From crazy in-laws to bridezillas, these folks reveal the craziest wedding hijinx they’ve ever experienced.
“Mind If I Take This?”
“We were at a wedding where the bride was over 3 hours late and no-one knew if she was coming. Apparently, the bridal car broke down on the way to the ceremony. The groom had called her cell numerous times, with no response. He was able to call his sister who confirmed the bride left her house and got in the car, sans cold feet – so, where was she? The sister also confirmed that the bride did not have her phone with her and it was her, her Dad, and her Mom in the bridal car. She finally arrived and the outdoor branch wedding was now an indoor wedding due to rain. Quick apology to everyone who stayed and waited and the wedding could begin…
Here comes the bride walking down the aisle, slightly red-faced, finally ready, linked arm in arm with Dad when…Ring, Ring.
Huh? Who did not turn off their cell phone? How rude….wait maybe someone forget after the delay.
Ring, ring. (Actually, it wasn’t even a ring but I can’t remember the ring tone).
Oh, it’s DAD’s phone. So what does he do?
He ANSWERS of course AND takes the entire call. Never telling the caller – excuse me I am walking my daughter down the aisle right now can I call you later! Has an ENTIRE conversation with the caller as he is WALKING! Gets to the groom and still on the phone gestures to him to wait until the call is over. Hangs up the phone after about 5 minutes. (Still no mention of the wedding) then he hands off the bride and then just takes his seat!
So now, phone junkie Dad – ever thought of using said phone to CALL someone, anyone at the wedding that there were car issues?”
Terrible Terri
“When I was in college, I was part of a very tight group. There was a core of about eight of us that hung out almost every night. We were so close that neither before nor after have I ever had a group of friends that came close to the bonds we shared.
When two of the members of the group decided to get married, it was obvious it was going to be a huge event. They were the first of our tightly-knit group to get hitched, so it was a big deal. We all had roles in the wedding, and we took it very seriously. It was important to everyone that these two friends get the sendoff into matrimony that they deserved.
It wasn’t just about them, it was about all of us. It felt like we were all moving to ‘the next level.’
One of our friends had recently got a new girlfriend. I’ll call her ‘Terri.’
Terri was, in a word, obnoxious. If you’ve ever read Dilbert and saw ‘Topper,’ you’d know just the kind of person she was. Anything you could do, she could do better. Thing was, she couldn’t. But she had a huge mouth and a boisterous personality, which meant most people didn’t want to argue – just to keep the peace.
As an example, one day we were going to a local amusement park. I asked another friend to hold onto the tickets, and Terri was incensed.
‘Why didn’t you give them to me?’ she asked, insulted. ‘After all, I have a photogenic memory.’
‘Well, we’ll take a picture of it, and Amy can still hold onto the tickets,’ I replied, not interested in dealing with her.
She, of course, meant ‘photographic,’ but that was the kind of person she was – trying to impress people by her prowess in vocabulary, physicality, mental ability… and always falling short.
Anyway, back to the wedding.
As I said, we all had a role to play, including our friend who was dating Terri. He was, in fact, the Best Man. So, Terri was left to her own devices for almost all of the wedding and the reception.
Oh, the reception. She had to be the ‘best’ dancer, the ‘best’ speaker (even though she wasn’t supposed to speak at the reception), the ‘best’ at everything.
Then it came time for the bride to throw the bouquet.
All of the single ladies lined up for the friendly flower-grab. The bride stood in front of the assembled guests, turned around, and chucked the bouquet high into the air.
Oh, Terri, Terri, Terri…
Poor Terri was on the wrong side of the room. As the bouquet hit its arc, it became apparent that Terri was at least thirty feet (and two tables) away.
But that didn’t stop her.
She launched herself over the tables and, in an extended outstretched dive worthy of Willie Mays, she careened into the assembled women on the floor. Chiffon and puffy dresses collapsed in a heap, along with the accompanying grunts and groans.
As you can imagine, she missed it.
Her timing was not just off, it was way off. The bouquet fell quietly five feet beyond the sprawling mass of bodies topped by Terri into the hands of the groom’s 13-year-old sister.
Oh, but Terri wasn’t done.
She tried to scramble to her feet and was incensed that she had not gotten the bouquet.
She tackled the groom’s sister.
As she tried wrestling the bouquet from a girl eight years (and about 100 lbs) her junior, the men finally got their wits about them, shook off their disbelief and shock, and intervened.
They pulled Terri off of the groom’s sister, screaming and snarling (Terri, not the men or the groom’s sister), and shouting that the bouquet was hers.
The last I ever saw of Terri was when one of our friends was picking her up from behind, her legs kicking wildly as he carried her out of the reception hall, screaming like a maniac.
Believe it or not, our friend who was dating Terri continued to date her for another 6 months until she broke up with him.”
Don’t Mess With This Witch’s Wedding!
“The behavior of the bride before and during the wedding prefigured her personality and conduct since. She is a nasty, abusive bully and my former friend is unfortunately stuck in an abusive marriage. It’s not just men who are abusive to their partners and being a controlling, jealous and possessive witch, she has successfully alienated/fallen out with most of his former friends to the extent that he doesn’t really speak to any of us anymore.
So, the wedding took place in Dublin, Ireland and was a smallish affair, with less than 80 people but it really was lovely or should have been. The wedding and the reception(venue) were perfect for the relatively small number of guests. I was attending with my then-girlfriend who is American and lived in a different country. I mention this because she barely knew anyone there, she had previously met just two of my friends in our tight-knit group and only met the groom directly before the ceremony.
We had only just arrived at the reception venue and our group had appropriated a table outside on the lawn. I was inside at the bar chatting with a buddy when we heard a commotion. The groom came in and informed us that K…. (one of our friends) had accidentally knocked a pint of Guinness onto E…. (my girlfriend) who presently came racing through on her way to the ladies restroom. It seems that K when putting his own glass on the table had inadvertently knocked over a nearly full pint of Guinness, which toppled over and landed on its side on E’s chair between her legs, causing the contents to shoot up between her legs and of course totally drench her dress, (I really wish I’d been there to see it!).
It was an accident and K was mortified but we managed to contain the drama to our group, or so we thought. As anyone who has unfortunately had Guinness spilled on them will know, it is far worse than other drinks because it absolutely stinks. Thankfully, E’s dress was black so no unsightly brown stains but in the moment when she jumped out of her chair having just had her lady parts drenched in cold stinking Guinness, she ripped the seam in her dress, exposing the crack of her butt. One of the women in our party was the daughter of a dressmaker/seamstress and got a small sewing kit off the hotel staff. She joined E in the ladies and after washing the dress as best they could and then drying it under the hot-air hand dryer she sat on the toilet in one of the cubicles and went to work on repairing the dress.
My friend’s wife is sewing the dress and E is standing shivering in the ladies, all 5 foot 0 of her in nothing but her shoes, underwear, and bra when the 6ft hulking bride storms in and starts screaming at her ‘How DARE you! This is MY day !’ Despite her petite size E is not easily intimidated, she’s quite the firecracker and said ‘Look, I get it, it’s your day and it’s all about the prick in the white dress but what exactly is your freaking problem ?’ Bridezilla screams ‘This is my day and you will not be stealing the spotlight’. E replies ‘If you think I wanted that clumsy prick (poor K) to drench me in Guinness just to get the attention you are absolutely insane.’ This is precisely what she was accusing her of, because she IS completely insane.
Throughout the reception, I noticed that every time E got up to leave the room Bridezilla, at the high table would stop stuffing her face and stare daggers at E for the duration of her walk from our table to the door, and would do the exact same when she returned, in full view of everybody, I’m sure the groom’s dinner was ruined as he was probably getting an earful. I told E this and she said ‘No way!’ This became a running joke and she began to leave the room more often than was necessary just so we could watch this childish idiot make a fool of herself, every now and then E turning to face her with a big smile, catching her in mid-scowl and forcing her into a grotesque fake smile in return.
I’ve told this story to several married women and every one of them has had the exact same response – At my wedding, I didn’t have the time to do anything, didn’t get to meet even half the guests, nevermind have a running vendetta against a total stranger who had a pint of Guinness spilled on her.”
Attack of The Bridezilla
“My wife and I attended a wedding of a nephew and his bride, a ‘Daddy’s Little Girl’ type, who is quite spoiled (I was warned about her ahead of time). Her parents are not excessively wealthy but they catered to her every demand. A rented mansion for $10,000 (not including food or waitstaff) and another $10,000 for the wedding dress. Appetizers included cups of lobster bisque, 5-inch long jumbo shrimp, oysters on the half shell, and another 7 or 8 cooked appetizers. Open bars (yes with an ‘s’) in multiple rooms continued through the entire event. Even the dessert buffet took up two full rooms!
The bride insisted (actually demanded) that one of the groom’s sisters not attend the wedding. The reason was that, because the sister has special needs (she is autistic), she would not feel comfortable around her. Also, any outbursts she MIGHT make would ‘ruin’ her wedding. Of course, this upset the groom’s parents who tried to discuss it with her and their son but were told they didn’t have to attend either if they didn’t like it.
The icing on the cake (no pun intended) happened when the Maid of Honor attempted to toast the bride and groom. The hall was large and echoed but she spoke very softly. The result was that many people did not quiet down immediately as the background noise and echoes, coupled with her soft voice, making it difficult to hear her. The bride turned red in the face. She strode over to her, grabbed the microphone, and yelled to her guests ‘Everybody, shut the heck up!’
My wife, who is certainly no prude, left the room. I thought she went to the lavatory. When she came back, she apologized for leaving me. I asked her why she had to apologize for using the restroom and she responded, ‘I didn’t go to the restroom, but there was no way I was going to sit through a speech that glamorized that woman after the way she treated her guests!’
We ate our meal, hung with a few relatives for a while, and left. During the reception, the bride and groom never came around to any of the tables to greet and thank their guests (there was no receiving line), and neither did the bride’s parents. They treated us as if we were not even there. I never made any effort to search them out either and we left that night without ever meeting or congratulating them.
BTW: Her friends say she is just ‘misunderstood’. Guess that is a 25 cent word nowadays for ‘spoiled’.
Also for those who are curious, their divorce became final in November 2020. He simply could not handle her foul mouth, interfering in-laws, and narcissistic attitude any longer. He has since met a very nice young lady who, as I understand, is the antithesis of the former wife!”
Wonder What Happened To The Bride?
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“I was the deacon, assisting the priest who’d do the wedding. I’d caught the groomsmen half an hour before sharing drinks from a big bottle of good hooch. I admonished them and confiscated the half-empty bottle. I thought that was the big breach of the day. I was wrong.
Thirty minutes later the church was full. The organist was playing Bach to fill in until the ceremony began. They’d already pulled out the white cloth to cover the main aisle for the bride’s grand entrance. The altar candles were blazing. The mostly sober groom and five groomsmen in their rented regalia were marching into place at the front, to wait for the bride. The maid of honor and five matching bridesmaids were already there.
The mother of the bride found me. I could see her tears, common at a wedding. She whispered. ‘Julie changed her mind.’ I asked ‘About what? Vows? the wedding candle? What next?’
‘About getting married!’ Mother said, out loud. ‘Can you talk to her? She likes you.’
I followed Mom back to the little bride’s room downstairs. Julie was there in a chair with her worried dad, wedding dress and veil on, tears streaming, mouth quivering. ‘I’m not doing it, I’m not doing it? I don’t love him he doesn’t care about this baby!’ (Baby? What baby?) She turned to her mother and almost shouted ‘you can’t make me.’ I did a perfunctory ‘Are you sure, Julie?’ I got a definite ‘yes,’ and said ‘OK, I’ll go tell Father Wozniak. Do you want us to tell the people?’ She did.
Thank God Father W. decided he’d tell the people. He went out, explained that the bride was having a bit of a thing, nothing dangerous, but that the wedding wasn’t going ahead. I don’t remember specifics, but he was a great speaker and made it sound almost . . .normal.
It was definitely the biggest breach of wedding etiquette I ever experienced, and later, when I was helping couples get ready for their marriage ceremony, I was always careful to be sure they were sure.”
Over The Rainbow
“How about a wedding reception?
A few years ago, I was at a friend’s wedding. We’ll call her ‘Broomhilda’. I’ve known her all her life. I am friends with her two brothers, Gerald and Mason, who we call Mac.
Now, Mac is gay. Really gay. Like a stereotype gay. I’ve known him his entire life, like his older sister. I’ve known for years. His sister has known for years. My family all know. We don’t care. In the city he lives in, he’s out. He has a thriving dental practice comprised almost entirely of the LGBT community. Honestly, we all just assumed that everyone knew he was out and had some sort of running gag where he would announce at social events that his fake girlfriend couldn’t make it. To call it obvious is like calling the grand canyon a hole.
Back to the reception. Gerald is there with his girlfriend. Broomhilda greets me, my wife, sister, mom and dad, and sister’s husband.
Now, apparently, Mac is not out to his brother, parents, etc. He’s also been living with a guy for two years. He tells the guy, in the parking lot of the reception, that despite the fact that they live together, and that he’s out to a lot of folks, this guy ‘Brad’ now has to act like they’re colleagues/buddies/etc.
A little on Brad; he’s out. He’s also an active competitor in iron man competitions. Oddly enough, my brother-in-law also competes and is acquainted with Brad through a few competitions. Brad is the stereotypical frat boy, outgoing, collected, just a genial guy. Unless he told you, you’d never guess he was gay. Call him the f-slur and he’ll knock your teeth out.
So Brad is ticked but keeping up appearances. I’m sitting a few seats away but after talking to him a bit, I take a liking to him, as does my dad and sister. We also ascertain that Brad is a little more than Mac’s buddy.
An hour later we’re seated for dinner. Broomhilda has her family at one section of this huge crescent table. I’m a few seats down. Gerald is ribbing Mac about his girlfriend not being there. Gerald does not know that Mac is gay, or is in denial. Hard to tell. Mac keeps dodging and it looks like Brad is getting angrier and angrier at this.
Finally, Mac tells his brother and his dad: ‘I’m just waiting for the right woman.’
Now, Brad says, quietly but still loud enough to hear: ‘Yeah, one with a nice sized shlong’
Things suddenly go all matrix-y. My mom leans over and demands my phone. I play coy but I’m already getting ready to record. My wife reaches over and grabs my phone.
Mac’s mother, loudly naive, asks ‘What do you mean by that?’
Brad launches into a series of euphemisms for being gay like nothing I’ve ever heard. The highlights:
Your son paints with a lavender brush
Your son has traveled over the rainbow
Etc.
Nothing works. In the meantime, Mac is getting more and more embarrassed.
Finally, Brad just blurts out:
‘Listen carefully. Your son f*cks other men.’
His mom at first is in denial, then she turns and projectile vomits.
Mac leaves. Broomhilda follows him. My wife and sister and I follow Broomhilda.
Mac is outside.
‘Is it that obvious?’
He asks me.
I try to be as frank as I can unless someone actually asks me to dress things up.
‘Mac, I’ll tell you a pretty lie or the ugly truth but you have to tell me which one you want.’
He says he wants the truth so I tell him.
‘It’s practically visible from orbit.’
He starts crying. I hug him. Broomhilda hugs him. My sister hugs him. I tell him that he’s the same guy he was before this evening and that we’ve all known for years and love him no matter what happens. He’s basically family to us, as are Broomhilda and Gerald.
Brad finally comes outside. The two of them scream at each other for ten minutes and then it dies down. They’re cool.
Mac’s mom storms outside.
‘he’s not in the wedding!’
Broomhilda, in a rare moment of defiance, yells back ‘it’s my wedding and I say who’s in it.’
So me, wife, Brad, Mac, etc go to a bar. We’re all good.
Interestingly, Mac and Brad are still going strong, they’re getting married in October. His sister’s union-only held up three years.
Memories.”
No Kids!
“In a controversial fashion of sorts, the invites clearly stated ‘no children.’ Being that 80% of the invitees were her family members, including myself, there was a lot of uproar. It was the topic of Thanksgiving, Christmas, the reunion…..you get the picture. Mothers were talking about how rude, and ungrateful she was for stating this in the invites.
Truthfully, I think it was because of one of two reasons. The bride desperately wanted children and had found out right before the invites were sent that she would never be able to conceive. Due to a childhood disease, the groom was also sterile. Secondly, the bride and groom were teachers, in the public school system, and our state is notorious for low-paying teaching jobs. Since the couple was paying for the wedding themselves, and inviting all her cousins’ children would add a good 75–100 guests. They would outnumber the adults. So, by not inviting the kids, the couple could save quite a bit of money.
Anyway, I felt terrible for the bride, as a family member decided her kids had never been to a wedding, and this would be a good time to take them, as the girl was in elementary school, and had the bridal crazies. Sadly, those three kids got bored, as dinner wasn’t to their liking, and the speeches were long. The kids started playing tag and got into a disagreement as siblings often do. It was right in front of a beautiful wedding cake the bride and her grandmother had gone through great lengths to make. The ‘well behaved’ children crashed not only into the wedding cake but into the expensive groom’s cake flown in from up North. The groom’s cake was the bride’s wedding gift to the groom, as it had special meaning to him. Three children covered in cake and frosting, crystal toasting glasses smashed, and the time and money wasted had to have hurt the bride to her core.”
Good Riddance!
“A friend of mine from high school married a Baptist minister. The reception was in the church basement (no drinking, no dancing). I was a bridesmaid. I knew this was a mistake from the beginning. I didn’t like her fiance, I didn’t like the person he was encouraging her to be, and this girl was legendarily flaky.
My friend told me I was allowed to bring someone to the wedding (she also invited my parents), which was peculiar since she knew I wasn’t seeing anyone. We had a close mutual friend, S., who was a gay man. I asked him to be my guest. He happily accepted.
At the time this was happening, she hadn’t yet sent out the actual, written invitations; this was all verbal. In retrospect, I should have seen this coming; of course, I was going to be ‘officially invited’ because I was IN THE WEDDING. When the actual invitation arrived in the mail, it was addressed to ‘Roxanne + 1,’ but when I opened it a slip of paper fell out, on which was typed (on a dot-matrix printer), ‘Please bring M. [guy’s last name].’ M. was another friend with whom we ran around.
I called S. He had not received a written invitation. I called M. He HAD received one, which included a dot-matrix printed slip saying ‘Please bring Roxanne.’ Wow.
Baffled, I called my friend and told her that I had already invited S. since I foolishly had thought that I would be allowed to bring anyone I wanted as my guest. Did she expect me to now un-invite S.?
After much hemming and hawing, she explained that because their religion considered homosexuality an aberration worthy of eternal damnation, she didn’t want a gay man at her wedding.
S. actually thought this was funny, in a roll-your-eyes sort of way, and, understandably, graciously backed out. M. wanted nothing to do with these people, so HE declined. I was so furious that I didn’t want to go, either, but my mom got me to realize that I was already committed and the wedding was just days away.
So, I bitterly marched down the aisle, went to their lousy reception, and said ‘good riddance’ when they moved out of state.
The best part? M. turned out to be gay, too!”
At Least There Was Disneyland
“Once upon a time, my best friend was getting married. She lived in another state. We had met through a mutual friend, but we kept in touch by email, phone, and letters. (Actual paper mail!) The invitation came and I RSVP’d promptly, asking if I could bring a guest since it wasn’t specified. She replied that it wasn’t in the budget to invite guests of guests since the catering was limited. I said I understood, and I did.
A couple of days before the wedding, I flew to southern California and phoned to let her know I was there. I heard nothing back and didn’t want to interrupt the last-minute plans, so I just waited to hear if we would be able to hang out at any time before the wedding, and in the meantime I went to Disneyland.
Having still heard nothing by the big day, I drove on the L.A. freeways to the venue. I was NOT prepared for this, but I made it. The wedding was lovely and I was so happy for my friend!
At the reception, I noticed I was sitting at the furthest table away from the bride & groom. I made small talk with the other people at my table and their general attitude was, ‘I barely know either of them. I don’t know why I was invited.’ I’m talking, like, old grade-school friends and ex-neighbors. Our table was the only one that wasn’t full.
In the receiving line, I finally got to hug my friend and tell her how happy I was for her and how beautiful she looked and how I hoped she would live happily ever after. She said, ‘It’s so good to see you; I didn’t expect you to come!’
Back at my table, I kept mulling her words over and over in my mind. Why wouldn’t she expect me to come? She’s my best friend. Of course, I’m coming to her wedding! If I had to start three months early and walk the whole way, I would come.
You probably have guessed the punchline of this particular joke. I was a little slow on the uptake. The joke was, she never thought of me as more than an acquaintance. It all made sense. You don’t let people you barely know bring a +1 to your wedding. You don’t hang out with acquaintances before your wedding. You seat them at the ‘you’re lucky you even got an invitation’ leftover table and you are puzzled when they show up from out of state. I was apparently never more than a friend-of-a-friend to her.
Now, let me just say that I don’t bear this woman any ill will. She didn’t exactly ‘lead me on’ more than just being very friendly and keeping up a correspondence with me, who poured my heart out to her as though she was my actual sister. I was like a pen pal who misunderstood the nature of our relationship and made a fool of myself. Looking back, it’s all pretty obvious and kind of sad and embarrassing.
Oh well, at least I got to go to Disneyland. That was fun!”