Highlights from the ultimate wedding fiasco

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Over in the Pit, I’m ranting about a wedding that is quickly becoming a problem for me and the SO (best man). This brings to mind the WEDDING FROM HELL that I took part in earlier this year, as Maid-of-honor.

It’s one of those things that I can’t believe actually happened (it was such a train-wreck). Here just a few of the highlights:

The bride had invited her ex-fiancee and his new girl. They showed up. Boy, that was FUN! My SO had to run interference.

Pagan bridesmaid got tipsy and started telling fortunes and casting spells, much to the dismay of the very very conservative xtian groom’s side!

Brother-of-the-bride got drunk and felt up every young female in attendance, much our dismay (and our dates).

The bride invited the guy she cheated on the new hubby with, and her showed up! Pagan girl told him that he and the bride were soulmates, but doomed to be apart. Nothing like stirring the pot (or cauldron).

The bride took me aside and told me (just minutes after the wedding) that while she didn’t love the groom, she was certain she did the right thing. She wanted to get married and have a house right now, and she wasn’t willing to wait for her soulmate (yep, same guy as above) to get the necessary cash. :smack:

Oooh, it was ugly…
I swore never to speak to the bride again, but (drum roll please…) she’s pregant! It is being passed off as a honeymoon baby.
:rolleyes:

At least I can laugh about it now!

2

Holy crap! Have you been here yet? This is perfect material for the site.

http://www.etiquettehell.com/wedindex.htm

3

Wow! I didn’t think anything short of bloodshed could top the wedding Dr.J and I went to last summer. The marriage was a horrible idea in the first place (this relationship had been horrible for years, but neither of them would break it off), his family thought she wasn’t nearly good enough for them (they like to think they’ve got money when they really don’t), and the wedding plans were a recipe for disaster. She had her heart set on having the wedding in an open field on the riverbank–in August in eastern Kentucky in the middle of the day.

The caterers (the asshat groom’s cousins) backed out 6 weeks beforehand, forcing them to have Hardee’s fried chicken at the reception. She got sick and couldn’t keep anything on her stomach for a couple of weeks beforehand, and landed in the emergency room two nights before the wedding. Dr. J went with her and stayed with her all night because they couldn’t get hold of the groom. Actually, I think he may have had a Pit thread about that at the time, but I’m too lazy to look for it. At any rate, the whole thing was a fucking fiasco.

4

Hehehehe!
My Pit rant sparked the same comment. I’ll have to visit the site.

Anyone else have horror stories that are funny now, but extremely painful at the time?

5

Okay, this one technically isn’t ‘mine’ - it belongs to a friend of ours, who was the maid of honor…

Short form: Starts with the travel iron exploding on the bride’s dress before the wedding, ends with the maid of honor’s father offering to flush the grooms head - and meaning it! (or was that the best man’s head - either one qualified!)

So, here’s the rundown:

Bride and Maid of Honor (MOH) go to hotel room to get ready. Bride steams gown. Steam iron explodes, shooting soot, steam, and sparks onto the front of gown, which is, of course, covered in intricate lace. Steam nicely sets soot into fabric. Bride freaks.

MOH grabs bride and gown and heads out to drycleaners (wedding is late afternoon, they have until 3 to get gown back). First cleaner they find says no way they can fix THAT. Second cleaner says not a chance. Third cleaner (determined MOH) says I’m terribly sorry, there’s no way to fix that. Bride bursts into tears. Cleaner begs her to stop crying - you shouldn’t cry on your wedding day - and promises that come hell or high water, she’ll have that dress pristine by 3 pm.

So, off to the hall to set up for the reception. Brides relatives all show up to … well, they didn’t help, they just sat around and watched the bride and MOH set up everything and commented on how they did it. Bride steaming, MOH not surprised (sucky family) but also rather miffed.

Back at cleaners - miracle of miracles, the dress is white. MOH says she didn’t care if they spraypainted it white, it was white. Much rejoicing (end of rejoicing for day, though…)

Wedding ceremony goes okay.

At reception, bride and groom are waiting for guests to finish arriving before going in and being announced as husband/wife. Groom decides he’s finished waiting, goes in without her. Refuses to dance with her. Instead, dances with all the single women, and flirts heavily with them, too. No first dance together. He barely looks at bride. Best man makes out with girlfriend at the head table - including hand down her shirt. Bratty flower girl whines at everyone, and to calm her, someone gives the kid the bride’s slice of wedding cake (she gets no cake - it is gone, and IIRC the groom won’t share his). Groom still refuses to dance with bride. MOH decides that her job is to make sure that bride has a good time. This would include not being able to remember that this event is a sucky time. Takes bride over to bar and sits her down to do shots. At some point, MOH’s father (also in attendance) offers to flush head of groom (or was that the best man?), and is quite serious about doing so, should his daughter deem it necessary. She declines the kind offer. Darn.

Bride gets truly blasted with assistance of MOH, blanks out the entire reception period, and now thinks she had a wonderful time. She’s kinda ticked that the photographer managed to miss the whole first dance together as bride and groom, though… (How the heck did THAT happen?) Groom extracted his head from his nether regions and since has treated bride well, knowing that should he ever mess up, the MOH will tell all, and bride will be able to put his 'nads in a jar for the rest of his life. (He was generally a nice guy, according to MOH, but completely lost it at a really bad time, in a really bad way.) Nobody else is saying a thing about the wedding, either - they either didn’t notice a problem (the bride’s family) or they were horrified enough to not want to bring it up, and happy enough that she thinks it was wonderful.

UGH.

6

I mis-read that as “Maid-of-HORROR”… Sounds like my mis-read wasn’t that far off. Looked like you were indeed in hell.

7

Wow, hedra. Whoever MOH is, she sounds like a good person to have as a friend, and not someone you want to screw with.

8

I was an usher at a college roommate’s wedding. First thing that went wrong was, as I was ushering her up the aisle, the beehive hairdo fell off the head of an excentric aunt. After stepping on it, she picks it up, pushes it out into a resemblance of its original shape, and puts it back on her head, right in the aisle, as I wait. Most of the congregation had already been seated, and were looking on, astonished.

Next, after the ringbearer gives up the ring, he is standing off to one side facing the congregation and suddenly vomits a HUGE vomit onto the pillow he is carrying. Poor kid doesn’t know what to do so he starts crying and turns his back to the congregation and starts trying to shake the vomit off the pillow. The wedding party men (in PINK tuxedos!) are in the line of fire and are trying to dodge the flying vomit. Meanwhile, the kids dad is about three rows back and about 4 people in from aisle. He trys to struggle out past the remaining people, tries to leap over the legs of the oblivious oldtimer next to the aisle, fails, and lands on his head in the aisle with a crash that made me worry for his life. Somehow, he quickly climbs to his feet and dazedly weaves toward his son. Grabbing his son by the hand, he spins the kid around. The kid responds by projectile vomiting (a fire hydrant comes to mind) all over the feet of the people in the front row before he walked down the aisle, somewhat crookedly by the still dazed dad.
The wedding quickly resumed and the couple remains married to this day. Oh, to make matters worse, the people in charge of decorating the getaway vehicle decided to fill the car with shaving cream. So they are getting pelted with rice and when they get to the car they just stand there, partly in dismay for the car and partly because they don’t want to get their wedding clothes all covered with shaving cream. Meanwhile people, mostly kids, but others too, are continuing to pelt them with rice. They must have had pounds of the stuff. The groom finally reaches his limit and screams “will you knock it OFF!” The parents of the bride traded cars with the lucky couple and they took off in a clean, undecorated car.

Fishhead

9

I’ve had a part time weekend job for past three years as wedding photographer/videographer so I have my share of stories…no horror stories though. Of course, nearly all the weddings I’ve been to consisted of people whom I didn’t know personally.

Story 1: Easter Sunday. This wasn’t actually a wedding that I photographed. It was a reception–just a reception. There were 8 bridesmaids, 8 groomsmen, bride, and groom all dressed up in the usual wedding attire. Apparently, the young couple (both seemed 19 or 20 years old) was initially engaged with plans to be married in June. The bride’s mother began planning for the big day. A couple months later (sometime in February) in some weird haste…the bride-to-be and groom-to-be traveled across state lines and eloped. The minster who officiated the ceremony set up a camera on a tripod in the main aisle at what appeared to be a small chapel. The newly weds returned home and in some way revealed the big news. I really, really got the strong impression that the bride’s mother was thoroughly enraged upon learning this–especially after all the planning she had done. So anyway, after most of the smoke cleared they planned the reception: wedding attire, catering, cake, DJ, and all. The prevailing mood at the reception seemed weird to me…I guess for obvious answers. I didn’t really witness the horror story…but at least I saw some of the aftermath.

Story 2: An actual wedding this time…I was video taping and my boss was snapping the photos. Ten minutes before the ceremony began I was shooting the harp player. My boss tapped my shoulder and pointed out the in-set curtained baptismal cove facing the guests and behind where the minister would stand. He thought it would be a good location for me to film during the ceremony (he has strange ideas sometimes). As I was still filming he went to check out the baptismal through the side entrance to the cove (90 degrees to the curtain entrance) accessible from a storage room next to the sanctuary. My boss apparently assumed that the baptismal was covered by a platform. He hopped right up there and “splash”. He was waist deep in water. He quickly found donated clothing in that storage room area, changed clothes, and composed himself for the wedding that was now starting. He was dressed very conspicuously for the rest of the day. Fortunately, he wasn’t holding the camera when he got wet. Everybody had a good laugh.

I dunno. Maybe you had to be there.

10

My wedding was flawless - there was tears, celebration, & ceremony.

The Honeymoon began very badly.

We stayed the night in town (Wichita), the next day planned to fly from Kansas City to Atlanta, there to spend a night and early next morning to fly to Florida for a week.

The morning after, we woke, had breakfast and met friends that would drive us the 3+ hours to KC for our flight. The flight was to put is in Atlanta by evening, where we would have a romantic dinner and an early bedtime in a near-to-the-airport hotel.

We arrive in KC, were dropped at the airport, and I went to claim our space on the plane. “I’m sorry, sir, that flight has been cancelled.” There’s another in 4 hours. Unfortunately, because that flight was also fully booked, I’m going to have to stand in a line to claim my chance for seats on this double-filled plane. (We find out later that the reason the flight is cancelled is that Boeing repossed two of four planes this little carrier leased. Ooops!)

Four hours in line yielded me two rubber tickets with boarding numbers on them that would assure we’d be on the flight. We boarded normally, and arrived in Atlanta somewhere around 11pm.

We took a hotel shuttle to the hotel, checked-in, and headed up to our room.

The key didn’t work. It was one of those perforated plastic cards and I tried it upwards, downwards, and inside-out and the door wouldn’t open. I schlepped my way back to the front desk, seemingly a quarter-mile away, and was told to head back to the room and maintenance would be by to “rekey” the door.

The maintenance guy arrived and announced that the door wasn’t broken, it was locked - as in “with the deadbolt” locked.

The room was occupied. All my fussing with the door either didn’t wake the occupant or he didn’t want to confront us. Mr. Maintenance let us into another room and we went to bed - too worn out for any newlywed playtime.

We woke to free breakfast coupons, a nice consolation, and we packed up and went to the buffet. Next it was out to the front to catch the shuttle back to the airport. We were running a little behind but not badly. We rode to the other hotel in the same chain to pick up more passengers. Our driver got out at the second hotel, went inside, and never came back. Seems it was end-of-shift for him and he wasn’t going to let the fact that his replacement was late deter him from going home.

Twenty minutes, maybe thirty, and our new driver arrives and we’re off to the airport. We’re no longer a little late.

We use the curbside checkin for our luggage - the guy asks us where we’re going.

“Orlando”
“Where?”
“ORLANDO”
“Where?”
"ORLANDO"

He tags the bags and they shoot off on the conveyor. I ask where’s our gate and he checks a chart and says “C46”.

We’re off! We’re Late!

We arrive at C46 - it’s not “Orlando”, it’s “O’Hare”. Chicago’s nice but it’s not in Florida. We find our gate is actually waaaayy over there and we hustle, and arrive just in time to have the jetway door slam behind us. Luckily our seats have not been given away and we fly off into the sky.

We arrive and go to pick up our luggage. The carousel disgorges bags for a while and ours is not among them. I search the ones that have been removed. No Bag. You’re thinking they went to to O’Hare, aren’t you? Nope. The bags went to Tampa.

They promise to deliver them to our Hotel by noon. OK - so it’s off on the shuttle to the hotel. We call the hotel at 3:00 and inquire at the desk if they’re ever arrived. Nope.

Being the emotional sort, the new wife is in a panic. New Husband is stoic as usual. (We’re a fun couple at times). The bags finally arrive somewhere around 5:00 pm. The rest of the trip is (thankfully) uneventful.

11

Holy hell!

I am so glad that the “worst” thing that happened on my wedding day was it rained and was a little chilly–and the honeymoon was awesome.

Beltrix, that just sucked! :eek:

12

I attended the wedding of some acquaintances from college. I had graduated, and was basically there to see other people. The first sign it wasn’t going well was that the bride put a death-lock on my arm, said, “Thank God you’re here!” and didn’t let go of me the rest of the day except for the actual ceremony. (And no, we really weren’t friends.)
[ul]
[li]The bride’s mother wouldn’t come, as the groom wasn’t Jewish. The bride’s father did come. Clearly, in his eyes, the bride was a little princess who could do no wrong and was perfect in every way. As he got more drunk, he got more maudlin and adoring. He got quite drunk.[/li]
[li]The bride had babysat for some kids, and wanted them in the wedding. She also had the great idea of having her pet ferrets in the wedding. She had a vision of angelic ringbearers sedately gliding down the aisle, holding ribbons which had been woven into harnesses for the ferrets. The kids refused to be ringbearers, they wanted to be Robocops. She agreed. They wore plastic Robocop costumes. The ferrets escaped into the crowd. The Robocops tried to catch them. Crying children, several yelps, angry ushers, it wasn’t pretty.[/li]
[li]The reception was at the campus center. The best man was supposed to decorate and essentially forgot. At the reception, he was running around with a roll of black crepe paper (the only color he could find) taping it onto the wall in random patterns.[/li]
[li]The bride and groom had kept the ferrets in their dorm room, quite against the rules. The unhousebroken and unconfined ferrets did an ungodly amount of damage, including some in the common lounge and bathroom areas. Thus, the other residents (our mutual friends) had to pay $100 each to cover the damage. A lot of the wedding gifts were cards that said “I was going to get you a present, but had to spend the money on dorm repairs.” (Tacky in retrospect, but gives you an idea of the animosity that had been generated.)[/li]
[li]Somehow the hotel reservations got screwed up. The groom’s mother, who CLEARLY thought this whole thing was one of the worst ideas she had ever heard but who had been heroically gracious all day, snapped, and really came down hard on the manager. The groom sat on the floor in the corner reading comic books. Everyone else tried to pretend they were anywhere else. At one point, the groom started jumping around the room like a frog, yelling, “Go away! Go away! Go away!” (Yes, he was sober.) The bride clutched my arm and asked me if I thought anyone had remembered to take pictures at the ceremony. [/li][/ul]

These are the highlights, it was pretty awful at points. On the other hand, the cafeteria ladies were thrilled to be catering a wedding, and really went all out. The food was good and plentiful, and the guests had a great time visiting. I have no idea whether or not the marriage lasted.

13

the night before we got married, hubby to be and i came home, he and the best man were going to go out after they changed clothes. when we got home we were greeted at the door by future sister in law, she had a message for us. the wife of the dj we hired had called and said he was in jail-- finally after what seemed like forever, we had a solution, the wife of the dj and a friend were going to do it for us. hubby to be stays home, best man goes out to see his girlfriend, ( his wife had never met the girlfriend ) off to bed to get much needed sleep. the wedding was at 2:00 – plenty of time to sleep in and still have great looking hair. my mom called at 6:00 am, we had some hellish rain the night before, their basement had flooded, all the pew bows and church decorations were in the basement, managed to save about half of the bows–a bow on every other pew, not too bad. i got my hair done, the sun was shining when i went in to the salon, when i came out it was overcast with a sprikle here and there. not too bad, i didnt think-- by the time i got to the church to change into my dress, it was pouring-- ( at least the dress was already inside) hubbys family all lived out of state, except his sister, and i would be damned if she could have managed to show up a little early, hubby was going crazy waiting for her to show up, the wedding gets started, the music is being played, my father begins to walk me down the isle. we hear the door open, low and behold, my soon to be husbands EX WIFE AND HER BOYFRIEND come into the church. the preacher not knowing who they were invited them to sit down, they picked the very first pew ( some nerve, eh? ) we go on with the ceremony-- its finally over, – every thing worked out ok though – we are still married ( but i cant stand the ex wife )

14

No wedding story here; I’d just like to say what my wife and I always say whenever we hear a wedding-from-hell story:

We had such a DULL wedding!

And don’t think we didn’t appreciate it.

15

Now that’s a music critic! :smiley:
Old joke. So sorry. Carry on.

Actually, I have one second hand story to tell. My friend John, who is a mild-mannered CPA, told me about a wedding reception he went to were an honest to God fist- fight broke out. The reception was held at a hotel and there were 2 different receptions going on at the same time. It seems that there weren’t enough good looking women and/or free booze at the other reception, so some people crashed the reception John and his wife were attending. When the party crashers were found out the ushers tried to get them to leave, and they wouldn’t, so the ushers resorted to force. Someone called the cops soon after the fight broke out and several arrests were made. I asked John if he go involved and he said, “Are you kidding? I’m an accountant. I was hiding under the table!”

16

Well, the morning after my friend Samantha’s wedding, the groom called our mutual friend Wendy from the hotel to say Sam was in the bathroom taking a bath and did Wendy want to meet sometime that week to, you know, get it on?

I am not making this up. I lost touch with everyone, no idea how it all turned out (I mean, I know Wendy loathed the guy for being a skank, but I don’t know if the marriage lasted).

Also, I believe the marriage had been postponed at least once because the groom was jailed for bad checks.

17

I used to live in Seacroft, Leeds England.

The name sound innocuous enough but in fact it is one of the most deprived, violent places in the entire UK, even ranks quite high up in the European order of crappiness and so it qualifies for lots of assistance grants.

Any wedding there is asking for trouble.

Two doors down from my cousin, and three doors away from my sister, one very notorious family had a wedding do.

This particular family are drug dealers, soccer hooligans that have been detained in other countries, one has been four-corner shot thus pretty near disabling him, just to teach him not to move into another gangs territory, another has been knifed in the guts and now has to use a colostomy bag, all over an argument over a previous fight, anyway that was all in the future for them.

The wedding itself passed off peacefully enough, probably because it was in the morning and none of them are out of bed normally so they were a little dazed and confused.

They had their reception in the brides mothers house, this consisted of sandwiches made from a very cheap version of ‘Spam’ and some cheesy ‘n’ sausage rolls. They decided to cling onto the memory of this wonderful repast by taking lots of photos of it before the vultures got stuck in.

There was plenty to drink, the groom got drunk and was carted back to his parents house, the bride invited a couple of the guests upstairs, they ran off!

Somehow one of the brides mothers sons was accused of raping her, and the brides father promptly dissappeared into the kitchen and returned with a large knife (and he tried so hard to use it).

The accusation turned out to be a ‘joke’, “wassamatter you got no sense of humour?” and another fight broke out between the guests of the bride on one side and the guests of the groom on the other.

This all broke out onto the street, the police came and carted the lot of them off in the black marias, perhaps the kicker was when they dragged the bride from upstairs, barely dressed with a couple of gatecrashers also in similar dissaray.

18

As a night clerk at a (fairly upscale) hotel, I always used to cringe whenever there was a wedding reception. Large numbers of people (most of whom don’t really know each other) and alcohol make for a bad combination. I have literally witnessed brawls between the families, involving twenty or thirty people.
Drunken idiots who get bored at the reception tend to wander around, ending up in places they really shouldn’t be. I had to go up to the roof of a nine story building and herd a small group of reception guests back to the ballroom, before one of the fools managed to fall off.
The richer the participants, the worse the behavior: I don’t care how much money you are spending, you are not entitled to go conga-ing nude through the lobby.
And please, relative of the bride/groom, do not engage me in a long monologue about how the groom/bride is a dick/ho and doesn’t deserve the other - I don’t care!
Bride/groom: if you’re holding the above conversation with the night clerk, I have one word for you: Annulment

On the plus side, brides always look beautiful.

On the more plus side, I don’t work at that hotel anymore; I chose one that has no large banquet facilities.