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 !

I went to through period of back to back weddings.

The worst were like sausage factories really. Ugly modern rooms with high windows you couldn't see out of. Rubbish food.. Bows on chairs... Utterly crap rubbish dj, brides all look the same.

Best, small, totally individual... From village hall self decorated to restaurant... Small wedding in Scotland with Scottish dancing was brilliant as was one abroad.

An outdoor wedding in late September. In England. With just a canopy sail with no sides for cover for the ceremony with wind howling through. Then the reception was in the gate house of the grounds (or at least the drinks and canopies were). There was one small room at top of gatehouse for sitting down which was up five flights of stairs no drinks or canapés came up. I was pregnant at time and only alcoholic drinks available and canapés that were very pink roast beef yorkies, and teeny tiny smoked salmon and caviar pancakes I was off fish whilst pregnant as couldn't stomach it. It was hurling down with rain and freezing cold. Three hours later and we walked across wet field to marquee for meal. Three long tables where you could only talk to those immediately next to you as even across table couldn't be heard. Food was awful and no choice and to get to loo had to trek back across wet field to two small porta loos. Couldn't wait to get out of there.

Another one where the speeches went on and on. Too long. Boring.

I went to an outdoors one where the toilets were really horrible portaloos. It's probably if you're camping or at a festival, but in nice clothes and delicate shoes? Rank.

My two pet hates for weddings are:

When they try and 'mix people up' on tables to try and get new people talking. No. Put people who know each other together so they can get pissed and have fun. It's a wedding, not a work team building day.

When there isn't enough food or drink.

Grace our ceremony and reception are in the same room, 2 hours is the turn around time for the venue.

I went to an outdoors one where the toilets were really horrible portaloos. It's probably if you're camping or at a festival, but in nice clothes and delicate shoes? Rank.

What sort of portaloo? Like those single blue ones? I have been to a couple of weddings where they had posh mobile toilet units with proper flushing toilets and running water etc and they were fine. I'm not sure I could cope with actual portaloos though!

I’ve been to quite a few and here (Ireland) it seems pretty normal that there’s a wait between cermemony and meal (could be 4 hours easy) any good ones have a band and a lot of free drink at this time! Most will have at least 2 or 3 drinks per person. Went to one recently though that the bar wasn’t open until 5,no music and most people left the venue and were then late back for the meal.

Good food and drink and plenty of it.
No endless hanging around.

Get those right and everything else is just incidental.

@April241

ah, so you aren't vanishing for photos - you will be talking to your guests?

One where DH was put on the top table as he was an usher, and I was on a table with no one I knew at all.

Any wedding where large quantities of alcohol are consumed before the food turns up. This is the issue with having large gaps between the ceremony and the dinner - people drink to smooth over the awkwardness of having to make small talk. At the last wedding I went to, the reception was a two mile walk from the church where the ceremony was held, and there was no transport, so everyone had to trudge along a muddy footpath (it was pissing it down as well) to get there. Then there was a three hour wait for food, during which time everybody got hideously drunk. When the food was eventually served, it was a hot roast sandwich and a couple of chips. I'm not generally a greedy person but that meal did nothing to soak up any of the red wine which I had unwisely started on.

Realising too late I had been invited to the ceremony and the evening event but not the meal in the middle. So basically I was supposed to pitch up to the wedding then hang about for hours while those who had been invited to the meal did so, then I could come along to the evening event. There wasnt even any food provided in the evening. I thought it was very rude - never again

Worst was my father's 3rd wedding in which I was a bridesmaid

• the hairdresser was a nightmare and I'm still not sure why teasing and dozens of bobby pins is needed for a bun but it took days for my hair to recover
• had food my brother couldn't eat as the bride/now ex-wife was really controlling about food and my brother has medical and sensory issues that she ignored. He isn't even that hard to accommodate, I can count his no food list on my fingers, she just had to have certain foods. Sometimes I think she did it on purpose. Like, how hard is it to not have steak/tough meats when your step-son-to-be has jaw problems that makes doing a lot of chewing painful.
• only had champagne at the top table even though we were underage (and my siblings both had gotten care before this for alcohol problems) so I had to go searching for something to drink. They also tried to give us all champagne on the ride to the reception (the whole bridal party rode over in a limo). My siblings were not the only ones with a history of alcohol issues there and it annoyed me a lot that those issues were ignored because wedding.
• the reception was incredibly dull and it all felt like a display that I could not leave until other relatives who were driving did which was torture. They played slow instrumental loud music throughout that made talking difficult.

After eating, I left the top table and hid at a table at the back of the room, away from the speakers and picking out the ton of pins from my hair. I used one of those table disposable cameras to take a picture of the pile which was the most fun I had that weekend.

I actually don't remember must from the service, I think candles and combining their flames were involved at some point. It was at her church, but my grandfather (pastor) did most of the service, I think.

The only thing worse was the bridal shower the day before that I was thankfully able to walk out on. It mostly involved discussing and making jokes about lingerie and related items. Why they would do that when it was insisted kids attend, I don't know, I was just glad to be able to escape.

*Sorry, I’d leave after the ceremony. So you’re asking people to arrive for a ceremony at one (so, realistically, for people travelling no guaranteed opportunity for lunch), hang around for two hours, then a bizarre “dinner” at 4pm? Nah. Who want to eat dinner at 4pm? Why can’t you do a late lunch straight after the ceremony? Or have the ceremony at 4 and dinner afterwards?

Again, it all sounds like the guests stuffed into the timing for the bride’s convenience. What’s happening the intervening two hours? Yeah: photos, I know.*

There's canapes on arrival at the venue as well as drinks, at 1pm, there's also canapes and drinks at 2pm post ceremony.

Our photos aren't taking 2 hours, that's utterly ridiculous. Our ceremony and reception are in the same room, the 2 hour wait is the turn around in between that the venue need. They say its normally quicker but quote 2 hours so we know what to expect as maximum time.

I'm not sure why a dinner at 4pm is bizarre, I've never been to a wedding where a meal is served at any other time, 4 or 4:30pm is the standard time for wedding meals where I'm from.

Luckily all of our guests are close friends and family, most of whom we've been to their weddings or have invites to their upcoming weddings, all of whom have been married between 1 and 2pm, meal at 4 or 4:30pm and evening reception starting between 6 and 7pm. Perhaps its a regional thing.

I don't mind longish gaps between ceremony and food, as it's a good opportunity to chat to people, relax after the ceremony, start to get merry etc (depending on how many people you know at the wedding I guess!) they can be quite fun. But only if there is drink and canapés to keep you going!

Being sat at a table on my own despite DH and some friends being there.
Long speeches that just go on and on.
Long waits standing around after the ceremony.
Oh and one wedding where no one went on the dance floor, so dull.

Here are the ingredients of bad weddings:
-Venues in middle of nowhere
-Cold day with photo sessions outdoors
-Bad food (seems to be most weddings)
-Silly pomp
-week day wedding

April241 honestly your day sounds fine. It doesn't matter if you don't eat at 'proper dinner time' at a wedding, especially if there are canapés to keep you going. There is nothing wrong with your schedule.

Some people are strange!

When we went to a wedding but were not invited to the service, instead we were asked to go the evening venue by the bride and set stuff up for her, fine. Happy to help I guess.

Then we went to a Harvester (!!!) for the wedding breakfast, the staff lost the plot and couldn't deal with the pre-orders and everyone was pissed off (but said nothing so not to ruin their day), then discovered we had to pay for our meal, okayyyy.

We were sat with her estranged dad who spent the meal whinging and then had his daughter pay for his meal as he was broke (then boasting about how he had just bought a jet ski and a Range Rover ).

Bride then turned round to my (now) dh and said there was too many people for the reception venue (that we had set up for her) and could we not go to save space as she had evening guests coming.

Needless to say numerous years later we aren't friends anymore.

Really, really stingy food so that the B&G could cut costs. Money WAS spent on lots of other things (like a casino), that nobody cared about because we were so flipping hungry!

-week day wedding

Yes, Friday is acceptable but any other day (and Sunday tbh) is annoying. I knew people who had a wedding on a Tuesday, it was quite far away from where we all lived and most people were only invited to the evening do. Hardly anyone drank because it wasn't worth taking the next day off work for, so most people drove and it was a bit of a crap atmosphere.

Sat waiting for 2.5 hours for food in a small back room of a pub. No music or entertainment, it was quiet, awkward and fucking weird.

Food finally bought out, afternoon tea style - we were at the back, on a table of 6, we got ONE of the three tier things between us as the staff were busy refilling other tables and paid zero attention to us.

grace sorry so many posts I can't keep up.

No, not dashing away for photos. Our photos are at the venue so everyone at the wedding will be there and can dip in and out they wish. We have plenty food, drinks and entertainment for the 2 hour period. Our photographer takes 20 minutes for the photos and the rest of the time is for us to actually talk to everyone who's coming.

We don't have day guests and evening guests so everyone there at the ceremony is everyone that will be there. Gives us time to have proper chat with people rather than a quick hello and dashing off to meet the evening guests etc.

My husband and I were thrilled to be invited to the evening reception of my old (and very dear) school friend. Baring in mind we were in our 50s by the time of her wedding, we had been friends for about a million years.

After we drove 3+hours to my old home town, we hung around in the one horse town for a while, evening reception started at 7pm and we didn’t want to be first to arrive. We eventually arrived at the hotel about 7.40. We were getting hungry and hoped we hadn’t missed the evening food. We hadn’t. There was no food. I was still in the midst of hugging the bride when someone asked what time the food was coming out. The brides response was “there is no more food, we’ve all eaten”

Well thank you Mrs, we’ve just driven all this way, but you’ve already eaten. No worries, I’ll just fill up on the overpriced bar. We left earlier than planned and picked up a dreadful kebab, what a pathetic wedding reception.

We still refer to the wedding and Ive Just recently unfriended her on social media for continued diva behaviour.