27 Awkward Wedding Experiences That'll Make You Wince in Agony
Sometimes your special day is not-so-special, and these Redditors unfortunately experienced the not-so-special ones firsthand. Planning a wedding for many people is oftentimes a super nerve-wracking experience. There's a myriad of things that could go wrong at every toss and turn. From the DJ, to the flower arrangements, to the caterer messing up food orders,
Sometimes your special day is not-so-special, and these Redditors unfortunately experienced the not-so-special ones firsthand.
Planning a wedding for many people is oftentimes a super nerve-wracking experience. There's a myriad of things that could go wrong at every toss and turn. From the DJ, to the flower arrangements, to the caterer messing up food orders, to guests showing up late, to drama between families or the couple themselves who are getting married.
It's beautiful when it all comes together nicely, however, and people manage to pull it off without a hitch. But sometimes, boiling problems blow up at the worst possible moment, like during the wedding itself.
Normal wedding for a very religious couple. Got to the reception and the food was all sandwich trays from Walmart. When it came time to dance, they put on what was probably a "Now That's What I Call 90's" CD (this was in 2008ish) and the first song was "Semi-Charmed Life" (Doo doo doo, do doodoodoo). A few seconds in, the mother of the bride turns off the CD player (yeah) and puts in a CD with children's bible songs. About a minute later SCL comes back on, then off, then children's songs. Repeat this about two or three more times as the Mom tries to control what her adult married daughter can play at her wedding. We left.
You want to kill a wedding? Put speeches an hour after dinner and have that happen for three hours. I think speeches started around 8 pm, by the time the video tributes and the people talking about how great everyone is ended, it was 11 o clock and everyone was just done. Not a lot of time to dance and socialize left over when the venue was closing at midnight. I was feeling sick so I should have left sooner.
My cousin's wedding. I was about 7 or 8 and vaguely remembered my grandmother grabbing my brother and I and leaving. I remember being mad cause I didn't get any cake, didn't get to dance, nothing.When I got married this year, and was worried that my wedding was going to be a s--- show, I was finally given the details as to why gram made us leave so early.My cousin was not in contact at the time with her birth father. He showed up to the reception anyways. Everyone more or less tolerated him for the time as no one wanted to be the one to ruin my cousin's wedding. At some point, he made a pass at my mom and said pretty nasty comments to a 14-year-old girl that was there. My mom let the comments he made to her go, but the father of the 14-year-old girl did not. He punched him in the face. When he got punched, he fell backwards onto another lady, who's husband in turn jumped on him.It turned into an eight-person brawl including my dad and one of my cousins. No idea how my dad or cousin got involved, but alcohol was a factor.So where was my cousin (the bride) when all this was going down? She was in a truck with her new husband doing a line of coke.12 people, including my dad, one male cousin, my cousin the bride, and her new husband all got arrested at her wedding. Her and her husband were caught doing blow when the cops showed up for the fight. My grandma realized something was going to go down when she saw my cousin's dad and the first guy start fighting and got my brother and I out of there.I have a pretty trashy extended family.
This is odd, but I am going to say mine. This was because of my wife's family. We wanted to keep the wedding very small. We were very young and some thought we were too young to get married, so this was the reasoning for keeping it small. I had my parents, brother and four friends. My wife invited her parents, brother and grandmother. Her grandmother took it upon herself to invite the entire side of my wife's family. We had over 100 unexpected guests that acted as if they were insulted that they had to be there. The good news is, my wife kicks ass, going on 15 years.
I'm not sure if this was the best or the worst wedding I've attended. It was my cousin's, who had a Christian wedding. The person officiating the wedding went on a long speech about how Jesus is also part of their marriage and proceeded to use the term "three-way" at least a dozen times. "It's not just the two of you, it's a three-way. A three-way in the bedroom, a three-way in the kitchen, a three-way in the basement, a three-way in the backyard..." Poor guy couldn't figure out why half the audience was dying of laughter. I would have thought he was trolling us, but this was in a very small, very conservative town and the guy was a 100 years old.
My "best"friend's wedding. She should never have married her husband. She is only with him because she doesn't think she can do better and no one else had really expressed interest. It was painful to watch her just lock herself into this darkness/nihilation of self. I could see she even knew that's what was happening, somewhere deep inside. So many things happened, which made it clear what was happening and even why. To bullet the despair: She spent the evening before with my husband and I talking about any guy she had ever had an interest in or flirtation with. It was like she was mourning all of her lost chances. No excitement, no mention of her husband-to-be. We jokingly (but not that jokingly) offered to just take her home with us, six hours away She had no plans for getting ready the next day. Asked me at 10 p.m. to do her hair and makeup and arranged for the photographer to come to my hotel to document this. We also drove her to the wedding. Neither I nor my husband (her second best friend) were invited to be in her wedding party. It was strange, and so many people the next day would say, "Oh, you're her best friend! She talks about you all the time!" and look confused. Her matron of honor and bridesmaid were her husband's best man's family. They did not contribute to helping her get ready. It was like she didn't want us, the people who care about her, involved in this. Her parents had not been in touch for days and came 15 minutes late to the ceremony, never calling her beforehand. She had clearly learned her lack of value at home... His vows were mostly jokes for the audience. Loving her was never mentioned. Despite her asking him not to, he violently smushed the cake in her face. I helped her clean up. It was deeply up her nostrils, in her hair, in her eyes. Bridemaids tried to take pictures while laughing until I menacingly threw them out of the bathroom. It took me a while to make her vaguely presentable again. I offered again to just take her with me, far less jokingly. This time she was quiet and a little teary but did not respond. Best man's speech was about her husband mostly, with a story about how clumsy she is. I had to walk outside. My husband had to calm me down as I cried and yelled about it all, before people heard me. In the end, this was her choice. She spent the following 10 years — so far — feeding the worst, saddest parts of herself. She's become completely self-involved (I guess she needs to because no one else in her life is taking care of her). We haven't actually spoken in about three years, though she emails with my husband (again, about herself only). She still calls me her BFF on Facebook and refers to my daughter as her niece, though my daughter doesn't know her at all. Thank God they never had children. I know they haven't had sex in at least four years. It was a wedding, but it felt like watching someone commit suicide.
I was at a dry wedding where the main theme was "books." You were assigned to read a book prior to the wedding and were sat with people who read that same book to create conversation. Interesting idea, but a majority of people aren't going to do it. People were also purposely not put with people they knew, in attempt to make people socialize with others. Basically all we did is make a few sentences about how we didn't read the book, and left after a being served an inedible dinner and headed to a bar.
My fiancée’s brother got married earlier this year. The married couple in question have a tendency for executing 85 percent of the plan and leaving the rest to other people to figure out. I was one of the groomsmen and between his mother and myself, we became the last 15 percent. He wanted every groomsmen to drive from where we were staying to the venue (a barn) separately because “We all have cool cars and it will look cool for us to arrive in a convoy.” I responded with questioning if the venue allowed cars to stay overnight (I knew the guest count and the amount of alcohol he brought so I knew it was going to be one of those weddings). He said “probably.” Normal wedding stuff. Nice event. Bartenders have the heaviest of pours. People are starting to get really drunk. Towards the end the bartender starts handing entire bottles to attendees to get rid of it. Groom was double fisting wine bottles at one point. 10 p.m. The venue owners asks me and my soon to be mother-in-law, why we haven’t started cleaning up yet and when she was going to get her final check. Come to find out not only had the couple not paid the final payment, they declined the cleanup fee saying “the groom's mother will handle that” and never told anyone else about it. The mom obviously loses her mind and sends me to go find the groom because explanations are needed. I find him face down in a field surrounded by a pool of his own vomit with the other groomsmen trying to pick him up (he’s a big boy at 6’5” 260lbs). I get him up and carry him back to the barn where his buddies nurse him back to life. I come back to report to his mom who is furiously cleaning up. Needless to say my report did not help her fury. Come to find out they absolutely refused to allow cars to stay overnight at the venue so after we finished cleaning, brought the groom back to life, had his mom write a check, we then spent the next two hours getting drunk folks and cars to the various hotels they were staying at. TL:DR If you’re going to get trashed at your wedding. Make sure you get all 100 percent of the plan in place. Not 85 percent.
Ugh. I had friends get married in a "forest." It was a stretch of meager woods between two cornfields. Mosquitoes galore. We had to sit on logs that were covered in damp moss, the mud was ankle deep in places, and the ceremony was inaudible due to a tractor plowing the field. They served food out a "charming old cottage" that was actually a rotting former chicken coop that the groom literally dragged in from elsewhere. The entire event was a nightmare.
A sibling's wedding. It was a shotgun wedding, with the bride looking like a 7-months pregnant satin sausage, the groom drunk off his ass (despite not being legally old enough to drink), the ceremony being performed by the local "indian" amongst the motorcycle gang the bride's dad belonged to, while the groom's mother and step-mother (who previously had restraining orders against one other) took a time out from their on-going feud to share shots out of the same flask, at a VFW hall off a major highway. Did I mention there were turkey vultures circling the building as we arrived?!
Probably my cousin's wedding. It was nice, there was nothing wrong with the wedding itself. But a lot of people were/are very confused by their relationship. It doesn't seem like they are in love, they could be two strangers on the bus, that's how much chemistry they have. It just didn't seem like they were right for each other and just got married because they felt like it was the next step. I talked to my sister about it the other day and turns out that a few months after they got married my cousin asked our aunt (her mother) how she could get an annulment... but then a week later she found out she was pregnant... They're still together today — she's due this winter. No one knows she talked to her mom about it except me, my mom and my sister. I don't even think her husband knows.
My brother's wedding. My family is Mormon and he got married inside the Mormon temple. You can only watch the ceremony if you are a Mormon with a Mormon bishops approval. I didn't have approval and neither did my parents. So my brother's wedding consisted of me watching kids on the lawn of a Mormon temple in the summer heat while my parents openly wept.
Went to a low-cost wedding. It wasn't the low budget that made it bad, but several things stemming from that.They never specified that it was a casual wedding to anyone other than close friends and family. The invitations were pretty fancy looking so I went out and bought a simple yellow sundress because I didn't have anything nice to wear at the time. I showed up overdressed. Most people were in t-shirts and dirty jeans. The other one-third were more dressed up than the entire wedding party.It was at a public park, it was crowded and there were dogs s------- everywhere and one couple in a very loud argument that you could hear across the park.The reception was held in this tiny community room you could rent. It stunk like cigarettes. Most of the guests left the ceremony and went directly to the reception, because that's what the invitation said to do. After an hour passed without the bride or groom showing up, some caterers wheeled in some food and left. No one wanted to start eating before the bride and groom showed up, so the food just sat there getting cold. Another hour went by without the couple showing up, and eventually people got hungry enough to just say s--- it and serve themselves. I'm just being honest when I say the food was absolutely disgusting. Vienna sausages in a now cold, sweet sauce, wilted veggie platter, cold canned chili. There also wasn't nearly enough food for all the guests they invited so by the time the people in the back of the line got up there, nothing was left. Two more hours passed before the bride and groom finally showed up. So that's four hours we were all sitting in this tiny, stinky room, with no music, no dancing, no nothing. FOUR HOURS. Once they got there the bride and groom just went over to their table and sat there. It became apparent that nothing was actually planned for the reception other than those three cold trays of food for 50+ people. At that point me and the group of people I came with decided to say congrats and leave. I don't even know why we stayed for so long.And yes they are still happily married 10+ years later. It was just a very poorly planned budget wedding.
My friend's wedding. Here are some of the highlights: - him telling us the day before that he was either going to marry her or break up with her the next day - him getting drunk on the morning of the wedding and stinking of cheap rum - his family falling out on the day of the wedding and half of them deciding not to attend - his best man's speech turning in to a fundamentalist Christian lecture about the holy spirit - him desperately searching for a honeymoon on the hotel computer because he had forgotten to book anything. They’re divorced now.
It was actually a really nice wedding, but it was an outdoor venue and it was unseasonably cold and it was raining. The venue where the wedding was held was outdoors, but it was like...a huge covered patio (like, even enough for the 120-150 guests to have seats under the roof). Anyway, instead of the seasonal average of like 65-70, we had 45 with wind and rain. Even if my tux with the jacket and all, it was chilly. The bridesmaids were shivering. The rain was blowing in because the patio was covered, but there weren't walls or anything... I love the idea of outdoor weddings, but I don't think I'd do it. I've been to four and only once has had the weather be cooperative.
Oh man this one is easy. It was on a beach on a day where the wind decided it wanted to make a point that it was boss. Wind coming off the ocean tends to cut through clothing really easily and this was an outside wedding at night. Ceremony starts, the microphone they are using is [straight] static and no one can hear a thing the groom says and it's just loud ear-piercing static. Once they finish and they are about to walk down the aisle to take pictures, the groom's brother runs up there and grabs the mic and says, "wait everyone I have something to say." Gives a 30-minute sermon about god's will (neither of these people getting married are religious). They go and take pictures, it takes two and a half hours. It starts to become night time and everyone is in dress clothes waiting for the pictures to finish up. Still no food and everyone is starving and freezing to death. Then finally it was food time. Apparently the catering company drove all the food pre-made from hours away. It consisted of white rice, salad, mashed potatoes and the driest unsalted chicken you would get from El Pollo Loco. At least we would get cake. I was wrong. They brought out little cheese cake bites that were cut in to little squares. I ate one and knew the gig was up. It was the tell tale sign of Sara Lee cheesecake. These caterers seriously charged these people to cater their wedding and went and got $8 cheesecakes from the store and tried to pass it off. It was kind of crazy and I left I was too cold to be out there during that.
A coastal wedding. In England. In January. The weather here is unpredictable at the best of times and the bride and groom decided to have their wedding at a castle right by the sea — of course, it being January, the weather was atrocious, high winds coming directly off the sea and pissing rain ALL DAY. It was freezing and the reception was in a marquee... there were very few heaters. I remember I specifically bought a new outfit for this wedding and was able to wear it again to the next one because I didn’t take off my coat the entire time. It was hideous. Edit: The wedding was hideous, not my outfit.
The bride and groom totally skimped on the food. It was a long day from church (1 p.m.) to dancing (9 p.m.) and we were starving and miles away from the nearest town. After a long mass, we were able to get half a scone with jam and cream, then wait for dinner at 5 p.m. The plated three-course meal had no options and the portions were tiny and the food was not filling. My "fruit salad and ice cream" desert looked like carrot shavings. There wasn't any evening snacks for the people who stayed to dance, and they didn't even cut the cake. We were starving and that's just not a feeling you can ignore at an event no matter how pretty the Pinterest.
It's a toss up between the one where the bridal and groom party took a 5 1/2 hour detour between the ceremony and the reception for photos (a reception where no food was to be served prior to their arrival with only a cash bar that also wouldn't serve until their arrival) and a totally dry wedding where the groom put a large cash gift from one of the bride's family members under his plate only to forget until after the reception was cleaned up (cue myself and several groomsmen inside a dumpster emptying and searching every bag in vain hopes of finding the lost money while the bride literally wept and wailed in the groom's arms.)
My brother's wedding. My parents and I have helped him through a lot of trouble in his life — prison, addiction, etc. He’s clean and clear now but I don’t think he’s ever understood what those years did to our family. And in typical white people fashion we never talk about it. His wife was wedding CRAZY so it was all about her, which is fine except. Her family had all the front tables, we were stuck down the back behind his ‘rehab family’ — they had three hours of speeches where no one thanked or acknowledged my mum or dad. Who had given them $20k for the wedding. We were then the last table to get to go to the buffet by which time nothing was left. Oh and of course there was no alcohol. My husband and I went through McDonalds on the way home. It just showed me that people never change, he’s still an idiot. Now he’s just an idiot with a wife.
Went to a couple's wedding who were both on their second wedding. The dude was rich so everything was pretty nice. Except they decided a DJ wasn't needed. She made a playlist from Youtube and had that playing.The levels on all the songs were different, we had to wait for s----- wifi to play load the songs, and someone had to keep changing the playlist when it finished. But that wasn't the worst part. More than half the songs were Pitbull. He was on every playlist, sometimes in a row, and songs were repeated.I should add in that they definitely had the money for it, as they had a guy playing guitar the whole time. No singing. Just acoustic guitar while pictures were being taken.
Parents of the bride were divorced and it was clearly not amicable. The bride didn’t seem to have much backbone so instead of telling them to put aside their s---, they ran amok. She walked down the aisle with her natural dad but then her in-law dad stood with her at the altar. She had to do two separate father-daughter dances to two complete songs. The bio dad was hooked up with a loud trashy girl a good 15-20 years younger than her bio mom so she decided to wear a low cut dress that looked more for nightclubbing while the ex-wife stared daggers at her all night. It was most awkward four hours of my life.
I’ve never been to a bad wedding, but I’ve been to weddings with bad moments. One of the worst was a catholic wedding where the priest was cracking sexist jokes, covering horrible stereotypes. He talked for almost 30 minutes, and it was like a terrible stand-up show. He said things like: -"As we all know, men and women are different. Women love shopping, and men love working with their hands. So men, when you wife goes shopping and buys you new stuff, just know that’s what women are like. I mean, women, am I right??" -"Men, when you come home from work and the kids want to play, and your wife wants a break, remember she’s been home with them all day and need a break too." -"Men and women’s brains are different. While men’s brains are organized and logical, women’s brains are like a bowl of spaghetti. So when you’re having communication problems, just remember you love spaghetti and it makes sense to her!" My husband and I were trying really hard not to laugh. Other than that, it was a lovely and super fun wedding!
Mine's not too exciting but more about being stressed out just from hearing the behind the scenes stories from the bridesmaid. Basically this girl kept changing things. She was going to have her bridesmaids wear silver shoes, but then decided that she was a country girl (despite living in the suburbs all her life) and had them all buy cowboy boots. She had a diy wedding but didn't want to actually do any of the diy so her bridesmaids ended up doing most of it because she was afraid of making it look bad if she were to do any herself. (And apparently the bridesmaids were to clean up the hall the day after) Her wedding had this country aesthetic, and as I said, despite not being from the country. I mean it's fine to have that aesthetic but I think she really believes that she's from the country. She also had her wedding at the end of June, outdoors in 90 degree weather. Everyone's make up kept melting and my friend had to keep fixing everyone's. She was also very bad at planning. The day of her cake testing, her bridesmaids were to meet her at the cake shop. Thirty minutes before she calls and tells them that she's still 90 minutes away and for them to start the cake testing without her. She kept forgetting to plan other things and her bridesmaids did it all for her. She really should have paid them as wedding planners. The wedding looked nice but knowing what went into it, I was stressed out being there.
My brother's wasn't bad, but it was kind of annoying. It was held in a place where no microphones were allowed (due to the presence of tropical birds who would be upset by them) and the registrar who was doing the service had no concept of vocal projection, so we were just sitting there desperately trying to make out what she was saying so we could follow. I look grumpy in every photo due to straining myself to hear, and I was in the second row! We were essentially just watching a woman's lips flapping while my sister-in-law was wearing a nice dress.
You want to kill a wedding? Put speeches an hour after dinner and have that happen for three hours. I think speeches started around 8 pm, by the time the video tributes and the people talking about how great everyone is ended, it was 11 o clock and everyone was just done. Not a lot of time to dance and socialize left over when the venue was closing at midnight. I was feeling sick so I should have left sooner.