Wedding Horror Stories
Posted by: Wendy Atterberry
Filed in:
relationships
12:00PM, Thursday March 26th 2009
Determined as I am to avoid drama around both my wedding and the planning of it, I can already tell, just a few weeks into my engagement, that’s going to be much easier said than done. Already, I’ve been met with some resistance over planning an outdoor ceremony in Central Park in the middle of the summer. “Wouldn’t you rather do it inside with air conditioning?” my mom whined when I told her my idea. “We’ll be outside less than an hour,” I explained to her, “and then we’ll move to a nice air conditioned restaurant for lunch.” I’d like to keep the guest list small for a variety of reasons, but I’ve gotten an earful from family and friends who are afraid of “not making the cut.” And having the ceremony in New York, where my boyfriend was born and raised and we both live, will no doubt create a mobility challenge for some members of my family who have trouble getting around (my sister, for example, recently broke both ankles and will probably still be using a walker at the wedding). Plus, as I’ve been reminded more than once: New York is expensive. “Then don’t come!” I’d love to reply.
Anyway, lately I’ve been reading various wedding “horror stories” about really rude guests, totally inappropriate things people say, and bridezillas who completely lose their s**t over the smallest thing just to sort of give myself a little perspective. Also, they’re pretty funny and certainly more entertaining than researching rental chairs. After the jump are some of my favorite wedding-related horror stories, pulled from an MSN article, and the message boards at Indie Bride and Yahoo. There might even be a story from your truly, but you’ll just have to guess which one!
1. “I was at a wedding where the bride was a larger girl and one of the guests requested the ‘Baby Got Back’ song as a joke. The worst part is that the DJ said ‘This goes out to the bride as a special request.’”
2. “My aunt was the bartender at my sister’s wedding and got my 14-year-old brother drunk. He started stripping on the dance floor and telling my brother-in-law’s family members how he really felt about them. It was a nightmare!”
3. “I was a bridesmaid for my best friend’s wedding, and I was one of NINE bridesmaids. The bride selected our dresses without even consulting us, and they were HIDEOUS! Big dark purple taffeta, poofy and pinched on the sides and a big bow below my left hip, with 3 layers of tulle underneath… and this wedding was in JUNE!!! All of our dresses are destroyed because we were sweating so badly…deoderant and baby powder everywhere!”
4. “Shortly after I got engaged and well before I even chose a venue for the reception or finalized the guest list, I got a call from some family members I hadn’t spoken to in a couple of years informing me that they just booked their flights and made hotel reservations. Then they informed me that my cousin, whom I cannot stand and would NEVER invite to my wedding, ‘won’t be able to make it and sends her regrets.’”
5. “The boy and I are having brunch with a girl I go to school with and her husband and she asks to see my engagement ring. She smiles and says, ‘Oh, it’s…nice. I guess when B. is a lawyer you can add on to it, right?’”
Do you have any funny one-liners or wedding horror stories you want to share?
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thelolalove
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 12:28 pm: [report]
I would rather have any of these things happen to me than what is happening for my wedding right now….
My future in-laws are older and don’t understand what it costs for a wedding… originally they agreed to pay for flowers and invitations (on top of the rehearsal dinner) and even though they are still paying for those things, they are giving me and my fiancé only $1,000 for ALL OF IT!!! We have over 250 people invited to the wedding… and $1,000 plus a small rehearsal dinner was all they were willing to give… and my fiancé is an only child…. I’m not a bridezilla, but I sure have in-law-zillas (is that a term?)
Good Luck! I hope your wedding comes out the way you want it….
joyy
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 12:53 pm: [report]
@thelolalove: sounds like you failed to actually talk to them about what they had in mind and made assumptions. You want a big wedding? Then be prepared to pay for it yourself and stop whining that others aren’t able or willing to pony up the way you think they should.
thelolalove
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 01:06 pm: [report]
@joyy: They had originally agreed to whatever the cost. AND my fiancé and I are paying for 95% of the wedding costs. We don’t want to be a financial burden to our parents, but my parents agreed to certain things, and they aren’t bailing on me. If that $1,000 was all they were willing to give… fine… but don’t tell me I have no budget when I ask for one and then months later when I need that money to pay for things all of a sudden I have a RIDICULOUSLY small budget for two fairly pricey items. I, luckily, am an incredibly flexible bride and managed to get the flowers from $2,500 to $900 by SACRIFICING what I really wanted… which I might add was not even close to being extravagant (a couple blooms in a square vase with candles… NOT extravagant). And I’m not whiny… just pissed when people lie to my face
Cese_ED
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 02:08 pm: [report]
Wow. @thelolalove: That’s hard, good luck!
My personal horror story?
Last summer, my aunt and uncle got married. At the reception, my many uncles then supplied copious amounts of alcohol to my 14-year-old cousin and my 16-year-old brother, who both had never had a drink. My cousin and brother left, and an hour later my cousin came back to let me know my brother had thrown up EVERYWHERE in his hotel room. I had to go over there, in my nice dress and heels, and aid my sick brother and clean up. My brother had alcohol poisoning…and the worst part? Telling my family that my brother had alcohol poisoning, they not believing me and calling me an “uptight bitch”. FUN WEDDING. Not.
amanda lynn
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 02:38 pm: [report]
i filmed a bride that said “take this ring as a symbol of my love and INfidelity”
vanya
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 03:08 pm: [report]
My husband was in a fender-bender on the way to our ceremony. There he was, sitting in the police cruiser, filling out his accident report in his wedding suit. When he told the officer he’d like to try to hurry it along, the cop cracked “got someplace important to be?” and my husband replied, “Yes. My wedding. 15 minutes ago.” and the cop and his partner felt so bad for him, they put on their sirens and sped him there.
I was so busy gabbing with my cousin that I didn’t even notice we hadn’t started on time because the groom hadn’t arrived yet. I figured something was up when I heard the sirens outside, though.
lani
wrote on March 26 2009 @ 03:19 pm: [report]
This was before my time, but my parents’ nightmare wedding is a family legend. Both sets of parents disapproved of the bride and groom and, for a full year, created obstacles to keep the wedding from happening. They finally married, on a shoestring budget and almost entirely self-funded, just weeks before my dad left for Navy boot camp and Vietnam.
My mom recruited a friend to make the dresses, and in cutting corners didn’t have the wedding dress or bridesmaids’ dresses of her dreams. They also planned to save money by holding the reception in the church’s dingy rec-room type basement. But those were minor inconveniences compared with the actual wedding day: there was a snowstorm (in upstate New York); one bridesmaid lost her luggage when flying in from out-of-state, and wound up wearing a rather sexy bright red evening gown—next to the other ladies in sage green; the photographer stepped on, and ripped, my mom’s long veil as she walked down the aisle, painfully wrenching her neck backward in front of everyone; my father realized he had to pee right before the ceremony began and my mom got her period midway through the ceremony; the minister flubbed my father’s name; rice was thrown into my mom’s ear upon exiting the church; the shaving cream that my uncle used to decorate their car ate through the paint; and all the wedding photos have a green tinge, giving my mom a starting resemblance to Elphaba (from “Wicked”).
My sister’s wedding didn’t fare much better. It was an outdoor wedding at a beautiful Hudson River museum estate on boiling hot June day, causing the large wedding party and many guests to sweat and fidget in our finery. As my sister walked down the aisle, set on the lawn facing the Hudson River, black storm clouds darkened the skies and the water began to churn with white-topped waves. The justice of the peace sped up the sermon as lightning began to flash in the distance, and he pronounced them man and wife just as the skies opened. We all hitched up our dresses and ran for the tent, huddling inside against the thick sheets of rain. After spending more than a year planning the perfect wedding, my sister stoicly said, “F*ck it, let’s drink.” And we did.
juliePS
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 07:18 am: [report]
I shall be eagerly watching this one, because for some bizarre reason I LOVE wedding stories.
jojo32
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:04 am: [report]
@ Lani - “F*ck it, let’s drink”. So beautiful. LOL That would be about what I’d have to say too.
lani
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:22 am: [report]
I forgot to mention that both my parents’ and sister’s nightmare weddings have happy endings: my parents just celebrated 38 years of marriage, and my sister is nearing nine years of wedded bliss.
Wendy Atterberry
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:25 am: [report]
Oh! I forgot to include a “horror” story I read on Indie Bride the other day where a woman was FREAKING OUT that she only had a wedding budget of 40K and didn’t know how on earth she could have a decent wedding for less than 70K. The whole thing was proving so stressful, she was barely able to get her beauty sleep anymore, poor thing.
jojo32
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:28 am: [report]
Well mine went off basically without a hitch. I only made it 4 years. So I guess the wedding itself really isnt all that important. The fact that my (now ex) hubby and his groomsmen were drinking in the back of the church before the ceremony might have been a tip-off. Also, before we had our first dance and we did the cake fight deal, I got icing on his RENTED tuxedo and he was mad at me for it. I got scolded by him during out first dance as a married couple. Ahhhhh sweet memories.
Naneenya
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:50 am: [report]
When my cousin got married his (now wife) got all upset because a lady from the church came into her dressing room to get a Bible for the minister - and because someone saw her in her dress before the wedding, she flipped out, stormed out of the church and locked herself in the car, sobbing in full wedding get-up.
Though, nothing beats this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3yhxh65oyg
Nefret
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 10:52 am: [report]
@jojo32 - Tell him it could have been worse, at a wedding I went to with an ex-bf, the bride got her revenge for a faceful of cake smear by scraping it off with both hands and then wiping them on his dress blues. Their wedding was a day before a parade attended by the President. He couldn’t get it cleaned in time and had to get taped into a borrowed uniform.
jojo32
wrote on March 27 2009 @ 01:06 pm: [report]
Nefret - LOL Yeah I couldnt understand why he was so mad, it’s not like he bought the tux. I bought the dang dress and I didnt care that there was icing on it. To top it off, he had brought casual clothes to the reception-OUR RECEPTION-and changed into them as soon as the photographer left. He was hanging out in shorts and a T-Shirt while I was dragging my dress around all night. Good God. The more I think about it the worse it sounds!