Weddings. A holy union between two people who love each other. A time shared with family and friends, and a celebration to dwarf all other celebrations. There's so much to do to prepare. You pick the venue, choose the flowers, invite the guests, buy the rings, the dress, and on and on. This celebration is at least one year in the making to the main event.
What happens when the wedding doesn't go as planned? When someone or something throws a monkey wrench into the deal and ruins the entire event, the results can be devastating or hilarious. One thing's for sure, the bride and groom will remember every moment for the rest of their lives. The good and the bad.
These wedding guests were asked to dig into their memory banks and share the worst thing they've ever seen happen at a wedding. Hold on tight, because here are some of their best responses.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
At a cousin's wedding, my uncle was smashed and thought he'd had a stroke in the bathroom as he couldn't straighten himself. Turned out he'd buttoned his waistcoat to his trousers and couldn't stand up.
I was an event manager at a mansion that did a lot of weddings so I've seen my fair share of bad things happening at weddings.
My favorite is probably the one where the entire wedding party started drinking at noon for a 6 p.m. wedding. The groom passed out around 5 and we couldn't get him up. So I made him a ham sandwich and propped him up in his bed while I hand-fed him.
Managed to get him and his boys down to the courtyard and then had to run back in and herd the women down. The bride spilled her mimosa all over her dress, two of the bridesmaids couldn't find their shoes, but everyone was super happy and nice.
There were about 150 people at the reception and every single one of them got absolutely hammered. The mother of the bride kept sneaking up on me hugging me and the groom made me pose for some photos with them. They also gave me all the leftover wedding cake and a few bottles of adult beverages. I miss them.
At my own wedding reception, I saw my wife's grandma, who was about 98, very slowly and with a terrible sense of inevitability, fall sideways off her chair. She remained in a sitting position but just slowly tilted sideways 'til she was on the floor, still in the exact same pose.
It sounds bad, but all I could think was "for Pete's sake, don't die at our wedding. Please don't die at our wedding."
Luckily she was fine and lived for another few years to see her 100th birthday.
Oh and one more travesty: dinner wasn't served until 10 p.m.
At the reception, the bride received a tip to go out to the parking lot, where she found her new husband making out with his ex-girlfriend. The ensuing fight came inside the hall and the party screeched to a halt. Both families were displeased and stuck him with A LOT of bills. We kept our gift.
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During the "Man of Honor" speech, the guy repeatedly said the name of the bride's ex instead of her new husband. Three times. "When I first saw [Bride] and [Bride's ex], I knew they were perfect for each other." Stuff like that. And he caught himself, too, every time. He was insanely embarrassed, but he still did it three times throughout the speech.
It was so awkward watching it happen. Probably the biggest social trainwreck I've ever seen.
Edit: Since people keep asking, yes, it was the "Man of Honor"... like a maid of honor, except a guy. There was also still a best man.
One of my best friend's weddings. The groom got so under the influence that he straight disappeared from the reception. It got really awkward when it was time for the wedding to be OVER. The venue was kicking us out and the bride and groom were supposed to take off in their vintage car and drive off to their honeymoon suite. The music went off, lights went on, and it turned into the guests searching for the groom. My husband finally found him in the parking lot basically face down on his lips.
He helped him back into the wedding which was basically the most awkward walk of shame past the bride's glaring dad and grandfather. The groom was too under the influence to drive, so the bride's grandfather drove them to the hotel suite (which was a 30-minute drive). My friend (the bride) later told me that when they got in the room, her new husband, passed out cold on the bed and she had to wander the halls in her wedding dress looking for someone to unhook her dress for her so she could get out of it.
I was an attendant in my best friend's wedding. Her father walked her down the aisle and while he was not visibly under the influence, he had a hard time walking behind her to sit in the pew. He stepped on her dress ripping it from her back down to her rear (her thong was red). They had to stop the wedding so that she could find safety pins.
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What's worse is that we were in a large park, and people calling 911 couldn't give the address. I ran to the rangers station, but it was locked. I broke a window screen and crawled through to use the landline EMS could trace and respond. She didn't make it.
As an added bonus to the horrible situation, I later found out the ranger had placed a hidden camera in the women's restroom where the girls got ready/dressed for the wedding. He served jail time.
I’ve said this before on here, but they didn’t have any tables or chairs.
We had nowhere to sit or to put our plates down. Everyone had to hold their food standing up and put their drinks down on the ground.
Since there were no chairs to make an aisle for her to walk down she just kind of strolled through the crowd while people were confused and talking.
“Where are the chairs?” was the theme of the wedding.
I was a close friend so our group sent me to ask her why there were no tables and chairs and she simply said: “Oh you have to pay extra for that.”
????
This was NOT a casual outdoor quick wedding or anything like that. Traditional wedding. 5 hours total including the ceremony. Full buffet and open bar. 200 guests. She was not caught off guard in any way. This is one of my closest friends. They decided not to pay for them. That’s it.
And since this is blowing up I may as well add in the tidbit that during the speech portion people were talking and complaining so loudly (where are the chairs? Am I supposed to sit on the ground?) that the groom took the mic and screamed at the top of his lungs for everyone to, and I quote: “shut up! I said shut up! Shut the heck up or leave now!” A lot of people left.
The grandmother of the bride died. At the reception. She was dancing and having fun and then just collapsed. The bride and groom did amazingly. Grandmother was quite elderly and sick. They waited with her for the ambulance and quickly told everyone she was alright and on her way to the hospital. Everyone was slightly worried and had thought the evening had just gotten to her. Nope, she had passed away right there, as I found out after the reception was over and she and I were cleaning up the hall together. Also, the groom was terminal. He was given 6 months about a week before the wedding. He survived about 3 months afterward. Happiest thing is the bride was pregnant with his child and gave birth to a lovely daughter. She has since remarried, but my goodness... a widow 3 months after the marriage with a newborn. No, she didn't get a huge life insurance policy either. That woman is strong as nails.
The ex-boyfriend of the bride got super under the influence at the reception and started rambling loudly (heard by half the reception hall) about how the marriage was wrong and how she was the love of his life.
He was there with his then-new (presumably imminently ex) girlfriend. Who knows why she invited him.
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Friend's wedding. The bride's nephew (about 7, I think?) was the ring bearer. Instead of sitting at the front after he made it down the aisle, he decided to do karate moves in front of (and sometimes behind) the couple during the entire ceremony. He's in almost all their photos.
We were partying in Puerto Vallarta, and there was a beautiful wedding going on at the hotel next door. A friend of a friend of mine was pretty under the influence, then just sprinted for the wedding. He hopped the wall, blasted through the seating arrangements, then body slammed the like, 6-foot tall wedding cake.
He spent the next two days in a Mexican jail.
My cousin's mother-in-law told my cousin that her dress was ugly and then called the next day to ask if they had consummated. Super awkward. My cousin is super religious and modest and was waiting for her wedding night to do anything so it was extremely embarrassing for her.
I once went to my husband's friend's wedding. I knew the groom but barely knew the bride. After the ceremony, I swung by the bathroom to make a pit stop. I walked in on the bride crying in the bathroom. Apparently, she didn't want to get married, but only did so because she and her husband had had relations, and it was her "duty" to marry him (note: they'd had it ONCE, and she wasn't pregnant). We spend 30 minutes talking with her crying her eyes out before her grandmother turned up and took over for me. She was gone for 90% of the reception. Her husband was having a grand time dancing with his friends and really hadn't noticed his wife was missing.
We lost touch shortly after the wedding. Years later, we ran into the guy, and he said that the two of them were still happily married and now had 3 kids together. Hopefully, she's genuinely happy and it isn't him just being blissfully unaware of her unhappiness.
My dad's friend's son got married when I was a teenager. He's a really cool guy and we played Nintendo a lot whenever we visited. Anyway, the embarrassing story is about his bride.
She decided that she wanted to sing to him at one point during the ceremony, so she chose the song, "Wind Beneath My Wings" by Bette Midler. Midler is an alto. The bride was a HIGH soprano. Unfortunately, she couldn't sing very well, either. So for several minutes, she squeaks this song out while he's standing there with the most awkward look on his face. I think everyone felt embarrassed. I know I did.
The good thing is that they're still happily married and have a daughter.
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My friend got married around age 21. Neither he nor the bride had much money, so the wedding was modest but still very nice. They did have a lovely 3-tier cake, though.
The ceremony goes fine and "The bride will cut the cake" music is playing. She was a dainty, tiny little thing, maybe 5'2" and 100 pounds soaking wet. If she swatted a fly it might not even notice. She approaches the cake with the knife, barely touches it, and BOOM! the whole thing immediately collapses, all three tiers somehow, all over someone's elderly grandmother who was seated right by the ill-fated cake.
That old lady, who had barely moved throughout the whole affair, shot out of her chair like she was fired from a cannon, screeching bloody murder and sending cake shrapnel all over those nearby. Another close friend and I watched the whole thing from close range and were paralyzed and purple from hysterical breathless laughter, as were many of the other guests.
I later heard the bakery refunded them for the cake due to its not-up-to-code construction. They should have charged them double for generating memories that no one there will ever forget.
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My husband's brother having a seaside wedding. Our almost 2-year-old was the ring bearer. He passed off the rings to the best man (dad), then toddled away... Off the cliff.
It was prob a 60-80' drop to the beach below, but he luckily got caught up in the bushes, and husband snatched him up. He was buckled into his stroller after that, kamikaze kid.
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