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.

Blimey!! So what happened in the end?!

It didn't go wrong exactly. But the father of the brides speech was over an hour long, worse still he was my ex geography teacher. It went on and on and on and on......

The registrar shouldnt have married them!

At both my weddings the vicar/registrar made it clear that if either of us was noticeably drunk then they wouldnt perform the ceremony. Both said that they had had to cancel weddings before because at least one of the couple was so pissed they could barely stand.

I’ve been to weddings with:

*not enough food
*food served so late or after a very long wait and everyone was extremely hungry & cranky
having to pay for all our own drinks (at 5 hotel prices too). Not even getting one or two included
one wedding had all their gifts and envelopes containing cash stolen (again a 5 establishment) so make sure someone else is taking charge of any gifts you get on the day rather than allowing the reception to hold them.
*too hot with no shade (happened at an overseas wedding)
*different overseas wedding they had skimped on the buffet so said to cater for 30 people but actually 40 people were there. As a result I had no chair / place at the table and ate cheese instead of local cuisine. Argh. The lovely caterer was also furious.
*been at weddings where the photos took so long it was very very annoying

im sure there are more 🤣

Nothing horrific that I recall but some interesting experiences

Friend booked a country club/golf club venue. Think Manor House thing with the whole building given over to the wedding. No idea where the golfers went. Discovered on the day that the golf course was being "refurbed" and all the beautiful views were basically a sea of mud. Bride was apoplectic

Speeches that went on for 2.45 hours due to language barrier, translations and cultural differences so every man and his dog made a "speech"... needing translating. Hotel staff anticipating the usual 30 mins had ff'ed off leaving the bar closed and everyone with a single glass of bubbles for the toasts. Everyone was dying for the loo and alcohol by the time the speech marathon was over .

Over an hour long??? Omg really? How embarrassing!!! I would have fallen asleep.

2 hours of speeches done pre-meal in a huge, drafty hall with no chairs and a very uneven stone floor. Older and less mobile people were really struggling. There were more speeches at dinner so it was a confusing decision all round.

Went to one where the vicar got his dates muddled up and the groom and guests arrived to an empty, dark church…

God, I would've loved that SO much. Unfortunately she could walk and just came across as unhinged foghorn.

Firstly, I wasn't bothered about having a hen do. BM however persuaded me that I really should and offered to organise it for me. We decided on a date and I watched her write it in her diary. Most of my friends had asked about a hen do so I told them "Mary" was arranging everything and that she'd be in touch with them. It got to the day before said date and she hadn't told me what the plan was so I asked. She'd forgotten about it... Luckily most friends were still available for the date I'd earmarked so we had a lovely meal out.

Two or three days before the wedding my BMs (2 of them) had a final trying on of their dresses. Mary (yes,her with the bad memory) had put on a bit of weight. The zip on her dress would no longer do up. No amount of yanking, squeezing or breath-holding-in was going to make that dress fit... Last minute frantic dress hunting resulted in a dress that fitted at least, albeit a different shade to the other BMs dress.

The day itself... after all the various group photos the photographer was snapping me and DH in different parts of the venue. During this I could see the cake being set up and I turned to DH, smiling through clenched teeth, and said "that's not my cake!". Upon cutting and eating said cake I knew it was shop bought not "home" baked. I found out the next day that when the cake hadn't been delivered at the arranged time the venue manager phoned and discovered that the cake maker had got the date wrong. All hell broke loose with the manager, ushers and cake maker herself hot footing it to nearby supermarkets and M&S to try to find suitable replacements for the "naked" Victoria sponge 3 tiers I'd ordered and paid for, plus fresh fruit to decorate it with. With some clever fruit and flower arranging, between them they managed to cobble together a lovely looking cake, just not the one I was expecting.

Oh, and I also discovered post wedding that the outside caterers had had an equipment failure and had to improvise a bit to get everything cooked for the meal!

All a tad annoying at the time but quite funny really

The bride had told us about her dress which had a bespoke made overcoat. The colleague who told her ‘nice dressing gown Carol’ was not well received.

Now that made me laugh.

One wedding - very expensive affair, small Scottish castle, fireworks etc. Everything was really beautifully done, literally no expense spared. After dinner we moved to a large ante room for speeches, everyone standing around, a few scattered chairs. The speeches took 2 hours. Folk ended up moving through different parts of the venue to find a seat while everyone who had ever met the bride and groom had their say. I found a seat with then 8 year old DS who fell asleep until the dancing started.

Wasn't at the wedding but a colleague's wife (bride) had her drinks spiked by his "mates" as a joke. They thought she was too uptight about booze. For reasons I won't go into, she had every right to expect her husband not to get wrecked especially on their wedding day.

She had to be put to bed after the first dance. Unsurprisingly, they've never spoken to this groups of friends since in 10 years.

I went to one where they forgot to confirm the date with celebrant so they didn't turn up

FFS - this was probably my wedding. We are no longer get in contact with DHs best man. My DM still hasn't recovered from the "mooning" by some of the guests.

Very, very, very expensive destination wedding. Bride left reception before groom, who proceeded to get so hammered he passed out on his sister's hotel room floor. Bride spent her wedding night in her €750ish a night honeymoon suite alone.

Not something going wrong, so much as weird/bad taste. Bride and groom disappeared for HOURS to have photos taken. Not too bad as the guests were well catered for, if a bit bored. I remember thinking at the time it was a bit odd, as the couple's family members were all there mingling with the guests - shouldn't they have been in some of the photos? Found out later (from the groom's mother who had been mortified but putting a brave face on it) the photos concerned were erotic/soft porn in nature...

The groom who said he was delighted to now be in his little family of 4 but excluded the 10 yr daughter of the bride who was a v excited flower girl.
Heel fell of the brides v expensive shoe, the bride transported her cake to the reception on a v hot day and it melted, the hotel patched it up but everyone talked about it, it even made its way I to the speeches.
A bride who became overwhelmed and went to bed and wouldn't get up, after being sedated in some way by the hotel doctor she re emerged around midnight and celebrations resumed.
A bride who walked the bridal party about 2 miles in search of a pretty dried up waterfall.The MOG was a very large lady in a satin outfit and v high heels so she was a total mess by the time she got back to the cars.
A mother of the bride who disappeared for an hour during which the group photo was taken and she complained furiously.
Fathers of the bride who just gently sobbed during their speeches.

Did the name of the hotel begin with A and have a connection to Dana

No but about 10 hotels were blown up that day!

I was bridesmaid at a friend's wedding When her dad gave his speech he kept referring to the groom by her previous fiancé's name! She laughed it off but I was mortified and my face turned redder and redder with embarrassment. 😀 He must have said it 10 times!!

Very mild compared with most of these, but at my wedding in 1980 I wondered why we were most of the way through the meal and no wine had been served, everyone was thirsty. When I enquired, they told me that someone had rung them and cancelled the wine. It wasn't worth serving any at that point as there was a bar for afterwards - my father had to apologise in his speech.

We never found out who had done this - as far as we knew there was nobody with a grudge. I think now they have systems in place so that they don't just accept a random phone call and would check with the person who booked - and I have to admit, I did wonder even all those years ago why they didn't check.

Not sure you can plan avoidance for this one, but also very unlikely to happen...

At my brother's wedding, a goose flew into the power lines to the house, causing complete electrical failure. He was having a hog roast, so the ovens went off on the 8-hr cook just as we were all meant to be heading off for the ceremony leaving the chef in charge of the spit. Luckily, my mum's friend is an event planner and very competent fixer-of-all-things, so she got on the phone and sorted it all. Hog was delayed by an hour or so, but all turned out ok 😎

It was really bad 🙈🙈

FIL was convinced the caterers wouldn’t chill the champagne properly so left the registry office straight after the ceremony. Missed all the (very brief) photos and drove himself to the reception venue without MIL who had to hunt around forf a lift with other family members!

This was my absolute worst nightmare!! They could have had an injection or suppository to stop being sick if they could have gone to a hospital. Guess in the UK that could have taken 6 hours but I'd like to think given how quick an injection is and if it was their wedding day that would cover 'accident and emergency' pretty well and fast track triage.