Since people have asked... The wedding from hell story.
It was a church then venue affair (and they had a lovely, warm, sunny day so it could have been great). Young couple who had met through the weird cult they'd joined (and it absolutely is a dodgy cult very clearly designed to make the people who set it up very rich). The couple had been living together for a couple if years but loudly claimed to everyone and anyone that they were still virgins (who shared a bed every night). I'm not sure why they thought anyone cared or wanted to know about their sex life, or lack thereof.
The first part is in the church that the groom's parents got married in, which is sweet. It was a lovely church too. All the guests arrive and sit in the church and then we wait, and wait, and wait. There's no sign of the bride. The church officials start getting very angsty (we're sitting at the back, so we can see them; I assume the groom was even more anxious). Eventually, with what turns out to be 5 minutes before they lost their slot and couldn't get married (because there's another wedding scheduled for the afternoon), the bride and her plethora of bridesmaids turn up. There were about a dozen of them and they're all dressed in a really nasty brown dress that appeared to have been purposefully chosen because it flattered no one. They start the most elaborate and time consuming walking down the aisle routine I've ever seen. After eons of bridesmaids walking individually down the aisle the bride appears. She does look beautiful and her (very, very expensive) dress is lovely.
The ceremony starts. Because of the whole being in a cult thing, they've got the CoE vicar there (because he can legally marry people, and because it was a CoE church) and the smarmy nightmare of a pastor/cult leader doing the ceremony. The cult guy is very clearly pissed off at the CoE vicar having a status that he doesn't and keeps making digs at the vicar. The vicar (to his credit) chooses to ignore this, no matter how obvious it gets.
The cult leader keeps making all these really cringeworthy comments about 'sexual union' and it's all dreadfully nudge nudge, wink wink. The young cult members keep sniggering any time sex is mentioned (which is a lot; the entire thing seems to be overtly all about how the groom can finally get some etc). It was utterly bizarre and all the non-cult members look pretty embarrassed by it all.
So they're married and we all head to the venue completely unaware that we should have been going via the nearby Toby carvery or something. The ceremony was an 11am job (and I had insisted on bringing snacks for the children). The venue is nice. It's a local authority run thing that mostly seems to be hired out to weddings. There are two bits (and two weddings going on) and a big lawn (with some string down the middle to separate the weddings). The hall itself is not very big so it's great that it's hot and sunny and we can all stand outside. It would have been fairly grim if everyone had been cooped up inside all day (and very, very cramped).
There's a wishing well type thing in which we can deposit the cash we'd been told we should give.
Some people manage to be issued with a glass of prosecco on arrival. Neither DH nor I got one, but MIL did. It appeared to be watered down. We stand around for several hours waiting while a million photos of bride, groom and bridesmaids are taken. There's a paid bar (very expensive) so everyone buys drinks and make small talk, as you do.
The groom does try to mingle and thank people from coming etc, but the bride does not at any point in the entire day. When anyone on her new husband's side of the family try to talk to her she outright ignores them/walks away/looks through them. We attempted to congratulate her and tell her she looked lovely and she was astoundingly rude.
At about 4pm we're told to come on and get something to eat. We're on the cousins table, which is in the corner and served last for everything. It's made quite obvious that none of us are very welcome (despite the fact they chose to invite us - no one invites cousins to weddings in DH's family so we were surprised to have been invited at all - and we'd travelled across the country to attend). I can only conclude that they invited us because all the groom's cousins are older than the couple, have good jobs and could be relied upon to cough up a decent amount of cash. It clearly didn't cost them much to invite us because they didn't provide us with anything much (as I'll explain).
There are no drinks provided at all. Not even a jug of tap water. Some tables get a jug of apple juice but our table gets nothing. The plan is for a barbecue (which I'd foolishly thought would be great because it would be much more child friendly than a formal meal). There are no starters or anything (which also would have been fine). We're called up table by table in the order in which the couple value us (so we're dead last). You go outside and are dished up some stuff from the barbecue and then get some salad inside. It should have been fine.
When our table is finally called, it's very obvious that there's pretty much no food left. There was nothing for vegetarians at any point, and the way in which the food had been stored is hugely problematic: chicken and pork and beef all lumped in together. The burgers were scarily undercooked too. Not that it mattered much since there was very little left. We all begin negotiating on the queue to decide his to divvy up the tiny amount of food available. DS2 and I get an undercooked burger between us. DH gets a single chicken drumstick. The couple of friends who must have offended the bride and groom because they were lumped on the unwanted table share a sausage between them.
We go to get some salad and there's nothing left. A couple of leaves of lettuce and two slices of onion in a bowl of what used to be coleslaw. I think DS2 managed to find a cherry tomato. I am incredibly glad I brought lots of snacks.
There's no pudding either. We eat our meagre portions and then go back to aimless mingling outside while the bride has more photos of herself taken. A couple of hours later we're told there's cake available. So we queue up and are issued with our sliver of cake each. It's nice cake, but there's not much of it.
More mingling. There is no entertainment whatsoever and everyone is getting bored (and most of us are very hungry - FIL tells me the food had been carefully rationed at the barbecue even if you were on a more favoured table). The other wedding, on the other side of the string look like they're having a much better time. The groom's poor very frail grandmother is clearly suffering as she's hungry and no one will give her a seat outside. We would have done but we were sitting on the grass because we didn't have seats. All these young cult members professing to be so good good and Christian but won't stand so an elderly lady can sit down. It was awful.
Another hour or so passes and a 'buffet' is brought out. It's a very tiny amount of iceland's finest in identifiable frozen party food of dubious origin. We rush up so as not to be at the end of the queue this time. There's enough good for everyone to have a piece of pakora and a couple of crudités each. No more. It disappears very quickly.
More aimless mingling. DH and I are waiting for the dancing/evening bit to kick off (and the first dance) so we can take DS2 and run. About 9.30 they break out the iPod and it does. We politely watch the first dance (the bride and groom look very loved up and that's sweet) and then make our move to say goodbye and thank you for the lovely wedding bit (which you say even if it's been horrible). The groom says goodbye to us, but the bride does the purposefully ignoring us thing again.
We go home to the PILs via the chippy because we are starving. The PILs come home later and report that it didn't get any better after we left. They also came via the chippy.
We receive no acknowledgement that we have them a wad of cash in the months that follow the wedding. We know they received it because the PILs hear them loudly bitching to anyone and everyone about how stingey everyone was and how little money they got at another cousjn's wedding a few weeks later (which we weren't invited to, mercifully).
So yes, wedding from hell. They clearly spent a lot. Just in all the wrong places (unless you subscribe to the 'it's your day hun; fuck the rest of them' school of wedding having).
That was long. Sorry.