It’s a standard trope of TV and movies, used on a show tonight even: the crowd comes in for the wedding, but for one reason or another it ends up not taking place. It was the first episode of Sanford & Son IIRC, and I can think of a dozen rom-coms where a wedding is stopped for one reason or another from The Graduate on down. It was in vehicles as cheesy and hackish as the Gilligan’s Island reunion and it was in movies as high profile as Maureen O’Hara’s return to movies (Only the Lonely) and I seem to remember it being on Friends and other hit shows.
So out of curiosity, has anybody ever been to a wedding where the couple called it off?
I have known a couple of couples who called off their engagement, but they did so long before the wedding, and I’ve known a couple of Kardashian-Humphries types whose cake lasted longer than the marriage, but I’ve never been to or heard of a wedding that didn’t happen. Anyone?
Not me, but my mom got a phone call the morning of a wedding – the daughter of a family friend (so I had known her while growing up) was set to get married, and I guess that morning decided she couldn’t go through with it. My mom reports the phone call was from the mother of the bride (so my mom’s friend) who simply said “We will not be having the wedding today, I’m sorry for any inconvenience.” And my mom, who is very polite, simply said “Please be assured there is no inconvenience.” Then she called me.
In the movies, when this happens sometimes they have a big party because they’ve already paid for the reception hall and food and alcohol, etc. but that did not happen here. I guess they just took the financial hit. It was a large wedding, too – church, elegant reception hall, 200+ guests, the whole shebang.
Piecing together more information after the fact, what seems to have happened is that the intended bride realized that she did not want to be married to this person, but the arrangements were already underway and she felt embarrassed to call things off. I think she was also hopeful that maybe her feelings were more like “pre-wedding nerves” and that by the time the wedding happened, she would have resolved her misgivings. The closer the wedding got, the more she felt trapped into it, until late the night before, she panicked and finally talked to her parents and they supported her decision to cancel. As far as I know, the guy didn’t “do” anything - he hadn’t cheated on her, he hadn’t secretly gambled away their savings. She just realized he wasn’t the one for her, and felt guilty and mortified about backing out of the engagement.
Not exactly. A few years ago, I got an invitation to a wedding from a long-time friend. She probably didn’t expect me to actually get there, though; she still lives in Seattle and I’m in Boston. But I thought I’d surprise her. So I flew across the country and showed up at the appropriate place and time. No one there knew anything about a wedding. I called her home, no answer. I visited other friends and family while I was out there, so not a total loss.
Didn’t hear from my friend until I got back home. They’d moved it to a different location. The wedding still happened, but I had a few days when I thought it hadn’t.
Nope, but I’ve observed a courthouse wedding which ended up in a slug fest among the bride, groom and wedding party. Yes, court security arrested them.
Not cancelled at the actual ceremony, but I have a cousin who called off the wedding two days before the ceremony. She essentially realized the marriage would be a mistake and it would be better to bite the bullet before the ceremony rather than get divorced a year later.
I was invited to one and didn’t go. A girl I went to high school with was supposed to marry her high school sweetheart not long after graduation, and she didn’t show up on the day. Quite the scandal at the time and everyone went on and on about how flakey she was. I found out years later that the groom pretty much forbid her going to college in the fall, and she had to make a choice. She’s an MD now, and still single.
I wish my younger sister had bailed. She married her hs boyfriend as well, and they were always on-again/off-again - they thought getting married would resolve their issues (despite everyone on both sides telling them it didn’t work like that). They didn’t last a year.
Almost. My great aunt had a thalidomide retarded child. When her oldest son’s bride walked down the aisle she suddenly turned around, bolted to the back door and screamed, “I don’t want to have a retarded baby”.
Apparently the dumb bitch thought that somehow a disorder brought on by medication to a sibling born AFTER her husband would retroactively ruin his chromosomes.
She was convinced to come back and the wedding completed without the grooms family. We all left when we realized that we were stuck with her and would soon be ashamed to admit that someone that stupid was in our family.
I was to be Maid of Honor in a wedding that was scheduled for Sept. 15, 2001. I flew to Montana (from Florida) on the 7th or something – prepared to spend a week helping the bride with preparations.
Then 9/11 happened.
Airlines shut down, so the minister, both bride’s and groom’s parents, and most of the guests were unable to get there. There were a few people (like me), who either lived in the area, or who had managed to blow into town before the 10th. After a long and tearful morning of making phone call after phone call, they decided to postpone the wedding. The bride and I, instead, took a long hike in the Gallatin Mountains. The night of the scheduled wedding, everyone who was in town already showed up at the house and the chef/caterer (who DID make it) cooked all the tasty treats he’d been planning for the wedding feast anyway. So we had a really nice dinner party anyway and we all got completely sloshed. The wedding and reception were both to be held at their home, so there wasn’t a lot of money lost in deposits or anything, and the bride had a vintage dress, which she was able to wear twice. Really, the only money “lost” was on the food, but we ate all that anyway.
A month later, the wedding finally happened, but I was unable to get the time off and afford another flight out there. I had burned all my vacay time on the first one, and most of my “fun” budget for the year. This was gently explained the day of cancellation, so the bride had to find someone else to be MOH for her. We decided to dress up in the wedding clothes anyway and had some pix taken, so when the actual wedding went off, my pictures would be in the pile with all the others, so we could look back on it and pretend like I’d been there for the wedding reboot.
I had created a lovely cross-stitch and had it framed as my wedding gift to them. I always “sign” my cross-stitches with the date of completion or the date of the special occasion. So their original wedding date is cross-stitched into this piece for eternity. I offered to take it home, remove from the frame, change the date, and ship it back to them, but they preferred it the way it was.
My ex-wife’s brother decided the morning of his wedding that he wasn’t ready to get married. He had paid the caterer, band, hall, etc. and lost it all.
About a month later he decided he was ready and they married at the courthouse.
I was a pregnant teenager being forced to marry my boyfriend. He was such a jerk. He wouldn’t let me eat very much because he didn’t want me to get fat. Three days before, I told my mom I just couldn’t do it and miraculously she said I didn’t have to go through with it.
The day of the cancelled wedding I started to miscarry.
We had someone cancel a wedding on us a couple days before hand. The bride was several months pregnant, was already raising one kid and was in her last year of law-school, and apparently had spent a lot of time during the wedding prep fighting with her soon to be mother in law. The combined stress apparently got to her and she started loosing a lot of weight and had some sort of breakdown. Her friends and doctor, worried that more stress and weight loss might be bad for the baby, convinced her to call it off.
So far as I know, the couple is still together and still plans to get married.
Not quite, but about 20 years ago a friend had asked me to accompany her to a wedding where she was going to be one of the bridesmaids. I bought new shoes and everything (I was just out of college and poor). I did not go to the rehearsal dinner with her the night before, but she called me around midnight, crying, because after the dinner the bride had gotten cold feet and called the wedding off. They had to post someone at the church the next day to turn people away.
The couple ended up eloping a few weeks later. Not sure what happened to them after that.
Not quite. My then-GF and I were due to attend a wedding that afternoon, but she got a call in the morning that the groom had fallen off the top of a parking deck the night before and was now dead. Instead of a wedding, they held a memorial service the next day.
Actually, yes. I had forgotten completely about it. About six years ago my oldest friend was going to marry her high school boyfriend (at this time they had been together for seven years, with one kid). I was in the military so i got leave, got my uniform all fancy, and drove home.
Two days before the wedding she calls me up saying that it’s off: the groom wasn’t ready. She was all apologetic, but I felt bad for her.
A few months later they get married in a much smaller ceremony. They’re still married with two more children.
I was dating a woman who was the maid of honor for her friend, so I dressed up and attended. The groom’s best man was carrying a pager because his baby was in the hospital in critical condition. Minutes before the wedding was due to start, my date found me to inform me the best man’s child died and I had to fill in as best man.
It was crazy-stupid. The brides mother kept giving me shit for not doing whatever the best man was supposed to do minute by minute. Relatives all thought I was either the groom’s friend, or the best man’s buddy. I was rushing around doing things for people I didn’t even know. I had to drive from the church to the hall several times, transporting gifts and stuff. The bride’s mom had me setting up food.
At the reception the bride got very drunk and her inner-slut emerged. She wanted me to take her out to my car and do her, as that would be soooo cool. She couldn’t understand how I could turn down the opportunity and she got nasty, calling me a fucking faggot. Her mother confronted me asking what I did to upset her daughter, and I was tongue tied.
One very sad example. My uncle was an army officer and one of the soldiers under his command was due to get married. Everything was ready and the day before he was to get married, a war started. My uncles regiment was initially held back and said soldier ask for 24 hour pass to go home and get married quickly. My uncle declined. The guy was later killed in action. My uncle always felt guilty, as the rules stood at the time his fiancee got nothing, she would have had a pension even if they had been married just a few days. My uncle used to send her money. AFAIK, she never married.
