Worst Wedding Tales (Now with Same-Sex!)

I worked in a guest house in Ptown when I was 19. Decades later, I was walking by and saw a realtors sign out front about rooms to let, or similar. I walked in and was looking around the lobby when a dapper young man approached me. He basically said, “May I help you?”, and I explained that I once worked there. He then told me that they were holding his wedding reception there at that moment and showed me out.

Cunt.

I went to my nephew’s wedding on my birthday, which was great. But I was the designated driver and it was over an hour from home. At some point, I wanted to leave the reception as I was exhausted for some reason, but my alcoholic bro-in-law wanted to stay for “one more drink”. It seems there’s a point at every wedding or funeral when everybody leaves, except the alcoholics. It was at least an hour later before we left. I didn’t want to be a wet blanket, and really should have just said that I was leaving, or booked a room for a nap.

On the drive home, my BIL insisted on turning the radio on, while I was on my last nerve, and preferred it off. He’d turn it up, then fall to sleep. When I turned it back down, he’d wake up, and turn it back up. Again, I should have spoken up, but if I did, I probably would have screamed at him. We got home safe and sound, but I will never drive with them again.

I love the stories of people whose wedding turned into all out brawls.

As a waiter, saw a 16 yo sneaking drinks in the cloakroom and Mom followed her and caught her . Mom smacked the girl twice on the forearms, and you cold see the imprint of her hand. Girl pushed Mom and swigged again. Mom strikes daughter again, whereupon daughter wallops Mom full force across the face, and both go at it hell for leather kicking and screaming through the coats.

UES wedding, extremely elegantly dressed guests. Funny to see the airs and graces ditched in the cat fight.

Went to a fundy wedding. The reception was in a room that was lined with folding chairs outlining the perimeter. In the middle were two lines of folding chairs with backs to each other. No music ( it's sinful ) or dancing( more sin). The reception consisted of Mr. Planters peanuts in bowls, cake, and orange soda. We stayed for about fifteen minutes then got out of there quickly.

That sounds ghastly, R5.

I am not a big drinker but do enjoy a glass or two of a dry prosecco or champagne. I was at a co-workers wedding where literally no expense was spared - there were about 250 people, enough food for at least 500 people, a cocktail hour with multiple stations including a raw bar, ice sculptures, a quartet playing during the cocktail hour. I went to the bar and asked for a glass of champagne and was told they didn't have any. During the seated dinner, the waitstaff came out in a ridiculous, elaborately choreographed formation to pop the corks on champagne and then went around to each table and filled guests' glasses. They literally poured less than an inch in each glass. I asked for a full glass and was told no, and the marching waiter marionette kept going around the table. After the presentation, I went up to the bar and asked for a full glass of champagne, and was again told no. The bartender explained that a limited amount of champagne was in the couples' budget and there was none to spare. I told him that it was incredibly tacky to pour a literal sip per glass to toast the couple, and that the couple would probably be horrified if they knew. He shrugged his shoulders. I was pissed off at the place, not the couple, although their wedding was over the top tacky, opulent and reaching, so I kept ordering glasses of scotch that I didn't drink, just wanted to waste the place's money.

Worst reception: on January 2 at a rental space on the grounds of a cemetery, held three hours after the wedding ended.

Worst speeches: the brother of the bride using his speech to announce his own engagement; the groom’s mother speaking right after the groom’s father and talking about her struggle to raise the groom as a single parent without any help.

One of the best weddings I’ve been to, the couple divorced after less than six months. But it was a great wedding!

I didn’t attend (this was before my hire), but my coworker had attended our boss’s wedding in Staten Island. She described the introduction of the bride at the beginning of the reception.

Apparently the reception hall had a pneumatic lift, and the bride appeared as if rising from the bowels of the earth, in a purple-lit cloud of machine-made fog. She was escorted to the dance floor by a team of sequin-clad dancers, where she joined her new husband in a choreographed dance. They were accompanied by afore-mentioned dancers.

She said it was the most “ginzo” thing she’d ever seen, and she was married to an Italian-American herself.

R9 I can’t lie, that makes me want to get married

I just picture a bunch of Solid Gold dancers at R9's story.

I've always had fun at weddings. Have not witnessed any brawls or such. the only tale I have was about the dick of an uncle I had. My uncle (Dad's youngest brother) ran off with a neighbor when his kids were children. As they grew up, my cousins reconciled themselves to him and his new wife (They're even close to his stepchildren). My aunt, his ex-wife, did not take the break up well and became an alcoholic (although later in life she found a male companion who was awfully good to her). She never got along with her ex-husband. When their eldest daughter got married, my uncle gave her away, but he wouldn't attend the reception without his current wife. When his second daughter got married, he didn't even show up for the ceremony.

Long after, my cousins told me that they could never invite their parents to the same family functions. They just couldn't get along. It upset my cousins, because they had long since forgiven their father and they wanted their children to enjoy their grandparents. By the way, they married two incredibly nice guys, one of whom is trying to fix me up with a buddy of his.

My uncle was a selfish prick.

I guess it is the thing to do now, for the groom (and maybe the bride?) to enter the reception by dancing his/their way from the entrance to his seat. It’s all I would need to decide to elope.

I went to a wedding as a child and I vividly remember the mother of the groom sobbing throughout the ceremony. She clearly hated the bride. Worse of all, she wore a white slip dress, a la Carolyn Bessette. The groom's stepdad was mortified. The groom didn't notice/mind. The bride joked bout the dress during her speech and the mother of the groom went around hissing about her.

I asked my parents about this wedding years later and they told me that when the inevitable "it's me or it's her" schism eventuated 2 years into the marriage, the groom wisely and surprisingly chose his wife and cut his mother off.

The best “guest wearing white” at the wedding comeback—the mother of the bride was in the bathroom at the same time as a female guest who wore a white lace dress to the wedding. The mother of the bride saw her, gave an “oh!” reaction, and said, “oh honey you startled me—I thought you were my daughter for a second there!”

R2, you win the 'doormat of the year' award. And i'm betting you WILL in fact drive your BIL again and put up with his shit again.

A cousin's wedding. My aunt had a hear attack Friday morning and my cousin went ahead with her Saturday wedding.

The ceremony went well, but the reception did not.

They had planned for over 200 guests, but only about 40 people showed up, mostly the grooms family.

My cousin was distraught, "Mom ruined everything!"

^^^Heart attack

Did your aunt die, r17? Agree that your cousin should have postponed or cancelled the wedding but presumably people knew it was still on. Why wouldn't they show up?

I went to an Orthodox Jewish wedding that lasted 12 fucking hours!

A terrible band can completely ruin a wedding. a college friend's wedding was awful because the band was just so terrible

r20 = Donald Trump

R19 she lived but she was in critical condition and needed bypass surgery.

Most of the family went to the wedding ceremony, but felt the reception should have been canceled. My cousin felt differently.

Funny thing, when she heard her mother was going to have heart surgery, she still went on her honeymoon.

I went to a Wedding as the date of a friend. I didn't know anyone there. My friend worked with the Bride. It was a nice enough wedding but the reception ended very abruptly when the Father of the Bride had a heart attack DURING the Father/Daughter dance! Which was only the second dance of the evening! I'll never forget the Bride screaming, "Daddy! Daddy! What's wrong!?", as he fell to the floor - very upsetting. We all just stood there in shock, unsure of what to do after the paramedics took him away and the entire Bride's family and most of the Groom's family left with them. I learned later that he survived, thankfully.

I’ve told this story on DL before…

My partner & I were having dinner at a Portuguese restaurant in New Bedford, MA. At the back of the restaurant there was a partitioned area, partially opened to us. A wedding reception was going on, and it was obvious that everyone was drunk. For music, they had what was best described as a one-man band: an older guy playing the accordion with cymbals strapped to his knees and a harmonica on a holder. He also had a guitar - I guess for variety. The bride was sitting at the head table, in tears, being consoled by family. The groom was sitting next to the musician and was smashed. He kept asking the music guy to play the same song over and over again: To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before. It took us a while to figure out what was happening, but once we got it, we couldn’t stop laughing. I really felt sorry for the bride.

When my niece got married several years ago, they had the ceremony and reception at a community center because they didn't have money, which is fine. A bunch of her girlfriends made the food for the reception as their gift. Again, that's a nice gesture and a great way to save costs. The problem was that the food was *all* recipes from the groom's African culture. Everything was drowned in sauce. The chicken was barely cooked and had feathers. It was obviously bought in bulk and I think the quality was suspect. Seeing that, I didn't even want to try the fish. The only Africans in attendance were the groom and a couple of his friends. I think serving unfamiliar (and heavily sauced) food to the guests at your wedding is a faux pas. Your guests and their tastes should be your only consideration. You should not cater to your groom's wishes. The only thing edible, in my mind, was the cake which my brother made. The wine was horrible too. After we left the party, we went to a Chik-fil-A (I know) because we were starving and it was the only place open. I swear I'm not fat because I know I'll be accused of typing fat.

I know I sound like a fussbudget and I guess I am because I had a huge fight with my sister (not the mother of my neice) after I complained about the food. I mean we traveled 6 hours and stayed two nights in a hotel for this?! On top of it, I never got a thank you for my gift which I only wanted as an acknowledgement that they actually received it. There was a pile of gifts and I wasn't sure whether the card was misplaced or not. I gave a chip and dip thing and a card with several hundred dollars in it. Yes, I should have handed the card directly to her. I have a strong feeling that the groom pocketed the money since she didn't mention it when I finally got the thank you. The reason why I think he stole the money? When they finally settled down half way across the country, he left on an apprentice electrician job (lineman) and never came home to her. My niece is a lovely, intelligent girl who really never dated before and she got duped by an asshole who wanted a green card. But, of course this isn't verified by anyone in the family because we never have a frank discussion about ANYTHING!

Not as much pathos as I would have expected in a thread of this nature.

R26 Oh honey, you're winning

Sorry r26 but you type fat and likely ARE fat

Sorry r26 but you type fat and likely ARE fat

When I was around eight years old a cousin got married. Her husband was an asshole and he got drunk before the ceremony and got in a fight at the reception and got his ass kicked. It's fucking funny to look at the pictures because he had a swollen eye and looked freaked out for the rest of the night.

R16, no, I actually don’t see them at all these days. Mostly because they are Deplorables [italic] and [/italic] bring up politics all the time. I don’t know if they do so because they know my liberal leanings so that my presence prompts them to discuss politics, or if they are constantly talking politics. I miss my sister, though.

Traveling 4 hrs to attend a wedding where the bride and groom (cousin) didn't even acknowledge our presence, or anyone's except their tight circle of friends. No one was dressed up. Some of the guests looked like they hadn't even bothered to bathe. The officiant was a friend of theirs who obtained an on-line license to marry them. For the ceremony, he stuttered his way through mumbled song lyrics, bad poems and inside jokes while giggling uncontrollabley. Cringe. It was all way too casual, like a generic summer picnic. I left thinking, "If you don't care enough to take your wedding seriously, I sure as fuck don't care about it."

After attending a bunch of weddings and cater waitering another thousand (some really lovely) I do hope never to attend another one. Never. They're all lame.

Went to the wedding of the sister of the guy I was dating. It became very surreal when several people realized sister's new father-in-law had also invited his side piece. His son figured it out and was pissed off. Mom had no idea from I understood.

I was invited to a wedding of a hippy-dippy couple I met at uni and decided to attend their evening beach wedding at an isolated location to the north of Auckland. I didn't know the area very well so her sister offered to pick me up as she was bringing the officiant and a couple of other guests. We arrived at the beach only for me to be told it wasn't on the beach, it was in a CAVE. Despite my gut feeling that it was an awful idea, I still decided to attend. Cue the 5 of us scrambling around in the bush for 2 hours after losing our way and giving up when we ended up backtracking to the beach we left from. This was before cellphones, so there was no way of finding them or letting them know we were lost and we were all covered and sticks and mud by this point and pissed off. I went home and never saw the bride, groom or sister again. I heard on the grapevine that the bride went mental that no-one had turned up and they broke up the next day. Worst wedding ever.

Oh, fun!

I went to my best friend from high school’s wedding and was in the wedding party. I had fallen out of touch with him, so I didn’t really know the bride.

During the ceremony, the pastor (who was the bride’s father) CALLED MY BEST FRIEND HIS DAUGHTERS EX BOYFRIEND’S NAME!!!

It was SO awkward!

r4 sounds like a plot from an Aaron Spelling soap.

worst introduction of the groomsmen at the reception: one did the caterpillar across the dance floor, another did the lebron james chest-thump stomp routine. and there was a cash bar.

I went to a cousin’s wedding years ago. Not only did her groom have to be carried out of the reception for being way too drunk, but another one of my cousins had no idea we are related and tried to pick up on me. Everybody was totally shit-faced. What a mess.

Quick background on the bride- We became friendly while she rented a house next to mine. She lived there for 2 years with her 3 children. She worked sporadically but most of her income was state/federal aid. She met a guy and married him within a 3 month period. Wedding- Her future in-laws home far in the country off of multiple dirt roads. I brought a couple of "dishes to pass" for the reception. We arrived at 1:50 pm. Wedding was set for 2 pm. I gave my food to the future in-laws that I met at that moment. Bride arrived 2 hours later. By that time, most everyone was highly intoxicated. The wife sitting in front of me had to tell her husband it was ok to drink his beer but smoking a cigarette during the ceremony was rude. When all the dishes to pass were set out on the picnic table, we figured we would just eat the food I brought. When I did not see it out, her new in-laws said they had eaten all of the crab dip in the house while waiting for the bride to show since they "don't got crab" very often. Once the grazing was over, the excitement of beer pong was too much for us. We left.

Old Synagogue on Rivington Street had become a n event space.

We set up the room for the ceremony, including a pyramid of champagne glasses. The bride arrives with Dad, and she's swaying a little. As they wait for the entrance music to begin, she slowly leans to the right but this time she cannot be steadied and Dad loses his balance as both fall into the stacked glasses. No injuries, except the glassware.

Lesbian wedding where the buffet reception had 2 lines: vegetarian and vegan. Vegan omitted the melted cheese from the tofu loaf.

That sounds awful, R43.

I want to know more about R43’s lesbian wedding. If they did that, there must have been other things. Cash bar, I assume.

R31 a lot of the family weddings we went to usually had several fights happen and I'm sad to say, my father usually started them. He loved stirring shit up and watching people go at it for his amusement.

I haven't been to a wedding since my sister's in 1993. I don't think I'm missing anything.

I don’t have the newspaper clip now, but I was once looking up historical newspaper notices. I found a clip reporting on a distant, 19th century relative’s wedding. Elsewhere on the same page was an obituary notice reporting that he hung himself the following day, in the barn.

Ecstasy-fueled six-way including the bride and groom, on their wedding night.

This wasn’t the worst but it was pretty odd.

My best friend’s sister had a swanky wedding at a hotel on the side of the mountain in Palm Springs. It was really nice. The officiant was a friend who got his license for the service. The band was “Russ Brown and his Band of Renown”, which was funny, because Russ’ Dad started the band, and Dad played at my Mom’s prom in Brooklyn back in the 1930s or early 1940s.

Well, they eventually split up. Then I learned that the officiant was not licensed. Turns out, the bride wanted a wedding more than she wanted to be married! So, it was never a valid union. But God bless her spunk!

how was the groom, r48?

R49 - are you sure it wasn't Les Brown?

No. It was Les Brown, indeed. Thank you.

My mother also never graduated high school, but she’s gone now, so I can’t ask about that.

Fun, easy-going guy, R48. He was down for just about anything. His only rule was "use a condom if you fuck my wife".

Oh hell back when I was playing straight I married a local girl. I'm always one to orchestrate things. For example I knew my friends and their proclivities and tastes very well. My one friend I partnered up with the wifes big chested cousin we nicknamed Boom Boom. Another friend who had a thing for older women I introduced to my attractive MIL and they had a good night. Then of course one of my best friends, my best man and the maid of honor. Both married to different people - they had a good night together. The marriage of course didn't last.

Let’s have some gay wedding disasters too!

And btw, my wedding is widely known is the best shindig ever thrown.

Don't even get me started...