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.

My friend had a lovely wedding in a church hall, but it was spoiled by her Dad's speech. His wife had left him for a woman, years and years before the wedding and they were sat at the opposite end of the top table from him. He started off by saying " when you get married, you think it's going to be forever, but it never is..." and it went downhill from there. He used the whole speech to get at his ex wife and her partner.

My wedding ceremony was at 12 and we arranged sandwiches and a cup of tea after the ceremony while the photos were being taken,as we couldn't get access to the reception venue until 3 (long story!) and the meal wouldn't be served until 4. Everybody told me they had a great time, I hope they genuinely did!

Honestly - if all you're willing to cough up for people included in this part of the day is a cash bar and bacon sarnie I think you need to rethink whether it's that important to you that they're there...

But that's the whole point of evening receptions, you invite the people you don't really care about, cow orkers and such.

A friend got married while we were at uni, three of us from the course went to the church and daytime do, the rest of the students and the lecturers got evening invites.

All the evening only invites I had have been from people I don't know too well.

I've only once done the church-and-evening-only type of wedding and it was a right PITA. I didn't know the couple at all, they were old friends of my then-DP, who had briefly been a bit of a Born Again a year or two before I met him (yes, yes, I soon beat that out of him and his next DP, now his DW, is a bit of a Wiccan and the pair of them ended up running some WIccan magazine for a bit) and in my first year of dating him I went to a few Born Again weddings...
ANyway, this one was in Bristol, we lived in North London, so we had to get up at stupid o'clock, get the train to Bristol, sit through the service (ISTR they did actually have a guitar player and everyone had to sing Kum By Yah). THen the half dozen of us who had come up from London but weren't invited to the main reception had to amuse ourselves in Bristol for five hours. This was in 1991 and at that point Bristol town centre's pubs generally shut for the afternoon, so we walked around for ages before finding anywhere we could get a drink and a meal, not terribly helped by the people we were with including a vegan and a teetotaller who weren't thrilled by any of the places that were open. Evening reception was in some barn miles from anywhere, DP and I could only stay for an hour before having to get a minicab back to the station. How I managed not to bin him over the whole business I am not sure.

I went to a wedding last year where not one but 2 other people were wearing the same dress as me. I was not amused!

lollypopsicle Coast?

Thumb I DO think it's an Aussie thing...they're SO laid back...they think nothing of popping in unnanounced...inviting randomers back...my DH is Aussie so I know what I'm talking about! My MIL makes friends with strangers at the bus stop and then goes out with them!

She comes to the UK for a stay, goes to the pub on her own and comes out with a load of new mates...God bless her...and all Aussies....they're hard work for us uptight Brits!

vivi I went for the cheap option of H&M as I really liked the dress. Turns out so did loads of other people. I girl I worked with had it too.

lolly god what are the chances!?

I'm wearing an Asda special to a wedding in July. I'll collapse in my canapes if anyone else is wearing the same!

TheHouse - my DH is Aussie too but seems to have failed to inherit that characteristic - or rather, he might have but he doesn't keep up with friends/randoms that he meets and hates socialising so I'm saved the randomers for dinner scenario!

This wouldn't rank as worst reading most of the above (suicide gran is )

DP and I were invited to the evening do at a rather nice, but not too posh, country hotel not too far from us. All lovely - free drinks, buffet, disco. But at one point we noticed that most of the male guests seem to have totally disappeared. It turned out there was some major, evening kick-off, international football final, which England had made it through to, and the guys had found another bar in the hotel showing the match. Although the bride laughed it off, I don't think she was overly amused - especially when you could see the groom twitching to go and watch the match as well.

My Dad went to a wedding in Canada where the groom woke up the next morning in bed with his new MIL.

Oh, and another one, more comical really. Another evening do. Lovely venue very near where we live. Copious amounts to drink, fantastic food, disco. The B&G had obviously decided to not have speeches at their afternoon reception, but left them until the evening. Fine. Really great speeches by all concerned. Then the bride announces that her cousin is going to sing a song. I think the cousin might have written it specially and she had a lovely voice. At the end everyone goes "aahhh" .

But then the cousin launches into another song. (DP and I are standing near the back with another couple who are good friends of ours.) During song 2, out of the corner of my eye I notice the man of the couple slinking off to the bar, which is out of sight. More muted . Then she starts on song 3, the woman slinks off. Then there's a 4th song, DP slinks off. Then a 5th, I can stand it no longer and slink off. When I get to the bar I discover, not only DP and the other couple but about 10 other people who've lost the will to live. IIRC, there were at least half a dozen songs before they started the disco.

At my own wedding my father used his speech to talk not about me, not about his ex wife (my mother) and what an evil cow she was for leaving him, but about HIMSELF. He spent twenty minutes talking about his life and how hard it had been for him and about how my maternal grandmother had saved said life. More than once.

He then proceeded to get blind drunk, drape himself across my (remarried) mother, my older cousin, myself (while I was on the dancefloor trying to say goodbye to my guests) and eventually pass out on the bar floor and have to be taken downstairs in a medevac chair by the best man and one of my male cousins and poured into a cab home.

To this day he swears blind he didn't get drunk at my wedding. And wonders why I never visit him.

Other than that my wedding experiences have all been pretty good. There was one where the B&G had a big entrance planned but the DJ was TWO HOURS LATE. Fortunately the bar was open and everyone was very understanding when they saw the bride crying in her car outside the venue. The caterer was also late to that wedding so by the speeches we were all somewhat trollied on the cheap cider the bar had on offer.

Remembering my own wedding: three weeks to organise the whole thing (we got married in a hurry - visa issues!). Bought what I thought was a lovely soft blue dress/suit from Hobbs as having registry office do. Tried it on at home and MIL asked me why I'd chosen to wear grey for my wedding. Looked at it in the light and yes, it was bloody grey. Went back and changed it for a cream shift dress. So wish I'd gone for a meringue job, even if it was a registry office do. Feel like I missed out through trying to be tasteful and Jackie Kennedy-ish.

Two days before the wedding MIL tells me she has a feeling of foreboding about our wedding. Couldn't say why, just that the whole thing 'didn't feel right'. I've never mentioned this to DH and tried to forget she'd said it myself. But it added to me feeling anxious about the whole thing.

On the day, ceremony and pictures fine, and we all piled into the local pub/restaurant for drinks and a meal afterwards. We hadn't booked a table but luckily there was enough space and we had a fantastic impromptu sit-down meal in a lovely room. My sister decided to bugger off after one drink to watch the football and neither set of parents stayed for the meal either.

Honeymoon started with us spending a night in SIL's depressing one bedroom flat in Mitcham. That was her present to us.

Next day we went off to Bath for the weekend. Arrived at our hotel (which was one of a big chain of hotels) and found it covered in golliwogs. Yes - golliwogs. On shelves in the stairwells and in the lobby. All wearing plastic ticker-tape name badges. One said 'Nelson Mandela', another said 'Winnie Mandela'. Also other prominent black people. We wondered whether the hotel was hosting a convention of racists and felt a bit freaked out, because DH is black. When we got home we wrote a letter of formal complaint and got a really nasty and unapologetic response, saying that nobody had ever complained before, and that the 'gollies' were 'very popular'. This was only in 1997 by the way, not 1953!

Looking back I just feel sad that none of it was particularly joyful, though I did love saying my vows and felt very lucky to be marrying DH. But 13 years on and we're still together and happy, despite MIL's dark forbodings!

What about having your vows renewed as a way of getting more of a day, Shagmundfreud?

My worse Wedding experience has to be when DH was Best Man at a Wedding in Brazil, it cost £1000s to get there & only a handful of people on the grooms side went, as opposed to anyone that the bride had sat next to on her side. No one spoke English, we were staying at one end of Sao Paulo, the wedding at the other (Sao Paulo is a MASSIVE city). We had to organise our transport everywhere, nothing laid on. When we got to the church it was freezing & the priest didn't turn up. The wedding procession all came down the aisle to music from the lion king etc & I almost wet myself laughing. Once at the reception, nothing to eat just booze so I hit that & stood on my own as DH was in photos for over an hour. By the time we sat down to dinner a few hours hours later, I was smashed. Then there were speeches, mad dancing from the couple & to cap off my evening I almost fell out of my dress, the groom's married brother tried to chat me up (in front of his wife) and the bride's brother said I reminded him of a centrefold from Playboy which the bride thoughtfully translated to everyone. After that I hit the Jamiesons & woke up the next day with the world's worst hangover. We then had to spend the next few days with the Wedding party in a horrible hotel, it poured with rain & all I could think of was all the £1000s that it cost me. We never got a thank you for our present or for flying in at vast cost :(

I am terrified reading this thread. I get married next weekend. I think i have the food/warmth/booze bases covered.
Ceremony at tiny church at 2pm. Catholic, but Priest is very modern & says no more than 40 mins for service.
Photos - grand total of 6 formal group photos to take. Photographer specialises in unposed photos and is very unassuming.
Booze - no ridiculously overpriced cash bar; beer, local cider, wine plus fizz on arrival, local apple juice, tea, coffee, water all provided or BYOB if you drink anything else.
Warmth - large converted barn, plus marquee outside.
Food - lots of hot & cold Canapés on arrival, 4 of them veggie, dinner served at 4.30-5pm, kids (6 of them, 2 our own) eating separate menu at separate supervised table. Into marquee outside for speeches & cake then back inside for band.
12 evening guests, mostly DP's new workmates.
Evening buffet of cheese, biscuits homemade sausage rolls, roasted new potatoes, fruit, wedding cake & homemade brownies serves during bands interval at 8.30-8.45 ish.

Does it pass the MN test

It sounds rather lovely Bella. Hoping you have a beautiful day.

Went to a wedding as a plus 1 with a friend who had broken up with her boyfriend the week before. It was the wedding of an old school friend of hers so clearly I knew no one. but I love a wedding and had no problem going along and enjoying myself.

Ceremony was lovely and the reception - really simple, low key hog roast in a converted barn - was going swimmingly. Lots of love and goodwishes all round.

Best man stands up to make a speech which was rapidly turning into the best best man's speech I'd heard in a long time. Great mix of good funny stories, gentle ribbing and genuine friendship. Raises his glass for the final toast, "Here's to Bride and Groom. The don't forget if it doesn't work out there are plenty more fish in the sea. Cheers!"

The silence was deafening.

Bella you know that sounds the business. Now stop being so smug and go and shout at a caterer or something

That does sound fab, Bella - enjoy it!
I got married after my DB and Dsis had, so my parents were dab hands and we all agreed on what mattered: food, booze, bit of a knees-up. My mum and dad were definitely engaged in a bit of showing off to their mates but as that mainly manifested itself in wanting posh flowers, and as they were paying, I let them! :) We did fizz and lots of canapes for a 3-5pm 'reception' after the 2pm ceremony, (we did photos then shook hands with about 4,000 of my parent's friends, or so it felt) then close family and our best mates sat down to a nice big hot dinner at 6pm, by which point I was bloody starving as I'd been so busy being congratulated by everyone I'd not got a canape! And I was too nervous before hand to eat a proper lunch. Never again!

Worst wedding I ever went to was a cousins' wedding, and I feel for them because it absolutely wasn't their fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. I have 21 first- cousins and we grew up very close, socialising and having a ball at Christmas and Easter and stuff. On the way to one cousins' wedding, we learned that another cousin's 4 year old daughter had died overnight of meningitis. Went to bed feeling poorly with a bit of a temperature, never woke up.

Those of us who knew tried our hardest to keep it from the ones that didn't, as we didn't want to ruin the wedding, but we were all so heartbroken. And of course we all saw each other again the next week for the funeral .

I've been to weddings where I'd not had enough money to get a drink from the cash bar (I was a bridesmaid and didn't bring a bag!) and I've definitely felt hungry and cold, but sitting through people you love making their vows and knowing everyone around you is trying not to weep in sorrow, and trying to put a brave face on things, is probably the saddest thing I've ever done.

The cousins getting married that day are still together and have 2 lovely children. The cousins who lost a child have since had another, and are also doing well. But gosh, what a day.

BellaOfTheBalls can I come? that sounds lovely

So my sisters wedding.......

The invites arrived and were for the wrong wedding, wrong people wrong date everything, sent them back, re-ordered and they lost the bloody order

She brought a dress and showed it to my FIL who was going to give her away, he died 3 months before the wedding suddenly and she would not wear the dress so had to get another one

The DJ split up with his wife and she would not give him he decks so we had to find a new DJ with 2 weeks to go.

They booked a hall paid a deposit and then the bloke did a runner with the money as the hall had gone bust so no hall and no refund, mad rush to find another hall and resend invites

Her husband ran off when sis got cancer