Weddings you dont realy care for

I went to the wedding of a family member whose husband-to-be was roundly hated by pretty much everyone who ever knew him. To say he’s an ass would be generous. But, she was a family member, and all my other family–we all get along great and I don’t get to see them much–were going to be there, so I wanted to see them.

I’ll never forget how, at the altar after they were pronounced man and wife (and yes, it was man and wife–the groom had insisted upon it), he looked at her with this freezing expression that almost said out loud: I OWN YOU NOW.

I knew she was going to be miserable, and she is, despite the fact that they’re still married 25+ years later and have two kids. Both kids are dysfunctional, their son extremely so, and they have regular screaming/pushing/shoving matches. But she’ll never leave because she wouldn’t know what to do without a man in her life.

If I could’ve gotten out of going and still seen my other family members, I would have. I knew what was coming, and I was right.

Is your real name Nick Burkhardt by any chance?

I went, against my better judgment, to a wedding of a guy I’d been friends with in junior high school, who got married to someone who sorta-stalked me in high school & college.

She was on wedding #3… I think; including #1 to a guy she’d met on a BBS chat in college, flew down to Texas next week sight unseen, moved into his trailer and got married, and then couldn’t figure out why her marriage to the manic-depressive acrophobic misanthrope who spent all his time online didn’t work out. And #2 ended up leaving her with his infant son, but no support.

He on the other hand, had denied fathering a daughter for almost a decade of court fights, and when finally forced to provide support, sued for custody. Oddly, the court thought his rampant alcoholism made that a bad idea, so he quit his job to work at Panera since he’d owe less child support.

So there were abundant reasons I had cut these people out of my life for years and years… but my mom was friends-of-friends with both families, and several of my friends were still kinda-sorta friends with either one of them. So I agreed to attend the reception, with friends, just to see the two families (who were mostly wonderful people, bewildered by the chaos-spawn they’d produced).

We lasted about fifteen minutes. Bride was ignoring both new husband and her poor kid to go around bragging about the house new FiL was buying them. (new FiL was, by the way, dying of cancer and had hoped chaos-spawn was finally on the mend.) Groom was drinking beer after beer, mocking his fat ugly bride, and looked about 8-months pregnant due to the acites from apparent liver failure. I said “hi” to everyone, then bailed.

The marriage didn’t even last the few months that FiL survived. FiL did manage to die before the divorce was finalized – in which bride got sole claim to the new house, leaving groom basically homeless.

My friends and I still shudder at mention of that fiasco. My mom - who didn’t see the trainwreck - thinks it couldn’t have been that bad, and doesn’t understand why I don’t talk to either of them.

I was best man at a wedding that I wasn’t a big supporter of. She was a bat-shit insane druggie, but she put out (to pretty much anyone, it turned out). He was thinking with the wrong head and I told him so, right up to ceremony time. He insisted it was love, and I was there to support him, so I did. The marriage was a fiasco and, though never divorced, after a couple of years they lived completely apart. They had such separate lives that when she died a few years ago he didn’t even find out in time to attend the funeral.

He’s the type of good friend that guys have where we can rag on each other endlessly about anything and everything, but that’s one event that I have never (and won’t ever) said “I told you so!” about.

Except for my own: all of them. I’m just not a wedding-attending type of person.

Wow, you actually saw pictures of him fucking another guy? Or was he just wearing an “I’m gay” t-shirt? That’s the only way it would be “obvious” from a picture that he is gay.

Also…? Did you actually use “FLAMING” as a quasi-insulting adjective? Classy.

A wedding typically includes a party.

If enough people that I know are going that the party would be fun, sure, I’ll sit through the ceremony bit.

Nope. Cremation and done. Whatever anybody else does after that is their business.

None of the above. But believe me when I say it was that obvious.

I was matron of honor in a wedding a few years ago. The bride asked me because she said I was her only “real friend” (she wasn’t originally from around here). What she did not understand is that I had only become friends with her at all because I was friends first with the groom, and he asked me to be friends with her because he traveled a lot and she was in an unfamiliar city/state. I was absolutely sure that the marriage wouldn’t last, and it didn’t. They got divorced last year. I still talk to him. I rarely talk to her. I tried to think positive through the wedding, but it was tough. She was a bit on the needy cray-cray side. Oy.

And believe me when I say it’s the epitome of jerk behavior to insist a man is gay while attending his wedding, and the epitome of ignorance to insist you can “just tell” someone’s sexual orientation from a picture. Doubling down on insisting their later separation after having a kid together (found under a cabbage leaf, I assume) is due to gayness in the face of zero evidence is exceptionally jerkish.

There are some things about you I could probably infer based on way more evidence than you had about this guy but since I’m a polite person who keeps my opinions to myself I’ll just let you go on ahead and be the one to let the world know if I’m right or not.

Lord, I recently attended the opposite of this, where the ceremony was very nice but the reception was gawdy and awful. The worst part was that it was held in a small reception hall and the live band had their amps turned up to stadium volume and never stopped playing, not once during the entire shebang. Even during dinner, we had to shout into the ear of the person next to us in order to be heard.

That was the wedding where the bride’s new mother-in-law wore a tight white lace evening gown with a plunging neckline, more decked out than the bride. The mother-in-law had also planned the reception. Such a tacky scene.

I had no problem turning down going to the Vegas wedding of my sil and her new guy whom she had an affair with.

My 18 year-old nephew married his 16 year-old girlfriend (but they were in LOOOOOOOOVE!!!)

This was a marriage no one was in favor of – not his parents, not her parents, not the minister (I don’t even know how they found a minister to marry them!), not anyone. The guests were making bets on how soon they’d get divorced.

When the best man, the groom’s older brother, stood up at the reception to toast the happy couple, his first words were, “Well, they did it. Just like they said they would.”

IIRC the marriage lasted about nine months.

Was she pregnant?

You are wrong on all counts. I know these people. You probably don’t.

Nope. It was the first wedding in history where the guests actually wished the bride was pregnant. Instead we had to accept the fact that they were two stupid teenagers getting married for no reason at all.

Good thing she wasn’t. If she was, they’d have to deal with a kid for the rest of their lives.

If no adult was in favor of it why did they participate?

Because it was family and they were going to do it whether we showed up or not.

I also suspect some showed up just to see if they’d actually go through with it.