Share your funny/sweet/bizarre wedding stories

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I’ve had three weddings and I have to say that I probably enjoyed the last one the best (he’s my favorite husband of the three, that’s why I’m keeping him)

First one was a big ass Catholic wedding, four bridesmaids, four groomsmen lots of guests and I was so stressed out and worried about getting everything “right” that I had no fun at all. I’m sure it was expensive but my parents paid for everything and I was just a kid so I have no idea how much it cost.

Second one was a bit better. Just immediate family, no exceptions, in my living room overlooking the lake we lived on at sunset. We paid for everything. Catered sit down dinner in my living room for 17 people (big family on both sides) cost around $1000. My mom paid for the photographer.

Third time we just went to the Clerk of the Court’s office one day and said “we want to get married”. She said, “do you mean you need a marriage license?” and we said “no, we want to get married today, here, right now” she was a little surprised but led us into a tiny conference room that was slightly weddingized with a fake trellis and some fake flowers. Ceremony took about 10 minutes and we paid the cost of the license. Afterward we went to lunch at a nearby sports bar where we drank our fill of Margaritas. We didn’t tell anyone before hand. Not our kids or our parents. It was our little secret for a couple of days. Now that was fun.

I kept saying that we’d have a party later to celebrate our marriage but that never happened.

I do know another couple who secretly got married like we did and then threw a huge bash for friends and family a couple of weeks later. I thought that was a great idea and the party was really fun.

22

My husband and I were married on July 4, 1980. At the end of the day, after the wedding, the reception, and the family schmoozing, we were exhausted, and we wanted to be left alone and not have to continue entertaining well-wishers. We told everyone that we were taking a honeymoon trip to Hot Springs, Arkansas. In fact, we stayed at home. We unplugged the phone line, opened a bottle of cheap champagne left over from the reception, went out and bought some fireworks, and had our own private celebration of Independence Day.

23

No war stories to tell, my wedding was fairly unremarkable in that respect, but just a wee snippet of advice - you are not obliged to tell everyone and anyone what your specific wedding day plans are. Investigate all your options first and don’t tell anyone what your plans are until you’ve 100% confirmed them and then only if you want to.

A lot of people will ask ‘are you going to do suchandsuch’ and ‘what are you doing for this and that’ but you’re not obliged to tell them. As soon as you say you are considering doing something, people will assume you’ve decided to do it and you’ll find it harder to then go back and do something different.

24

My favorite wedding is my sister’s.
She and her husband planned the ceremony at the local landscape arboretuem, in a wooded clearing. His mother officiated, and hired a harpist. The attendants were given a color, and told to get a dress or suit they liked.
The ceremony was followed by cheesecake, coffecake, champagne, OJ and coffe, in the picnic shelter. Family and friends schlepped out chairs, punchbowls, paper plates, and food out there.
That afternoon, there was an open house at my parents’ house, with the bride and groom happily making tabouli and hummas while chatting with people.
For very little money, some creativity, and help from friends, you can put together a very nice event.

(My SO and I once talked about having an ice cream and chili social in our back yard is we got married. We’ve just never gotten around to exchanging the vows.)

25

Everyone else has covered my advice (have fun, make sure it’s your wedding and not everyone else’s), so I’ll just share my stories.

Mr. m and I are not religious, and we planned a small, outdoor wedding in my hometown. We each had one attendant, and there were about 50 guests. Since we were doing things long-distance, we had to rely on my mom and a few other people quite a bit, which was fine.

Our wedding was in the Black Hills (South Dakota) in September, which can be iffy weather-wise, but we decided to give the outdoor thing a try and hope we didn’t have snow. It was over 100 degrees when we got there. Fortunately, it cooled down to a beautiful 70 by the day of our wedding, and then we had rain and snow the next two days.

The day of our rehearsal, we went to the wedding site–a little chapel in Custer State Park that we were assured was nondemoninational. Apparently by “nondenominational,” they meant they cover both kinds of religion–Catholic and Protestant. There was a big 'ol wooden cross on the rock ledge above the chapel, and another one carved into the rock podium at the front. Easy enough to cover, but still a bit of a shock.

The restaurant where we planned to have our rehearsal dinner screwed up the reservation, so we had to find another place that could seat 20 people.

And then, on the day of the wedding, my maid of honor was over an hour late. We waited for an hour, and then decided we had to go ahead without her. She did show up about half way through the ceremony and was there for photos. She felt terrible about being so late–they had gotten lost and ended up driving in circles trying to find the place.

But none of those things mattered. We had so much fun, it was a beautiful wedding, and even with the mishaps, I wouldn’t change a thing.

26

I guess it would be my niece’s wedding which was covered by Money magazine.

It was just kinda “strange” seeing their finances and all kinds of personal info out there for millions of people to read.

27

We got married here–not far from Nashville. It was wonderful. We rented the whole place out and everyone stayed overnight and had breakfast together the next morning.

http://www.evinsmill.com/

28

Yikes! Their prices are twice what they were 4 years ago. Still, it was gorgeous.

29

How did the magazine get in touch with your neice initially? I always wondered how those articles came about.

30

My SIL claims that she can barely remember the wedding.

The preparations, yes. The joy of being in the hotel room with my brother and realizing it was her HUSBAND, yes.

But the whole time in between?

Like watching a movie. Like watching something that happened to others. She looks at the pictures and thinks “gosh, that girl sure looks pretty!”
So even if you’ve been Mucho In Charge (SIL definitely was), the wedding is simply not what it’s really about.

31

My wedding was on Septemder 4th 2004. Labor Day weekend, and my husband forgot the marrige license. We managed to find someone to come into the clerk’s office on Labor Day weekend, on a Saturday, to get us our license. Whew, I showed up with hair done, and in pjs, becuase I had spent the night at my mother’s (yeah old fashioned we are). Then I locked myself out of my car and had to chase my husband down on Main Street with pjs on and wedding hair to get him to unlock it.

After that, things seemed to go okay, but I was in dire need of a cig, but my mother does not know I smoke. (Yes, I know that I am grown, you just have to know my mother), so I slammed my finger in a door in order to break one of my nails in order to get a trip to walmart for nail glue. Also done in wedding hair and pjs.

As I was getting ready to walk up the stairs to the doors to the aisle, I hyper-ventilated. My sister (and Maid of Honor) yells at me “You can’t do that!” My best friend slapped me, then looked me dead in the eyes and said “Jenn, do not pass out, we don’t have time to redo your hair!” :smiley: Thus, why she is my best bud.

When lighting the unity candle (which I had repeatedly told my mom that I did not want) I blew it out. :rolleyes: I tried to relight it but to no…

I also could not get my husband’s ring on his finger and almost passed out in front of eveyonewhile saying my, luck me, my husband held me up and no one really noticed.
My husband I even ended up leaving the church in different cars!

But the after party was great, and I great smashed, as my nervers were fully shot by then.

All in all it was great though and I wouldn’t do it again, even if I could!
no i wasn’t having second thoughts, I just have really bad stage fright

32

The wedding planner she hired had been contacted by Money magazine about selecting candidate couples for the upcoming article. She asked my niece if they would be amenable to being considered for the article. My niece just happened to be the one they went with, over several candidates.

33

When we decided to get married, we originally planned to have a tiny ceremony in our living room. My husband’s mother flipped out when she heard this and insisted on throwing us some kind of wedding. That turned out to be great. She teaches high school and is the senior sponsor, so she coordinates prom every year. That meant she could just go to her usual napkin engraver, flower arranger, cake baker, ice sculptor, etc. We still had a small wedding, maybe 35 family members and friends.

It was held on the deck in my in-laws’ backyard. We burned a CD of the music we wanted and had a friend of mine run it for us on a little boom box. I wore a $98 dress and a wreath of roses on my head and carried a matching bouquet. My husband wore a suit he already owned. My best friend from college performed the ceremony and we wrote the entire thing ourselves. The ceremony itself was less than five minutes long, which was good because it was soon on a Sunday in July in East Texas. Afterwards we went inside and had champagne and punch and ate finger foods from the buffet my husband’s cousins had put together that morning.

The invitations were made with one of those print-it-yourself kits you can get at Target. They were perfectly fine. Our rings are matching silver rolling rings (3 bands woven together), and it cost about $40 apiece to have them custom-made. I never wanted any diamonds or anything pointy that I was going to spend the rest of my life snagging on things, so this was ideal.

We’ve always been glad we had the nice ceremony, took the photos, and all that, but we didn’t stress out. My MIL was cool about everything and asked our opinion on everything even though she was footing the bill. We were easy to please, having started with zero expectations, so things went smoothly and everyone was happy.

Our honeymoon was an unplanned overnight trip to Austin. We drove there after the reception, found a hotel, and took a horse-drawn carriage ride around downtown. That’s one of my favorite memories of the whole day: riding around the nearly-empty Sunday night streets of my favorite place on Earth with my new husband.

As to whether we had any business getting married if we couldn’t afford to throw ourselves a big party, I think that’s silly. At the time we could do one or the other, but not both. We figured we’d rather spend that money on rent and groceries and car payments instead.

34

My Wife and I chose a local ski lodge to get married at.

Booked it, got everything all set to go. About 130 invitations stamped, and ready to mail.

Then the resort decided to remodel it, and it would not be available. We where not happy. The options given where local restaurants/conference rooms.

It worked out great in the end. We ended up having a real, real fun wedding on top of a ski mountain. Had to ride the gondola to get to it. It was a different time of day, and they did comp us some stuff, but all in all, it worked out great.

The worst that happened was that my Wife MIL and FIL got stuck on the gondola for about 10 minutes. My MIL is a bit afraid of heights. And while it’s not uncommon for the gondola to stop for a bit, sometimes it will stop for hours, or just plain have to shut down.

And whomever blocked my car in in the gravel parking lot (it wasn’t one of our guests) should need to stand in the August Colorado sun for an hour in a black tux.