A wedding is supposed to be the most blissful and magical day of your life. But it can also be a bloated, complicated affair. You're always counting on a great many things to go smoothly in order to pull it off without a hitch (or with a hitch, as it were). There are tons of people to seat, food to prepare, decorations, and so much more. If even one seemingly innocuous detail goes awry, what should have been a perfect day can turn into a nightmare pretty quick.
The following stories were recently shared by internet users who came for the wedding but ended up staying for the train wreck. These are the best disaster wedding stories from around the world.
45. Stealing The Spotlight
The bride's mom wore what was basically a wedding dress and insisted on walking her daughter up the aisle with her father (they were divorced). There was not enough room for all three people to walk comfortably.
44. Two Mistakes Made
The hotel brought the wrong main meal during the reception, and rather than just shrug it off and get compensation later, the bride insisted they cook the whole thing from scratch. For 100 people.
This essentially brings the reception to an end as now all the guests have to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get dinner, pushing back the speeches to the end of the night. The evening guests waited in the bar all night, then went home without ever seeing the happy couple. There was no time for dancing.
World Tourism Organization/Flickr
43. One-Man Wrecking Crew
Our good friends were getting married and the whole college crew was there. Open bar and my friend Lewis has a few drinks and can't control the volume of his voice. Her parents were introducing the new bride and groom to everyone for their first dance when and all you could hear was, "OH SCREW YOUUUU!!!" from the back. Lewis was talking to someone else but the entire wedding fell completely silent. After that, he caught the garter belt and ran around with it on his head screaming at the top of his lungs.
42. Third Night's The Harm
This was my good friend's wedding, back in 2006. He's Pakistani, so their wedding was three nights of celebrations in a row. This was the third night.
The bride's sister was a bit of an attention seeker, so she was making every moment about herself. This was at the height of the third night and the dance floor was getting crowded with both families dancing it out. My brother and I were chilling at a table near the dance floor and saw that the bride's sister was getting mad at her friend for bumping into her while she was dancing, so she starts to push her. That girl then pushes other girls and all of a sudden, there is an all-out brawl.
The groom's uncle sees this and is trying to separate the girls from fighting, which ticks off the bride's brothers and uncles, because why is he touching their women, etc. Muslim weddings are complicated, so they start grabbing butter knives and get into the mix. So the third night both sides got in an all-out brawl and both the groom and bride are in tears.
The groom's cousin, a good friend of mine, and a big guy and my brother and I just rush to the middle of the dance floor and separate the two groups, but the damage was done.
41. The Sick And The Dead
Bride had the flu and was clearly struggling during the ceremony, sniffing, blowing her nose, drinking water and barely being able to speak (sore throat) to say her vows. Her brother was taking photos, and as he passed behind her, didn't look where he was going, tripped on the veil, and crashed to the ground, ripping it clear off her head. Afterwards, went to release butterflies that had been in a box, but they were either asleep or dead... So they shook the box to motivate them to fly, and they just plummeted.
40. I Now Pronounce You... Who Are You?
The priest during the ceremony kept calling the bride "Elizabeth" despite her name being Kristin. The bride and the maid of honor tried to correct him but he was so old and hard of hearing that he just kept continuing to call her the wrong name.
39. Singing, Versing, And Whipping
I went to a wedding last summer that was awful in so many little, perfect ways. The wedding had three pastors that gave three different sermons, and we spent about 20 straight minutes praying. One of the pastors said, "Let this be clear to everyone - this man is not the bride's Plan B." One of the pastors said, "I have seen your abundant children in prophecy and vision." The last pastor hated the other two pastors and said, "Well I guess I have nothing to say then. I'm not a prophet."
The groom gave his wife's daughter marriage vows. Not cute I'm-your-new-dad vows. Marriage vows. The bride sang her vows. The groom sang two songs by Justin Timberlake. The bride's father sang "I Could Never Really Sing." Before we ate we had to highlight our favorite Bible verse and read it to the couple. During the reception, a groomsman took over the DJ's booth and forced everyone to learn the entire "Watch Me Whip/Nae Nae" dance.
38. One Wedding, Many Incidents
The bride vomited and urinated on her wedding dress due to partying too much. The groom threw a glass through a window because he was mad that other guests were fighting. And an engaged couple broke up, with the lady taking her ring off and throwing it at her now ex-fiance.
This was all at one wedding. The cops came and shut the whole thing down by 10:30.
37. Wedding And A Funeral
The bride's father dropped dead during the ceremony. That was pretty horrible.
The dad was overweight, but otherwise healthy. He had a freak heart attack on the spot and dropped dead at 57. People at first thought it was a joke, but quickly realized it wasn't. The bride was (understandably) inconsolable and the groom was shocked but did his best trying to comfort her.
They followed the ambulance to the hospital and everyone just kind of stood there in the church for a while. The bride, as good a person as she is, had her maid of honor encourage everyone to go to the reception hall regardless since it would have been a sunk cost anyway and felt bad for her guests.
36. A Fishy Sign
My cousin's wedding was in the middle of August in the sweltering heat. In the middle of the woods. Mosquitoes as far as the eye can see. Most people didn't have a place to sit and those that did had a nice splinter-filled wooden table -- the kind you'd set up for camping.
Their toddler was screaming throughout the entire "ceremony." She (the bride, not the toddler) was nine months pregnant, and cursing the entire time how hot it was . She smacked her dad as they walked down the aisle because he stepped on her toe.
My brother's job was to walk up two goldfish to put into fish bowls as a "sign of partnership" or whatever the heck it meant. Except one of the fish was dead. So he dropped in one live fish and one dead fish.
35. Snowed-Out Wedding
I supposed any wedding where the bride and groom successfully get married can't be considered a COMPLETE disaster, but this one came pretty close. A couple friends of mine had already been JOP (Justice of the Peace) married but wanted to have a nice reception with all the trimmings. I started to have a bad feeling about it when the bride insisted that this January wedding in Virginia should take place outside under canopies.
Well, the date came around and we wound up getting a huge storm -- Snowpocalypse or Snowmageddon, I can't remember what it was called. One of the outdoor tents collapsed in the snow and the other had to be taken down as it started to blow away. The wedding and reception were instead held inside the house whose yard they were originally intending to use, which was the groom's hoarder aunt's house.
So the bride in her beautiful gown was photographed standing in front of a stack of boxes filled with trash. Those are her wedding pictures.
34. Disaster Photographer
One of my cousins thinks he's a wedding photographer because he has a nice camera. We have to ask him not to take photos multiple times before any wedding and then he'll still bring it and take pictures during the ceremony.
At one of my friends' wedding, they had a seat reserved for the bride's dead mother with a framed photo of her resting on the back of the chair. My cousin sits down on that reserved chair in the front row, and loudly scrapes it on the floor as he tries to scoot to another angle and drops the frame on the ground and it shatters. He then gets up and stands in front of the bride's family's side, blocking 10 people's view and continues to snap pictures. The groom's mom finally got up and escorted him out of the hall and the ceremony resumed when she came back.
33. Not A Good Symbol
The ceremony itself wasn't that bad. It didn't last too long, but then it ended, and the minister said:
"And now, I ask each of you to reach under your chairs for the small, white envelope you will find there. Each one contains a live Monarch butterfly. We will release them into the air and let them soar free, as a symbol of the love these two have for each other."
Everyone. Froze. Whoever had set up the area had put the envelopes on, not under, the chairs. White envelopes. Little white envelopes, on snow-white chair seats. Open-mouthed with horror, all the guests reached down and found the envelopes. We opened them. Most were dead, squashed into bloody smears. But a good amount were just horribly maimed, these poor butterflies that had been sat on for the better part of 45 minutes. We watched in shock as these broken, mangled butterflies, missing a wing or legs or a tail, flopped onto the ground and twitched out their death agonies.
32. Not Just A Shower
My second cousin got married in Vermont in the springtime and the weather report called for "chance of showers." As a result, they rented a huge, circus-sized tent to put up covering the entire meadow they were going to have the reception in. The meadow was also next to a pond, which will come into play a little later.
During the ceremony at the church, it started to rain outside. Just a drizzle, no big deal. The bride and groom hopped onto the backs of their motorcycle escorts' Harleys and rode off to the reception venue. About a minute after they started off, the light drizzle turned into full-on tropical storm winds with sleet and hail. They did not turn back but rode through the storm to the venue.
When the rest of us arrived, we found quite a scene. The tent had come off of its moorings. The groom and groomsmen all had their shirts off and were wrestling the tent back into place. The bride was completely soaked through her white dress and was covered in all of the groomsmen's jackets while she waited for her change of clothes to arrive. The wind was blowing so much that the pond had two-foot waves crashing over its edge and splashing one of the tables near the bridesmaids.
The rest of the guests and I all ran up to help with the tent, and just as we were getting it back in place, the wind gusted in the opposite direction and literally blew one of the bridesmaids into the pond.
31. Traps And Headshots
I was a groomsman at a wedding where the chapel was in the middle of a golf course. To get to the chapel, you have to take an elevator down from the clubhouse.
So wedding time rolls around and all the groomsmen had spent the day partying at the clubhouse. We take the elevator down and it gets stuck between floors. Ten groomsmen and a groom are now stuck in a standard-sized elevator. We call for help and the person answering tells us the mechanic has gone home so it will be some time. One of the groomsmen is claustrophobic and does not handle this news well.
After about an hour of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a controlled panic, we all really, really have to pee. Finally, the mechanic comes and does his magic and we get to the floor of the golf course. We sprint across the golf course to get to the bathroom. We're about an hour late at this point.
As we're sprinting across, the groom gets struck in the head by an errant golf ball, screams, and plops to the ground. He's laying on the ground dazed with a bloody head. We call his dad, who comes running over from the chapel.
Around this time the golfer who hit the ball drives over in his cart. He says, "You okay?" And drives off leaving 11 dudes tipsy and one we will later find out has a "cranial hemorrhage." Dad runs over, not acknowledging us and helps his son walk to his car and drives him to the emergency room.
30. Not Very Churchlike
Several years back there was a wedding at our small church for a couple who were not members, but who just wanted a church wedding. The run up and ceremony went fine. Then it was time for photos in the church.
The groom started to argue with the brother of bride. The bride defended her brother. Very heated exchange. Bride threw the ring on ground and said she did not want to be married. The Pastor reminded her it was a done deal and asked the wedding party and family to take their argument outside. A brawl ensued in parking lot with cars peeling out in every direction.
29. A Planned Disaster Of Scottish Proportions
The worst wedding that I had to attend was with this family who were very proud of their (barely) Scottish ancestry. It hurt watching ton of people poorly attempt Scottish dancing and pretending to like it, eating haggis, and believing they were hilarious for flashing their pasty genitals from underneath their rented kilts. It was like a racist stereotype gathering with a worrying legally-binding aspect to it for the poor bride. She had to cut the cake with a giant broadsword that she could barely lift!
28. Flaming Hot Mess
Outdoor wedding, in June, in Texas... It rained all day up until about 20 minutes before the ceremony. 100 degrees and humid as heck. The poor bride and her entire party looked wilted in smeared makeup, and the guests were complaining about the heat. She still looked beautiful even if she was wilted.
Groom's trashy 500-pound sister who showed up in jean shorts, flip-flops, and a Budweiser t-shirt caused a scene by screaming at the bride and throwing red liquid on her when the bride told her she couldn't sit at the table reserved for the bridal party because she wasn't a part of the bridal party. The sister screamed slurs at the bride in front of everyone and told her to go screw herself.
During the sparkler send-off, the bride's dress caught fire because an inattentive guest hit her with the end of their sparkler.
27. Poor, Poor Doves
I went to a wedding last year that was a literal blood bath.
They had it in a barn. The barn door was open through most of the pre-reception setup and into the ceremony itself. At the end of the ceremony, they released a dozen doves... They didn't realize that if you're going to release doves, don't release them anyplace near open ceiling fans.
Half of them flew back in, hit the metal fans, and exploded. Blood was everywhere.
The bride was sobbing, while the groom yelled at the dove guy. It was chaos.
26. Disaster And Miracle
Bride and groom have been together for a long time, and have been trying to have children for years with no luck. They get engaged and begin planning this massive wedding when they find out that she is finally pregnant!
The day of the wedding comes when the bride is about seven months along in her pregnancy. Everyone is having a blast at the reception and then they realize that none of them has seen the bride or groom for a while. They go looking for them, with no luck.
A few minutes later the groom comes out, carrying his new bride in her completely blood-soaked wedding gown. He carries her out to a waiting ambulance that he had apparently called from the bathroom he had been in with her.
The bride gives birth to a baby that is very premature, but alive. The bride suffers a massive amount of blood loss, and is unconscious. The baby is taken to a nearby hospital that is apparently better-equipped for preemies. The mother is taken to a different hospital, which apparently is pretty far away.
The groom spends his wedding day going back and forth between the two hospitals. When the bride wakes up, she insists on going to the other hospital to see her baby. The first pictures of them as a family are of them looking down at their teeny baby, with the bride still wearing her tiara.
25. Improper Etiquette
Military guy and non-military girl getting married. Guy invites all his buddies from the service. The commanding officer was there, lots of dress uniforms in the house. Time to cut the cake and do the part where you smash cake into each other's face. The bride takes the piece and rakes the cake over the groom's chest, smearing all his ribbons. Couldn't believe what happened. Most of the dress military folks just left. The bride thought it was hilarious. The guy was embarrassed as heck. That marriage didn't last.
24. Wedding All Rapped Up
My wife was the officiant at this wedding.
Gorgeous bride, dressed in a somewhat revealing bridal gown. Ridiculous sorry Eminem wannabe groom, dressed in baggy jeans, T-shirt, a trucker hat with a flat bill. She was very obviously marrying beneath her.
He was hammered when we showed up. He says, "Let's do this," like Rocky Balboa. My wife started the ceremony in the apartment backyard. Groom says, "I'll pay you $100 to shut the heck up," to my wife. He pulls out vows he wrote himself. Starts rapping his vows. Badly. Starts crap-talking the uncle standing nearby. In rap form.
This pain goes on for a good two minutes while both sides of the family look like they want to crawl under the lawn to escape. The bride stands there, frozen in horror. It seems no one was expecting this free-form verse. My wife skips whole sections of the ceremony, declares them husband and wife, we get the paperwork signed (by the uncle who got the smack talk) and we get out of there.
We've officiated many bad weddings, but that one was just slimy.
23. Joker To The End
At my uncle's wedding, the bride's father gave his speech, then sat down and had a heart attack and died. Not much partying happened after that.
It was a good speech and he actually joked about how his doctor had told him to avoid stressful situations/public speaking because of his heart. When he collapsed I thought it was a joke.
22. Hospitals And Fires
I volunteered at a hospital and they rented out the hall for a wedding. I was in the kitchen that day as they needed people to carry heavy things. The bride was very eccentric and was being a bit of a bridezilla. She wanted over 200 candles on the front table. We approved 50.
Anyway, she got her way and has what looks to be a bonfire in the middle of the room with that many candles on such a small table. The groom took his spot and she came walking in. She clipped the table sending hot wax and fire to the floor. We tried to play it off by quickly throwing a rug over it, but it burned through and we had to make a scene with a fire extinguisher.
She keeps walking and on the altar, someone points out her dress is smoldering. The groom pats it out and says something along the lines of, "Told you you're smoking hot." I laughed as well as did other people. She did not. The ceremony was canceled and pushed to another day at another venue and she attempted to not pay the hospital for the wasted food and staff. She also blamed us for the fire.
21. Sisterly Spat
It was the reception, where immediately after the speeches and just before the couple cut the cake, the bride's younger sister was called out by her boyfriend (of about six months from what I gather) who then proposed to her in front of everyone.
Now, bad as that was, it wasn't the highlight. That would be the bride pulling her sister aside to have a few heated words, which then became a heated argument, which then turned into a full-blown fistfight between the pair of them. One of the venue staff must have called the police, because that night ended with the bride absolutely covered in blood (her sister had got in a really good shot) and her sister with two knocked out front teeth being arrested for assault.
20. Midnight Fashion Disasters
My friend married this super weird girl. She wanted her wedding at midnight, except they didn't plan very well. The ceremony was only 10 minutes so they had to stall and wait until midnight until she would actually kiss him. They made different people awkwardly come up and say something about them. She also had her bridesmaids wear goth corsets instead of dresses. The men all wore fedoras.
19. Interminable Spaces
Friends of a friend of my wife. The bride walked down the aisle to a boombox playing "Bittersweet Symphony." The ceremony lasted two hours and involved an extremely awkward "mixing sand" portion that took 30 minutes. This was followed by candle lighting that lasted 20 minutes. It was unbearably long and boring.
Then the entire thing was shifted to a banquet hall at a local hotel/convention center for the reception. The room was huge and they only had about 100 people in attendance, so we filled maybe a sixth of the space. There was a DJ in the corner who was blasting music trying to fill the space, but the unfortunate consequence was that it was so loud that it was uncomfortable to be on the dance floor near him. Also, there was no official dance floor, it was just the tile of the convention center. There was a cash bar that had a very limited selection.
And as a final middle finger to all attending, they only paid for the room or banquet hall for two hours, meaning the reception lasted equally as long as the ceremony.
18. A Thunderous Signal
Elaborate outdoor ceremony; they had tents set up and a string quartet playing. Just as the bride and groom reach the altar, dark clouds start rolling in with distant booms of thunder.
We were in huge tents, about 200 people, so we felt safe. Then as they were about to take their vows it started hailing golfball-sized hail. For the most part, they bounced off the tents, but the downpour was so heavy and the winds so strong that you couldn't hear a word they said.
The lawn turned into a slippery mud pit, the dance floor was floating away. As they got to the "I do" part, lightning hit nearby and everyone's ears were ringing. Part of the tent collapsed and everyone ran for the main house or their vehicles.
They finished up the vows in the main hallway, and the marriage lasted six months. I think someone was trying to tell them something and they wouldn't listen.
17. Religion Absent Romance
Jehovah's Witness pot luck wedding between two barely-18-year-olds in the basement rec room of a trailer park. Such ambiance. Such food poisoning.
JWs punish people for premarital sex, so the couple was marrying to bone even though their relationship was already so toxic that they weren't talking to one another on their wedding day.
The bride and groom both piled on weight during their engagement, and both had unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions (seams ripping, body parts spilling) during the ceremony as a result.
The bride complained incessantly, jealous of all the guests she thought were upstaging her. Which was most of them. The audacity to show up in clothes that fit!
JWs also practice "headship" marriages, where the wife is to be submissive to her husband. The teenage groom was caught in the kitchen of the rec center screaming at his new mother-in-law that he was the MAN now and IN CHARGE and "you women will do what I say or else."
16. Fear And Weeping
This occurred at an Indian wedding that I attended. There is some tradition where the groom and groomsmen arrive at the venue on a horse or elephant, kind of like a parade. The animal is heavily decorated, and the groomsmen are dancing and playing drums and escorting the groom to the ceremony. Nobody had any idea that the groom was terrified of animals.
The horse arrives and the groom is cowering. He doesn't want to get near the horse, much less get in the saddle. The groomsmen are encouraging him to just sit on it for 30 seconds so they can ride in, but the groom just starts bawling. Like fetal position crying his eyes out in sheer terror.
They decide to forgo the horse and the entire parade walks on foot to the venue. Needless to say, the groom's face is still puffy and wet from crying, and everyone proceeded to call him a wimp until the actual ceremony started.
15. Proper Theme Music
Former wedding DJ here. I have plenty of cringe-worthy stories, but the craziest one involved a fight with the sister of the bride's boyfriend whooping the holy heck out of the father of the bride. They stepped into a little room to discuss something and then a minute later they came exploding out with the boyfriend wailing on the father. The boyfriend managed to get the father's tux shirt pulled up and over his head and was punching him through the shirt.
Meanwhile, I am looking for an appropriate song. "Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting" seemed to be the best song but I could not find it in time so I went with the Rocky theme instead. Only a couple people said that was in bad taste.
Party kinda broke up after that.
14. Water And Horses And Spiders, Oh My!
Wedding was at Churchhill Downs In Louisville. The water system came on to water the grass, horse trainers were screaming at their people/horses. Oh and there were spiders climbing up the table cloths. A ton of spiders. They were only about the size of a nickel so maybe they were babies, but still.
13. Falling Down The Aisle
Halfway down the aisle the bridesmaid who was holding the bride's dress slipped and fell onto it, ripping the dress and causing both the bride and her father to fall over. The father was a fragile old man and really hurt himself and had to be taken to the hospital before the ceremony could take place. He broke his ankle or something, so was put in a hospital bed until they could take him for x-rays.
They got married at the hospital, next to the dad's bed. It was a friend that was marrying them anyway so he was more than happy to go to the hospital for them so dad wouldn't miss it.
Most of the guests were mad because they didn't get to see the actual ceremony despite having to get up early for it. Some left after hearing they had been wed without the whole audience. Others stayed for the food then left.
12. Mistakes Upon Mistakes
First off, it was a failed Pinterest wedding. It looked like they tried to cram everything the bride liked online into one small venue.
The minister who performed the wedding was completely out of his mind. He was cracking inappropriate wedding night jokes in front of everyone. He noticed the father of the bride was sweating while he was standing up there with his daughter, and the minister wiped the father's head with the same handkerchief he had been blowing his nose in. The maid of honor forgot the groom's ring and had to not-so-subtly run out during the ceremony to get it. As the wedding party was walking out leaving the church, one of the groomsmen caught his foot on the white runner, and the minister followed him and proceeded to ball up the runner explaining loudly to everyone that it was a tripping hazard.
I later found out that she had gotten into a huge fight with the groom the morning of the wedding and the rest of the day the maid of honor was trying to talk the bride out of marrying the groom.
When the happily married couple went to leave, the groom jumped into the bride's vintage '77 Mustang as the getaway car and stalled the engine three times before leaving the church.
11. Too Much Cultural Exploration
The bride and groom were married by a pastor, a rabbi, and by someone having to do something with non-Christian and non-Muslim African religions. Neither the groom or bride (or their families) were of African or Jewish origin. This caused the ceremony to run an additional hour longer than scheduled.
Part of the wedding vows involved the groom likening his love to the bloom of a rose and he gifted her with one while making his vows. After finally kissing the bride, she casually tossed the rose over her shoulder. Odd.
At the reception (held at a nearby place) the bride insisted that no one could eat until several different cultural wedding dances were performed by guests (not the wedding party). This didn't really work well, as no one got the memo and easily 95% of the guests had no idea what the dances were supposed to be.
So we finally eat an ice-cold reception dinner at about 10 pm and they cut the cake at midnight.
10. Love Is A Sin, Apparently
I went to a Romanian/Moldovan wedding that had strict religious and conservative rules. No adult beverages, no dancing, and mostly Christian songs instead of love songs.
Towards the end, the groom grabbed a mic and started to sing a planned song he had for his bride. The beat was pretty techno/electronic, but the lyrics were a love song. His dad, who was the most regressive of them all, got up, grabbed the mic, and begin yelling at his son that he was a sinner. He totally lost it and pushed all the speakers to the ground and threw some of the equipment across the room.
The groom's brothers then proceeded to grab their father and throw him outside. It was the single most awkward moment I've witnessed in my life. Bride busted out in tears and the wedding was ruined.
9. No Shows And Late Shows
Recently, one of my childhood friends got married to the woman of his dreams and they had an outside wedding and reception at a beautiful resort. But throughout the day, things were not going as planned to say the least.
First and foremost, the Maid of Honor bailed and decided not to come to the wedding, which forced the bridesmaids to do some shuffling and a last-minute audition to find one of the guests attending to walk with the groomsmen. Secondly, out of everyone that RSVP'd, only a quarter of them actually showed up. The DJ that was hired showed up halfway through the wedding, just shambling down the aisle with all his equipment mid-vows. The cherry on top would have to be the freak thunderstorm that showed up right as the wedding started.
8. Like Dying Slowly
The worst one I went to was a coworker's, last summer. I work in marketing and she convinced me to be her amateur videographer.
In the bridal suite, all the ladies are getting ready. The bride has a stony face the whole time, slamming back drinks. She insists on getting ready without help, then just sits in front of a clock for the final 45 minutes before the ceremony. She stares at it. "Now I know what death row prisoners feel like," she says. I ask her if she really wants to get married. It's okay to call it off if you really feel like you're going to die, I tell her. Bride: "If I don't get married now, it'll never happen. And I don't want to be a 'Miss' on my tombstone."
I head to the groom's suite to film the bowties being tied. The groom is lying face down on the ground in his flannel pyjamas. The ceremony is in 20 minutes. "I'm not wearing a tux," he mumbles into the floor. Groom's father shows up. "Boy, if you don't put on this tux, your bride is going to leave you." Groom: "Who cares."
All guests are in the hall... 400 people. Groom still not dressed. Bride won't leave her suite. Officiant getting ready to announce that it's called off. Finally, the bride comes downstairs and tells the groom to get dressed. He does but refuses the bowtie.
We finally got them into the hall for the ceremony. But that was a disaster too.
The officiant says, "I've known this couple ever since they first came to me for Christian counseling when Groom cheated on Bride with her sister..." Big gasp from the crowd; no one knew this.
7. Broken Piñata, Broken Groom
Recently, my brother attended a wedding where there was a piñata set up at the reception. Well, one of the kids swung at the piñata with the large broomstick-type tool. It shattered and hit the groom right in the eye. Blood was everywhere, ambulances were called, and the groom ended up with permanent vision trouble in one eye.
6. Pastor Improper
A friend got married and we knew we were in for a show when the priest welcomed everyone and said we were there to celebrate the union of "[her husband] and... what's her face."
Yes, he really called her what's her face.
We became aware this man had to be tipsy when he went into a long diatribe about how in a Christian household you had a marriage BED, not a marriage couch or table, and so to KEEP IT TO THE BED. And then he said that they shouldn't let anyone interfere in their marriage bed, especially not her uncle.
In an attempt to control my laughter I sat there and shook for pretty much the whole ceremony.
Wally & Amizadai Tham-Lee/Flickr
5. Perfect Pride Parade Timing
My father, grandmother, and I attended a Catholic wedding down in Louisiana a number of years ago. The church was in the middle of the town and due to the summer heat, all of the doors and windows of the church were wide open. During the middle of the vows, a gay pride parade streamed through the streets chanting, "We're here, and we're queer, and we're not going home!" This went on for a solid 10 minutes as the wedding planner, the priest, and the parents of the bride scrambled to shut the doors and windows turning the church into a sauna. I've never seen so many offended people in my life.
4. Not The Day For Stones
Ceremony went great; quick, emotional, everyone cried. They used the same venue for both the ceremony and reception, and the bridal party were taking pictures when my boyfriend (who was in the wedding) asked if I could bring him out a drink. As soon as I got out there all the groomsmen were standing around while the bridesmaids and groom were flocked in a circle around the bride. She was sick to the point where she couldn't stand and had to be helped into the reception. This came out of NOWHERE.
So they came in a did their first dance, danced with their parents, served dinner, and made an announcement that they were going to the hospital.
They missed their entire reception. The wedding continued on well into the night (because that's what they wanted) and as we were getting ready to leave we ran into them coming back to the hotel. Turns out it was a kidney stone.
3. Worst Man
I'm a fairly high end wedding photographer in the Connecticut area.
Two years ago, spring wedding, ceremony in a church, fairly large group. Bride and groom are in their late 20s; best man is the groom's uncle in his 40s or 50s. Ceremony starts without a hitch, bride is all done up in an expensive white gown and makeup. The usual, and she looks nervous as all heck. It's a wedding day, right?
Halfway through the ceremony, she starts to sway slightly. They get to the vows and she starts into hers. She's not three words in when she loses her breakfast all over the groom and herself. A commotion stirs of course as the bridal party tries to rush to her aid and she starts sobbing. Of course, I stopped taking photos at this point and started really listening to what was going on.
I figured she was sobbing about ruining her wedding, but no, through her wailing she admits she didn't puke because she was tipsy or nervous, it was morning sickness. She continues wailing as the groom repeatedly points out they hadn't slept together yet.
As another wave of vomit comes out, the groom asks her whose baby it is and she just gives a long guilty stare at the uncle. The groom turns to the uncle, and without missing a beat socks him in right in the face. Uncle goes down. Chaos ensues.
2. When The Women Leave, Run
I worked at one that was a disaster. It was many years ago when I was a barman in an Irish hotel.
The hotel was struggling, and so took a wedding booking from a well-known criminal family involved in illegal substances and burglary. Their daughter was marrying a member of a similar family from the other side of the country.
These families were very large, so the wedding was huge. The bride asked us not to serve a certain kind of beverage, which was making people pretty angry as they were all in for mixing it with Redbull. Most switched to cider, as we'd an entire shed full of the stuff.
About two hours into the reception, it hit the fan. The first sign something was wrong was that all the women suddenly made a beeline for the door. Thankfully one of the floor managers had seen this before and pulled the waitresses out the moment she saw it.
Once the women were clear of the floor, the men started laying into one another. I saw a bottle fly past and we pulled the shutter down over the bar.
It was the biggest brawl I've ever seen, easily 50 men picking the heads off one another. Someone drove a car into our emergency exit. Chairs went through windows. The fight spilled out to the rest of the hotel, while the staff were locked behind the bar or in the kitchen.
1. Motherzilla
Bride's overbearing mother kept trying to interject herself into the wedding and turn every aspect up to 11, which kept getting shot down. $3,000 wedding dress? No. String Quartet? No. $10,000 for flowers... heck no.
But the bride got overwhelmed and allowed her mother to handle mailing and addressing the wedding invitations.
What was supposed to happen: Small, intimate venue, maximum of 25 people, everyone was supposed to bring a dish in lieu of a gift with ingredient list since the bride and groom had extensive and mutually exclusive food allergies, and a small cake made by her mom's best friend who was a "retired professional baker" that would be safe for both the bride and groom to eat.
What actually happened: Her mom was a school teacher at the largest high school in town, and invited every single teacher and admin staff at the school. She also invited every single teacher her daughter had in her entire academic career. Oh, and every single one of her friends.
This resulted in 200+ people trying to squeeze into a venue with a max cap of 50. Most of whom the bride didn't know, so her friends and the groom's family got squeezed out onto the lawn (on fortunately a nice day) while hordes of sycophants wandered past congratulating the mother on what a great day it was.
Oh, and those food allergies? Her mom thought they were a bunch of malarkey so she left that part off the invitation.
