Cue the wedding music, wedding day is usually the happiest day for most couples. No feeling like making a promise to a loved one to love them forever. Well, sometimes the romance falls out and so for most couples they break up or get divorced. But these people, they weren't given the decency to be broken up with. These people share what happened during and after either the groom or the bride walked away from their wedding. All stories have been edited for clarity.
Best Thing He’s Done For Me
“I was left at the altar.
We were together for 6 years at that point and engaged for 4. There was 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, 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 6 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.
A year and about 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 told me he just didn’t love me enough to go through with being there for me.
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 8 years I was with him. 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 2 years after the other abandoned me. I learned that having history with someone and feeling familiar and safe isn’t always enough. I have never had more fun with anyone like I do with my husband. We live an adventurous and happy life.
The life I would’ve had with my ex was predictable but that’s not what I wanted. Who I was and who I wanted was just not him, but I didn’t know that. He did.
His abandoning me at the hospital and leaving me at the altar was the greatest gift I never wanted.”
Just Turn In The Papers
“I don’t know exactly how it went down since I wasn’t there, but my ex-husband’s second wedding apparently didn’t turn out so well. I’ll do my best to explain what I heard about.
Up until the day of the wedding, bride in her dress and ready to get married, he strung this poor woman along, only for her to find out they couldn’t actually get married, as the custody proceedings for us had not been finalized, and so we couldn’t even request a divorce yet…
I did know a few people who knew her friends and family so a few people did voice their concerns that something wasn’t right to her, but she confronted him about it and he denied everything, claimed he had applied for the divorce, applied for the marriage license and was just waiting for it.
P.s. Flash forward to almost a year later and his next girlfriend is the one bringing me the divorce papers, custody still not finalized. No big deal, custody gets finalized a few months later anyway.
Well, almost a year later and I get a notice that the divorce proceedings are about to be cancelled unless somebody takes some action because he didn’t submit the final custody order or the bloody marriage certificate which are both necessary for them to process it. I let it run out and filed it on my own and submitted all the paperwork and finally got the divorce out of the way.
He and that girl got married, and hopefully that’s all legit and he’s better to her than he has been to me and the other exes he had in between.”
Ruined Everything In One Night
“I was at the wedding for one of my sister’s friends, who was the bride. The Bride never showed up at the wedding and no one could find her. After several hours, the groom and his family all went home. Turned out the bride went out for a wild night of partying and slept with some guy she met at a club. She was passed out at his place all day long before she came around and realized she missed her own wedding. She was out with a friend that did nothing to stop her from getting wasted and messing around (I think her friend let her get carried away because she thought the bride wouldn’t have been a good wife and figured it was the easiest way to get the couple to split up).
The father of the bride was mad as heck about the expense of the wedding that came out of his pocket. The groom has since moved on with his own life, discovering the woman he was going to marry had cheated on him the night before their wedding made him break it off (go figure). He hasn’t gotten married but I hear he’s dating someone and it looks serious enough that they might get married soon. The Bride has been having problems trying to get the respect of her family back after that stunt. She once tried to talk to me when I was single to see if we could go out. I told her flat out I had no interest in dating a woman who cheats like she does. We’ve not spoken since, much to my relief.”
She Was Crazy
“My cousin left his fiancée about three days before the wedding. They’d met/been dating for less than a year (actually, six months) before they got engaged, and they had a lot of issues, especially financially. I guess she abused him as well, emotionally and physically, and my cousin was scared of her. They had a really toxic relationship. She was very materialistic, so she was always spending his money or guilting him into using his company credit card to buy things for her.
I’m not very knowledgable of how weddings work, but I know they had most of their wedding gifts before the wedding even happened. And they had them all stacked up in their living room. Whenever they’d fight, or he’d refuse to give her money, she take one of the gifts, stand in the doorway and stare at him with a deranged look in her eye before she’d throw the gift on the floor (usually something very fragile). Then she’d leave, and my cousin would have to clean up the mess and throw away the broken gift. Just really crazy, unhealthy stuff happened between them.
Anyway, my family knew about most of this stuff, and begged him not to go through with it. They thought the engagement had been rushed in the first place, but she also did a good job keeping him from his family by making him move to her state so she could have him all to herself. They knew she was no good, and for months, my family begged him not to marry her. They even considered objecting during the ceremony, it was that bad.
Finally, she left for work the Wednesday before the wedding and he called his dad, who drove three hours to go pick him and his stuff up and bring him home. She came back to a half empty apartment and no fiancé. She sued my family, making up lies that he had stolen jewelry and other expensive things from her, and it lasted a year (we won). She also wouldn’t give him back the car his father had bought for them, claiming it was hers. So, the repo man came in the middle of the night and when she saw he was taking the car, she jumped in the back seat and locked the doors. The repo man drove her all the way down the street before she finally got out and gave up.
Never heard from or about her again. He really dodged a bullet considering she was engaged a year before meeting my cousin – that guy left her as well and went on their honeymoon with another woman.”
It’s Over
“This, unfortunately, happened to the sweetest of my sisters. She and her boyfriend had been dating about 2 years and she had been wanting to get married for a few months, start a family, etc. We’ll call them Jane and John. John seemed like one of the most polite, upright men I’ve met, and when he proposed our whole family was ecstatic.
She had a lot of problems with his family. His sister didn’t like her, his parents didn’t like her (though they took advantage of her sweet nature: she was always at their house, watering plants when they went out of town or taking care of their cats, visiting with them when John was away on business). His parents were both on disability and relied on John to provide for them 100%. They had even moved into his home when they lost their own, as had his sister, who also relied on his financial support until she got married.
The engagement lasts for about half a year, and about a month before the wedding, they actually push the date back 3 weeks in the hope that during the extra time they’d finally be able to get his parents’ approval. During the engagement, John participates in things like Jane’s bridal shower (he calls in to give answers during a party game), gets gifts from my family, helps prepare wedding favors, and generally seems very excited about marrying my sister. Still, we only hear about John’s family disapproval and do not meet his mother.
The night before the wedding, my family comes out in force to decorate the church where the reception will be held. I have family members who’ve flown in from the other half of the country to be there, and we’re all having a great time. John is there and he is quieter than normal but he is still helping to set up decorations and lights. Later on in the evening, he disappears to the bathroom and Jane tells us he’s thrown up, feeling sick, and is going to go home and rest while we finish decorating. We all go and give him hugs, tell him to feel better, and that we’re all excited about the morning, and he nods along.
Around 10pm, his parents show up to the church. They’re raging, telling us their son would never marry our sister, that it’s all a farce, that the wedding isn’t going to happen. My sister and father try and talk with them, my dad asking what is it about Jane that they don’t want their son to marry her and they eventually say she’s not good enough for him. It’s gets heated and my dad asks them to leave. When they leave, my sister tries calling John and gets no answer.
For the next few hours, she’s hysterical. She can’t get a hold of him, she has someone drive by his house and he’s not there.
This all goes down by about 2am. The next morning, the bride and groom were expected for some religious ceremony at 9am. Jane is there, John doesn’t show. He still hadn’t contacted her or anyone on her side of the family since leaving the night before. The wedding was set for 11am.
Friends of the family went back to the church and took down the wedding decorations, and also contacted the guests to let them know there’d be no ceremony. Poor Jane was just crushed that day. It wasn’t until a week later that she was able to get a hold of John. She’s never told us what he said, what reason he gave her, she just would say that it’s over.”
“I’m Really Worried About Today”
“About a week before the wedding, things were looking a bit shaky. Apparently the two of them had a huge fight over something trivial regarding the reception and it almost brought the entire thing down. My girlfriend acted as the voice of reason, along with each of their parents, and things cooled off and everything was beautiful.
Fast forward to the wedding. My girlfriend was with the bride up until a few hours before the ceremony. I get to the church and she comes up to me with a concerned look on her face.
All she says to me is, ‘I’m really worried about today.’
That isn’t exactly the greatest thing you want to hear about a wedding, though I didn’t know the groom very well and had only met the bride a couple of times. Still, unless you are the worst person in existence, you want to see a wedding go off without a hitch. My girlfriend ended up being the harbinger of sorrow, it seemed, as her statement to me was an omen that came true.
The bride was halfway down the aisle. She stopped dead in her tracks, burst into tears, looked at her father and said, ‘I can’t marry him.’
She bolted out the door she came in. Mass confusion and chaos ensued. The curious thing I found about the entire bit was the groom.
He looked….relieved. Positively relieved.
I found out a couple of weeks after that both sets of parents had pushed for them to marry each other, though I never actually found out the reasoning behind it. Both families were pretty affluent, but something was really off about the entire thing.
To this day, I still do not know the real reason why she couldn’t follow through and why he looked so relieved that she didn’t.”
Mom Strikes Again
“Everything was pretty peachy at first. Everything was fine. I was a guest and not a bridesmaid or anything. I have on my plain dress.
The wedding starts off fine. Everything is normal, until the bride comes out. She looks happy. She looks fine. Her hair is up, but then the bride’s mother comes charging out of the audience.
‘HARLOT, HARLOT, HARLOT, HARLOT,’ over and over again. We restrained her once and the bride…she just kept pushing on. If I had to say one thing about her, she was not a quitter. The mother was placed back in the audience to watch. She had a front row seat which was a mistake.
We hear a crash and see that the mother chucked a vino bottle at her daughter. She missed, but the damage was done. The bride was upset and just couldn’t take it anymore. She walked off with the groom.
I don’t remember exchanging any vows because once I started drinking, everything became a blur.
When I contacted the bride afterwords, she told me that her mother hated that her daughter was leaving, and how she was getting her own house, her own family, and everything. Not because she’ll miss her daughter, but because she is wondering who will take of her now? Who will pay for her weekly drinking binges, etc. The mother was more concerned that she would have some responsibility in her life.
A few years later, her mother was put into an elderly home because she started hoarding and threatening people who came too close to her house. Her daughter rarely visits because her mother was very emotionally abusive to her.”
Goodbye Chuck
“Chuck. Just a great guy. He’d give you the shirt off your back and though he looked like a frickin’ headbanging metal head, he was plain old nice and never as much a swear word from his mouth. You could rely on him like an older brother (a Caucasian mustached, tattooed, long curly haired, head banging brother). He didn’t have parents that were around (I didn’t pry) and he was independent living and started working at a young age.
Wedding day. His girlfriend/fiancee of like 5 or 6 years, they look great, church is full, they walk up the altar, the ceremony gets done, reception going on, people are talking.
But I notice that Chuck just isn’t himself during the whole time, just kind of like forcing a smile and not as relaxed and smooth as he usually was. I tell my parents, but they just chock it up as nerves. I get told how would I know what a guy feels like getting married, I wasn’t yet, so I believe them. My parents were also his boss (he drove delivery for us part time for years and just never quit because the money got him through high school and two years of college, and he said that he had the time, so why waste it?).
Dinner’s over, dessert and coffee on the way, groom speech time…
‘Testing 1, 2, 3… Volume is loud and clear. I hope everyone here had a good dinner and enjoyed themselves. I have some sad news to tell everyone. I just found out last week that my wife was sleeping around with my best friend, who is also my best man. Enjoy your life and good-bye.’
He took off his ring, threw it at her, and he left. A stride in his walk like no man or beast was going to stop him.
EVERYONE WAS STUNNED. JUST SILENT AND THEN THE BRIDE STARTED TO CRY. Then the voices and the talk.
I ran out to see what the heck Chuck was going to do. By that time I got outside, he had got into his car and was driving out of the parking lot.
No one saw him for two weeks. We finally saw him again when he came walking in for his regular shift (we didn’t expect him because he never answered the calls, so we had the spare there already) and that was that. He cried a little when my mother and father asked him how he was doing and then my parents got mad because where the heck was he all this time because we were worried about him (we put the call out to nearly all the bars and pool halls and any place we could think of).
He just needed some time off. Things went back to normal, but after a few months, he told my parents that he was going to get out of this part of the country and head out west. He always heard that Vancouver was nice in the winter. And two months later, that was that.”
We’ll Never Know
“I was a wedding coordinator at a Catholic church in Manhattan. Our Church was booked for a large wedding party from Connecticut , they told us to expect at least 500 people as the bride and the groom came from large Italian families. When the day of their wedding came, the only people who showed up were members of the groom’s side of the family. It was odd because we had seen the bride the night before at the wedding rehearsal and everything seemed fine. But the next day, the bride and her party were no-shows. The groom tried his best to keep his composure. In an effort to track down the bride, the groom had his friends, family, and myself call anyone who might have a clue as to where she went. Minutes passed, and eventually hours passed. The groom begged me to let the current party stay in hopes that his bride to be would show up. I let his party stay an extra 15 minutes before I had to kick them all out and prepare for the next wedding that afternoon. We never learned of what happened to the bride. Her absence remains a mystery today.”
I Don’t Love You
“My best friend throughout high school and college was set to get married to a girl he had met and been dating for about a year and a half. They were a great couple together. When you saw them, they gave off every sign of being happy and totally in love. In retrospect, I suppose they didn’t have the physical intimacy that most couples have. They didn’t hug or kiss, but they would cuddle on couches during movies and whatnot.
Anyways, the night before the wedding, she broke down. It was after the wedding rehearsal in the awkward time you spend killing between other things you have to do. If anyone has been part of a wedding before, you know what I mean. She was distant and out of it during the ceremony, but we all assumed she was just emotional due to getting married the next day. Long story short, we left the rehearsal at about 8 with plans to meet up with the groom at 9 for a few hours of bro time on the night before his wedding. He called me half an hour later saying that he wasn’t going to make it. No big deal, he’s getting married. It’s understandable.
He called at about 10:30 that night saying that the wedding was off – all of it. I’ve known this guy for over 15 years, but I didn’t know him during those few days. He was, understandably, a wreck. The long story short is that she told him that while she loved him as a person, she wasn’t ‘in love’ with him – whatever that means. She couldn’t stand the thought of marrying him.
Everything was cancelled. My friend, good dude that he is, didn’t shy away from it at all. He wrote letters to everyone describing the situation and profusely apologized to everyone. As far as I know, they lost their deposit on everything. Grooms’ tuxes were paid for by his family, and I think I heard at one point that bridesmaid dresses and accessories were similarly paid for. All wedding gifts were returned.”