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 !

Northernstars as long as there's plenty for people to eat at the buffet I think that sounds lovely and not unlike a couple of weddings I've been to!

northern sounds lovely

@RubiksQueen yeah we are putting money into the food rather than fancy dress, flowers etc. I've been to so many weddings over the years and as a veggie there is often not enough food and as a non-drinker and an introvert weddings of 8 hours plus are pure torture for me. We've already been together 10 years so hopefully no surprises!

Same - we're spending SO much more on food and a comfortable reception. And one of my non-negotiables is plenty of soft drinks and tea and coffee available (and that means water and squash, because not all adult non-drinkers like to drink coke all day or juice. I often end up drinking water at weddings and being made to feel like I'm weird).

I don’t mind an evenin invite, the party is the best bit. I would give to work colleagues or school mum friends who wouldn’t expect to be there for the whole day but can come and enjoy a party and some buffet food on me

I agree that speeches are usually hideously boring BUT if done well they can be wonderful. I got married 4 years ago and people still talk about the speech my husband’s best man gave. And, if I may brag for a moment, I gave a speech at my best friend’s wedding that got a standing ovation and about 60 people (most of whom I didn’t know) told me after it was the best speech they had ever heard

(will stop being revoltingly obnoxious now)

I've been invited to a family wedding in the spring. I can't stand weddings at the best of times and I really have no desire to go to this one. All these horror stories are certainly going to influence my final decision. I haven't yet RSVPd so my options are open, for now.

Whoever invented the wedding wants shooting.

Not exactly a dreadful wedding but strange because money had obviously been spent but definitely a bit strange.

I actually think the couple had got marrief where they did (very posh venue) because in years to come they could boast that they had their wedding reception there.

Wedding was at 9.30am on a Friday morning. Beautiful church, bright Summers day

Then walked to the champagne reception at 10am. Glasses of champagne/orange juice given as you arrived. Canapes came round. Managed 1 glass of OJ, canapes were all meat based so didn't have any. Then 10.30 the cake was cut and 10.45 we were ushered out as the restaurant wanted to set up for their lunch time service.

By 11am DP and I were in a local pub getting a ploughmans.

Worst wedding was the one where B&G and all the other guests were evangelical Christians except for our small group of old school friends of the bride. We stood out a mile due to very mild gender-non-conformity and were ostracised completely by the Laura Ashley wearing congregation. The ceremony was challenging and when it came to the sermon the preacher took it as a personal challenge to save the souls of any non-believers who happened to be present right then and there. Sweet of him to want to save us from the fires of hell, but not exactly restful. The reading was from the Book of Revelations.

Wedding breakfast was teetotal, which was fair enough because the B&G didn’t drink alcohol, but our group all made a detour via Oddbins on the way to the train station home because we thought we’d earned a drink.

Other top tip is that you should check that your venue is accessible to attendees. Went to a reception in a very on-trend multilevel venue where all the men of the family had to form a human pyramid to get Great Aunt Doris (not wheelchair user but doddery) up the ladder to the garden where they were eating.

Being split up, mixed and blended for seating plans. That’s shit

Not enough food

Long waits

Remote venues

These things all cause angst

Oh! I’ve just remembered I went to a wedding where the maid of honour did an amazing speech, and then the best man stood up and basically sulked that she’d ‘stolen’ his speech

Also recently went to one where the best man’s speech was 30 seconds long. I’m not joking. Maybe even less. He’d had some kind of falling out with the groom but he was already all set to be the best man so went ahead anyway. I think he literally stood up and said ‘thanks guys, cheers, congrats’ and sat back down. It was awkward.

Hey OP, congrats on your engagement and wedding that is due soon I hope.

I have been to a very bad wedding and I also just recently got married myself. I will give you advice based on the bad wedding and also my own as everyone said it was the best wedding they had ever been too!

First of all the worst wedding was a foreign wedding so it may not really come into to play here. But there was over 500 guests and the whole thing was just so disorganised in the sense the food came really late, the ceremony ran late, everyone was waiting, hungry for a long time.

When I got married me and my husband took along time to make sure everything was as perfect as it could possibility be.

Venue

We choose a venue that was very central for everyone who was coming. The idea of a castle or somewhere really remote did interest me but then people would have to pay a lot of money for hotels or long journeys to get there and considering some guest were elderly we just wanted to consider everyone who was coming. For our wedding a big part was making our guests very happy (even though its our day) so every thing was thought about down to the very little details. The ceremony was in church and we arranged for a bus to take everyone from the ceremony to the hotel for the reception.

Church

At the church I had welcome bags handed out to every guest that contained a bottle of water, program, confetti, biscuit and some tissues and other small things. A lot of people thought why are you doing this but it went down a treat and everyone loved having the bottled water for the bus ride to the reception. I also want to keep the church simple but elegant. We had a string trio and a singer for when I walked down the aisle. We personalised the ceremony to our tastes and everyone felt really included. There was not much decoration in the church apart from pew ends and some flowers but we did that on purpose to surprise everyone at the reception.

Reception Decoration and personal touches to the tables

At the reception, one of the biggest things for me was how the venue looked and making sure it was out of this world. I only get married once right? I had a wedding planning company completely transform the function suite and it was really was wow standard. On the tables, we had candle favours with our wedding names and date on them (I can pm the link from Etsy if you want) and we also had a menu on each table that had a very special thank you message from coming on the back. This was copied and changed slightly from Pinterest. We also had a DJ at our wedding from the very beginning of the reception so as people were being seated they got to hear faint music in the background which played throughout the meal (apart from the speeches). It did not feel like a day time and evening, it all just merged into one big party. If you want any ideas on my decor please PM me, I did go overboard but it was my one big wedding thing that I wanted.

I had cherry blossom tree centre pieces and candelabras, lots of candles in the room everywhere (that was a mistake at the amount we had as it made the room very warm) and the whole room was dropped with white drapes, white carpet, white dance floor down from the beginning of the day with the wedding cake in the middle of the dance floor. It was really my best day ever!

Food and Drink

Our wedding package had a standard pick from 2 options for starter and main with one desert. We made sure that the options would have suited everyone and not just our own tastes. We actually took steak off the menu because it was impossible to make medium, rare or well done depending on 150 different peoples tastes. We had canapes for when the guests arrived and there was a good selection of meat and veg ones to suit everyone. As my husband is not from the UK our wedding was multi cultural so we also had a buffet that ran alongside the main meal of his home countries food to please everyone from his country who were coming.

As for drinks we had the standard half bottle of wine for everyone and lots of other drinks (coke, sprite, orange juice etc) and also the cultural drinks and non-alcoholic wines and beers. The tables were so full of drinks that hardly anyone had to go to the bar all night. We also had some money left over in our package and we used this towards a tab for the top table all night. We then also had an evening buffet and I think everyone really enjoyed that.

Child care company

I hired a child care company who specialise in weddings. They came and entertained the children in a separate area of the hotel to enjoy their own meal and fun and games. Once the evening reception started the kids were returned to their parents. All the parents loved and agreed to this prior to the day.

Things that made the day great

There was a lot of fun things that got everyone involved. We had a dance off between the Scottish people and the people from my husbands culture. We played the Mr and Mrs game and I think having the music on by the DJ all day made everyone so relaxed very early on. I think what made it work well was that the hotel staff were great at bringing out the food, making sure everyone was feed on time, drinks on the table. Like there was not a moment where someone had to say where is my food, I am hungry. We also had a video guest book as part of our videography package and people really enjoyed that.

What you want is enough food and drinks to keep people entertained. I think everyone loved my wedding so much because it was different from the norm. We danced into the reception instead of walking as they do this in my husbands culture and the music was very different as well. I thought about so many individual small things to make people think wow from the table names to the colours and coordination of the bridesmaid dresses, welcome bags etc.

The whole point was to make everyone attending feel very welcome and happy. I googled so much how to make wedding guests happy and what not to do at wedding that will annoy your guests. After a few weddings I realised that people hate waiting around between the ceremony and the reception so thats why we added on the canapes and gifted the welcome bags to try and ease that transition a bit. I think the music also helped a lot as well.

Any advice needed, please PM me.

deadliftgirl, while your wedding sounds fantastic, the OP already explained that she was on a tight budget, so I think you have to be sensitive to the fact that your wedding must have cost a lot of money to provide all those extras.

@deadliftgirl what was your budget?

@BlackcatSleeping

I did not actually see any comments about a budget or anything. I only read the original one sentence post about planning a wedding and advice wanted. There are a lot of ways to do things on a budget but still have it as fantastic as well.

@Ladyoftheloch We ended up spending around £30k but the original budget was half this. The wedding just got away with us and we kept adding things thinking it was worth it. I don't regret any of it really so because every part was covered.

We went to Barbados on holiday, some friends were staying at a very plush hotel, we went round there to say goodbye, as we were flying home later that day. Having a drink with friends in beautiful hotel gardens, there's a couple getting married in a pagoda area. It's a bit like a very fancy bandstand, so bridal couple, minister and friends are in the middle of the service and a weird elderly bloke in the smallest budgy smugglers you've ever seen, taking photos of the ceremony, minister stops service and tells him to go away, he didn't stop. I don't know whether he was a disgruntled parent or a complete weirdo. He wrecked the service for them.

@deadliftgirl

Fair enough, it's a long thread. I'm sure others will find your post helpful.

I wonder how the OP is doing. I just can't help but feel sorry for her about that long gap between the ceremony and reception. I hope she was able to resolve something.

@BlackCatSleeping

Some of the things I had did not actually cost that much that might interest the OP. The welcome bags were very easy and I made them myself. Ordered white paper bags online in bulk for like £10-£15 for around 100 but it would be far less for less bags. I got stickers from etsy for like £15 that said our names on them. The water and all the biscuits were purchased off this buy in bulk online supermarket. www.bigeat.co.uk You also do not need to do bags, you can just hand out water with custom made labels on them for quite cheap.

Try and see if the reception has a space for a drinks reception. Ask if you can bring in your own drinks without a corkage charge or just add some extra treats into welcome bags that the reception staff will not even notice. Make up ice breaker cards and games that people could pay at the reception before it actually starts. Even games where people go into teams or something and have to find things! It could be fun?

Or even suggest some places near the reception (if central location) that guests can go to near by for coffee or something during the wait. Like if theres a Starbucks or Mcdonalds near by and people want a venture. Or even try and get some discount coupons or codes for various bars near the ceremony so people can get a drink there before they come to the reception. If you ask a local pub or bar, they may put something together for you (just for guests) while your away getting the photographs done.

OP I hope this helps and trust me see the people who want to be at your wedding will come regardless of the time in between !

Long photo shoots are really annoying especially the fake ones (e.g. the bride and groom pretend to cut the cake to get a photo and actually cut it later). One we went to we had to trek 15 minutes away from where the ceremony actually happened to take the nice photo then trek back again. Long, boring speeches, lack of food (either between ceremony and reception or if the reception is meant to go on late there should be nibbles or somewhere to buy something to eat).

Icebreaker and team games sound tacky to me . More like a team building exercise than a celebration.

Personally I think weddings have become too big, too tacky and too much like herding people from one bit to another. Does anyone really care about “favours “ on the table?! Just landfill rubbish and a “must have” con by the party organisers.

Surely quality over quantity is better. Spend the same money but fewer guests and go all out on paying for the guest’s rooms and a Michelin meal in an intimate setting instead of pick and mix and a bottle of water in a tent.

Not a dreadful wedding but a quite nice one that cost £140. Including bridal gown (charity shop) and bells (£20) we know this because groom told us.

Friends had been living together for a few years. They had a house full of furniture and didn't need any bedding spoons etc so instead of a wedding present list they sent round a list of dishes and booze.

Everyone made either provided a selection of quiches of sausage rolls or 3 bottles of red or white wine.
I think there were around 85 people in there house and a disco in the garden. Neighbours were sent a note apologising for the noise but if they wanted to join the party to bring a bottle.

It was one of the best weddings I have been to.

Eurgh.....ice breakers....

Generally speaking there are two types of people in this world. People who dont need ice breakers as they are confident enough to break their own ice. And people who dont want them as they dont like being thrust into small talk with people they dont know.

So why bother?

everyone said it was the best wedding they had ever been too!

I always feel faintly embarrassed for people who say this.

You clearly went to a lot of trouble and expense and I am sure people had a lovely time but..... my cousin, who holds the record in our family for having the worst weddings (plural!) we have seen, still believes that we all thought hers were the best we have been to. When someone said "What did you think of our wedding?!" you are hardly going to tell them that it was shit are you? No, you say it was wonderful, the best you have ever been to. Which with hindsight was probably why the second one was crap too, as it was a carbon copy of the first shit one :o

PyongyangKipperbang

Exactly. People don’t like them at work so why would they want to do them on their day off as well?

I know it seems organised when the couple lay on a bus or whatever but again, I avoid buses whenever possible so why would I want to do that in my posh dress?

A lot of these weddings sound like a cattle market or school trip!