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.

oh well, my brother's reasoning for coming to my wedding was that my Nanna would have wanted him to. He didn't smile for the family photos, he barely spoke to me or looked at me as he went down the line-up into dinner and snubbed me outright when I went to speak to him afterwards. There is no love lost there but there is a sense of duty to the family - didn't mean he had to dress nicely or smile about it though.

Ah, ds = dsis ?

Was it the whitewater hotel by any chance ?? Nice place, just up the road from us.

monkey I know the reason anyone in my aunt's family goes to weddings!

When her son got married she rang round everyone in the family who replied to the invitation saying they couldn't come, and screamed down the phone at them.

Subtle.

I am completely bemused by the concept of wedding breakfast and/or evening reception. I have been to 20 plus weddings and the arrangement has always been ceremony mid afternoon, sometimes pfaf around when wedding photo's done then go to function which usually starts a 6pm running through to 12pm with drink supplied and usually some form of evening meal. Perhaps I have just lead a sheltered existence or the whole wedding event is different in Australia.

Of the weddings I have been to, only one stands out for being a bit memorable for the wrong reasons. That was that it was a cocktail function and there was a complete lack of food. The pain was slightly eased by copious amounts of alcohol. But this meant one of the lady guest, wearing very high heels had a major stack and broke her ankle (luckily was pissed so managed to hobble along for the rest of the evening). The function was being held at a hotel and it transpired that there was another wedding taking place and that most of the guests from the non food wedding knew lots of people attending the other wedding. The other wedding was a sit down affair in a marquee and there was lots of wistful banter in the common areas (toilets and hotel reception) about food being smuggled out from the food wedding to the starving non food wedding guests.

ha ha, umm hmm now remembering the MOB who posted a message on the brides facebook wall to everyone who had RSVPed no! (just made me feel more justified in saying no TBH and glad I didn't go!)

ApocalypseCheeseToastie can you book the nutshell and all cram in there for the week night?

ApocalypseCheeseToastie -bet you are loving this have just read this bit, please tell us the wedding is in 2013.

We have recently been upgrading the barns and plan to continue improving them in the next few seasons. By 2013 we hope to have internal toilets and showers. Meanwhile there is a portacabin toilet block in the barn yard and the public campsite facilities including hot showers are available to barn users.

I haven't been to very many weddings, these stories were great though! what i can say from the few i have been, the "posh" ones were far more dull and boring then the "cheap" ones have ever been.

I did go to a wedding last year though where the father of the bride spent a good 10 minutes talking (subtly ish ) about how he and his wife had really enjoyed doing this wedding (basically saying they paid for it all) and then rather sarcastically thanked the parents of the groom for attending, and sat down...... it wasn't just me other people had picked up on it too haha

Oh I know the swan a wee bit too well

I guess I'd have to say mine... Not near as bad as some I read!

Best Man, I HATED, did nothing for our wedding. He didn't sell tickets and we lost alot of money on the social.... (between cost of food/evening buffet/drinks/hall/music man, etc)

I over invited people...so, we were crammed into a small venue. The air conditioning quit so we cooked inside.

My Uncle and his son got into a fight with a guy who arrived at the social and broke both his legs before tossing very drunk guy into a taxi!!!! (didn't know about this until after!)

Yep.... my 1st wedding is far the worst. I should of known how it was going to end up when my new husband accused me of fooling around with his brother!!

It is in 2013, thanks for pointing that out charley.....I also notice you have to pay per loo so to speak, knowing my bro that'll be one loo for the bride and a load of mop buckets for us plebs.

Why the chuff didn't he just stick with his youth hostel idea ??> the nutshell only sleeps 4, either way we'll be up all night making sure the kids don't escape, it's bad enough staying in a hotel ffs

My DB's wedding was pretty grim. It was at a very ugly registry office, so afterwards the photographer herded us all to the beautiful park over the road for photos - then proceeded to take every photo with the ugly registry office as a backdrop instead of the lovely park! The afternoon reception was at the bride's mum's tiny house in a less-than-salubrious part of town, the bride's mum had taken charge of sending out the invites for this and had managed to not invite 2 of the 3 bridesmaids (the 2 who were from our family rather than bride's), our grandparents or any of our aunts, who my DB and I have grown up very close to. Most of the aunts boycotted the photos and left immediately after the ceremony. Bride's mum had arranged the evening reception in the function room of a really dodgy filthy pub, and again had invited what she considered to be the bare minimum of our family.

DB's new BIL's girlfriend got disgustingly drunk and started throwing attention-seeking crying/screaming fits before the reception even started. Everyone ended up leaving her on her own in the largest room in the house at the reception and moved into the tiny kitchen. Thankfully my brother remained blissfully unaware of most of this, he hadn't realised what his new MIL had done re: reception invites and we kept it from him by making excuses for the absent aunts. Grandparents were told by my parents that they'd been included on their reception invite and went anyway, no-one realised and nothing was said by DB's MIL, although she did look decidedly pissed off. Oh, DB's MIL also decided to turn up looking like a cheap hooker (v. short skintight neon yellow bandage dress and stilletto-heeled knee high gladiator sandals, she's at least a size 18), which was fun.

Sung at a wedding where the father of the bride unexpectedly died early the following morning, poor chap. The same flowers were there at the funeral. Not a great way to start married life and the marriage failed shortly after. Whatever anyone says about being hungry, cold, etc (and I've experienced a few) it's nothing to that surely?

Went to a wedding where the groom sang 'you and me and jesus' to his bride. It wasn't awful but was a bit like the folk singer thing in 4 Weddings and a bit cringeworthy. Also some relative of the couple had a very very noisy child who essentially ran around and shouted through most of it and they didn't take her out so felt very sorry for B&G because it was intrusive (must have been bad - it was over 18 years ago and I still remember it).

Oh yes. And one where the Archbishop of Canterbury was officiating (some friend of the family) in a teeny tiny church and his robes outclassed the bride's dress (much longer train and very snazzy!). No one sang the hymns either so I felt I had to. I'm sure the rest of the wedding was lovely (hopefully). Note to brides - please don't choose 'I vow to me my country' all lovely but it goes very high and no one ever sings it unless you have a musical bunch in the guest list.

Lots where we've been starving - particularly dreadful when you have a grumpy husband huffing. At one, he and three other chaps left and went to the Indian restuarant round the corner and had a lovely time while we women (work colleagues) all starved.

Now passed the age where friends are marrying so thankfully just do the ceremonies and bugger off home. Love a good wedding though and love looking at the dresses. Do remember one where the congregation clearly weren't used to being in a church and talked all the way through - that's becoming more the norm these days which is a bit worrying.

@ Suicide Gran
@ Mr. LeQ the alcohol sponge.

Apocalypse we considered that as a wedding venue but decided against it as we reckon we could create the same kind of atmosphere close to home. (We're hiring in luxury loos for our farm wedding)

There's loads of bunkhouses & reasonable B&Bs near there.

My second wedding was memorable. My DH had arranged for his teenage DC to be given a lift to the ceremony by a close family friend. Unfortunately, his evil ex-w changed the arrangement (without telling him) and got her parents to bring his DC. Evil ex-MIL then tried to gatecrash the ceremony by saying the DC needed her there. DH asked ex-MIL (who always hated him) to leave, telling her she wasn't welcome or he would drag her outside. Luckily, she left before a fight started although it entertained our wedding guests.

My advice is don't tell the ex-w about your plans as they may try to ruin it (btw she ended the marriage by having an affair and we met years later, so no reason for her to be so nasty).

I have namechanged for this in case it outs me. Good friend and his DW were big in a local Gilbert and Sullivan society, so naturally all the G&S people were invited to their wedding. It then turned out that the entertainment for the evening was going to be a) everyone stands around like numpties watching the bride and groom waltzing without ever getting to dance themselves or sit down anywhere b) watching the bride and groom sing duets and G&S songs to each other c) watching the G&S people sing songs they'd composed for the occasion and yet more G&S songs. And the G&S friends and bride and groom wouldn't stop because they all thought it was so great. It was the most horrifically self-indulgent thing I've ever seen and quite a lot of the guests were getting mutinous and went and stood outside. It went on for hours and ate into all the disco time. We got ten minutes of disco at the end and then DP and I went off and got horrifically drunk.

The rest of the wedding was fine though.

We were invited to a wedding in Germany and I was 24 weeks pregnant. There was civil ceremony and then we went off to some barn where they drank and congratulated the B&G. The B&G then sawed a log , I was slowly passing out with hunger.
We were miles from anywhere and I was just about to phone dial a bratwurst, when they brought out cake!
I had a slice of cake and then they removed that ! 2 hours of speeches ! Dh drank his way through this of course !
I was on passing out when they finally brought out the buffet which was fab!
DH was incoherent at this point

fecking hell GandS wedding.

The one where the best man was in love with the groom and was insanely jealous of the bride. The happy couple were both oblivious to this, but everyone else was very aware of it. Awkward.

They are now divorced and the best man is still lusting after the groom.

2 in quick succession - both of them our fault.

At the first, DH was driving a v.exotic car. Another guest, who we didn't know (jokingly) asked DH what job he did to drive a car like that. DH (also jokingly) said he was an arms dealer.

Clearly the other guest didn't 'get' the joke - word got round the other guests and we were treated like lepers for the whole reception

As if it could get any worse, at the second wedding a few weeks later (completely different set of guests), I recounted this anecdote to a group of people. Turns out one of the group was, in fact an arms dealer.

cakeismysaviour - I was worried you were one of our guests for a second but we're not divorced.

Our Best Man's speech was along the lines of "I'm gay, when I first met Mr Butwhat I thought he was gay too. Now he's married to Butwhat who is a girl. It's a crying shame. It should have been me. Cheers"

jen - the log-sawing is traditional (SIL is German). I think the idea is the bride and groom demonstrate they can work as a team?

It's also traditional to have a party a few days before (like a hen/stag, I guess) where all the bride and groom's friends bring old crockery and smash it against walls/the floor while the bride and groom clear it up.

cake - sorry, but that is quite funny!

Butwhat - Gosh, that is awkward!

Its quite sad really, BM is openly gay (except to his parents) and has been friends with Groom since they went to college together. As far as I know, he has loved him all of that time, but Groom has no idea and is straight.