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! "

I've been to a few awful ones.

One where they had their first dace and it was one of those rehearsed ones, she kept smacking her new husband on the head for getting it wrong, the poor guy was counting his steps, we all applauded, music stopped, bride disappeared, came back 5 minutes later with a change of clothes, then another dance routine, this carried on for around an hour with 8-10 clothes changes.

After that if any slight thing happened the bride would scream "THIS IS MY DAY" and literally stamped her feet until she got her own way. The marriage lasted 3 months, she was far more worried about the wedding than the marriage.

Another where the bride got very, very drunk and shouted at the groom and his parents, then she went off to another pub where she made up stories about him hitting her and cheating on her, she ended up sleeping on the floor of their room. Next day she was laughing her head off about it. Surprisingly, a few years later, they are still married.

Another where it was so ridiculously posh everyone was uncomfortable, the bride and groom said the price of everything when anything was complimented "I love your dress" - "Well it did cost 8 grand" type conversations about everything. She cried on the way down the aisle because she had specifically chosen one choir boy to sing Ave Maria, but that one was ill so another was singing. One of the doves that were being released on the way out of the church flew the wrong way and she went off on one about that too. That couple only lasted about a year too

I went to one that was a glamping wedding in late Autumn, in the middle of nowhere. The ceremony and reception was all outside, despite the fact it was ate autumn and freezing. No indoor space to warm up, no outdoor heaters. There was 1 meal provided for the whole day, at about lunchtime, which consisted of a bread roll and a very small piece of meat with a bit of salad in the side. There was nowhere on site where you could buy more food and the nearest shop was ages away. No drinks provided at all. There was no evening entertainment, even though all the guests were staying overnight. There was also only one shower cubicle, one plug socket and one tiny mirror for all the guests to share so getting ready on the morning of the wedding was a bit of a nightmare!

Woah. I don’t think I can’t top attempted fratricide.

The worst wedding I went to, there was nothing wrong with the actual wedding itself but I was about 5 weeks pregnant and didn’t know it at the time. I spent the whole wedding feeling really sick and not knowing why. None of the lovely (and plentiful!) food on offer tasted right, I couldn’t stomach drinking the wine or champagne. It was such a shame because I wanted to enjoy myself but just couldn’t because I felt so wrong.

it all made sense a couple of weeks later!

My parents went to a wedding in mid January. They had to wait HOURS for any food (Irish wedding, they hold back on serving food so people will spend more money at the bar). When food turned up, it was COLD chicken breast on fridge-cold plates with a 'salad' on the side which was mainly lettuce and raw onion 🤢 and another wedding they went to in a castle in December. Black tie, so ladies in thin dresses and wraps. No heating on in any room. They were frozen solid all day and night!

@Branleuse also a French wedding...

At around 11pm we were told guests were expected to knock on door around the village to 'find' the bride and groom.

We all got into an open tractor trailer and set off on the most perilous journey, with a pissed French bloke at the wheel, swigging a bottle of spirits as he drove.

We arrived at a isolated Barn at around 2am where the bride and groom were 'sleeping' in a hay barn. We were there for three hours until the pissed French bloke drove us back.

A male friend of mine actually cried.

DH’s cousin’s wedding in Norway sounds similar to the French weddings. Many courses which took hours. Dancing started after midnight.
Nobody had warned us it went on so late and we had a 6mo. The other couples with DC had arranged babysitters.

A friend's August wedding. It was clearly planned with the idea that it would be glorious sunshine but actually it poured down and was freezing cold.
Apart from the church for the ceremony there was no indoor space at all. Trestle tables on a village green and a large marquee.
The food allocated by sex.
Chicken for women, beef for men, meringue nests and fruit for women and chocolate cake for men, but the "men's" meals were much, much nicer in every way. Bigger, fancier, tastier. Which I found completely bizarre and infuriating.
There was little atmosphere, no music or dancing and we were all cold, wet and hungry.
I was seated at a "random singles" table and they were lovely, we all ended up decamping to Burger King at a service station on the M6.

😱😱

I think i have boring friends!

There was one wedding with a heatwave and you could literally melt in the reception room. I kept escaping "to feed the baby". DH brought me food. It was actually a very nice wedding except that.

Other we hadn't be told it was an outdoor wedding, in October in Yorkshire. We were living in the Mediterranean at the time, so used to significantly warmer climes. DH got so cold we had to go back to the hotel at 9pm. He looked visibly ill.

Also it can't beat the shooting brother... but our BM ended up in hospital for several days following ours. He is still regularly teased about his accident (it did involve alcohol). He gave himself concussion.

Some of these are hilarious. Shocking but hilarious.

Most of the weddings I've been to have been very tame in comparison.

There was 1 wedding though where, within the first few moments of the first dance, the father of the bride pushed her new husband out of the way and proceeded to dance the rest of the dance with his daughter/the bride.

The DJ kept saying, in a stunned voice, you can't do that.

The groom just shrugged his shoulders and stood at the side of the dancefloor.

Most of the bride's family seemed to find it hysterically funny. Most of the other guests felt rather awkward.

The marriage didn't even make it to a year.

Name changed as SIL is on here and does like to track my posts...! Plus this is recognisable.

SILs wedding. DH was being an arse, and had been being an arse for some time. Day started badly when he decided to get up early and exercise in the fields. Fields have a lot of deer (this is relevant). He called me in when he was in the shower afterwards to check what looked like weird dots all over his skin. On closer inspection these were tiny ticks (from the deer), loads of them, at least 50, probably a lot more. I spent a good half an hour tweezing them off and spraying everywhere in sight with flea spray (I have no idea if flea spray kills ticks, but it was the best I had). Thinking it might be a good idea to get some form of insecticide I decided to stop off at a chemist on route to the wedding. DH refused to come in. The chemist refused to believe my story about ticks (they were, ticks are quite recognisable), and came out with an article about pubic lice. The day went down hill from there on.

It was a 3 hour drive to the wedding, I drove as DH had 'important' work calls to do. 3 hours of him bellowing into the phone was really quite trying. It became more trying when we arrived at the town, which had cobbled medieval type streets and stopping his phone call to actually tell me where the venue was was beyond him. I was getting increasingly irate when I spotted BIL, pulled over, and being a nice normal not arse like bloke he gave me directions. So that was positive.

So we arrived at the hotel and got changed. DH was being weirdly unpleasant. Not one nice word, pretty much ignored me. It was very awkward. The ceremony was uneventful, the photos even more so, the fun and games started at the reception. I have never in my life wanted to be somewhere else more vehemently than that night. DH was vile, drunk, loud, making jokes at my expense, pretty much doing his best to spoil SIL's day. The piece de resistance was when he attacked the croquembouche (are these still a thing?) with the sword narrowly missing knocking the whole thing to the ground. A waiter dived in and whisked it away. MIL had a word, asking me to rein him in. Like why? As if I could do anything.

Eventually the evening finally ended and we headed back to the hotel. Not wanting to be anywhere near him I opted to sleep on the floor. There was no spare bedding, so I wrapped myself in a dressing gown and a towel. The room was baking, really hot, so I opened the window. This was when I discovered the main air con units for the hotel were directly outside the window, and the noise was akin to a jumbo jet taking off. So I closed the window. Then DH started snoring. So the luxury night in an expensive hotel that I had been looking forward to was a night on the floor, listening to what sounded like an aircraft duetting with a snorting pig. Plus it was hot. Very hot. 300 quid well spent. I think I cried, but it was a long time go and I can't remember. If I didn't, I should have done.

Two days later I discovered that DH was having an affair, and the work trip he had returned from immediately before the wedding had been a holiday with his mistress. Hence his vile behaviour. Looking back it is such a shame I removed those ticks.....

So that was the worst wedding, although it was nothing to do with the wedding!

[namechanging back now]

The food allocated by sex.
Chicken for women, beef for men, meringue nests and fruit for women and chocolate cake for men
I had completely forgotten that this used to be a thing!

God yes. That was pretty much exactly it for our wedding 15 years ago. When we booked the venue I was told this was standard and because I am not from the UK originally and was told by everyone around me it was standard I went with it. I had to argue for a vegetarian alternative as I recall. (I was vegetarian back then!)

Where I was 8 months pregnant and didn't get fed. It was a buffet meal - and tables who were called first helped themselves to most of the food.

I couldn't stand meat when I pregnant and that was ALL was left so ate all of the mini cakes on our table. Horrendous

One of my friends ‘ daughters had her wedding in a tepee on the South Downs. She bullied everyone into staying overnight in the damn things, there were no first world comforts ie loos, showers, way of obtaining a hot drink without putting a can on the bonfire. It was grim. ( The bride later insisted against medical advice on having her first child in a birthing pool at home when she was 39 . The child was born in the emergency ambulance on the blue lighted trip to the hospital).

the worst wedding I ever participated in though was not one we were invited to, it was taking place in the hotel we had booked into to spend the night before quite an important client pitch, to arrive fresh ( ha ha). The wedding had taken over the restaurant, we had to have dinner in a sort of outbuilding with emergency lighting, the disco was so loud it was impossible to have any sort of conversation so we just ate our fairly dire food and went upstairs to sit out the disco in our room.

We had finally managed to get to sleep when we were woken by shouting and general disturbance in the corridor outside. I can’t believe I was so foolhardy, but I opened the door and asked them to go and fight somewhere else because I had to work in the morning. Extraordinarily, they did.

Seven thirty next morning, just dressed for breakfast, best business clothes.. Knock on the door. Two policeman asking us if we had been disturbed that night because they were investigating an alleged sexual assault. By then, we were just so desperate to get out in one piece that I’m afraid we said that we hadn’t heard anything ( only blokes in the corridor that I saw).

We had intended to address the receptionist about our ‘luxury accommodation’ but we were so pleased to get away that we just legged it and got some breakfast at a transport cafe before the meeting.
We got the business, though.

Are you still married to him?

The bride was vile and constantly looked down her nose at hb told me he would never have anything.

She arrived at her wedding in an old white cord cortina with a sagging ribbon. Photographer was a work mate who took their photos in a graveyard. Bridesmaids dresses did not match . Brides bouquet was a dirty small bridesmaids posy that had had curtain net wrapped round it to make it look clean .

Reception: paper table cloths plastic glasses cutlery paper plates . Starter was fruit cocktail served in plastic mousse dishes .Drinks were wine served in a metal jug and cans of beer on a table only allowed two each no bar . The cake was sagging in the middle

Best man : Total embarrassment was drunk . Honestly been to better shotgun weddings on rough estates .

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen seriously? I don’t often judge people but I can’t believe you lied to the police. The sexual assault could easily have been linked to the men arguing/fighting.

We got the business, though.
Thank goodness your business meeting didn’t suffer...

Colleague of mine was in a rocky relationship. He had cheated multiple times and they just weren't very nice to one another and were quite controlling of one another. Lots of secrets kept. She had her wedding in one of the nicest venues in our area and everything was stunning. However her MIL turned up in an off white lace dress. She had shown the bride it months before and the bride had laughed and said she could not wear it as it would upstage the bride. MIL wore it anyway. Then the grooms 2 sisters (who hated the bride) were outside talking badly about the bride and saying things about how awful her dress was (it wasn't, it was beautiful). Brides sister overheard, had had enough and confronted them about it all. Ended in a fight and brides sister did not come out of it well and was taken off somewhere. Bride was only briefly aware of what was going on, until her own mother confronted her and told her to do something about it all. Bride was in complete shock, what could she do. So her mother left the wedding to catch up with the other daughter.

Bride still married and now has 3 children with groom. She was so embarrassed when she came back that the wedding was never really mentioned again and she would downplay the fights and aftermath when anyone did ask so we never got the full story. Just that she was pressured into persuading her sister not to take it any further as both SIL are nurses and would have to inform their work if anything was taken further. From what I hear the SIL are still vile to her. One announced her own pregnancy at brides baby shower. They do things like arrange family events and not invite her or plan them for when she is working. They also plan things for days when they know MIL is minding colleagues children, not say a word about it to colleague and then put Facebook pictures up of "Xs birthday lunch" etc and tag friend in them because her children are there. Its all very petty and calculated. All colleague wants is to be liked and welcomed in as its a female-heavy family so a lot of ladies days out, afternoon teas and pamper sessions take place that she's excluded from.

Two close friends of mine;it wasn't their fault but other people's.

They'd been engaged for ages but didn't have time to plan their wedding due to working crazy hours with their business.

The grooms mum offered to plan the wedding;they begrudgingly accepted with the condition the brides mum helped;the grooms mum is a pushy moo who think has hyacinth bucket type tendencies who simply swept the MOB out of the way and planned a wedding at her friends wedding venue business which was expensive and in the middle of nowhere.It was hard and expensive for the guests to get taxes and find suitable hotels.

On thé day of the wedding about 10 didn't turn up therefore wasting the bride and grooms money,it was unbearably hot,the venue was a sweat box,everyone was too hot/fatigued to eat the lovely food and escaped to the outdoor section as soon as possible,there was a band that ended up playing to a near empty room.

On top of this the best man spent all night drinking,was far too drunk to be the best man and the grooms brother had to step in but it was really obvious what had happened as the best man was in a suit and not the full outfit the actual best was wearing whilst sat in the front row.

The actual best man decided to give a drunken speech after thé meal;it was awful and made the MOG cry and her husband walked out as he was so angry and didn't want to cause a scene.

There's a beautiful pub near my friends house that they went to a lot and love;it holds smallish weddings there;I think my friends would have been much happier getting married there tbh.

Unbelievable.

We pretty much decline wedding invitations now because of the lack of hospitality shown by so many; if it's possible to just attend the ceremony and extend best wishes we'll go, but no interest in the often-boring "party."

Plus, we dont' want to waste an entire weekend centered around the wedding of people who for the most part have been living together for years and often already have kids. At that point one assumes the commitment is there, and the actual "union" no big deal. Ceremony, one glass of fizz and a bit of cake, and on to the rest of one's day would be fine.

Very lavish wedding in beautiful stately home. Older extremely wealthy groom.
Bride looked cold as ice throughout. When it came to the “you may now kiss the bride” part, the bride pulled back and gave him a quick peck on the cheek as she didn’t want to spoil her lipstick.
They are now divorced. She has kept the £m house.