my brother for cutting into the family business and I have been "banned" from inviting him which I probably would have, had he not called me to curse me out.
My mother and father recently separated so my mother keeps telling me she "only hopes this is my one and only wedding". That’s not the most mortifying part. She also says how we girls "should stick together and be single". I thought she was joking, but no she is not. I have the fifteen voicemails to prove it.
Thirdly, my recently divorced sister said she won't be attending and how inconsiderate of us to get married while she's trying to get her life together. As you can tell, it’s my family causing the most trouble since we got engaged. It would not be an issue if only my winter wedding was not a few months away and the drama is only intensifying.
My mother made a scene at the in-laws' lunch, calling my future mother-in-law "a white, nosey bat". Now my mother-in-law does not feel safe around her. My brother also recently took some clients from the family business so my father is only tightening the strict banning on my brother. Lastly, my sister has decided not attending isn't enough.
She is forcing one of my vendors to choose between doing business with my fiancé and I or being friends with her. Safe to say, I can finally have my "screw this, let's elope" fantasy out loud now. For twenty people, this is an expensive and emotionally costly event.
90. Happily Ever Three Days After
Basically, my ex-girlfriend's boss left his wife ON THEIR HONEYMOON, because she and he were having an affair. They had the wedding and flew off to Bali, but he was sneaking off into the bathroom to send my then-girlfriend intimate pics…from his honeymoon. I saw one of the pictures and confronted her.
She admitted to it and messaged him back to tell him that I had found out. His reaction was seriously deranged. My understanding is that he basically came out of the bathroom, told his wife, "I think this was a mistake. We shouldn't have gotten married”, got on a plane, and flew home. Left her there on her own. On her honeymoon. With no explanation.
In the end, I had to be the one to go over to her place and tell her what had really happened because he wouldn't own up to it. So I think the marriage lasted all of about three days.
91. Grow Up
My best friends were not able to have a big wedding as planned, so they decided to just get married at the registry office and have a big wedding when the pandemic is over. They were allowed to bring eight people with them because of the restrictions, and they wanted to have a small celebration afterward in the backyard of the bride’s parents’ house with the closest family.
Even though it was just a small wedding, they requested everybody to dress properly: men at least with a nice shirt, better a suit; women in a nice summer/cocktail dress or blouse. The groom’s brother told them that he NEEDS to be with them at the registry office, otherwise it would be unfair. Because he wished to be there, they planned to bring both their parents.
So for the registry office, it was gonna be the four parents, the maid of honor, the best man, and both their eldest brothers. The groom has no more siblings, and the bride has three siblings in total. The big day came and everybody was getting ready at the house of the bride’s parents. The groom’s brother arrived with his wife and daughter from a two-hour drive away.
Most of the people were already in their nice clothes and the brother was "surprised" everybody dressed so nicely. He wore sweatpants and a t-shirt. Even his wife and daughter did bring dresses, even though they were "just" at the celebration afterward. He said he did not know about the dress code and blamed his wife for not reminding him—which she did for sure.
The groom ended up driving home (even though they were short on time) to find a suit for his brother. He found one, so his brother was wearing one of his slightly-too-big suits, a shirt, and shoes from the bride’s dad. But still, he insisted he had to come with them to the registry office and showed up in sweatpants. In my eyes, this wasn't even a proper outfit for a normal day.
The whole morning was about him, because a grown man wasn't able to think of a proper outfit for a wedding.
92. The Long Con
This story started years ago…. on the day I was born. See, my big sister was the “baby” of the family before I was born. I came along just weeks before she turned nine years old, and almost every day since then it has been a competition between us. When I was in seventh-grade science, I aced science class. On a major test, I was able to name all the major muscles in the body.
At that time, my big sister was a nursing student. My mother asked me not to flaunt my success because my sister was “sad” over not doing as well. Almost every shirt, pair of jeans, etc, I bought, with my own money, ended up on her side of the closet because she “liked it”. My mom clearly favors her, although she will deny it.
Step into the time machine to 20 years ago, when my husband and I got married. Mom wanted every detail of my wedding to be just like my big sister’s. The invitations had to look like hers, the colors of the bridal party had to look the same, the first dance had to be the same song. After decades of living in my sister’s shadow, I finally put my foot down.
I threatened to elope rather than have a church wedding. My mom is very religious, so that was my trump card. She caved, and I was able to get what I wanted. Finally. My big sister was the matron of honor, not by my choice—but because my mom didn’t want my BFF from high school, someone I had been almost a real sister to for over a decade, to take the place of a blood sibling.
During the ceremony, big sis did the first reading. This was about ten minutes after I walked down the aisle and was sitting at the altar with my hubby. I had no idea what she had up her sleeve. My jaw dropped when she announced, before the bible verse, “This is one of the best days of my life. I’m so proud to see my baby sister finally get married, but this morning I found out I’m pregnant”.
There was a scattering of slow but polite applause on my hubby’s side, and my mom almost ran to the podium to embrace her. Even on my side of the church, with my other siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, etc, was quiet. Dad was happy but looked angry. In the video of the wedding, which we watched later, you could clearly hear me say to hubby, “Are you kidding me”?
The rest of the ceremony, big sis cradled her flat tummy. But the story doesn’t end there. Time ticked on, and she never started to show. When mom asked her about it, big sis said she “must have misread the test” because she got her period two days after my wedding. Keep in mind that she is a nurse and it would have been her third pregnancy.
She brushed it off and shrugged her shoulders when a family member said it wasn’t the time to make the announcement. Her husband moved out of the house because of the drama, along with their two toddlers. The divorce soon followed. Last year, my big sister got remarried. It was her third marriage, and even though dad had passed on years earlier, she wanted the entire dramatic walk down the aisle.
She wanted me to be the matron of honor. She was VERY specific about the details of how I would look. I refused to have my mid-back-length hair cut into a bob. I hit the gym for hours almost every day and was able to fit into the backless dress in a size I hadn’t been since high school. It took months, but after 20 years and four kids of my own, I did it. It was an uphill battle.
At the last fitting for my dress, she took a close look at my skin and demanded that I take care of my dry skin so I would look perfect. The day of the ceremony came along, and I was the only member of the bridal party to walk down the aisle. My hair was in a beautiful updo, showing off my back, from the base of my skull to just above my rear end.
It was a chilly day, so I kept my coat on until right before I walked. The groom’s side of the church was mostly silent, and there were a few chuckles on our side, but mom let out a gasp when she saw my new tattoos—which completely covered my back—every inch that the dress didn’t cover—and my new tatted “sleeves”. She was furious and shot me angry looks throughout the ceremony.
The tattoos, all henna, washed off within a few days. Revenge is a dish best served cold. And cooked low and slow.
93. Too Close For Comfort
My partner and I just got engaged this weekend. We already talked about what we would want our wedding to be like and have a pretty good idea what we are going for. We have a rough plan for the location, catering, dress code, and the wedding date. Instead of congratulating us, my brother-in-law went on a rant about us being inconsiderate towards him and his fiancé.
They got engaged in 2020 and are getting married in spring 2022. We are planning to get married in the fall of the same year. According to him, we are destroying his year by also getting married. We assured him several times that we are not planning on getting married before him and also don’t want to get married anywhere close to his wedding date.
Having to justify when we get married felt a little ridiculous to me. My future mother-in-law decided to also tell my fiancé that he should wait longer because it was so unfair that we were getting married 4-5 months after his younger brother did. She also proceeded to tell him that she thought my parents had paid him to marry me which is first of all untrue and second of all extremely hurtful.
We don’t even have invitations yet but the way they behave seriously makes me want to burn theirs.
94. The Final Boss Of Mother-In-Laws
My mother-in-law is a nice lady but something happens to her when a wedding is announced and she just loses her head.
Here's a list of the crazy things she's tried to pull during three of her son's weddings. My mother-in-law has tried to wear "cream" dresses to all three of her son’s weddings. Some were even lace. Some have sequins and rhinestones. Some were the palest of beige leaning into "champagne”.
She is a nice lady but I don’t know what gets into her head during weddings. She did wear that palest champagne dress to one of them. The bride was too fed up to deal with it anymore. At one wedding she tried to wear a full-length white fishtail ball gown with gold sequined embellishments and rhinestones. The bride burst into tears.
After the first dress debacle, which resulted in a very reserved bride in tears in front of everyone days before the wedding, every couple has pretty much tried to ban her from any further planning participation in their weddings. They devise whole strategies of trying to keep the weddings from her. Whole groups of people practice strategies to not give her information, so she can't mess it up.
Nonetheless, she persists. I've even had to tell her she can't wear what was a girl’s junior-sized mini dress to one of the weddings. The dress was tiny. Maybe a less than 5’ tall teen girl could have worn it appropriately. If she bent down or danced at all, as she is known to do, she would have shamed herself. I’m not being prudish. Ladies can wear short dresses.
Mothers of the groom don't need full-length gowns. She and I are the same height. There was no way it was long enough. We would have all seen her expose herself. And there are other incidents, too. She has shown up with her own dessert and appetizers to one of the weddings. There were four full-sized industrial baking sheets of food.
Her food was not properly refrigerated and in full sun. The event was fully catered by staff. Neither dessert nor appetizers had been asked for. The baking sheets were covered in tin foil and placed on the formal dessert table. This was not like a cookie table some people do, no one was asked to bring food for this wedding. She just decided to start catering it herself.
Her dessert was baked into the tin foil and she messed up the recipe badly. She can make this dessert well, but messed up and brought it anyways to the wedding despite knowing she messed it up. The making of these unwanted goods meant she was an hour late for the wedding and almost missed the wedding in the first place.
She had started these food trays the morning of...again, no one asked for this. She also tried to change the flowers for one wedding, while the bride and groom were overseas. This caused a ton of obvious tension and stress. She also scheduled a vendor at the reception from her personal friend as a "favor to the couple" and the vendor ended up charging the couple thousands for basic service that they didn’t realize they were paying for.
It was ridiculously above market price even for a wedding. They got scammed by her friend. Obviously, they were very annoyed to discover this on their wedding day. For one of the weddings, she decided to throw a huge day before the wedding day party for the whole family, against the couple’s wishes. And throw another huge party the day after the wedding party for the whole family again, against the couple's wishes.
They felt obliged to show up and they really wanted to destress before and after. At another wedding, she went and bought all this decor from thrift stores without the bride's permission. She wanted to be reimbursed for all of it. And yes, some thrift store stuff can be really cool. But this stuff was not. It was junk. So much so that she was storing it on her porch because she didn't want it in her house because it was so dusty and filled with cobwebs.
Well, that was the final straw for the bride. She decided to cancel her own wedding and delayed it for a whole year months before her wedding so they could reschedule everything without the mother-in-law being involved. She wasn't invited to be with the bride when she got ready that day. I don’t think she’s ever been invited to go wedding dress shopping with one of her future daughters-in-law.
Gee, I wonder why?
95. It’s A Wedding, Not A Surprise Party
I got married this Saturday, it was a beautiful sunset ceremony by a bay. My sister-in-law was invited over a year ago, but declined to attend both the ceremony and reception because she was trying to quit drinking. Fine, totally understandable. I was disappointed but understood.
My mother-in-law convinces her to at least attend the ceremony and then leave before the reception. I say sure, no extra charge for chairs. The wedding happens, and my husband and I appear for our grand entrance after photos. That's when I see her.
My sister-in-law is standing at the doorway where we are supposed to enter with a drink in her hand. After the dance and dinner, my sister-in-law and her children and husband are still there. My mother-in-law comes over to apologize for her daughter and says, "Well at least so-and-so isn't here so sister-in-law can take their place”!
I responded, "No, actually there is a final count and so-and-so was already removed so they are three extra I get to pay for because everyone else had the decency to RSVP and show up”. My mother-in-law is between a rock and a hard place.
My husband turns to me and says, "Honey, I'm super angry at this too, but I can't kick my sister out. It's a bad look. And we can't let her crashing ruin our night”. He's right, of course. We have an amazing night and honeymoon. But it was still really annoying.
96. Getting A Head Start On The Drama
My wedding is in a few weeks and my bachelorette party was this past weekend. Months ago, when deciding on the trip, I asked everyone if the city we went to worked for everyone, and what price everyone would be comfortable with for an Airbnb. I also mentioned it was entirely optional and that I know it’s a big ask and would completely understand if anyone wanted to or needed to decline.
Everyone seemed excited and wanted to do it. So we all agreed on the city and Airbnb, so I asked everyone to let me know if there was anything anyone did or did not want to do while we were there so I could make an itinerary for us. My sister is my MOH and is a college student so I didn’t want to burden her with planning the trip and figured my other bridesmaids could help me plan.
Long story short, I sent an itinerary to the group a few weeks before the trip asking if it looked okay and to let me know if I should change or add anything. I included time for a scenic hike, pool time (it’s warm this time of year where we were), going downtown/shopping, karaoke bar, etc. I reserved all of our brunch, happy hour, and dinner spots.
I tried to go for more of a girls' weekend away versus a wild bachelorette party. Nothing wrong with a crazier bachelorette party but that’s not really my personality and my friends know that. The consensus from everyone on the itinerary was pretty much “That sounds good, thanks for sending”! No one made any other suggestions to me after I sent the itinerary or in the few months leading up to the trip, so I figured we would go with what I came up with. I was so, so wrong.
Basically, two of my bridesmaids ended up undermining the plan I came up with the entire time and we ended up not doing some of the outings I suggested because they didn’t want to, which is fine, but then wouldn’t offer alternatives. I also feel like they should have let me know back when I sent the itinerary so we could have come up with a different plan and things to do.
And it didn’t end there. One of my other bridesmaids told me that the whole weekend, these two were talking bad about me behind my back, and were mad at me and saying that I didn’t plan a good enough trip for them, etc—just saying some really mean things about me and the trip.
Without going into too much detail as this is already long, one of them was basically just in an obviously horrible mood the whole weekend and the other one snapped at me at one point over me not calling an Uber five minutes earlier than I did.
She caused a scene that ruined the evening while we were out on Saturday that caused us to end the evening early and head back to the Airbnb. That’s not even the worst part.
They were also apparently upset that I didn’t get sashes for everyone to wear or plan an expensive party bus or something. Which maybe I did drop the ball on some of that, but they could have suggested those things and if everyone was down we could have done them.
It seems like they expected me (the bride) to plan their perfect weekend without actually telling me what they wanted to do. I was always under the impression this weekend was more about what the bride wants while of course also being a fun weekend for everyone else too. It seems they have a different take on bachelorette trips/weekends.
Anyway, my feelings are definitely hurt and I honestly don’t know how to proceed from here. These are (I guess I should say were now) good friends of mine so I’m really confused. Part of me is worried they will behave this way on my wedding day and I feel like maybe I should respectfully ask them to step down from being bridesmaids and offer to reimburse them for their dresses.
Part of me also thinks doing that this close to the wedding might just create more stress and I should just leave them as bridesmaids but maybe nicely ask my other bridesmaids to keep them in check on my wedding day. The bridesmaid that informed me of their behavior already said she would do this for me.
Then once the wedding is over I will probably let the “friendships” with these two fizzle out. I would rather focus on my friendships with people who care about me instead of people that treated me like this, especially during what should be one of the greatest times in my life.
It’s unfortunate that they ruined it, but at the end of the day, it’s just a bachelorette party. I’m staying positive and focusing on the fact that I get to marry my best friend in a few short weeks!
97. The Grandmother Of Tantrums
I had a friend who threw a temper tantrum complete with screaming and foot-stomping because her grandmother had the audacity to pass a few hours before her wedding. She said it would throw off the seating arrangements since there would be a big empty space. She is currently halfway through her second divorce.
98. Top Secret
The bride gave explicit wedding instructions beforehand through various channels. One rule was that there were to be no posts on social media before the bride gave the OK, and certainly no posts before she posted herself. Anyway, a few hours before the wedding, someone posted something, saying that they were at the wedding or whatever.
Absolutely nothing malicious, just a generic statement. The bride saw this and everyone could tell she was about to explode. At the end of the vows, the bride turned to the congregation and said, "Can you all please unfriend Jennifer as I gave out explicit instructions that there are to be no social posts until I give the OK, and she has broken that rule today".
Just imagine—she literally just finished her vows and she finally has a new husband, but that was the first thing on her mind. Everyone awkwardly laughed as if she was joking…nope. She then stormed off, with her new husband awkwardly following behind. There was a weird atmosphere after that and everyone started making excuses to go home.
I'm talking proper fake emergency stuff here: "I have to get back because I need to err, my erm, yeah bye"... Everyone left much earlier than usual. No one wanted to be there and have awkward conversations with the bride.
99. No-Show Nuptials
I've catered many weddings and there have been some memorable ones. Fights between guests, wedding cakes falling over, things spilled on wedding dresses, the lot. But there was one I’ll never forget. It was an all-day do with a small ceremony of a few close friends and family. There was then a big reception filled with a huge buffet and a free bar.
It was all in the same venue and they had paid for 250 evening guests. But here's the thing—only 30 guests turned up, at most. My heart broke for this couple. A beautifully converted barn, loads of food and drinks, great music—but no guests. At about 10 pm (the venue was licensed until 11 pm), the buffet food had barely been touched.
The few people who were there ate, but it hardly made a dent as it was planned for so many more people. I asked the mother of the bride if she wanted me to cover and refrigerate the untouched food so the new couple could take it home. Her reply made me cringe. She said, "Oh no, there are still a lot of people coming". It was the most awkward I've ever felt in my life.
No more guests showed. There was a flash of car headlights in the distance at about 10:30 pm and the bride BEAMED when she thought it was latecomers arriving. But no, it was just taxis arriving to pick up the few who were there. It's the only event I have ever done where we didn't have to boot people out of the venue. At 11 pm, the place was empty. Then we found out the whole story.
In a nutshell, the bride’s parents paid for the day, and the happy couple had zero control over their guest list. Her parents invited all their “friends” to the evening function, but in reality, it was just associates they wanted to flex on—resulting in no one caring at all about an invite to a wedding where they didn't know the bride or groom. It was basically just a networking event for the bride’s parents.
100. Whoops!
I work wedding bars and I've seen some disaster marriages, but I'll never forget this one: I saw a wedding where the bride was running extremely late. You could cut the tension. In the end, she texted the groom 15 minutes before they were supposed to get married, saying "Sorry but I'm not coming". It was super depressing. The guests went ahead with the 'party' but the groom was broken-hearted and ended up leaving at around half 7, the rest of the guests at 10.
What had happened was the bride had spent all day with her parents the day before. They apparently hated her husband to be and had convinced her not to show up to the wedding. Last thing I heard was she came to his door the next morning and apologized, they're still together as far as I know...Man was that an awkward work night.
101. Every Rose Has Its Thorn
I’m a florist. We had a bride and her mother show up at 9 am. They wanted to order a bridal bouquet, a mother-of-the-bride orchid corsage, a boutonniere for the groom, and six smaller ones for the groomsmen. But there was just one thing. The wedding was scheduled for noon. Yep, three hours from then, and they wanted them ready by the time they were done with their makeup appointment at the beauty parlor a few doors down.
The bride was flipping through the sample book and pointing out the style and flowers she wanted. Think garden roses with long sweeping trails of stephanotis and variegated ivy, all three of which would require at least a week's advanced order with our suppliers. She was absolutely gobsmacked that we didn't carry extremely expensive and highly perishable flowers at all times.
Same with the orchid for the mom's corsage. My boss told them that since they didn't place an order beforehand they would be limited to what we had in stock, and simple styles that could be assembled quickly. The bride and her mom kept pointing at the book and arguing that we should have those specific flowers in stock.
My boss eventually took the book off the desk and tossed it behind the counter. The bride vacillated between tears and petulant whining that we were going to ruin her big day. My boss, who had a bone-deep loathing for brides in general, told her she had ruined her own day by not ordering her flowers before her actual wedding day.
The mom tried chewing out my boss for her lack of customer service skills. My boss told her that she was welcome to go down the street to Vons and ask their flower department to make their order with whatever they had in stock. The mom said she'd do just that, and reassured the bride that she'd have her flowers done by the time her appointment was over.
Both women stormed out. I figured that was that, but I was so wrong. My boss told me and the other girl to start on six simple corsages. Meanwhile, she threw together a ribbon-wrapped bridal bouquet with some white roses that were nearly past their prime and some. Sure enough, 20 minutes later the mother slunk back in and meekly asked if we were still able to assemble what they needed.
We did. We also charged her a very large rush fee.
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