Planning a wedding is never an easy task, and it’s probably a lot less rewarding when the “happy couple” want absolutely nothing to do with each other.
From tantrums to brawls, here are 15 moments that made wedding planners say “This one isn’t going to last a year.”
Oh man. The poor bride was 6 months pregnant at the time of the wedding, puking regularly. The groom was 3 hours late to the ceremony. By hour 2, he hadn’t even picked up his tuxedo.
The venue almost cancelled the reception because the groom’s number was the only contact they had and nobody knew what was going on.
He finally showed up and everything went as planned, albeit 3 hours later.
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I worked the most amazing wedding ever! The marriage didn’t last 6 hours!
Everything seemed pretty typical and standard as guests arrived, drank, and conversed. The wedding party arrived and everything seemed to be completely normal. Everyone was happy and having fun.
When it came time for the formalities, the bar closed and everyone took their seats. The speeches began with the maid of honor and best man. Everything was going as per usual for a wedding – until the best man finished his speech and the food began to be served.
The groom grabbed the mic after the best man’s toast and wished everyone a great night and a nice meal.
After his well wishes, he asked for the attention of his best man and bride. He told them that he knew they were having sex behind his back for the entirety of the engagement, and that he would be filing for an annulment on Monday.
He thanked everyone for coming, and apologized to the father of the bride saying ” I would have called it off weeks ago, but I figured you would be way more pissed at your little princess when you couldn’t get out of the bill for the reception.”
He turned to his wife and said “F–k You”, then turned to his best friend and said, “From what I overheard, my d–k is still bigger than yours”
Mic dropped, groom out the door – absolute chaos.
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This bride had been a total pain while planning her wedding. She wanted the most lavish food, the best alcohol package, the most over-the-top decor. Fine, we can make your venue look like something Donald Trump might describe as ‘a little too gilded’, whatever. After that was done, she demanded mirrors, disco balls and anything else reflective we could cram into the space.
Then, she demanded to interview all the wedding officiants, because she wanted a ‘really hot guy’ to perform the ceremony. She complained that everyone she saw was, ‘like middle aged or something’, and insisted we had to find her someone that looked like Chris Evans. Because she wanted everyone in her pictures to be hot.
Day of the wedding, she asked me to procure as many lions as I could get my hands on, and have them sitting around the head table. Cause what you really need at an open bar are a bunch of apex predators. When informed she could not have lions at her reception, she dissolved into tears, complaining about her crappy little wedding (of 300 guests, cases of Cristal, and Lobster tail as the main), and how her little sister always got everything better than she did. We all knew that this was not about a marriage, and was all about a party. When your wedding is just about out-doing someone else’s reception, there is no hope for your relationship.
All the way through this mess, the groom had just rolled his eyes, and let his bride spend like a drunken sailor on leave. He never objected to any of her insane requests. Just let her have whatever she wanted. However, he didn’t even bother to come up to the suite while she was having a meltdown over the lions, because, “I’m too drunk to deal with this, and also I don’t want to have to hear her scream about seeing the goddamn dress.”
Bride was back a year later with a friend to help plan that wedding, sans ring.
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Sometimes we just got THOSE events. You go in knowing it’s going to be a bad time.
So this couple wanted everything decked out in orange and camo, which is not my thing but whatever. However, the groomsmen tried to bring rifles into the event venue which is a big no (guns + alcohol + extended family is never a good idea).
They were very understanding, but the groom, who we will call Groomzilla, was not. He has been drunk since at least 9 am.
Anyway, by some miracle the ceremony goes off without a hitch and we get everyone served appetizers and dinner. This was an open bar so by the time the first dances were over everyone was fairly wasted. We had to buy 2 more kegs for a 130 person wedding level wasted.
So then we make last call. The bridal party is nowhere to be found. After some searching, the bride is peeing out back (even though we have bathrooms) and the groom is missing.
My supervisor goes to check up by the DJ booth, and lo and behold. Groomzilla. Passed out at the top of the staircase, head facing down the stairs.
The following conversation was relayed to me by my supervisor. She is “S” and Groomzilla is “GZ”.
S: “Excuse me sir, we’re closing and you can’t–“
GZ “SHHHHHH” he shoves a finger in her face to shush her
She tries several more times to tell him his hotel shuttle is outside waiting, but he won’t stop shushing her. So she grabs our security guy, who we’ll call James.
James: “Hey buddy, this is a bad place to sleep-“
GZ: “Shhhhhhhh!” finger in the face yet again.
James to S: “He shushed me.”
S: “Let’s just let his friends get him outside.”
So they leave him with 2 groomsmen, who convince him to go smoke outside.
Bridal party is already in the limousine, minus those 3. James goes outside to make sure they’re getting them in the limousine, and Groomzilla doesn’t like this. In a drunken haze, he lunges for James and attempts to punch him in the jaw.
James dropped him like a sack of potatoes in one, fluid, artistic motion. He rotated Groomzilla in a graceful circle before letting him land flat on his back. Nice try.
By the way, they were some of our worst guests. Our venue was trashed and they were rude to the staff all night. They’re all blacklisted.
As for why the marriage didn’t last, he was alcoholic, belligerent and embarrassed her in front of her family.
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Bride warned groom several dozen times – in my presence – if he smashed the cake in her face they would have issues. Using phrases like “I am not kidding” or “I am completely serious.”
Groom was a good ‘ol boy type. His friends found out about his bride’s one stipulation about the wedding. She was flexible on a lot of other things, but no cake-smashing. They started making whip-cracking sounds, teasing him that he was “whipped” and needed to Put His Foot Down And Show Her Who’s Boss.
Yeah, he smashed the cake in her face.
She had it annulled.
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Probably the most bizarre moment was a very obviously arranged marriage.
Most of the planning was done by the parents, because they were local and the kids were “traveling overseas”. Red flag.
Day of, we meet the happy couple to be. I’m really bad at judging ages, but she seemed at least old enough to consent. And, I should add, she was gorgeous. Could have been a model.
The groom, however, was almost a foot shorter than she, very lanky and looked like he was squarely in the middle of an adolescent awkward phase.
My staff and I had difficulty not giving any outward signs that we were very uncomfortable. The body language was perplexing, and then just sad during photos.
Culturally, its not uncommon for public displays of affection to be kept to a minimum, but she kept leaning away from him and could barely look at him. She was so obviously miserable.
To this day I regret not offering to help her escape through a bathroom window. I told myself it was not my place to interfere and that I should just shut up and do my job. I will never take another client without a face to face with the bride first.
I hope they’re not still together.
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Event Manager with a caterer. Pregnant maid of honor told the bride’s sister that she’s been having sex with the groom and the baby is his.
She was dead sober, which is what made it so odd that it came out like that. Needless to say we got to go home early that night.
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One night we had this massive wedding party.
His side were one of those families with loads of money but not an ounce of class. Just rowdy, loud and incredibly rude, making sure to let everyone know how rich they were.
She was a quiet, shy girl with a small family full of boring mousy types. As the night progressed his family just got drunker and louder as hers hid in the corners, visibly annoyed.
At one stage the groom grabbed the microphone, and did a heavily intoxicated version of Frank Sinatras ‘My Way’ whilst his whole family cheered him on.
Afterwards he turned to his bride and slurred over the speakers: ‘Tonight, we will do it MY WAY, wifey!’ and then proceeded to make doggy style thrusting gestures.
The bride flushed bright red, got up and walked out with her mom on her heels.
She didn’t come back. The groom stayed and got so trashed that his disgusting family had to carry him out at the end of the night.
It was spectacular. They didn’t last long.
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I had a wedding couple come to see me by appointment to plan the music for their church wedding ceremony. They each brought their respective mothers to the planning session.
Right out of the gate, they started arguing over choices for the Processional. The groom-to-be wanted something to show off the full organ whereas the bride-to-be wanted something smaller scaled and gentle. There was no middle ground, no matter what organ pieces I showed them.
Then, of course, their mothers took sides and further intensified their bickering, even though I asked them politely to let the couple choose their own selections.
In the end, it really wasn’t about the choice of music. It was about a fundamental crack in the foundation of their soon-to-be marriage: an unwillingness to compromise or to even hear what the other was attempting to convey.
Sadly, their marriage ended in divorce in less than 2 years. How they made it that long I’ll never know.
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I’m a baker, not a wedding planner, but I deal with them and weddings constantly.
I was once doing set up in a venue for this monster cake for 500 guests and a dessert table. Usually with something that big and expensive, I’ll stick around and ask the couple or the planner for approval before I leave.
I finish and ask for the wedding planner’s approval and she comes in, sweaty and frazzled. I explain how to cut the thing, because it was so big if you didn’t do it right it would topple.
I ask her what is wrong, because she seems out of it and isn’t really paying attention. She explains that the bride’s boyfriend showed up to the reception space to get into the bridal suite… with the groom’s boyfriend in tow.
It was a nightmare, and people were going crazy fighting in the bridal suite. She thought it was going to come to fisticuffs.
I came back to pick up the set up pieces for the dessert table the next day. Somehow they went through with the wedding, but that wasn’t going to last.
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Obligatory not a wedding planner.
I worked as a receptionist for a conservatory and garden. We were an extremely popular wedding venue 7 days a week, year-round. But this is the one that stuck out.
A couple of families came in on a Sunday afternoon during business hours. They were dressed very nicely, but again, it was a Sunday, so not all that unusual.
There appeared to be an older teen girl, a boy around the same age, their respective parents, and a smattering of grandparents. Looking back on it, with the exception of a couple of the grandmas, everyone looked either ill or angry. Everyone but one of the fathers paid their admission and went inside.
The father made it known to me that he was still waiting for someone. No big deal.
Well about 10-15 minutes later, in came a priest ! Black robes, white collar, the works. It then occurs to me that all these people must be here to scope it out as a wedding venue.
I took the admission, then went to get our on-site wedding coordinator, in case the family wanted to see her. I find her, and we start heading towards where I last saw the group.
We were floored to see them by our water feature very obviously conducting a wedding! Very obviously a shotgun wedding that the kids had no control over.
It was startling, funny and sad all at once. With the amount of strong-arming they got, I doubt they lasted.
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Obligatory not a wedding planner, but I was a junior bridesmaid at my uncle’s wedding.
The wedding was beyond over-the-top for who my uncle is personally. Nothing fit his personality and you could tell the whole thing was to appease his to-be wife.
Early on in the planning my uncle requested that his nieces (me and my sisters) be involved with the ceremony. His fiancee assumed that simply inviting us to the wedding would make my uncle happy, but he demanded we be part of the actual wedding party that got to walk down the aisle and ride in the limousine.
She chose a simple dress for her bridesmaids, but she picked out these ridiculously expensive dresses for us junior bridesmaids that were over $500 a pop. With 4 kids in the wedding party, my mom had to lay out over $2,000 for the event. The bride arrived in a horse-drawn carriage at the chapel, the ceremony was almost 2 hours long and it was just to remind everyone how wonderful the bride was.
Things started to go sour immediately. They decided to go on an early second honeymoon to try and liven up their relationship 6 months into the marriage to no avail.
She announced the divorce on their 1 year anniversary.
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Had a wedding I coordinated where the bride literally went from this sweet, kind and very fun person, to a meltdown-laden Bridezilla. It was bad.
I knew it wasn’t going last the moment she arrived at the venue. She tore up the guest list, and was furious at the groom because his family, most of them either elderly and disabled, weren’t at the ceremony yet (they were 5 minutes late, and parking was awful). So she decided to start the ceremony even though they weren’t there yet.
The groom had zero say as he was a really quiet guy. During the bridal procession down the aisle, people kept arriving and having to walk down the aisle to get to their seats. She insulted each member of his family as they would enter the venue.
Then, during the actual vows, the groom was so terrified he literally couldn’t look at her. Instead, he did his vows while looking at the minister.
She grabbed his face mid-vows, pointed his face to hers, then said “Do them over…NOW!”
Probably the most cringe-worthy moment I’ve ever seen in my entire career. The guests tried to laugh it off, but we all felt bad for him.
The icing on the cake was during the toast. She decided to talk about his mom, and then passive-aggressively insult her. Then completely insult the crowd. Then her new husband (yes, she was sober).
After the dinner, about 75% of the guests just up and left.
I knew, this one wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. They divorced a few weeks later.
How do I know? She stiffed me on payment and kept blaming her now ex-husband for not having any money and everything that went wrong in their marriage.
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