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 !

Oh, just remembered the absolute worst one... the groom drunkenly made a very unambiguous pass at me, right in front of the bride, when I came to say goodbye to them before I left. The marriage only lasted about five years, and as soon as they'd split, the seedy fucker was messaging me on Facebook trying to arrange a "drink".

This isn't really helpful in terms of planning an enjoyable wedding. Just make sure you're not marrying a seedy fucker.

We’re getting married in 3 weeks. I’ve read this thread panicking in case I’ve made a faux pas.

50 Guests all staying in venue. But conscious drinks are expensive. We paid £50 off event rate for each room to make it a hit cheaper.

Ceremony at 3:30
Expect it to take about 45mins to an hour.
After drinks and canapés, about 6 canapés and half a bottle of prosecco/2 beers per person.
Mingle for an hour or so.
Kids fed at 6pm then off to kids club for adult dinner
There’s a gap for about an hour but figure people can nip to rooms/freshen up/disco nap (although there’s no disco)

Speeches at 7:30 with another glass of prosecco
Dinner at 8 pm
3 courses (people have had a choice of meat/vegetarian/pescatarian)
About 3-4 glasses of wine per person with dinner

Music in our control via iPad & playlists

Cheese and wedding cake and port about 10:30

Cash bar available in room for anyone who wants it

Photographer doesn’t do ‘staged photos’ although we may grab a couple with our kids

Does this sound ok?

OP - could you get your register office ceremony videoed, and show this to guests in the evening?

The one where they did the buffet themselves from Iceland and with curled sandwiches all left out at the venue for hours 🤮Thr bride was stroppy and the drinks were warm
We bailed early and came home to order pizza 😂

Was invited to an evening reception only of a friends wedding. Spouses weren’t invited, luckily a few of us knew each other and went together. No alcohol provided and each round at the bar took 30 mins to be served. Nowhere to sit, by 11pm we sat at some of the tables that daytime guests had eaten their dinner at, only to be kicked off by said guests 5 minutes later!! Bride never said thank you for the gifts we bought her, haven’t spoken to her since.

Learnt a lot of ‘how not to’s’ for my own wedding from this!!

Screaming children - I have been yanked out of their routine, strange place, too many people I don’t know, strange clothes, nowhere to run & play, no enough breast feds when I want it, too much mum & dad angsting about my fidgeting etc etc. All this, not to mention the soggy nappy... No wonder l scream my head off

Dire experience of being sat with furious raging toddler strapped into their buggy whilst all their older cousins threw themselves onto a sensible provided bouncy castle. But mum & dad resolved to win this fight. I came close to unlocking the little Blighty & kidnapping him to set him free.

So, if children expected embrace the joy they bring. Provide quiet space for feeding, snuggles & snoozes. For the more boisterous, lay on suitable play stuff, rolling kids buffet & possibly co-opt at favourable rate of payment in cash of some sensible family teens to supervise. Teens will have more fun as well. Reception venue has grounds ? Great opportunity to play Bulldog, Grandmother’s footsteps (all ages can freeze still) & more. A chance for those who like to mingle & mix it up to move about. Usual third party insurance essential.

Teens and alcohol do not mix at adult events.
Some ppl are determined to get teens sozzled.
Give them something to do & keep them away from the booze & boozers.

So, OP; what's your plan for the day? In terms of times?

One with a really long gap between the service and food. People either get really pissed or bored or both. The timing on lots of weddings mean often guests won't have eaten since breakfast, and if you don't feed them until after 5pm it's a recipe for disaster.

People remember good food, good drink and good company at weddings. And the Brides dress.

You'll remember the photos and whether anyone had a hissy fit.

Plan accordingly.

imissgin I would say it’s a bit late for food, maybe make it 7? If your ceremony is at 3.30, people would have had lunch at say 1ish, you don’t want them getting hammered early!

@Myheartbelongsto I'm getting married at City Hall too!

And don't leave cutting the wedding cake too late. I went to 2 weddings last year and both didn't cut the cake until after the food, after the disco and after people had started to go home. Waaaaay too late.

There’s some substantial canapés northern at about 4:30? Will think about moving forward half an hour

Ceremony at 11am at venue one
Dinner at 1.30pm at venue two about 5 miles away. We had to pay for our own food and drink. Only a handful of people were away of that until the bill came.
Pissed about for 5 hours then the reception at 8pm at venue three. Paid bar (not even a welcome drink) and a buffet of sweets.

Other one - got to the reception venue and had to wait outside for 2 hours with a glass of lemonade each. Some party games but it was boring. B&G provided a lot of free drinks once we got inside which was nice but it was several hours until any food was available so every one was hammered. Then we had to queue at a burger van for good. The veggie option was some beans and breads.

Ladyflumpalots

Now that’s a we’d I’d like to attend 👍🏻

Timings! At least let people know when they will be eating. We had a rough itinerary on our invitation so people knew what to expect.
We got married at 4pm and dinner was at 6.30pm - we had our "couples" photos done before the ceremony (I know this isn't for everyone but it honestly made the ceremony less nerve wracking and the day went much more smoothly as we didn't have a gap between ceremony and reception).

The one that sticks in my mind was a real shame as the couple had paid for a very expensive ( will not name as too outing) cover band. They were indeed good, but so loud that the entire wedding party scattered from the main hall and ended up in the conservatory or hotel bar. DH and I ended up going for a walk as our eardrums hurt so much.

Also a recent wedding slightly annoyed me by being particularly stingy with the alcohol. It looked like they had budgeted for one glass of wine per person with the meal and literally two sips of fizz for the toasts. Luckily we'd been plonked beside elderly non drinkers and we took their share too. Annoying as the groom had insisted that we stayed at the lovely but very expensive wedding hotel so I was looking forward to being a bit tipsy- and of course we did go to the bar ourselves but anything less than half a bottle per adult seems a bit stingy. They did have a good nighttime bbq though so that kind of made uo for it.

I've been to great weddings and some awful ones.

The worst -

12pm Outdoor wedding ceremony in May on a little island in the middle of a lake. Bloody freezing.
No seating. Waited around for ages with nothing happening. No food, not even a bar (we were given one small glass of Buck's Fizz).
Speeches were before the food at about 3pm. They went on and on and on....(we were all SO hungry and completely sober). Very quiet atmosphere.
Then a woman on our table got up randomly (it seemed) and started singing Ave Maria (quite mediocre). The bride burst into tears. It seemed that it had some significance to her, but no-one introduced it or explained and it was all a bit embarrassing.
The longed for food was rather thin in the ground and dry/plain.
We left at about 7pm to go and pick up our kids (we had to travel 3 hrs and no family to watch them so relied on a friend).

I've also been to a wedding where a gap of 4 hours was sprung in us in an isolated hotel with no bar and nothing to do. We actually left and didn't return for the evening.

The best -

A relaxed church wedding in Wales. Children invited. Reception was back at the brides parents farm - huge buffet and hog roast, live band in the garden with big coloured lanterns hung everywhere. The whole thing had a massive 'house party' vibe, hay bales everywhere to sit on around the garden, big ice boxes full of bottled beers etc, people hanging out on the stairs, in the kitchen. Really great fun and a good laugh. Really different.

Don't have a huge gap between the end of the ceremony and the reception.

You risk your guests either getting pissed as lords, especially if you have them waiting in a hotel 'lobby' with free drinks; or you leave them starving, milling around, especially if you've had noon wedding, then photos etc til 3 or 4pm before you make your grand entrance! Bear in mind if your reception venue is miles away from the wedding, your guests may be miles away from home/hotel, so not quite enough time to go and have some downtime, but too long to stand around waiting.

Been to two otherwise lovely weddings where this happened!

I think telling people they can just go to the meal so as to not have to go out twice and wait a while in between is rubbish. The important part of the day should be seeing the marriage ceremony..

Surely you can cancel what you say you don't want?

One I went to, the bride's father had died the year before and her brother in law gave her away. He also did the speech, but it was mostly about the void left by the late father. The bride and her mother were in floods of tears. Kind of wrecked the atmosphere.

OP I would let guests know they are welcome to the ceremony but there will be a long gap ( give suggestions of things to do etc) you could have a drink near the ceremony arranged ( pub/cafe) directly after or give out goody bags with drinks, nibbles as they leave the ceremony.

I went to a great wedding that was so great for all the wrong reasons!
It was a very traditional wedding with huge hooped skirts and top hats. Peach bridesmaids and a church filled with peach balloons (on the end of every aisle).
All went well until the reception. We entered through a balloon arch of peach balloons with their names on and sat down to a meal of cold ham, coleslaw and cold potatoes. Someone on our table had glass in theirs. There were no drinks and the bar wasn't open until later. After the main (which would have left a sparrow hungry) they came round with half a glass of Asti each. There was no dessert until the cake.
All this is fine, we had a good laugh and were enjoying ourselves. Then came the speeches and the groom talked about his new wife farting for the most of the speech. The best man talked about the ex girlfriend and how heartbroken the groom was - and the lap dances they all had at the stag do. Bride's dad spoke about the aforementioned lap dancing he had got at the stag do too. Then about how he never expected his daughter to amount to much as she was "as stupid as her mother".
Speeches ended and bride seemed happy. Their first dance was over and the next song (at their request) was the birdy song.
Every family guest member got pissed really quickly and there was a free for all brawl! Glasses broken, tables knocked over, blood the whole lot. Police came and the party continued.
On the way out they were selling the wedding video for £10 - which even contained the fight and they were recording machine to machine to churn them out!
It was awesomely horrific

This one I didn't go to and heard about it from a friend. Midsummer wedding on an extremely hot day, ceremony at 12, then hanging around for two hours in the boiling heat waiting for taxis to get to the reception at a country house in the middle of nowhere. Then hours and hours of hanging around while endless photos were done, and then a few suspicious-looking canapes at about 6. Then more hours and hours of hanging around, eventually sat down to eat about 9.30, by which time all the tots and wrinklies were tired and fractious and begging to go home.

The surrounding area flooded so cars got stuck, the “hog roast” was slow cooked cheap pork imo served in floury baps (went everywhere) the bride insulted our surname.

It was on a Thursday night too. I have banned dh from accepting wedding invites now.