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Well it started off badly when the invitation came addressed to CalamityJDH and Sarah (when my name is not Sarah, nor is it close! And the groom had been to our wedding 3months before...) and ended badly when the bride, having been told by the best man about the mistake with my name, actually came over to our table during the meal and said 'well maybe if you'd invited me to your wedding I might have remembered your name'. In my defence my DH was in charge of knowing if his friends needed a plus 1 and when I met up with the bride a few years later she did say her husband had form for having girlfriends which didn't last very long and so even if we had known about her we would probably have thought she was just another in a long line (her words). To top this there were only 2 courses of food and no evening buffet. On the upside there was a free bar (money saved on food clearly spent on alcohol) but that combination meant everyone was shitfaced as we'd not had enough to eat.

I had to revive this to share about a wedding I went to about 4 years ago now. Have name changed as this would out me in RL!!! Apologies for length but this is a beaut.

Had been with (my now) DH about 10 months at this point and the whole time I'd known him the wedding of one of his best friends from uni had been looming. She was the bride and a total bridezilla- the first time we had met about 9months earlier I'd found out that her wedding was going to be held on my 27th birthday. Lucky me. The first thing she had said when she found out her wedding day would be my birthday was "at least it's not a big birthday so you can't steal focus from me". Nice. DH was going to be an usher and it was like a military operation. Brides family incredibly wealthy and the whole thing reeks of cash. The dress cost £4grand and she's having designer shoes and 24 caret nail extensions blah blah blah.

Wedding was far from us (like the other end of the country) and started at 12noon on Saturday so we had to go and stay there the night before, driving from work on Friday for 7 hours.

On the morning of the wedding DH is handed an ushers suit which didn't fit at all. It was totally wrong size despite the fact he had been measured at an approved shop months in advance. He rings best man to ask what to do- he didn't have a clue so consulted groom who equally didn't have a clue and told us to ring the bride (we know now that groom and BM were stoned so that explains that). Bride went ape at DH said she didn't need this shit now etc and was crying down phone at DH. Deciding we were screwed DH just decided to wear his own clothes (luckily having come straight from work he had a suit with him) and did that. He knew he would more than likely get in trouble with bridezilla but was at a loss on what to do.

We went and waited for grooms party downstairs an in the meantime the matron of honour- who was also my DHs ex, so fairly awkward- comes and apologies to DH and I on brides behalf and says she's in a terrible state because the groom is stoned and won't wear the £3k watch she had brought him as a present because its too big. Matron of Honour then states if my DH goes into wedding in his own suit the bride will murder him, at which point I stand up for DH and say what choice does he have really as nothing fits and the trousers are six inches to short on the approved suit and there's no way he can wear it. MoH backs down.

We then get to the ceremony room and there is no one sat on grooms side. Turns out his family have declined to come because of some feud. Bride is then 50mins late and when she does arrive has clearly been crying a lot. They get married and she continues to cry and they don't look like tears of joy. Very awkward especially as there's a photographer taking 100 photos a minute inches from her face.

The bride and groom then sit down for the readings and proceed to start arguing under their breath about why he's not wearing the watch and she's hissing "you're drunk and you're stoned" and its all just dreadful.

We get outside for drinks on the lawn and bridezilla marches over to DH and says "why aren't you in your suit?! You don't match!" In front of everyone. Mortified. I start hitting the drinks pretty hard- cant believe this is my birthday and just having a terrible time. Mother of Bridezilla then comes over to talk to DH and proceeds to slag him off for not earning enough in the "ghastly public sector" and then turns to me and says "you must be the girlfriend who's having a birthday" like I did it on purpose. She asks how old I am and when I say 27 she says "oh and not married! I think [Bridezilla] is the perfect age to be married!" (She's 23) so not only am I having a terrible time miles from home on my birthday but I'm now feeling like an old hag.

Rest of the wedding was a drunken blur but the bride and groom barely spoke all day and she kept crying and flouncing off.

They were separated within a year and divorced literally 2 months after their first anniversary.

Post script of the story is when DH and I got married about two years later I didn't wear white. Bridezilla however did wear a white dress and came wearing her own wedding shoes/headpiece/bag. Lunatic.

DH is still friends with her and uni gang- I keep well out of the way. To say she's high matenance is an understatement.

All of these make my FIL snoring loudly during our wedding seem very tame. Now I know him bette,r I realise that it was not because our wedding that was boring, he does it all the time!

The worst wedding I ever attended was my own lol. Didn't want to get married, didn't love the man I was marrying. The reason for going through with it, I was young when we met, I done what I thought was expected of me moving in, getting engaged etc. I ended up with post traumatic stress because of my now ex

I went to a wedding in Cambridge where the bride was French and the groom Italian. The vicar and I were the ONLY people singing the hymns they'd chosen. One of which was Abide with me

And let's gloss over the bride's six-year-old sister's rendition of Ave Maria on the clarinet.

I've realised that we probably did do things wrong when we got married (first on either side, no young counsins and I don't think I'd even been to a wedding before then). Well, not entirely, but I don't remember organising food for the hotel after church and stuff.

I know we had organised hot whiskies in the pub across the road from the church for everyone else while we ran ahead to hotel to get photos started (twas mid-winter and lashing rain). There was mulled wine and sherry (and tea and toast for my gran) on arrival at hotel. We weren't too long getting photos done as we got family to hightail it (bridal party immediately, rest pretty quick) from church, so we were nearly done by the time the rest of the guests were arriving (I know we had 2 final photos - with my 3 grandparents, and then me taking one of DH - out in the conservatory as drawing room was filling up - but then we were done). And I don't think dinner was long after that. There were big roaring open fires in all the rooms. There was a bar (and I have no idea if Dad paid or if it was cash - probably free before dinner and cash later), and then we had LOADS of food.

We didn't have an evening event, as we just wanted a small family event (well, both sets of parents had friends they HAD to invite, but we didn't invite any), and we didn't want a disco but we had the local folk group in for a sing-song and session after dinner.

But the girl dropping the flowers let me know, 45 minutes before the ceremony, that when she'd dropped off the groom's side flowers about 20 minutes before, groom had been in bed ill. (I knew he was suffering flu but I hadn't thought he was that bad).

My family is so chronically unorganised that they all foostered about all morning, and then left it very late to get ready. Mum had insisted on using "her" hairdresser in the city (25 miles away) which meant we had to be there at 8.30am. I had given up and gone to bed at 3am the night before (not partying - last minute organising as others had not done what they'd promised) - and then I had to wake everyone else up at 08.05 when they all slept it out for the trip to hairdressers. I was starving!! all day - I was given a cup of tea and a scone in a cafe on route back from hairdresser - I really wanted a proper bacon buttie to keep me going not a tiny stale scone and horrible strong tea. I had to get myself made up and dressed alone (and beg for someone to close my zip). My sister did the driving, and only left to drop my 2 bros up 5 minutes before due to start (they were ushers), then had to come and collect mum and 2 sis's and drop them, before coming back for me and dad. So I was 35 mins late before even getting there which I HATED! And then photographer wanted a shot outside (it was agreed) but I was worried about DH, and wanted to get on with things as I was so late. So another couple of minutes.

I was shattered with exhaustion and nerves. My parents did nothing but make it stressful running up to it. Dad annouced 5 days beforehand that he was paying for meal etc - when we'd done everything we could to make it cheap and fit our budget at that stage. So it was too late to make a nice honeymoon from the spare funds. I worked until the Tuesday, for a Saturday wedding (took less than 2 weeks off) 160 miles from where I then lived and worked. I went for my first ever full leg and bikini wax on the Friday morning. I had 40 million spiky pins digging into my hair in a syle I hated and wearing a dress I had settled for and very little was what me and DH really wanted. (I had wanted a white or ivory skirt with a claret red velvet top as it was a mid-winter wedding and I am pale anyway, small family meal in a restaurant (we sorta got that but twice the size we wanted) and a lot less fuss than we had). Oh, and we got home from honeymoon to find that my mum had commandeered the bouquet, and stripped it of everything and was keeping the holder for flower arranging. She hadn't even dried a single rose like I'd asked.

We laugh now. But we also now have both grown backbones and do our own thing. It will be interesting to see how my bro's wedding turns out next year (SIL to be is starting to show signs of Bridezilla - but that may just be uber-organisation from across an ocean) as the next family wedding. Meanwhile I have already started the fitness regime to skinny down and look FABULOUS (although absolutely not as fabulous as the bride).

Marathonrunner

It was truly awful

cakeme

Martha that's horrible

At my Aunties wedding her first husband's mother and sister turned up and when she came out of the church they hurled abuse at her and called her a sl*g in front of all her guests!!

I have clicked "Report" and asked for this to go into Classics.

If you think it deserves it please do the same.

How horrible for that bride's ILs! If that were my DIL, I'd have been tempted to get up and ask why she expected either set of parents to pay up!

Celia they must have felt awful.

My parents paid for our wedding and FIL paid for our honeymoon <spoiled emoticon>

ethelb thank you - I agree that an evening do can be done well.

It is traditional, Dilys but the way she stood up and deliberately thanked her parents (with emphasis) was done to embarrass her in-laws (she and my sil had been grumbling for months that the groom's parents hadn't offered any money).
It must have worked though, because after the wedding the in-laws handed the bride's parents a cheque!

"It ended up with one father presenting his new son-in-law with a match and getting him to burn the IOU for £8,000 he'd given them for a house deposit."

That sounds so cringeworthy!!

Surely it's entirely traditional for bride's parents to pay for wedding? It's a bit old fashioned but I certainly wouldn't think "why didn't the grooms parents pay too?" OTOH I would then probably expect groom's parents to shell out for a very generous wedding present.

At a friend's wedding the bride stood up and said "I'd like to thank my parents who've worked so hard to pay for the wedding."
Groom's parents hadn't paid any money and were left looking like cheap skates. Very poor form.

My friend stood up and did a Bride's speech which very quickly (within thirty seconds) turned into a very long account of how much effort she had put into the wedding! It was truly horrendous, she went on and on and on... all I can remember is looking round the room to loads of faces. It was like a car crash, so embarassing, but she had no idea how inappropriate it was.

Thanks everyone for your kind messages. I'm sorry to have been a downer, this thread was making me laugh/gasp/enjoy my judgypants, and perhaps I shouldn't have put that post there.

I like cheesy evening dos. Frankly if there's food, booze and music, I'm happy - I like parties! For our wedding we sort of did it backwards - everyone invited to the church and back to the house for booze and canapes, then after the speeches and the cake some people left, then we did dinner and dancing. It was because all my parent's friends who came for the service should be given a drink or four and something to eat, but I didn't really want to pay for them to eat and not enjoy the dancing -that part was for my close family and our mates, who had traveled much further to come to the party (as it was all at my parent's house). My thinking was if they were having to shell out for a hotel or train fare, well they bloomin' well deserved a decent dinner and some dancing!

I agree with all posters about guests and treating your guests well. I've never been to a seriously pretentious wedding now, just lots of family dos with lots of food and booze. I kind of wish I had now! Still most of my mates aren't married yet, maybe my time for ghastly stories of drunken MILs will come!

Blackcurrants, how awful for all of you.

Blackcurrants, that is so sad. Truly the worst wedding experience, but so wonderful the marriages are strong.

Just thought I would butt in over evening receptions.

We were invited to one last year along with our group of friends (fb invite to group so we knew who else had been invited) and decided to go as it was not too far (less than an hour journey from our home).

We got there, we were handed drinks for the best man's speech which had over run (whole different post) and then pointed towards the free bar afterwards. Bride and groom came and had a chat for a while with us (being all chatted out to everyone else) and then we got pointed in the direction of the evening buffet. (DP calls this the best cheese board of his life. On frequent occasion. He reached his cheese limit apparently.)

We were stuffed to the gills.

Then we were given cake.

Then disco while we chatted to good friends we hadn't seen for a while who were also invited to evening do.

You get the picture. It was one of the nicest 'dos I have been to. Groom met up with me a few weeks later to thank us for coming and handed over a thank you card for our £20 gift.

You can do them well. Jus' saying.

worst for me was going to my ex boyfriend's sister's wedding.

They are a big west of Scotland catholic family and me being not a religious type was very frowned upon.

I was treated as a second class citizen all day, told that I had to sit at the back of the church and not next to my partner who was at the front with the family.

The sisters also told me that my dress was not suitable and made me borrow and wear a jacket over the top of it. (dress was knee length dark red silk with cowl neck and short sleeves and I had a cream wrap...seemed fine to me)

Also was starved and the bread rolls on the table by the time we actually got to sit down were pounced upon and gone in seconds.

There was one particularly interesting one which . . . we had no idea was happening.

Despite no apparent reason for any rift in the family (and everyone still being perfectly cordial), the bride happened to drop it into conversation, during a perfectly normal phone conversation, something about her husband. Now, bearing in mind that the person on the other end of the phone was her sister, who she hadn't even told she was engaged...!

The pagan one was a bit strange too - lots of swords, bread-breaking, mead-drinking and a dodgy covers band who decided to do their sound test very, very loudly during the reception!

And then I could go onto the ones that I've worked at - there was one particularly posh one, looked like it had cost as much as my house (they had built an extension to their own house especially for the wedding!!), but it had such an element of 'bridezilla' that all the staff were vowing to elope by the end of it! Oh, and they treated the staff like crap too - weren't allowed to sit down, even when doing nothing and out of sight of guests, 12 hours straight working with a 10 minute break, no food (it's considered normal to feed your staff in that industry; with regards to the breaks - I was young and a bit wet behind the ears) and a five hour round trip to get to the venue.