Some people are just meant to be together. Others? Not so much. From awkward moments at the altar to excruciating receptions, these wedding disasters had everyone involved saying "I Don't." As it turns out, if the wedding goes this badly, maybe it's time to rethink the whole "marriage" thing. But hey, at least there's always divorce.
1. Lap Dog
I once worked at a wedding reception and watched as the bride got intoxicated and sat on some other dude's lap for two full hours, flirting with him while the groom sat there by himself at the head table with a defeated look on his face. I could not have felt worse for this guy. I have no idea what happened to this couple, but I can’t imagine they lasted too long.
2. Party Pooper
I was at a wedding when..."If anyone here has any objection, speak now or forever hold your peace—" Woman in the back stands up and says, "The groom can't get married, as he is my husband." Turns out, the woman who objected and the groom were in fact married and tried to get divorced, but the divorce was never completed. The wedding did not proceed.
3. Blast That Past
The ex-girlfriend of the groom showed up at the wedding...uninvited and not sober. He broke up with her 10 years earlier and had not seen her in over eight years. She was loud and saying very graphic things about what she wanted to do to the groom. The bride, who's normally a calm and peaceful person, steps up, goes all out, and punches the ex in the face. This tiny woman knocked her husband's ex out cold.
A few of us carried the ex out of the reception and dropped her at her apartment about 20 minuted away. The bride told my wife that "there is nothing that will ruin my wedding day."
4. You’ve Got a Friend in Me
I knew a couple who invited all of their Facebook friends to their wedding. They were expecting about 700 people to show up, and they prepared the banquet hall accordingly. When they arrived, their jaws dropped. The room was basically empty. I guess they learned the hard way that not all of their Facebook “friends” were actually their friends in real life. Awkward!
5. Wish I Were You, Kiddo
Easily the worst was when the father of the groom, apparently entirely sober, gave a ten-minute toast that devolved into openly complaining that his son got to have sex with the bride and he didn't. And this wasn't a mistimed joke about how pretty she was, this was a full-on lament about growing old and how women didn't find him attractive anymore and that all he wanted was to take his daughter-in-law to bed.
6. Too Close for Comfort
My buddy had a wedding about 15 years ago. We thought he had found the perfect woman, she was so nice all the time, hot as a bonfire, and from what we understood from manly banter as well as her own jokes at the poker table, amazing in bed. Wedding time comes round, "Does anyone have a lawful objection?" From there, everything unraveled.
His dad objects because he hadn’t found a way to tell everyone that he cheated on my buddy’s mom decades ago. But get this: the "other woman" was the bride's mother. And guess what? The bride was my buddy's half-sister. Apparently, only the parents knew the truth. A DNA test later confirmed it. Now my friend is in therapy because "the best love and lay of my life was my sister!"
7. Dip and Strip
One of the groomsmen was dancing with the maid of honor and they did a dip maneuver. The problem with this being that the maid of honor's dress was strapless, and her breasts had recently swelled up—she was pregnant—so that maneuver made them pop right out of the top of her dress in front of the whole dance floor. A memorable evening all around.
8. A Scheduling Conflict
I once witnessed a bride show up almost two hours late to her own wedding. Maybe it could happen to anyone, but as it turned out this was a huge red flag. When she finally showed up, it got more tense. She's not in a wedding dress, she's in yoga gear. The groom got very angry and shut the whole thing down when she refused to change. But the plot thickens...
I spoke with my uncle and it turns out that the groom had been having some suspicions that his fiancé was sleeping with her personal trainer. When she showed up to the wedding in her yoga outfit, it was all he needed to see to call off the wedding. She ended up getting married to her personal trainer shortly after, and then they got divorced soon after, too.
9. Sister Act
At a wedding I once attended, the groom gave a speech thanking everyone for coming. Somehow, the speech devolved in the space of about two minutes into a straight-up roast of his new brother-in-law. It got very creepy very fast. There's only so much implication of “I'm for sure going to be sleeping with your sister tonight” that you can take before it becomes really cringey.
10. I’m Sure God Approves
Two of my fiancé's friends were getting married. The groom had been struggling for a few years about what he wanted to commit to in his life. He was deciding whether to get married and have a family or join a priory and eventually become a priest. Well, he made his decision the morning of the wedding...and just didn't show up.
11. Tears of Joy?
The most awkward wedding that I’ve ever attended was one where a friend got married to the boy her parents had made her break up with several years before due to family differences. Her mother in law full-on sobbed throughout the entire ceremony, and didn't even bother to hide the fact. We all just had to sit there and awkwardly watch it all unfold.
12. Grooming Him for Success
My buddy was engaged to be married, and everything was going great up until about two months before the wedding. The bride freaked out about something very minor during a family vacation and stopped speaking to him. They would text once a day so the other knew they were okay, they would say "I love you," and she would assure him she still wanted to get married.
One month before the wedding, she called it off. They still hadn't talked except for the texts. So he called all his people and told them the wedding was off. Only, he forgot about one of his friends who had been on his fiancee's list, as he was a mutual friend. So the mutual friend still went to the wedding—and witnessed a jaw-dropping sight.
He found...a wedding. The woman had been seeing someone on the side, and still went through with the wedding but to a different guy, all on my friend’s dime. He had left her in charge of cancelling everything.
13. Whoops!
I work wedding bars and I've seen some disaster marriages, but I'll never forget this one: I saw a wedding where the bride was running extremely late. You could cut the tension with a knife. In the end, she texted the groom 15 minutes before they were supposed to get married, saying "Sorry but I'm not coming." It was super depressing. The guests went ahead with the 'party' but the groom was broken-hearted and ended up leaving at around half 7, the rest of the guests at 10.
What had happened was the bride had spent all day with her parents the day before. They apparently hated her husband to be and had convinced her not to show up to the wedding. Last thing I heard was she came to his door the next morning and apologized, they're still together as far as I know...Man was that an awkward work night.
14. Hard Pass
Got invited to a wedding of an ex-girlfriend. There was one of those cheesy dollar dance things where bride and groom shake down the crowd for more money. Fine, I suck it up and dance with the ex for a fiver. Then she whispers something that made my blood run cold. "This should have been you." Freak-out time. I left very quickly after that. Needless to say, they didn't last.
15. Welcome to the Gong Show
My friend, we will call her Klarah, invited me as her plus-one because her girlfriend couldn't make it and she didn't want people to try to hit on her. Since I was free, I volunteered to go. The moment we show up, everything seemed normal, so Klarah breaks away to go talk to the groom. Meanwhile, I wandered around and found a tense older man in the back.
I thought maybe he was nervous, so I decided to chat it up with him. After getting to know him a bit, he apologized to me for "Going so far out of my way for a wedding that'll get canceled." Outside I was like "Oh no, whatever do you mean?" but on the inside, I was screaming for joy and going "Talk about a plot twist!" It ended up being the juiciest story I've ever heard.
Turns out, the old man was the groom’s dad, and he had proof that the bride-to-be was only using his son as a meal ticket, and she planned on leaving him after he paid off all her college debt and bought a house so she could try and take it in the divorce. He got all this from one of the bridesmaids who secretly had a crush on the groom and didn't want to see his life get ruined.
I'm talking, this guy had screenshots of admitting what she was planning to do, recordings, pictures of the bride cheating on the groom, the whole package. Of course, I asked the dad why he hadn't put a stop to the wedding sooner. Turns out, he only found out a few minutes before I showed up, and he was downing a few drinks to make it easier to deliver the news.
He asked me not to tell anyone, which I obliged, so after buying him a round, I went off to find Klarah and quietly waited for everything to hit the fan. I see the dad skulk off towards where the groom was, and an hour or so later the proceedings begin to start. The groom is standing silently on the altar, and you could tell that he was tense and trying to not show how livid he really was.
Not long after, the music starts to float through the air and the bride was grinning widely as she proudly made her way down the aisle. You could really tell the groom was trying his best not to explode, especially during the vows. Then when it was his turn to say "I Do," he quickly capped it off with a loud "NOT!" and just exploded on her.
Like, you could see his veins popping out of his forehead and he was shaking with rage. Everybody was confused, the bride’s family started screaming at the groom’s family, it was a gong show. The groom announced to everyone that he's calling off the wedding because, and I quote, "Because she's an unfaithful you-know-what who's not even fit enough to work at Hooters."
The bride stormed off, fights broke out, and I was sitting in the back giggling in the background watching this all unfold while Klarah was cringing from embarrassment because the whole time she was talking about how rock-solid the relationship was. Last I heard, the bridesmaid and groom ended up getting together a few months after the wedding.
16. Nothing’s More Important Than Me
I had a bride walk into the bridal salon where I worked to pick up her wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses, etc. She was in a bad mood and proceeded to tell me and my co-workers why. "I am SO ticked off one of my bridesmaids won't be able to attend my wedding." All of us answered "why?!" Super concerned. Her reply was so disturbing, it's impossible to forget.
She said, "Her brother got in a car accident or something and ended up slaying someone." She then proceeded to roll her eyes and said, “I can't believe she would drop out of my wedding for that!” All of our mouths were on the floor.
17. Feels Like the First Time
I was raised in a cult. No dating was allowed, except for the purpose of finding a marriage partner. Even then, the dating process was completely monitored to ensure that no premarital touching occurred. The worst wedding that I ever attended was a small ceremony between two members of this cult. The attendees included only her family, his family, and my family in her grandma's living room.
What made this wedding so bad, though, was the truly disgusting kiss that took place at the end. When the official said to kiss the bride, the groom clearly wanted the bride inside his mouth real bad. There was tongue in and out everywhere, saliva and hot breathing, complete with first date excited groping. Nobody knew where to look for five minutes straight.
18. No Means No
My pastor once officiated a wedding. He had done all the premarital counseling for the couple, and they seemed good to go and fine. When they got to the altar, he did his opening prayer and welcome. Then he gets to the part when he says, "Do you take this woman to be your wife" and the guy looked at her, back to him, and said "No."
The pastor laughed a little and repeated the question, thinking he misunderstood, but the guy stopped him and said, "No, I don't." So the pastor took the groom aside to a back room, where the guy essentially said that he couldn't do it, that the bride and her mother had manipulated the whole wedding, and he had been too chicken to stand up to her before, but that he couldn't throw his life away.
They brought in both families and had a very real conversation, and then the pastor had to go back out and explain to the very uncomfortable congregation that there would indeed be no wedding today, that the guests could help themselves to some refreshments, but that the rest of the evening’s events were canceled. Big ouch on that one.
19. Telling It Like It Is
I was at a friend's wedding. He was forced to marry this girl whom he had impregnated because she thought that expired aspirin was an acceptable alternative to birth control. During the ceremony, his cousin objected with something along the lines of, "Come on, man! The dummy was using expired aspirin as birth control!! You wanna spend your life with someone like that??!!" There was laughter, shock, and even some mild applause from the audience. I personally laughed till I cried.
20. How Dare They Not Come
One day after her wedding, a friend I went to school with went on a rampage on Facebook about how none of her friends showed up to her big day, and the ones that did show up didn't dance or participate in anything at the reception. She blasted everyone and made her wedding party feel bad because she spent too much money on unnecessary things.
She made a second post an hour later complaining about all of the people that stopped her to take pictures and didn't let her enjoy her party. It was hilarious to watch the comments flood in from people who went and were angry, and a few of the angriest people even requested their gifts back. Because there was a darker reason that no one came.
A former classmate, someone who has a lot of mutual friends with the bride, lost his infant son earlier that week and the baby's services fell on the same day as the wedding. Most of the people she was complaining about for not coming had opted to go to the child's funeral service instead of her wedding. She lost a lot of respect and a lot of friends in two hours.
21. You Win!
Nobody had even said "speak now" yet, but the groom’s ex still decided to get up and scream out that he was her soulmate, that she forgave him for "this whole thing," and that they should just leave now because he'd proven his point—by breaking up with her five years earlier, falling in love with someone else, and holding a wedding.
22. What to Not Put up With When You’re Expecting
I knew a woman who was a bridesmaid in a relative’s wedding. She was married and had been trying to get pregnant for a while. Finally, her and her hubby got lucky and she conceived. The bridezilla got furious and kicked her out of the wedding because she would be pregnant in the pictures. Three months later, sadly, my friend miscarried. The bride called her with a response along the lines of, "Good, well now you can be back in the wedding." Needless to say, she did not even attend it.
23. Showing His True Colors
I was a guest on the bride's side. An acquaintance from a previous job was kind enough to invite me, and everything was going well. She started walking down the aisle, then stopped halfway. Then her father and mother came over. She whispered to them, then they all just turned around and walked away. The groom immediately followed.
Music kept playing, then slowly drifted away. We all just sat there in total silence. A couple of minutes later, the father of the bride came back down the aisle and apologized, but there was going to be no wedding today. Stunned, we all just got up and slowly left. There were a couple of angry family members on the groom’s side, but once they talked to the father of the bride, they immediately just left.
At the door, the mother of the bride shook my hand and thanked us for coming and told us that they would explain everything later. They seemed sort of sad. Then they revealed the whole story. That the night before the ceremony, the groom confessed to the bride that he was gay. He loved her. He still wanted to marry her, provide for her, and raise children with her. But he needed her to know. She couldn't let him live like that, and it wasn't fair to either of them.
24. Change of Heart
Amazingly, I was at a wedding where the groomobjected. He just stood up there and started crying, then announced in front of everyone that he had fallen out of love with the bride a while before but didn't know how to break it off. It was extremely uncomfortable, and they both stepped out. Ten minutes later, they came back in and got married. We only found out why much later.
Apparently, she had told him she was pregnant. After that, he just didn't have the heart to abandon her or the baby. They're still together, with three kids now. I'm not sure about the husband, but I can confirm that the wife is having an affair. Neither of them are happy, but she has a comfortable life and he doesn't have the spine to leave.
25. A Man on a Mission
I was working at a wedding when I was younger, running the bar at the reception. We were told that the reception would begin around 4pm. It was only about 3ish, and one of the male guests was already sitting there drinking. I asked if he was not joining the ceremony, to which he replied something along the lines of “I will when I have the courage.”
He downs his drink and leaves. Ten minutes later he comes back, looking extremely disappointed. He orders another drink. Less than 30 seconds later, another guy (who turned out to be the groom), walks in, punches him in the back of the head, and leaves. This dude just picked his drink up and sipped it further. I eventually found out the true sordid tale.
Turns out, this fellow had downed his drink, walked into the ceremony, publicly admitted to sleeping with the bride at her bachelorette party, and then ran back to the bar. He was never invited to the wedding, but had just shown up to inform the groom. He found out where the wedding was, suited up, and dropped the info on everyone mid-ceremony.
26. Not an Easy Mistake to Make
I was a bridesmaid in a wedding. At the reception, we couldn't locate the groom for the first dance. We fanned out to search for him. I found him… in an intimate position… with his 2nd cousin. His excuse: he had been drinking and thought it was his new wife...even though she was in a bright red dress. The marriage didn't last long.
27. Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater
I went to a co-worker’s wedding where the maid of honor objected and admitted to being the "other woman" that the groom had been cheating with for months. The bride ran out in tears. The groom immediately tried to salvage the ceremony by asking the maid of honor to become the new bride, as if this was somehow the honorable option. She refused.
28. The Big Problems Start out Small
My cousin had a rather extravagant wedding at an upscale golf course. I didn't really want to go because I knew he'd hooked up with a friend in our group when he was engaged to the bride. But family pressure and an open bar persuaded me, and I'm darn glad I went. I knew it was going to be good when the girl he cheated with was there.
Anyway, we have a few drinks at the bar and head to our seats for the ceremony. Apparently, the girl he'd messed around with had gotten pretty wasted because at the moment of truth she yells, "I object your honor, that man's parts are too small to satisfy; he is unfit for marriage!" like it was a court case. Everyone went silent for a second, and then I looked over at my buddy and we burst out laughing our butts off.
Bride was furious and slapped groom. They both cried, but after a brief break and conversation they decided to go through with it! Unsurprisingly they're getting divorced after a solid two-year marriage...
29. What’s in a Name?
I once went to a wedding where the bride and groom surprised everyone by announcing that their ceremony was also going to be a "Name Reveal." In other words, they were informing all of their closest friends and family members that, as a married couple, they were going to be changing their last name to something totally new. The reason behind this was chilling.
Turns out that, in reality, they had changed their name thinking that doing so could erase their mountains of debt, or at least hide themselves from those trying to collect on it. Seriously, they were that stupid. However, it wasn’t too long before they quickly learned that the government doesn’t tend to allow you to live under two separate identities...
30. And Another One Gone
I went to a wedding with a girl I dated in high school. Her uncle was marrying a woman that had already been married four times. Four. Times. As she walked down the aisle, instead of the traditional “Here Comes the Bride,” they played “Another One Bites the Dust.” She looked livid. I have no idea if the couple is still together, but I very seriously doubt it.
31. Cleanup in Aisle One
At one wedding I attended, the bride decided to sing as she walked down the aisle. She was not a particularly talented singer, and she was singing over a Carrie Underwood song, so we could all hear the original vocal track at the same time. She finished walking down the aisle about halfway through the song. She then stood there and sang the rest of the song at the groom, and all we could do was sit there and watch.
32. The Last Mistake You’ll Ever Make
I left my fiancee the day before our wedding. At my bachelor party, one of her friends who came along confessed that he knew my fiancée was cheating on me with some jerk for the last two months, all because she wanted one last fling. I also found out that some of my friends knew about it but did not tell me. She denied it, but eventually confessed and tried to justify.
We broke up of course, but I ended up having to sue her for all the wedding payments I had to pay for, since her family was paying for almost nothing. I also found out the jerk she was cheating with is actually one of her bosses, and he’s married. The last I heard of her, said jerk knocked her up. He got custody of their child, and she is living with her parents, no job, wasting her life away.
33. Father of the Bride
The father of the bride had been pretty absent after divorcing her mom. He had remarried and gotten involved with a controversial religious group. His new wife was not invited to the wedding, but the father came and seemed like he was there to be supportive—until he stood up during vows and proclaimed that my friend was “a pig just like her mother,” and that the groom should “get out while he can” because the bride was “a soul-leeching succubus.”
34. What Could Have Been
My brother went to high school and college with this girl that he always thought of as a friend. Her grandparents lived next door to ours. I was friends with her little sister. Our parents were friends.... anyway, she gets engaged and starts planning her wedding. We were invited, of course. A couple of days before the wedding, she comes over to our parents’ house because my brother was in town for her wedding.
She then tells him that she will leave her fiancé for him. Like, declares this in front of my family. He, of course, was all "What the actual heck?" They'd never dated. They'd never kissed. He was never interested in her. She was crying super hard and declaring her love for him and it was weird. She bawled like a baby to the point where she could barely get through her vows...we knew why.
35. For Richer or…Richest?
I once attended a really awkward wedding. The bride, who we all thought was a bit of a gold digger to begin with, laughed uncontrollably during the rehearsal when she was supposed to say the "for richer or poorer" part. She promised to get it together during the ceremony the next day. She didn't get it together. She burst out laughing again in the middle of the real ceremony, and she never did actually say it.
36. It’s All About Me, Myself, and I
When I was eleven years old, my cousin got married for the third time. I never really liked her because she was 37 when I was 11, so we didn't have a lot in common. Also, she was pretty full of herself. The wedding itself was fine. Pretty boring, but fine. Then we get to the reception. We were told we had to sit down as soon as we got there.
Some people found this instruction weird and out of the ordinary, but I had only ever been to one other wedding before this one so I personally didn’t think anything of it. Her other weddings were when I was little, and no kids had been allowed to attend. We all sat down and the bride and groom then made a huge dramatic entrance. That's when the trainwreck began.
They were strutting around the room with actual crowns on their heads. The bride then gets the microphone, hands it to her mom, and asks her to say something she loves about the bride. She then tells her mom to pass it on and says she wants everyone in the room to say one thing they absolutely love about the bride. Not the bride and groom. Not their relationship. Just about the bride herself.
It was one of the most painful things I've ever seen. Everyone was awkwardly trying to come up with things to say about her when it came to their turn. When it was my turn, I just said, "Your eyeshadow is pretty." I felt so awkward and wanted to be anywhere in the world but there. My older brother said "Pass," which made her force a fake laugh and urge him to say something.
My cousin and this new husband ended up divorcing a few months after the wedding. The reason was that she had caught him cheating on her with an eighteen-year-old girl who was still in high school at the time. She married another guy a few years later, and they are still together and living happily ever after. I guess fourth time’s the charm!
37. Is Now the Right Time?
The groom's father did a toast when the groom and bride were at the altar (not normal), and he said, "I'm glad I made it out here today. I just want you guys to know that I have cancer and I'm going to die very soon. Congrats to my son and his beautiful bride. Enjoy your time!" Everyone was in complete silence. It was the most awkward thing I've possibly ever witnessed. Also, this was in 2008 and the groom's father is still alive.
38. Almost Made It
My dad went to a society wedding in the UK. The ceremony went ahead without incident and they had gotten to the speeches. The groom stood up, said, "I'd like to thank my beautiful wife and my brilliant best man, as they've been sleeping with each other for the past six months, cheers!" He downed his drink and walked out the back to stunned silence.
Apparently, the father of the bride went round putting the corks back in the bottles, shouting, "Party’s over, everyone out!" He seemed to think he could get money back on the booze.
39. A Double-Decker of Trouble
I was at my good friend’s wedding. She's a sweet girl and she'd fallen hard for a truck driver. Their relationship was long distance forever, so she was thrilled that they were finally getting married. When the priest says, “Does anyone object to this?” a woman stands up and says, “I do.” Turns out the guy wasn’t a truck driver but a married man from Florida who had two kids.
Yep, he just said he was a driver so he could play her long-distance. Oh and obviously the objecting woman was his real wife. Awkward...
40. Encore Performance
The worst wedding moment was my own. My brother and our wedding band surprised us with a beautiful rendition of a very romantic song by a guy called Juan Luis Guerra, which just so happened to be me and the missus' favorite song ever. This induced lots of happy crying and was one of the best memories from that day. What happened next was definitely the worst.
Unfortunately, my mother-in-law doesn't like to be one-upped, so she quickly got a distant second cousin from her side of the family who we did not know to immediately sing an impromptu version of "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. He was not a good singer and used a lame YouTube karaoke track to sing along to. Yes, it was as bad as it sounds.
This led to some very awkward slow dancing, followed by fuming from her after we cut the performance short. We had to, though, because there was terrible feedback blaring over the loudspeakers from him trying to play the track into the mic from his phone's speaker. This whole scene just completely deflated the beautiful moment we had just had from my brother's singing.
41. No Laughing Matter
A friend of mine works at a wedding venue. She told me about one wedding where the best man decided to object by making some jokes about the time that he slept with the bride. He assumed that the groom already knew about it. Turns out he didn't, and he was NOT happy. The reception was abruptly canceled and all the guests were sent home.
42. A Match Made in Heaven
I was a photographer for a wedding once where the bride was marrying a man with two kids from a previous relationship. I was in the bridal suite when the bridal party was getting ready, and all of the bridesmaids were wearing matching silk robes. The flower girl, who happened to be the groom's daughter, was there too. It started out fine...until it suddenly wasn't.
They asked me to take a group photo of the bridal party, and one of the women in a silk robe was standing awkwardly off to the side. I thought she was just shy or something, so I waved her into the photo. The room instantly got dead silent. The bride was like "Oh no, we don't want her in the photos!" and glared at me like I should've known that.
Apparently, she was the groom's ex-wife and was only there to take care of the flower girl. But WHY DID YOU GIVE HER A MATCHING BRIDESMAID ROBE?? I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear.
43. With a Little Help From Her Friends
I once went to a wedding where the minister used to date the bride and gushed throughout his whole speech about how wonderful she was. He told the groom that if he ever passed he shouldn’t worry, as he would step in and take care of her. I was shell shocked while listening to this. I so wished that I could think of a reason to ask the couple for a copy of the video of their wedding, but I couldn't quite find a legit one.
44. The Silver Lining
I was left at the altar. We were together for six years at that point and engaged for four. There were no signs that it was going to happen. The whole wedding was both of us and our friends making it. We'd get together on Sundays for BBQ and planning. He was so excited. He'd talk about how awesome it was going to be to have a small ceremony then a picnic and a big bonfire.
How we didn't need any of that other stuff since our love was real. After an hour of waiting for him to show up on the day, it was obvious. He called me and said he just couldn't do it. I stood before everyone and explained that he got cold feet but we can still have the picnic! Which we did. I walked around in my wedding dress joking about his cold feet.
After all, after six years I knew him well. The weirdest thing? We never brought it up. Like ever. He was watching TV when I got back from our wedding like nothing was unusual. He moved out a week later, but two months later asked to come back. I let him. Life continued. Then everything changed. A year and a half later, I got in a bad car wreck. I was in a coma for a bit.
He came to visit, but as soon as I was up and starting the first rounds of surgery (spinal issues), he hit me with the most brutal remark. He told me he just didn't love me enough to go through with being there for me. Sad thing is, I acted the same way I did when he left me at the altar. He left me in the hospital just like at the altar. It was almost eight years I was with him at that point.
Our families were close. I honestly thought we'd come together again. Never did. I healed and grew emotionally. It's so hard when half of you is missing and we had grown so much into one another. I took classes. Learned to kayak. Cried. Got new friends. Went dancing. Dated. I found my husband two years after the other abandoned me. I learned that having history with someone and feeling familiar and safe isn't always enough.
45. Over His Dead Body…Literally
One of the most blatant bad omens I’ve ever witnessed occurred at a wedding I attended. Just as the processional music started and the bride was about to enter, the groom's great-uncle keeled over in the front pew and expired! After 45 minutes of futile CPR, they decided to continue with the wedding—complete with a priest who included the late great uncle in every prayer ("Lord, bless Jane and Jim...and Stanley...."). It was a bit of a downer, to say the least. The marriage didn't last long.
46. My Best Friend’s Wedding
My best friend left my sister at the altar, and I was the best man. He met my sister through me, and they went out with each other for two years. They were engaged for a year before the big day. We're in the church, at the front, waiting for the bride with about 15 minutes to go. He says he needs the toilet, and walks to the back of the church.
A minute or so later, it hits me that the toilets aren't at the back of the church. I start to worry, so I go looking for him. He's not in the toilets, not around the church, nowhere to be found. My best friend had legged it. We didn't see or hear from him for three days. His own family didn’t get a hold of him for two days, and by then he was in Europe somewhere "staying with a friend." He’s been there ever since, for three years. He's never made any effort to explain, even to my sister.
47. What a Nut Case!
I was at one wedding where the menu for the reception was advertised as nut-free, coconut-free, and lactose-free in order to accommodate a whole host of allergies among the many guests and children in attendance. Despite all that, the chef for the buffet arbitrarily decided "Contracts can’t tell me what to do!" He took the liberty of putting nuts in EVERYTHING.
There were almonds in the salads, pecans in the desserts, walnuts in the chicken. Nuts everywhere! It got really awkward really fast when the bride found out. See, the bride and all of her sisters have severe, life-threatening nut allergies. As a result of this, she ended up having to eat a take out meal from Burger King at her own wedding.
Meanwhile, her sister, who was eight months pregnant at the time, shot up her epipen and snuck out to rush to the ER with anaphylaxis. The cringey, awkward thing was watching the groom try to soothe and cheer the bride up after all this. It was all kinds of awkward. She was seething with just pure unadulterated rage and the guests could only look on helplessly.
48. Country Boy
My cousin's wedding featured the groom driving a small tractor around the outdoor venue while the bride rode on the back, to the tune of Kenny Chesney’s “She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy” on repeat for about 30 minutes after their vows. The guests just hung out and waited, thinking it would be a quick stunt and then we could enjoy some refreshments and food.
Nope, they continued the stunt for like half an hour to make sure that they got good pictures and video of it from every possible angle. Then, they spent even more time posing for pictures sitting stationary on the tractor. It was blazing hot out with no canopy or cover and I was very pregnant, so I was especially miserable. He's not even a farmer! They live in an apartment...
49. Blame It on the Juice
Here’s the most Scottish story you’ll ever hear. My mom thought she had been left at the altar by not only my dad, but the minister as well. She hated being the center of attention and didn't look up from the ground until she was almost down the aisle. When she did, there was nobody waiting for her at all. It was totally empty.
Just then, the door behind the altar flew open and my dad ran out with his kilt flapping around him, followed by the minister. Apparently, they had been drinking whiskey in the minister’s office and hadn't realized the ceremony had started.
50. A Tragic Ending to a Wonderful Weekend
During a three-day wedding, the first night had a raging party. Everyone had just really good clean fun. Nobody was heinously dramatic, the food was awesome, the servers were hilarious, and the music was the perfect volume and style. Truly a once in a lifetime kind of party and everyone had an absolute blast. Only, we didn't know what was coming.
Next day was the wedding. The bride and groom are coming separately to the church, but the groom is late. He's stuck in traffic because of an accident, but he'll be there. He's all ready and tux-ed up so it's literally just up to him to slide into the church and get to the altar. He was nervous standing there because he’d been so late—45 minutes—because of the accident but whatever, he's there now.
Bride is stunning and doesn't care that things are delayed as nothing can ruin this day. They say their I dos and start to walk back down the aisle. Groom slams to the floor, dead before he hits it. Massive aneurysm took him out. But that's not the worst part. The traffic he hit on the way there was a result of the bride's grandparents in a car accident, and they too had passed.
51. Together Again
I once attended a wedding in the United States. This was both the bride and groom's fourth marriages. To each other. Yes, they got married to each other four times and divorced each other three of those times. They picked a dirty motorcycle bar for the venue of their fourth wedding. They were openly giving young children adult drinks, then laughing at them for being intoxicated.
Things were weird enough to begin with. They soon reached a whole new level of insanity. I asked my friend if I could leave after the bride pulled a knife out of her dress and tried to stab the groom with it for having slept with another woman while they were divorced. I'm not sure if this is common in New Jersey. Other weddings I attended were not like that…
52. Last-Minute Decisions
I once attended a wedding where the groom abruptly changed who his "Best Man" was, and didn't tell the original Best Man until the start of the ceremony. When the reception began, the bride and groom then realized that they hadn’t hired a bartender, so they asked a guest to bartend. The groom then "dirty danced" with his step-mom. Yes, his hands were fully on her butt.
53. The Groom Got Busy
A family friend's daughter got pregnant accidentally, so the "happy" couple decided to get married. On the big day, the guests had congregated outside of the venue waiting for the wedding ceremony when all of a sudden, another woman barged in demanding to speak to the groom. When she started talking, our jaws hit the floor: She proclaimed that the groom had also gotten her pregnant!
Wide-eyed, we watched the drama move to behind closed doors while we all waited outside. After a whole lot of commotion, the wedding proceeded. It turned out that the other woman was right though, and the two babies were due within two weeks of each other. We quickly left the reception. Took some cake. It was good. The happy couple didn’t stay married long.
54. Think of the Children
So this wedding took place in an Episcopal church. The priest had all his finery on and the church itself was decorated very nicely for the occasion. The bride and groom had made a point of asking everyone to wear casual clothes. We all took that to mean "semi-formal." Nope. They and their kids all came out wearing overalls and white t-shirts.
He then launched into an impromptu twenty-minute speech explaining about how he and the bride had gotten together. There were plenty of parts in the story where the groom was like "I wasn't sure she was right for me," but his son was pressing him because "he wanted a mom." It was a sad story actually, as his biological mom passed when the kid was only four and this was eight years later.
So, his speech was basically this long and unfocused story that boiled down to "I'm marrying this woman so that my kid can have a mom." That, and some more confusing Bible references mixed in here and there for good measure. Not a good sign when that's your main reason for getting married to someone. Nevertheless, I knew it, probably half the attendees knew it, and the priest definitely knew it.
55. Chivalry Is Gone
At my wedding, I asked my husband to hold my bouquet whilst I gathered up my skirts to get into the car. He refused, with the excuse that he “wasn’t gay.” So, I awkwardly got into the car while holding both my skirt and the bouquet. Ten minutes later, my mum asked him, “Doesn’t she look beautiful?” He looked at me, shrugged, and said I looked “ok.”
Both of those moments may as well have been red flags accompanied by sirens, and I felt my heart sinking with foreboding. It was 30 years ago, and I can still easily recall the feeling. Unfortunately, I was right and I left only 11 months later.
56. Why Not Keep What You’re Missing?
I was reunited with a family member just before her wedding. We went out drinking, and she proudly pointed out a guy at the bar that she'd just gone on a trip with and had a weeklong prenup romp. She seemed to think I'd think that was naughty and funny. The day of the wedding, I went to see her in the bridal suite. She had the guy there with her. She'd screwed him the night before the wedding. They lasted a few years, but it was a miserable few.
57. With Mothers Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
At my (half) sister’s wedding, when they got to the objection part, her mother leaned across to another family member and whispered, "Yeah, he isn’t good enough for her." The officiant stopped the wedding and asked her to speak up, saying it's a legal part of the wedding and if she has an objection then please state it loud enough for everyone to hear.
My sister’s mum laughed it off and sat down red-faced...while I glared evils into the back of this woman's head. My sister is awesome, and the guy she’s with makes her super happy. At the reception, things got so much worse. In his speech, he thanked the mom for accepting him into the family and said how happy he was to have another mom.
58. Anything Goes in the Mountains
Holy moly. My cousin "Jan's" wedding was basically just a preamble to an elaborate Dance of Divorce that we all knew was coming from the moment the engagement began. For context, this took place 15 years ago in the backwoods of North Carolina. My family is just a generation or two removed from snake-handling in church, so some of the wackiness is the product of upwardly mobile inbreeding, and redneck gumption.
Just a few things that come to mind: Her fiancé proposed to her OVER THE CORPSE OF HER FATHER. He was over with the family watching TV when Jan's dad collapsed on the floor. He passed before emergency services arrived. Her boyfriend grabbed her hands as she was sitting next to her father's body, pulled her up to her feet, and then asked her to marry him.
He later said that he "didn't want her to get away.” The fiancé then disappeared for a month the week after the funeral. Nobody knew where to reach him. The bride's white trash mother told Jan that she had to get married within four months because she (the mother, my aunt) planned to move to another state with her new boyfriend to avoid bill collectors.
When Jan's fiancé showed back up, he was cagey and weird. Eventually, it came out that he'd been living with his ex-girlfriend because she insisted that he had to give her a month of his life, or she'd take him to court for child support that he was supposed to be paying on their infant son, but had never paid. Throughout all of this, Jan continued to insist that she wanted to marry him.
My mother and I did most of the wedding prep and arrangements. Jan's mom, despite insisting on the 4-month timeline to help pay for the wedding before her move, never contributed a dime. We were both pretty convinced that the wedding was going to be canceled at any moment. But, the day arrived, and so did the principle players.
At the wedding itself: The groom walked around drinking PBR out of a massive travel thermos with a novelty straw and told everyone who would listen that Jan was a good "starter wife.” Jan threw several tantrums about stupid stuff, including one in which she accused the groom of taking her drink. He told her she was a "dumb slag,” but it all worked out because then she found her drink.
The groom pulled the ring off of Jan's finger during the reception and swallowed it "as a joke.” The groom picked a fight with his father because his dad had asked the ex-girlfriend to stay at home, and the groom had really wanted her to be there. Jan was in the dark about this invitation until the fight happened. Shocking precisely nobody, except possibly Jan herself, they eventually did divorce.
Eating the ring caused the groom some discomfort, so they had to cancel their honeymoon to the mountains so that he could go to the ER and get hospital-grade laxatives. They lost money on the cancellation and the ER visit, which they really didn't have to lose. That resulted in some immediate debt problems, and they lost the trailer they'd planned to rent when they couldn't come up with the deposit.
That resulted in both of them moving into the groom's parents' home, into his old bedroom. Things went downhill from there. The groom's ex-girlfriend popped back up less than three months after the wedding, heavily pregnant with his second child. She went after him for another "shared month," but Jan wasn't cool with it. The ex ended up taking him to court for child support.
Jan got a second job to make ends meet while resigning herself to living with her in laws for a while longer. One day, after he'd dropped her off at work, the groom sold Jan's car. He then disappeared for several more weeks. She lost both jobs, and shortly thereafter realized she was pregnant. The groom accused her of cheating because he thought he couldn't have more than two children in a lifetime, and his ex-girlfriend had already filled the quota.
As I understand it, this is what ultimately caused the rift in their relationship.
59. It Never Hurts to Bring a Back-Up
My sister addressed my invite to me and a male friend I had known for about 10 years. A male friend whom she had always had a huge crush on. Even better was that I had been dating my boyfriend for 2 years at this point, and my male friend was engaged. When I asked my sister why she put my friend as my plus-one and not my boyfriend, she said that she didn't want some random guy in her wedding pictures. I went to her wedding solo.
60. Hog Heaven
My cousin had her enormous wedding on a farm with a huge pig roast. Her father and my other older cousin never really got along. At one point during the reception, my older cousin had enough and absolutely lost it. He looked at a handful of us and asked if we had his back. Of course, we all nodded not really knowing what was about to happen.
He disappeared and a few minutes later comes back with a 20lb bag of pork meat from the leftover roast. He walks down to where my cousin’s dad is (my aunt proceeds to yell, Lonnie NO!!!) and smacks him right in the side of the face with the bag of meat. An all-out family brawl ensued. The whole family hasn't been invited to a wedding ever since.
61. A Lot of Energy in This One
My brother managed a gas station about ten years ago and had hired the soon-to-be bride as an employee. A little while into her employment, she requested a few days off for her wedding. The date was still a couple months out, so it was no big deal. About a week before her requested time off, she came into work and had the following exchange with my brother:
Bride: "Wanna see my new tattoo?" Bro: "Uh, sure." She lifts the back of her shirt to reveal a huge, green, Monster Energy "M" covering the whole upper half of her back. Bro: "Holy moly! Wow!" Bride: "Awesome, huh? And my fiance got the same tat!" Bro: "Really?..." Bride: "I know, I know what you're thinking. Copyright, right?"
"But what are they gonna do? It's already on my body! It's ALREADY ON MY BODY! Ha ha!" Bro: "Right. That. That is what I was thinking." Then, at the ceremony, the pair awkwardly gave the same demonstration to all their guests. There are even pictures of it. I'm working on getting a hold of those. It was a camouflage themed wedding.
She had an open-back camo gown with camo heels. She even had a camo veil. I really wish it had been ghillie suit headgear. The groom had camo pants with camo boots and a camo bowtie. He was, indeed, shirtless. He did wear a camo ball cap, though. I imagine them walking down the aisle, backs glistening in the sun with vaseline over a huge Monster logo.
Just the perfect day that every kid dreams about someday having. They were happily married for seven months.
62. I Can't Hold It in Anymore
I witnessed this a few months ago. Random guest stood up and proceeded to basically declare his love for the bride and pour his heart out saying that it should’ve been him up on the alter that day. The whole room went dead silent. The bride went red with embarrassment and the groom went red with anger. The best part? All this was in front of the random person’s wife. It didn’t go down too well.
63. Leaving So Soon?
When I was in college studying photography, I got friendly with a fellow student who had a wedding photography business but was still studying to get his qualifications. After seeing my work, he asks me if I want to assist him at his next wedding. I agree to do so. The big day finally comes and I'm all prepared to go in and see the groom, the best man, the ushers, and a bunch of other participants. That's not what happened at all.
To my surprise, the groom refused to be in any pictures, stating that he was feeling under the weather. I kinda thought he should just suck it up. It was his wedding day, after all. Nevertheless, he was insistent, so no pre-event photos were taken of him. A little while later, the ceremony comes and goes. It’s now time for the bridal party photos at the church.
Once again, the groom refuses to be in any photos, much to everyone's annoyance. We all get to the reception, the speeches begin, and, midway through the father of the bride’s speech, the groom just straight up leaves. He once again repeats the fact that he was feeling a bit ill. This is where the bride drew the line—she went into a full-on rage.
She started pulling the small groom and bride figurines off the top of the cake and stomping on them. She shouted, "I knew I shouldn't have married him!" There was a lot of hullabaloo at this point, with guests trying to console her. Everyone agreed that he was being dramatic and was basically a huge jerk. We got paid in full even though at that point we were done. Then we found out the disturbing truth.
I go home, put my feet up, drink a few beers, and then answer an unexpected phone call from my friend. I was expecting him to just be calling to joke around a little bit more. Not even close. In reality, he was calling to inform me that the groom had passed shortly after leaving the reception hall, and that our photo job would now be turning into a two-for-one wedding and funeral service.
64. When Life Gives You Lemons…
A wealthy cousin's fiance disappeared the day before the wedding. No explanation, just left with a friend. His entire family and her entire family were all in town for the wedding already—so they skipped the ceremony and still had the reception. It was a huge party and the most fun (non)wedding I've ever been to. There was a screw-it attitude under the circumstances, so all the kids were allowed to drink and the band played whatever they wanted. It was a blast, and as far as I could tell, the ditched bride had a great time.
65. The Family That Lies Together Stays Together
My sister and her husband met each other during our junior year of high school, and she moved in with him halfway through our senior year. I never liked him and did not hide that fact. I especially didn't like him after he hit on me while they were dating. Didn't hide that fact either, but my sister brushed me off. Before he popped the question, she found out he'd been texting other girls.
He promised he'd change. The wedding was a train wreck. It was a small affair in our family back yard, with our aunt officiating. That same aunt started crying midway through the ceremony. My stepmother read a poem about them she wrote halfway through the ceremony—she always wants to be the center of attention and simply couldn't help herself.
The groom’s father, who had been barred from the wedding, came stumbling in at some point during the vows to search for drinks, and I saw the groom grab one of the bridesmaids’ bottoms. I didn't point that out to my deliriously happy stepsister. I regret it to this day. A year later it turned out the groom had been cheating on my sister....with our stepmom.
My sister somehow forgave both of them. She has low self-esteem. They got caught again a year after that. At that point, my dad had divorced my stepmother, so I have been distant from this whole shebang. But my sister—who I do still talk to—finally divorced that jerk. Divorce for everyone! Let's pull an Oprah.
66. Substitute Soulmate
We showed up to a wedding where the bride was not the girl everyone was expecting. Turns out the couple had called it quits like two weeks before, but the groom was so cheap he did not want to lose all the money invested in the wedding reception, so he decided to ask one of his ex-girlfriends to marry him. The girl accepted—it was very awkward because everyone at the wedding was talking about it.
67. Speaking From the Heart
I was the best man at this wedding, so I had a front-row seat for the entire thing. The couple was marrying young after the bride had fallen pregnant. It obviously wasn’t planned, but they clearly loved each other and it was the right thing for them to do in their eyes. Anyway, come the wedding day, I’m sitting next to the bride's father at the reception and I can see he’s looking at his prepared speech repeatedly.
I can see phrases like "not ideal," "would’ve preferred not to welcome you into the family under these circumstances," etc. Just before the groom gets up to give a speech, the bride’s father excuses himself to use the washroom, leaving his "speech" behind. I knew that something needed to be done before he turned the entire wedding into a nightmare.
I’m not ashamed to say that I swiped the speech and then pleaded ignorance when he returned and asked what had happened to it. In the end, he stood up and muttered a few generic words about love and then sat down without any issues. I never told the groom, and I’m happy to say that they’re still happily married twenty years later.
68. Think Pink
The Bride slapped her husband and left him at the altar because he was wearing a red tie instead of a bright pink flowery one that she wanted all the men to wear to fit in with her "pink princess wedding." She told him in a text that he had "ruined her special day." Only her nephew was actually wearing the tie, and he was one year old.
69. Willful Ignorance
The first warning sign happened before the wedding when my childhood friend introduced her new fiancé to our friend group. He failed to speak to anyone and had his eyes on his phone the whole night. Then during the wedding ceremony, our friend, who normally wears her heart on her sleeve and cries at the drop of a hat, was oddly unemotional, even through both of their personalized vows.
She kept one eye on the camera and seemed to just be posing the whole time. The couple also had the groom’s family’s Priest officiating the wedding—and I still can't believe what he said. This Priest recited a long monologue during the ceremony about how the bride’s life’s purpose now was to make her husband happy and support him by staying home and being a dutiful wife.
This definitely hit a sour note, as the bride was the bread-winner at that time, and was helping to support both him and his parents. But when I spoke to his parents during the reception, they were gushing praises about what the priest had had to say. The marriage lasted about three months.
70. Getting a Second Opinion
The groom’s dad interrupted the wedding to ask the bride’s father to confirm whether or not she was truly a virgin. I couldn’t believe my ears! Truly a weird and embarrassing moment to witness.
71. Practice Makes Perfect
My step-sister’s best man objected during the dress rehearsal the night before the actual wedding. It was a very large wedding and the rehearsal was bigger than a lot of weddings are. The minister was going over the vows quickly, while giving instructions on what to do. When he said something about objections, the best man interrupted and declared that he had to put a stop to this. He was in love with the bride and was sure that she felt the same way.
Everybody was horrified. It caused plenty of chaos and confusion. Neither the bride or groom ever spoke to him again.
72. A Matter of Time
I was a groomsman at a wedding two years ago. The bride and groom had been together for right around four years. They decided to write their own vows. The groom went through his. They were sweet as anything. He is a really great dude. The wife decided that during the vows is the appropriate time to let him, and everyone else know, that he would soon be a father.
Everyone was crying and hugging. It was a pretty cool moment. Everything was going great up until a point in the reception where the bride was talking to a friend of hers, telling her how excited she was to be having a girl. Somehow, no one caught her mistake—except the groom, who got up, threw his drink at the wall, and shattered it.
Called his new wife stupid and told her she was a cheating witch and stormed out. The bride started crying and swore she never cheated on him and couldn't believe he was ruining their special day. The other groomsmen and I ran outside to see what was up with him. It hit all of us at the same time. She was 16 weeks pregnant...and he had only been home from Afghanistan for eight weeks.
She didn't think that anyone would catch that and was somehow going to try and convince her husband they were having the baby early when the time came. I have not heard much from him or her since the wedding, but it was heavily rumored that the pregnancy was a result of a one-night stand with one of my buddy's cousins.
73. The Real Life of the Party
I got left at the altar. He had spent the previous day spending a lot of time with his ex instead of helping me set up. I yelled at him about it because he was late and hadn't helped at all. He said he didn't want to get married because spending time with his ex made him realize I wasn't as fun as she was. Kicked him out and still had the party. I told him to use that time to go home and pack up all his stuff. He did.
74. Battle of the Bands
I once attended what started out as a normal wedding for a very religious couple. Then we 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 and the first song was the very mild “Semi-Charmed Life.” Bad enough, but it got worse.
A few seconds into the song, the mother of the bride turns off the CD player and puts in a CD of her own, full of nothing but children's Bible songs. About a minute later, we hear “Semi-Charmed Life” come back on. Then, a few minutes after that, the children’s songs again. They each kept switching CDs every time they had the opportunity.
They repeated this process about two or three more times, as the mom desperately tried to control what her adult married daughter could play at her own wedding. We left.
75. The Heart Wants What It Wants
We almost called off our wedding the day before. Her dad had a massive heart attack and had almost passed just two days before that. He had surgery, and coded two or three times during it. We got like seven hours of sleep over those two nights. He was in the ICU up until the actual ceremony. He then showed up and walked her down the aisle...with an automatic defibrillator vest. Then he sat in a wheelchair, thank God. My emotions were all over the place, and I don't know how she even kept it together.
76. Script Change
My father is a retired judge. Many years ago, he performed a rather unusual wedding. During the rehearsal dinner, rather than saying “I do,” the groom asked if he could make any positive statement. My dad said yes, but didn’t ask what the groom intended to say instead. Well, the big moment came on the wedding day. He never expected the groom to say what he did.
Instead of “I do,” he yelled, “I like fat chicks!” My dad looked at the bride in shock, but apparently she just had a vacant expression (my dad’s words) and appeared not to be at all bothered. So, my dad pulled himself together and finished the wedding. We have no way to know if they’re still married, but I’d bet they’re not.
77. Our Duties Stop at the Honeymoon Suite
Apparently, they wanted us (and their parents) to watch them consummate the marriage because of an old European tradition.
78. This Is Why You Practice, People
During rehearsal, my now-husband and I didn't actually rehearse our ceremony, but kind of just talked logistics with our bridal party. As a result, when our real ceremony was over, we didn't really know how to officially end it. So we just kind of stood there awkwardly for a few seconds until he whispered to me, "So, are you just going to leave now?" meaning that I was supposed to lead our exit.
I, however, took it literally and just started walking (he claims that I ran) away. I got about 10-15 feet away before he called out after me, "Wait, I think you're supposed to take me with you." It was very embarrassing, but apparently everyone found it hilarious and started laughing. I will never live that down as long as I live.
79. Tell Us How You Really Feel
The bride and groom are at the altar, the minister is speaking, saying something to the effect of, "We are here in the presence of friends and family who are all here to give this union their blessing" to which the groom's mother stands up and says, "No, not everyone. I do not give this my blessing." It was both horrible and kind of hilarious.
80. Liar, Liar
I was dumped two weeks before my wedding. We'd been dating for five years, and I'd popped the question in the same place we'd had our first kiss. She looked so happy, I thought she'd burst. We spent the next few months excitedly inviting friends, hiring a cake baker, and choosing a venue. Our relationship was pretty low maintenance, and I trusted her completely. Soon enough, it all fell apart.
In fact, I trusted her so completely that I didn't even bat an eye when, after I had to leave a trip we were on a day early for work, she decided to hang behind with a friend of mine from college. I'm not sure if their cheating was premeditated, I think it just happened, because she ended up panicking and telling me he forced himself on her.
I was shocked. I took nearly a week off from work to console her and try to get her help. I only began to grow suspicious when she started to change her story, saying he "may not have" done it. Then it changed to she "enjoyed it” even if it wasn’t consensual. Then the story changed to it being totally consensual, and finally, she'd decided she'd imagined the entire thing.
Unfortunately for her, as bad of a liar as she was, my former friend was even worse. He came clean about the entire thing when I told him that she had. Before I even had time to process this, she dumped me after I came home from my first day back at work and told me that I "made her too happy" and that she "did not want to be happy."
Having my entire world disappear in a single week devastated me. My brother and friends looked after me for the next few days. It took quite some time to find myself again. I like to believe I'm over it, but even retelling this story fills me with the same feelings of betrayal and rage. There really are few things worse than being left at the altar.
81. Just Making a Quick Stop
For me, the question of the weirdest wedding I’ve ever attended is a tie between my sister breaking her knee at her own wedding while dancing to “Cotton-Eyed Joe” and my stepsister having her reception at a truck stop while six months pregnant. In my stepsister’s defense, the food was really good, but wow! Was it ever weird walking through a gas station in formal wear!
82. Losing It
I once went to a wedding where the best man performed a skit in which he pretended to have "lost" the groom at the reception. He then proceeded, with over the top gestures and his hands on his hips, to ask the audience, “Hey guys! Aren't we forgetting someone? Well, where can he possibly beeeee???” The acting was like what you would see at some high school musical.
None of the guests were prepared and silently fussed around with their drinks and silverware. After a couple minutes of suspense, the groom eventually popped up from under a tablecloth. When the whole thing ended, they anticipated like a standing ovation, but instead the whole thing just went over the heads of everyone. A lone voice from the crowd muttered out, "Well, that was kinda weird..." as they made their exit quietly.
83. Not a Fruitful Union
I knew a lady who got married to a man she met at a bar, and she'd known him for less than an hour when he proposed and she accepted. They had a party/wedding at a park...and got the marriage annulled within about 48 hours. She said she didn't like the way the guy bought produce. He was too choosy. He should have been more choosy with women, if you ask me.
84. Betrayal Leaves a Bitter Taste
I wasn't there, but an old friend told me about a wedding he attended a few years ago. When it came time for the objection part, a voice in the back yells "She sucked me like 30 minutes ago!" Bride bursts into tears. Groom just walks away.
85. Belting It out
This was completely the fault of the bride's family. When I was about 19 years old, one of my first classmates to get married had a small reception, mostly with family and friends from high school in attendance. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But then, they decided to "auction off" the bride’s garter belt in the middle of the reception.
They announced that whoever won the auction would take it off the bride and keep it. Most of us were poor college students, so the only people bidding were her dad and her uncles. It was super uncomfortable to watch. In the end, the bride’s very intoxicated dad "won" the auction, to the tune of more than $500. Hopefully they at least used the money to help pay for the honeymoon expenses.
86. I Can Find Another You in a Minute
I called off an engagement months before the wedding because the bride-to-be was too scared of intimacy to want it. I couldn’t live my life like that. My whole extended family got cancellation notices, and that's when I learned the dark reality. They had never even gotten the invitation in the first place. She just didn't even send them out.
Sx months later, she tried to get back together and I turned her down. She immediately came back with an “Ohh. Well, I’ve met someone new and we have expressed deep feelings for each other, so goodbye.” I felt sorry for the new guy. She was looking to offload him in favor of me, so how “deep” did these feelings actually go? I’ve often wondered if I should have given him a heads up about it.
87. All the Wrong Moves
The bride said she had a surprise for the groom, so she disappeared, groom got sat in the middle of the dance floor, and bride came back to do a seductive belly dance for him. In front of their whole families and friends. Neither of them is even remotely Middle Eastern. It was so, so bad.
88. There Will Be Blood
They began the wedding with the groom playing an out of tune guitar and singing to the bride. They were sitting on chairs in front of everyone, a crowd of legit no less than 400 people, and the bride was clearly uncomfortable with the situation. Naturally, seeing that made everyone else feel uncomfortable, too. But later in the night, it got even stranger.
That wedding also included a foot washing ceremony and, when the bride put her shoes back on, she tripped on her dress and fell flat on her face. Everyone’s jaws dropped. They hadn’t done the vows yet, and the ceremony had to stop for a full twenty minutes so that they could deal with the nosebleed she gave herself.
89. Oh. My. Gosh.
I worked the most amazing wedding ever! The marriage didn't last 6 hours! I was bartending for the reception. Everything seemed pretty typical and standard as guests arrived, drank, and conversed---until the best man finished his speech and the food began to be served. The groom grabbed the mic after the best man's toast and wished everyone a great night and a nice meal. That's when everything fell apart.
After his well wishes, he asked for the attention of his best man and bride. He told them that he knew they were hooking up behind his back for the entirety of the engagement, and that he would be filing for an annulment on Monday. He thanked everyone for coming, and apologized to the father of the bride saying, "I would have called it off weeks ago, but I figured you would be way more mad at your little princess when you couldn't get out of the bill for the reception."
He turned to his wife and said, "Screw you", then turned to his best friend and said, "From what I overheard--I'm better in bed!" Mic dropped---groom out the door---absolute chaos. Me and my fellow bartender looked on in amazement. We had to go into the kitchen to die of laughter.
Pixabay
90. Everybody Dance Now
My cousin and his wife are both super religious, and they may also be the two most awkward people that I've ever met in my entire life. At their wedding, they did one of those "fake out" first dances where it starts off with a slow song but then transitions into a choreographed dance routine to an upbeat song. Even worse, the upbeat song was also five minutes long and the bride and groom just kept repeating the same few dance moves over and over again for what felt like an eternity.
91. Tonight’s Gonna Be a Cringey Night
I was a banquet manager at a hotel for years, and have worked hundreds of weddings. The worst one by far was the time the bride was at least twenty years younger than the groom. It was almost definitely an arranged marriage. Only about twenty people were invited to the reception, and the only decoration was a lousy quality massive blown-up picture of the bride and groom in the shape of a heart.
When the bride and groom walked into the room, someone put the Black Eyed Peas’ "Tonight's Going to be a Good Night" on over a CD player. Then the song played again, and again, and again for three hours straight. The only time it stopped was when the CD ended, because apparently no one had learned how to use the repeat feature. So, they had just burned a CD with the same song on it twenty times in a row. When it did stop though, someone just got up and restarted it.
92. At Least She Admits It
At the rehearsal dinner, the groom's mom is in tears, because "he looks miserable" and he was, we all knew it. During the vows they had written for each other, the bride starts with "I know I can be a pretty terrible person, and I don't know why you've stuck around, but that's all going to change starting today!" They were divorced a year later.
93. More Spice Than Sweet
I once attended a classmate’s wedding. They were both young, maybe about 22 or 23 years old. So there's that “caking” tradition in some parts of the country where, the couple feeds each other a little bit of cake and smears some onto each other’s faces as a joke. The bride had absolutely made it 1000% clear to the groom that she did NOT want to be caked.
He did it anyway. And not just a small smear. He full-on smushed the entire slice into her face. She was stunned initially, then got up, with her face full of cake, and yelled “YOU JERK! I TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!” She then ran as fast as she could to a back area near the reception. The groom tried to follow her, but the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride stopped him.
So, the groom ended up sitting awkwardly at the head table by himself while half the wedding party rushed off with the bride. She stayed back there for like an hour. They eventually did let him go back there to check on her. We could hear her crying and them arguing. The rest of the reception came to a screeching halt until one of the bride’s aunts emerged and directed the servers to clear the tables and put on some music. They got divorced two years later.
94. No Laughing Matter
One of my best friends broke off her engagement only a month before her wedding after her husband-to-be "joked" about hurting her because he thought she hugged her step-brother for too long at her mom's anniversary party. She dodged a huge bullet: He was apprehended for doing just that to another woman only a year later.
95. This Is a Classy Affair
It was my then-business partner's second marriage, to a prominent lawyer. She was 40-ish but behaved like a Cosmo-swilling sorority sister and was obsessed with optics, image, status. The wedding was a two-nighter at a banquet/event center in the city. When my wife and I showed up, we made an offensive discovery. The guests had been partitioned into an A-list and a B-list.
We were on the A-list who were invited for cocktails, the ceremony, and a sit-down dinner. The B-listers had been told to appear later for cake and dancing. During dinner, the already-half-in-the-bag bride stood up and told us A-listers we were her "real friends," the "cream of the crop," and our standing with her was reflected in the fine catered dinner we were eating.
Things ran long and the B-listers began assembling outside. They were not allowed in, but the place had storefront-type windows and you could see into the venue from the street. It began to rain and the B-listers had to stand outside getting wet and staring at us while the banquet part of the evening wrapped up. They clearly had not been apprised of the two-tier deal. It was so painful.
96. That’s What I Call a Death Drop
The bride’s aunt died on the dance floor while dancing. She fell down, and the DJ stopped the music until EMS arrived. They took her away, and when the music resumed, the DJ selected, of all things, Bryan Adams’ “Heaven” as the next song. Incredible. I will never forget the looks people were giving him for the rest of my life.
97. No Double Dipping!
I once went to a wedding where the bride got back at her cheating groom in the most ingenious way possible. In the final moments of a Jewish wedding, after the marriage was finalized and all official, the bride straight up runs into the crowd and says, “I’m divorcing my husband for sleeping with my sister!” Here's why this was great.
I'm not Jewish, but apparently, once you’re married in that faith, the bride or groom cannot marry or remarry someone related to the previous wife or something like that. So, this bride not only publicly humiliated her cheating groom and her sister by outing them. She also sealed the fact that they can never ever be together. Mic dropped.
98. Backhanded by the Holy Man
The bride was a former nun who left her order not long after taking her vows so she could marry a friend of my significant other’s family. During the wedding ceremony, the priest kept staring at her, shaking his head slightly and making facial expressions that displayed his disappointment in her decision. It became especially awkward during his homily when he said, "Keeping the vows we make—whether nuptial vows or religious—says much about our integrity and sincerity."
99. The Worst Groom Ever
I once went to a wedding where both families were Irish. My girlfriend knew them, but I didn't. At the ceremony, the groom’s ex-wife started shouting something and was gently directed outside. I couldn't hear what was said. The reception was amazing—nice venue and all, but a bunch of guests had brought their own instruments and just started jamming what I can only describe as a genuine Irish Jig.
There was a LOT of booze. There was no responsible serving at the bar and I'm certain it was all by design. These people liked to party. At some point, I used the men’s room and was curious if I'd just seen the groom in a stall (door open) with someone who was not the bride. I didn't know these people and it might have just been someone else, so I said nothing.
Sometime later and the girlfriend states seriously, "We should get going now." Yeah sure. We grab our stuff and head downstairs. I see the suspicious fellow again in the stairwell going to absolute town on this same lady. My girlfriend grabs my arm tightly and keeps walking past, mumbles a thank you for the invite, and I just smile and follow cause it's all weird.
Yep, that was the groom, doing stuff to his ex-wife at his own wedding to another woman. The look that woman gave us as we passed was this smugly dominant, "I always get what I want" needling glare. Wow. I got it all explained to me after we were in a cab and well on our way home, but that look still haunts me to this day.
100. Smell Ya Later
At the reception line after the church wedding ceremony, I once witnessed a bride standing at the entrance with a large bottle of her favorite perfume; and spraying each guest with it as they walked in. Female and male, whether they wanted it or not, every single guest. No exceptions. They literally could not enter the banquet hall without being sprayed.
Some guests complained that the smell of the perfume was so strong that it made them lose their appetites and they couldn't partake in the banquet as a result.
101. A Cell Phony
I went to a wedding where the bride got drunk and the groom picked up her phone to discover that she had been sexting a coworker throughout the entire wedding. He told the officiant to not file the paperwork. This occurred towards the end of the reception, as they were leaving to go to the honeymoon suite. The story is that she was very drunk.
Her phone kept getting notifications so he decided to pick it up for her. They did not go on their honeymoon and they returned the gifts to everyone within a couple months. The guests weren’t told about what happened for a couple of weeks, as the bride was trying everything she could to save the relationship. Regardless, it was a great reception!
102. Missed Encounters
My husband and I were at his old friend’s wedding. The women at our table all stared at us like we were ghosts. Suddenly one of them pulled over my husband and told him that the bride (his old friend) had been in love with him for over a decade. They were horrified that we were there—and extremely worried. My husband had no idea that she had feelings for him.
She bee-lined right for our table after the "introducing Mr & Mrs" thing—ignoring her family and leaving her husband standing alone. She clung to my husband and sobbed—lifting her head to glare at me. She had to be pulled off of him. Her new husband was in shock and my husband was horrified and embarrassed, obviously. We did not stay long.
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103. Busted
When the pastor got to the part “or forever hold your peace,” the bride said, “Yes, I’d like to say something.” Then she turned around to her guests and said, “I’d like to thank my maid of honor for sleeping with my fiancé last night.” With that, she threw her bouquet down and stormed off. The story even made it onto local radio at the time.
