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?

A hippie wedding in the arse-end of nowhere, where we were seated on logs, encouraged to take our shoes off to "feel nature", they were married by a "witch" and then to top it off we had to hold hands in a ring around them and sway and move around in a circle to "bless" them.

The "alcohol" served was nettle wine and the food was sprout soup and some other crap.

I felt like I was in a production of 'Hair'. Never again.

Crap wedding 1 was a dry wedding. The groom only had a best man and all the other guests were family or friends of the bride's parents.

The registrar turned up over 2 hours late. The bride (who is somewhat histrionic in general) had a huge screaming/throwing things fit in the foyer about it. All the guests could hear the whole thing and it was very uncomfortable.

The best man decided to do a fake ceremony so we could just move on to the meal (and they'd properly get married later). As he was finishing up the registrar turned up. He'd been watching the cricket and didn't want to miss any. So we were treated to another ceremony. He was really crap at it too.

The food was lovely but I didn't get any because DS2 was not well (so I sat cuddling him in the foyer). There was no music or anything and the evening entertainment was board games. Everyone left very early.

Crap wedding 2 was one of DH's cousins. The aunt and uncle and cousins had joined a Christian cult (it is definitely a proper dodgy cult) but wanted to get married in a CoE church for the photos. So there was very uncomfortable tension between the vicar actually doing the ceremony and the cult leader pastor working round him making sly digs about him wearing a dress etc and making very regular cringeworthy comments about sexual union. It was truly the most horrible ceremony imaginable (even worse than than crap wedding 1).

The bride turned up really late. So late that the church had to tell everyone that if she wasn't there in the next 5 minutes there would be no wedding as there was another booking in the afternoon. When she did turn up each of the 15 bridesmaids had to walk down the whole length of the aisle individually before she came in. It was the most tedious thing ever.

The reception catering was horribly stingy (and crap). We were on the cousins table and clearly ranked lowest (they called the tables to get food in hierarchical order, so we know we were ranked lowest). They'd undercatered, so by the time our table got to the barbecue we had to work out how to divide one burger, a chicken wing, two broken sausages and a tiny bit of steak between 10 of us. The salad was all completely gone too. In the evening there was a beige Iceland buffet for approx 20 (but at least 100 guests).

The bride refused to acknowledge any of us at all, even when addressed directly. You have to be incredibly rude to ignore people rather standing right next to you saying to your new husband how lovely you look and thanks for inviting us.

Crap wedding number 3 was the sister of the groom from crap wedding 2. It would have been fine, if it weren't for the cult thing. This time they decided to have it in their 'church' (a unit on an industrial estate). The creepy cult leader pastor was even worse in this context. The ceremony was excruciating and the vows were like something from 1850: never been mind issues around wording about 'obeying', this was full on patriarchal bullshit with her promising to cook, clean, do as she's told and be a good little wife and him promising to guide her and provide. Total surrendered wife stuff. Our jaws dropped.

The prayers were similarly awful. There was almost no actual religion in them but a great deal about 'multiplying' to grow the cult church and making more money so that they could give more to the cult church.

There was also an awful lot of trying to recruit people into the cult. This theme continued in the speeches at the reception. Needless to say, we didn't join.

Doves were released. Beautiful, white Doves. Tired, disoriented Doves. By a road.

Lorry whizzed by and BANG beautiful, white, tired, disoriented Dove massacred in an instant and the feathers floated down onto the guests outside the church.

Italian guests start wailing, British guests desperately trying to hold it together.

The marriage broke down in the most hideous of circumstances.

We need more details about the marriage door!

I was at a wedding some months ago. Very posh venue in the west country for the ceremony but the reception was like a scene from "Shameless" complete with security guards in high-vis jackets.

Bride and groom travelled from the venue to reception in a horse drawn carriage and, of course, the horse shat at the venue entrance.

One of the caterers didn't turn up, so many people including the bride didn't get a meal.

One of the couple's kids aged 9 got tipsy by sampling people's drinks and heckled the speeches before getting a smack from his mum.

The mother of the groom, pissed as usual (she's a functioning alcoholic), wanted to fight her sister in law for some imagined slight.

One of the obese bridesmaids trying to re-enact THAT scene from Dirty Dancing and ending up injuring the wannabe Patrick Swayze.

A day to remember!

Not too many disasters (if I wrack my brain I'm sure I can find some though out of the multitude of weddings I've been to!)

The 2 that stand out are:

1. In the church DH and I got married in 2 years previously. We hadn't liked the vicar, she was a very stern headmistress type woman and we were very grateful she was on holiday at the time of our wedding and the very lovely curate married us instead. Anyway, DH's friends hadn't been so lucky and narky vicar was officiating. I can't remember if it was before the bride's entrance or after but the vicar proceeded to lecture all the guests about how expensive it was to run a church and reminded us to all donate generously before we left. I sat gawping at DH begging him to tell me that nobody was asked the same thing before our wedding, he assures me they weren't. It was so awfully cringey.

2nd one my childhood friend had two best men. With very long speeches. One of them was about 15 sides of A4. All with in jokes that we didn't understand. When it was finally over there was still the other best man and father of the bride to go. And we were the last table served, and there was only cider to drink (which we don't like). But apart from that the wedding was actually lovely.

My own.

My now ex-husband, an alcoholic who wasn't supposed to drink started drinking, was firing sexual comments my way in front of my family that did attend, most didn't as they hated the guy, the best man spent his speech talking about his thai bride, I ended up throwing up despite having nothing to drink because reality finally hit me, then my mum when leaving dropping in a "don't come to me when it's over" comment.

Just remembered one from university days back in the 1970s.

Wedding at 11am in Sussex - friend and I drove from London, got lost and went to the wrong church and only heard the last 10 minutes of the service.

Reception at 1 pm. Bride and groom both had parents who were divorced and re-married so eight parents or step parents on the top table all looking daggers at each other. Wedding breakfast was OK but only a single glass of champagne to drink.

All "fathers" insisted on making speeches. In the last speech one of the fathers gave the groom a wedding present of a match and "in front of all these people I want you to take the IOU for £8,000 you gave me when I lent you the deposit for your house and burn it in front of everyone!"

Oneupmanship of the finest kind. As you can imagine this went down like a bucket of cold sick with the other "fathers."

Then the groom got up, thanked us for coming and hoped we'd have a safe journey home! On the road back to London before 3.30pm.

Indigo I hope things have improved.

choccyhobnob

We had one of these. He soon shut up when I said, "No you're alright, you can use some of the thousands you avoid in council tax and inheritance tax to pay for the upkeep"

Nothing irritates me more than a church with their hand out for donations.

So? I'd have been quite blunt in telling them that I was getting a quick shop done for the reasons stated, and why the actual fuck are they following me?

Seriously? They followed her because she was (or they thought she was) going to the same place as them. Loads of people do this. I can't believe you see anything sinister in this.

None of the horror stories here, but some crappy photo/wait dinner stories.

ExH best man got married a wee while later. He'd known him 10 years and they'd lived together at one point. We were invited to evening only, and then told we could watch at the church if we wanted. I swear it was because grooms SIL hated me.

My FILs third wedding. I was not wanted. They actually came and took my baby out of my arms for the family photos and told me to stay out of them. I sat in the car feeding the baby for a lot of the reception. This was after rows with exH as the stag and weddings had to last three days each.

My own wedding was cheap and pretty shit tbh. I had to clean up the hall myself at midnight in my dress.

The weddings since I've been single, or with DP have been fab. I blame exH 😂

My brother in law's. Neither of them wanted to go through with it, both had faces like a smacked arse all the way through. Then to top it all the best man (my DH) made a speech that had all the friends tables in stitches but left the bride and all her family looking deeply offended. They are now separated...

Nothing irritates me more than a church with their hand out for donations.

Really, you can think of nothing which irritates you more than a church collecting money for a local food bank charity?

I was a bridesmaid at a college friends wedding, was about 4 weeks pregnant. Stays at her flat the night before, DH dropped me off then we were told we we helping to set the venue up. It'll only take an hour then w will go for pizza.

Several hours later we are super hungry, grabbed a dominos but told by the bride to keep some for the morning for breakfast?! Finally get back to the flat. In the morning get up really early, have hideous hair and makeup done. Then sit around for over an hour. I was exhausted and hungry when we finally got home I threw up everywhere.

Didn't realise it at the time but I was pg with DT

Definitely a wedding we went to a few years ago. "Friend' had already pissed me off by acting like a grabby tit on her two (!) hen events, and her wedding was more of the same. She clearly couldn't really afford a big wedding - so only had a tiny amount of wine on the table at the wedding breakfast. We and the other guests on our table managed to intercept booze meant for the top table to have a decent amount! Several of groom's dodgy mates went out for a fag during the signing of the register at the church. Bride decided the vicar was rude so she announced she wouldn't be paying the church. Not long after I saw the light and ditched her as a mate. Several other wedding/hen attendees did the same.

I went to a wedding a few years ago with my then boyfriend who was a good friend of the bride. I'd only met the bride once or twice and the groom not at all. The bride clearly loathed the groom's entire family and had done her best to discourage them from attending.

For example, a number of local hotels had been block-reserved for the wedding guests, but this information (along with a password to use when booking) was only given to the friends who had been invited and the bride's family. Most of the groom's family lived three or four hours away so they needed hotels, but they couldn't get into the local ones - didn't have the password - and had to book ones much further away from the wedding reception venue.

The 'top' table was set up down the middle of a marquee with the bride and groom seated so that they had their backs to his family but were facing hers.

The groom's brother was not best man because the bride thought he would make unsuitable jokes in his speech. As it turned out the alternative best man made the most appalling and inappropriate speech. The groom's brother later made a toast which was absolutely delightful - gracious, generous and thoughtful. And, given the circumstances, probably not deserved.

Snide comments were made when some of the groom's family had to leave early because they needed to take young children and elderly relatives back to hotels which were up to an hour away.

The wedding itself was mostly OK, but the unpleasant way the groom's family were being treated was really obvious and made for a strange atmosphere. And they were actually the nice family members present too. As a relative outsider I chatted to loads of people and the groom's side were without fail friendly, good humoured and trying to make the best of it for the groom's sake. The bride's family were pretty much all surly and rude.

elleryfae How did the groom put up with that??? That's horrible
Are they still together?

". I wanted to come over all Eastenders funeral at this point"
:o

Wedding party that was two weeks after the registry office wedding and AFTER the honeymoon. Held at a Holiday Inn in the middle of nowhere, basically at a motorway services station for easy access for travelling relatives. Zero atmosphere.
B&G were rarely in the same place, barely touched during first dance.
Then the groom told a friend of mine that he had shagged a random stranger on the beach during honeymoon, as a "last hurrah". Ugh.
We disappeared and drove to a night club 30 miles away for some fun!
The marriage did not last. Surprise!

No matter what type of wedding or how much it costs, the best ones are where the guests enjoy themselves ( tis a celebration after all). That usually means a free drink or two and enough food - one I went to was called up in table order to a buffet. I kid you not, the earlier tables had grabbed as much as you'd think was humanly possible and the last 3 tables ( 24 people) were left with NOTHING! They didn't even go and get anymore but said that we'd be welcome to order off the restaurant menu at our cost! I still can't believe that actually happened 😯

Wedding 1....groom got drunk and beat up his wife so her dad and sister took her home. They were divorced very quickly. I was a teenager so mum used this as an example to my sister and me. Put me off men for afew years so got my exams.

Wedding 2....Dfriends husband to be had venue it was a family party. They found out it was a wedding reception and wanted x amount extra 1000s. He refused to pay as had a contact. We came to evening bit only. No food or wine were bought out as venue refused to do it. Very strange reception. Think we left after an hour. (They still together 15 years later)

My best friend got married on my 21st in the days when that was THE birthday!