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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

602 replies

PinkStarAtNight · 07/07/2023 19:25

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?

OP posts:
JorisBonson · 10/07/2023 14:24

At my wedding party stepMIL screamed at my FIL because he'd missed the first speech (stuck in traffic taking his terminally ill mother home). This was just outside the room we were in, while the rest of the speeches were going on. It was very, very audible!

She took drugs at BIL's wedding, screamed that the wasn't getting enough attention and made a pregnant woman cry.

Needless to say we don't see her any more!

ReformedWaywardTeen · 10/07/2023 15:00

DrSbaitso · 10/07/2023 14:15

My God that's unbelievable.

Don't those chairs have minor alarms on them to alert staff when time is up?

And you'd need a LOT of skill and product to make very long, thick, straight hair hold a curl. If you were on a film set they'd probably just give you a wig.

And then she tried to BRUSH it? A wide toothed comb for loose curls, maybe, but a fucking BRUSH? When it was already matted?

Doesn't sound like she had a clue what she was doing even aside from barbecuing your hair.

Show quote history

No, no alarms, and to be honest with the amount of people in there, and the noise of everything else, you'd have been hard pressed to hear a beeping noise in there.

And yes, a brush, one of those barrel brushes. Just plonked in whilst the stylist got more and more flustered trying to suggest it was all fine and nothing to be worried about. Snapped with quite the crack down the handle.

Thing is, I barely go to the hairdresser. Once a year and I have to ask around for who can actually deal with thick hair. DH trims it for me.

So when she assured me that she could definitely get it to curl and stay that way, even promoting the hairdryer thingy, as helping to do so, I had no reason to think she was wrong as I genuinely have no clue about that sort of thing. I trusted the woman.

I think perhaps it wouldn't have been as bad if bad at all, if they'd not taken on so many people at the same time. The staff were looking after about 3 people at a time. It was unfair for them. My DD was 6 and had long straight hair (not as thick as mine) and the bridesmaids just had their hair washed and dried straight. I had offered to do that at home but SIL insisted it was done at the salon. To me, it looked exactly how it does when I did it at home (they're 17 now, so they deal with their own hair). So between me and DD that would have been two less people in this tiny salon.

It shut down a few years after. I wasn't surprised. It marketed itself as a fashion salon but was better suited to old ladies.

But yes, I now have my hair thinned once a year and have it to my shoulders most of the time, DH tidies it in-between.

ThatFraggle · 10/07/2023 15:03

@debsam

What about lace makes you come up in hives? Never heard that before.

Justforachangeagain · 10/07/2023 15:08

Remembered another one I'd tried to scrub from my mind.
Family member marries this guy. At the reception, in front of all family, including her parents who paid for the wedding, he openly groped another woman on the dance floor. He was grinding on her and grabbing her arse with both hands. Really Really Vile.
He showed his real colours a few years later at another family event but that's not for here.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 10/07/2023 15:48

Isthisreasonable · 10/07/2023 08:24

Went to a wedding where the bride didn't like being the centre of attention. She wore long white dress with a veil. She had 4 adult BMs who all wore long white dresses with white hats (all different styles to suit the different body shapes/personalities). It looked amazing and the bride felt very comfortable with a lot of the focus on the BMs. Clever solution to the problem.

Show quote history

Makes perfect sense to me. Folklore dictates that bridesmaids are there to distract 'devils' from the bride. They do this by dressing up like the bride so that the devils can't pick bride out from the 'crowd'.

I agree; cleverly done.

DrSbaitso · 10/07/2023 15:54

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe · 10/07/2023 15:48

Makes perfect sense to me. Folklore dictates that bridesmaids are there to distract 'devils' from the bride. They do this by dressing up like the bride so that the devils can't pick bride out from the 'crowd'.

I agree; cleverly done.

Show quote history

Seems to work, since that wedding went well. Perhaps some of the brides at other nightmare ones should have tried it.

Hibiscrubbed · 10/07/2023 16:43

Another one. A uni friend of my husband married a man everyone hated. He was just so…horrible.

Anyway, it was a glitzy London affair, her dream wedding. The groom’s family were just as vile as him. Not just rude and classless, but rude to everyone else. They had a traditional long top table set up and during the speeches, the mother of the groom got up and tried to go for a cigarette, the mother of the bride told her to sit down. She then shouted at the top of her lungs over to the bar staff to bring her vodka…during the father of the bride speech. She then proceeded to make call after call on her mobile. Everyone was agog. She then got absolutely wasted, slagged off the bride and her family to anyone that would listen.

Hawkins0001 · 10/07/2023 17:36

Hibiscrubbed · 10/07/2023 06:17

Will probably have to NC after this.

It was in a very swanky and quite large venue. Privately hired. The groom was a very, very high earning, very arrogant and good looking but largely likeable man. The bride was a lovely but slightly neurotic woman, I suspect in part due to his behaviour and because she was her parents’ favourite. I couldn’t have lived with someone like him. She worked but did not earn the lifestyle his work afforded them and made no bones about how she would stop working once married.
The bridesmaid was a stunning but pretty cutthroat woman, would be a ‘man’s woman’ type according to my grandmother. I suspect a bit of a frenemy really. She loved a power play with other women about men and she probably always won. Men loved her. The bride’s sister has moved out of London after uni, lived on the coast, very different to her sister.

Those are the players in our horrid little set up.

Bride was very fretful about all details of the wedding. She wasn’t a bridezilla type per se, but she was hard work about a lot of things. Her easy-going sister knew how to handle her and had just taken on the role of sorting her out when she’d get tightly wound.

It was post dinner, a lot of champagne was going around, lots of wealthy types getting very loose. Bride had noticed groom was gone for a while and was becoming quite worked up. I expect she suspected he might be doing something he shouldn’t be.

Sister had been looking for him and obviously found him. His chums outside had tried to stop her going in by physically blocking her. She didn’t cause a scene but unfortunately the bride had been following her sister and barged in to the aftermath. The screaming was unreal. It went on a long time. Bridesmaid slipped out and disappeared off, laughing, with groom’s chums (callous), not to be seen again. Bride screamed at groom for a long time. Sister left them to it. Wedding carried on until 4/5am ish.

They’re still together, she indeed did give up work, they now have a baby, I doubt for one second he’s changed at all, not heard much of bridesmaid. They go on a lot of holidays.

Show quote history

Firstly very much appreciated, and second just goes, that you never truly can trust your partners, that said this was one for history, although I suspect there have been many affairs along the way.

Scully01 · 10/07/2023 18:27

A wedding a few years ago. Never got official invite till really late on, think bride had left it to groom to sort out his friends and he was really disorganised. Finally got invite and my DS who was just a toddler was invited. He proceeded to tantrum as the ceremony clashed with his nap, so I took him out and walked him in his buggy for the majority of the ceremony. Found out at reception that they had actually employed nursery staff in another room to look after any kids attending but groom hadn't let us know. Bride seemed really stressed at reception and said to me "Was your wedding as stressful as this?" Nodded in agreement but my wedding was stress free, thankfully. Felt bad for her.
There was also the posh wedding where the groom's father was best man, and talked at length about his sons teenage wank sock during his speech 🤣🤣

debsam · 10/07/2023 19:23

ThatFraggle · 10/07/2023 15:03

@debsam

What about lace makes you come up in hives? Never heard that before.

Don't know but it always does. I can't cope with anything 'scratchy' either or hairy like lambswool or cashmere. I am obviously very sensitive!

GwinCoch · 10/07/2023 19:41

Attended a registry-type thing where my name was spelt incorrectly three times on the witness documents I had to sign - strangely I didn’t want to sign stuff that didn’t match my ID (which had been sent to them and receipt acknowledged weeks earlier) - so there was a delay and they got flustered and a bit crap with me. Sorry that I don’t want to commit fraud! Then the whole party got into a series of cars to go to reception. My taxi got there first - it was in a room above a pub - and the landlady thrust two carrier bags into my hands and said the groom hadn’t showed up to decorate the room the night before! So me and another mutual friend of the bride did all of the decorating while the bride’s uncle (stellar chap) entertained everyone at the bar downstairs. Shit show. The only good thing is that she isn’t still with that ne’er do well!

medianewbie · 10/07/2023 19:43

PollyThePixie · 07/07/2023 19:52

The one where the father of the bride sat in a corner of the registry office very loudly crying like a child with the snots tripping him and gulping like a fish.

Fifty years later the couple are still together but even till the day he died the father was broken hearted his daughter had made the choice she did. It was all very unhealthy.

I went to one where the Mother of the groom dressed entirely in funereal black including a huge black veiled hat. During the service she turned to face the stone wall of the (small ruined but very exclusive Scottish) Chapel & cried. The (working class) bride dumped her hopeless (middle class) husband within 5 years after finally realising what a lazy entitled arse he was. He's now an MP. It will shock you to know that he's still lazy & entitled.

DyslexicPoster · 10/07/2023 19:50

Some of these are eye opening! The shocking weddings I have just been family bust up and fights. At bils first wedding one of the cousins was arrested for beating up his sister.

Irridescantshimmmer · 10/07/2023 19:51

An aquaintence, someone I met by accident who I don't know, once told me he once did a p-oo in a large plant pot at a wedding.

He said he was as drunk.

He described it as one of those trees that grow indoors.

He worked as a nurse for the NHS.

He's an absalutely revolting and vulger excuse of a human being.

Even dogs have the sense to bury theirs. He' s like a wort on the backside of the human race. I was not one bit impressed, lolol😂😂😂

PoppyTries · 10/07/2023 20:30

Blankstatement · 08/07/2023 09:21

At my step sisters wedding, I was literally pushed aside by a bridesmaid and told that me and my infant daughter could not be in the photos.

I didn’t really care but my mum was furious. The bridesmaid died very suddenly quite soon afterwards and my mum was convinced she had developed the power to wish people dead. 🙄

I’m imagining Rude Bridesmaid elbowing you aside & then collapsing moments later. If so, I would like to hire your mum.

I have two CFs in my family (well, at least two)

My grandmother taught all her granddaughters to sew, but I was the only one who continued working on the skill and became quite proficient. One of my cousins got engaged and her mother asked if I would make cousin’s wedding dress. I declined because I was already terribly busy with my job in finance. CF Aunt & cousin (and a little bit my mum) hounded me to help, she had a dream dress, it would be a simple pattern, etc. I finally said yes if they stuck to my strict schedule (she needed to be available for fittings when I had free time), no one was to bother me for updates, and there were to be no additional requests. The dress was nearly complete when cousin suddenly wanted extra embroidery and sparkles because she thought it was too plain. I had worked evenings & weekends to deliver this dress to her early, so I finished it (sans extra work) and dropped it off at her house and advised that she should figure out the sparkles herself. (She never did & the dress was gorgeous without). Went to the wedding & gave a lovely card, everyone raving about the dress, cousin thrilled at the result & so grateful. CF aunt later complained to other relatives that I hadn’t given a gift, but they set her straight that my gift was the hours and hours of making a custom dress for the cost of fabric. Turns out I wasn’t initially invited to the wedding but other aunts kicked up such a fuss that they sent me an invite. Unfortunately, because the dress turned out so nicely, other relatives have come asking - I’ve told them that it was too stressful & further work promotions don’t leave me enough time to assist.

Another cousin (AC) - My parents were comfortable financially and everything is in a Trust, so when my father died, my mother was the sole beneficiary. A few weeks after my father died (relatively young & very suddenly) AC very casually asked when the Will would be read, as he was wondering what he was going to inherit. From my father, a man who had a living spouse and a half-dozen children. I said “you inherited nothing. I didn’t inherit anything, it all belongs to my mum” and he seemed shocked that he wasn’t getting anything. I shouldn’t be surprised. When his own father died, he & his siblings ransacked their family home and fought over everything.

Gin1982 · 10/07/2023 21:57

Due to numbers being tight, I was asked to attend my friend’s wedding with my ex (we were all in same friendship circle). Needless to say, my actual boyfriend wasn’t best pleased, neither was I when the bride suggested I share a room with my ex too! That didn’t happen!

TheHandbag · 10/07/2023 22:31

toxic44 · 09/07/2023 19:07

I was MoH for a friend. Bride and groom had quarrelled by phone the morning of the wedding. A car came for the bridesmaids but didn't come back for the bride. Groom thought she'd backed out, went to the pub. Bride eventually got a taxi and arrived at the church but no groom. Groom came back roaring drunk and fell over a gravestone. He and bride's brother had a punch-up. No clergyman, he'd forgotten to put the wedding in his book. Finally had the ceremony, bride in tears, groom with a black eye and his shirt torn. Off to reception. No food. The caterer, a one-man-band lady, had double-booked. Groom's father got in another punch-up for groped the other bridesmaids. Final straw: groom had lost the flight tickets for the honeymoon.
They divorced within 18 months.

😮😮😮😂😱😱😱 That had disaster written all over it!

debsam · 11/07/2023 00:02

I arrived at the house of the bride for a very casual wedding and was immediately accosted by the bride who dragged me off to whisper in my ear “If my grandmother asks, it’s midnight blue!”. She was wearing a beautiful shift dress but it was black!

Eve171 · 11/07/2023 06:35

debsam · 11/07/2023 00:02

I arrived at the house of the bride for a very casual wedding and was immediately accosted by the bride who dragged me off to whisper in my ear “If my grandmother asks, it’s midnight blue!”. She was wearing a beautiful shift dress but it was black!

I dont understand this one..

WomanStanleyWoman2 · 11/07/2023 08:10

Eve171 · 11/07/2023 06:35

I dont understand this one..

Show quote history

It’s considered bad luck to get married in black; something an older person would be more likely to be concerned about.

FuneralDisaster · 11/07/2023 09:57

I was informed of a wedding where the MOB stood up during the speeches, poured a glass of red down the bride then walked out to the taxi she'd got waiting and was never seen again....

howdoesyourgardengrowinmay · 11/07/2023 14:12

FuneralDisaster · 11/07/2023 09:57

I was informed of a wedding where the MOB stood up during the speeches, poured a glass of red down the bride then walked out to the taxi she'd got waiting and was never seen again....

Need more information 😁

FuneralDisaster · 11/07/2023 14:13

Wish I had more. I was told the story by someone at a different wedding but didn't get any more info

Hatty123 · 11/07/2023 14:15

I was at a wedding where the Bride and Groom (my brother) plus much of the extended family and friends were vegetarian, including myself and my 2 young children.

Wedding was in a big field in the middle of nowhere, and my family had all flown over to be a part of the big day.
The FOB booked a local butcher to organise the catering. It was a BBQ. When we went up for our veggie sausages and halloumi (told ahead of time this was the plan) the caterers told us all the vegetarian sausages and halloumi was gone.

The vegetarians affected were given a bread roll and some plain salad leaves for our “wedding meal”. I was particularly upset as with it being far from any towns etc I couldn’t get anything for my children for dinner.
I said to the caterers that it wasn’t really acceptable to just “run out” of food for a bunch of guests and that we were upset about it. The caterers just shrugged and were cheeky about the situation.

I would’ve been mortified if the food ran out at my wedding but when the Bride found out she was angry with Me for mentioning it. Attitude was “how dare I criticise the caterer that her dad had booked”. Thought we should all just eat the bread and not say anything. She never spoke to me after that and told my brother he wasn’t allowed to see our mum or his family. Needless to say they are now divorced.

At the same wedding the FOB made jokes in his speech about how big his daughter’s breasts were and how all the “lads” that worked with him fancied her. It was all very uncomfortable!

TheHandbag · 11/07/2023 15:38

Hatty123 · 11/07/2023 14:15

I was at a wedding where the Bride and Groom (my brother) plus much of the extended family and friends were vegetarian, including myself and my 2 young children.

Wedding was in a big field in the middle of nowhere, and my family had all flown over to be a part of the big day.
The FOB booked a local butcher to organise the catering. It was a BBQ. When we went up for our veggie sausages and halloumi (told ahead of time this was the plan) the caterers told us all the vegetarian sausages and halloumi was gone.

The vegetarians affected were given a bread roll and some plain salad leaves for our “wedding meal”. I was particularly upset as with it being far from any towns etc I couldn’t get anything for my children for dinner.
I said to the caterers that it wasn’t really acceptable to just “run out” of food for a bunch of guests and that we were upset about it. The caterers just shrugged and were cheeky about the situation.

I would’ve been mortified if the food ran out at my wedding but when the Bride found out she was angry with Me for mentioning it. Attitude was “how dare I criticise the caterer that her dad had booked”. Thought we should all just eat the bread and not say anything. She never spoke to me after that and told my brother he wasn’t allowed to see our mum or his family. Needless to say they are now divorced.

At the same wedding the FOB made jokes in his speech about how big his daughter’s breasts were and how all the “lads” that worked with him fancied her. It was all very uncomfortable!

Eeew what an incestuous and inappropriate comment to say about his own daughter. Some men really disgust me, why on earth did did think that was an appropriate comment to make.