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! "

*Why don't you invite only family and friends you are close to? Not colleagues and the neighbours and the hairdresser and the associates?

That's what most normal people.*

I am doing that so glad to know I’m normal. I’m having a wedding with just 20 people. But by normal you mean not the average British person who gets married. Again I don’t see the issue with the set up of two tiers of invites if that’s what people want and are used to. Why be offended at receiving an evening invite but not at none at all?

I only had family and close friends to day. That came to about 80 people from both sides. Then I invited some work colleagues who are more acquaintances than friends and a few mum friends who I hadn't known that long to the evening only about 20 people in total. We catered at day and evening and day finished at around 5 with evening starting at 7 so there was no waiting for evening guests. (We hired a casino to entertain guests during the 'quiet' bit. Those extra 20 wouldn't have come at all otherwise and it was lovely to include them.
Saying that though the best wedding I've attended was abroad. About 30 of us, there for three days. It was amazing.

Someone above said they'd been invited to a split wedding in Scotland.

I'm in England and this thread is the first time I've ever heard of such a thing. I honestly think they're the (weird and bad mannered) exception. Definitely not standard, in any case.

My own wedding. My DM did a speech and humiliated me in front of our eighty guests. Afterwards several guests came and asked me if I was ok. For weeks afterwards it was the talk of our guests with many asking ‘wtf was that all about etc.’

The following day I ordered my ‘D’M out of my life and I’ve never seen her since. That was 9 years ago. It was the absolute last straw in a long line of things and has completely ruined my memories of my wedding day. I’ve never even bothered to get a wedding photo album done, such is the bitterness about it. We just have the untouched photos from the photographer.

That's really sad and I'm so sorry!
Perhaps you would actually find it quite healing to make that wedding album up (without pictures of her) and start focussing on the parts that she didn't ruin?
Good for you though for getting her out of your life, what an awful thing to do.

(Mumsnet why are you cutting letters off the end of posts?)

Oh @Strawblue thats so sad
what a vile thing for your mum to do
i hope your life is filled with love & laughter without her there to spoil it

The worst one I’ve been to was due to lack of food and entertainment like many of the others mentioned on here.

The invitation said the wedding was at 12. Most people had to travel to get there. We set off at about 10:45 to make sure we arrived in good time. The wedding actually started at 12:45. They’d put the earlier time on so that people wouldn’t be late. Lots of waiting around and no communication.

The reception venue was over an hours drive away so we arrived at about 3. I did say to DH
we should stop and buy a snack if we saw a shop as I could see where this was heading

• but we didn’t pass any. The bride and groom must of had nearly 2 hours of photos and there was nothing at all put on for the guests at this point. It was 5 when some tiny canapés came round (I think 2 each?) and then 6:30 when we sat for dinner. Our table was the last to be served and the majority of the other tables had finished their food by the time we got ours. This was probably a combination of shit service and ravenous guests.

I was also shocked at how humiliating the father of the brides speech was.

Im sure there were people who didn’t enjoy our wedding for whatever reason (although I’ve not seen it mentioned on here yet…) but we did make sure people weren’t waiting around or hungry. 3pm service so people could have lunch before getting ready. Short journey between registry office and venue (with transport) substantial canapés on arrival and lots of waiters to serve dinner.

More recently I went to a wedding that was just so cringy. The wedding itself was a bit like a class assembly with different guests getting up to perform short skits or sing whilst the happy couple watched from 2 thrones on the ‘stage’. It was all very empowering. There was a team of best women rather than bridesmaids and there was lots of whooping.

There's one I was told about but I wasn't there and don't know if it's true.

Man marrying woman his mother disliked so his mother and his sister wore black to the wedding and had faces like thunder all day.

The person who told me hated the mother very much and is not above spouting bollocks if she thinks it'll make the woman look bad 🙄 but the man's mother was prone to bouts of spite and was an epic sulker so it could well be true

One we went to when I was first dating DH so around 20 years ago. The bride was from a fairly 'prominent local family' and the whole marriage was a bit of an event.

The Father of the Bride speech consisted of him standing up and reading out a list of what he had spent on his daughter since birth. educaiton costs. Ponies. The year at finishing school. The full fit and caboodle. The speech ended with the Father handing over the list to his new son in law and just saying ; 'Yours'.

Brought the house down. People seemed to think it was hysterically funny and a fabulous speech. I thought it was humiliating, misogynistic and degrading for the Bride, who was almost in tears.

In the 20 odd years since I have learned that quite alot of DH's friends are utter fucking arses.

I think it shows the mindset of whomever ordered the food - that "women need/want to constantly watch their weight"and therefore will be after low fat, low calorie food instead of nice stuff.

I remember a student in a nutrition class once who could NOT get her head around the concept that people did not all need "low fat food" - she'd been so brainwashed by the diet industry that, even though her dietary analysis showed that it contained too little fat for health purposes, her recommendations were still all for "low fat" varieties of food. <sigh>

Yes @ThumbWitchesAbroad this was exactly the case with the wedding that I went to. The Women's food was a small plain chicken breast, two new potatoes with no butter and veg or salad followed by meringue nest with fruit and a blob of the tinned cream.
The Men's food was a beef casserole with mash and veg followed by chocolate cake. The message was clear that whoever planned the food (bride? Mother of the bride/groom? Caterers?) thought that all Women were or ought to be on a diet.
To their credit though most of the men were quite embarrassed and offered to share.

A work colleague of mine was stood up on the day of the wedding. Poor girl was so hurt and humiliated. However they got married a few months later and had two children last time I heard. 🌹

Not a bad wedding in so far as nothing awful happened, but a bad guest experience. We went to the wedding where the seating plan had been arranged to "celebrate the joining of 2 families" ie nobody was sitting with people they knew. DH and I were with some cousins of the groom who we'd never met before the event, had absolutely nothing in common with and have never seen again since the wedding. The whole thing was just very awkward. As soon as the meal was over, everyone swapped seats to sit with their actual friends and family and were much happier.
I don't think anyone made anything more than small talk with the people they were seated with, the 2 families were never going to become busom buddies, and since the couple divorced very acrimoniously, it's probably just as well!

Im reading this thread with mounting horror. I was married in 1969, we paid for everything ourselves as our parents had no money. Village hall reception,buffet,
remember mine and grooms families sat on opposite sides of the hall, we had a record player for music, dont think anyone danced. ! Got me thinking now about how dreadful it must have been!

@thereisonlyoneofme reminds me of what my Dad told me about his youngest brother's wedding in 1970!
My Uncle's family (local working class and most of them not talking to each other due to my Nan & Grandfather's divorce in 1960...) all sat on one side of the Church.
My Auntie's family (local mostly settled Romanies, several fresh out of prison) all sat on the other side.
They did not mix.
Nor did either side speak or mix at the Reception. They just stared at each other!
What a fun wedding that must've been!!!

Happily my Uncle & Auntie are still married with 2 children & 2 lovely grandchildren.
My Dads family actually started speaking to each other again after my Nans death & I've met one of my Aunties brothers too.

If this wedding took place in Liverpool in 2010 it's entirely possible that it's true and that I was there.

Wedding at the copper mines in the Lake District. It was July. It pissed it down all day, she was 3 hours late to the wedding, the celebrant was about to leave when she turned up.

No alcohol
The food was a seafood buffet and most of it had to be binned because she was late and it had been sat out for hours.
Favours were mugs with names on in sharpie so when they were hot the sharpie came off and we all had our names all over our hands and faces where we'd been touching 😂
Second dance was no woman no cry by bob Marley
Her family left for 4 hours to go and eat something
The Marquee started leaking so we all got wet

Not at all, some of the nicest weddings I've been to have been low key and simple.
............................... a particular favourite from a couple on a very tight budget involved and afternoon church ceremony followed by a bring and share meal afterwards.
...................................It was relaxed and fun, loads to eat and drink and no hanging around.

Please don't chop my words off!

I've never been to an awful wedding. They've all been lovely. We pretty much always go to a McDonald's after the service on the way to the reception just because there's always such a long gap until food (I've only been to 3 weddings where the ceremony is on the same site as the reception). But they've just airways been happy and friendly occasions where is nice to catch up with people. Thinking about it, I've also never been to a wedding where the couple later split up (I've lost touch with 2 couples) and I must have been to 30+ weddings...

@LisaSimpson77 I used to know a woman who said the same about her favourite wedding being one where it was a 'bring a dish' event in a garden. Does your name begin with C? 😅

@SouperNoodle no it doesn't, I think plenty of people do enjoy weddings without all the fuss though.

We were invited to a wedding that was midweek, so we had to lose 2 days work (self employed) as the Barn was about 3 hrs drive away and in the middle of nowhere so we then had to stay in nearby hotel. The food was awful, hardly anything to eat for main meal, think our table was fighting over the bread rolls !! Bride and groom disappeared for hours having photos taken of just them and their bridal party so rest of us hung around feeling like spare parts and not actually part of the wedding at all
Come back from wedding to stay in hotel and we were starving as we'd hardly ate all day but there was no room service or anything so we had to raid the vending machines for crisps and bars of chocolate!!

I was a bridesmaid at a wedding where this happened to me but in reverse! The dress was two sizes too big (and it was awful). The bride bought it in the sale. It was also strapless and I had to hold the front up all day. I couldn’t get it altered either as she gave the dresses to us on the day of the wedding (after we told her our dress sizes and she got the closest she could, apparently). I wish I’d thought of taking an alternative outfit to wear after photos etc!

She also took all the dresses back after the wedding 🙄. We all had to stay over - it was far from home - so she collected them up the next morning. What she was going to do with four purple strapless dresses of random sizes I have no idea. Sell on eBay? This was 20 years ago when selling on eBay wasn’t as commonplace as it is now. Anyway fine by me. I didn’t want it!

The couple are divorced now.

Wow so many horror stories feel like I have lived a sheltered life now

Another wedding has sprung to mind. It was my ex-DP's friend's wedding - no expense spared at a Central London 5 star hotel, but the food was awful - tiny, tiny, posh hotel portion sizes of really pretentious food. Back then I was a very uneducated 19 year old whose idea of "fancy" food was going to the local Beefeater, so it was totally lost on me. It was all fish based too, and although I eat some fish now, I wasn't prepared for smoked salmon starter and then a fish main too. If I'd have known I'd have declared myself veggie for the occasion.

There was free drink though, which was good, though it meant we were all absolutely wasted very quickly. One of my friends was designated driver and on the way home to Hertfordshire we ended up at South Mimms services in Burger King at 1am wearing full black tie and ballgowns... definitely turned a few heads!