If you've ever been to a wedding, you've likely seen your share of the bad, the ugly, and the awkward. In fact, if we asked you to think of an embarrassing wedding guest moment, you'd probably tell us about that time your best friend's groomsman drank too much, or when the father-of-the-bride made a terrible speech. But trust us—if those typical stories are the most outrageous ones you can think of, you haven't heard anything yet. From ex-boyfriends crashing the bride's first dance to relatives stealing the honeymoon fund, these stories will have you re-thinking who you invite to your own wedding.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Selfish
The best man used his best man's speech to propose to his girlfriend. And no, he did not run it by the groom first.
#2 Know Your Place
My friend couldn't afford to spend much on his wedding. Although the venue was large enough to invite a lot of people, it became clear pretty quickly that the set menu dinner would not be enough for everyone. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of our coworkers and our boss and we collectively decided to decline our plates. The guy's aunt apparently saw that and started demanding our plates for herself and her kids, saying that if we didn't want them then she should be allowed to have them, and she started a big argument about it with the groom's brother.
#3 Do You Take This Goat?
I went to a wedding which was being held next to a goat farm and the goats bleated through the whole ceremony: “Do you BAAAA take BAAAA?” They weren’t really guests, but it was ridiculous.
#4 A Mess Of a Wedding
My buddy's wedding was a mess: The night of the rehearsal dinner, a groomsman was getting out of the shower and put his hand on the sink to steady himself (there was no bar or anything). The entire sink collapsed, shattering and cutting his hand. I had to call 911 and he wound up with something like 15 stitches.
- Later that same night, a guest was tipsy and tripped on the stairs, breaking her ankle. She spent the rest of the weekend in a wheelchair. During the reception, the groom's grandfather began to choke on his food and had to be given the Heimlich maneuver.
Other than that, it was a really fun wedding.
#5 What's Wrong with People?
The cousin of the bride stole the basket full of checks and cash.
#6 Not A Perfect Wedding
I attended a wedding where the groom's stepmother wore a miniskirted suit paired with sky-high heels and a large brimmed hat with a small veil, all in pristine white. That was the same wedding where the officiant forgot he had a wedding that day and the groom had to track him down to a barbecue he was attending, so it started an hour and a half late.
#7 No Babies Allowed
The maid of honor brought her one-year-old baby to the bachelorette party and expected the bride to cut the party short as soon as it was time to put the baby to bed.
#8 Back Off, Dad's Girlfriend
At my wedding, my mother-in-law wore white and my dad's girlfriend wore a tight little number in the color of my bridesmaid's dresses. Also, my Maid of Honor tried to convince my dad's girlfriend to borrow one of her more appropriate and beautiful dresses, but the girlfriend said no. Everyone who's ever seen my wedding photos has expressed, "Whoa! Who's she?"
#9 Boundaries
My cousin wore white, then tracked us down as we were trying to make our entrance as husband and wife. She demanded us to pose for a picture then walked with us to the entrance.
#10 Mother Of the Groom
I attended the wedding of a friend. The mother of the groom looked like a trophy wife who had a fondness for plastic surgery. At the wedding, she seemed like she was even trying to show up the bride by wearing a very low cut sparkly, black, backless, halter dress that would have been more appropriate in a club than at a wedding on the mother of the groom.
#11 Go, Grandad!
My 60-year-old grandfather punched out the best man at my cousin's wedding. My grandmother had MS and was wheel chair bound. The best man started urinating right next to her. He almost caused a huge brawl.
#12 Speeches Gone Wrong
The DJ stupidly opened up the microphone to anyone who wanted to make a speech. This was after an open bar. One guest made a speech about all the times the bride and groom were on the rocks from his cheating. An old family friend gave a tearful account of how she had wanted the bride to marry her son instead. It was an amazing wedding.
#13 What Now?
A bridesmaid wore a wedding dress.
#14 What A Story
The father of the bride wanted to share the story of how the bride and groom met. He spoke about how at the hospital where his wife and daughter worked, there was a disgruntled ex-employee. This employee was violent and started attacking employees. He told how his wife was hiding in an office and locked the door out of fear.
Later, a doctor who had been hit and played possum managed to get to her door and she let him in. He gave details about the injuries and outcomes. While he himself wasn't a witness, he told it with enthusiasm like it was the best thing to happen to him in his life. Then he off-hand mentioned that the groom was hired as temporary security in the weeks after and eventually, he asked her out. Now, they are getting married. The end.
#15 Happy Wedding!
The ring-bearer marched right up to the best man and started punching him in the crotch repeatedly during the ceremony.
#16 Sit Down
My cousin got married about seven or eight years ago. The groom's cousin was in the wedding party as a groomsman. So at the reception, the maid of honor and the best man both made their speeches and then the groom's cousin got up from his seat and took the microphone. He started giving a speech which nobody had asked him to give, and it's immediately apparent he's pretty tipsy. He opened with an inappropriate joke right out of the gate, rambled for a few minutes, and then closed the speech by kissing my cousin right on the corner of the mouth for about four seconds. And maybe four seconds doesn't seem like a long time to you, but take the time right now to count to four, and imagine that the entire time you are kissing somebody else's new bride on the face in front of 200 of her friends and family who have all already decided that they don't like you.
#17 First Dance Blues
My teenage brother started break dancing during the first dance. On the dance floor. People gathered around him and cheered. The couple (our cousin and his bride) were not amused.
#18 Totally Inappropriate
I went to a wedding and the bride and groom have a fairly open relationship. Each has a girlfriend or boyfriend. Most of their friends know about it but I'm pretty that the grandparents and great aunts and uncles have no idea. So, a few hours into the wedding, everyone had a few drinks in them and I looked over to the dance floor. There was the groom, dancing with his side chick, completely sucking face in full view of the entire extended family and guests.
#19 No Punching
The brother of the bride got upset about something and punched out a window at the venue, then the brother of the groom chased him all the way down the road to kick his butt. Good times.
#20 Bridezilla
The worst was not a guest, but the bride—my husband's cousin. The vows were half an hour of her complaining about her husband to be. She tried to sing the college Alma mater with her dad instead of a dance and it was bad. Then, she made us all watch a photo slide memorial of people in her family that had passed and then, wait for it, the building of their house. Dirt. Wood. Walls. Picking out the carpet. I mean, this went on for an hour. Then she refused to pay her other cousin for hours of bartending she did. Yeah, we don't talk to her anymore.
#21 This Is A Disaster
My wife and I were given a big bottle of rare champagne as a gift. It easily sells for $2,000 or more. My cousin, who was already very tipsy, thought we wouldn't mind if she opened it up. As she was carrying it down to the after-party, she dropped it and it exploded all over my wife's wedding dress.
#22 Wedding Crasher Boyfriend
The ex-boyfriend forcibly cut in on the bride and groom’s first dance together. After a few awkward and tense moments, some friends dragged him out as he yelled through tears, “I’ll always love you and I’ll be waiting for you when this marriage falls apart!”
Plot twist. Several months into the new marriage, she discovered that her new husband was a scam artist going by a different name, had fake IDs with different aliases, a criminal record, and had been married many times. He disappeared that same day, and, yes, she now has been happily married for 15 years and has three children with her wedding crasher ex-boyfriend.
#23 Uh Oh
A female guest brought the man she was having an affair with as her plus one instead of her husband. The ceremony was being held in an apple orchard and they disappeared several times into the trees throughout the ceremony and the evening.
#24 Terrible Owners
The owners of the venue were terrible. We had grabbed tables out of one of their cabin basements for the guests because they didn’t supply enough. Then they randomly started to yell and scream and take the tables that we just set up. We had also started a fire in their fire pit with our family and the owners present. After the old-timers turned in, a few of us stayed. The owner came yelling at us about how we didn’t pay for the firewood. Um, what? The same logs were burning.
#25 Thug Life
At my wedding, my brother was holding a drink in each hand, drinking both at the same time and said, "I gotta slow down." Then in my guest book, he wrote: "THUG LIFE."
#26 Bad Bridesmaids
At the wedding, bridesmaid one found out that bridesmaid two had been with her boyfriend (who was also at the wedding). We had to remove bridesmaid one from the venue as there was a high chance of a physical altercation. The same wedding, the father of the bride was so tipsy he threw up in the middle of the dance floor.
#27 Sounds Like Fun
The wedding reception was in the penthouse boardroom of a bank. The lobby of said bank had a koi pond. Someone in the wedding party got too tipsy, took off his shoes and socks, and went fishing for koi with his bare hands.
#28 Crazy Woman
At my cousin's wedding this year, the sister-in-law of the groom wore three different outfits. Each dress change got more and more like a wedding dress. It was all we could speak about all night! There were also a lot of kids at the wedding and when we saw her in her first outfit, we thought she was a Disney princess hired to entertain the kids before the reception.
#29 What Was She Thinking?
My aunt wore a white gown to my wedding.
#30 No Phones
Tapped Out Simpsons game was popular at the time, and my husband was on it a lot. During the vows of our best friends, I hear "Better Him Than Me" which was one of the notification sounds. I glared at my boyfriend. He was trying not to laugh out loud but it was from another single friend behind us, not his phone. Timing though.
#31 Poor Kid
When I was 10, I ate too many cupcakes so I went into the bathroom and threw up everywhere.
#32 Time To Go Home
One of my bridesmaids drank too much before we even got to the reception. We were all waiting outside the doors of the venue for the reception as they were going to introduce us as we walked in. Just as we were told to start walking in, I turned around and saw this bridesmaid squatting, using some random guest's car as her own personal bathroom.
#33 Wait... What?
This dude in a Mad Hatter outfit came into the wedding. At first, he complimented the wedding. He called it beautiful. Then, he called the groom's bride an inappropriate word and his troupe of circus folk burst through the door and started trashing the place.
#34 You Look Like Your Sister
My new brother-in-law's dad stopped me when I was on my way to the restroom and said, "You look just like your sister, only prettier." It was weird and I had never met or spoken to him before this.
#35 Call It a Night
This was during my best friend's wedding back in 1989 or so. The bride's much older sister (she was in her 40s and the bride was 26 or so) started to take off her clothes on the dance floor. She was escorted out by groomsmen and instructed to not come back.
#36 Know For Next Time
We left wedding favors along the table for our guests, and one family arrived early so they just picked apart all the boxes to eat their favorite sweets. In hindsight, we definitely should have held the favors back to give at the end, but they looked pretty.
#37 Turtle!
There's a scene in Animal House where John Belushi screams, "TURTLE!!" on a dance floor and lays on the floor like a turtle stuck on its back. I once saw an entire group of people at a wedding reception do this.
#38 This Is Cold
This was at my wedding! My husband's stepmom brought her new boyfriend (didn't even know about any divorce talk) and told my husband's dad to stay home. And she even signed my wedding certificate before we knew she had brought him.
#39 What Got Into Him?
At my wedding, a groomsman got tipsy and cried during the ceremony and pictures. He was too tipsy to do his speech at dinner, then disappeared halfway through the night. We had no idea what happened to him until our shuttle bus driver came up to us and told us there was someone passed out in a bush beside the bus.
#40 What a Loser
The bride's dad went up to speak and took like 25 mins. Then, the groom's dad went up to speak and took an hour. Apparently, he'd been upset about how the bride's dad told him to get out of the way of the caterer, so he decided he was going to outdo him. It was a horrible speech. He made oil and gas jokes and some weird misogynist jokes about women being allowed at the Pete club (an old boys kinda club that chilled out on that in the 90s). It was the single most conceited vile act I'd ever witnessed. Everyone thought he was a bad guy. How do you take your son's day, and make it about a grudge over a throwaway comment? What a loser.
#41 Bad Timing
Super socially-awkward redneck token-cowboy friend of ours walked up to the ceremony right as it was time for the bride to walk down the aisle... and began to walk down the aisle in her place. Inconvenient time for the mother of the bride to turn around and cause everybody in the venue to stand up.
#42 Dangerous Hair
My friend went to a wedding where the bride and groom specifically asked people not to take photos during the ceremony. One of the guests brought a camera with a tripod and did it regardless. Apparently, she had giant curly hair and there were a ton of candles around. Since her hair was so curly and she had used a ton of hairspray, her hair got caught in a candle and went up in flames. One of the other guests put it out but got burned in the process.
#43 Ex-Mother-In-Law
My mother-in-law was escorted out by the police before the ceremony even began. She is now my ex-mother-in-law.
#44 What Was She Doing?
One guest stole bottles of champagne and flower arrangements. The couple had bought their own alcohol and was paying a corkage fee to the reception venue. One guest assumed it was free booze and was filling the boot of their car with bottles off of all the tables. The bride's mother noticed her walking off with a table centrepiece and followed to see what she was doing. She was quickly ejected.
#45 Tipsy Dad
The groom's father had split up with his wife recently and was tipsy. He ended up trying to fight me in the car park because I couldn't squeeze him into our already overloaded car.
