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?

Bride's father who was in his mid-fifties died very suddenly a few days before the wedding, and begged the bride with his dying breath not to cancel the wedding. Bride walked down the aisle in floods of tears, whole day very subdued - marriage lasted a couple of years I think. Shame, they were a nice couple but the bride was very close to her father, and absolutely prostrate with grief - I don't think the marriage ever had a chance to thrive.

Very sad. In retrospect they would have been better off postponing.

It was in winter and I had the beginnings of flu. The heating in the church had broken and it was freezing. The vicar preached on and on about God's wrath, hellfire, brimstone, that we were sinners etc. Then we stood outside for ages having photos. We finally got to the function room, I didn't eat a thing but there was a roaring fire at least so I huddled around that for an hour then went home to bed. The marriage lasted less than a year he was a cheater at every opportunity, we knew it, she knew it, most people attending the wedding knew it.

You were served tripe? StarkintheSouth Bleurgh

The wedding was fine but time to confess.....

Child #1, 7 at the time, had just had her appendix out and was still in hospital. MIL offered to come up and stay in hospital with her as we had been invited to close family friends wedding. Child #1 was to have been a bridesmaid but that was out of the question.

As you can imagine we'd had a frantic week looking after the other 2 children, work, hospital visits/overnight stays. Consequently no food in the house.

There was a Tesco between the Church and reception and we decided that they'd be time for a quick trolley dash.

It's a complicated car park entrance/junction and we thought that someone, from the wedding, might have followed us in.

Did the shop and then went to reception, greeting line and sherry still there.

The usual wait and mingle before sitting down for the meal.

Half way through the meal, an hour later? the best man and girlfriend turn up complaining that they followed someone they thought was a guest drive into Tesco and that they'd followed them and then got lost.

Fortunately we were nowhere near the top table and were able to sit small and quietly.

Daughter fine and now 30! The marriage ended years ago.

I've got a couple!

Super long speeches... getting on for well over 2 hours long. Granny collapses and gets taken away in an ambulance. Very boring speech (with slide show) carries on...

Distant family wedding. Physical punch up breaks out between the groom and his best man (brother).

Friends wedding - there was a mix up between the bride and the caterers and there was only HALF THE FOOD THERE SHOULD BE. So we all got one plate between two. Half a chicken breast. Three green beans. Half a bread roll. The bride was in tears :-(

Not one I attended but one I worked at many years ago at a hotel in my University town.
Everything seemed to be going ok until the speeches. Best man did his speech, then newly married husband stood up, informed everyone that his new wife had actually been sleeping with the best man for the last 6 months and that he had decided to go ahead with the wedding today just so her parents could pay for it all.
Cue chaos, bride crying, guests either left or drunk lots of brandy at the bar and the husband went to another bar in the hotel and got wrecked and then charged it all back to the honeymoon suite which was already paid for by the brides parents!

The one where several of the groom's family left halfway through the meal because they thought the bride's side of the family had all got more prawns in their prawn cocktails!

My old boss...
She earned a fortune, as did her fiancé (£150k each)
She started a blog about her wedding planning which talked about how they both fell in love with the venue at first sight, and the multiple menu tastings because the food was all so amazing they couldn't choose what to serve. They went on wine tasting courses to chose what to match to the food.
We had high expectations...

The reality:
A one hour drive from the church to the venue. Which turned out to be a very ordinary village pub. When we got there, the doors were open but there wasn't anyone behind the bar.
Eventually someone appeared to say they were serving any drinks before the meal but we could have some peanuts
The couple fucked off for well over an hour to get photos taken while all the guests just stood around in a pub. It was raining so no one could go outside

Eventually we were ushered into the function room and food was served - a very ordinary buffet where the centrepiece was a whole poached salmon. It ran out before half the tables had been served
We had one bottle of red and one of white per table of 10 people and all other drinks had to be bought from the bar (which was now open)
They did their first dance and then the DJ played children's music for the couples DC and other kids to dance around to, so no adults could/would dance. This carried on until they all crashed out at 8/9pm
They then tried to get adults onto the dance floor but everyone was bored stupid and started to drift off home
The bride went MENTAL saying she had put on an amazing night for everyone and how dare they leave
DH and I felt obliged to stay, as she was my boss. A few other colleagues also stayed so we carried on drinking

My brother's wedding reception.
The invite was no kids but as it was in another country and as a lone parent I couldn't attend without bringing my two (aged 10 and 15 and v well behaved). So DB made a concession, we were allowed to attend but we're seated in an ante room off the main reception, through some French doors, where we couldn't see or hear the speeches.

Bride and groom gave front row seats to all of their work friends and the speeches were all from and about people I'd never met.

I just swallowed it at the time but ten years later it still rankles that we were treated like the poor relations.

I've been to a couple of those deeply tedious, by-the-book, 12 hour weddings where there's nothing to do between 4pm and 7pm and nowhere to go unless you've a room in the hotel or you live nearby. That was in the 1980s/1990s though - thankfully that style of wedding seems to have fallen out of favour.

The very trendy central London one where a) it was my birthday b) I was very newly pregnant so not drinking at a very boozy do but couldn't tell anyone (and had an early miscarriage anyway) c) dh and I were stuck on a corner table with some distant cousins whilst the couple's minor sleb and much newer friends were given centre stage d) I forgot to fake tan my feet so had ridiculously 2 tone legs.
Hideous!

The one where the groom (cocklodger, unfaithful, alcoholic) got very very stoned between the ceremony and the meal. The bride's mother was in tears. He later groped at least two of the female guests.

The best man was hammered and hadn't realised he'd need to make a speech, so hadn't prepared anything - yet managed to talk for half an hour. It was excruciating.

Marriage lasted 2-3 years. This was more than ten years ago and they're STILL in court regularly over child maintenance.

I haven't been to any where anything when spectacularly wrong. But I have been to one that was just depressing and joyless. Groom was an arse who spent the whole day making 'humorous' put down comments to the bride who was clearly upset by it. The best man was even worse than the groom and spent his entire speech either sniggering at in jokes with the groom or making jokes at the expense of the bride. Awful. The wedding venue was vast and it was a small wedding so there was no atmosphere at all as we were so spaced out. There was a hot buffet for food but it became clear there wasn't enough to go round. Some guests at the back of the queue didn't get served. And it pissed it down all day. The whole day was just depressing really.

Family wedding, much talked about and at a church that had a special family connection. Longest most boring day of my life, completely ruined by nearly 2 hours of photos at church and another 2.5 hours at the venue. Church service was at 11.30am, main course was served at 5.30pm. It was beyond boring, nothing for guests to do other than pack into a tiny bar and wait wait wait and wait a bit more. I actually wanted to murder the photographer by the end of it.

Two terrible weddings I attended was one where the reception was in a hired room of a pub, but the groom's mother did the catering.
The catering consisted of two bread rolls each. One filled with cheese and one filled with meat spread. She brought them out in two huge shopping bags and physically handed them to you. We left them and 30 minutes later, left the venue.

The other one was where the groom was asked to say I do, but he said yes instead. The registrar asked the question again and the groom shouted I said yes didn't I ffs. He then stormed out. Needless to say that wedding didn't go ahead.

I've been to some lovely weddings and some pretty boring ones.
I went to one years ago which was really boring. They had a band for the entertainment in the evening but they weren't very good. There was another wedding on in the hotel and they looked like they were having a great time. everyone was up dancing. We thought about defecting but didn't.
I was also at a really rowdy wedding a few years ago. The cheering started as the little page boy walked in and didn't stop. Every prayer, talk, song, comment was followed by cheering and shouting. By the end people were on their feet. It was like a concert.

I think I've posted about this one before, but the worst one that I went to was many years ago where the bride and her mother got into a fist fight in the toilets Well classy!

My own. It was awful! We had no money, I was hugely overweight, I wanted it all very low key and early morning. I didn't even brush my hair, too busy getting our DC ready.

None of the photos ever made it into frames!

We laugh about it now but it upsets Me.

Well, there's the one where we were invited to the evening reception, and there was no food at all, and only a very limited bar serving beer or wine and crisps. Me and DH sloped off early and went for a curry on the way home.

Or there's the one where a group of us from the groom's Sunday morning football team all turned up in wedding guest attire (nice dresses, hats and the men in smart suits - it was the thing then) and every one else bar the bride's mum and bride/groom was in jeans/smart casual. And even then the groom changed into jeans as soon as he got to the reception.

But to top it all was the one where the reception was held in the social club at our local power station, and the main course was ham salad on plastic plates. My then boyfriend left me there and went off to the local greyhound track where his dog was running and then came back for me. I was talking and hadn't realised he had gone until one of his mates told me. Needless to say he was very rapidly ex-boyfriend.

On the other hand my mum was invited by one of her friends to her niece's wedding. The niece was a singer/dancer who had been in several of the West End musicals (ensemble, not lead roles), as was the groom, and so a lot of the guests were in the same business. Mum said when the hymns were sung it was absolutely beautiful. Reception was held at a local hotel, and they had a band in the evening. Several of the guests got up and sung, as did the bride and groom. I had wedding envy for a long time after that

My worst by a long shot.

Mothers changing nappies on the dinner table whilst we were eating. Kids running riot. Those two created a perfect storm when one out of control child skidded on a shitty nappy and collided with the dining table.

All that paled into insignificance when the bride and groom got into a drunken fight which culminated in her stabbing him with a fork and the police having to be called.

A wedding where my long-term bf wasn't invited (we had been together longer than the bride and groom). But there were a few friends there. There was coffee and cake served straight after the ceremony. I found out on the day that it was expected of my friends and I to help clear up after the coffee and cake.

We weren't invited to the wedding breakfast, so had to find a greasy spoon nearby for lunch while A-list guests swanned off for their fancy stately home dinner. Very boring afternoon.

I then had to do a 30 minute train journey to the evening do, where I could stay for all of one hour before having to get the train home.

I absolutely hate being made to feel like a B-list guest, so at my wedding everyone was invited to the entire thing. Oddly enough, this couple weren't.

Also at my wedding we had a very posh afternoon tea. Hubby and I left our table to greet friends and family during the tea. I saw a guest actually take the cakes which I hadn't got round to eating yet off my cake stand! You don't do that to the bloody bride!

KC225 Recently, she has left him. It took 10 years during which he cheated on her twice, got fired from every job he had and stopped working for around the last 5 years. He drove most of her friends away but I persevered, I was determined I would outlast him and the marriage.

I know it's pages ago - but standing ovation for you! Ha. So glad you stuck it out. :)

Never enjoyed a wedding, even mine, but I suppose the worst was the one where the bride's father died in an accident a few days before the wedding. Not exactly a happy vibe.

DPs step sister's
She was very young, wanted the complete princess wedding but had no money of their own. Cue DP's mum and step dad trying to find money for the fairytale wedding.

Civil ceremony. Quite bogg standard. Photos taken outside of town hall on busy main road, then on grassy bit by the down hall car park.

Reception was in a hired room above a pub. Starter was vegetable soup - tasted like it was made out of a powder packet, main was beef roast dinner - beef was like shoe leather and the bride doesn't like sauces, so no gravy. B&G looked like they were just playing the roles expected and going through the motions. Less than a year later, she'd got up the duff from an affair and he'd run up debts behind her back.

The worst wedding I ever went to was a few years ago. Firstly the seating at the wedding breakfast, the bride and groom decided everyone should sit next to someone they don't know so we could get to know each other. Que awkward conversation!
Secondly the father of the brides speech was so awful. Basically he said they were surprised she was getting married as she was always a 'plain little thing' and wasn't very outgoing with being bullied her whole life. He concluded by saying they (the bride and groom) were too young to be getting married but I suppose you have to take what comes!! The room was just silent. The poor girl I just wanted to cry for her.