Worst wedding you've been to?

[Clawdy]

My worst wedding memory was when DH's cousin got married. He was reluctant to go, and said it might get rough....It did, rather! Drunk old Uncle Wilf fell down the steps and broke his leg, and the bridegroom had to be restrained from attacking his new MIL with a bottle of wine! DH's mum chided his brother for not going, saying "You missed a lovely wedding! "

@caoraich What happened after that? Did her father see he had upset her? Did they talk afterwards? Do they still talk now?

We've just received the details of DH's friend's wedding that I was saying upthread that I wasn't looking forward to as I don't know anyone. Turns out we've got the dreaded split invitation too, which wasn't clear on the original invitation. Fortunately it is an afternoon ceremony so at least the gap isn't huge but I am even more pissed off now than I already was. It's taking 3 days with travel, costing us a fortune in hotel costs and fuel and now we have to find something to entertain ourselves with in the middle.
In my experience of weddings there are often a few local friends who drop in at the Church to watch the ceremony even if they aren't officially invited and are only going to the evening do, which is fine if that is what they choose to do. But I think this trend of formally inviting people to the ceremony and the evening and expecting them to entertain themselves in between is rude, especially if guests are travelling long distances.

I'd just go to the evening and not bother with the ceremony. I've never been to a split one. At a good friend's wedding there was a bit of a gap between the church and wedding breakfast/reception but I think we were all pretty much staying in the same place where the reception was. DH and I went for a "lie down" 🙂

@naffusername Find out the usher who is to be my "escort" is my exboyfriend who I had a restraining order against. She knew that he had been stalking me.

That is utterly unforgivable. I've heard of some batshit brides but that just smacks of vindictive nastiness. I truly hope you never spoke to her again after that.

@Ahgoonyegirlye

Holy crap!! That's outrageous - what was said?! I really need more information on this!!

Ahhhh - the split invitation.
I've had one of those. Actually, I was only really invited to the evening reception - my services were required to sing in the choir for the wedding service (even more rude!) so that's why I was asked to be at the church. Also got to the reception venue "on time", to discover that they hadn't finished with the speeches - but there was nowhere for us "evening onlies" to sit in the main room, so we had to wait outside closed doors until they'd finished!

Another wedding I sang at, the vicar was quite new (friend of the family too) and got the tail end of the vows mixed up, which was a bit, um, disconcerting!
Where they're supposed to say "What God has put together, let no man put asunder" and what she said was "What God has put asunder... umm umm let no man umm umm pull apart".
I don't honestly know how many people noticed, but I know I did and was quite horrified for the poor couple!

4 of my family members when to a wedding and weren't fed. They all had to leave the celebrations to find food and ate in a McDonald's with all their wedding stuff on 😂

Our [last minute replacement] band got drunk and were shit but everyone danced and had a good time. They couldn't remember the lyrics to songs! But everyone still said it was a great wedding so I was happy.

Me! and I've not even had my wedding yet!

I've been taking notes though!
Ceremony, reception and all celebrations are indoors. It's July, but Ireland so to be honest it could be anything from hailstones to a heatwave.

Ceremony is going to be as short as I can get away with.

Church and venue are at most, a 10 min walk away, but shuttle bus is going to be provided as we've some guests with mobility issues, other's will have heels so anyone who wants a lift can have one.

Photos will be a few quick group shots outside the church and I refuse to do any more than 30 mins on the beach beside the venue. Not missing my own party or having people waiting around for us to show up to start eating.

No split invites. I've offered an evening invite to the few extra residents of the small village given that we are taking over their only watering hole for the night.

I've probably gone over the top on feeding people but I'd prefer for people to complain they are too full to move rather than be starving.

Nearby accommodation assigned to the guests, and at a budget price, along with aforementioned shuttle bus that can do runs if people want a disco nap/ check on any kid/ change shoes.

Bouncy castle for the kids up to about 8pm. After that they are being packed off to the accomodation with their babysitters, with the blessing of their parents.

I have subjected guests to a ferry to get there unfortunately - that's the most wanky thing I've included but luckily most are up for the adventure of that, and the location was picked for family reasons so not just picking a hard-to-get-to venue for instagram likes.

Good old McDonalds has saved some famished people, I See.
The worst I have been to was one of my mates. One of my best friends dumped him for someone else a couple of months before the wedding and some years later he married someone else. His bride seemed ok but her family were awful. She was 47 and when the priest said the usual about welcoming children (i dont think he realised) they all started sniggering and laughing audibly in the church. The grooms mother looked like thunder. When I went up to her to congratulate her she said all this is your fault, you should have married him (it seems he was in love with me for a long time, i suspected but it was not reciprocated. My boyfriend then, now DH was gobsmacked). She hated the bride.

Another where part of the ceremony was hindu. Gosh, it went on for 2.5 hours. We are used to catholic weddings, and where we are from they last 30 minutes as there is usually another wedding after yours. We didnt know that they walk in and out of the ceremony to get food and drinks so we sat through the whole thing. I wanted to shoot myself and my bum was sore. And when we got to the food the hindus had obviously eaten their way through the canapes. Can´t blame them. If i had only known. Never again.

My brothers wedding was in Liverpool on 15th April 1989. We heard about Hillsboro while the photos were being taken outside the church on my other DB car radio . The numbers were rising all through the reception and all the guests were horrified and subdued . Not a wedding you could forgot .

My own wedding. Nobody bothered to come and get ready with me at my house even though I was expecting them. Not even my own mother. I was alone all morning and I couldn’t fasten my own dress so I had to phone DH to drop in on his way to the ceremony. The register office had spikey bushes outside the door, the wind blew at the wrong time and my long dress got wrapped round a bush. So I was half an hour late while they tried to untangle me without ripping my dress. The food was dreadful and they forgot to provide the welcome drinks I’d paid for. A family member made the cake because I couldn’t afford one, which was kind but the cake was terrible. The photo booth guy forgot his printer so he took the photos but nobody got a copy to take home. And to top it off, the photographer ruined the photos, they were unedited and out of focus and I had my eyes closed etc. I guess that’s what happens when you’re poor and can’t afford a decent wedding. Worst day of my life 😓

Oh Florrey 😔 Really sorry to read that

You poor thing. I had an awful wedding day also.
My OH and I lived together and when I came through on my wedding day wearing my outfit on he said " What a bloody horrible outfit- I hate it."
Needless to say the marriage didn't last.

Have been reading this with interest and a fair bit of horror. Our wedding is this summer, and we do have invitations for the whole day, as well as just for the evening reception. Free bar and plenty of food are booked. Any advice on what not to do?

Worst wedding was a friends one. Ceremony at 1pm. Such a long and boring afternoon. No wedding breakfast and just buffet at 6pm. Everyone was so hungry that some people went to the nearby shop for food. Bearing in mind we all left home about 12pm so no one had eaten lunch. No pre warning of food timings either!

What not to do:

• Don't have a split invitation where some people are invited for the reception and the evening but not the in between bit


• Don't disappear for hours for photos with half the guests and leave the other half sitting around with nothing to do. If you must go off for photos, make it as short as possible and plan for what everyone else is going to do in the meantime. Do make sure the photographer is available for the whole day and will take action shots, not just staged group photos.


• If the ceremony and reception are in different places, plan for how people will get between the two. If you're not laying transport on, let people know what parking is like and make sure there is sufficient parking available at both venues.


• Don't have anything that forces people to book a particular hotel.


• Make sure the food is properly planned (read above for examples of poor planning!)

I'm shocked at all the split invitations, when did this become a thing? I'll make sure I double check in future.

Besides aren't they worried about guests turning up to part two pissed after having to entertain themselves away from home for several hours?

Food made on Thursday would have been totally fine on the Saturday 😵‍💫

This has just made me check a wedding invitation I received -and phew it is at 3.30 with ceremony same location as reception

I use to work in hotels so learnt all the do's and donts. We got married at 2pm, gives everyone time to get ready (including bride) and means the days not too long.
We booked photographer for 3 hours so they came an hour before for pre shots, covered service, group shots then about 30 min of couple shots.
We had a live band entertain during photos/while waiting for food.
We hired a casino to entertain during "quiet bit" after speech's and before night do
Lots of food - sit down meal and night buffet. Bar access all day. Plenty of seating.

I wouldn’t mind the disappearing for photos if they let you know. A few times we’ve rushed from venue to reception for no good reason when we could have gone somewhere for a bit or even a nap.
Theres often a total lack of communication with weddings when there’s no good reason these days.
I think there’s a bit of a belief that guests should be grateful to be there and just put up.

I’ve been thinking through my own wedding plans very carefully after reading this! I hope we’ve got it right…