Hey Pandas, Share Your Wedding Horror Stories (Closed)

Hired a priest to preside over our wedding (this was many years ago). Why did we do it? Because at the time in South Africa, you could either have a court wedding or an outdoors/church ceremony or both. If you wanted the outdoors/church ceremony to be recognised AT LAW, you HAD TO either have an ordained CHRISTIAN priest conduct it, OR go to court as well. So, to avoid the hassle of going to court, we hired a christian priest.

So you are probably wondering how this could go wrong.

Both of us were atheist and didn't want a jesus this and jesus that story. However, he didn't listen. He went on the usual tangent. But it was worse. He digressed on the events of the wedding night, and what she could look forward to. Not in a LOT of detail, but definitely cringe levels embarrassing. Horrible.

The result of this was some of our friends agitated for secular weddings to be recognised, and I'm proud to say we succeeded. At present in South Africa you can now get married if you are a traditional African and want a tribal-style wedding, and it will be recognised without a court; you can also be gay, atheist, or christian. HOWEVER, interestingly, to this date, Muslims and Hindus still don't get recognised. That is however "in progress" at the moment and the country will recognise those traditions as well. YAY for SA!

I was at a wedding where the groom stabbed the bride’s brother in the heart and killed him. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1997/apr/27/groom-killed-new-brother-in-law/

Not my wedding but one I attended. Bride and groom spent a lot of money making sure everything was perfect, cute midsized hotel in the countryside, chose the ‘gold’ package for food, everything was set… until the day of the wedding.
My husband (one of the groomsmen) and I turned up an hour early, just to make sure everything was running as expected, NOTHING had been done, no chairs out in the garden for the service, no decorations up, carpet needed a good vac after the previous nights party. The following is a run down of the days nightmare
* gold package wedding breakfast was a selection on pork, Turkey, beef, all processed Bernard Matthew’s stuff and a perfect one inch cube of salmon plus four cereal bowls on the table with chips, mixed veg, plain rice and cold broccoli
* evening buffet, most of the food had not defrosted, packets of ham and cheese etc still in the package just plonked on the table, not even near enough to feed everyone, poor bride was sobbing at this point.
* ‘Top quality’ £25 a bottle wine was from Aldi, Guinness out of cans, ran out of all soft drinks
* hotel owner got drunk, interrupted the first dance and was grinding against the bride, he later gave the groom some headache tablets and said “you know, for her excuses later”
* end of the night, bride and groom go to their suite only to find the drunk hotel owner asleep in their bed! No other rooms free, spent their wedding night at our house in the spare room.

Not so much horror as cute silly little kid, but here we go:

I’ve been to one wedding in my life. I was really young, I think around five, so I don’t remember much, but it was either my mom’s best friend or her stepbrother’s.

I didn’t really know what was going on (Again, I was pretty little, so bear with me), but there was cake and music and snacks so I was happy. I was dancing all over, convinced I was the best dancer of all time, having a blast.

Eventually the time came for the bouquet toss, and I was DETERMINED to get those flowers. I didn’t understand the whole traditional stuff, I just wanted those pretty flowers. So, I get ready. The bride tosses the bouquet over her shoulder. Aaaaand… I miss it by a country mile. I was so disappointed. I wanted my flowers!

In typical five-year-old fashion, I went to a corner to sulk. I deserved those flowers! I was definitely a jerk about it. I don’t remember much (again, five), but I distinctly remember that feeling of indignant disappointment.

Anyways, the music has kicked back up, and everyone’s having fun, but I’m still sulking. My mom drifts of for a second, then comes back with one of the venue staff, who hands me a bouquet and says, “congratulations, you won the dancing contest!” I was THRILLED. I knew I was the best dancer in here, and now I had these flowers as proof. I clearly remember saying “it’s all in the footwork!” as I claimed my prize. For the rest of the time, I danced even more, and had tons of fun. When I got home to my grandma’s house, she showed me how to hang them so they’d dry out all nice. I’m pretty sure they’re still hanging in her parlor!

In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious what happened. My mom talked to the bride and some staff, and they made up a reason to give me one of the centerpieces or something. But it’s still one of my favorite memories. I was so proud and happy.

My family weddings and funerals are like soap operas. Like well worth the price of a gift. My second favourite-- the bartender want let in because they thought she was a prostitute (so people were helping themselves to alcohol in the meantime. The catered "dinner" were some hors d'oeuvres so people were leaving en masse to get mcdonalds by about 10pm after everyone got about 3shrinps total. When the bartender was finally able to prove she was meant to be there and was let in, most people were already shitfaced, including the groom, who passionately started making out with her in front of guests. Obviously, the bride was told, she took a bottle of wine and drank it all herself then left to go clubbing. So... to recap, the groom is drunk, the bride has left, the guests are starving. The groom vomited on a painting art the gallery hosting the s**t show-- and that was when the venue finally was like 'get out'.

They divorced a few months later.

That was runner up. My favourite was the one where the groom's family and bride's family (my side) didn't like each other, the best man had broken up with the maid of honour (the brides sister) the night before, was shitfaced and just absolutely s**t shamed the sister, told a secret the bride had told her about cheating on the groom at her bachelorette party, he listed every previous sexual partner they had and then sobbed and declares his love for the bride, begged her to leave her new husband for him, threw up on the bride and was taken out by security. His incredibly inappropriate speech v(he was very detailed about sex acts, there were kids at the wedding) essentially ignited the simmering rage between the two families leading to a few brawls later in the night. But all of this paled to the main event-- you see my uncle was a bit of a casa nova, he had many kids (three daughters and two sons so far that we know about). He had a kid in California which caused a rider between him and his wife so he separated from her, leaving her with one of his daughters but never divorced her, he then met another woman and they faked wedding photos and printed a fake certificate that they hung on the wall. They had daughter. When his first daughter then was around, they told his youngest daughter that she was just a maid-- so the two girls actually knew each other but she wasn't allowed to tell her little sister that they were sisters or he treated to remove her from his will. The daughter from California reached out, after her mom died and was told to stay away by his not-wife. So... fast forward, he died so they decided that this wedding is when they should confront the past since it would be the two local daughters and their moms in attendance (now as a family we all knew this but we were all told not to say anything, but only that one daughter thought she was an only child, only our branch of the family, and the oldest daughter knew about the California daughter though). To add another ring to this 3 ring circus, the oldest daughter, without telling her mom invited the California daughter.

So... ensued the most insane maury-esque family reunion where my cousin got to find out 1. The maid was actually her sister 2. Her parents were never married 3. Her dad was married to 'the maid's' mom 4. Her dad also had affairs with women when he travelled so she also had another sister she had never met before 5. Though they didn't attend, she also had two other brothers 6. Her whole life was a lie and everyone in her family had known but hadn't told her because her father and mother didn't want her to know.

... just the most insane trainwrecks yet still, so much more tame than the funerals.

I haven't been to many weddings. The worst one was an outdoor wedding at the bride and groom's home on a hot, humid day. A lot of people were getting heat exhausted. Despite it being their home, they didn't want anyone to go in the air conditioned house. Yeah, they had tents set up, but that didn't provide much respite. My young daughter needed to go to the washroom, so we went in anyways. Other people were, too. The bride was getting upset about it. I'm related to the groom, so he didn't mind as much. It was just a weird wedding. Most of the guests were on my step-mom's side and the bride's family. My Dad even made a little inside dig at me in his speech. See, when he used to take me fishing I was too grossed out to hold the fish by the gills. My bro's new wife isn't, apparently, so my dad made this a highlight.
Later that night, at my dad's, he and his wife had an argument about me and my daughter. Not sure what it was about. It was the last wedding we were ever invited to on that side.
Oh, and my brother and his wife were angry that they were given a free honeymoon at the same place my dad and his wife had their honeymoon. That's another topic of their rant that night, too. Everyone just seemed so on edge.
My step-mom was also mad that HER brother came and played his guitar that she didn't want him to play.
Also, the bride wanted it to be a dry wedding, but some guests brought their own beer. The bride's sister was complaining about it during the clean up.
It's next to impossible to please everyone. I want to get married at the courthouse.

Fiancé was caught cheating two weeks before wedding. I wanted to call it off but my mother was enjoying planning "her" wedding so much that she insisted I go through with it. I was too young, obedient and stupid to go against her wishes. I think you can all guess how that turned out. I was out of there a month after the wedding.