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! "

We went to DH’s cousin’s wedding. Travelling 3 hours to get there with 2DC (4&2) and elderly PIL. Got to the town hall for the wedding on time to find we couldn’t get in because the B&G had invited the world and their wife to the wedding so it was rammed with people. We just stood in the car park with other guests while they married unable to see or hear anything.

At another wedding I was heavily pregnant and needed to eat quite regularly. I'd had something to eat and thought I could manage until the wedding breakfast, working out the likely timings. But the speeches were before the food was served and the groom's went on for an hour on its own (an hour of drunken ad-libbing and gushing about how much he loved his wife). Someone should have got him to sit down after 20 minutes of this. Several friends kindly gave me the chocolate mints from the favours to stop me from practically eating the table. The couple were divorced a couple of years later.

I despise church wedding ceremonies they are just so dull but hands down the worst I went to is when the couple wrote their own vows which went on for what seemed like hours plus they were ridiculously emotional and then they had about 10 speeches at the reception which were so boring, long & pointless even the staff catering the reception asked them to hurry it along poor people! Most wedding are boring as couples think it’s a unique special day but for most attending its exactly the same every ither wedding we’ve ever been to.

@Wednesdayafternoon there isn’t much ‘traditionally’ different - here you’d get married in a church or local mayor/town hall then on to somewhere for a party. I think it’s more the party that’s potential to be different- they love a late start like 9-10pm until early hours. Generally small food canapés etc and less ‘Americanised’ than wedding celebrations in the UK. Xx

We've been to two bad weddings.

We went to a friend's wedding hundreds of miles away in a teepee. The sides were open, it was freezing cold despite being in the summer, and they didn't have enough food (our table was last to be invited up to the measly buffet and some greedy buggers had piled their plates up high)

The other was a family member, neither of them wanted to get married and it was so clear to everyone. The whole day had this horrible tension running through it, and the bride and groom didn't smile once. Now divorced.

I have never been to an awful wedding. They have all been lovely. We have been to a couple of French weddings and they were magnificent and we were in bed by 2/3am.

Mid December wedding. For the reception the B&G and immediate family were seated inside the family home, everyone else was seated outside in an unheated marquee with an open side. It was freezing cold and nobody could take their coat off.

Most of the outdoor guests left before the speeches began because they were so cold. The bride was seen crying her eyes out as all the guests were knocking on their door to explain why they were leaving. Worst wedding ever.

The worst wedding we’ve been to was 5 hours drive away, so we went the night before for a midday ceremony. Stayed in a b&b that we had to be out of by 9 am. Hung around suited and booted for 3 hours. Short civil ceremony at noon. The bridal party then went for lunch and everyone else was left to fend for themselves until the reception at 7.30pm. At 9 pm it became apparent that there would be no food, and everyone went to the chip shop and takeaway in the village. 10 hours driving, for hours of killing time, 15 mins in a registry office and not a crumb of food or drop of drink provided.

I had just had a baby 8 weeks before after an awful pregnancy and really difficult c section - I truly felt shit but I put so much effort in and I thought I looked really nice.

I was wearing a floaty dress and trying not to put any pressure on my scar as it has opened up three times and been badly infected.

numerous people congratulated me on my pregnancy - that was shit - as I kept saying ‘I’ve had them - he’s over there in the pram’.

my mil came over and I really disliked her - and she said ‘oh my god you look so awful you poor little thing - you look like you should be in a hospital’ - I pointed out that I had been back in hospital 3 times in the last 2 months and my baby had various problems and I was doing my best.

she said ‘that’s the problem though isn’t it - if this is your best….’ And shrugged.

she then woke the baby up and jiggled him up and down and demanded to feed him and he then promptly threw up all over her wedding awful.

I didn’t say it but I thought ‘thanks little one for being on my side and I might look shit but she smells of vomit 🤮 for the rest of the day’ I know which one I would rather be’ 😂🤬

• I meant he threw up over her wedding outfit

After reading all these accounts, mine pales into insignificance:
The B & G were sort-of colleagues of DH who worked for a very large organisation. I had never met them and he didn't know then that well.
The wedding was at a very large Parish Church but we didn't get an invite to that.
The afternoon reception was held in the village the couple lived in, in the middle of nowhere, at the Village Hall.
The hall wasn't decorated and had the usual wooden chairs and trestle tables but no cloths or flowers.
We had been told “no presents” but to bring a cheque towards the Honeymoon. We entered the village hall and were greeted by the B & G, then had to post our cheque into a home-made pillar box nearby.
The B was a rather large lady who's strapless dress seemed about 3 sizes too small and revealed large expanses of white bosom. I was scared that if she coughed the lacing might pop open.
The place was freezing as there was no heating on, as despite being June it was rather chilly. Some of us kept going to the loo, so we could stand by the hot-air hand-drier to keep warm.
There was no bar, as it was BYO but no-one thought to tell us. There was no top-table or place markings just “sit where you like”. No-one made speeches but we were given a small plastic cup of Asti for the toast.
There was no pub in the village, much to the chagrin of the male guests.
The disco played loud music for ages and no-one danced.
The meal was a hog roast in the car park and no veggie food. As I am veggie alI had was a bread roll and a piece of cake.
Some time in the afternoon the kids got bored and escaped into the field nearby. One of the flower girls and the ring boy (5 & 7) got into a fight and both fell in a cowpat. A guest tried to sort them out but she stepped into a mole-hole and twisted her ankle.
After an hour we made our excuses and left.

Oh I have another one. I wasn't a guest at this wedding I was serving behind the bar. It was a social club, and we only ever did a few weddings.

I was I prepping the bar at 6pm when the bride walked in wearing jeans. She had a bag over her shoulder, she nipped into the toilets to get charged into a dress that was too big and quite old fashioned (I suspect her mils or mothers). The groom arrived shortly afterwards in what looked like his dads suit. They both had faces like thunder.

Shortly afterwards their parents and all their parents friends arrived. I swear there wasn't a person under 50 in the room (besides the happy couple).

No music and hardly anyone came to the bar for a drink. The bride and groom
Sat at a table on their own scowling at everyone

I can only imagine this coupe had run off to get married and where doing this wedding to please their family or they where being forced to get married.

@stillsleeptraining I've had to Google but no, it was a long and confusing drive for us into rural England though. I hope there aren't two of these dads out there...

I just remembered one when I went to a good friends wedding which took place in a Eastern European country that was 4 hours away from the the nearest town and further 2 hours from the airport we had landed in. We stayed in a lodge in October and it was Baltic. The lodge had no heating and hot water and no mirror where I could do my make up and hair. The venue was in the middle of the woods with no shops or anything. The wedding it self was actually nice, plenty of food and plenty of drinks where guests started drinking first thing in the morning. The too much alcohol became a problem where the men started to acting out as if they had never seen a woman, all wanting to basically shag me if they could which got pretty uncomfortable. They actually made these advances. Any one I dared to make eye contact with. I made two of my friends sit next to me during the dinner sections and still had friends and relatives of the b&g trying to pull a seat pushing my friends out the way. The brides sister was engaged and apparently she shagged the best man in the toilets which ended in a fist fight but the elders quickly managed them and they became friends again. My friend got alcohol or food poisoning and barely made it back home alive on a 6 hour bumpy ride. It was a funny, uncomfortable and 3 day wedding.

I went to another eastern European wedding a few years after this one and nothing like that happened this time around. Again in a remote location but everything was so lovely with plenty of food and drinks apart from a few of the English guests from the grooms side and the sil was such a bitch. She sat outside chain smoking the whole time bitching about the wedding and the bride who happens to my friend where I deliberately loudly turned chatting to my friends with my back turned to her said what a great wedding it has been and how lovely the bride is but shame on some of the guests who are clearly jealous of the bride. It was so sad where the bride and family went above and beyond to host these ungrateful guests who went around moaning, bitching about the bride and the wedding insulting their culture as well.

The bride told me her dh wasn't the love of her life, the love of her life was the bloke who'd left her beforehand. But her clock was almost out of time to have dc so she grabbed the first man who'd say yes to get on with having kids. However they've managed to stay together. It was a Jewish/Catholic wedding and they're still together 18yrs on. He's a cumugeonly old git though.

Another one I hated…I don’t really remember much about the B & G probably just invited to make up numbers. They had so many kids at the reception that by the evening half the guests had vanished, literally seemed like hundreds so nobody could really relax & enjoy themselves properly, it was like a crèche especially once they got hold of balloons (why are kids with balloons so bloody annoying?!).

One wedding we went to was abroad and the guests were expected to decorate the community hall for the after party but no one was told. Cue everyone running around trying to get decorations done the day before the wedding and set up the tables and chairs. On the wedding day itself the groom was 45 minutes late so the bride was stuck in a car circling round waiting for him to arrive. Sit down meal was basically chicken nuggets and chips and pizza which you had to go into the kitchen to get yourself. Mother of the groom had some kind of falling out with the groom and spent the entire evening sulking in a corner refusing to talk to anyone. It was one shit wedding. How did the bride and groom meet? She was the 16 year old babysitter for the groom’s baby daughter from another marriage.

My MIL strong armed is into going to the evening reception of one of her friends kids and made a huge thing of not having any tea as there would 'be a buffet'. Well there was. But it was all sweets. After nibbling on flumps for a couple of hours in a room full of people we barely knew we were bored shitless and absolutely ravenous. We ended up going to McDonald's on the way home.

The worst one however was the one where it was clear that it was only going ahead because so much money had been sunk into it. The grooms speech had nothing about his new wife and a lot about how they'd spent £10k on a 'nice party'. He then spent the whole of the evening reception holed up in a corner with the woman he would later leave his wife for. One of the bridesmaids had to take the bride to their suite with everything she needed to carry back and the next day they both went home to their parents. It didn't last 9 months.

@womaniswomaniswoman its not just English, it’s really common here in Scotland.

That's horrific. Poor man.

A family wedding where they had a budget but invited too many people within that budget so everything was really basic. One drink with the meal. The meal was one course. The food in the evening was handed out on paper plates and was half an egg sandwich, a cocktail sausage and a sausage roll. A cup of tea or coffee and that was it.

Like others have said, people left and went to get food elsewhere.

Mother of the bride did say a good few years later they should have cut back on numbers and had more food and drink.

Another pretty awful wedding was the bride arrived drunk. She and the bridesmaid the night before drank vodka and champagne. Fell asleep on the sofa and woke to the makeup artist arriving. Still drunk they opened more champagne just to keep a hangover at bay.

She didn’t want to get married. They lasted a year.

BackflandedCondiment
Hand on my hearty, I once went to a wedding where the Vicar's speech before the vows went like this:

"It is a sad fact but you are 8 times more likely to be killed by a spouse than by a stranger. I've been married for several years and there has been ups and downs. In fact, I think if I'd have known back then what I know now I might not have been married at all. Therefore, XX and XY are going to need the help and support of everything gathered here today to strengthen and succeed in their new marriage..."

I could not stop shaking for laughing. Made worse when, after the service, every guest I spoke to mentioned how 'moving' the vicar was.

I love this! I went to one where the vicar went on and on about Christianity and how most of the people there were only in church because it was a wedding (well duh) and they should attend properly if they wanted to get to heaven. I was gobsmacked but as with yours, loads of people were going “what a lovely service!”

went to another where the best man’s speech was a barely disguised warning that their relationship was a disaster and they shouldn’t get married and he was right.

Even those weddings were fun with nice food and dancing. The most miserable one I went to was ex’s cousin’s wedding which was very traditionally Scottish but not in a fun or interesting way. Everyone looked terrible serious and there was a traditional formal dance that went on for ages. I relieved the boredom by sitting with cousin’s mum who hated the bride and had a right bitch about her!

nothing like violent brawls or getting shot though!

My own. It should never have happened.

@RoseLunarPink towards the end he made us all stand up, put our hands over our hearts and say "I promise" to help the bride and groom make a success of thier marriage.

It's was like some kind of Richard Curtis comedy!

I was just there as someone's Plus 1 who I have since lost contact with, which I suppose means I have not kept my promise

Still, not on par with a shooting!