Worst Wedding You've Ever Attended

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  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
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    My own wedding was done as inexpensively as possible. Bear and I were building a house and wanted to put the money into that, not into the wedding, which was not very important at all. What is importantto us is the MARRIAGE not the wedding ceremony. My dress was a long, white summer dress off the sale rack, $35, my attendant's mom made her a matching bridesmaids dress in camel tan, hubby and best man rented theur tuxes, the wedding reception was held in the church dining hall, no alcohol and no dancing, no band, and the church ladies put on a modest brunch. It was over in a few hours. I never regretted not spending thousands of dollars on a one-afternoon event. We've now been together 42 years. I don't consider this a worst wedding, but some people might.
  • juliemouse83
    juliemouse83 Posts: 6,663 Member
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    My own wedding was done as inexpensively as possible. Bear and I were building a house and wanted to put the money into that, not into the wedding, which was not very important at all. What is importantto us is the MARRIAGE not the wedding ceremony. My dress was a long, white summer dress off the sale rack, $35, my attendant's mom made her a matching bridesmaids dress in camel tan, hubby and best man rented theur tuxes, the wedding reception was held in the church dining hall, no alcohol and no dancing, no band, and the church ladies put on a modest brunch. It was over in a few hours. I never regretted not spending thousands of dollars on a one-afternoon event. We've now been together 42 years. I don't consider this a worst wedding, but some people might.

    I think that is the best wedding story!!! :heart:
  • Lobster1987
    Lobster1987 Posts: 492 Member
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    The worst experience I ever had at a wedding (and I have been to many, as well as photographed them) was at my own.

    We thought we had all the bases covered...We planned everything ourselves. His parents have a converted barn with a stage, dance floor, eating area, and kitchen that they use for Saturday night blue grass get togethers for the local seniors, so we thought it would be really cool to get married in a barn, so we did...the venue was all in one place. One of the guys we worked with is a DJ and he provided music and helped with the food. My husband's then-boss, whom I still work with, purchased a hog and a bunch of the guys from the shop came to help cook and do sides. Yes...I got married in a barn and had a pig pickin' to boot. :bigsmile:

    Had a JP come in and do the ceremony. My SIL took still images, my sister did the video, we requested everyone to come casual...my matron of honor wore jeans and a white blouse, my sons wore jeans and white polo shirts, the hubs wore jeans and a white tab collar shirt...it was just a FUN party that happened to kick off with a wedding ceremony. Our best man had the flu, and couldn't make it, as did several of my friends from work (it was a bad winter for flu), but we had a good time anyway...UNTIL....

    All the kids ended up with their "other" parent after the ceremony. My ex came to get the boys. His ex? No...that would have been too accommodating. He had to leave right after we cut the cake to have his daughter home. He was gone until well after the party was over. Something like four and a half hours. I thought he had gotten in an accident or something. The guests were wondering where he went, my parents were starting to worry, as were his parents. When 11 pm rolled around and the guests were gone and it was just my matron of honor, my new FIL and me picking up around the pig cooker, I just KNEW something awful had happened.

    He got to his ex wife's house to find he suicidal and drunk off her @$$ and could not let his daughter go in with her mother like that, and she made some kind of god awful threats about what she would do if he left (she KNEW it was our wedding night) and he finally got her sobered up enough to leave a six year old kid with her. In retrospect, I think he would have handled things differently, but we didn't know, at the time, what she was capable of.

    Still married, almost ten years later. :heart:

    I'm glad you're still married, but man what a nightmare for him! It's crappy he had to leave the wedding....we wanted to do a hog roast for ours too but I think we're going to try to do a taco bar now :)
  • Christie0428
    Christie0428 Posts: 221 Member
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    while I think its fun to regail the awful stories, but might i implore you to read up on the law of attraction... you may want to follow this up by a thread asking: what was the best wedding and why.... otherwise by focusong all this attention on what you don't want, I think you are just asking for unpleasant stuff to happen on your special day
  • Hellbent_Heidi
    Hellbent_Heidi Posts: 3,669 Member
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    An open bar in Ireland would ensure the happy couple be in debt for the rest of their lives haha!


    Well just to be clear, here in NY it's pay one price for the caterer to have an open bar ~ it's not common it'd be a running tab of each individual drink. It probably evens out ~ those who don't drink or only have a couple, and those who drink a lot ;)
    I think that's most everywhere in the U.S. Not to mention, the venue usually has a liquor license to abide by, so contrary to popular belief....people usually aren't allowed to just drink till they're passed out. When I tended bar at a hall, I had to cut people off from time to time.
  • Fraileya19
    Fraileya19 Posts: 42
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    So, I am planning my wedding and have been researching proper wedding etiquette like a hawk.

    Tell me the worst wedding you've ever attended and why.

    I'll start...

    I went to my "friend's" wedding last summer, in which she had several etiquette breaches, starting with the invitations. I, fortunately, was invited to the entire wedding- ceremony, reception, and dance....my cousin, a mutual friend, was invited to just the dance part...(rolls eyes)

    I also had a long term boyfriend and he was not listed on the invitation, which I thought must have been a mistake, so I called and asked if I could bring him- which she said was fine....but 2 weeks before the wedding, she told me not to.

    Well, I showed up at the wedding...the ceremony was nice...but afterwards we had to wait almost THREE HOURS to eat! and it was a CASH BAR! I didn't bring any money to the wedding, so I couldn't drink anything...huge bummer...

    And then the food was horrendous...the chicken was so dry that I didn't even finish it- which is a big deal for me because I am a pig and will eat anything set in front of me...

    And then the dance started and all they played was theme songs to Star Wars, Ghost Busters, and Star Trek....

    I left at that point...I had enough of that. I had such a bad time and it was really boring with having very few people there that I knew.

    And then she deleted me on FB a week later, I am assuming due to me not bringing her a big fancy gift. I tried talking to her to see what was up but she ignored phone calls and texts.

    What's your worst wedding story?

    I am planning our wedding right now and we will be married on 07/13/13. We are paying the majority of it by ourselves. Let me tell you, if his parents hadn't offered to give us $ towards the flowers and rehersal dinner we would have had a CASH BAR. In order to have open bar it is $17.00/extra a person. Which, may not seem like a lot but when you're paying $78.00 a plate it gets really expensive. We are actually cutting costs also by having the reception be an ADULT ONLY

    My future sister-in-law gave me an etiquette book on how to address the invitations and that was a GREAT help. Otherwise I would've offended a lot of people, ha-ha.

    And I swear to you.. if my food is dry at the wedding I will turn into a bride-zilla! Like I said, that food is a LOT of money. Jerks better cook it right!
  • juliemouse83
    juliemouse83 Posts: 6,663 Member
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    The only drawback do doing a pig like that is the sheer amount of leftover pork you have. My entire freezer was filled with ziplock bags of pork, pork bbq, pulled pork, etc. :)
  • AlsDonkBoxSquat
    AlsDonkBoxSquat Posts: 6,128 Member
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    My now husband have been to a crap ton of weddings, and he's been in most of them. The worst ones for me were the ones where I was at the singles table and he was at a head table. I didn't know anyone, I was shoved to a table of people definitely not in my age range, there was a cash bar but he was the one holding the cash, and there I sat at the back of the room eating an over cooked portion of something, no drink, watching my boyfriend do whatever. I despise head tables just for that reason. After that when we went to a wedding that he was in we would find out if there was a head table, and if there was I'd either not attend or request to be sat with people I might either know or get along with.

    Our wedding we had a sweet heart table, everyone sat with their dates, and we had our table placed so that no one was more than 4 tables away from us We also did open bar, but wine and beer only.

    The only weddings I've ever had an issue with were the ones where M and I were seperated most of the night. The rest of them I couldn't care less if it had an open bar, bad music, or bad food.
  • Christie0428
    Christie0428 Posts: 221 Member
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    The only people that you should be worried about is you and your partner. Surely best part of a wedding is the end result, being married... The day itself is about 2 people making a promise to each other, not promising to feed everyone or provide enough alcohol to inebriate the entire southern hemisphere!

    Chill out about the small stuff and you might enjoy the day more

    ^ this!
  • Flab2fitfi
    Flab2fitfi Posts: 1,349 Member
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    My first wedding was a disaster as I did not want to get married - i was pregnant and told either marry him or he leave. Amazingly we were divorced 18 months later.

    My second wedding was totally different - we went up to Scotland and hire a tiny castle for a long weekend for just close family and friends (29 in total including 8 kids). We paid for everyone's accommodation and had a humanist ceremony on the Saturday. We got private caterers in for the evening meal which was a formal buffet - everything was gluten, dairy, egg and soya free (except the Haggis) so I could eat everything. It was an amazing day but almost did not happen as our 5 month old was admitted to hospital with bronchiolitis a week before the wedding and at one point we were told that she could go either way. Luckily she was released on the Wednesday and given the all clear to travel.

    Also the kids all got stomach bugs and my son had to be photo-shopped into a few pics - he made it through the ceremony (kilt and all) and then went green.
  • LeilaFace
    LeilaFace Posts: 412 Member
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    Wedding Etiquette ... UUUUGGGHHHHH

    I not only planned my own wedding (big mistake I lived in Washington State and our wedding was in Hawaii and letting my dad coordinate things in Hawaii meant 2 months before the wedding I had to book vendors I thought he already booked) but i work for a wedding company MyWedding.com so there was A LOT expected out of my wedding and My husband and I went Tiki 50s Hawaii with it (except i did dance a hula the song was written by my cousin's grandmother - Lei Collins and the entire Collins family was at my wedding! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EauN043cPss)

    Anywho, worst wedding was my cousin's Angela's She had a full Catholic weddnig which is fine but then the reception was at a hotel banquet center in the middle of Waikiki which meant it took us literally 30 minutes to get to the reception and pay for parking. Then there were so many events at the reception and because the waiters liked my sister she was 16 and hammered and kept stealing the mic with no one stopping her. Then the wedding just ended. Everyone had to leave.
  • rebbylicious
    rebbylicious Posts: 621 Member
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    Ahh all this required ettiquette and rules and being judged if you do something 'wrong' is the exact reason I don't want a wedding - so much pressure over stupid stuff that really doesn't matter.

    When I do get married I am just gonna plan it in a few weeks - get a dress, invite a select few family and friends out for a meal at the local pub, when they arrive tell them "Surprise, we're getting married", get married, eat food, get a little drunk, go home :)

    Couldn't agree with you more! I got married in a courthouse and we grilled burgers afterwards at a park. My only regret is not having a wedding dress... I will always wonder what it is like to dress up like a bride.
    I used to do makeup professionally for bridal parties and brides. It always blew my mind how ridiculous people got over planning because they want to do it the way they think a wedding should be rather than just focusing on getting married and having fun. It never ceased to fail every single bride over tanned, dyed their hair blonde or highlights, french manicured nails, the big french twist with greasy crusty curls everywhere, they all wanted a smokey eye with neutral lips (sometimes neutral was a light pink) etc etc. They had no idea that they all were unconsciously trying to look like barbie.
  • JenCM
    JenCM Posts: 195
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    The worst I've been to - was mine. Sadly.
    We had to move up our wedding because my dad got diagnosed with cancer that was far along and to be safe, we didn't want to wait another year. It's good we didn't, because he passed away 8 months later. However, outside that...it wasn't great.
    We wanted to get married at a park, and kept finding all the parks we could find were being used the weekend we picked for festivals. So we ended up getting married at my MIL's work - in the front "yard" area of the building, RIGHT on the highway. It was noisy and bad. I ended up wearing a really horrible looking dress because we'd only had a very small amount of money to work with for it and I still wanted something "bridal" - so we found a white formal dress and had a friend make alterations. And I thought it was sort of obvious, you don't where WHITE to a wedding. I freakin' kid you not, my BIL's girlfriend at the time wore white, my husbands cousin and his wife wore head to toe white, one of his Aunt's wore white and his other cousins wife wore a white dress as well. My MIL was ready to maim all of them for that because they're the kind of people who KNOW you shouldn't do that, but did it to get attention and because they didn't like me.
    We didn't get my wedding set until the night before - my FIL had thrown a fit about hubby using his cousin who was starting to be a jeweler to make my rings, so he did. Hubby had come with with a design very similar to the set he wanted to get me originally. He got the ring the night before, and before he showed it to me, apologized. It was truly hideous. It was terrible metalwork that looked all mashed up and then this HUGE blue stone and it had holes in the band. Just holes. It was bad. Not only that, but it was supposed to be a REAL stone, we found out later it was a flippin' piece of GLASS worth all of $2. So we got cheated by family on it on top of it all.
    Then my MIL who used to make wedding cakes, offered to do our cake. Which turned out fine - other than it was supposed to be a 4 tier cake and in the car on the way over, the bottom tier just slid OFF my BIL's lap and fell apart. My MIL was sobbing when she got to where we were doing the wedding because she'd never in 20 years had a cake fall apart and then the first one that did was her son's.
    My MIL's friends who don't have daughters wanted to help decorate and I said I didn't want much....they went crazy though while MIL was busy elsewhere and we had 8 foot wide, 5 foot tall, pea green, taffeta "Bows" on the walls of the room we were in.
    My FIL took over a lot to do with the wedding, making that a mess also. We wanted to invite ONLY close friends and family. I invited 9 people, including my Dad, and had 6 there. My FIL took the 15 hubby had invited and expanded that to a point where we sent out 220 invitations. Mostly to people his Dad knew, we found out. So we had all these people coming to the small reception afterwards, and 80% of them just came in, got food, talked to his Dad and left. To top it all off, hubby's side of the family, outside his mom and her side, never even spoke to my Dad or anyone I invited. They continued that on when we went to the family only wedding dinner that evening and my Dad put down $1,000 for everyone to have a nice dinner and none of them talked to him over dinner or thanked him, for that matter they didn't speak to me either. (Not fond of my in laws outside my MIL, can you tell?! lol).
    Then my BIL's girlfriend stole our wedding photographer away when we were in the middle of pictures and changing and whatnot, to have him take couples photos of her and my BIL and then she proceeded to announce in the middle of the wedding going on's that day, that they were engaged!!!
    And then there was the honeymoon. We knew we could only go away for the weekend, but we wanted to do something nice. We'd thought about maybe flying somewhere pretty and just staying in a hotel for a couple nights and driving around sightseeing or whatever. FIL said he'd help with that and make it happen. Well, he made something happen. haha. He sent us to......Las Vegas. He had one of those timeshares, and they had one in Vegas, so he decided since hubby had never been there, that's where we were going. So we went to Vegas and then had to spend a day and a half of our 3 days there, in Condo timeshare sales meetings.

    I'm sure it all could have been worse, but it wasn't the best either. lol. Somehow though, despite the fact at the end of that day I was considering annulment just to get away from the bat $*%# crazy family.....We've been married nearly 6 years now.
  • gallerygirl21
    gallerygirl21 Posts: 36 Member
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    They had a taco man which was totally cool with me. I love tacos!!

    HOWEVER

    They didn't have any forks when they brought out the cake.

    I repeat

    THERE WERE NO EATING UTENSILS

    I ate cake with my bare hands because I love cake that much.

    Tacos are awesome! I want to have a taco bar for mine. That would be bad *kitten*!
    We did a taco/fajita buffet and got a ton of compliments on the food because it was not typical wedding food. It was also so reasonably priced. People still recall our menu and say how awesome it was.
  • coachblt
    coachblt Posts: 1,090
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    All weddings because I just want to scream at them and say: DON'T DO IT....IT'LL RUIN YOUR LIVES!

    So I don't go to weddings anymore. And yes...it ruined most of their lives.
  • Andrea681
    Andrea681 Posts: 178 Member
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    A few years ago, I went to a friends weddding. It was in a small town. The town had no hotel for out of town guests so we had to camp at a local camp ground. We also had to get ready for the wedding in the camp grounds bathrooms. The wedding reception was around dinner time but they literally only had mini meatballs, a veggie platter, a fruit platter and a cake. They quickly ran out of food. The town's only supermarket closed at 8pm and they had no restruant's open or any fast food. They did have a bunch of kegs so we all got pretty drunk. The bride got so drunk she fell down on the dance floor, ripped her wedding dress and got in a fight with her mother in law. It was actually pretty hilarious now that I think about it, but at the time I was pretty appalled. So yeah, that was the worst wedding I've ever attended.
  • BPayton27
    BPayton27 Posts: 626 Member
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    Nevermind. It was bad lol.
  • Athena53
    Athena53 Posts: 717 Member
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    All weddings because I just want to scream at them and say: DON'T DO IT....IT'LL RUIN YOUR LIVES!

    So I don't go to weddings anymore. And yes...it ruined most of their lives.

    Sorry you feel that way. My first marriage ended in flames and I suppose we oculd trade horror stories, but I'm past that unless I've had a few drinks. Second marriage- we're leaving for Paris tomorrow to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Life is good.
  • MelsAuntie
    MelsAuntie Posts: 2,833 Member
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    I would focus on the marriage and not the wedding. The wedding is over in a day. The biggest mistake you could make is to think your wedding is as important to your guests (or anyone else for that matter) than you and your future husband.

    The worst weddings I've been to are where I KNOW the couple went into a large debt to throw the big bash. What a waste.



    THIS!
  • coachblt
    coachblt Posts: 1,090
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    All weddings because I just want to scream at them and say: DON'T DO IT....IT'LL RUIN YOUR LIVES!

    So I don't go to weddings anymore. And yes...it ruined most of their lives.

    Sorry you feel that way. My first marriage ended in flames and I suppose we oculd trade horror stories, but I'm past that unless I've had a few drinks. Second marriage- we're leaving for Paris tomorrow to celebrate our 10th anniversary. Life is good.

    Don't feel sorry. I'm single and livin' the dream!!!!!!!