Weddings you went to where things went wrong?

[Bupo]

Please can you share any times you attended a wedding where things went awry. I’m just keen to avoid any possible issue.

The only one I can think of is where the bride was two hours late. Apparently her family were just really exacting with the make up artist and had a lot of the make up redone/touched up.

We were sat in the Church for aaaaages. It meant that the drinks reception/evening meal was really rushed as the bride and groom really prioritised the dancing.

I invited DH’s ex to our wedding. She is a genuinely lovely person and she and I are friends. I don’t think of her as his ex as they had split up long before I met him.

One where the groom (a family friend) kept eyeing up all the women, apart from his lovely, and too good for him, wife. Surprisingly not the marriage didn’t last.

We went to a wedding, glorious sunny day in June, church service then back to a local hotel with a walled garden. It was absolutely fab until we went in for food - the groom's father had died some 15 years before but the top table had an empty chair and they'd put a huge photo on the table. Then the groom did speeches before food (by this time it was 3pm and we were starving) and the whole groom's family got really tearful about the father not being there, growing up without him etc. Literally killed the mood stone dead, and the Bride ended up storming out saying it was supposed to be a celebration......... it was horribly horribly awks and loads of people left before the evening do just because truthfully, it felt like a wake.

Isn’t this fairly common in Australia where it’s called ‘alternate drop’? While I don’t think that’s specifically aimed at different meals for men and women, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up that way a lot of the time?

Went to the afternoon wedding of an older (well off) couple. At one point a small table of finger sandwiches was put out but we all ignored it as it was 7pm and we all expected a meal. By 9pm all the guests were looking at each other like WTF. There was no food. It was v odd. We had pizza on the way home...

@ChompandaGrazia exactly!

I think the bride had read it in Vogue that food sexism was a thing in California, unfortunately it did not translate to Lancashire.

It was a pretentious wedding. All style, zero substance.

My Uncle married for the 3rd time and her Dad stood up to give a speech.
He started with "X's Grandma would have loved to be here but she died last week" then dissolved into loud sobs.
I felt for him, no idea who thought it was a good idea for him to do the speech.

And at my BF's wedding, in a church, all the bridesmaids' cash was stolen from our handbags in the church hall. I've only just realised I never told my friend that, didn't want to spoil her memories. Though they're divorced now so might be ok 😂.

attended a wedding where the first venue burnt down. The bride ended up booking the same venue where I had recently married as they and a few other local venues got together to offer the couples all available dates. Bride was really worried I would mind but really didnt. At the wedding the coordinator who I had known from our wedding told me one of the couples they were in discussions with to take over their wedding actually the bride decided it was a sign and called off the wedding and went travelling! Thought this was a great story!

Also went to a wedding where the priest got the name wrong. When he said ‘do you take thee X’ he actually used the grooms middle name which also happened to be the name of the brides ex 🫣

Come to think of it, it may well be there were other ex-GF (or BF) at other weddings I’ve attended - if I didn’t know the B&G’s dating history and nobody sobbed / gave a BM speech about ‘we all thought he’d marry Anna’ / in some other way acted up, I’d have no way of knowing!

As you say, if the relationship is long in the past, why not.

No. He explained there would be no wedding and the bride walked back down the aisle.

Sounded like a riot!

If everyone’s on board, why not. But if I still had feelings? No way. And if an ex invited me part of me would wonder whether the bride felt under pressure to do so, you know? I think I’d probably just decline with thanks and save myself the over-thinking personally.

Reliable transport to church. DH and his best man had a flat tyre on the way and they had to change it dressed in top hat and tails.

Make sure you get someone to fit your veil properly ( I did it myself) and it fell off at the altar in the middle of our vows 😱

And always best to check your ex bf isn’t working as a waiter at venue 😬

Despite all the above happening we are still married after 35 years.

I forgot to wear my veil. DH and his best man both had awful chest infections and could barely speak. I started with the flu at dinner — couldn’t get out of bed the next day. But boy oh boy being married to late DH was so wonderful, none of it mattered a jot.

The lessons I’ve learned for my next wedding are to keep it simple. Literally the only things I’ll be spending money on are food and drink, a photographer, and whatever it takes to make me and DP feel fantastic on the day (hair and makeup for me, mostly!). All the rest of it – flowers, table decorations, photo booths, favours, fancy cars – all completely pointless and a waste of money. All that matters is that everyone is fed, watered, and you both feel great and get some lovely photos.

Not my wedding but we were guests at a wedding about 20 years ago. Midway through the reception the best man and a few others nipped across the road to a pub to watch the football.

That would have been bad enough but in another room of this pub was a swingers event. Best man not realising this got chatting to some of them and invited them back to the hotel. One of them then tried to chat up the bride.

We prevented the groom from punching said chap and instead the hotel manager in no uncertain terms threw them out of the hotel.

@CandidHedgehog it might be a thing now in Australia but not nearly 20 years ago.

Honestly it was a crap wedding.

@Bupo are you noticing how many people are mentioning food incidents whether it be timing, quantity or both

The best man said the bride’s name wrong during his speech (he said the groom’s ex wife’s name instead). lt was awkward.

Wow, some of these replies are astounding!

My SIL turned up absolutely hammered to hers, doubled over laughing as soon as she walked in the room (registry office) and doubled over cackling all the way down the aisle, randomly shouting her husband to be's surname at the top of her voice. First thing she did at the front was, whilst still cackling, belittle my husband who'd been asked at the last minute by his brother to hand the rings over - brother had obviously been told he wasn't allowed to ask my husband to be any sort of best man, but for some reason his brother panicked on the day and asked him anyway. Whole ceremony she was doubled over cackling, everyone in the entire room looked beyond uncomfortable. At the reception, her now husband had calculated the number of guests wrong and as soon as I walked in I could see there wasn't enough chairs or space. His head fell off when I told him so I had to sort it. My 2 large kids and my husband basically ended up sat on my knee for that part of the day. And the rest of the day the bride went round loudly telling everyone she'd married the wrong brother (as in she should've married my husband) and at one point when my husband was at the bar, was telling him her friend really him. Absolutely bizarre behaviour.

Wow. That's pretty stupid.

Pretty outing and I have described this on here before but the wedding was spectacular. The reception looked like it was going to be great but the groom disappeared early 'to get some cigarettes' and never returned.

After an hour or so, people got a bit concerned and it turned in to a full on search with people driving around the town looking for him.

It was as if he had been beamed up and the venue was packed up and people were sent home with trays of food, doggy bags and slices of cake.

There was no sign of him for months but he reappeared eventually requesting an audience with the bride and her family.

It turned out that prior to the wedding he had been having an affair with a nurse at the local hospital and he had gone to ground in an empty house with her in the grounds of the local hospital.

The bride tried for an annulment but it was easier to divorce him so that's what she did.

Spookily, the groom got terribly injured one moonless night.

We went to one where the bride's parents really really disapproved of the groom, who to be honest was a very odd person. Nice, but quirky to say the least.

When they got married (in Aberdeen, my hat flew away and I never saw it again) the father's speech was awful. All about don't worry about being happy, just put some money aside for a rainy day, no holidays, nothing. It was so depressing that in the end everyone was glum and people started leaving right after the meal. We stayed until the first dance but there was nothing going on, just a band playing to a pretty empty dance floor.

As far as I know, they're divorced now!

My sister's wedding cake was stolen. Well maybe not exactly but the cake was given to the wrong people. The baker took a frozen cake decorated it real quick just to have a cake on display.

Went to a wedding with not enough food (pizza's) and no chairs