to ask what's rudest/most bizarre wedding behaviour you've known of?

[PinkStarAtNight]

Lighthearted thread, inspired by the mention of wedding politics on another thread...just interested to know if anyone out there has experienced/known of any weddings/wedding related behaviour more bizarre/rude than the one I know of. Wedding guest behaviour, bride/groom behaviour and weddings that were just bizarre in general all welcome...

So, I'll start:
Couple getting married were on a very low budget (so much so that their centrepiece wedding cake was actually just cardboard with icing and decorations over it) but they still wanted a 'nice/fancy' wedding with sit down meal and servers...so they hired a town hall for an 'afternoon tea' luncheon type thing just after the wedding, with only close friends and family invited. They then asked other, less close, friends to 'have the privilege' of serving them at this 'high tea' event, free of charge, as a favour, instead of an invite to the wedding (not even the evening party that came later).
It was actually phrased as 'would you like to have the privilege of serving us at our wedding?' and people who were asked were very much expected to see it as an honour. Apparently it's somewhat of the 'done thing' in their circle.

These friends/servers were given waiter/waitress uniforms to wear. Just another reminder- they were NOT being paid. One of the people asked to do it was a friend of mine. She actually thought she was quite close to the family, had known them years and been round for dinner and things like that, but realised they obviously didn't see her that way when instead of a proper invite to the wedding she was asked to do this.

She said that she accidentally split tea whilst pouring it out for someone at this 'luncheon' (I mean its not like she was a professional server!) and the bride's father snapped at her. Everyone at the table treated her exactly like a professional server, not making wye contact, not even thanking her, barking orders at her etc, even though she had known all of them for years and spent time at their house for gatherings...all the servers were 'thanked' a few weeks after the wedding with a box of basic Cadbury chocolates, the type that cost about £5 from Tesco. These boxes of chocolates were elaborately wrapped up and sent with thank you cards. Once opening the box, my friend realised they were all white...looked at the sell by date and they were years out!! 😂

Now, it wasn't really anything to me because I wasn't close to couple (knew them, had mutual friends but never expected to be invited in any capacity) so didn't affect me at all, but I think the whole thing was completely bizarre and such rude and entitled behaviour towards people who were supposed to be their friends. Apparently being asked to dress up in a waitor outfit and take orders/serve people is an immense honour. I didn't, and still don't, have words 😂

Anyone else got anything to top this?

The wedding industry has a lot to answer for. Too many people trying to emulate events they don't have the budget for. Have what you can afford and be sincere and kind. Remember that a host thinks of the comfort and enjoyment of their guests.

I wouldn't have stayed for the wedding and I would have retrieved any gift I'd sent!

I'm really sorry you came back to that hell. For the bride involved in our family - well it was an utterly shit start to married life sorting out her parents as her mother who was obviously devastated.

I hope you got through that OK.

Why could these fathers not wait just a little bit more instead of destroying happy occasions?

I went to one as a relatively new friend of the bride (my best friend is the groom's brother's wife). The bride had matched her colour scheme to the outfit her mum said she was going to wear - a beautiful forest green.

Her mother actually wore a long cream dress.

I was absolutely appalled, but no one else seemed bothered. I was later told it was typical behaviour for her so no one was surprised hence no reaction.

The wedding industry is simply responding to what people want, the problem lies with social media, glossy magazines and thick brides who want a Posh and Becks wedding on Ken and Deidre money.
I honestly think that there is an inverse relatinship between wedding costs and longevity, too many couple start married life with an ocean of debt through their own fault.

Too true. I have a colleague who had a huge elaborate wedding but is constantly moaning that they don't have the deposit for a house. That's sometimes the choice. It's all for social media with some people.

With house prices as they are, it's quite likely that the cost of the wedding wouldn't have got them a deposit and they figured they might as well get one thing they wanted out of the money.

No, it would have. Believe me.

Being shocked is one thing, behaving like a entitled arsehole is another.

@CurlyTandtheTangles It didn't end well for any of us. I'd only got married in the first place because my parents had threatened to disown me if I lived with then fiance...I was in my very early 20s, far too immature to stand up to them...which was a sure sign I shouldn't have been getting married in the first place. I left my husband after 2 and a half years, I was divorced 6 months after my mother's divorce (very nasty) had gone through. This was back in the mid/late 80s.

To this day my mother blames me and my wedding for making my father have his 'exit' affair (even though he'd been unfaithful the whole 20 odd years they were married). I made him 'feel old'...

Years ago now and it was my sister's wedding. The day before, family travelled from all over the country and we were put up in a sort of religious retreat place a few doors from parent's house. Just family staying there and it really was very nice, though plain. Sister's husband was meant to have got supplies in for everyone to have breakfast, and none of us questioned if he had, but the next morning, there wasn't even a teabag or a slice of bread in the kitchen, nothing. I went to parent's place to ask for something to eat and got shouted at by my sister and told to leave, so the guests pooled together to get something for breakfast and me and OH drove to the nearest shop, a few miles away. So as well as us all paying an arm and a leg for travel, new clothes and gifts, we had to buy our own breakfast. Some of the groom's friends got very drunk and stayed at the same place as us, where they yelled drunkenly all night and kept everyone awake. They left the next morning and the rest of us got to spend hours cleaning the place before going home. The marriage lasted about a year.

Our neighbours married in 2018 and have only just managed to pay off their wedding loan.

No, central southern England.

@PinkStarAtNight we committed the sin of inviting people to the evening only but telling them they were welcome at the church as that’s the actual wedding. Reason was that these people were important to me, but not to my parents who were paying- venue seated 90 for the wedding breakfast and after my parent’s choice of guests(so very many relatives) I had only 10 seats for my friends - which included bridesmaids.

It’s certainly not the way I’d do things now, but it isn’t always an insult to your level of friendship. Tbh my wedding was the first wedding I’d been to, so I didn’t know what wasn’t ‘done’ and probably made many more errors. The evening list still all speak to me though so it can’t have been too bad.

My sister is getting married next year when I'll have a 6 month old baby but she's adamant she wants a child free wedding.

Issue is I'm a single mum and ex and his family live in another country and all my family is obviously going to be at the wedding. Not really sure how that's going to work! 🤷🏻‍♀️

You can understand what it looks like though, @Makegoodchoices - you're welcome to come to the ceremony but only the evening do? I wonder if it would be better to not have an evening do at all, and just spend more on the main reception? I've been to lots of weddings like this, and it works well. Ceremony, main reception, wave couple off on honeymoon!

My cousin's step mum (who's only 6 years older than her) turned up to my cousin's wedding in a full length white dress with sparkly bits on it and a white fascinator. My jaw hit the floor when I saw her. Obviously looked like she was getting married herself.

Cousin decided to stay cool and just ignore it and get on with her day but thought it was really rude & bizarre of the step mum.

If she won't make an exception for her single mother cousin's babe in arms, who might well be breastfed, then you'll just have to send your apologies.

@Maireas I suppose given that the ceremony is the actual wedding, it should be considerably more meaningful than the reception. But nobody actually acts like that is the case!

I’m not entirely sure you can win with weddings - I assume if I had all my own choices at the time that my mum still wouldn’t be speaking to me as most of the relatives wouldn’t have been there!

I went to a very similar wedding of a friend from university. I think it’s all down to communication. Like you, my friend invited us to the reception and said we were welcome to come to the ceremony. We all (group of uni friends) understood, were delighted to go and all went for a lovely dinner and a catch up before the reception. I think it’s partly down to how it’s communicated and also the location - middle of nowhere? Not ok. Somewhere with options for the time in between? Fine.

I went to a wedding that was in the region of 50/60k spent. All went wrong when grooms family and brides family started a huge brawl resulting in glasses smashed and used as weapons. Police called, children horrified, bride fought whilst in her wedding dress. Was a huge mess yet they all painted it to be picture perfect on fb insta etc. Worst wedding I’ve ever been to hands down.

Went to a wedding of a very rough sort-of relative. All went alright until about 9ish and then it was like a bomb of fucking bonkers went off. Something (still not quite sure what!) triggered a mass brawl between all the men, and the women weren’t helping much by launching glasses and shoes, and ended with the groom, the best man, the father of the groom and two ushers amongst others being arrested. I left very quickly when it started kicking off but I gather there was over 15 men arrested 🤦🏼‍♀️

I know someone who did exactly this. It was a weekend festival style event and the two guests who were pressed into service were also told off for not being fast enough to help pack away the marquee when the event was over.

She was always a self absorbed twat at school and married her male equivalent!

Out walking one Saturday morning a car pulls up. Driver, male in formal wedding attire. The passenger window winds down and a young woman, all dressed up as a MOH / BM and hastily applying finishing make up, leans out of the passenger window.

Now, it is important to say this was before mobile phones, sat nav and the internet.

MOH: "Excuse me do you know where XYZ Hotel is please? We have driven around for a while and cannot find it."

A303: "Hmmm...I have not heard of that and I live around here. Have you a postcode or anything to go on?"

MOH fumbles in her bag in the seating well and pulls out a brochure.

MOH: "Near Southam, GL52 something or other."

A303: "Oh, this is Southam, Warwickshire. I think you are going to be late."

I went to a wedding as a plus one for now-DH. He was sat on top table as part of the wedding party so I was stuck with some of the groom's uni friends on essentially the least important table. No problem with that as I was a relatively new girlfriend at the time.

However, the food was a bbq and buffet combo where tables were invited up one at a time and the servers were being too generous with some guests getting a burger, chicken, kebabs, halloumi, the whole works. By the time our table was called we each got a sausage and a few salad leaves. I think I split a hotdog bun with a fellow guest.

Not the bride and groom's fault, you could see from the leftovers on the other tables that they'd catered enough, but the staff clearly weren't rationing properly. I was half tempted to minesweep the remaining food but just started drinking and our whole table got rather pissed as a result.