To ask about the worst wedding you’ve been too

[Whereisthecoffee]

I’m planning mine and I could just ask for tips but instead I’m going to procrastinate and read stories.
Please share your stories !

My own.

MIL snogged one of our guests and took him back to her hotel - mortifying.

@Whereisthecoffee

I had a gap between my reception and wedding.

However, it was a very small wedding in the registry office. We then went to the local pub for a buffet and after an hour or two, every one went home and chilled out for a few hours.

We all met up again later on that evening with the evening guests and had the reception.

It was ideal for us as we had a 4 month old baby at the time, and everyone lived local so was easy for them to go home for a bit

I haven’t been to that many, but... The bride and groom both came from well-off families. When we arrived (we were evening reception guests only, which is a slight pet peeve but I do get why people do it), we were presented with a voucher for one drink from a limited list. Anything else we had to pay for. No food was served either.

Whenever a friend asks me for advice on her wedding, I generally reply: “Do what you want, but make sure your guests are well fed and watered.”

Pooley how old was MIL and how old was the guest?

Having to be at the church at 10am - at the venue for around 11.30pm - didn't serve the meal until nearly 5pm. By the time we had finished that they were bringing out the evening buffet.

Oh and at another wedding where I was maid of honour, the best man coerced me into sleeping with him, but I guess that’s not really wedding-related. The wedding itself was great.

What did he do?

(but I would recommend avoiding situations where only some of the wedding party has accommodation and/or that accommodation requires men and women to sleep in the same room - think of the safety of your bridesmaids)

I don’t want to say too much as it’s identifying but he kept on at me for hours and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Ones where you are invited to the ceremony and the evening but not the afternoon bit, and the speeches overrun so it's less than 2 hours before "carriages" and you've driven miles and paid for a hotel - I don't accept evening only now, if they don't like me enough to invite me all day well ... (the people I care about would invite me in other words, evening invites are a weird English thing)

DH and I still reminisce about a colleague's wedding many years ago,shortly after we got married.The bride was Catholic and the groom's family weren't .The very dour priest started the ceremony by 'welcoming' all the people coming to their first true solemnation of a wedding ie the non Catholics .Rather insulting.And went on to make several pointed references about non believers.
Then on to a very spartan church hall where all the bride's family sat in seats on one side and the groom's on the other and nobody mixed or talked at all.The atmosphere was tense to say the least The buffet was paste sandwiches, sausage rolls and battenburg .We lost touch.Have often wondered if they stayed together.
Several weddings where the photo sessions were ridiculously long.Hours of endless small talk with no food.Really I dread wedding invitations now if they follow the traditional formula.We deliberately booked a holiday to avoid a family one that we knew would involve a long trek from church to venue and had a bridezilla organising it.

If you have a big gap op, I would suggest scouting venues to suggest to people where they could go and get food or parks to entertain children even and include as a letter explaining the format of the day. All we like is to know when we will be fed is the common theme here.

1. The ceremony venue miles from the reception venue. The reception venue miles from the designated hotel.

2. A really long service then another very long drive between the church and reception venue followed by 3 hours of photos and 1 canapé each. The service was at midday and we didn't eat until 5.

The one with no food.
200 miles away
Ceremony at midday
Guests left to “explore the area” whilst there was a family lunch
Reception at 7.30pm, all guests expecting food
No food was forthcoming
At 9pm all the extremely drunk guests made a break for the village chip shop and Chinese takeaway. Not sure many returned..

I’m worrying now about my gap would you be bothered if it had been explained prior that there is a ceremony but I don’t expect people to attend as the reception isn’t until six?

To be brutally honest with you, I would think that was crap and not want to go; it's a straight choice of missing the meaningful part or hanging around for hours. Why have you done it like this? Nobody ever enjoys weddings organised like this. Can't you have a cheaper reception straight afterwards?

Lavenderee your wedding sounds amazing! We also have a string quartet for our drinks reception, can't wait!

The worst weddings are those where you don't know anybody. I have never been to a "disaster", but I have attended a couple of weddings with my wife, who knew everybody there, and I knew just about nobody.
The other guests enjoyed themselves, the food was fine, but......….the hours of standing in the corner with a stupid smile on my face! And the interminable speeches, full of reminisces and amusing stories, related by complete strangers about other complete strangers!
I think I would prefer a "disaster"!

Worst wedding: evening only (fine by me) but the evening guests had no food, not one drink, the cake had been eaten, the ceilidh had been danced and there were no extra chairs put out. Registry tokens put in the invitation but no thank you notes sent, couple never spoke to us.

They invited 300 evening guests to show how important they were in the community but didn't spend a penny on them. We left early, along with quite a few others who were very pissed off and slagging the couple in the car park.

I will just come right out and say that it was in Anstruther in Fife about 15 years ago, it was an embarrassment, and if you think that was your wedding, fucking shame on you, you awful money-grubbers! Everyone thought you were dicks!

Ok I’m a bit confused. I have never heard of anybody having a wedding, inviting people to the ceremony and then sending people off to wait until the evening reception and then not giving them food. Why would you do that? Are these weddings in the uk?

I’m in Scotland and all the weddings I’ve ever been to, you are either invited all day or just evening. If all day, which is usually close friends and family, you go to the ceremony then head on to the reception venue where you hang about for an hour or so having a few drinks, while photos are done then have dinner. After dinner the room is cleared and then the evening reception starts with the band and dancing and anyone who is invited to the evening only, usually work colleagues and other friends/neighbours etc will arrive then, usually about 7/7.30pm, then there is a buffet around 9pm, all finished by midnight.
I’ve been to a couple of weddings in England which followed the same pattern too.

The terrible wedding that we went to which I posted about above was in France so I thought that was how they did them.

There was a long gap between church and dinner, with very little seating. That was so boring, quite a few people popped to the local pub and returned late to the dinner.

Buffet ran out of veggie food, so a few vegetarians who were towards the back of the queue (guests were asked to go up table-by-table) got nothing.

Very poor amateurish DJ at the recent wedding of a friend of mine. He played cheesy wedding songs. No one got up to dance. Instead of taking the hint and altering the music style, he just persisted with stuff like It's Raining Men and Young at Heart.

I've said this before on here . Me and dh were invited to friends wedding fortunately we had the sense to only go to evening reception. When we arrived 7pm ish was told by the day guests no food all day !! . The wedding was at 1pm so all afternoon with not so much as a nut to eat so by 7pm they were starving 1 guest even contemplated eating the sugar almond favours. The buffet was at 8pm and guess what not enough for everyone. I just think it's measly to cut cost on food .

Another vote for long waits between everything being shite. I've left before because of this. My own wedding was planned around how shit I'd found others weddings.

My wedding was at 3.00pm. Sit down meal at 5.30 for main guests and more food out at 8 for evening guests. Registry office, pub. Everyone was full and tipsy and we had a full house right till the end: I recently attended a evening reception and enjoyed that, within an hour of arriving a fish and chip van arrived, Lots of free alcohol and a mix of music. In a very small village hall but everyone was happy. The worst weddings have always been the ones with really lavish venues and clearly 1000s spent on photography and outfits (ie stuff to benefit bride and groom only) fair enough if it's just for you but don't expect guests to be happy if it's all about you.

1)No food at the evening do at all. Bride and groom left at 10pm. We left at 10.01 and hit Macdonald hard.

2)Invited to church and food afterwards in the nearby village hall. Called 36 hours before the wedding to specify what food we should bring. Nothing wrong with bring and share but it wasn't described in the invitation.

3)Arriving for an evening do and having to wait an hour and a half for speeches to finish. No food, no drink at all, nothing to do. Was terrible.

@supersop60
Anyone famous...

The waiting around it was so dull