There are so many things that can go wrong at a wedding, and all it takes is one person to completely derail the entire day. These oddballs made this special day especially strange and unforgettable. Future family reunions will certainly have a lot to reminisce on! Content has been edited for clarity.
Desperately Stealing The Spotlight
“My wife and her sister have a strained relationship to say the least. My wife is not quite a year younger than her sister. When we got engaged she started pressuring her then boyfriend to make a commitment to her, and when he wouldn’t, she broke it off with him. She found another guy, and within a two months got engaged and married him, so that her sister would not be married before her.
About six months before the wedding, there was a big blowup over the fact that my wife selected her best friend over her sister to be Maid of Honor. The month before our wedding we were having a wedding shower where her sister proceeds to announce that she is four weeks pregnant. The weekend of the wedding, her sister and husband have a major fight while traveling to the wedding site. We had a wedding closer to my family because I have grandparents that could not travel very far. They end up not speaking to each other unless they were yelling, and one point her dad threatens to leave them both on the side of the road.
A month later, the day of the wedding arrives and my wife’s sister says she doesn’t feel well. She thinks that she may be having a miscarriage, but she doesn’t want to leave the wedding. Her mom spends the entire day making sure she was okay and barely paying attention to my wife. The wedding ceremony and pictures go on without any issues. The wedding party goes driving around town to have fun until the reception hall is ready for us. The sister and her husband start fighting again while visiting local bars getting drinks (it was a tradition in my hometown for weddings, bride and groom are gifted drinks that are only made by the local bars as a celebration to their marriage).
At the reception they continue to fight while the sister continues to drink, and at one point she stated that she probably already lost the baby, so she was going to get really wasted and celebrate her sister’s wedding. Her mom and dad finally made them leave the wedding. When we get back home, we found out that she had a hysterical pregnancy and wasn’t actually pregnant, and she and her husband end up separating and getting a divorce less than a month later.”
Weddings Usually Aren’t This Deadly
“A cousin of mine was getting married, and his wife is a nurse, so there were many doctors at the wedding. It was a huge wedding with over 300 people, some of them were very old uncles and aunts that hadn’t had spirits for years.
An uncle aged 75+ had too much to drink and passed out at the wedding table. All the doctors of the wedding gathered around and were trying to get him up, but he had a suction and he died. The ambulance came, declared him dead, and took him and his close family members left.
Even after that the party continued awkwardly, it was still too early to end it. After 20 minutes, another very old uncle that probably ate too much had heart attack. Again the doctors did CPR on him and were fighting to keep him alive until the ambulance arrived. His daughter, aged around 55-60, saw her father like that and passed out and hit the stairs with her head. She started bleeding. Half of the doctors now went to check on her, and even these experienced doctors were shocked after all these incidents.
Eventually the daughter had a concussion and lived while her father died in the hospital. Of course the wedding table stopped. Let me say it again at wedding with OVER 7 DOCTORS and many NURSES, two people DIED and one had a severe CONCUSSION!”
This Aunt Will Stop At Nothing For Her Son
“I have two, one was my fault, and the other happened at the rehearsal dinner at my own wedding.
I’ll get mine out of the way. I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii when I was younger and I had a blast. I brought home two aloha shirts and so many stories. For those of you that are not acquainted with Hawaiian shirts, you can roughly categorize them into three categories: Formal, causal, and tacky. I got the $20 tacky ones. My parents insisted I wear my bright red one to a close family friend’s wedding (we are closer to them than half of my own family). I told them it wasn’t appropriate and I’ll wear a polo and slacks, but they wouldn’t drop it. They told me it was going to be casual, so I was like fine, and that they know best.
We arrive, I get out of the car, my shirt brighter than the sun, only to see everyone wearing suits and button ups with ties. I was mortified. For the remainder of the day my face matched the color of my shirt. I was so happy to eventually leave. I should probably mention, I was around 17 at the time.
Story 2: My wedding rehearsal dinner.
Background: My wife’s aunt is one of those moms who glorifies their children. She thinks they are the best at everything they do, to the point where they don’t see any of their faults. That being said, she is still a wonderful person, just a little crazy when it comes to her kids. They make for some interesting stories.
Well my wife’s aunt approached us a few weeks before the big day and told me that her son (11 at the time) was learning the violin and was really good, and he wanted to play at our wedding for our song. We politely tell her we already had all of that arranged but thanked them for offering. We thought that was the end, it wasn’t apparently.
We didn’t want a fancy rehearsal dinner, just a family meal and everyone would be catching up before the big day. Everything went smoothly, until dessert. My soon to be wife and I were going around to everyone and chit-chatting. Suddenly we hear a violin. The aunt snuck the violin into the dinner and brought her son to the front to play for everyone. Not going to sugar coat it, it was awful. It was too late to stop it, so we just let it continue, thinking it was only a song or two, but it didn’t stop. Most people ignored it the best they could and continued their conversations. He eventually stopped and got a few claps but the damage was done. The aunt had hoped by having him play we would change our minds, but all it did was reaffirm our decision. It didn’t ruin the evening, but it really made things awkward.”
Mom Makes An Uncomfortable Revelation
“I had been dating a guy for MAYBE two weeks, and he asked me to go to some random family member’s wedding. I like dressing up, so why not? I had recently gotten a divorce and made it very clear that I was NOT interested in rushing into things. Mind you, this is the first time I am meeting his mother and instantly she attaches herself to me physically and emotionally. Anyhow, I decide to start throwing back some drinks. I drink one before the ceremony and take another fresh made mojito to sip on during the actual event. I’m sitting between this dude and his mom, and here comes the bride, so we all stand and as we are standing, I take a quick sip of my drink just as his mom leans in and breathily whispers, ‘If you ever decide to get married again, I still have my dress.’
I inhaled a LARGE piece of a mint leaf and tried to choke it back for as long as possible. I was literally crying and trying to breathe through my mouth slowly while the mint leaf was attacking my throat. I couldn’t take it anymore and tried to polite lady cough, but that made it way worse. I start straight up choke coughing and continue to do so for so long that I got pretty much everyone’s glaring attention. His mom is confused and trying to politely pat me on the back. The preacher tells everyone to sit down, so I sit down and I’m DYING, still coughing like a lunatic until finally I retch up the mint leaf right onto the grass between my feet. The preacher said, ‘All right, then.’
And then did his thing. EVERYONE had to come up to me at the reception and ask if I was okay with skeptical judging eyes. I think they thought that I was wasted and had puked. Yeah, it didn’t ‘work out’.
Scumbag Dad Shows Up
“My friend got married about a year ago, and in order for her disabled sister to come to the wedding, she had to invite her abusive parents that acted as her guardian. Her dad is an absolute scumbag, who also has no filter, and no sense of social boundaries. Every private conversation I had was interrupted by him coming in and asking a lot of awkward questions, taking over the conversation, and being really handsy with all of us girls.
The absolute peak of the night was when he approached my partner, a hairy man with a burly beard and long hair, and started speaking literal gibberish. We asked him again and again what the heck he was saying, and in a frustrated tone, he asked, ‘ARE. YOU. A. WEREWOLF?!’
My partner did his best to joke it off, but as he turned back to me, this man starts going on and on about how in this book he wrote, the gibberish he just spouted in a made up language was how they asked each other if they were werewolves. He talked for thirty minutes basically at a wall about his unfinished book while we avoided eye contact and did our best to carry on with the conversation we were already having.
I ended up needing to leave early when he started loudly talking about how his daughter and her wife needed to be sure to consummate their marriage. He suggested he talk them through it or show them, in case she was confused. I was so hopping mad for her, and all she could do was smile nervously and joke back to keep things calm so their wedding could be enjoyable.”
Everyone Could Feel The Tension
“At my friends wedding, they asked her cousin (or her cousin insisted) to sing for their first dance. She is a professional singer and does have a great voice. It started out fine and dandy. The couple was dancing, the cousin was behind them singing, and then she got off the stage and started walking in front of them dancing. She literally stood in front of them with arms out belting her song like she was Celine Dion in Vegas. During their FIRST dance. She completely tried to upstage them, and it was an incredibly cringe-worthy experience to watch her cousin try to make a show out of her own performance, rather than letting the bride and groom have the attention. She is in every photo of their first dance because she wouldn’t stop standing in front of them. It was like out of a comedy movie. Collectively you could FEEL everyone in the room confused at what was going on.
Apparently this cousin is always like that, so her whole family has just learned to deal with it. She was the bride’s maid of honor too, and her speech was equally cringe-worthy. She compared herself to the bride for what felt like ten straight minutes. She was saying things like, ‘I was cute and small, she was big and strong. I played with barbies and she played with dirt!’
Each comparison got progressively more insulting to the bride as they went on. It was shocking. The worst speech I’ve heard in my entire life. I think the bride felt obligated to have her as maid of honor. She definitely has other people in her life that could have been perfect, but they grew up together and their parents are tight, and she is kind of a pushover when it comes to her family, so she just accepted it I guess.”
Frantic Voicemails And Fearing For Their Friend
“Oh gosh, I caused the awkward moment. This was about a decade ago, but I feel still terrible about it. I was a groomsman for one of my buddies. I was pretty close with his fiancé too, and I had hung out with a couple of her bridesmaids before as well. They were putting us all up in this old mansion place that was supposedly haunted. Of course, we all had a few too many drinks and one of the bridesmaids that I knew said she was a little spooked by the haunting thing. She was in the room next to mine, so I told her to knock on my door if she gets scared. It was part joking, part just trying to make her feel better, and part leaving the opportunity open for something to happen.
And it did. She ended up knocking and staying in my room, and we had some fun times that night. Next day the wedding goes off without a hitch. We’re having a blast at the reception. And I don’t know if she just had too good of a time with the open bar, or if she thought I wasn’t interested in having another night together (I was), but she ended up drinking too much. We were hanging in a group and if I remember right she just kind of disappeared. In hindsight, I should have thought about it more, but I was also a little inebriated and having a good time with friends, so I figured she just called it a night.
A few of our friends had one more drink out on the lawn, and then I headed to bed for the night. I knocked on her door, not looking for a hookup at this point, just wanting to make sure she was okay, tell her goodnight, and ask her if she wanted to grab breakfast in the morning. No answer, so I went to my room. At this point I check my phone and realize I’ve missed a ton of calls. I have tons of texts and several voice mails, and I’m trying to figure out what on earth is going on. I have a voicemail from my buddy, the groom, explaining that none of this is my fault, but to call him right away.
Turns out that when she had too much to drink and I told her that I wasn’t ready to call it a night yet, she thought I was rejecting her. She ended up deciding to leave the wedding and drive home, about an hour away.
Luckily nothing happened to her and no one else. I think (but don’t know) that there were some other underlying mental health issues that she was dealing with that I didn’t know about. But I felt so bad that this situation happened at the end of the wedding night, essentially keeping the bride and groom busy trying to make sure that their friend was okay. I feel terrible about it to this day.”
Way Too Wild Weekend
“At my best friend’s wedding, I was the Maid of Honor and didn’t know anyone besides the bride and her immediate family. When we were all walking down the aisle before the bride, I saw this guy kind of being supported by the guy next to him when everyone stood and turned. No biggie, I thought maybe he was disabled or something. After bride walks down and everyone sits, the guy is coaxed into sitting down.
Fast-forward to the reception. I’m sitting at the head table with the bride and asked her who the guy is. At this point, he’s at the furthest table across the room, barely standing, with a dirty shirt untucked. Bride lets me know that he’s one of her coworkers, and that whole table is. Later, I’m walking around meeting people, whatever. Doing light hosting while Bride and Groom are getting pictures. That’s when I meet ‘Will’. He pulls me aside and gets real close to my face. I’m 5’0″, and he’s easily 6’2″, so he’s stooping to get to my level. In the most wasted whisper:
‘Hey, lemme askkkk youuu summin. Who gettin marred?’
My nose hairs curled at the amount of drink on his breath. Thankfully the guy next to him grabs his shoulder and gives him the most exasperated, ‘Alright, let’s get you out of here!’
I found out later that Will had started drinking Friday night all the way through the wedding and reception(Sunday), and he had even sent my best friend flowers and an apology card FOR MISSING THE WEDDING. He was blacked out for all of it. The whole thing start to finish was awkward for everyone involved.”
Was This The Worst It Can Get?
“My friend got married in a state park a few hours away, so that his extended family could see. Reception was under a pavilion. It actually would have been really nice, but there were just too many ridiculous things that happened.
First off, we arrived at the venue way before the groom. We then helped put lights around the trees. These were white solar lights in broad daylight. Um, no one is going to tell that there are lights on. My buddy gets married in a polo shirt and jeans. Everyone else was dressed better. There was no ‘walk down the aisle’ and no members of the wedding party. We were groomsmen, but we were told to wait until his other wedding near home where we would have the traditional one.
After vows, we ate, and when they went to cut the cake, the bride got all anxious and wanted everyone away while they did the pictures. Oh, and no DJ, my buddy made a playlist on his Wi-Fi speaker. Some inappropriate music selections for a wedding were made. My buddy then wanted us to play baseball in the field just over a bit. That didn’t go over well with the Mrs.
Then for the second wedding, it was supposed to be on a lake boat. A month before, my buddy says the boat company made a huge mix up on his part, and it ended up being in the bride’s backyard. We all dressed up. We get there and the groom says we were not needed anymore. No vows, just basically a backyard party. Then the food. It was cold by the time we got to it. There wasn’t enough of it either, I didn’t even have selection of half of the stuff because I let everyone else go first.
Look, I know my buddy doesn’t have the most money or anything, but yeah, both of them were a joke. Hate to say it. We all kinda looked at each other in shock. This was the first wedding for a friend I went to, so we can only go up from here!”
Friendship Terminated
“I was the maid of honor, and the bride wanted to make her own wedding cake, but she had never made a three tier cake before, let alone a white cake with black damask piping on it. I knew it would fail horribly, so before she came to me crying, I had already set up a cake order as my wedding present to her. A few days before the wedding, she called me bawling, so I said I got it.
At the wedding, which I drove eight hours in order to be there, I paid for a hotel for three nights before the wedding, so I could help finish everything and do my maid of honor duties. The bride insisted I buy a new dress to be the maid of honor, so I did. Then the day of the wedding, it was my shoes, so she picked out ones for me to buy and wear. She then surprised me by saying she caved and let her other brides maids wear floor length black dresses (which was supposed to be only my thing).
During the reception, I was standing with her and one of her nephews, and the nephew starts ranting on about how bad the cake looks and how his mom could have done such a better job and saying things like, ‘I hope you didn’t pay for that!’
And when I went to correct that ungrateful troll, the bride ended up yelling at me instead of standing up for the cake that I got her out of my non-existent budget for HER wedding out of the kindness of my heart. Talk about awkward. Their marriage didn’t last six months. They only got married because she was pregnant and their marriage didn’t even make it after the baby was born.
Another awkward thing was the day before the wedding. She and I were driving around running errands when we started talking about the wedding night surprise. I knew the groom got a themed hotel room for them to spend the night and I thought she would love it, I even knew the theme was Roman.
So were chatting about all the excitement and she knows the hotel they are going to has theme rooms, so she states very matter of fact like that, ‘He better not have gotten us a Roman theme room, like that’s just ridiculously tacky and I might have to walk away if he is that tacky!’
Man did I have to bite my tongue! I did my best to say she was lucky he would go out of his way to do something nice and romantic for just the two of them on their wedding night, and how I wished I had a guy who was so thoughtful. What I really wanted to say was, ‘Listen here you ungrateful turd, he’s put a lot of thought and care into planning this for you, and you are going to complain about the freaking decor of the room?!’
I stopped being her friend less than a year later.”
Boyfriend Ruins Everything
“The first wedding I had ever been to, my boyfriend at the time was the best man. I was given little to no information about the evening, and I tried my hardest to make sure he didn’t get wasted (as per the bride’s request). That was much easier said than done. My boyfriend tried to pull me up to sit with him and the groom at the large ‘family’ table, but insisted I take the bride’s seat beside the groom. I was politely taken away to a table near the front by their family, because I guess it isn’t customary for me to have sat up there in the first place? No big, it was weird anyway. But now I couldn’t stop him from drinking.
Everyone’s eating, and he decides to give a long and embarrassing toast about the groom’s poor choice of women in the past before the DJ cuts the mic and announces the first dance. My boyfriend came to my table to sit with me and complain about the incident, but he quickly realized the couple weren’t dancing. They were shy, and awkward, but trying their best to have their first dance. He told me that we should go dance as well, that it’s what the couple would’ve wanted. He pulled me onto the dance floor and proceeded to stomp all over me. I thought I was going to break my ankle. Other couples came onto the floor as well, I assume to mask this embarrassing display.
We went outside and the bride ignored me for the rest of the night as ‘the boys’ spent the evening getting so trashed, they lost their deposit for the hotel and had to book rooms elsewhere. They even smashed into the gazebo and almost ruined the grass from all of their smoking. We didn’t last long as a couple, but we outlasted the couple who got married. I felt so bad. I was a teenager, so I didn’t really have a voice to speak up for myself back then.”
Like A Human Accordion
“My aunt and uncle were getting married at an old pioneer rock church that had been converted into a wedding venue. The church had installed an ornate staircase that the bride could walk down as the wedding march played. My aunt went for ease in her shoes. She was wearing flip-flops, but no one was supposed to see since the dress was big and voluminous and full length.
My aunt was on like the fifth step down, and the flip-flop failed her. She slipped, tripped, and slid down the entire staircase like it was a log flume at Six Flags. I’m certain that had there not been music, you would have heard her sound like a human accordion as she went over each bump.
I’ve seen fiery sunsets that were less incandescent than her face after that. She was mortified. As a fifteen-year-old idiot, I nearly stroked out trying not to burst into hysterical laughter. Thankfully, she saw the humor in the situation and also started to laugh, so the audience joined in, but for a brief second I think the whole audience thought the wedding was over.”
Mom On The Warpath”
“A couple of years ago, we went to two weddings for children of two of my cousins. The parents of the first to be married are fairly well-off, and though they didn’t really cut corners, they made practical choices for food, venue and entertainment. It was a wonderful experience for the guests. There were nearby rooms for the elderly family members and an impromptu professionally staffed child care center and reasonably priced rooms available within walking distance for guests. Just a wonderful day with many people staying very late enjoying drinks and conversation.
The parents of the second cousin were not as well-off, but they spent substantially more on every part of the event in an apparent attempt to show up the others. Elaborate table settings, a multi-course meal that took forever and featured uncommon foods that many guests didn’t care to eat, and a band that was, to say the least, not most people’s cup of tea. Fairly early in the evening, people were leaving because the venue was a long drive from where much of the family lived, and there was no lodging nearby other than a few $300+ rooms. It just wasn’t fun.
The mother of the bride began confronting people as they left about eating and drinking but leaving so early. Her ranting made people more uncomfortable and they began slipping out other exits until she noticed that the family of the other cousin had left. She was livid and essentially started throwing people out. Because myself and several male cousins had been asked by the bride to help ferry vehicles to a hotel for the wedding party and their close friends, I ended up staying until the very end to hear the mother of the bride in a telephone argument with the bride after the newlyweds had already left the reception.”
Swimming In Awkwardness
“My oldest brother’s wedding was super cringe.
From the fact that it wasn’t done for the right reasons (the baby momma’s parents are devout and demanded she get married to him as soon as she got pregnant), done up in rural Maine, competed with my Grandma’s ‘vow renewal’, and doomed from the absolute beginning, the whole thing swam in awkwardness.
First off, my brother, who I’m estranged from, tried forcing me to spend time with him. The implication was that if I didn’t, he would have to bow out. So I awkwardly stood next to him while he told me, manically, how impressed he is with me, and how I’m super great at everything. This happened while I was trying to talk to all of the other guests and be polite. I had to prepare a Shakespeare sonnet the day of the wedding because the sonnet they told me to prepare was actually about false love (they’re hicks, and they just liked the pretty words, okay?). The cake got demolished the night before the wedding, so we had to rush out and get a Walmart cake for the reception. Mom sang ‘Open Arms’ and cried through half of it because she somehow believe this wedding was going to fix my brother. I got wasted on boxed drinks half-way through because everyone around me was screaming at each other when they weren’t in front of the guests, and I just wanted to disappear. Oh, and they separated shortly after the baby was born. I genuinely believe some people were surprised.”
What Did I Walk Into?!
“A close friend of mine was getting married. She was a childhood friend and had become friends with most of my friends. We are all so close that we are like family. Between the wedding and the ceremony, I was chatting with friends and saying hello to everyone, and so on. Her mom comes to me and asks me to check on the bridal party, to make sure they are ready for pictures. So I got upstairs to a room that they were in. I knocked but they didn’t answer due to the commotion. I knocked several times but all I hear is laughter. So I assumed it was safe to go in. Nope.
So there is my friend, the bride, bent over a couch with her dress over her back, butt out. The bridesmaids are on the floor laughing, trying to hand me a marker. I look at her and realized they wrote messages to the groom on her butt. She looks back and sees me. I’m still shocked, and she says, ‘Well come on, write something!’
So I did. I wrote something. The bridesmaids are still laughing and slapping her butt and fixing her back to normal. I had to stay in the room to not bring attention. That was the weirdest thing. Now she is happily married. Her kids call me uncle and her husband is one my dearest friends. And nope, he has literally no idea about this whatsoever. But even if he did, he would just laugh.”