Worst Wedding You've Ever Attended

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Nevermind. It was bad lol.

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!

I went to the wedding of a friend I grew up with. The wedding held in her parent's back yard. When I arrived (a guest!), none of her bridesmaids were ready and she was still getting her hair done. The groom was trying to help as best as he could and getting snapped at and berated by her the entire time. The wedding started almost an hour late.

Their son was supposed to be the ring bearer, but he refused to walk down the aisle and they finally put him in a wagon and pulled him down, he cried the entire way. During the ceremony, my friend would stare off into the distance, look at her nails, everywhere EXCEPT the groom. I originally thought she was nervous but eventually settled on thinking she just looked incredibly bored. It was very awkward!

During their vows, he had note cards which he only glanced at, and spoke to her like she was a goddess. She read hers word for word staring at her notes instead of bothering to look at him. And the kiss was more like a peck than a triumphant we-just-got-married smooch.

The reception started off fine until my friend and her bridesmaids started drinking. There was drama, cat fighting, crying, etc. The maid of honor left in tears. It was a mess.

I am surprised to say she is still married to that "lucky" guy.

I've never actually been to a wedding, but I do worry about etiquette at our wedding. It's hard to plan one when you've never been to one! Our ceremony is 1/2 hour from our reception, although this is because we are having a traditional wedding in a Catholic Church and the closest city with any sort of venue is 1/2 hour away and we are having our wedding at this particular church because we know the priest and we attend church there for all holidays.

We won't be having a cash bar, but we are supplying our own alcohol. We're bringing in several kegs of Creemore beer (one of our favourites that is also nice and smooth and a majority favourite for our guests), red and white wine, + toasting champagne and rose champagne as well. We've considered a specialty drink, my favourite cocktail the "Jolly Rancher Martini" the way my MIL makes it, and again because I know that a lot of our guests who hang out at the cottage with us do like it.

My only concern right now is time of ceremony, we told our priest 1:30pm but I think we are looking at moving it to 2 or 3pm. I just don't want to rush through photos since I'm paying quite a hefty price tag for them and I want some really awesome photos to remember the day.

I went to a wedding last summer that had strippers dancing down the isle (they were the bridesmaids, but also strippers and they love their job) to a profanity laced rap song, it started two hours late because the ring bearer was napping, they had cheap beer bottles as vases (labels still on), and a cake covered in fake blood and zombies. It was a real treat.

I went to a wedding in VA in March or early April. Still pretty chilly outside.

First I was invited through my MIL no actual invite... it was my husband’s cousins wedding.

The ceremony was beautiful

The reception was at the grooms parent house. Out side under tents. The heat lamps were not turned on before we arrived to the tent was cold. And since I did not have an invitation I had no idea where reception was and proceeded to sink into the ground and get mud all over my heels.

The hors' dovers we set out but the bride and grooms friends grabbed so much foo that many of the older guest had little to nothing and had to wait for items to be replenished. At this point we were freezing hungry and greatly ignored by most other guest including my MIL (but that is another story) So we left.

I brought a gift since I did not attend the shower and never received a thank you note...

I went to her baby shower a year later...as an afterthought on my MIL/SIL's invite again. I stayed and helped the family load all the gifts and leftover food into the car b/c I was with my SIL and again did not receive a thank you note.

I'm sure people hated the heat at my wedding. Who knew June 7th 2008 would end up being the hottest day of the year in Fredericksburg, VA. But I had plenty of water and a free wine and beer bar. We had a small wedding we paid for ourselves.

I'm so glad others are still interested in etiquette