Life is awkward. The walk down the aisle is no exception. Love, marriage vows, and big expensive ceremonies offer little protection against this world’s many humiliations, especially when alcohol is involved. Reddit asked the wedding guests of the Internet to share the worst and most awkward moments they’ve witnessed at nuptials. And we’ve assembled the best of the worst here in 42 trashy stories about the most awkward weddings ever attended.
42. More Than Bros?
Best man professed his love for the groom. It was a lot of awkward laughing and trying to play it off as a joke. Painful.
41. An Advance On the Wedding Registry
Saw a groom open up gifts and cards during the wedding and counting the money and calling people out on how much they gave them.
Also saw his friend, maybe ex-friend now, grab the money he gave him and leave. Was awesome to see.
40. You May Now Steal Their Thunder
Friend's wedding, in the middle of the vows when they reached the "through sickness and health" section, the pastor started going off on his life story—how he has had three wives and they all died horribly and so it's important to really mean the "through sickness" bit. Then at the end of the wedding, before he announced them as a couple, he asked his fourth wife to stand up. Really weird, everyone was looking around at each other to see if it was a joke or not. Groom was pretty mad.
39. Pick Up the Tab
My dad was the best man at a low-key wedding. We went to a restaurant after and in his speech, he thanked the father of the bride for paying for the meal, and it turned out we were all paying for our own meals. The father of the bride was mortified, and so was my dad.
38. Leaving the Party Early
After the ceremony, everyone got up except one very old and frail looking lady who it transpired had passed away during the vows.
The reception was rather subdued.
37. A Haunting Ceremony
My grandpa was getting re-married, and for some reason insisted that the wedding be held in an ancient dilapidated hotel in Western Pennsylvania. He grew up near there, so I guess it had sentimental value or something. Well, this hotel happened to be adjacent to a creepy old amusement park, which was hosting a giant Halloween party the night of the wedding.
The entire ceremony was marred by bloodcurdling screams and chainsaws, and moaning people spattered in fake blood were wandering outside the wedding hall the entire time.
36. Dip and Strip
One of the groomsmen was dancing with the maid of honor and they did a dip maneuver. The problem with this being that the maid of honor's dress was strapless, and her boobs had recently swelled up—she was pregnant—so that maneuver made them pop right out of the top of her dress in front of the whole dance floor.
35. The Bottle is My Baby
The groom ran full sprint around the wedding reception hall double-fisting bottles of beer. He slipped on the ground and dislocated both of his hips. His father popped them both back in while the groom screamed through tears—while still clutching the beers.
34. First Time for Everything
Went to a wedding where the first kiss as husband and wife was literally their first kiss. She went for the quick peck and he went for the "dog licking its bowl clean"-style kiss. She was not happy about it.
33.Backhanded by the Holy Man
The bride was a former nun who left her order not long after taking her vows so she could marry a friend of my significant other’s family.
During the wedding ceremony, the priest kept staring at her, shaking his head slightly and making facial expressions that displayed his disappointment in her decision.
It became especially awkward during his homily when he said, "Keeping the vows we make—whether nuptial vows or religious—says much about our integrity and sincerity."
32. The Sweet Taste of Tears
A friend got married to the boy her parents made her break up with years before, due to family/cultural differences.
Her mother-in-law full on sobbed through half the ceremony. There wasn't even any booze to blame for it, as they're both Pakistani.
Other than that, it was beautiful, and the food was killer.
Pixabay
31. Vape and Escape
Oh god. At my cousin's wedding, her maid-of-honor was a complete and utter mess who said she wasn't going to give a speech, then drank a bunch and insisted on it. She stood up and opened up her phone to the "notes" section and just started reading down this list of memories and then going off on tangents and then going back to the phone and saying "Whoops! lost my place. Where was I?"
Her stories were AWFUL. They were about how she loved my cousin so much and hated the guy she married and how she thought he'd ruin their friendship, but she learned to tolerate him.
It went on and on until one of my aunts started clinking her fork against her glass to get her to shut up and everyone started doing it and the DJ had to come and turn off the microphone.
So this girl sits down, crying, and opens her little purse and pulls out one of those GIANT vape pens and takes a big pull and then just chucks a massive cloud in the face of the groom. It was amazing.
30. Trip Advisor Isn’t on the Guest List
My uncle was supposed to do a blessing for the dinner. Ended up talking about North Korea and how they better not travel there for their honeymoon. No one laughed, it was a very awkward four minutes.
29. Not Every Achievement Needs to Be Aired
The bride's older brother gave a speech where he talked about how he changed her diaper when she was a baby. He then told the groom that because of this, he (the brother) "saw her first." It was super gross and cringy.
28. Marking Your New Territory
Didn’t witness the incident thankfully but got to see the awkwardness right after it happened.
Groom gets completely drunk before the wedding even starts, so after drinking for a few hours at the reception he can barely stand. He still goes up to his new father-in-law and says he wants to talk to him. Walks into the bathroom. Father-in-law thinks that is odd but maybe the groom wants a few words with no one around.
They walk into the bathroom and the groom proceeds to pee all over the wall and then walk out leaving his new father in law just standing there.
The new father-in-law explained what happened to my date not long afterward. As far as I know, it was never spoken of again.
27. All the Wrong Moves
The bride said she had a surprise for the groom, so she disappeared, groom got sat in the middle of the dance floor, and bride came back to do a seductive belly dance for him. In front of their whole families and friends. Neither of them is even remotely Middle Eastern. It was so, so bad.
26. The Groomsman and the Phantom Womb
Went as a date to a wedding of a family I didn't know. The younger brother of the groom caused the ceremony to be 20 minutes late. They were running behind and getting no response from him, so they started the ceremony. He came in in the middle of their vows and announced "Sorry I’m late, but I just found out that me and his girlfriend are having a baby!"
No one said anything, and someone told him to sit down and be quiet. After the wedding ended, I asked my friend what that was about and she told me that the brother was a known attention-seeker and everyone was sick of his garbage. A few weeks later she gave me another update straight from the groom. There was no girlfriend, and no baby either. He'd made it up.
25. No Boundaries on the Dance Floor
Mine isn’t bad compared to others here, but it definitely stands out in my mind. My husband’s coworkers got married last year and I didn’t know anyone at the wedding besides my husband. I was pregnant and tired, so I told my husband to have fun dancing with his friends and I sat out while everyone else danced.
The DJ would seriously not stop harassing me over the microphone to come onto the dance floor… after the third or fourth time, he said something I stood up and asked him to please stop. I know I looked like such a jerk and I felt so awkward about it.
24. It’s Not a Vote
Muslim groom, Hindu bride. Groom's family wasn't 100% in favor of this marriage.
The maid of honor gave a lovely standard maid of honor speech.
The groom's two brothers decided to go in a different direction. One spent ten minutes screaming, red-faced, about the war in Iraq (this was in 2004) and the other read a wonderful poem about how nothing is permanent and there are other fish in the sea.
23. A Web of Regret
It was me at my sister’s wedding. I got drunk and started making out with a bridesmaid, only to be caught by my super conservative Christian stepmother.
I should also mention I was the maid of honor, the bridesmaid was my ex, and that neither of us was out to our families at the time, who were both in attendance. Whoops.
22. Kiss and Break Up
My husband and I were invited to his friend's wedding last summer. They've known each other for a decade, went to college together and now work with each other.
The wedding was lovely, and they had an open bar before dinner. During the reception, they were doing this game where everyone had to stop eating to watch each table answer trivia questions about the bride and groom or whatever. Our table got it wrong, which meant spinning a wheel to get a punishment. Things like do a dance, etc.
So, the wheel lands on "kiss." The groom thinks he's going to be funny and picks my husband, and after a lot of thought, another of their college friends. My husband hasn't seen this dude in over ten years. They made brief eye contact and nodded at each other. The groom went pale.
Then BOOM, my husband and this other dude launch into each other's arms and start kissing. Sloppy, noisy, face licking, grabbing, making out maybe 20 feet from the grandparents' table. The other guy's wife and I were cheering them on. The best man was collapsed laughing on the table. The groom could only watch in open-mouthed horror. The bride was furious.
The pictures are amazing, though.
21. That’s What I Call a Death Drop
The bride’s aunt died on the dance floor while dancing.
She fell down, and the DJ stopped the music until EMS arrived. They took her away, and when the music resumed, the DJ selected Bryan Adams’ “Heaven” as the next song. I still remember the looks people were giving him.
20. Too Much Talk
Do you want to kill a wedding? Put speeches an hour after dinner and have that happen for three hours.
I think speeches started around 8 PM, by the time the video tributes and the people talking about how great everyone is ended, it was 11 PM, and everyone was just done. Not a lot of time to dance and socialize left over when the venue was closing at midnight. I was feeling sick, so I should have left sooner.
19. Nuts About Protocol
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 guests and children.
The chef for the buffet decided "Contract be damned!" and put walnuts in EVERYTHING. There were almonds in the salads, pecans in the desserts, walnuts in the chicken... Nuts everywhere!
It got awkward when the bride found out. See, the bride and all of her sisters have severe nut allergies. She ate Burger King at her wedding, and her sister—eight months pregnant—shot up her EpiPen and snuck out to go to the ER with anaphylaxis.
The cringey, awkward thing was watching the groom try to soothe and cheer the bride. It was hella 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, a lot of people left.
18. Unwanted Drop-In
This is odd, but I am going to say mine.
This was because of my wife's family. We wanted to keep the wedding very small. We were very young, and some thought we were too young to get married, so this was the reasoning for keeping it small. I had my parents, my brother, and four friends. My wife invited her parents, her brother and her grandmother. Her grandmother took it upon herself to invite the entire side of my wife's family. We had over 100 unexpected guests that acted as if they were insulted that they had to be there.
The good news is my wife rules and we’ve been married going on 15 years.
17. Read The Room, Newlyweds
I was at a dry wedding where the main theme was "books.” You were assigned to read a book prior to the wedding and were sat with people who read that same book to create conversation. Interesting idea, but a majority of people aren't going to do it.
People were also purposely not put with people they knew, in an attempt to make people socialize with others. Basically, all we did is make a few sentences about how we didn't read the book and left after a being served an inedible dinner and headed to a bar.
16. Fair is Fowl
Ugh. I had friends get married in a "forest." It was a stretch of meager woods between two cornfields. Mosquitoes galore. We had to sit on logs that were covered in damp moss, the mud was ankle deep in places, and the ceremony was inaudible due to a tractor plowing the field.
They served food out of a "charming old cottage" that was actually a rotting former chicken coop that the groom literally dragged in from elsewhere. The entire event was a nightmare.
15. Love & Censorship
Normal wedding for a very religious couple. 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 The ‘90s CD—this was in 2008—and the first song was Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life.” A few seconds in, the mother of the bride turns off the CD player and puts in a CD with children's bible songs.
About a minute later “SCL” comes back on, then off, then children's songs. Repeat this about two or three more times as the Mom tries to control what her adult married daughter can play at her wedding. We left.
14. Aesthetic Standards
In one, almost the entire bride's family left right after the ceremony because she had the audacity to wear a red dress.
In the other, almost the entire bride's family left right after the ceremony because she had the audacity to marry a man with long hair.
13. Balancing Out the Vices
Definitely my cousin's 18-year-old kid marrying his very pregnant girlfriend in a conservative small town. Reception at the local VFW, with no booze because the crowd was mostly either underage or teetotalers. No, their marriage didn't last.
12. Stuck in a Rut (and a Marriage)
I was a banquet manager at a hotel for years and have worked hundreds of weddings. Worst one by far: The bride was AT LEAST 20 years younger than the groom, almost definitely an arranged marriage. Only about 20 people were invited to the reception, and the only decoration was a bad quality massive blown up picture of the bride and groom in the shape of a heart.
When the bride and groom walked into the room, someone put the Black Eyed Peas’ "I Gotta Feeling" on the CD player. Then the song played again, and again, and again for three hours straight. The only time it stopped was when the CD ended because apparently, no one learned how to use the repeat feature, so they just burned a CD with the same song on it 20 times. When it did stop though, someone just got up and restarted it. Also, no booze.
11. Oh. My. Gosh.
I worked the most amazing wedding ever! The marriage didn't last 6 hours! I was bartending for the reception. Everything seemed pretty typical and standard as guests arrived, drank, and conversed.
Everything was going as per usual for a wedding---until the best man finished his speech and the food began to be served. The groom grabbed the mic after the best man's toast and wished everyone a great night and a nice meal.
That's when everything fell apart.
After his well wishes, he asked for the attention of his best man and bride. He told them that he knew they were hooking up behind his back for the entirety of the engagement, and that he would be filing for an annulment on Monday. He thanked everyone for coming, and apologized to the father of the bride saying, "I would have called it off weeks ago, but I figured you would be way more mad at your little princess when you couldn't get out of the bill for the reception."
He turned to his wife and said, "Screw you", then turned to his best friend and said, "From what I overheard--I'm better in bed!"
Mic dropped---groom out the door---absolute chaos. Me and my fellow bartender looked on in amazement. We had to go into the kitchen to die of laughter.
Bride ran directly to the bathroom both furious and inconsolable, bridesmaids running after her. Mother, aunts, and about 20 other women tried breaking into the bathroom which she apparently locked herself in. She refused to come out until everyone left.
The best man made a run for the door, only to be followed by his parents who had the most saddening look of disgust on their faces. He made it out the door. He got in a cab with his family. Apparently his mother was crying from the moment he was outed until they left the facility. He was gone with his family in a matter of minutes.
The Brides father went from complete disbelief--anger--rage--tears, all in a matter of minutes. Nobody would say a word to him. Friends tried to approach and he pushed everyone away. He kept his composure better than most would from what I saw and heard. Just kind of faded to the back and tried to apologize as people gathered their things and left. Weeks later I found out that my boss did give him a big break on the bill.
The crowd was like a group of zombies walking out the door. Quiet whispers and shuffling feet--with looks of horror on their faces. I remember one guy started laughing, and his SO hit him with a purse. That place was cleared out in about 15 minutes. Bride still waited another hour before she thought she could leave and spare further embarrassment.
Pixabay
10. Family Business
I worked at a mob wedding. I was in the band. The bride and groom looked like they were gonna kill each other when they were feeding each other the cake. Men on either side jumped up from their seats to settle everyone down and pull them apart after they SHOVED the cake into each others' faces.
Then the "grandpa" sat in a chair and basically a receiving line formed for him. A limo pulled up outside and he left. All the guests cleared out once he left. Nobody gave a darn the reception was still going.
9. I Do, I Guess
Probably my cousin’s wedding. It was nice, there was nothing wrong with the wedding itself. But a lot of people were/are very confused by the couple’s relationship. It doesn't seem like they are in love, they could’ve be two strangers on the bus, that's how much chemistry they have. It just didn't seem like they were right for each other and just got married because they felt like it was the next step.
I talked to my sister about it the other day and turns out that a few months after they got married. my cousin asked our aunt (her mother) how she could get an annulment... but then a week later she found out she was pregnant. They're still together today—she's due this winter. No one knows she talked to her mom about it except me, my mom, and my sister. I don't even think her husband knows.
8. Is This Game of Thrones?
A sibling's wedding.
It was a shotgun wedding, with the bride looking like a very-pregnant satin sausage, the groom drunk off his butt (despite not being legally old enough to drink), the ceremony being performed by someone from the motorcycle gang the bride's dad belonged to, while the groom's mother and step-mother (who previously had restraining orders against one other) took a time out from their on-going feud to share shots out of the same flask, at a VFW hall off a major highway.
Did I mention there were turkey vultures circling the building as we arrived?!
7. Bargain Bride
The reception was at an Olive Garden. No reservations or heads up for the restaurant beforehand. The first dance was sung on a karaoke machine.
6. Wish I Were You, Kiddo
Wedding photographer here. Easily the worst was when the father of the groom, apparently entirely sober, gave a ten-minute toast that devolved into openly complaining that his son got to have sex with the bride and he didn't.
And this wasn't a mistimed joke about how pretty she was, this was a full-on lament about growing old and how women didn't find him attractive anymore and that all he wanted was to take his daughter-in-law to bed.
I got a few photos of the bride and groom reacting in horror to this and then I went and hid with the catering staff in the kitchen, who were peeking out the door to observe the carnage.
5. Headfirst into Love
Groomsman had a little too much vodka and decided to propel himself through a tempered glass door head-first. Turns out tempered glass is really hard to break.
His limp body proceeded to slide down a flight of cement stairs.
As I was calling the ambulance a bridesmaid was screaming in my face about how I was “going to ruin the wedding” and how he would be “just fine”—as he twitched and drooled in my lap, completely sauced, concussed, and a good ounce stupider than he was five minutes before.
We all went out for drinks after they carted him off, but the girl wouldn't let it go.
4. Substitute Soulmate
We showed up to a wedding where the bride was not the girl everyone was expecting. Turns out the couple had called it quits like two weeks before, but the groom was so cheap he did not want to lose all the money invested in the wedding reception, so he decided to ask one of his ex-girlfriends to marry him. The girl accepted—it was very awkward because everyone at the wedding was talking about it.
3. Airing the Past Out
I was at a wedding—partner's cousin—and the bride's father, very intoxicated, started an aside with a, "I have to say it..."
Apparently, the bride used to have a pretty serious substance and self-harm problem. He credited the groom with saving her life.
Phrased correctly, that could have come out as high praise for him.
Added to the speech after he got drunk, it came out as, "We're so lucky that she turned out okay, after her brief stint as an addict!"
... not optimal.
Getty Images
2. It’s a Dancefloor, not the Thunderdome
My cousin's wedding. I was about 7 or 8 years old and vaguely remembered my grandmother grabbing my brother and I and leaving. I remember being mad cause I didn't get any cake, didn't get to dance, nothing.
When I got married this year and was worried that my wedding was going to be a trash show, I was finally given the details as to why Gram made us leave so early.
My cousin was not in contact at the time with her birth father. He showed up at the reception anyway. Everyone more or less tolerated him for the time, as no one wanted to be the one to ruin my cousin's wedding. At some point, he made a pass at my mom and said pretty nasty comments to a 14-year-old girl that was there.
My mom let the comments he made to her go, but the father of the 14-year-old girl did not. He punched him in the face. When he got punched, he fell backward onto another lady, whose husband, in turn, jumped on him.
It turned into an eight-person brawl including my dad and one of my cousins. No idea how my dad or cousin got involved, but alcohol was a factor.
So where was my cousin—the bride—when all this was going down? She was in a truck with her new husband, engaging in some illicit substances.
Twelve people, including my dad, one male cousin, the bride, and her new husband all got arrested at her wedding. She and her husband were caught in the truck when the cops showed up for the fight. My grandma realized something was going to go down when she saw my cousin's dad and the first guy start fighting and got my brother and me out of there.
I have a pretty trashy extended family.
1. A Mortifying Plot Twist to a Job Well Done
When I was in college studying photography, I got friendly with a fellow student who had a wedding photography business but was studying to get his qualifications, etc. After seeing my work, he asks me if I want to assist him on his next wedding, I agree.
The big day comes and I’m all prepared to go in see the groom and the best man, ushers, etc. and get some pre-match photos of them getting ready and what not, but the groom refuses to be in any pics, stating he was feeling under the weather. I kinda thought he should suck it up, as it's his wedding day, but he was insistent.
The ceremony comes and goes, time for the bridal party photos at the church. Again, the groom refuses pics, much to everyone’s annoyance. Get to reception, speeches begin, and midway through the father of the bride speech, the groom just straight up leaves, saying once again he was feeling a bit ill.
This is where the bride drew the line and went into a rage and started pulling the small groom and bride figures off the top of the cake and stomping on it, yelling "I shouldn’t have married him!"
Lots of hullabaloo and guests trying to console her. Everyone agreed he was being dramatic and basically a jerk. We got paid in full even though at that point we were done.
I go home, feet up few beers... phone goes off, it’s my friend Craig the photographer. The groom passed away shortly after leaving the reception hall. We do 2-for-1 wedding and funeral service now.
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