s/o Wedding horror stories. Put 'em here.

[emilyj]

My wedding - my MIL had gotten her panties in a twist at some point earlier in the day. Spent the entire dinner texting (we only had 30 guests so it was totally obvious). After dinner she disappeared - as in, left. Before we cut the cake, before the toast. Didn't respond to any phone calls/texts, so we cut the cake, did the toast, and ended the reception. 2 hours later she showed back up, found everyone gone, and completely flipped her shit.

We had a destination wedding, so this continued into the next day and just got worse and worse.

That shit flipping lasted for the next three months. It was horrible.

[redheadbaker]

May 15, 2012 11:58:12 GMT -5 marie427 said:

Holy shit, RB. I am dying envisioning the drunk groomsman and bridesmaid switching clothes. That sounds epic!!!

I thought I didn't have pictures but I do!

The bridesmaids:


The groomsman in the bridesmaid dress:

[caden]

I love threads like these.

The biggest train wreck I witnessed was my close college friend's wedding. I was a BM. I could write a novel about this wedding, but here's the short version:
-The bride expected all the BMs to come to her OOT wedding 4 days early, but failed to tell everyone except 1 BM this plan. So only the 1 BM showed up and the rest of us were treated like crap the whole weekend. Her revenge included things like not telling me where my wedding day hair appt was (in an unfamiliar city where i knew no one).
-She/Groom failed to tell the groomsmen to come for the rehearsal. None of them showed up.
-I got bitched out at the church during the rehearsal in front of everyone for "not being a team player".
-The week of her wedding, the bride demoted her MoH to a regular BM b/c another BM had "gone above and beyond and deserved it." The former MoH had thrown her a shower and everything.
-The reception was at the church so the guests stayed there after the ceremony while the bridal party took pics. They served alcohol, but no food. Her guests consisted of a bunch of college friends. The end result included people drunk off their asses laying on the reception tables singing fraternity songs. BEFORE the reception even started.
-Reception begins and they have run out of alcohol. The father of the bride missed the toasts in order to go to a liquor store for more alcohol.
-Bride/Groom do the dollar dance AND auction off the next "first" dance to the highest bidder. 2 highest bidders actually b/c they did separate auctions for the bride & groom.
-Groom leaves reception to get high and joyride with fraternity brothers.
-The DJ is contracted to stay til 11pm but the bride decides at 11pm the party shouldn't end. So she passes around a baseball hat to the guests asking for contributions to pay the DJ for an extra hour or two.
-A month or two after her wedding I get an "I hate you" letter in the mail describing why I'm the biggest douchey BM in the history of time.
-3 years later bride divorces groom and I get another letter. A "let's put the past behind us" letter.

[JLN]

My wedding was a nightmare.

My hair stylist quit 2 weeks before my wedding day and the salon didn't let me know. I had tested my hairstyle and makeup with her.

My baker made the cake for 20 people, not 40. And she delivered it to the wrong place (because she forgot I changed venues even though I emailed her) and then called and yelled at me.

All the outdoor chairs were set up, then it started to pour. A bunch of people had to move all the chairs inside in the rain.

There were other little things, but those were the majors that still stick out in my head.

[ering1115]

more funny because it turned out okay- my cousin's limo driver locked his keys in the car and a locksmith was going to take too long. they called the local cops and they couldn't open the door. so- bridesmaids drove themselves in their cars and my cousin was driven to her weddin the the backseat of a police cruiser. the pictures of her hopping out of that in her cupcake dress glory are priceless.

i don't trust the anonymity of the internet enough to go into too much detail on my drama. but let's just put it this way.... fil's sisters called me to apologize for mil's behavior leading up to the wedding and mil's mom was so petty she wouldn't accept her corsage from my gmom and refused to wear the friggin orchid i paid for. and the drama hasn't stopped.

[ChillyMcFreeze]

I was the MOH in a wedding recently where the bride missed the reception. All of the BMs stayed in a suite the night before, and the bride started puking at 3 a.m. after binging on fried shit at the rehearsal dinner. By our 8 a.m. wake-up call for hair and makeup, she had enough Immodium in her that she wouldn't poop for days, but the vomit didn't stop. So we got her in hair and makeup, into her dress and through pictures with a lovely wastebasket handy. She made it through the ceremony, got to the reception site and promptly got into bed. It was a completely miserable day. She did manage to do the first dance and father-daughter dance in her rehearsal dress before going back to bed.

I imagine they spent somewhere around $50k for this wedding. Can you imagine missing the entire thing?

[brookles]

At my wedding party, my ex-MIL decided to drunkenly give a speech after my dad had given a sober, heartwarming one. I guess she felt left out? It was a hot mess, full of tidbits like "I don't know Brookles very well but she seems nice enough," and "we didn't get you guys a gift, but you can have our old living room set since we're getting a new one" (which they ended up giving to ex-H's brother anyway). Gee, wonder why that marriage didn't work out?

I am really looking forward to a friend's wedding next month -- it has a lot of promise for hilarity, my friendship with the bride is basically in the shitter and the only reason I haven't backed out as bridesmaid is so that I can keep a commitment. It's at an old family farm, which sounds nice and romantic but turned into what seems like a logistical nightmare. No one can park there so they have to shuttle guests over from the hotel. They had to rent port-a-potties (nice). They're including their dog, who hates other dogs, loud noises and is shy and not interested in new people. They're letting a friend bring a dog, who also hates other dogs. They aren't having cake (!!) and instead just cake pops. Which is the worst thing of all, in my opinion.

[mexicali]

At my wedding my cousin got into a big argument with one of my bridesmaids. She started talking mess to all of my other cousins about how she almost whipped her ass..etc. They told me as this one particular bridesmaid is the quiet, shy and never one to go shoulder to shouler with anyone. They were shocked. When I talked to my friend she had no memory of my cousin or said "big argument". Later I found it my friend was pointing at the kids saying how cute they were for dancing. The cousin took it as her making fun of them. Good thing my friend was to drunk to understand if someone was talking shit to her. The thing is nobody recalls the confrontation at all - only the cousin.

[msmerymac]

Nothing as major as some of the other stories here! I've been lucky. I've heard other wedding horror stories, but all the weddings I've been to have been full meals, open bar... basically if that's there, I can't complain about anything else!

We had a few hiccups, including a very hung over GM (which was really fun, since we did off-site pictures for 2 hours beforehand and actually cut those short because of him). The biggest one was the shuttle, though. We had at least 2/3 out of town guests (we got married in LA, I'm from NY, H is from MA, we have family and friends in lots of other states). We blocked hotel rooms about 2 miles from the ceremony/reception (not at the same place - about 1/4-1/3 mile away from each other, so far enough to need to transport people wearing dresses and heels). the hotel was nice and a little pricey, so we didn't want people to have to pay for rental cars if not needed (there was a lot to walk to/shuttle to/subway to around the hotel, including the RD).

Soooo... I sent the shuttle company the schedule twice for some reason. Apparently the driver didn't bring it with him. With such a short ride, we wanted him to pick people up at the hotel twice. Ceremony was at 5:30. We had it scheduled so that the first shuttle pick-up left at 4:45. The second shuttle pick-up would leave at 5:15, I think. It took less than 10 minutes to get to the ceremony location.

He showed up super early for some reason. He did not have my number, nor my day-of coordinator's number (she had emailed all my other vendors and asked them to contact her day-of). So he had the hotel concierge call me and leave me 2 messages. When I got them, I called my dad and asked him to go meet with the guy. The night before I had given my dad $100 bill and asked if he would tip the driver, since he would be on the shuttle (H and I and the WP had a limo for picture and to take us to the ceremony and reception, then SIL drove H's car to the reception and we drove that back). Strike 1.

MOST of my guests wanted to take the first shuttle. Instead of leaving at 4:45, he waited. My dad said that they should probably get going. He kept waiting. I later had someone say, "yeah, we thought we were on the second shuttle because it took so long to leave." After 5:00, no one was really at the ceremony (we had gotten there around 4:30 - remember, we cut pics short). Finally, the shuttle shows up, after my dad asked him AGAIN to leave the hotel. Strike 2.

The guy never did a test run (of the 2 mile trip) so he missed the entrance with the huge sign/gate and had to flip a U with a 48 person bus. H's friend's 4-year-old said, "WHY ARE WE TURNING IN A CIRCLE?" really loudly. Strike 3.

After he finally showed up, he just stays there rather than going back. My dad told him to go pick up more people. He stayed. At literally 5:25, H comes up and tells me what's up and that my best friend from college and her boyfriend are missing, and still at the hotel. He runs out and tells the driver YOU. NEED. TO. GO. BACK. (My friend flew to LA from NYC for my wedding, BTW.) He told him to go, pick up at least x more people, wait exactly 3 minutes, then come back. Strike 4. (College BFF walked in right as I was starting to walk down the aisle, thankfully.)

At some point during this last event, I called my dad and said, "Hey, you know that money I gave you? Why don't you hold onto it for now." Supposedly my dad thought this was super hilarious and pretty much the best part of the day.

So we started at about 5:45. Good thing no one really WAS there at 5pm.

Oh, and afterward we had family stay behind for pictures, while we sent the wedding party to the reception in the limo, and the rest of the guests either drove or took the shuttle. Then both the shuttle and the limo came back. I put family members on the shuttle when it came back and H and I took the limo up the hill for a few more pictures of just us. Suddenly, as we're taking pictures, the damn shuttle comes creeping out from behind a building in the background. It was just getting comical at this point. BUT it turns out my brother thought he was supposed to follow us for pictures so that one wasn't actually the shuttle driver's fault.

The driver made 3 trips back to the hotel from the reception at various times and as far as I know, those went okay. But he still didn't get a tip.

[basilosaurus]

Oh, you Oregon people will appreciate this.

Another of H's cousins. Outdoor reception, in Oregon. No rain plan. You can imagine what happened. I really don't need to say anything else, but....

picture me with my FIL, from the other side of the (divorced) family who's latched onto me as an ally in enemy territory (his words). H is in the wedding of course, so once again, I'm on my own, except with FIL to accompany me. I love the guy, but if you knew him, you'd know how hysterical this image is, with his wise cracking jokes and wide brimmed hat and bolo tie, in the pouring rain. Did I mention he's also 6'4", a former basketball player? We made quite a sight for sore eyes.

[Deleted]

oh dude! how could I have forgotten the hillbilly wedding from this summer? wtf is wrong with me?

1. cars on blocks in the yard
2. confederate flag on the outhouse
3. i was asked to bring a side dish (we drove 3 hours to get there)
4. my FIL had a loud meltdown, told the groom it was tacky and he wouldn't eat food with flies on it, left within 20 min of arrival
5. old lazy boy recliners pulled in a circle around the "dance floor" (a patch of mowed grass)

[mdgirl]

I'm not a regular but I hope I can play because I've got a good one.

My ILs paid for a lot of the wedding and picked out a lot of the details, including the reception venue. Long story, but we were fine with it and chose our battles over what we really wanted. They didn't care about the cake, which was part of the package at the reception site, so we just went one day, I showed them a picture, we picked flavors and that was that. What I had wanted was things like plums, nectarines, and peaches as the decorations, and the coordinator said she really liked the idea of only using edible decorations. But when I saw the cake for the first time there were a few cherries and mostly flowers. It tasted fine and looked OK, so I didn't worry too much about it.

Cut to us getting our proofs back a few weeks later, and when we got to cake pictures I commented that the cake didn't really end up how I wanted. My MIL said, "When I heard what you had asked for I didn't think it would look good, so I told them to use flowers and smaller fruit."

And THAT is why we live on the opposite coast from my in-laws and became an additional reason we're not having kids.

[basilosaurus]

May 15, 2012 13:27:20 GMT -5 @missusbee said:

oh dude! how could I have forgotten the hillbilly wedding from this summer? wtf is wrong with me?

1. cars on blocks in the yard
2. confederate flag on the outhouse
3. i was asked to bring a side dish (we drove 3 hours to get there)
4. my FIL had a loud meltdown, told the groom it was tacky and he wouldn't eat food with flies on it, left within 20 min of arrival
5. old lazy boy recliners pulled in a circle around the "dance floor" (a patch of mowed grass)

WINNER!!!!

[mexicali]

I forgot about the other horrid story. My friend got married and H and I were both in the wedding. She was not prepared at all. First she called and yelled at us all for not being at her house. We were never told to be at her house and had plans to get hair and make-up done at mine. The wedding was really nice, but the air conditioner broke 15 minutes before the wedding was supposed to start. She was getting married in a glass chapel. fun.

On to the reception. This is where it gets horrible. She had her parents cook and the bridesmaids serve! We were wearing the uglies light green dresses serving things like beans, soup and a mexican saucy meat. Then she needed someone to MC since her brother decided he wasn't going to do it. Her sister, MH, rode up on her high horse and started to boss us around. I swear we were slaves.

After all of that the cake showed up late, she claimed someone stole her H's wallet, with all the dollar dance doe, and couldn't pay for certain things, and they even questioned us as we were leaving. It was a random cousin who came up to the 5 of us leaving in our bridesmaids dresses. She was like "you are leaving without cleaning up, aren't you bridesmaids?". I about riped her a new one before my friend dragged me away.

[MrsLinz]

Cousins Wedding - I was 17 and my sister was 15. We were seated at the children's table. The reception was outside and they had the reception area where everyone was sitting, than a pool, and then the children's tables. We were completely separated from everyone. Couldn't hear the toast or even be able to see the bride and groom because of some bushes. The other "children" were all under the age of 10. I was the same age as my cousin’s wife's sister and there was a half empty table for her and her friends (all my age).

The children decided to start throwing stones into the pool. My sister and I just sat there watching and laughing as the kids kept getting bigger and bigger rocks to throw into the pool. The brides mom (who was a bitch and we referred to her as sarge) came over and ripped me and my sister a new one for not disciplining the kids for throwing rocks. We didn't even know any of the kids. My awesome sister kindly told her that we were invited as guests of my cousins wedding and not baby sitters.

Good times! My cousin is now on his third wife. My other cousin who is autistic always introduces her as his "current wife". It cracks me up!

[ering1115]

ooooooh i forgot another good one.
a friend got married at her parents' house in nj. another friends' dh got waaaaasted, passed out somewhere on the grounds of her parents house. his gf was searching for him for so long she missed the last shuttle to the hotel. the bride and groom had to drive her back on their way to their hotel. yikes!
the bf eventually made it back to the hotel by hitch hiking in 1) a stoners camaero to a wawa and 2) a u-haul with a woman who was breaking into the dog grooming business she "owned" but the bank had locked down for her not paying her bills.
it wasn't drama and the only one who cared was the gf but it made for a great story telling session at the pool party the next day.

[DownToEarth]

My wedding had a horror story...

Long story short. My DH was smoking weed with friends in a cabin late the night before - my prissy sister was worried they would eat all the wedding cupcakes and she took them out of the walk-in cooler and put them in a car, then went to bed (without telling anyone).

My mom went to show the wedding cupcakes (that she'd made) to a family member and they were gone and she flipped. She called our guest and DH total stoners and then accussed a friend of the IL's family of "stealing" the cupcakes.

It was drama galore, which resulted in waking me up and keeping me up all-night before our wedding. I still can't figure out how my sister thought 6 dudes would eat 200 cupcakes and why my mom would assume that friends of my ILs would steal 200 cupcakes before going home for the night?!

[osulori]

Reading these, I'm just thinking "Wow, I've been lucky." The closest thing I've got to a horror story is our GM's now exGF doing the worm on the dance floor at my reception, in a black mini dress. Commando. Surrounded by children.

[DorkFish]

May 15, 2012 14:43:39 GMT -5 osulori said:

Reading these, I'm just thinking "Wow, I've been lucky." The closest thing I've got to a horror story is our GM's now exGF doing the worm on the dance floor at my reception, in a black mini dress. Commando. Surrounded by children.

[chicken]

Not a horror story but amusing:

My SIL (DH's sister) got into a fight with her husband at our reception. She heard on the radio on the way to the ceremony that American Idol tryouts were in town that night, and she wanted to skip the reception to try out since it was the last year she was eligible age-wise. She was completely sober.

Several people reported hearing my MIL giving her sobbing adult daughter a stern talking to in the ladies room.

I didn't really care if she was there but DH was hurt that his sister wanted to bail. Plus her voice sucks, she never would have made it.

[ringstrue]

I was a bridesmaid and another bridesmaid had a TOTAL meltdown at the reception because she wasn't engaged to her then boyfriend (now DH) and pretty much ruined everyone's time with her constant tearful runs to the bathroom.

Oh! She did the same thing at the Bachelorette party.

I ignored her both times.

They have major relationship issues now. Surprise!!!

[dev22]

We were lucky, no drama at our wedding. Thank goodness. The only funny things that happened were:
1. Fire engine pulled onto an access road that ran right behind that gazebo that we were standing in for the ceremony. In the middle of the ceremony. The fireman quickly realized what was going on, so they reversed - which meant the lovely BEEP BEEP BEEP sound. Funny thing is, I remember NONE of this. AT ALL. Everyone kept saying how funny the fire engine was, and I had no idea WTF they were talking about. Guess I was a little focused lol

2. My Aunt decided to totally get drunk and flirt with Dyls two Uncles. She was married. And attended the wedding with my Uncle (my Dad's brother). Despite that, she kept flirting and talking about how adorable Mark's Uncles were. We still make fun of her for that. (Her and my Uncle have never had a good marriage).

I was maid of honor in a wedding last September, and two of the other bridesmaids were my best friends. We preceded to get a little tipsy at the rehersal dinner (not embarrasingly so or anything), but it did cause some LOLZ. One of my friends/bridesmaids decided to give a speech after the grooms Dad did. The sentiment was lovely, except it came out totally wrong. She was saying how glad she was that she found her husband, but said it like "KIm has dated a TON of guys, and we didn't like a lot of those ton of guys she dated. And she had to be with a TON of guys to find Jeff. But we are so glad she did!" In the end, it basicaly made the bride sound like a giant whore. And holy hell, we could.not.stop.laughing. Like that kind of laughter that the more you try to stop, the worse it gets? And you try to be silent then end up gasping for air? Yeah. Bonus? Right after her speech, the grooms grandfather spoke. And I made a HUGE BOOMING laughing noise in the middle of his speech. I thought Dyl was going to get up and leave because he was so embarrassed.

[BlackSmoke]

May 15, 2012 11:55:28 GMT -5 redheadbaker said:

And remember those tall wedding cakes from the '80s that had a fountain between the tiers and plastic staircases extending out to "satellite" cakes (like the one below)?



"

Yeah. That was our cake too. My husband's grandma made it so it was free. It was not what I wanted and it was big enough to feed double our guest list.

Bitch didn't even take any nasty cake with her.

[frauschmindy]

30 minute ceremony that started late, followed by a 5.5 hour cocktail "hour." Nobody knew the cocktail hour was going to be such a delay, and we were expected to stay/wait the whole time. There were two small couches for about 200 guests and one cheese plate. And then we got reamed by my then future MIL for leaving right after dinner, before the first dance but we had already been there for 8 hours!

[bootsie]

-- Maid of "honor" showed up right before I was to walk down the aisle and then walked first and to the wrong song. I didn't know so when I got into view of the guests, there was no groom, groomsmen or chaplain to be seen. My father, who is blind and was very nervous, kept saying in his booming voice things like, "Did he bolt? Where is he?", etc while all the guests just stood there staring at us. Turns out my FIL/Best Man decided to take a piss at the last minute and the people at the front of the chapel could hear DH in the back yelling, "Hey! Pinch it off already! "

- My mother has a very strained relationship with me and my brother. She found out when my brother and his family showed up unexpectedly at the chapel that she had another grandson, age 2. That was right after she pretended to faint and then threatened to walk out when she, a very devout Catholic, found out that our chaplain was Mormon. She is also an alcoholic and had to be placed under guardianship by the state of RI. Since our wedding was in NC, she wasn't allowed to travel alone and had to have a caregiver with her. She was embarrassed by this, so she introduced the woman as her "special friend" not realizing that everyone thought that meant they were a couple. Every time we heard the introduction, DH and I would get the church giggles. She also tried incessantly to be besties with my dad even though they hadn't been in the same room for over 30 years because she was a soulless, lying bitch during their divorce.

-We had a morning wedding followed by a brunch reception. We had rented a beach house for DH's l family and decided to also have a BBQ there for OOT guests in the evening. DH and I spent a huge chunk of our reception writing down directions to the house on napkins even though we had emailed everyone and put a print out of the directions in the welcome baskets. A ton of our reception pictures are of DH and I hunched over, writing. The rest of the pictures are of my maid of honor - posing alone. She knew the photographer and snagged him to go outside and have her own personal photo shoot. I withheld the final (reduced) payment until I got those proofs, which of course they both denied for weeks.

-We made it well known that the BBQ was not another reception and we would probably not make an appearance. We took care of all the food, had a clean up crew, etc. If we didn't go, we would see OOT guests at the brunch we planned for the next day. We went home (it was already late afternoon), got busy, took a nap and woke up to a boat load of voice mails from family and friends. I remember having 23 missed calls. DH called his mother to tell them to suck it and she did the "your family came a long way" guilt trip. Yeah, we know. That's why we spent half our budget on a freaking beach house and bent over backwards to make it more like a vacation for everyone.

[Kattey]

Not really a horror story but at my wedding the pastor got my name wrong - twice.

[PinkSquirrel]

Mine is a rehearsal dinner horror story and while I thought it was fucking hysterical my MIL is still embarrassed about it five years later.

To set things up, there were three tables of people. One was mostly our parents, one was most of the bridal party and the third was my relatives that were doing readings. Now, my relatives are religious and can be a bit uptight. Not all of them, but most. We had also had a bit of a falling out with our ILs and didn't speak to them for 3 years prior to the wedding. We had only started talking again 3 months before the wedding, so we weren't really close at the time and she wasn't close to my parents etc.

So, my Dad stands up and gives a toast congratulating DH and I and welcoming DH into the family blah blah. He sits down and before my FIL/MIL have a chance to say anything DH's grandfather gets up, holds his glass like he's going to say something amazing and then ...

"Gregory, may your penis always stay stiff." He lifts his glass, takes a sip and sits down. It was fucking amazing. The bridal party was in tears laughing. My poor brother was sitting with his best friend at the religious table and struggling to hold in his laughter. My parents thought it was hysterical and my poor ILs wanted to crawl in a hole and die. My MIL didn't even look up to see my parents laughing, she was mortified. She thought everyone would hate her. The next day DH's grandfather was supposed to walk my two grandmothers down the aisle and needless to say they were a bit nervous about him pulling some funny business. We laugh about it on a regular basis. BIL is getting married next weekend and I can't wait to see how he horrifies my MIL this time.

[dev22]

May 15, 2012 18:27:51 GMT -5 PinkSquirrel said:

"Gregory, may your penis always stay stiff." He lifts his glass, takes a sip and sits down. It was fucking amazing. The bridal party was in tears laughing. My poor brother was sitting with his best friend at the religious table and struggling to hold in his laughter. My parents thought it was hysterical and my poor ILs wanted to crawl in a hole and die. My MIL didn't even look up to see my parents laughing, she was mortified. She thought everyone would hate her. The next day DH's grandfather was supposed to walk my two grandmothers down the aisle and needless to say they were a bit nervous about him pulling some funny business. We laugh about it on a regular basis. BIL is getting married next weekend and I can't wait to see how he horrifies my MIL this time.

I love this so much.

[doctorwho]

Our photographers were a married couple. A few months before the wedding, he was doing a side job hanging awnings and fell. He nearly died of massive head trauma. This resulted in a huge personality shift, and by the time our wedding rolled around things had deteriorated. She threw him out (or he left, I was unclear) the night before our wedding. Now this poor woman has to round up another photographer on almost no notice. She did, and not only did he do a great job but he wore the kilt we rented for her husband. It was clear from the photos, however, that she was in no condition to be shooting a wedding.

We have pictures, but we don't have a really good picture of just us. Like, it was hard to find something suitable for ty notes. The pictures of me with my parents have no regard for background. There's a garbage can and the cluttered counter behind a decent picture. I have a tendency to squint on one side, and she never retook any pics where that happened, so I had to copy and flip my right eye and superimpose it over my left. And I had to cut my sisters head off in one picture and put it on another.

[heightsyankee]

My DH's family is very Southern Baptist, so they don't drink or dance. At my wedding, a very non-SB friend of mine was trying to steal a bottle of vodka from one of the bars (it was open bar, so who knows why other than she was a drunk fuck). She thought a hotel employee was coming her way so she turned quickly to the nearest table to "introduce" herself. It was my inlaws, a couple of family members and some family friends. She was so wasted she could barely talk, but that wasn't the bad part. In her attempt to be stealthy at the bar and then move quickly, one side of her dress fell down and she wasn't wearing a bra, so the whole time she was saying "nice to meet you" to my husband's family, her tit was hanging out.

This same friend was so wasted at her own wedding that she puked in a potted plant on the dance floor.