I never have, but it makes for some fun situations in sit-coms
So have you ever known anyone that was actually stood up at the alter. I mean the wedding was taking place then they changed their mind
My dad’s cousin stood somebody up. I was a little kid, so I wasn’t there, but everyone was sitting in the church waiting and he just never showed up. My mom says it was, obviously, horrible and uncomfortable. He was sort of a wild ne’er-do-well and he just decided not to go through with it. I think he ended up marrying someone years later and they all lost touch with his first unlucky fiancee.
I was, sort of.
A few years ago, a friend of mine was getting married. She’s in Seattle, I’m in Boston. She sent me an invitation, probably more as an announcement; I don’t know if she was expecting me to fly all the way across the country. But I decided to go. I hadn’t seen her in a few years and I wanted to surprise her.
So I flew to Seattle and stayed at my mom’s place. I drove to where the wedding was being held; a mosque, actually. It was a little hard to find, and I got there just barely on time. There was no wedding, and no one there was expecting one or knew what had happened. I had the invitation with me, and I was in the right place. It was during Ramadan, and they were getting ready to break fast at sundown. I was trying to find out what happened, so they let me use the phone. Just as I picked it up to dial, the evening call to prayer came over the loudspeakers. I called; no answer. I left a message, and a few more before it was time to fly home.
While I was one the plane to Boston, she called my mom’s place. The wedding had been moved to a bigger mosque. Since she didn’t know I was coming, everybody got the message except me.
My now-husband’s ex-fiancee broke things off with him the night before their wedding. Some family and friends had already flown out, and many others had to cancel plans, but it wasn’t technically ‘under the chuppa’ (no altar, please, we’re Jewish [insert happy Jewish man smiley here]).
It made him understandably foot-draggy with regards to proposing to me, though. He was worried that as soon as we got engaged, I’d get… irrational. I suppose it worked out well for me in the end, as I’m glad she didn’t married him. I just wish she’d made up her mind on the subject earlier.
Terminology quibble:
Wouldn’t “stood up at the alter”, or “left standing at the alter” be more correct? You march down the aisle, but you get stood up at the alter, no?
Or at the Altar, even. :smack:
In traditional church terminology, the aisle is the passageway at the side (or sides) of the nave, not the central one. I’m not sure if there is a proper term for the central passageway.
an ex girlfriend of mine got stood up at the justice of the peace. her groom actually showed up and then when crunch time came literally ran away. They stayed together maybe 6 months after that. I caught her on the rebound maybe 6 months later. A few months later as I started fallling for her big time, that same ex flew in townm proposed and then actually went threw with it the next day.
I hads been the best man a few nights earlier but was understandably not invited or welcome at the ceremony.
Weird that was…
My second husband got to the courthouse steps with me and changed his mind and tried to leave. I told him that if he thought he was getting cold feet at this point he had lost his goddamned mind and to move his ass. He ended up being horrible anyway and the biggest mistake I ever made, and I pushed him into it! So, yeah, uh… my bad.
Not at the ceremony itself, but I have a cousin who called off the wedding a couple of days before.
I had cold feet before getting married, and the old man told me something like 105 times, “You can change your mind the night before, you can change your mind before we make it back to the hotel room, but please, please, please do not leave me standing at the altar. Please.” That was, strangely enough, reassuring.
My ex-brother in law no-showed at his wedding (my ex wife’s brother). Last minute cold feet. They lost all the $$ they invested in the band, food, hall, etc and it was to be a huge event. A month later he was ready and they wed before a JP. The marriage went on to last, though.
If you get married, and you don’t want to, it’s still a waste of money.
Almost, but not quite. A friend’s sister found out that her fiance was cheating on her a week before the wedding. A close friend of mine was dumped by her fiance a few months before her wedding because his hosebeast of a mother gave him a “her or me” ultimatum.
I thought about running out while I was in the sacristy, waiting to go on, but I imagine most men in that situation have had the same thoughts…
My GF’s sister broke off the marriage the day of. She had been with the guy for something like seven years, and had found out he was cheating on her and had done so at his bachelor party. She broke off the wedding the morning of. Predictably, the two sisters went mini golfing instead.
When I was ten years old, my cousin and his fiance had a huge fight the night before their wedding, and he took off in a rage. He didn’t come back until like an hour before the wedding was supposed to start, at which point his fiance told him to forget it. They finally did get married a couple of years later… and divorced a few years after that.
Someone I knew from work… twice… by the same person.
Well, neither was literally at the altar… but one was after they’d all traveled somewhere for a destination wedding but before the actual ceremony, and the second time was when she left him during their honeymoon. They got divorced soon after.
Last I heard, they had remarried and had kids.
No one personally, but I used to work for a wedding photographer, and we were scheduled to do a HUGE wedding. The bride and groom were of two different cultures and the groom’s family didn’t approve. Rehearsal and dinner go off fine, but the next morning, the groom and his entire family were gone. We normally didn’t return deposits, but we felt kinda bad for the girl.
I got married last October, and we had a tiny last-minute mix-up that left my husband wondering if he was getting stood up.
He’s at the ersatz altar, the officiant is behind the podium, the musicians are beginning to play…and he’s got a great view of the door I’m supposed to be entering from. Only that got changed, and in all the chaos no one remembered to update him on the logistics.
So he just stood there, quietly agonizing through a lovely five minute acoustic piece some friends played for us, gazing at his entire family and all his friends thinking it was going to be the worst embarrassment of his life…
Until everyone stood up as I made my properly timed entrance from the opposite side of the room. 