With so much riding on one day, little things are bound to go wrong here and there at every wedding. Except, sometimes those "little things" aren't so little. From shocking objections to bridezillas to full-on fistfights, these weddings went brutally wrong.
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Does Anyone Here Object To This Union?
A few years ago, my family and I got invited to my second cousin's wedding. The bride (my cousin) and groom were wonderful people in their mid-twenties who had known each other since middle school. They were very much in love and had been deemed "the perfect couple" by our entire family. The wedding was exquisite, too.
It was a large outdoor wedding with beautiful decorations and flowers everywhere. It was a shame it ended up being nearly ruined. First of all, the bride and groom had to wait 45 minutes because the groom's mother was late. She showed up in a fancy white dress that could rival the bride's and insisted on being in all the pre-wedding photos, which made it hard to tell who was the bride and which visibly upset the actual bride.
The groom's mother then started verbally attacking the bride on her appearance, among other things, which left her close to tears. Then, when it came time to say the vows, the best man stepped forward—and what he said left us all in total shock. He professed his undying love for the bride, saying that he'd been in love with her ever since high school.
He proceeded to list all the things he loved about her including some pretty explicit things he said he wanted to do to her. He claimed he knew she felt the same way, but the bride just shook her head, looking extremely uncomfortable and even a little bit scared. He was escorted out of the premises unwillingly. And to top it all off, the groom's ex-girlfriend decided it was the right time to object to their marriage.
She claimed that it should have been her at the altar with the groom. But after that whole mess was taken care of, the bride and groom got married and the wedding party was still awesome. Despite the shaky wedding, they're still as happy a couple as they were before the wedding, and they've been married for five years and have two beautiful little girls.
Like I said. A very dramatic wedding.
4. What A Tangled Web They Wove
I was the best man at this wedding, but I lived in another city, so most of this is second-hand. Still, the drama involved seems crazy considering how undramatic this couple normally is. I was the best man for my older brother. The bride and my brother had eloped about a year earlier for health insurance reasons, but were throwing a moderately sized wedding to celebrate it (around 100 people) in a local park.
The bride asked her brother Alex to officiate the wedding and his girlfriend of four years, Christie, to be her maid of honor. Bride and Groom specified a very strict no plus-one policy. You weren't allowed to take your significant other unless there was a ring. Christie was an obvious exception, because she and Bride were already friends.
Note that my other brother's girlfriend of five years was directly told not to come because of this policy. About two months before the wedding, disaster struck. Alex calls Bride to let her know that he and Christie broke up and that Christie no longer wants to come to the wedding and won't be the maid of honor. Bride asks what happened and Alex just says that they drifted apart.
Also, Alex has a new girlfriend that he'll be taking to the wedding instead. Bride reminds him of the policy and that they won't allow plus-ones if there's no ring. Well, she was in for a surprise. Alex says that there is a ring. Alex and his new girlfriend (let’s call her Danielle) are engaged. Also, Danielle is pregnant. Bride asks how he met Danielle.
Alex met Danielle when he was helping teach a pottery class at his local community college. Danielle was a student taking the class. Danielle is 19. Bride asks the obvious question: "Did Alex cheat on Christie with Danielle and get Danielle pregnant”? Alex says absolutely not. Alex says he broke up with Christie, started dating Danielle, proposed to Danielle, and then he and Danielle got pregnant on purpose.
Note that Bride had spoken with Christie two weeks earlier and Christie had been excited for the upcoming wedding and being the maid of honor. Still, Alex is her brother, so Bride agrees to invite Danielle to the wedding and Christie is uninvited. The bride needs a new maid of honor and doesn't have many close female friends. She ends up asking her 16-year-old cousin from Europe who she hardly knows.
This isn't a big deal for her. The wedding goes forward without a hitch. Everyone has a good time. My little brother's girlfriend helps with set up and clean up, but doesn't attend the ceremony or reception as per the Bride's wishes. A few months later I run into Christie at a bar. That’s when I find out the twisted truth.
I buy her a drink and Christie is more than happy to tell her side of the story. Alex had been cheating on Christie for months with Danielle, before Christie learned about it. Alex and Christie were actually trying to have a kid during that time and had even picked out baby names. Alex only fessed up to his infidelity when he found out that Danielle was pregnant.
He then swiftly dumped Christie and proposed to Danielle. As a final insult to injury, Christie had recently found out the name of Alex and Danielle's new child. The name was one of the baby names Alex and Christie had picked out for their potential baby.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Mixing Business With Pleasure
The wedding planner we hired was seen by multiple friends and family making out with and going into various closets with a friend of ours who was helping set up our wedding. We confronted our friend and he confirmed they did the deed multiple times on our wedding day. I’m furious. It was so unprofessional and inappropriate on all levels.
And that’s not to mention there were tons of things going wrong with our wedding or not completed properly with our wedding that I can’t help but to think would’ve been done better/smoother if she hadn’t been “busy” all night. One of the major things was she did not check out catering at the end of the night and they ended up taking all of the food we paid for with them instead of leaving it behind.
Ultimately, she refunded us after the wedding. We expressed our concerns to her and she offered a refund and asked us not to review her.
8. Karma Is Real
My wife and I chose "rustic picnic" as the decor theme for our small wedding. This was in 2013 and mason jars were still very trendy. We aren't trendy people, and weren't then but figured this was the cheapest way to throw off a wedding that is still "pretty”. We also were having our wedding in a state park, so it fit. If you can't tell, our wedding was intentionally affordable.
As a working-class queer couple with conservative family members, it was important to my wife (and her mother) that our wedding "fit the mold" so to speak. We went to a few $25k+ weddings that year, and I'm still proud to say our wedding was the prettiest, and most Pinterest-worthy of that era. Of course, that all came with a downside.
In the hours before our nuptials, her mother cried out of sheer relief that our wedding was not going to be a total embarrassment. And it didn't come without significant effort. We scoured craigslist for mason jars. Drove an hour out of town for them, out to the country. Some were pretty plain, but some were genuinely antique jars—an excellent find.
We purchased lace and wrapped half of the newer ones with it, delicately gluing the lace to the outside of the jar. The other half or so we both made patterns with our hand prints in muted versions of our wedding colors. It was a dorky cheesy choice, but believe it or not, they looked nice and were very much ours. Or so we thought.
We also happened to pick up off craigslist about a hundred glass baby jars. They wrap those with almost impenetrable paper labels. It took very tedious hours to get these labels off. To pull off having these tables covered in mason jars, glass, and flowers it took us at least four weekends to pull off. Effort. Time. Money. Personalization. I'm still angry, can you tell?
Enter... Courtney. You know people like her. Well, she is engaged to Todd, my future brother-in-law. Did they get engaged a month after we did, after only knowing each other a month? Yeah, they did. First she showed up to our wedding shower wearing sweatpants. It was noticeable, it was weird, but whatever. I wish I could have gone in sweatpants.
She only got worse from there. What does she do in the middle of the shower? Burst out crying. "She doesn't have anyone planning a shower for her, she doesn't have any of their wedding planned, nothing is done, they don't have a venue”. Granted, at the time she was having issues with her family, a messy parental divorce. But money was no issue, they did quite well for themselves.
A brigade of my wife's relatives offered their help; My wife offered our help crafting anything that needs done. We were done with our own wedding labor at that point, but still in the crafting zone. She rebuffs ALL of these offers of help. Eventually, they land a venue at a countryside church, and plan to do their reception outside.
We hear about a few people in her family getting fitted for their attire for their wedding. Nothing strikes out of the norm because we are busy excited for our own impending wedding. The morning of our wedding our enlisted family and family friends (none of her siblings or their partners) helped me set things up perfectly. Our wedding goes off without a hitch.
Both of our parents contributed the food, and it was tasty. It was this amazing joint effort of love. As the reception wore on, it was easily noticeable that her siblings and their partners were nowhere to be found. They spent the entire reception drinking in their cars or around back of the building. It was a small wedding, thus easily noticed.
A few times, they came back around and Courtney would clearly be looking down her nose at everything. Just obviously, being a judgemental cow. My wife didn't notice either of the offenses until her maid of honor was mad on her behalf in the weeks after. I've got a keen eye for terrible behavior, but again, I gave it no mind as this was our day.
Just as folks helped us set up, they helped us clean up. Even Court and Todd—surprising considering their complete lack of participation. Everyone breaking things down without asking. Earlier than we would have liked. I wasn't angry about that. I appreciated the help, but chose to continue dancing with my wife, under the stars. We were blessed with wonderful weather.
In the midst of our dancing, I noticed something strange. Todd was placing boxes in his truck and Courtney was hovering around inside. Literally, she spent more time inside "cleaning" than during our entire reception. Again, I have a keen eye for garbage, but let it slide because again, this was our day. Do you know where I'm going with this? Yes, they attempted to take all of our decor.
And that’s not all. My thief aunt also steals a table, chairs, and bottles of booze. But this is normal behavior for her. She recently was fired from her job for stealing cake from a work event. Our cake was also stolen. My wife's mother's BFF cut the cake for us. Tiny little slices for everyone, about a quarter inch wide. Why? Because at the end of the night she planned on asking to take some of the cake for a graduation party the next day.
"Of course, yes feel free, just leave us the top two tiers" What utter garbage. You should have seen these slices she was passing out. In the days after our wedding we had to fight to get our stuff back. My wife's mother attempted to convince us to let them have it, "they have nothing”. No. We hear from her cousin that Courtney is claiming we pilfered ideas off her Pinterest, and she feels the right to our things.
However, remember she had no idea what she was doing for her wedding at the time of the shower. They only booked a venue a month before ours. My wife finally gets a hold of him and explained they were very personal to our wedding, and that it would be extremely weird for them to use it. Finally, with enough cajoling, he dropped the boxes off at their parent's house.
We got most of it back. I still think there was some missing. But it’s still not over yet.
At the rehearsal dinner a week before their wedding, we find out that my wife's ENTIRE family was at the fitting. She was excluded from the very start. Everyone in her family, including cousins, children of cousins, and aunts are dressed similarly. They are all included in the wedding party. We are visually the outsiders. My wife is heartbroken and leaves their dinner in tears.
Despite a terrible experience at the dinner, the night of their wedding we are called by her mother that Courtney is freaking out. All of these plates she painted need work. My wife, the saint, actually helps. Well, that’s where karma came in. Guess what happens to the plates during the reception? The paint leaks off onto people's food.
It rains at their wedding and is the coldest day on record for June in our area. Their wedding is chock full of decor she had bought in the days prior at TJ Maxx. Some of the stuff still had price tags on. On top of it, she cheats on him. One and a half years later, he was both divorced and married again. Then, my wife’s other brother get engaged.
They include my wife as a bridesmaid probably to attempt to forego any drama (she wasn't REALLY included), and possibly to appease the mom. Her parents and brothers all start attending the same church that doesn't recognize or condone homosexuality. Awesome. The church lumps queer people in with "hoes, dealers, and drinkers”.
They don't bat an eye. Despite being a queer couple, once we had the necessary goods it was incredibly easy starting a family for us. We are blessed with two daughters, who happily will never know such family drama. Well, Todd is impotent and her other brother requires expensive intervention to conceive.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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 butt.
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.
12. 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.
13. 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?
14. 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.
15. Communication Is Key
Just as early Covid was happening and no one really understood the implications, a family member was right about to have their wedding. Social distancing was just starting and masks were barely something the public needed. The original invites had been sent out months before. But they sent two updated invites. One said more news to follow.
The next new invite said what everyone expected—that it was now a small wedding. There was no new RSVP. Small weddings were just starting to happen. The family thought that the real one was happening next year, as mentioned in the invite. With a follow-up party the following year. Being a polite family, everyone thought the couple were nicely trying to say don't come, but come if you must see us get married in the church.
Well, it backfired spectacularly. No one actually came. Apparently the real one was this year and a small informal party was supposed to be next year for the supposed few who would bow out. They had an entire church and hall rented out. We all missed the wedding. None of the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc, extended family showed up.
They had a huge banquet, and no one came. To make it worse, a few days later another family member had a socially distanced outdoor wedding on a farm. Everyone came. Everyone sat far apart and wore masks. And there was a separated food truck line, etc. The previous bride and groom had to sit through everyone coming to another family member’s wedding, while no one came to theirs.
Multiple people even apologized to them for what happened. The bride looked like she was near tears the entire time. However I'm not sure they would have been able to have a socially distanced reception anyways, because it was not outdoors. Major bummer. We all felt really bad.
16. Bridesmaidzilla
I got engaged in 2020, after the lockdowns but long before my friends and I were comfortable seeing each other in person. A couple of months after my fiancé and I got engaged, I sent out packages to all of the ladies I had chosen as bridesmaids. One of them is the crazy bridesmaid (I'll call her Ellen for the sake of anonymity) whom this story is about.
We have been friends since high school, are still in the same core friend group, and while not as close as we once were, I still wanted her to be a big part of our special day. We recently went on my bachelorette party, which was a weekend-long trip to a very affluent town a couple hours away on the coast. We were a large group of girls and it took my MOH a lot of time and effort to coordinate an itinerary and place to stay that would accommodate everyone.
Onto the story: From the very second we got to the house rental, Ellen was obnoxious. Everything was about Ellen. Someone had a funny story to share? Ellen had a funnier one. Someone complimented another person's outfit? Ellen had to step into the middle of the room to talk about how awesome her outfit was. At one point, someone asked me where we were honeymooning, and guess what?
Ellen and her husband had just booked a vacation to the same resort! It went on and on...and on. Now I am not the type of bride that needs constant attention. Seriously. I had to take a day off after the bachelorette because 72 straight hours of socializing had me completely exhausted. Anyway, onto the worst of what Ellen did. On our final night, we had a reservation at the nicest restaurant in town.
I'm talking renowned chef, $80+ entrees, dress code, etc. Everyone got dressed up and excited. We arrived to the restaurant about five minutes early. Our table wasn't ready yet—no problem. I understand that there are currently staffing shortages in the service industry and that patience is a virtue. Ellen does not understand this because she immediately started scolding the hostess for not having our table ready.
She then scolded her for seating us outside—at an outdoor restaurant—and next to a live band, even though everyone wanted to go for the music in addition to the food. It got increasingly worse from there. Ellen spoke about money constantly, as in how much she makes, how much she will make, and how her lifestyle will be going forward.
Something important to note is that everyone on the trip is not rich. We are middle and upper middle class—some are educators, some are mothers, some are in sales. We all work full-time jobs, have student loans, and while we are more privileged than some, we don't talk about money. We had all saved up for the bachelorette weekend and it wasn't something any of us could afford to do normally—it was a special treat.
My opinion is that when you talk about how "well-off" you are, you do a great job at making others feel like trash. Not to mention that literally no one cares about your financial situation. Ellen ordered around the waitstaff in a demeaning manner, screamed at a busboy to make him take away patio heaters from other patrons and bring them to our table.
She screamed at a manager to bring us complimentary prosecco (because she was cold...), took her cellphone flashlight out to show the manager that her steak was cooked medium and not medium rare, and made it a point to yell at/berate every employee she saw. It was mortifying. The final straw? Well, that was when it was announced that my father had graciously called the restaurant to pay for our $1,500 bill as a gift to all of us on our last night of the trip.
Ellen's immediate response was not to thank my father for the meal—he was on the phone with my MOH. Oh no, Ellen's first response was, "Well, if I knew someone else was paying for my meal I wouldn't have asked for my steak to be comped”. I excused myself and went to the bathroom, holding back tears of frustration and disgust.
The next day we were getting ready to leave and Ellen was clueless as to why nobody wanted to engage with her. Ellen is unaware of her behavior, never thanked my dad, and is mad at me (the bride) for wanting to go to a nearby pub for a nightcap after dinner. I needed one, trust me. After I headed home, Ellen and two other girls got into a rollercoaster of a conversation that didn't end well for Ellen.
I am still so disgusted by the way she treated the employees at the restaurant. I am so appalled by the way she so grossly discussed money in front of girls who are underpaid public school teachers. My wedding is coming up in under two weeks and I want the day to be drama-free. I am planning to compartmentalize my anger and frustration towards Ellen and not acknowledge it until after the wedding is over.
At this point I don't even know if I want to continue the friendship. I feel so sad and hurt over all of this.
17. Beggars Can’t Be Choosers
For your enjoyment, I give you the story of my very first wedding shoot. When I was just starting out in photography, I took low pay for full-day shoots. I had a few photos to show off, but not a pro-level portfolio. I got the chance to do a wedding, so I charged the lady $600 for eight hours. I was new and we all gotta start somewhere, right? I had no clue what I was in for...
It was at this really swanky local place. Old house converted into a wedding venue. She paid the $300, non-refundable deposit a couple of months before the wedding. The check bounced. It should have been a clue, but I needed the work and the pictures. I called and emailed her to let her know what happened. She apologized. She swears she'll pay the full balance, in cash, at the wedding.
I get there the day of, and there is no one in charge. Find the bride, she says she's going to get her money. Vanishes for 45 minutes. Find her again, she says her mom has it. Can't find her mom. Find the mom, she's clueless. A couple of hours go by and I help myself to the free food, wedding starts. At this point, I figure what the heck, I'll take some pictures anyway for my portfolio.
Her uncle is there with a camera constantly getting in my shots. I had to ask him to move or sit down five different times. Ceremony is over, they're doing the normal post-ceremony stuff. Finally get bride alone, says she's going to get the money right then. Doesn't return for half an hour, then says her new hubby has it. I finally realize, I ain't getting paid for this, but at least I got food and drinks and some experience.
I started up a conversation with the DJ, ask him in a joking way if he's been paid. He says of course, I tell him what's going on. He checks his bank right then and wouldn't you know it, his check had bounced too. He calls her over the PA (he's clearly done this before) and when she gets there, he informs her of the bounced check. I ask again about my money as well.
She makes some excuse about having to run to the car to get it. I tell her she's told me her mom had it, her husband had it, and she's gone to personally get it twice in the last four hours. So, no. She can call someone over to go get it for her. She starts whining that we're ruining her day and she'll pay us at the end. I’ll never forget what the DJ did next. He said, "Sorry, I don't work for free”.
He then cuts the music in the middle of everyone dancing and started unhooking his equipment. She loses it. He tells her she's got five minutes to get his money, or he's out. I tell her the same. She runs off, and 10 minutes later, I'm helping the DJ pack up his stuff. Her, her husband, her parents, and the uncle stop us at the door saying they have us for four more hours, we have a contract and we can't leave.
We both politely tell her that she hasn't held up her end of the contract by not paying for services by the appointed time. We agree that if we get our money right then, we'll stay. Shockingly, no one had the money for it, so we left. Here's the best part. She calls me a month later stating that she just got back from her honeymoon, and saw me taking pictures, saw the thumbnails on my site but couldn't access them without a code and she'd like her pictures and the code.
I told her I'd be happy to give her the proofs, and she could order the individual pictures she wanted from me, once she paid me the $600 she owed. She then spent the next two weeks emailing me and leaving me voicemails stating that I either needed to give her her wedding pictures or remove them from my site because she didn't give me permission to use them and she owns the copyright, or she'd take me to court.
I politely reminded her of the contract, told her that this isn't how that works, and said I'd be happy to meet her in court with all of my documentation, including my contract, bank statements showing bounced check, etc. Never heard from her again. Suffice it to say, now I won't even put your date down on my calendar until you've paid the deposit, and if you're still not fully paid up on the day of, my equipment won't come out of my car until I've been paid in full, if I even show up to begin with.
18. There’s No Way To Make Up For This Mistake
My wedding was this past weekend in Los Angeles. I first paid for a preliminary makeup trial with my makeup artist in March. I then chose to hire this makeup artist a week or so later in March and signed a contract and paid a deposit with her. In the contract she was to provide herself and one other makeup artist to do makeup on eight women for my wedding day.
The months go by and about 10 days before my wedding I ran through a timeline and schedule for her for the wedding day. Everything was fine. Fast forward to wedding weekend, it’s 9:30 am and she’s 15 minutes late, I’m annoyed but not too alarmed and text her. She has her read receipts on so I can see she read my message but doesn’t get back to me…
I start to get nervous. I proceed to message her multiple times. She finally gets back to me around 10:15 am, an hour after her scheduled start time. She tells me her daughter was in the hospital since 4 am with Covid. I ask her where her other makeup artist is that she was supposed to bring and why she didn’t get a hold of me sooner. She makes excuses.
She ends up sending another makeup artist around noon, three hours after the scheduled start time. This makeup artist only has time to do three people of the eight that she was hired for because she is alone when there were supposed to be two makeup artists. We don’t get out the door until 3:30 pm. My other five bridesmaids had to pay Ubers for their husbands to bring them their makeup bags. It was absolutely mortifying.
Because we are almost three hours behind schedule, my entire wedding ended up being three hours behind schedule. This affected every aspect of our wedding and basically thousands of dollars. The wedding coordinator was preoccupied putting out fires because of the makeup artist so there were aspects of my wedding that were executed incorrectly, such as hundreds of dollars in candles not being set up and lit, hundreds of dollars in fresh eucalyptus not being set out, and guest table place cards not being out.
The photographers were only booked for eight hours so most of their time was spent waiting for our makeup to get done and the wedding to begin, this means we didn’t get any dancing pictures of the reception. The catering threw away our leftover food because the planner was scrambling to fix the other things that were incorrect.
Our dancing and reception as cut short because the whole wedding was delayed due to makeup and this effected the money we spent on the hired DJ. Not to mention the emotional and mental damages done…I was crying and miserable most of the day and it shows in the sneak peek of photos we have gotten back from the photographers.
Still, I understood that a sick child takes precedent—until I learned the disturbing truth. This makeup artist was working another wedding on my wedding day. She was not sick. Just sick in the head. I did get my $100 deposit back from her but we still paid her other makeup artist $300 for the three girls she ended up doing makeup on.
In total, if we are talking about the DJ, coordinator, florals, and photography the total financial damage comes up to $10,000. All because of this one makeup artist.
19. Not Messing Around
My aunt and uncle are scum. They and my cousins lived with us when we were young because they needed help. When the tables were turned they treated my dad like garbage, laughed when I asked for a ride to my friend’s funeral, consistently ignored their kids so that my dad had to be their parent, and then would act like they've done nothing but favors for us.
After my father passed, my aunt tried to make the whole thing about her. We moved out of their house the same day he passed and we haven't seen/talked to them in the eight years since it happened. My wedding is in two months. I've invited my cousins because we grew up together and are practically siblings. Last night I received a FB message from my cousin—and when I opened it, my blood ran cold.
There was a screenshot from my aunt asking if she's invited. I told my cousin that I would handle it. She knew I was going to say no, even her own kids hate her. So I got her phone number from someone else. I sent the screenshot and texted her "Hey this is your niece, my cousin told me you were wondering if you were invited to the wedding. No, you and your husband are not invited. I will not have terrible people in my life anymore and if you show up, you will be thrown out for trespassing”.
No response from her, but my cousin told me they are freaking out about it and throwing a fit and making threats. I'm happy, I'm so happy. I don't care about the ensuing drama, I don't care if she does try to show up. I have waited since I was 11 years old to tell her off. That’s when she laughed in my face when I asked if my parents could borrow her car to take me to my friend's funeral.
If she tried to show up to our wedding, I'll probably hit her in the face and go straight back to dancing. I haven’t seen most of my family since I left for college. I have worked hard and made sacrifices to ensure my life and future family will not have to deal with the things my family did while I was growing up. I do not budge when it comes to terrible people anymore. I banned my own mother from coming.
20. Hashtag Doomed
I am the general manager of a restaurant often rented for weddings and other events. Bride has paid full balance on the event space. The package she purchased was ONLY for the space and the outside catering fee along with the other service charges, etc. She and her wedding coordinator ran through the contract with a fine tooth comb.
Yesterday we had our final meeting prior to the wedding which is in a little than two weeks. That’s when chaos broke out. At the meeting the bride informs me that the headcount is now 140 instead of 100. I let her know we would have to amend her invoice accordingly for the outside catering fee. She pouts and her fiancé says “I told you that we would have to pay more, but you didn’t listen”!
But they agree to the new amount and groom is huffing and rolling his eyes at every idea she mentions. She informs me that the chairs she rented fell through and that she’ll need to use some of our chairs. I inform her that we cannot provide additional chairs other than the seating already in the space she rented because our restaurant is still open to the public.
The seating provided is picnic tables and a very nice assortment of lawn and patio chairs. It’s an outdoor area, not commonly used for weddings in December. She’s nearly in tears because it’s not on theme with her vision for the ceremony—but the chairs are acceptable for the reception. Again, her fiancé makes her feel worse with the “I told you so” remarks.
The coordinator and I assure her that while we will have to be creative, we can make it work. It won’t look traditional, but will still fit into her “Rustic Winter Wonderland” theme. Bride seems placated, but groom is now laughing at her and petting her in a very patronizing way. Not sure if I can describe it, but it’s something my husband does to me playfully and mockingly when we both know I’ve done something stupid or boneheaded and we can equally laugh about it.
That was not the dynamic here. Finally, as I’m asking for contact information for each of her vendors that will be onsite, she informs me that her photographer backed out. This was apparently news to the wedding coordinator as well. So I’m helping them brainstorm ways to have their wedding captured, and the coordinator suggests using a hashtag with the groom’s last name.
The bride suggests they shorten the last name because it is a difficult name for a lot of people to spell. That’s when the groom loses it. Let me tell you, real quick, that these people were already nutty. Also, they are very religious and kept talking about propriety and how there will be absolutely NO drinking allowed because it’s the devil’s poison and how modest they expect the guests to dress, etc.
But then they mentioned the song that will play for their dance is the song they wake up to each morning, and caught themselves and tried to backtrack and say that they call each other and listen to it together. Anyway, back to the groom losing it. He gets up from the table and says “Forget this! Now you’re trying to butcher my last name!? That’s garbage”!
The bride was mortified and tried to calm him down but he was not having it. He yelled: “I can’t do this anymore. You keep lying to people about how we got together and why are we paying all this money for a wedding when we already live together” ?! The bride then again asks her fiancé if they can talk in private, but he storms out with “I’m out. I can’t do this anymore. Find someone else to marry in a couple of weeks since you want this wedding so bad”!
When I initially met them, I could tell they were a typical super-religious couple where the man is dominant over the woman, so as much as it annoyed me, I did my sales pitch as selling the vision to the bride while keeping the cost within his budget. Planning a wedding is stressful, and I’ve seen my share of wedding drama after years of being in the industry.
But this one will haunt me, because—they went on with the wedding, and it was such a disaster. The weather was a windy 40°F and we had fire pits and several propane heaters out there, but the bride wanted a cold wedding, but apparently failed to inform her guests that it was an outdoor-only wedding. So remember that I had to add more money to the invoice because their headcount increased?
Well, they were not happy about that and waited until the very last minute to pay it. But then the day comes (yesterday). They ask to use our microphone and sound setup. No one brings a laptop. No one brings an aux-compatible device from which to play their Spotify list. Using our sound and sound tech is another add-on we offer, which they declined.
I add that to the invoice they still have outstanding and inform them that the wedding cannot begin until it’s paid. So the groom begrudgingly pays it. Everyone is freezing. Bride insisted on tall centerpieces, but after the wind knocked over two of them, breaking the vases, the wedding coordinator nixes the tall ones and just lays the flowers on the tables like sprays.
Their designated button pusher they asked to run the wedding playlist doesn’t know what the heck she’s doing. Did I mention everyone is freezing? The outside caterers don’t bring heating trays so the food is sitting on a table getting cold. Bride arrived almost an hour late. For the unity candle, they only brought the unity candle itself but forgot the taper candles with which to light the unity candle.
They ran an entire worship service in lieu of a traditional wedding ceremony. Everyone is freezing. Bride sang about four songs, very pitchy, a cappella. Headcount only ended up being 75 people. The groom’s cake was poop emoji themed. I’m not kidding. They brought nothing with which to cut either cake. Had to borrow our set. They brought nothing with which to serve cake. No plates, no extra forks.
They brought nothing with which to box the leftover cake. They had no music during the dinner or reception because they wanted us to change the restaurant station to praise and worship music, which we refused since the rest of the restaurant was still open. Their button-pusher left early because she was freezing. Here’s the best part.
The groom pulls me aside and says that they deserve a refund since most of their guests didn’t show up—or left when everything kept getting delayed. I explain to him that I did the pricing based on what was reported to me by his bride and the wedding coordinator. I also explain how they used much more of our items than was in the contract, without extra charge.
Then he starts feeding me a story about how he was behind bars until just 9 months ago and how blessed he is, but also starts threatening me with God’s vengeance if I don’t get him his refund. He’s literally waving a fist at me as he speaks to me in passionate tones, like he’s trying to preach to me and make me feel convicted, because God believes I owe him a refund since just under half the guests didn’t show up or stay for dinner.
One of my other managers, Ron, is a bouncer-looking veteran, takes-no-guff-from-anyone type, who is very protective of me. He sees what’s going down and hurries over. I’m doing fine at staying assertive, but when the groom sees Ron, he starts backing down and talking like a human being. He immediately changes his conversation and starts playing the good guy and asks Ron about how he can help move all the patio furniture back.
In other words, groom didn’t want any actual trouble from Ron but thought he could talk down to this “woman”. Ron knows me better and didn’t for once think I couldn’t handle myself. He only stepped in because he thought I might be in physical danger. I am not refunding anything and if they want to leave a bad review, I’m ready to respond to it.
21. Liar, Liar
The sister of the groom chatted with the sister of the bride. Just casual conversation, but it came to light that almost 100% of what the bride had said besides her name was a complete lie. Sister of the groom calls him up and says he really needs to figure out if this is right. A few fights and some long thinking later, the groom leaves her and leaves town. It got worse though.
It turns out pretty much all the bride's friends had been lied to as well. They all stopped talking to her. She lied about all the normal details of a person's life. Where she went to high school, instead of a boring suburban school it was an expensive private school.
She claimed her family had a ton of money she was set to inherit. Claimed they had a home in Hawaii. Faked knowing people in the same industry. Small to large, didn't really matter, almost all of it was fake from what I heard. I didn't really know her, but we were at the same company. People I worked with used to work in her department so I just heard most of it second-hand.
I have no idea how she thought this would work for the rest of her life. I honestly think she had a mental condition. From what I understand, she tried to rekindle the friendships but quickly started to lie again and that was it. She quit the company shortly after all this went down.
22. 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.
23. Mommy Caught Someone Under the Hot Tub Water
This might not count, but it was like 12 hours before the wedding and one of my ex’s best friends had a destination wedding in Mexico. Both parties stayed in a huge mansion house overlooking the water. I wasn’t in the wedding party but I was in a hotel close by. The night before the wedding, the bridesmaids and groomsmen stayed up late partying.
Everyone passed out but at midnight or so the bride’s mom woke up because she heard the living room speakers, which hadn't been turned off. She happens to hear noise coming from outside and she goes out there...to find the maid of honor in the hot tub, doing it with the groom. The maid of honor had been raised by the bride’s mom, basically like a second mom thing, so she was shocked to say the least.
They had just bought a house too. The wedding never happened and I enjoyed my vacation and returned the dress. Super after the fact, but I did some research and last year they made up, got married, and had a kid. I feel bad for the girl for not just tossing him aside.
24. The Confusing Groom’s Son
When I was 13, we went to my second cousin's second wedding. Everything is going great. They even got past the speak now or forever hold your peace part. They wrote their own vows, but before my second cousin’s fiancé/wife could even begin her vows, his son got up announced to the entire room that she was cheating on his dad with her drug dealer and he couldn't let his dad marry her.
My second cousin yelled at his son to either sit down or leave. The son left and my second cousin married her anyway. Five years and one baby later he finds out it was true and they separated but were too under the influence to be able to afford a divorce. Finally, he got married a third time—and that's where things get truly insane. Before he could go through with it, his new wife-to-be had to pay for his divorce from his second wife!
At least their wedding had no objections. They moved to Missouri and this time, instead of separating or asking for a divorce, he decided he didn't want to be married anymore and just moved back to Cali to get back together with his second ex-wife. Yep family dinners are a little awkward.
25. The Bride Did What With Who???
My older brother and sister have always been super close. They're both much older than me, so I always felt like the third wheel in sibling stuff. When my sister started dating this guy that she met at college seriously, I could tell something wasn't sitting right with my brother. I could hear him crying at night and he was missing work a whole lot. She was a big part of his life.
I figured he was upset that she wouldn't be moving back home after college. Eventually, it all blew over, but I could tell he still wasn't right. My sister's boyfriend eventually proposed to her and she said yes. Her fiancé was a software engineer for an investment firm, so he was loaded. Their wedding seemed like a fairy tale—but we had no idea what was coming.
We all thought it was going to be the wedding of the decade. On the day of, my brother is nowhere to be seen. My parents were starting to get concerned, but they kept quiet because they didn't want to ruin my sister's big day. Everything was absolutely perfect. As we sat and watched the 40-hour long Catholic ceremony, we heard a car come to a screeching halt in front of the church. Everyone turned their heads towards the door, waiting to hear a crash.
A few moments later, the church doors open and it's my brother. It's a big church, so I didn't have a good view, but I could hear people gasping. I knew something juicy was going down. As my brother got closer, I noticed why everyone was in such shock. He was completely undressed and inebriated. He stood in front of the front row and mumbled, "I object" like they do in the movies. It was there that he broke down and admitted his love for our sister.
He revealed that they had been sleeping together for several years. My jaw was on the floor at this point. My mom was losing her mind and my dad held my mom with his eyes closed. My brother then went on to reveal that he had gotten my sister pregnant and that he was broken over her decision to abort. He said he still wanted to start a family with her and that her fiancé didn't deserve her.
Several of my uncles dragged him away as he screamed about his love for my sister. Upon learning this news, the priest canceled the ceremony and the wedding was called off. My sister's fiancé didn't say a word. He just left and we never saw him again. I still talk to my sister, but her and my brother have been excommunicated from the family.
My parents even went as far as taking them off their wills.
26. The One Where Someone Had to Say, “Lonnie No!”
I got booted out of my cousin's wedding reception with about 20 other people. My cousin had her wedding on a farm with a massive pig roast. From what I remember, there were a ton of people. Anyway, her father and my other older cousin never really got along. At one point during the reception, my older cousin had enough and absolutely lost it.
He looked at a handful of us and asked if we had his back. Of course, we all nodded not really knowing what was about to happen. He disappeared and a few minutes later comes back with a 20lb bag of pork meat from the leftover roast. He walks down to where my cousin’s dad is (my aunt proceeds to yell, “Lonnie NO!!!”) and smacks him right in the side of the face with the bag of meat.
An all-out family brawl ensued. The whole family hasn't been invited to a wedding ever since.
27. The Worst Wedding Crashers Who Stayed
It was a gay marriage where the parents and family of spouse #1 were incredibly homophobic and religious. They have been estranged for years due to the terrible stuff that they did about their child’s orientation. Somehow, they found out about the wedding (none of them were invited) and showed up as a group mid-ceremony yelling about how they object to this union and it is ungodly for a man to marry a man.
It ended with all of them being carried out by other guests and locking the doors so they couldn’t come in. The whole group stood outside the venue to yell all night until we left.
28. 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 DEAD 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 animal cruelty complaints on the handler. It was all anyone could focus on.
29. The Closet Is Open
Not exactly at the wedding, but the night before; at a close family friend's gathering. It was mostly my fiance's relatives who were there. His college roommate came in late, CRYING. The guy is a beefy cowboy type but also has luxurious Stevie Nicks hair. He was comforted by my fiance's redneck insurance-selling cousins. I'm like, what's wrong??? Did someone pass? When I finally learned what was happening, my jaw dropped.
Turns out, he can't handle my husband getting married because he's in love with him but is so deep in the closet. Everyone buys it. His relatives started glaring at me as if I was just the scum of the earth, and my husband said nothing to me or to anyone. Super awkward spin on the entire wedding vibe after that. I should have left. God, I would have saved myself so much misery.
30. Don't Trust Her
I was the best man at my friend's wedding. Me and two other groomsmen conspired with one another a couple of weeks before the wedding to tell the groom we didn't think it was a good idea that he marry this girl. It just HAD to tell him what she did. The truth is, she had been trying to get with me since they met. At her wedding, she bragged to one of her bridesmaids that she slept with "over half" the groomsmen.
There were four of us. Since I didn't do it with her, "over half" suggests she claimed to have gotten with the other three groomsmen, one of which was her brother. I told my friend, and he never wanted to talk to me again. They went through with the wedding...then divorced a year later. Maybe I wasn't the best choice for the best man, but I tried to be a good friend.
31. Fair Warning
One of my best friends got engaged to a very pretty girl who was showing more and more red flags the longer we got to know her. When he told me that he was engaged, my stomach dropped. I told him straight up that I could not let him get married without voicing my concern at his choice, and that I should politely avoid attending because I thought it was such a bad idea.
I also mentioned that he might want to keep my opinion to himself to keep the peace with his fiance. He didn't, and she ended up screaming, "Them or me!" while she was on the phone with him, loud enough that we could hear her. At the end of it all, he chose her and cut ties with us that day. About a decade later I heard from my then ex-roommate that he had resurfaced on Facebook.
We caught up to him and he admitted that she then subjected him to years of emotional mind games. She also cheated on him which pushed him to divorce her.
32. A Nasty Surprise
I worked at a music venue in the Detroit area that was also a popular wedding reception location. Came into work one week in the fall, when pretty much every weekend is booked solid with weddings, and noticed Saturday was open, no one scheduled. I talked to the wedding planner and she tells me the groom canceled...Odd. Talk to the wedding planner’s younger brother, who was our head bartender.
He tells me that the groom, excited for the wedding, left work at lunch on Friday, bought a nice bottle of red, and headed home to surprise his bride-to-be. Except, he was the one in for a surprise. He walked into his new house to hear sounds coming from their bedroom. He walked in to find his bride in bed with another man…his father. We tried to talk him into doing a big screw you party because we'd never fill the space and there was no refund, but he declined.
33. A Whole Lot Of Fuss
This happened several years ago. My ex was the best man in a wedding for his best friend. The night of the bachelor/bachelorette party, the men and women each had their own get-together, and then were supposed to meet up with each other later that night at a bar downtown. I was with the ladies and after our party, we got into the party bus and headed down.
The bride called the groom and told him to leave to meet us there. We waited and waited. Groom is a no-show. Bride demands that I call my then-boyfriend and find out where they were. Boyfriend reports that they made a pit-stop at strip joint, which the bride and groom apparently had an agreement they wouldn’t do. The bride obviously flips out.
She grabs my phone demands that my ex order everyone to leave the club. Ex tries to explain that it is not going to be easy to get 40 highly intoxicated men out of the club when they had already "started." Meanwhile, the groom is still ignoring bride's calls. The bride demands that we all leave. The bride and groom's sister get into a physical altercation and have to be pulled apart.
The bride is screaming that she is canceling the wedding. The ex and I hightailed it out of there as it had escalated into a two-family brawl. The next day, the groom calls my ex and asks if we want to come over to watch movies with him and the bride. They got married weeks later and are still married.
34. The Guilty, But Honest Lover
I was working at a wedding when I was younger. I was running the bar at the reception, which was very close to the hall the weddings were at. We were told that the reception would begin around 4 PM. It was already about 3ish and I was packing fridges, the usual barman things, while one of the male guests was still sitting there drinking.
I asked if he was not joining the reception, to which he replied something along the lines of “When I have the courage.” He downs his drink and leaves. 10 minutes later he’s back looking extremely disappointed. Guy orders a drink, and less than 30 seconds later another guy who’s dressed extremely well (turned out to be the groom), walks in, punches him in the back of the head, and leaves.
This dude just picked his drink up and sipped it further. I eventually found out that this dude had downed his drink, walked into the reception and admitted to sleeping with the wife on her hen night and again the night before the wedding. He was never invited to the wedding. He just felt the groom needed to know.
So, he found out where the wedding was, suited up and dropped the info mid-ceremony.
35. The Evil Mother-in-Law Who Almost Did
Sort of—it was my own wedding. My Mother-In-Law hated me. I married a southerner (I'm a darned Yankee) and we are of different religions. She did everything she could to stop her daughter from dating me, including cutting off her tuition. Anyway, we decide to get married by a Justice of the Peace. He was retired and really cool—a former judge and minister.
He asked questions and we had to tell him about my witch of a Mother-In-Law. So the night of the rehearsal, just as we are wrapping up, this 85-year-old Justice of the Peace stands up and asks for everyone's attention. He said, "These two kids love each other and are getting married tomorrow. If anyone has any objections they can speak NOW because they will not ruin the ceremony tomorrow."
Then he proceeded to look coldly at Mother-In-Law and said, "Is there anything you want to say?" Her face scrunched up like she was sucking on a lemon. You knew she had been planning on it all along and had just had all the wind taken out of her sails. She cowed down and just shook her head. He just looked at her and said, "I thought not."
The phrase was never uttered during the wedding, so all was well. Witch still hates me even now though her daughter and I have been married 27 years now.
36. 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.
37. 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 threw away 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.
38. Hakuna Matata
The groom had his car stolen on the morning of the wedding and spent the whole day swearing and punching inanimate objects because, as we all heard a thousand times that day, not only was the car "the most important thing in his life," it also wasn't insured. The wedding was at a Boy Scout hall, for no apparent reason...maybe irony…but the reception was in the cafeteria at one of those "Underwater World" places. There was a glass tunnel that you could walk through to see fish swimming all around you, but no one was allowed to go see the fish because, get this: the whole day had a Lion King theme. Except for, you know, the venue.
Then, towards the end of the night, the bride got into a physical fight with one of the bridesmaids because she caught her sleeping with a groomsman. The bride then tearfully admonished the groomsman caught with his pants down for cheating on her (the bride). I have no idea how long the marriage lasted for, as I never saw or heard from them again.
39. Mistaken Identity
I got invited to the wedding by a friend and went because I was told that there was going to be a really good band and a high-level buffet at the reception. We showed up a bit early and things were still being set up. Someone needed some stuff from the grocery store, so I volunteered to go. A woman said she would go with me to show me where the grocery store was and to help get stuff, so I agreed. On the ride to the grocery store, she started talking about the wedding and how going to weddings was always kind of sad for her. I asked if she had a bad divorce or something, and she straight up told me that she found weddings arousing, but never had any luck finding a man at one.
Ok, red lights and warning buzzers should have been going off. I knew they should have. They were at some level, probably, but I totally ignored them—huge mistake. When we got to the store, she asked me to pull around to the side and park behind a bunch of empty semi-trailers. I did, and she crawled across the seat of my truck and started kissing me. Things progressed and stuff happened. It took maybe five minutes total. It was the definition of a quickie.
Afterward, we shopped and got the stuff that was needed and headed back to the Church. When we got there and the stuff was taken to the kitchen, I found my friend. She asked why it had taken so long and I dodged the question. I’m not a good liar, so she got suspicious and I dodged that. Then she got mad and demanded that I tell her what happened. So I did. And she freaked. She told me that the woman that I had gone to the store with was...the bride! She was not amused. I was not amused! The groom, when he walked up to me about five minutes later, was not AT ALL amused.
He just punched me. I went down, and he walked away. Apparently a few people knew what had happened, as I was getting the stink eye from a number of people as I picked myself up off the floor. I asked my friend if we should leave and she agreed. I heard later that there was a three-hour delay and a lot of serious negotiating after I left, but that the wedding ultimately proceeded. The marriage lasted eight months, which was a good six months longer than anyone I talked to about it had given it.
40. 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.
41. 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.
42. Not The Vibe
This girl I worked with broke up with her boyfriend, but she started dating a new guy shortly after. A year later, they got engaged, and a couple of months after that, they decided to get married. The ceremony was done outdoors about 45 minutes from town. The guests started arriving, and everyone took their seats in the venue. Out of nowhere, her ex-boyfriend showed up...
He'd clearly been drinking and he looked absolutely horrible. Some people who were mutual friends between the two of them tried to get him to leave, but he just kept screaming that he just wanted to talk to her. She was not there yet, but it was literally like a scene out of a movie. There was a crowd starting to build around him with people asking him to leave, but he just pushed them back.
At one point, he got put in a headlock and was brought to the ground—that's when he finally gave up and one of their mutual friends drove him back to town. Somehow, this all happened before the wedding parties got there. A family member then stood up and said, "Obviously, they are going to find out about this; but we ask that you please just wait till tomorrow to bring it up. Don't let this jerk wreck the wedding day."
When the wedding party arrived, the ceremony went on with them never knowing. Then it was time for the reception, which was being held back in the town. It was then that someone leaked it to her that night, and it kind of destroyed the vibe. It was so close to not having any effect on the actual wedding.
43. The Wrong "I Do"
This happened to me. I met my wife after she had left a bad relationship. Apparently, the guy was always asking for money and he never held on to a job. Even after they broke up, he would periodically show up asking for some money. So, at our wedding, when we said our vows and the minister asked if anyone objected, we heard a strange voice in the back. “I do.”
It was the no-good ex-boyfriend. At that point, I was fuming. The guy was basically harmless, but he was making a spectacle out of our day. People were talking, and what should have been a good day was ruined by his idiocy. I asked him what the heck he wanted, and he said, “About $3.50.” I told him, “No way am I giving you $3.50, you monster!” and he eventually left.
44. Blinded By Love
I went to a coworker's wedding, and I really thought someone would object. She was sleeping with a guy who worked with us and we all knew it. One day she came in showing off her engagement ring from her boyfriend who she was in a long-distance relationship with, even though none of us had ever heard her talk about him before. And that's not even the crazy part!
She actually invited THE GUY SHE WAS SLEEPING WITH. He sat in the pew by himself crying during the ceremony. Then she actually slow danced with him in front of her now-husband. There were a whole bunch of us there that worked with her and knew. It was so uncomfortable.
45. Case Of The Side Chick
At my co-worker's wedding, the groom’s side chick showed up absolutely hammered right when the ceremony started. She started screaming at him, saying she was supposed to be the one to marry him. She was carried out by a few of the groomsmen. The ceremony then went on as if nothing happened. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And want to know the worst part?
I found out about a year later that he was still cheating on his bride...with that chick and another one.
46. 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.
47. 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 executed 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.
48. 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.
49. 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 went after 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.
50. 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.
51. 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.
52. 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 naughty 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 kill 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.
53. For Richer or…Richest?
I once attended a really awkward wedding. The bride, who we all thought was a bit of a gold digger to begin with, laughed uncontrollably during the rehearsal when she was supposed to say the "for richer or poorer" part. She promised to get it together during the ceremony the next day. She didn't get it together. She burst out laughing again in the middle of the real ceremony, and she never did actually say it.
54. Breaking News
I attended my niece’s wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, and they seemed to be genuinely in love. Then, shortly after the ceremony, the groom dropped a shocker; he announced to everyone, including his bride, that he had enlisted in the Navy and was due to report in a few weeks. She was beyond surprised. They didn't even make it a year.
55. Last Call
The bride got so loaded at the wedding that the bar stopped serving drinks before midnight in an effort to cut her off. The groom was also blackout. 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.
56. 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!
57. Belated Bride
My sister-in-law is just a horrible, thoughtless person—but this took the cake. Her wedding to my brother was supposed to start at 3:00 pm. At 2:59, she was getting in a bathtub in her hotel room to “unwind” before starting to get ready. All of us bridesmaids were already ready. We had been ready for hours. I had to call my mom at 3 and tell her that we were at least an hour out, because my brother was already there obviously, and I didn’t want him to think he was getting left at the altar.
Oh, and did I mention it was October? It was actually Halloween, around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, and windy. This is important because it was an outdoor wedding in a park with no indoor venue attached, so the guests literally had to wait in their seats in the freezing cold. They ended up waiting more than an hour and a half. The divorce papers have now been filed and should be final within a few months.
58. Mom-Zilla
At my sister’s wedding, the mother of the groom arrived late…wearing a bright red, skin-tight mini dress with stilettos. She then proceeded to try to get in front of the camera so as to block it from taking photos of the bride. During the vows, she coughed loudly and made groaning noises. The pastor apparently decided it would be prudent to not ask if anyone objected to the union.
After the ceremony, as we were getting ready to leave, she tried physically attacking my sister, but there were enough of us to get in her way. They are no longer together.
59. Thrift Store Wedding
A friend of mine from high school foolishly decided to marry the childhood friend that got her pregnant via a drunken one-night stand. They’d known each other most of their lives, but hadn’t seriously dated before the pregnancy. She bought a rather ill-fitting “proper” wedding dress from a thrift store for the occasion.
Honestly, it was cocktail-dress length in front and had a train in the back, it didn’t zip all the way, and it was supposed to be off the shoulder but was so tight that she wore it as strapless. The wedding took place on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of nowhere. I stepped into the room where she was getting ready and she was bawling her eyes out.
I asked her what was wrong, and she said that she knew the groom was a player and that he’d cheated on his previous girlfriend with her. She added that she knew that he was only marrying her because of the baby, and that she didn’t know what else to do. She still went through with it.
60. Not Everyone Loves Surprises
During his wedding speech, the groom excitedly announced that he'd bought their dream house...in a different state. He also announced that he had put in his notice at work, and they would be moving by the end of the month. The thing is, this was all new information to the bride as well as to all of the wedding guests.
I think he was going for a "grand romantic gesture" and expected to be hailed as "such a great guy," but the bride was absolutely livid that he'd made major life decisions for them both without even discussing it with her. They didn't last long after that.
61. Willful Ignorance
The first warning sign happened before the wedding when my childhood friend introduced her new fiancé to our friend group. He failed to speak to anyone and had his eyes on his phone the whole night. Then during the wedding ceremony, our friend, who normally wears her heart on her sleeve and cries at the drop of a hat, was oddly unemotional, even through both of their personalized vows. She kept one eye on the camera and seemed to just be posing the whole time.
The couple also had the groom’s family’s Priest officiating the wedding—and I still can't believe what he said. This Priest recited a long monologue during the ceremony about how the bride’s life’s purpose now was to make her husband happy and support him by staying home and being a dutiful wife. This definitely hit a sour note, as the bride was the bread-winner at that time, and was helping to support both him and his parents. But when I spoke to his parents during the reception, they were gushing praises about what the priest had had to say. The marriage lasted about three months.
62. It’s My Turn to Use the Husband
My boyfriend was friends with a guy who was getting a quickie marriage and needed witnesses. We agreed and went inside the little reception room, where the preacher, bride, and groom were lined up, waiting for us. The preacher started his thing and I noticed a woman come in and lean against the back wall. She looked mad, standing with her arms crossed.
Preacher: Is there anyone here today who objects to the union of **** and ****? Please, speak now.
The couple looked back at us and we both smiled. Suddenly, the bride’s attention turned to the woman in the back of the room.
Bride: What the freak is she doing here?!
The woman quickly raises her hand, looking at the old preacher.
Woman: I object! I don't agree with this marriage!
The bride glares at her.
Bride: Shut up! Wait your freaking turn! It's my scheduled day! You're just mad you didn't think of it first!
The woman had to be dragged out of the room, kicking and screaming and spitting at the bride...
After the reception, my friend explained that the groom was originally in a relationship with the bride. After 10 years together, he started sleeping with her sister, the woman at the back of the room. They were close sisters, until both ladies got pregnant by him, simultaneously.They fought each other like cats and dogs for the next several years.
Then, the two young cousins became school-aged and absolute best friends. Neither one of the sisters would give up the man, and he wasn't sure which one he loved more, so he kept seeing both women. Last I heard they were all still together, but the two sisters had now teamed up to take down his pregnant mistress...
63. He’s Just Playing the Long-Con
The groom's ex got up and screamed that he was her soulmate, that she forgave him for "this whole thing” and that they should leave now because he'd proven his point. By breaking up with her five years earlier, falling in love, and holding a wedding. I ate so much cake and got so sloshed at that wedding. Meanwhile everyone else was screaming and throwing stuff. Good times.
64. No Double Dipping!
I once went to a wedding where the bride got back at her cheating groom in the most ingenious way possible. In the final moments of a Jewish wedding, after the marriage was finalized and all official, the bride straight up runs to the crowd and says, “I’m divorcing my husband for sleeping with my sister!”
I'm not Jewish but apparently, once you’re married in that faith, the bride or groom cannot marry or remarry someone related to the previous wife or something like that. So, this bride not only publicly humiliated her cheating groom and her sister by outing them. She also sealed the fact that they can never ever be together. Mic dropped.
65. The Family That Stays Together Objects Together
A friend of mine was getting married to a guy she had previously dated but broke off the relationship because one night he was inebriated and tried to choke her. They were apart for a couple of years (he supposedly cleaned up), and then started dating again. This guy was bad news. He would talk smack about her all the time, make her cry and stuff, but she kept dating him.
The worst I ever saw him treat her was after I'd already received their wedding invitation in the mail. I was out with my girlfriend when we see Mr. Jerk sitting at the bar, kissing some random woman. I whip out the phone and start filming. I go over to my friends' house. Mr. Jerk's car isn't there so I show her the video.
She breaks down and says she says she doesn't want to marry him, but feels obligated because all the reservations are already made. I'm like, okay she's never going to end it so I go see her dad (we're good friends). He's a hulking 6'4" 300lb. Harley rider with a handlebar mustache. When I show him the video, veins start showing up on his forehead.
Before I left, he asked if I could send him the video. I'm like, "Of course." The next day he calls me up and tells me that the wedding is going to now be a “Dodging A Bullet ceremony with maybe a butt-kicking for the finale.” I told him that I would be more than happy to attend. Apparently, dad told my friend he'd never let her marry Mr. Jerk and they hatched an amazing revenge plan.
The day of the ceremony, Dad had a huge flat screen TV plugged in at the venue. When dad and daughter got to the end of the aisle, the flat screen with surround sound came on and the video played. Mr. Jerk was pasty white, sweating profusely. He did the perp walk down the center aisle, caught my eye with me giving him the finger too.
When he leaves, Dad says, "Let's Party!" It was amazing. We had a great night. My friend danced her butt off and laughed a lot overall. About six months later, she met the man of her dreams. Just a really fantastic guy. The wedding is this September.
66. A Double-Decker of Trouble
I was at my good friend’s wedding. She's a sweet girl and she'd fallen hard for a truck driver. Their relationship was long distance forever, so she was thrilled that they were finally getting married. When the priest says, “Does anyone object to this?” a woman stands up and says, “I do.” Turns out the guy wasn’t a truck driver but a married man from Florida who had two kids. He just said he was a driver so he could play her long-distance. Oh and obviously the objecting woman was his real wife. Awkward...
67. In This Case, First Is Probably the Worst
The groom’s dad interrupted the wedding to ask the bride’s father whether or not she was truly a virgin. Then he went on about how he didn’t know anything about the wedding and blah blah blah. Truly weird and embarrassing. When the groom’s father interrupted the wedding, the bride’s father (officiating the wedding) did in fact say it was confirmed.
I have no clue how or what. They seemed to be super conservative and wore sleeved dresses, long hair, etc. They eventually showed the father-in-law out and continued the ceremony, which was super awkward afterwards. It was literally as if I was on Punk’d. I'd gone with a boyfriend. After seeing what his family was like, I did not stay in that relationship for much longer.
68. The In-Laws Who Desperately Wanted To
At my wedding, my mom was the officiant so she didn’t put it in because we assumed that we’d have at least one person from his side say something. My in-laws still made sure to beg my now husband not to marry me literally MINUTES from when the wedding was supposed to start. After our honeymoon, there were like three months that we lived with my in-laws.
They would beg him to leave me, take full custody of our son, and just forget about me, IN FRONT OF ME. They would tell him that I wasn’t the girl they had planned for him (very controlling people) or that there was someone who they thought would better fit into the family, etc. We’ve been together almost four years now and my Father-In-Law will still say things like that in front of me.
My Mother-In-Law waits until I’m not around to say things.
69. The “Best” Man
The best man at my step-sister’s wedding did this. It happened at the rehearsal the night before. It was a very large wedding and the rehearsal was bigger than a lot of weddings. The minister was going over the vows quickly while giving instructions on what to do. When he said something about objections, the best man interrupted saying he had to put a stop to this.
He was in love with the bride and was sure she felt the same way. My sister and everyone else were horrified. It caused plenty of chaos and confusion. As far as I know, after that, neither the bride nor groom ever spoke to him again.
70. A Door Long Open
One of my friends interrupted his cousin’s wedding to come out of the closet. But that's not even the weirdest part. This was actually the second time my friend had come out to his family. The first time was when he was a teenager (about eight years earlier). Almost everyone at the wedding already knew. He couldn’t understand why people were so mad at him.
71. Addicted to You
When I was 13, I went to my second cousin's wedding. Everything was going great... they even got past the "speak now or forever hold your peace" part. They wrote their own vows, but before my second cousin’s fiancé could even begin her vows, the groom's son (from a previous relationship) got up and announced to the entire room that the bride was cheating on his dad with her dealer.
My second cousin yelled at his son to either sit down or leave. The son left, my second cousin married her anyways. Five years and one baby later, he finds out it was true, and they separated. They were too tweaked out to afford a divorce. Finally, he got engaged a third time but before he could get married, his ex-wife had to pay for their divorce. Yep, family dinners are a little awkward.
72. The Vengeful Groom
I heard of a local wedding where the church service was absolutely beautiful and the reception was near perfect. After the speeches to the Bride and Groom, the Bride spoke in appreciation for all friends, family, and her new husband and their excitement for life together. The Groom was last to speak. He thanked everyone for being so good to them, and then apologized for what was coming next: a truth bomb.
He explained that the night before, his bride slept with his best man and that he was filing for annulment immediately. He also explained that he felt it best to proceed with the wedding while he made his final decision. He also suggested that the Father of the Bride, who paid significant amounts towards their wedding, hold both his daughter and the best man financially responsible. Then he walked out.
73. Keep It In The Family
Several years ago, I got a phone call from the maid of honor for a wedding I was going to attend (as a guest) two weeks from then. She was flustered, but managed to get out: "There's no wedding, Groom called it off. He's in love with someone else." Well, I didn't press. I was friends with both of them, so I knew that the full details would eventually make their way back to me. I could not believe what I found out.
Turns out, a couple weeks before the wedding, the groom called the bride and said he was coming over. They needed to talk. When he got to her apartment, he broke down in tears and confessed that he was in love with someone else. He loved her, but couldn't marry her because he didn't love her in the way a bride deserves. There was much crying and shouting over it all, but eventually, the bride recovered from the news enough to ask him who he was in love with.
"Well," Groom said, "It's [Bride's Brother]." The wedding was definitely off at that point. Now, five or six years later, the groom and the bride's brother are married and happy. However, I lost contact with the bride shortly after her wedding plans imploded, so I'm not sure if she ever forgave the boys for that one.
74. I Just Keep Coming Back To You
After the wedding at the reception, the newlyweds took forever to show up. They were nearly an hour late. When they did arrive, they were arguing loudly the entire time. They got "introduced" and we all clapped as per tradition and they sat down at the main table in a huff. Sometime between the appetizer and the main course, the argument started again.
The groom stormed off and my girlfriend and I were nosey so we went to see what was up. He ended up in the hotel lobby on his cell phone. We thought nothing of it and we were about to go back when the wife shows up, still obviously in her wedding dress, and continues to ream him out. Now for the first time, we can hear what the argument is about. As we listened, our jaws dropped.
He had invited his ex to the wedding. She showed up to the ceremony and that threw the bride off. Apparently, also...he had cheated on the new wife with this ex-girlfriend several times, with the last time being only about a month prior to the wedding. Additionally, the ex-girlfriend/mistress was on her way to come pick up the new husband to take him away from the new bride...because she was "acting crazy" according to the groom.
After a couple minutes of watching this train wreck of an argument, a rust bucket sedan shows up with the ex-girlfriend in it. The groom gets into the car with his ex or whatever the heck she is and they drive off. Last words went to the bride, though, who screamed at him as he tore off: "Well, I guess I'm going to go back to sleeping with your brother then, you jerk!”
So, they are no longer married now.
75. My Way Or The Highway
I was going to be at a wedding as a bridesmaid. The bride-to-be took us—the maid of honor, another bridesmaid, and myself—out to pick out dresses. The bride's mother and the groom's mother also came at her insistence. We arrived at the dress shop only to find that the bride, her mom, and the groom's mom had already picked out the dress she wanted us to wear for the wedding.
Okay, that was fine in theory, but we had been under the impression that we'd get to pick our own dresses. Whatever, it was her wedding. When we tried the dresses on, however, we realized something disturbing—they didn't really look good on the two of us because we both had different frames and sizes. We came out, showing the bride and two moms, and the moms were in agreement that the dress they picked really didn't work. The bride’s response, on the other hand, was jaw-dropping.
The bride was very upset that we didn't magically look great in the same dress. She then started making snide, subtle comments about our appearances, implying that we'd need to lose weight to look good in them, and telling one of the other girls how she'd need a push-up bra to look "normal." The moms ignored the bride's attitude and flagged down an employee to help us find some alternatives.
We live in a small city, so the selection they had wasn't the best, but the employee found at least half a dozen other dresses that come in the color the bride wanted. We tried them all on, but because we vary so much in body type, most of them didn't look good on both of us. For example, the strapless ones looked bad on the busty girls, while the long dresses didn't fit right on the short ones, etc.
The bride continued to make comments about our bodies. Finally, the last dress we tried on was generic enough that it looked fine on all of us...except the bride didn't like it because it didn't make us look "hot" enough. To make matters worse, the dress had pockets. She absolutely did not want her bridesmaids to have pockets.
At this point, every single one of us was happy with this choice except for her. She reluctantly agreed to let us pick that dress but she was very clearly not happy. So then we picked out shoes. The bride told us we will be wearing the same shoes as her but in a different color. Weird, but again, we didn't argue with her.
When we tried them on, though, there was a snag in her plans. I have very small feet (technically a 3 in kids, though some size 5 shoes will fit). The heels she wanted were sky high and strapless. When I put them on and tried to walk, my feet kept slipping out. They were also open-toed, so I couldn't really stuff the front as I'd done in the past.
To top it off, just standing in them to try them on, the front was absolutely ruining my feet. I told her this, and she watched me try to walk in them only to have them flop off. Her mom asked me if they came in a smaller size, but they were fancy shoes, so no, they obviously didn't make them for kids. The bride's solution?
"Once you start to wear them, your feet will swell and they'll fit then." She then walked off. The bride's mom assured me that we'd "figure something out" and bought all of our outfits as her condolences. I never got to know how that would have worked out, though, because the bride and groom simultaneously cheated on each other, and they called off the wedding.
The bride didn't even have the nerve to tell me herself; I had to hear it from the maid of honor. We are no longer friends, and it's sad to me that this wasn't even the reason why. I can't believe I let someone treat me, and other people she called friends, like that.
76. Speaking from the Heart
The most cringeworthy thing that I have ever seen at a wedding was not the fault of the bride or groom, but of the bride’s father. I was the best man at this wedding, so I had a front-row seat for the entire thing. The couple was marrying young after the bride had fallen pregnant. It obviously wasn’t planned, but they clearly loved each other and it was the right thing for them to do in their eyes.
Anyway, come the wedding day, I’m sitting next to the bride's father at the reception and I can see he’s looking at his prepared speech repeatedly. I can see phrases like "not ideal," "would’ve preferred not to welcome you into the family under these circumstances," etc. Just before the groom gets up to give a speech, the bride’s father excuses himself to use the washroom, leaving his "speech" behind.
I knew that something needed to be done before he turned the entire wedding into a nightmare. I’m not ashamed to say that I swiped the speech and then pleaded ignorance when he returned and asked what had happened to it. In the end, he stood up and muttered a few generic words about love and then sat down without any issues. I never told the groom, and I’m happy to say that they’re still happily married twenty years later.
77. Think of the Children!!
So this wedding took place in an Episcopal church. The priest had all his finery on and the church itself was decorated very nicely for the occasion. The bride and groom had made a point of asking everyone to wear casual clothes. We all took that to mean "semi-formal." Nope. They and their kids all came out wearing overalls and white t-shirts.
They stood next to the priest, who was in his formal robes. The other cringey part was when the groom, in the middle of the ceremony, started repeatedly talking about the Bible verse "let the little children come to me" and insisting it implied "and listen to what they're telling you." He kept saying that over and over again, even though most of us had no idea what he meant.
He then launched into an impromptu twenty-minute speech explaining about how he and the bride had gotten together. There were plenty of parts in the story where the groom was like "I wasn't sure she was right for me," but his son was pressing him because "he wanted a mom." It was a sad story actually, as his biological mom passed on when the kid was only four and this was eight years later.
So, his speech was basically this long and unfocused story that boiled down to "I'm marrying this woman so that my kid can have a mom." That, and some more confusing Bible references mixed in here and there for good measure. Not a good sign when that's your main reason for getting married to someone. Nevertheless, I knew it, probably half the attendees knew it, and the priest definitely knew it.
That whole background story might have been okay to tell during the reception, under a certain kind of atmosphere, but I have no idea why he decided to tell it in the middle of the actual wedding ceremony. When all was said and done, I’m pretty sure this couple ended up getting divorced less than two years later.
78. 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 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 months.
79. The Show Must Go On
The bachelorette party is three days before the destination wedding. My sister (the bride) is taken by her friends for a dinner. I'm at the bachelor party with the groom, and we start getting weird messages. Garbled texts, and then we get a call from a local hospital. They’ve all got food poisoning from the dinner. The groom goes "Yeah, this isn't happening boys" and we figure one more shot and we'll make our way to the hospital.
Never underestimate the determination of a bride and bridesmaids. The wedding was delayed by only a day, to the Sunday, and she walked down the aisle with enough gravol shoved up her bum and shot into her veins that I'm not sure she knew where she was, let alone that it was a wedding. The bridesmaids were all various shades of grey, green, and ill.
It was open bar, and to avoid spoiling the party, the husband and groomsmen stayed back and kept drinking. My sister was so tired that she and the bridesmaids took another dose of gravol and all went to sleep in their hotel room. My mother, who is a retired ICU nurse, went to take care of them.
80. This Took A Turn
I went to a co-worker's wedding about 15 years ago and this happened at the reception. It was a beautiful outdoor venue overlooking a lake. Anyway, the groom had planned to sing a song to his new wife and have a fireworks launch as he was singing the last note. Well, that last note came but the fireworks did not. He held that last note for a good 10 seconds before he finally yelled “JESUS” and threw the mic down. He then ran to go fight the fireworks guy.
No fists were thrown, but somebody did end up in the lake. The party kind of broke up after that. They also ended up getting a divorce about a year later after the groom got fired from his job for showing his “package” to his boss’s underage daughter.
81. All In The Family
A fight erupted 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.
82. 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.
83. 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.
84. 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.
85. 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.
86. 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?"
87. Childish Behavior
I was invited to the reception of one of my good friends. They had been courthouse married for months and were living happily. When I arrived at the location and saw the big crowd, I knew something was wrong. My friend's wife is prone to panic attacks and is extremely agoraphobic to the point of breaking down if she is overwhelmed.
I immediately called my friend and ask what was going on and if everything was okay. It turned out, out my friend's parents invited everyone possible to be there without my friend knowing. After I sent him a picture of the crowd, he and his wife thought it would be better to go on a second honeymoon than have a reception. He sent a message apologizing to everyone and told them to leave without telling his parents. His parents had a meltdown as we left.
88. 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.
89. 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.
90. 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 get sloshed. 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.
91. 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...
92. 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 poisonous 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.
93. Change of Heart
Amazingly, I saw the groom himself object. He just stood up there and started crying, then announced in front of everyone that he had fallen out of love with the bride a while before but didn't know how to break it off. It was extremely uncomfortable, and they both stepped out. Ten minutes later, they came back in and got married—because she'd apparently told him she was pregnant. They're still together, with three kids now. I'm not sure about the husband, but I can confirm that the wife is having an affair. Neither of them are happy, but she has a comfortable life and he doesn't have the spine to leave.
94. The Cruelest Trick
When my cousin got married to her wife, her parents, grandparents and a few other older family members stood up and walked out. They didn't say anything or try to stop the wedding; it was just a show of their disproval. My cousin was pretty devastated because she thought their attendance meant they had changed their minds and wanted to support her, but it was just a trick.
95. 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.
96. 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.
97. Wedding Transference
I work in the industry and my friend is the wedding planner. He is a good-looking, straight male who has an amazing eye for design and detail. He can do everything from wedding dress design and execution to flowers, you name it. And his services are not cheap. He once had a bride who called him up a few days before her wedding.
She told him she couldn't go through with the wedding because she was in love with someone else. The conversation went something like this: Bride: "I can't marry him, I just don't love him anymore, I think I'm in love with someone else!" Him: "What do you mean you're in love with someone else!? Your wedding is in five days!"
Bride: "Well...I'm in love with you. You just GET me! I've never met anyone else like you!" Him: "...Do you know how much your parents are paying me to get you?!" She ended up getting married five days later as planned, and it was never mentioned again.
98. Whoops!
I work wedding bars often in between library shifts, and I saw a wedding where the bride never turned up to the altar and texted the guy 15 minutes before saying, "Sorry but I'm not coming." It was super depressing, they went ahead with the 'party' and the groom 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 and they apparently hated her husband to be and had convinced her not to show up. 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.
99. 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.
100. Leaving So Soon?
When I was in college studying photography, I got friendly with a fellow student who had a wedding photography business but was still studying to get his qualifications. After seeing my work, he asks me if I want to assist him at his next wedding. I agree to do so. The big day finally comes and I'm all prepared to go in and see the groom, the best man, the ushers, and a bunch of other participants to get some pre-event photos of them getting ready and whatnot.
To my surprise, the groom refused to be in any pictures, stating that he was feeling under the weather. I kinda thought he should just suck it up. It was his wedding day, after all. Nevertheless, he was insistent, so no pre-event photos were taken of him. A little while later, the ceremony comes and goes. It’s now time for the bridal party photos at the church.
Once again, the groom refuses to be in any photos, much to everyone's annoyance. We all get to the reception, the speeches begin, and, midway through the father of the bride’s speech, the groom just straight up leaves. He once again repeats the fact that he was feeling a bit ill. This is where the bride drew the line—she went into a full-on rage. She started pulling the small groom and bride figurines off the top of the cake and stomping on them.
She shouted, "I knew I shouldn't have married him!" There was a lot of hullabaloo at this point, with guests trying to console her. Everyone agreed that he was being dramatic and was basically a huge jerk. We got paid in full even though at that point we were done. I go home, put my feet up, drink a few beers, and then answer an unexpected phone call from my friend.
I was expecting him to just be calling to joke around a little bit more about how crazy that wedding had just been. Not even close. In reality, he was calling to inform me that the groom had passed on shortly after leaving the reception hall, and that our photo job would now be turning into a two-for-one wedding and funeral service.
101. It Was His Way Or The Highway
My ex-husband kept completely bulldozing the wedding plans. For instance, I didn't get to choose ANY of the music at all. He shut down things and made me feel small. I just kept acquiescing to his non-negotiable wedding ideas. He was also mad because people didn't execute them as he wanted. He wasn't smiling as I came down the aisle because the DJ got the music wrong.
All that should just have been a red flag that it was an unhealthy relationship. I was young, naive, and stayed way too long. It lasted 10.5 years, and those sorts of things never changed. We could never talk and compromise; it was either his way or the highway. If it didn’t go his way, I was a horrible human being for not giving him his way.
If I suggested a paint color for the living room, it was shot down. If he arrived at the same color on his own, it was great. I literally could not suggest something without being made to feel inconsequential. But, he expected me to jump, cater, and give in to anything he wanted, exactly as he wanted. He was always so critical of everything. Never again will I put up with that.
102. Family Strife
Somebody said that he was supposed to cheat with his fiancé's best friend the night before their wedding, but she lost her life in a car accident on the way to the hotel.
103. Missed Encounters
My husband and I were at his old friend’s wedding. The women at our table all stared at us like we were ghosts. Suddenly one of them pulled over my husband and told him that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. 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. Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed
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