Tell us about your worst wedding experiences?

[ENormaSnob]

Inspired by diamondsonthesoleofhershoes thread in aibu.

The worst wedding I have ever attended was an attempt at a big traditional wedding done on a tiny budget. Freezing cold room, luke warm daytime buffet with 2 choices served on paper plates that bent when the food hit them, no drinks at all, not even a toast after the speeches. There was a pay bar which is fine with me but not even one glass of wine with the meal seems mean. The night buffet was worse than the daytime one, a few plates of dry sarnies and 2 plates of mummified chicken. No pudding of any description throughout the whole day I was cold and hungry all day. The bride had told me before hand that most of their budget had gone on outfits for the wedding party and the cars. Cars which no one saw anyway On a positive note, the drinks weren't extortionate like they are in some places.

I am not a fussy cow btw, my ideal wedding as a guest would be a village hall type of affair with everyone bringing a plate and a bottle.

Worst wedding I attended was a lunchtime 'champagne reception' in a posh London venue. There was no food all afternoon and no soft drinks available (I don't drink alcohol). In desperation, I went out and bought myself some soft drinks and a sandwich.

When it's a church and evening invitation I never go to the church, I've always assumed it wasn't expected .

Sorry, I wasn't clear, with church weddings, the bride and groom are often told by the vicar that they must invite people to the church - as it's open and they can't not invite people to it, it's one of those ettiquette things - going back from when all your guests would be local and it wasn't that they'd have to hang around, just go back to their houses and do their normal stuff then return for the evening party. If it's not a convienent place, the bride and groom have probably been told that they should invite you but you'll probably not come to the church. It's completely ok to RSVP that you will be there in the evening but can't make the church earlier.

I haven't had a 'church and evening' invite that I could actually go to anyway (the only ones have been clashing), but I'm always surprised when (non-religious) people bother to go to go to the church then entertain themselves for hours, rather than just come to the evening do...

Disclaimer - DH was of the opinion it was 'all or nothing' for us so everyone got an all day invite, and we had the ceremony start at 2:45pm to make sure that everyone had time to eat first and because those staying over at the hotel could only check in at 2pm, then we only had 30 minutes of photos, with free drinks and mingling, food at 4:30pm, the money we would have spent on favours and other things we decided we didn't care about was stuck behind the bar, then fed everyone again at 9pm - of course that meant that no-one was actually hungry in the evening and we had about 1/2 the food left over in the evening....

The worst wedding I have been to was purely because of the father of the bride's speech. She is a lovely woman, but I hadn't met her father before. During his speech he went on about how lovely she is (which is fine) but kept saying things about her that had a sexual overtone. Can't actually remember the details now as I tried consciously to forget them. But it all had slightly lecherous undertones. It was truly awful

I went to a wedding where the reception was evacuated due to a bomb scare. It was in NI and there was a coded warning.

Nothing was found but it was quite stressful having to return to the hotel after they'd declared it to be all-clear. I was very grateful that the sniffer dogs are well trained!

My worst one is quite sad, really.

I was working in Africa and one of my colleagues (young and European), who I didn't know well, invited a group of us along to her wedding. I'd never met the groom.

When we arrived, it became clear that he was a very good-looking conman of the, 'I will get a visa to Europe and I don't care how I do it' type. Her parents and immediate family were the only other Europeans there. I have never seen a group of people look more devastated as their beautiful daughter threw her life away.

We spent the whole evening comforting a group of people we didn't know, whilst trying to be positive and diplomatic. The mother sobbed throughout the whole thing whilst the others were only intermittent- everybody trying to hide it from the daughter.

To make matters worse, all of the wedding money was stolen. It was left on a table and somebody went off with it. It could only have been one of the guests who took it.

He left her just over a year later but after she had had his baby and got him the visa.

I have a great one.

Invited to rather rushed wedding of old schoolfriend and his new-ish girlfriend. We knew it was going to be unusual when they declared that they were both virgins in a quote about the sanctity of the marriage bed on the invitation. The sermon at the church was nearly 2 hours long and had nothing to do with the bride and groom, but declared amongst other things the perils of living in sin, evils of divorce, the terrible fate of bastard children born out of wedlock, and the abomination of homosexuality as a debasement of the family unit. Large amounts of fire and brimstone. Also a lecture about the woman's commitment to a man and her family but nothing about his to her, lots about her privilege to speak in church on her wedding day (apparently this is a big deal as after she is married she is expected to follow her husband in all things and therefore married women cannot speak in church). And it goes on and on, as we, the unmarried parents, languish in the back row.

We found out that women weren't allowed to speak at the reception either so we heard the groom, the best man, the father of the bride and so on all quote scripture and talk about the duties of a wife. During the grooms speech he referred to his old friends (ie us) as unenlightened - like him 'before' and now look at him 'after'. We were basically called heathens in the speech.

After the meal we went out into the bar area so they could move the room round for the evening do, the bride and groom announced that they would be retiring now to the marital bed (both of them looked green) the groom picked up the bride and carried her off into a corridor. Followed by her mother who was to help him undo the corset. We didn't see them again, just got to imagine them upstairs.

When the room was turned round we went in, wedding disco set up for 70 people. None of the other guests ever joined us. Some stayed out in the bar and most apparently went home. There were six of us at one table surrounded by empty tables all done up in wedding ribbon with centrepieces. One very bored bartender and a bemused DJ.

We got very very drunk on extortionately priced drinks, played some drinking games, requested (and danced to) very inappropriate songs and then, when we were good and bored, went and crashed a prom which was happening in one of the other function rooms just for some human interaction.

The worst wedding I have attended was mine. I hated every minute of it (and the fact that everything about it was being scrutinised!) Was worth it though :)

The most bizarre I've come across was a couple who didn't send out invitations and then were surprised when nobody came! I was asked if I was free to come a couple months before the planned date and told I'd receive a formal invitation with times on etc nearer the time. The invitation didn't arrive so I assumed they had decided not to invite me. Anyway, they just didn't get around to doing invitations. Two people (who were friends of mine) other than immediate family turned up and they said being the only people other than parents and siblings in what was planned to be a big wedding was an experience not to be repeated.

Some lovely friends of ours had an amazing wedding last year ...apparently! Dh was best man, I didn't get to see most of the day. Bride had texted beforehand to ask that dd (18 months) not be allowed to make any noise/run around/cry during the ceremony, so as not to distract. This made me so wary about it that I spent most of the ceremony outside with dd just to make sure.

There was a second ceremony, but I didn't even bother going in and trying for that one - I noticed the only other person with a toddler did the same, so we amused our kids for an our in an empty room. ...Then we amused them for a further 2-3 hours (all this time no food and no drink available) while everyone did go-carting! It would've been a great day to be involved in, but unfortunately for me it was just really hard work, I was starving, bored and exhausted etc! Had I realised it'd be like that I would've taken a load of toys books/food!

Everything - your timings sound great and relaxed, if you have wet weather plans then the shelter you have for rain will also offer shade. If it's forecasted to be hot, call the venue the say before and request extra jugs of tap water be put out as people will get through them.

*the day before

Oh god, I am going to two this summer that are threatening to out-do each other for worst wedding ever.

One is going to be frills and flounce and sailor suits and miniature dove-cots as table centre pieces and a bride's mother from beyond hell.

The second is going to be tacky and tasteless and DH is doing the photos as our present. The bride has already told him in great detail about how none of the pictures should look staged, they are all going to be very carefully arranged to be "natural-looking". She has planned exactly how she wants to have her and her DH peeking out from behind trees, chasing each other through a field, lying in the grass together etc. I have a horrible feeling that they are going to be keeping the wedding party waiting for an incredibly long time while all these very 'natural' shots are painstakingly arranged. If you want natural looking photos, then let the sodding photographer take natural photos ffs.

My husband offered to take photos at his sister's wedding. He only realised afterwards that he hadn't put a film in the camera. (This was in the days before ubiquitous digital cameras.)

The worst weddings I have been to are the ones where the B&G are clearly not meant to be. You can forgive everything else if you can feel the love in the room!
Best thing you can do to keep your guests happy? Food and don't let the photographer take over.

I went to a dry wedding once. Enough said.

I didn't go to this wedding, but my friend went to one where the cake was a lamb because it was Easter, and when the bride and groom cut it open it was filled with red food dye so it bled

And then the bride got so drunk that during the first dance she just hung, unconscious, from the groom as he dragged her around the dance floor

Sounds fun to me!

My friend came from a landowning family and they had a cattle farm. The best man managed to compare the mother of the bride to a cow.

I have to keep reading this thread to see if my wedding's mentioned :o I think it went alright but you never know...

I did go to one wedding when I was in the early weeks of pregnancy and missed out on the food at the reception because I was being sick in the loos with DH holding my hair :(