To ask what's the worst wedding you've ever been to?

[WashingMatilda]

I've just come back from a really gorgeous wedding. It was one of those joyous, real life affirming ones IYKWIM.

However, during the speeches I randomly remembered a wedding I went to years and years ago where the grandmas wheelchair was left without its brakes on at the top of a big flight of steps outside the registry office. She rolled forward, all the way down, cracked her head open on the slabs, ambulance took her off on blue lights, and the bride spent the reception scrubbing blood out of her train poor bloody woman. It was horrific. (Nan fine in the end)

What's yours?

My own.

Mine wasn't wonderful - the priest cancelled the venue at short notice so we ended up somewhere else, then he went off-piste during the service with an extended lecture about female obedience and the necessity of procreation, while telling all the guests (including my frail relatives) to stay standing during the entire lengthy ceremony in a cramped church full of fuggy incense. SIL fainted. I still have the pics and the priest looks like a cat who sat on a nettle in all of them, the grumpy bugger.

On the plus side the decree absolute will be here any day now.

Other than that, I went to the evening reception of a wedding where the bride was a very strict Christian and didn't allow alcohol or blasphemy, the groom was half Irish and half Yorkshire, and several of the guests were Aussies. The latter two groups were wide-eyed at the idea of a wedding without booze, merriment or swearing, and all of hers were horrified at unmarried couples with children. The evening felt extremely long, so I can only imagine what it was like for people there the whole day.

I also went to a wedding where the bride's father was a proper Tennessee republican with a gun collection, and he talked at length about how he considered shooting the (very English, choir-master) groom when he first met him. But that was a lovely wedding, so long as you weren't the groom ...

Grooms entourage had a fight with the photographer, groom spent most the night in the toilets doing cocaine and people singing Tottenham Hotspur chants as the bride walked down the isle

The FOB invited his mistress along to the wedding but told her not to tell anyone who she was. He then whinges that she couldn't sit on the top table next to him and asked if his wife wanted to sit with the family so mistress could sit with him. Bride figured it all out. I was the MOC and announced the couple in the room, the doors opened and she was red in the face with rage, threw her glass of fizz in the direction of her dad, called him a long list of names and stormed off.
I found her sitting in another function suite on her own crying her eyes out. So I sat and talked to her for about an hour while all the guests were sitting in the other room. I refused to allow food service until she was happy and in her seat. The mistress ended up leaving, totally embarrassed, and the FOB was thrown out the hotel by the best man. Absolute disaster!

My DSis's first wedding, also to a complete knob. He was violent to her and was also massively in debt, and my family had bailed him out. He couldn't control his spending.

On the day itself, my uncle gave my DSis away, he got drunk and fluffed his lines and sat in the wrong place after his part was completed. The date of the wedding was a match between England and Germany which England won 5-1, so all the guests went off to watch. And the fire alarm went off.

But of course, none of these things would have mattered if she had been marrying the right man.

Then her knob of a thankfully ex-DH spoils my own wedding video, because the camera is focused on his face while my DH and I are saying my vows.

Thankfully, my DSis is now happily married to DH number 2.

Placemarking to read later ...

Me, DH and FIL travelled over 300 miles to SIL wedding. She was a wealthy widow with a substantial family inheritance. He was twice divorced with 3 kids with 3 different women. The registrar had him sussed straight away and made a very funny comment (literally everyone laughed) about his track record and this being third time lucky for him...

Afterwards we headed to a reception of cold Iceland sausage rolls and mini pizza. Sticky carpets in the backroom of one of those pubs we have all been to but never wished we had. Bride and groom stayed for half an hour and then buggered off. We left not long after for our 3 hour drive home

They had a row on the first day of their honeymooon in Greece and he left her and flew home. They are now divoricing and he wants half. I don't feel sorry for her one bit. Stupid, stupid woman. My DH (her brother refuses to speak to her and her Dad (my FIL) has disowned her.

And I wasn't mentioned in the speeches

But it's really not unusual to have a birthday. If you have 100-150 guests at a wedding it's fairly likely at least one of them will have a birthday that day (50% chance with 176 guests I think?). I don't think many people would regard that as worth mentioning in the speeches!

Yes nice to do something nice on your birthday, but couldn't you have celebrated another day just as easily?

My absolute most bizarre wedding was when I was a 10 year old choir girl. Bearing in mind, I'd been brought up to go to church every Sunday AND WAS ONLY 10, I will never forget the bridesmaid running out the side alter door to throw up, the Nan shouting and falling out of her wheelchair and the bestman falling over as they walked back down the aisle, bringing the MofH down with him. Best £1 I ever earned....

The one where the love of my life, with whom I had had a seven year relationship, married another woman, called the same name as I then was (I changed my name some years later), and booked the disco I worked for so I had to do the reception party...
I did it, with a smile on my face, congratulated them, told her she looked beautiful, and set off to walk home. Then I managed to trip and fall skinning both knees and both palms, banged my head, and couldn't get a taxi. I arrived home at 3am and cried. I was still crying at 6.30 when I had to go to my day job as a cleaner in an old people's home, and arrived to find a lady with dementia had raided the kitchen overnight and given herself d+v ALL over the communal areas which I had to clean up before the other residents could be brought to breakfast.
Worst day of my life EVER...

I've been to a few rather less than lovely weddings in my time. But I do have one stand-out one.

The invitation was issued on a Facebook group - to approximately 400 people. Almost 200 people responded to say yes, they would be attending, another 80 or so ticked maybe.

"We'll get there early on the day," said DH, "because I've been to that church before and it only seats about 120 people and the parking is limited too!"

The Bride and Groom also asked that everyone 'bring a dish' for the reception and changed the dress code three times (From formal, to jeans and western shirts, to business-casual). Not a problem to bring a dish, but no guidance was offered on what to bring. The changes in dress code were a real pain though.

Finally the day arrived and off we went. Arrived 40 minutes early and managed to squeeze into a pew at the back, it was soon standing room only and the car park was grid-lock.

The wedding service took quite literally two minutes. Blink and you would miss it. Then we were all ushered out of the church so it could be locked up and the wedding party vanished for an hour and a half to take photos while everyone milled around outside waiting to be fed and watered.

Yes, outside in the garden of the church, and it was March, so really not warm. DH and I were lucky, he had a couple of big blankets in the car so we and baby DS wrapped up in them at some of the trestle tables set up. And soon acquired a frozen SIL and her DDs as well to join our huddle.

Finally the signal to eat was given and we went and munched our way through seventeen different interpretations of pasta salad and other stuff. Then when the wind got so strong (and bitterly cold) that it was blowing our half-full plastic cups away we called it a day and went to say goodbye to the B&G... who were presumably oblivious to the suffering of their guests as they were smooching happily in the shelter of a tiny gazebo thing by a roaring chimenea - the only source of heat in the place.

My worst one was many years ago - I was only 18, and asked to be a bridesmaid. The B&G came from a huge Irish and Italian families and countless relatives attended; there must have been over 300 guests

Jitters are normal, but it seemed a bit much when her parents started pouring vodka down the bride to calm her insistent demands of of "has the groom been picked up yet? Is he there?", and it got even worse at the register signing when her mum stood bawling ... I don't mean a few of the usual emotional tears, but actual shrieking

Worst of all was the reception, which quickly deteriorated into a rich selection of fights: the groom with the bride's uncle, the bride's dad with some cousin, the best man with his wife's ex and more ... it looked like one of those comic strips with a jumble of bodies and speech bubbles with "oooof", "splatt" and "lemme go" coming out the side

At least some of the angst seemed justified when it turned out the groom had been shagging the bride's aunt since well before the wedding; he left to go and live with her shortly after his return from honeymoon

I think someone on the first page attended mine to my ex.

Unless more than one groom and best man think it's acceptable to use their speeches to do nothing other than be nasty to the bride, I actually left for a few hours mid way through watched a film and read some of a book and nobody noticed

I went to a dear friends wedding on my birthday and she got all the guests to sing happy birthday to me in her speech, was embarrassing but lovely of her!

The one time I was actually upset at a wedding was when my DSis married her second husband. I haven't liked to say anything about it, as it was a very happy occasion after her very bad first marriage. But I had her leave from our house, which was such a proud moment, then when it came to her new DH's speech, he thanked everyone except me. I got a present later, but I felt very overlooked.

Then my DSis noticed I was upset about something and I managed to convince her I was ok and it was nothing for her to worry about, not wanting to ruin her special day.

But I was hurt. He thanked literally everyone else!!

Trying not to be too sepcific:

*In another country, we had to drive 8 hours to get there. There was a family argument that I was thankfully not drawn into because my S-I-L doesn't get on with the bride (another family member) but no one else could drive. They all expected me to drive so she didn't have to go- I have epilepsy, but apparantly I was selfish for not wanting to drive for 8 hours when I have seizures.

*The car was uncomfortably full - me, DH, F-I-L, S-I-L, S-I-Ls 1.5 year old, DHs 80 year old Grandma who has advanced dementia.

*It was in a tiny town (population about 1000) a couple of hours away from anything else, including our accomodation.

*F-I-L had a heart attack right in the middle of the ceremony. (He's fine now.) We had to leave, call an ambulance, and wait because the hospital was also a couple of hours away from the location.

*Meanwhile my DH and myself were trying to look after his dad, and my S-I-L had to try and look after her grandma, who had no idea what was going on, and her 1.5 year old.

*Pales in significance to the rest of this, but throughout all of this we'd only grabbed some food from a petrol station along the way, and missed the meal because of what was going on, so everyone was hungry on top of being stressed and worried.

qklnk.co/GJHpAX Not sure if this has been spotted already...

I went to a wedding where several of the guests wore hi-viz waistcoats, couldn't work out why! They had ordinary clothes on, not work clothes.

The tripe and no alcohol wedding WINS !

Mine have been been tame but the whole evening only thing sucks to high heaven

You arrive late , everyone is pissed and bonded and you have to eat a tepid buffet if lucky and pay for the drinks
Fuck that !

Wasnt a bad one, just a bit odd. Went to one where the bride wanted to do the old fashioned 'going away'. She changed into a going away outfit and off they went to the nearby hotel at 9pm. As soon as they left everything was packed up and everyone left. We'd stayed in a hotel locally, so we were tucked up in bed by 10pm.

where the evening buffet was a happy meal type box with a sandwich and juice box. The best man spent loads of money buying extra sandwiches and chips for everyone.

At my own One guest had a huge row with his wife, she dumped him and he got carted off by the police for smashing a glass topped table and passing out in the reception. I didn't know about this till much later though. One of ex-Hs friends, obviously.

Only one where we knew it wouldn't last. He was an arse and thankfully she has gone on to have a fabulous life after the short lived marriage.

this is probably nothing compared to some of these but because I still remember it as the major act of selfishness by someone very nice....

10am coach to venue ( "wedding dinner" night before which I stupidly attended and paid for)
11.30ish wedding
several hours of photos, receiving line with no food
one glass of bubbles

all drinks to be paid at bar, venue had no other food at all which would be served when B&G finished posing

bride's shoes cost £2000, dress £5000 - no idea how much groom suit cost

food finally served c 6.30pm with any extra drinks, including just a diet coke, needing to be paid for - some sensible people had left by then but I knew the whole family so was trapped - or young and stupid maybe lol- also I couldn't believe they were happy to leave people that hungry and kept expecting food to appear.

many people falling over drunk by 4pm because nowt else to do

at midnight couple announced that they had not booked 2 coaches back to the hotel but a minibus that would take us in turns.

oh and a coupel of people asked what was happening to the table flowers, bride snarled "I paid £4k for these, we're taking them" and promptly rounded them up somewhere in case anyone took them

got back to hotel at 2.30am because young folk were on the last bus

could not believe nice friend could run such a horribly inconsiderate wedding

they divorced within a few years and he spent many more battling to get half of her money, which apparently had never occurred to her "because love"

she really is kind and sweet etc but it was like she was possessed by something for that wedding and after the divorce, she lost enough without being £50k down already.