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.

It was the wedding of a former work colleague, and I was a bit confused as to why I was invited, as we weren't especially close. It all became clear later on.

After a perfectly nice mid-afternoon ceremony, the reception was in a restaurant owned by the bride's family. Everyone on the groom's friends' table was as bemused as me as to why they were invited, but we were quite flattered to have been asked.

The food was pretty good and, after the main course we were asked if we wanted dessert. We all said yes and also had coffees afterwards. Imagine our surprise when, after the coffees had been cleared away, the waiter came back and presented our table with a bill for our meals and wine - at the ordinary restaurant prices, not even at a cut-down price. So, essentially, the bride and her family were profiting from their wedding, and had asked old friends of the groom along just to cover their bill.

The bill (this wasn't a cheap restaurant!) took up all the cash I'd brought with me, including what was meant to be my taxi fare home. Myself and a friend left immediately afterwards, getting her DP to pick us up, as we didn't have any bus fare left. After being asked to pay for our own meals, we weren't in the mood to stay for the disco.

We also resented the fact that we'd forked out for presents, on top of being asked to pay for the meal. Unbelievable.

He didn't sell tickets and we lost a lot of money on the social....

I'm sorry to come across as dense here Mother2Many but I hadn't realised there was any aspect of a wedding which didn't drain the wallet! Is this ticket selling some sort of custom that's passed me by?

I went to the wedding of DH's college friend, in her dad's open sided barn in Wales. It was FREEZING, the only toilet was a single portaloo right next to the buffet, and they ran out of wine by 2pm. The groom is (very) Irish and this didn't go down well with his umpteen brothers who disappeared and came back with pallet-loads of cans. Just cans. You could have anything you liked as long as it came in a can. The groom and best mans speeches were hysterical - they were very funny, but only if you could understand a west Clare accent. It was a huge huge barn, blowing a gale, and they decided to deliver the speeches in the style of the bit of a speech after a GAA match... In essence, two grown men SCREEEAMING!
I laughed, anyway...

My brothers wedding was in March 8 years ago and unfortunately the nation was battered by record breaking winds on the day of.The bride was late getting to the church as she narrowly avoided being crushed in the car by a falling tree.As they walked down the aisle after the service they were met at the door of the church by the caterer who had to inform them that the marquee had been declared unsafe.The 200 guests sat in the church with nowhere to go and the poor bride sobbing.Eventually the caterer sent some fizz up which eased things a bit and they had the photos done in the church.
After an hour or so the vicar very apologetically told us he had a christening in an hour so we would have to go soon.
The wedding was saved by a friend of the bride who offered us his large barn that had recently been vacated by 400 chickens.The bride went to the pub and the rest of us set to work cleaning the shed out and moving all the tables from the marquee.There was a cracking picture of me with my bridesmaids frock tucked in my knickers, a shawl over my hair, teetering on heels in thick farmyard mud trying to manhandle a candelabra.
By the end of it all the wedding was fab.The caterers just moved to the shed and did the dinner (a bit late but still lovely) and the band came and played-everyone had a great time because we all pulled together to pull it off...
But the bride was still pretty upset at seeing her dream wedding go down the pan.Her gorgeous dress was trashed on the still slightly filthy barn floor :(

This so doesn't compare to the vast majority of horror stories on here, but I went to a friend's wedding when we all lived in Oz. It was Catholic which, in case you don't know, is important as religion is a bigger deal in Oz than in the UK, by and large. It was a big wedding, as they are. They had divided the church up into His side, Her side- and Proddies. So there we were sitting in amongst the Prods trying to guess when to hop up, sit down, gesticulate, respond etc. No real issue, if a little perplexing. And LONG. With Mass thrown in.

Then the groom's mother and her 2 sisters got up to sing. Bless them but blimey, caterwauling on a grand scale. Everyone was sniggering into sleeves and hankies. The Father who, unfortunately, looked like a caricature of a paedophile, all slobbering and filthy gowns then started up about sparing a moment for all those who couldn't be there- why? Because they were DEAD. Many LONG DEAD. Which started up the groom's mother, howling in the aisle, beating the ground with her fists. She had to be escorted from the building, howling as she went. 20 minutes later she was to be found propped up in the vestry, all rosy cheeked and on her 4th sherry, holding court as the congregation filed past, all showing due concern for her welfare.

Bonkers.

I dont have it Euphemia...But horrifyingly it was in Bride magazine shortly after, because one of the brides friends thought it would soften the blow of the disaster wedding for the bride to have the full horror recounted in a magazine!
And it was also in the sodding Daily Express (as part of one of their highly intelligent 'barmy british weather' articles).Which I can say didnt particularly soothe said bride.Or me. (Well actually I thought it was quite funny in the end to see my fat thighs bulging over the side of my spanks on page 5, but initially I was slightly aghast)

Loving this thread, realy deserves to end up in classics. I wish I had something to add but I've never been to a wedding! Well not since I was a child. I have my first coming up in June, hope it's not the stuff these tales are made of!

Bride's family clearly thought the groom's family were oiks, no mixing there. One glass of cava on arrival at reception, very chilly greeting line-up. Reception in a marquee in the grounds of a posh hotel and bride's father loudly complaining about the ridiculous cost of hiring a 'tent'. Bride allowed only 8 guests of her choice, the rest were family, great aunts etc, and father's colleagues. One glass of wine with meal and then a very expensive bar - we were poor students. The 8 of us, previously unknown to one another, legged it early and ended back at one of them's flat drinking whiskey and playing very competitive, ill-tempered Trivial Pursuit all night (it was the 80's). Groom's family legged it to a hotel near the airport and got trashed. All in all a very odd, joyless, mean-spirited affair. They should have eloped. The marriage continues though

The oddest was at our wedding, (which I loved and where our guests were definitely supplied with enough food and more than enough booze judging by the photos).
My new MIL sobbed through the entire reception, was rude to one of our ushers to the point of making his girlfriend cry, cornered my husband while I popped to the loo to tell him that we were selfish to have a small wedding as she wanted all her family there, and then left at 8.30, right after the meal. She didn't even see us cut the cake, which she had made, and which she later billed us for. And she didn't get us a present.
Luckily at the time I was too happy and excited to notice, and people tactfully steered me away from her all evening.

I did go to one where the bride found out, as she took her wedding cake over to the community hall she had booked for the reception that afternoon, that said community hall had in fact been double-booked and that the other party (a birthday bash for some apparently 'rough-looking' people) had got there first and weren't going to leave or share. Luckily bride and groom have some determined, inventive and connected pals who packed the bride off to the ceremony with orders not to worry, they'd get it sorted. A couple of them embarked on a massive ring-round and found another community hall which happened to be free, dispatched caterers over there and a percentage of the guests didn't actually find out till some time after the day what had happened.

DH and I have been crying with laughter at some of these.

Strangely enough, its making me long for a wedding invite (unlikely, all our friends still married or so horribly scared by first marriages having gone wrong that they have sworn 'never again')

I am not sure that this really counts as awful wedding.. but here it goes......
This is at my wedding.. our best man wanted his daughter to be a bridesmaid, however I didn't really know her and already had 5. We compromised and said she could be our present giver outer!! we bought her a dress and she was really happy.. 5 days before our wedding, we had a call from her mum to say that the dress didn't fit any more but not to worry as she would sort a new one..(didn't give it a second thought)
our wedding day, upstairs with all my bridesmaids my bro in law( video guy) comes in asks why one of my bridemaids is down stairs, quick head count, says nope all here.
after ceremony having photos on the lawn, I look down to see present giver outer in photos!!
turns out her mum wasn't happy that she wasn't given bridesmaid role and dressed her as one anyway, knowing the colour for the day beause her partner was best man!! she blended in so well our poor photographer didn't have a chance of spotting a bridesmaid fake!!
we all had the best day.. just don't think I have ever seen this or heard of this before!! x

I went to a wedding last year where the bride's parents had just separated. The bride's father insisted on paying for everything but as he was paying, it had to be his way. He used it as an enormous showy-offy dig at his soon-to-be ex wife, hauled in his sister to do all the wedding planning, undid or refused to pay for anything where the mum had had a say and generally ruined the whole thing. At one point the couple were seriously considering eloping as it got so bad. FofB spent the entire day of the actual wedding about how much everything had cost and how he liked to do things 'properly'. Yuck.

The wedding itself was lovely but nothing like the quiet, fun day the b&g had imagined and totally spoiled for those in the know by the knowledge of everything that had happened in the run-up.

That was possibly the saddest wedding I've ever been to but the marriage itself is going strong :)

enormasnob thank you for this brilliant thread.
I have asked for it to be elevated to the ranks of classics that it deserves

We didn't get invited to a family wedding because the bride's family were paying for everything and didn't want the groom's "riff-raff family" turning up to spoil the look of it. It was one of those weddings where the father invited many of his Important Clients and Business Associates so would probably have been as boring as hell anyway, but the father of the groom was mortified that we (and most of the rest of his family) weren't invited as he'd already told us we would be.

YY to classics.

My two male best friends are cousins. At a wedding of one of their oldest, dearest schoolfriends, they were having a lark about together on the dancefloor (as was everyone else) when the best man, (the groom's twin and another oldest dearest schoolfriend of theirs) told them in no uncertain terms were they to dance with each other and what the hell did they think they were doing? He wasn't even pissed but he can be a bit anal and a bit of a 'phobe so not entirely out of character.

Suffice to say references to this incident are reeled out at every available opportunity. I have requested that they do dance with each other at every available opportunity when they are ushers at my wedding next year.

I was invited to a colleague's wedding in Tanzania. When we arrived at the church there were a LOT of people there - confusingly when we asked if we'd got the right church for John and Anna's wedding, people started giving us the names of all sorts of different couples who were getting married. It turned out that it was a municipal church service for the whole community for marriages, confirmations and christenings. Over the next 3.5 hours we sat through 5 marriages, 17 confirmations and 48 christenings (all in Swahili which I didn't understand) - very hot and very long, and no escape because we were sharing a lift back with some other guests. But it was a huge celebration!

My parents ran a restaurant/catering company and did a wedding for a couple where the groom was an identical twin, and the other twin had married the bride's mother. Yes. Identical twins, married to a mother and daughter.

And the father (or husband, depending on how you looked at it) came out of jail for the day for the service, where he'd been doing porridge for incest.

In case you're wondering, this was in St. Helens, which won't come as a huge surprise if you're actually from there. This was in an era pre-Take-a-Break. Shame, they could have done a Christmas Special out of this lot. Oh yeah, the groom, or best-man or whoever the hell he was, wet himself. Nice.

I will always look back on my own wedding day as a how not to guide.
First parents and in laws took over organising as they said they would pay for it and refused to involve us, unfortunately they didn't organise anything until 3 months before by which time venue wasn't available and had to find an alternative.
Dh is notoriously late for everything, so I said on no account DO NOT be late. Guess what? It wasn't all his fault though as he was held up by a useless friend who claimed to be "just around the corner". For around 40 minutes.
When dh turned up he had a stinking cold - streaming eyes, sneezing, the lot. He felt and looked terrible, bless him.
Dh's gran evicted my friends off their table even though they were one of the first to arrive! she insisted only family should be near the head table!!! I was so embarrassed and gobsmacked.
Our photographer turned out to be a complete amateur waste of space, photos were terrible and he never really asked who were my close friends and family. As a result I have lots of photos of people at my wedding who I don't know.
The restaurant where we had our party was really average. And they served warm beer. Apparently it was booked under dh's grandad's instruction as he had once lived in the same village as the owner and hadn't seen him for 30 years - that was the only reason.
On the plus side our friends said it was a fantastic wedding, probably something to do with the unlimited alcohol we supplied! And it's not all bad, we'll be married 10 years this year

Pandemoniaa: In Canada we often have a social either before the wedding (to help with expenses) and some even have it after the wedding... (some do BOTH!)

Since we had family coming from far distances, we decided to have it after the vows/ceremony. This way everyone could participate. Everything was held in the same location... only a short intermission for the tables to be set up, food to arrive.

It is up to the bridal parties to sell tickets to the "social" , "dance"....... (groomsmen are also suppose to assist in selling tickets too)

Not a patch on some of these, but we were having a small wedding - 30 people, all family and close friends. MIL asked us if she could bring some random friend along who we had never met so obviously we said no. She kept on about it and eventually said "she'll just come to the church then". Fair enough - anyone can come to the church.

We had barely made it out of the church after the wedding when she came rushing up to DH asking if her friend (and grown up son who had brought her) could come back to the house " just for a drink". We weren't very well off so were having lots of yummy food (I worked in a restaurant so friends did the catering) and lots of booze at home. DH reiterated that he had said no, but as it was his wedding day he wssn't having an argument about it. These people then joined the wedding party - I'm convinced they always thought they were invited- so are in all our group photos (I still don't really know who they were 23 years later) and of course came back to the house and stayed until MIL left.

I was also at a very funny wedding reception where the groom and his friends (all vaguely successful actors) did competitive karaoke. It ended in a punch up after someone wouldn't relinquish the mike!

Oh Lordy, where do I start!
Dh was usher for his bf, stag week the weekend before and the best woman drank them under the table, just before they passed out she got them to shave off each others eyebrows.... Classy photos from that one....
Hmmm same wedding, I witnessed arson... Friend of bride's cousin gatecrashed, objected to being asked to leave so set fire to the hotel...
Same wedding saw first real wedding punch up, saw first real hancuffs, first 'throwing of rings' back in perpetrators face ( not the b&g but they had only just got back from honeymoon...)

Our wedding.... Neither of my aunts made it to the registry office (on the grounds that it wasn't a 'proper' service for one, 'too early' for the other, 11am)
They made it to the reception and walked in front of us while we had some pics done, we were in our garden and it was an informal wedding but even so... One of them believes that cider isn't alcoholic... Onto the beautifully decorated tables (White linen, lavender, bowls of water with grasses and roses, I loved them) she added cans of woodpecker...... Did have a glass but my friend literally wet herself laughing as this particular relative has been very snooty about my lack of proper education (comp and college, not private and Oxbridge...) and my 'unfortunate' friends........

Sunnyd - not a patch on your wedding story but my MIL has a habit of inviting random friends along to family functions as well, but without warning! So for DS's 4th birthday party, a gathering of various extended bits of family, suddenly this Friend of MIL's turns up as well (who is also very sharp-tongued and I really could have done without her being there) - maybe it's an Aussie "thing" to invite random friends along to keep MILs company? Dunno!

We were invited but didn't go to this wedding.

One of the bride and groom's mutual female friends had a toddler who was due to be flower girl at the wedding. Unknown to the bride she was actually the result of an affair between her groom and friend! The friend still had feelings for the groom and the day before the wedding told the groom to tell his bride to be or she would. He confessed but they still went through with the wedding. Many of the groom's friends were so appaled by him they refused to go. They are still married a few years on. One of the groom's friends now plays daddy to the DC, who the groom never sees. All so sad.