I was just reminded of my favorite that I do to almost 100% of weddings I go to. Since it is common these days in these parts (chicago) for new couples to have a brunch where they open gifts in front of 50 family members, what mr. jar and I like to do is go to the dollar store, buy the most frighteningly ugly, horrible, possibly broken figurine, wrap it beautifully and sign an illegible card to it.
CONGRATULATIONS! Love, AGDgalb…ccc… in a scrawling script.
The look on their face when they try and act like it’s a great gift is…well, priceless.
I’ve got three more weddings this August…what else is there?
Perhaps not exactly the same thing, but…
About 20 years ago a friend married the lady he had been living with for 5 years. As both lived in Lander, WY and her brothers had a camp in the Wind River Mountains accessible by car the wedding was held there. The night before the wedding a bunch of us held the groom down and painted his balls blue.
He was sort of pissed there for a while. She, on the other hand, laughed her hinney off.
One of my friends called up my friend Ted two days before his wedding, pretending to be a representative for the venue, and informed him that there had been a mix-up and that he couldn’t get married there. Because they hadn’t talked in a long time, Ted had no idea it was him. He had Ted shitting bricks before he finally let on who it actually was. It was pretty damn funny. Maybe you had to be there.
Not at all odd if you’re my ex-mother-in-law. She’s real big on giving used gifts. I received one of those cheese boards with the glass globe to put over the cheese. There were knife marks in the board. She thought absolutely nothing of it. My husband once received a bottle of cologne that was 1/3 gone.
My favorite is also to be used at the gift opening. Wrap up a box of broken glass, “trip,” and drop it right in front of the bride and groom. Just make sure the glass will be extremely noisy when dropped.
My favorite is one where the groom puts a pair of very vivid boxer shorts up his sleeve. When it’s time for the garter, the garter is palmed. and the boxers are tossed instead…
I did not perpetrate this “trick” (if indeed it was such), but I did see the, uh, proof. I used to work in a photo lab. A customer brought in a bag of maybe 15 singlue cameras from a wedding reception. While reviewing the prints I got used to seeing a particular woman. She was in many of the pictures and was wearing a bright yellow strapless dress, often with a glass of something to drink. Among these photos was a shot of her flashing her boobs, smiling big and proud, obviously taken by someone else. It was the only such photo in the bunch. It was quite startling, not that those kinds of pics were unusual, but considering the event and all. Must have been a heck of a reception.
A few years ago my sister bought a set of presents for her friend’s birthday (they were in their young teens or maybe younger) and it included items from the dollar store and used nail polish. It was supposed to be a joke (the real present was a Limp Bizkit CD) but the friend was actually really appreciative when she opened her present. The friend probably thought my sister couldn’t afford to buy something more expensive. My sister was shocked at how classy and nice she was about it and they had a laugh when the joke was revealed.
What I’ve seen is where the groom puts a pair of sexy red lacy panties up his sleeve, reaches up the bride’s dress for the garter, palms the garter, and then comes out and shows everyone what he “found” (the panties), to the horror of the bride.
I love jarbabyj’s Tacky Gift idea. I’ve never been to a wedding where the gifts were opened in front of guests, but I’m going to do it at the next bridal shower I go to!
I’ve heard of one where the ushers secretly passed out an old housekey to EVERY female entering the reception, with the message that “You will know what to do when the time comes”. When the Best Man makes his toast, he says something to the effect of: “Now that (groom) is settling down, will any lady that has a key to his place please return it.” Then, every woman in the place walks up and puts “her” key down in front of the bride and groom.
We used to have a tradition at the reception: When the groom leaves the room, the men can run up to kiss the bride (on the cheek, obviously), and vice versa when the bride leaves the room.
A novel twist was added when a (somewhat neutral-coloured) lipstick was discreetly passed around to the men before an option to kiss the bride appeared. The groom left, the men stormed the bride, kissed, sat down again - and when the groom re-entered the room, his bride was sitting there looking all chaste and innocent, not knowing that her face had lipstick marks all over it (No, she had not spent a fortune on a professional make-up.)
Hell, in my family it’s tradition to have a tacky gift shower before the wedding - we’ve done it three times. The fam gets together and gives the happy couple all sorts of tacky gifts - homemaid pencil holders, rock clocks, a box of shotgun shells, anything in poor taste. Usually united by some sort of theme.
Because you know you’re gonna get them, so’s you get a chance to practice being all gracious.
Decades ago, there used to be a bakery in Manhattan, called The Erotic Bakery. Their wares consisted of all sorts of “anatomically correct” cakes, breads, cookies, candies etc.
One of our all-time favorites was to order a pair of gingerbread people (with their girl-bits and boy-bits done in icing) and smuggle them into the newlyweds’ luggage.
Not sure that’s a joke, per se, but I know the recipients found it cute.
Unfortunately one couple wasn’t able to enjoy their cookies - as another “friend” took the opportunity to upend a bottle of cologne in their luggage, ruining everything inside :mad:
My wife’s family has a… um… tradition… of pulling jokes on newlywed couples. In the past, they have done the following:
[ul]
[li]Filled the room where the couple was staying that night to the ceiling with crumpled up newspaper[/li][li]Filled the glove compartment of the groom’s car with rice, so when he went to get the map that was in there, the rice would spill all over the car[/li][li]They somehow managed to get a huge rock (which was about 4 feet high and 4 feet around) into the couple’s 2nd story apartment. They had managed to somehow get it behind the only door to the apartment, so that they really had to push hard to open the door. They couldn’t remove it and just put it in the closet. When they moved out, the rock was still there.[/li][/ul] But the ultimate joke that they pulled was on Mrs. D and I.
I must preface this by saying that in the year engagement that we had, her family would always tell me these stories and I would always respond that there was NO way that they would ever sabotage my wedding night. Of course by saying this and carrying on about it just made her family more resolved to do something. Since I was making arrangments for a hotel room for my new bride and I to stay in, I made sure to tell ABSOLUTELY NOONE where we were staying. So the day of our wedding came and everyone was asking me where we were staying that night. I, of course, revealed nothing that would even hint at where we were to be staying. There was no way we were going to get a joke pulled on us, that was for darn sure. The wedding went great, as did the reception. Our first night together at the hotel room was one of uninterupted bliss. I had done it. I got thru my wedding night without getting pranked. I had suceeded! I was the victor. The next day we left for two weeks on our honeymoon vacation.
Two weeks later, we arrived back at our apartment. Sherry went to check the answering machine and I started unloading the car. The first message on the machine was from a friend saying, “You got a puppy? You never told me you were getting a puppy. Call me and tell me all about him.” We thought it was very strange as we had no intentions of getting a puppy.
I had brought in the rest of the bags and went to use the bathroon. As I stood there and opened up the toilet seat lid, I saw a funny looking glare coming from the center of the toilet bowl. “Hmmm… that’s funny… it kind of looks like saran wrap there…OMG!” (Fortunately I hadn’t let any urine fly yet… thank OG!) I immediately shouted to Mrs. D., “We’ve been sabotaged!” She came in and saw what had been done to the toilet and just couldn’t believe that anyone had been there while we were away. The clincher for her was when I suggested she review our answering machine message. Sure enough, it had been changed to, “You have reached the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Dragwyr. We are not able to answer the phone since we are out looking for a new puppy.”
It was then that we started noticing other things had been done to our apartment:
[ul]
[li]Sleigh bells were tied to the bottom of our bed (So that they would jingle when we would… you know )[/li][li]Various canned goods were moved from our cupboards into our freezer.[/li][li]Various small knick-knacks we had on the shelves were now found in various strange places around the apartment[/li][li]A rock the size of 2 softballs was found under my pillow[/li][li]Wood shavings were found in many different articles of clothing, including every pair of shoes we owned. (We were still finding wood shavings in things 6 months later)[/li][/ul]Yes, we had been sabotaged, and for about 4 years we had no idea how her family managed to get into the apartment. We weren’t even sure who all was involved for awhile, but we strongly suspect Mrs. D’s grandfather as the mastermind behind it because when we would mention it to him, he would just get this sh*t-eating grin on his face and then say, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
We fixed a couple’s car pretty good once. They were taking a long car trip for a honeymoon. Of course we did the usual vaseline on the door handles, shoes and tin cans tied to the back, and all that. But the coup de grace was opening a can of sardines and placing the open can on a recessed part of the air intake manifold. My friends didn’t find it for three days, but said they had been noticing a funny smell all along. Eventually it got overpowering…
I helped blow up balloons… enough to fill a motel room. We even blew them up through the door opening to be sure the room was solid
We put rice in my cousin’s dishes, the pockets of every piece of clothing, inside folded towels & sheets under furniture cushions, and in every drawer in the house. I think we used close to 40 lbs of rice.
We also filled the bath tub, bathroom sink and kitchen sink each half full with Jello™ We put red food coloring in the toilet tank too, but I thought that was a little lame.
A friend who skydives attached a parachute to the back of his newlywed sister’s car. Unfortunately, it looks like just a bundle of rags by the time they discovered it.
At my aunt’s wedding shower for her second marriage. I got here a lovely nightgown , tucking 2 dozen condoms in the folds. She, of course, pulled it out of thbox for everyone to see. The flying condoms were impressive.
She was in her 40’s, as were many of the guests, male and female. It wasn’t a hit.
My three girlfriends did that to me at my shower several weeks ago - cracked me the hell up. I open this gift from them and find the most ugly, hideous cake topper of a bride and a groom that I have ever seen. I opened it and looked at it, then put a huge smile on my face and said “Oh, this is so nice, thank you!”. Within seconds, they started cracking up and explained the joke to me. Thank God. It’s pretty bad, but we’re going to put it on our cake table as a joke.
The only thing I really remember is my cousin’s husband’s friends tying condoms to various parts of their wedding attire while they were having pictures taken in the church. It was actually quite funny, and we were very impressed that they were able to do it without the B&G noticing that they were there.
(My dad’s family also sticks groucho glasses on at every rehearsal…it started at the above wedding, continued at my brother’s last year, and I’m sure it will continue at ours in two months…).
(No, she had not spent a fortune on a professional make-up.)