Your wedding is supposed to be one of the most memorable days of your life. But for these couples, memorable is not necessarily a good thing.
Here, people share their most catastrophic wedding stories.
Elaborate outdoor ceremony. They had tents set up and a string quartet playing. Just as the bride and groom reach the altar, dark clouds start rolling in with distant booms of thunder.
We were in huge tents, about 200 people so we felt safe, then as they were about to take their vows, it started hailing golf ball sized hail. For the most part they bounced off the tents, but the downpour was so heavy and the winds so strong that you couldn’t hear a word they said.
The lawn turned into a slippery mud pit, the dance floor was floating away. As they got to the I do part lightning hit nearby and everyone’s ears were ringing. Part of the tent collapsed and everyone ran for the main house or their vehicles.
They finished up the vows in the main hallway, and the marriage lasted 6 months. I think someone was trying to tell them something and they wouldn’t listen.
MadLintElf
The bride’s mom wore what was basically a wedding dress & insisted on walking her daughter up the aisle with her father (they were divorced). There was not enough room for all three people to walk comfortably.
After the wedding, we found out that the photographer had become enamored with the maid of honor at least 50% of the pictures he took were of her & there were zero portraits of just the bride & groom.
fearlessandinventive
Wedding was at a Napa Valley winery, during the tech boom of the 90s. Both bride and groom were prone to using marketing/techspeak in conversation (“Let’s right-click on that and drill down,” “It’s not an IRL shop, more of a clicks-and-mortar thing”, etc.).
The wedding invitation was in the form of a merger announcement in a mocked-up Wall Street Journal page. As in: “Smith Global announces merger with Jones Limited. Combination delivers significant potential to drive long-term affection growth and market share of love.” That kind of thing. Still, the guy was a friend, and my date and I went to show our support.
Then the first really weird thing happened. The bride’s twin brother came out before the wedding, got the bride to perch on a stool in front of everyone, and…
The bride’s twin brother came out before the wedding, got the bride to perch on a stool in front of everyone, and serenaded her, on his knees, with a guitar. He wrote the song. It was a love ballad with such barely-concealed incestuous longing that everyone was frozen with discomfort. He sang of how beautiful his sister was, how any man would be luck to have her. I can’t remember the whole thing, but this lyric seared itself into my brain: “Lips touching… tongues dancing… They give each other the looook that can mean just one thiiiiiing…”. It was not done for laughs; he was crying as he sang, and everyone watching looked like they wanted to drop through the floor.
Then the wedding. Two sets of chairs set up in a lovely courtyard garden, aisle down the middle leading to a bower. We all seated ourselves, on the chairs, which had white upholstery.
The ceremony itself wasn’t that bad – my date and I thought things might be picking up. It didn’t last too long, and there were no more lurid songs from Bride’s bro. But then it ended, and the minister said:
“And now, I ask each of you to reach under your chairs for the small, white envelope you will find there. Each one contains a live Monarch butterfly. We will release them into the air and let them soar free, as a symbol of the love these two have for each other.”
Everyone. Froze. Whoever had set up the area had put the envelopes ON, not under, the chairs. White envelopes. Little white envelopes, on snow-white chair seats. Open-mouthed with horror, all the guests reached down and found the envelopes. We opened them. Most were dead – squashed into bloody smears. But a good amount were just horribly maimed, these poor butterflies that had been sat on for the better part of 45 minutes. We watched in shock as these broken, mangled butterflies, missing a wing or some legs or a tail, flopped onto the ground and twitched out their death agonies.
Anne_Hedonia_11
My cousin’s wedding was a TRAINWRECK.
To be fair, we all knew it was going to be something because his girlfriend (now wife) is completely ridiculous.
Anyway, their wedding was in the middle of August in the sweltering heat. In the middle of the woods. Mosquitoes as far as the eye can see. Most people didn’t have a place to sit and those that did, had a nice splinter-filled wooden table. Like you’d set up for camping.
The bride was 9 months pregnant, cursing the entire time how hot it was. She smacked her dad as they walked down the aisle because he stepped on her toe. My brother’s job was to walk up two goldfish to put into fish bowls as a “sign of partnership” or whatever it meant. Except one of the fish were dead. So he dropped in one live fish and one dead fish.
autumnx
Back in my youth, I was a wedding photographer..
The groom was a childhood friend of mine who grew up one block over. Our parents knew each other and liked each other, but he was a bit of a douchebag as a kid, so we lost touch about the start of puberty. The day I got the call about the wedding, I was 28, so I hadn’t seen the guy in 15 years, at least.
My Mom was the caller, and she asked me to actually be in his wedding party. I told her the obvious, that I didn’t much like the guy back then, we hadn’t even spoken in a decade and a half, and I really didn’t think that meant I was good for his wedding party. My Mom told me that he hadn’t had literally any friends over the years, so this would be a personal favour to her and to his Mom. As part of the favour, my Mom and I would do the photography of the wedding as our wedding gift. Reluctantly, I agreed.
So, I go over to meet everyone after all this time, and within seconds I realize why I’m being asked for the favor…
The friend hasn’t brushed his teeth in years, and they are one solid mass. His bride is massively overbearing beyond belief. I suck it up, do my best, but the 4 months leading in are a nightmare.
But, then the wedding happens, and after the ceremony (which was actually nice), the bride decides literally out of the blue that she wants to have a white limo take her to a hotel. It’s June, there’s no limos to be had, the hotel is booked, but the best man (the groom’s older brother) is furiously trying to find something and pay for it on his credit card because the bride is in full meltdown mode.
In a fury, she rips her headpiece out, taking about 1/3 of her hair with it, and storms into the back room of the hall. The groom says he’s going to try and talk her down, and goes back there with her. A few minutes later, the double doors of the back room slam open and he comes running out, with a butcher knife through his palm. He’s streaming blood and screaming. She tackles him from behind, yanks the knife out of his hand (oh, that sound!), and looks like she’s going to stab him to death in front of the entire assembly.
The best man and I both tackle her at once, and we’re both grown men, but she’s a total hellcat. The groom slips out, gets out of the hall, and runs to his car, but she also squirms free after biting the best man, and is maybe 30s behind the groom. He’s just backed out and as he puts it into drive, she leaps on the hood and grabs the wipers. He guns it, and as he bottoms out on the exit of the parking lot and yanks the wheel, she rolls off into the street and drills the far curb. As we run up to her, she’s scratched all to hell and she’s bawling.
The wedding got annulled the next day.
[deleted]
Recently attended a wedding this past September. Bride and groom have been together for 11 years, high school sweethearts, could not possibly be more excited to marry each other.
Ceremony went great, quick, emotional, everyone cried. They used the same venue for both the ceremony and reception, and the bridal party were taking pictures when my boyfriend (who was in the wedding) asked if I could bring him out a drink. As soon as I got out there, all the groomsmen were standing around while the bridesmaids and groom were flocked in a circle around the bride. She was sick to the point where she couldn’t stand and had to be helped into the reception. This came out of NOWHERE. So they came in a did their first dance, danced with their parents, served dinner, and made an announcement that they were going to the hospital.
They missed their entire reception. The wedding continued on well into the night (because that’s what they wanted) and as we were getting ready to leave we ran into them coming back to the hotel. Turns out it was a kidney stone.
Not so much a disaster but….Just….after 11 years and all the days for that to happen. What bad luck.
kmp514
I was a groomsmen in a wedding where the chapel was in the middle of a golf course. To get to the chapel, you have to take an elevator down from the clubhouse. If you live in Missouri you might know I’m talking about Big Cedar Lodge.
So wedding time rolls around and all the groomsmen had spent the day drinking at the clubhouse. I had about 7 beers and I drank the least. Everyone is ready to go but we’re running a bit late. We go to take the elevator when suddenly…
We take the elevator down and it gets stuck between floors. Ten groomsmen and a groom are now stuck in a standard sized elevator. We call for help and the person answering tells us the mechanic has gone home so it will be some time. One of the groomsmen is claustrophobic and from does not handle this news well.
After about an hour of standing shoulder-to-shoulder in a controlled panic, we all really really have to pee. My best friend had an empty flask and pissed in it and filled it to the brim. It was really bad vibes in that elevator. Finally the mechanic comes and does his magic and we get to the floor of the golf course. We sprint across the golf course to get to the bathroom. We’re about an hour late at this point.
As we’re sprinting across, the groom gets struck in the head by an errant golf ball, screams and plops to the ground. He’s laying on the ground dazed with a bloody head. We call his dad, who comes running over from the chapel. Around this time the golfer who hit the ball drives over in his cart. He says “you ok?” And then drives off leaving 11 dudes drunk and one we will later find out has a “cranial hemorrhage.” Dad runs over, not acknowledging us and helps his son walk to his car and drives him to the emergency room.
The wedding was canceled.
PM_me_a_dirty_haiku
I didn’t know the family of the bride very well, I had met them once or twice before, but we were just guests at the wedding. The father of the bride was overweight, but otherwise healthy.
He had a freak heart attack on the spot and dropped dead at 57. People at first thought it was a joke, but quickly realized it wasn’t. The bride was (understandably) inconsolable and the groom was shocked but did his best trying to comfort her. They followed the ambulance to the hospital and everyone just kind of stood there in the church for a while. The bride, as good a person as she is, had her maid of honor encourage everyone to go to the reception hall regardless since it would have been a sunk cost anyway and felt bad for her guests. I don’t know if anyone went.
A month or so later the wedding party and a lot of the guests organized a really kick ass barbecue for them to celebrate their wedding since the ceremony was technically about over when it happened. Everyone also kicked in some money along with their wedding gifts to pay for the honeymoon that they ended up missing originally.
[deleted]
My second cousin got married in Vermont in the spring time and the weather report called for “chance of showers.” As a result, they rented a huge, circus-sized tent to put up covering the entire meadow they were going to have the reception in. It easily covered all 80 attendees and tables and chairs. It was massive. The meadow was also next to a pond, which will come into play a little later. There ceremony beforehand was in a church about two miles away. The bride arrived via motorcycle as her dad was in the local Harley Davidson club.
During the ceremony at the church, it started to rain outside…
Just a drizzle, no big deal. The bride and groom hopped on to the backs of their motorcycle escorts’ Harley’s and rode off to the reception venue. About a minute after they started off, the light drizzle turned into full on tropical storm winds with sleet and hail. They did not turn back, but rode through the storm to the venue. When the rest of us arrived, we found quite a scene. The tent had come off of its moorings. The groom and groomsmen all had their shirts off and were wrestling the tent back into place. The bride was completely soaked through her white dress and was covered in all of the groomsmen’s jackets while she waited for her change of clothes to arrive (she was actually very calm and cool the whole time, even laughed it up a bit – she’s a pretty rad chick). The wind was blowing so much that the pond had two foot waves crashing over it’s edge and splashing one of the tables near the bridesmaids.
The rest of the guests and I all ran up to help with the tent, and just as we were getting it back in place, the wind gusted in the opposite direction and literally blew one of the bridesmaids into the pond.
So things did not go as planned. The bride and groom, however, remained jovial the entire time; they were terrific and never stopped smiling. The wind died down about 20 minutes later and we were able to have the reception, with the only downside being that there was about an inch of water throughout the meadow for a while. Everyone got drenched but we all had a good time, and two beautiful people got married.
Kahzgul
Bride vomited and peed on her wedding dress due to drinking too much, groom threw a glass through a window because he was pissed that other guests were fighting, and an engaged couple broke up with the lady taking her ring off and throwing it at her now ex-fiance. This was all at one wedding. The cops came and shut the whole thing down by 10:30 pm.
fire-borne
I didn’t attend, but I worked at one that was a disaster. It was many years ago when I was a barman in an Irish hotel.
The hotel was struggling, and so took a wedding booking from a well known criminal family, involved in drugs and burglary. Their daughter was marrying a member of a similar family from the other side of the country.
These families were very large, so the wedding was huge. The bride has asked us not to serve vodka, which was making people pretty angry as they were all in for the vodka and Redbull. Most switched to cider, and we’d an entire shed full of the stuff.
About two hours into the reception things started going down…
The first sign something was wrong was that all the women suddenly made a beeline for the door. Thankfully one of the floor managers had seen this before and pulled the waitresses out the moment she saw it.
Once the women were clear of the floor the men started laying into one another. I saw a bottle fly past and we pulled the shutter down over the bar.
It was the biggest brawl I’ve ever seen, easily fifty men pucking the heads off one another. Someone drove a car into our emergency exit. Chairs went through windows. The fight spilled out to the rest of the Hotel, while the staff were locked behind the bar or in the kitchen.
We called security, but they took their time coming as they obviously didn’t want to get into the middle of a massive brawl and were happy to let them tire each other out. We didn’t have enough security to make any difference as the owners were morons and couldn’t afford it anyway.
Finally when it was over we had to comp every other guest. We had a shed still full of cider, which we essentially had to do 3 for 2 offers on for months.
We spent the rest of that night, until about four in the morning, cleaning up blood (I’ve never seen so much blood before or since), and glass, and human feces.
The place never recovered. We had to cancel the next 3 weddings due to the damage, and once word got around we couldn’t get any more. Locals avoided the place. It was sold six months later at a huge loss.
VoteAlanKelly
The hotel brought the wrong main meal during the reception, and rather than just shrug it off and get compensation later, the bride insisted they cook the whole thing from scratch. For 100 people.
This essentially brings the reception to an end as now all the guests have to wait an extra 2-3 hours to get dinner, pushing back the speeches to the end of the night. The evening guests waited in the bar all night, then went home without ever seeing the happy couple. There was no time for dancing.
That marriage didn’t last.
size_matters_not
I went to a wedding a couple of years ago, the groom and groomsmen had been drinking since 9am. I wasn’t in the wedding party but about an hour before the wedding I get a call from the best man… The officiant had stopped by and said that if they don’t sober up he wouldn’t perform the wedding.
I head up to the room and they are all trashed. I start having them do anything I had ever heard about sobering them. Somehow they sobered up enough, gotten dressed, to the wedding. Poor bastards stood up the swaying… But somehow made it. The bride was not happy…
Then came the reception… About 10 minutes in one of the idiot groomsmen decided he need a drink to calm his stomach… While looking toward the bride and groom, he started to projectile vomit… He got the bride, groom, and best man…
I’m not sure how he is still alive after that.
aud7