Somewhat inspired by the Stood up at the altar thread. Share your funny wedding stories.
A buddy of mine was getting married. It was a Catholic wedding and we knew at some point he’d have to kneel at the altar, his back to the guests. We stole his shoes and wrote “Help Me” on his shoes. So when they knelt down there was a mixture of laughter and shocked gasps through the crowd. The priest and the bride and groom were very perplexed. The wedding went off fine after that. When the groom found out what happened he was quite amused. The bride, not so much.
My brother’s wedding. During the ceremony the priest went on and on about divorce rates. This pissed off a lot of people. (Brother and SIL just celebrated their 30th anniversary, so they showed him.)
At one point during the ceremony, he gestured wildly and accidentally back hand slapped SIL in the face. It was pretty funny once we realized that she wasn’t hurt.
Groom looks to Best Man.
Best Man looks to Groomsman.
Goes to the end of the line of Groomsmen.
Groomsman #4 reaches into jacket pocket, and removes a crackerjack box. Hands it to Groomsman #3.
Groomsman #3 opens box, snacks, passes to Groomsman #2.
Groomsman #2 snacks, shakes, pulls out prize envelope. Hands envelope to Best Man.
Best Man opens up prize envelope to find the the wedding ring. Passes the wedding ring to the Groom.
This was carefully set up the night before (including the need to find a sober driver to take the team to the local grocer to buy a box of Cracker Jacks).
My best friend got married on her parents horse farm. The dogs were supposed to be shut in the house at the far side of the farm. When my friend was walking down the aisle, her Jack Russel showed up from nowhere and tried to follow her. A guest in the back row grabbed the dog by the collar and muttered “NO!” People didn’t laugh out loud but there was a bit of a snicker, including from the bride.
Some of the priests around here have wised up to that and actually check the bottom of the groom’s shoes before the ceremony to avoid such shenanigans.
Our 4-year old niece was our flower girl, and since it was a Halloween wedding, we put a bunch of rose petals into a plastic jack-o-lantern (the kind you can carry around for trick or treating).
She did a great job, dropping big handfuls of petal as she walked down the aisle. When she reached the end, she looked into her bucket and saw she still had some petals left. She threw a mess of petals at her feet, then proceeded to turn the bucket over and dump out the rest of the petals.
I couldn’t see what was happening, since I was waiting to do my own big walk down the aisle, but I heard all the giggles from the audience. Then I saw the gigantic pile of petals at the end of the aisle!
A number of years before my wedding I had an <ahem> nice evening with a fellow who was about to go off to the seminary (“last chance check to be sure”). He remained friends with our group and 5 years later officiated our Catholic ceremony. He lamented during his homily that he always liked to share all kinds of tawdry stories about the grooms, etc… Since he had known me longer than my husband he said he was frustrated writing his homily because, “Sue is just so darn… virtuous!”
… The snickering from knowing friends (hell - from my husband and myself) made him hurry the rest of his homily up!
I should begin by saying that the college I went to was a music school, where I majored in guitar. The best man went there as well, as did about a dozen of the attendees. The groom didn’t, but he sang and played trumpet, and was in a working band at the time.
At the reception, there was a trio playing. In between songs I went up and said hi to the guitarist, who taught at said school. He was my private lesson instructor for two years. He asked me if I knew how to play the blues. Well duh! Doesn’t everyone? So he handed me his guitar and took off.
Of course all eyes were on me, so I jammed with this band and everyone was cheering me on. For one song. Then another. Then another. It was clear that the teacher was not coming back. After a few songs, the best man decided to sit in on drums. Then the groom joined us to sing. A few attendees, realizing that this could be the big break that their band needed, headed off to load up their van with guitars, amps, drums, fog machine, pyrotechnics, giant disco ball, the works.
It got out of control. Someone finally put a stop to it, and the hired band finished out the reception.
At my brother’s wedding, I was a groomsman and my daughter was a flower girl, along with the niece of the bride. The night before they did a couple of practice runs with fake rose petals before and after the rehearsal.
During the actual ceremony they once again did a great job dropping the petals. At the end of the ceremony they were to follow the attendants out of the sanctuary to the receiving line, which we hadn’t really practiced. When I took my place in the receiving line I noticed there appeared to be a hold up in the church. The girls were stopping to pick up the flower petals - just like they did after every practice run the night before :smack:
At my brother’s wedding, they had the tossing of the bridal garter. It was caught by the six-year-old son of a co-worker of my brother, who then spiked the garter, as if it were a football. I thought it was funny, but the boy’s mother was mortified.
Also, the wedding was a couple of weeks prior to Christmas, and the banquet hall had a Christmas tree display with fake presents. Apparently someone who was collecting the wedding presents swept up all of the fake presents and brought them back to the house.
Bro and SIL had a lovely, elegant but not overstated wedding. Later, at the reception (jolly, but ditto ditto), at the head table we were chatting about the modern age and Facebook and such and someone pointed out that now Bro and SIL would have to update their Facebook page to “Married.”
I blurted, “Oh, I can do that on my phone.”
Before I knew what was happening, the mistress of ceremonies had swept me up to the microphone, to perform the Ceremonial Updating of the Facebook Relationship Status in front of all the guests. Everyone under 35 was amused and everyone over 35 had to have it explained to them.
We got married on a softball field, at home plate, in between games of a tournament. And since it was basically still a traditional ceremony, all our players decided to dress up. As did my mom (our coach), who sat in the front row, in her pretty new white skirt and jacket. Which was unusual because she never wore anything but pants or shorts.
The only problem?
She forgot underwear. Something I didn’t know until after it was over.
My wife and I had the full Catholic Mass wedding service, which included 3 scripture readings, one of which was a Gospel reading. Normally for the Gospel reading, everyone is supposed to stand. During our ceremony, all the groomsmen put on sunglasses for the Gospel reading. Not only did wife and I start cracking up on the alter, so did the priest! We were soooooo not expecting that.
My dog walked me down the “aisle” at my beach wedding (his leash was held by my Dad so it wasn’t all that unconventional). He had my wedding flowers on his collar and everything, and looked so cute. But the path that I was walking as the aisle was lined by bushes at the beginning (before reaching the actual beach). It took me a few minutes longer than anticipated because my dog had to stop and hike his leg a time or two.
Thankfully my guests did not have a good view of that part, but my Dad and I thought it was hilarious.
I did the same thing. The Groom found out moments before the wedding and frantically tried to rub it off. He was not as amused as I was. He tried hard to kneel without showing the bottoms of his shoes.
First, when my cousin Stanley was getting married to his wife Tiffany, my younger cousin Paige was their flower girl. Stanley, who loves her to death, was pumping her up for her very important job at the rehearsal dinner and told her that she would have to do it just perfect. Paige took what he said to heart and, about half way down the aisle, she stops for no apparent reason. Most of the people in attendance knew Paige and we all urged her on as quietly as possible but she just wouldn’t move. Finally her mother came out and half dragged her the rest of the way. After the wedding, Paige, in tears, told Stanley why she stopped. She found a giant chunk of petals stuck together and was trying to pull them apart so that the aisle would be perfect.
Second, my best friend Kendra was getting married to her long time boyfriend Stephen. I was the maid of honor and was working hard to make sure everything went off with out a hitch. And, up until about 25 minutes before the wedding was due to to start, everything was going well. Kendra and Stephen wrote letters to each other to exchange on their wedding day and it was my job to deliver them. I went over to the boys dressing room and knocked on the door but Stephen wasn’t there. Where was he? At the Walmart. It seems that somewhere between the dry cleaners, his parent’s house, his friend’s house and the church, his pants slipped off the hanger and he couldn’t find them anywhere. He had to go to Walmart to buy new pants. He got back just in time to have Kendra’s mom do some quick alterations (his pants were too big) and get to his place before the wedding was due to start.
My wedding just a few weeks ago went off pretty well. No real shenanigans during the ceremony. But during the reception… well…
It was time to throw the bouquet. We had about a dozen single ladies out there, eager to be the next one to marry. I tossed it and three girls got their hands on it. One of them, my maid of honor, made a few tugs, but let go quickly. The other two… well, it became a knock-down, drag-out fight for it. My dad walked over to them with a $20, hoping that one would grab the money and let go of the bouquet. Nope; she took the money with one hand and kept the other firmly on the bouquet. Eventually, my husband and I had to break them up.
My grandfather and four uncles were bakers and caterers, so when my youngest aunt got married they went all-out for an over-the-top event. The wedding cake was seven feet high, and was topped by a little cage containing two love birds.
The bride and groom took the birds on the honeymoon, but by the following day one bird has escaped out the window, and the other had bashed its skull against the window.
Fortunately, the marriage lasted many years longer than the birds.
My funny wedding moment was bouquet-tossing related too, but from the other extreme. Our wedding was very small (around 25 people), and when it came time to throw the bouquet, we realized my younger sister was the only single lady there. We all had a laugh (and I turned around and threw it, and she caught it!). She was a very good sport about the whole thing. And she was the next one to get married.
