Weddings are supposed to be the greatest day of a person's life. It's the day when two people express their love for each other, and officially began spending the rest of their lives together. However, it's impossible to know what the other person is thinking on that special day. Usually, thoughts of pure joy, happiness, nerves, and excitement are running through their head. This is a day when a lot of emotions are expressed, but sometimes not in the best way.
People on Reddit share the moment when they were left at the altar during their wedding. Content has been edited for clarity.
“They Were Going Along With The Motions”
“I just found out my mom called off her wedding, pretty late in the process (this was in the 1960s and the formal wedding announcement with photos had already been posted in the newspaper, because that’s a thing that people used to do?).
She and her fiancé (who I’ll call ‘Steve’) had met in college, gotten pregnant, and gave the baby up for adoption. They then continued to date for another 3 years, got engaged when my mom was 21, and called off the wedding a month before the ceremony. Turns out, giving a baby up in college is a really intense bonding experience and all your friends will be like ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe you guys survived that together, you’re such a great couple, you’re such role models!’
When in actuality, you’re in friggin’ COLLEGE, and are just figuring out who you are as people, and maybe that means that you’re not meant to be together. She says everyone just assumed they would get married, so they were going to. ‘Because where else do they go from [the adoption]?’
Luckily, they realized they were just going along with the motions in time. My mom says it was no hard feelings between her and Steve, that they meet up every 3-5 years just to see what’s up with the other, and she has no regrets (Unlike her actual marriage to my father, but hey she got me out of that deal so it wasn’t all bad).
Meanwhile I just found out/met my 54 year old sibling for the first time that I hadn’t known about. My mom’s not sick, but she is getting older, and I guess she felt she needed to get this off her chest and tell me before it was too late. Turns out my secret sister is a freaking cross fit trainer with arms like cannons so I have no genetic excuse for not being able to do a pull up.”
“The Bride Was Not Moved By His Defense”
“I was a plus one in a super fancy wedding, high profile family on the bride’s side (e.g. she arrived by helicopter with her dad).
As the bride was preparing to enter the venue, we heard screaming outside. A ‘lady of the night’ was at the door, demanding to see the groom. Apparently, he had made love with her at his bachelor party the week before and failed to pay the agreed amount. She had been threatening to show up at his wedding if he didn’t pay and he didn’t take her seriously. Oh, well.
He denied at first, then argued he did pay but she’d demanded more money after they were done. The bride was not moved by his defense and a screaming match ensued. The bride left crying with her parents, we all stood there for a while and slowly started to go home. They broke up (of course).
From what I know, the whole wedding had been paid by the bride’s family, but they were not short on money at all, so I think it was the last of their concerns.”
“We All Just Sat There In Dead Silence”
“I was a guest on the bride’s side. An acquaintance from a previous job was kind enough to invite me. Everything was going well. She started walking down the aisle then stopped halfway. Her father and mother came over. She whispered to them, then they all turned around and walked away. The groom immediately followed. Music kept playing then slowly drifted away. We all just sat there in dead silence.
A couple of minutes later, the father of the bride came back down the aisle. He apologized, and said there was going to be no wedding today. 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, told us that they would explain everything later but for now we should just head home.
The story is the groom the night before the ceremony confessed to the bride he was gay. He loved her. He still wanted to marry her, provide and raise children. But he needed her to know. She couldn’t let him live like that and it wasn’t fair to either of them.”
“The Bride Comes To Her Senses”
“An ex-girlfriend was at a Bachelorette party at a seedy male dance club. She came home from the party and said ‘Well, the wedding is off,’
She said the bride was getting the usual treatment, sitting in a chair with dancers gyrating around her, whipping dongs around, and then one put whipped cream on his member and invited her to lick it off. Which she did, with her tonsils, until the dancer shoots all over the front of her ‘I’m the Bride’ t-shirt.
About this moment, the bride kind of comes to her senses, looks around and sees like 20 of her friends pointing cell phones at her recording and taking photos and starts freaking out.
My girlfriend says she started screaming at everyone ‘You better delete that!’ and generally having a full rage meltdown.
Which is apparently tough to take seriously when you’re basted in bodily fluids.
This tale of modern romance closes very shortly later with the bride’s phone ringing a call from her fiance, who has already received photos (from her ‘friends’) of his bride to be with a member stuffed in her mouth.”
“It Was The Most Devastating Day Of My Life”
“I was the one that was left. It happened not the day of the wedding, but just a couple days before. At this point, literally guests from all over the country had already arrived and the last of the $40k had been spent on everything wedding related. It was the most devastating day of my life. She didn’t even tell me in person, she called me and told me while I was at work that we were not getting married.
I was a complete mess, called my brother to ask him if he would notify everyone. I drove straight to my parents house and locked myself in the guest room for a week, never knew so much liquid could come out of someone’s face for such a long period of time. It’s been a journey but I’m better off for it today. It definitely still hurts, but at least there is some light in my life now.
There is a bit of a back story, but basically she deeply betrayed my trust about a year before the wedding. From that day forward, my confidence fell and it was apparent I didn’t feel like an equal in the relationship. So, she essentially didn’t feel as doted upon or loved as she once was, which is true.
Anyway, yea the saying is true… When you hit rock bottom, the only way out is up.”
“No Fury Like A Scorned Bride”
“My ex was once engaged to this really beautiful and independent woman. On hindsight, I think he was emasculated by it (he was raised in an emotionally abusive home where he got used to his dad’s bad habits as the norm). I don’t know the woman’s side of the story but from context from my ex, my ex pretty much played mama’s boy and never really defended his fiancee from his mom who treated her indifferently. He also had high demands for his girlfriend to determine if she is worthy of marrying him. He also had to redo his proposal because he wasn’t satisfied with how she reacted to the first one.
On top of that, during a wedding expo his girlfriend won some wedding package and was asked to come on stage. Like any excited bride to be, she happy jumped on stage to accept the prize. This irritated my ex who said, her actions were selfish because she didn’t take him with her to the stage. He used this to justify his next actions. He cheated on her 2 months before the wedding when all the venues and invitations were booked and sent out. Caused a huge deal of embarrassment to his poor over-religious mom. And it gets better.
There’s no fury like a scorned bride. Then, him and the new fling bumped into the now ex fiancee at the mall a few weeks before the supposed wedding. The incident cause his ex-fiancee to snap, and she beat up the new girl in public. This girl was unaware she was ‘the other girl’ in the relationship. Where was my ex in all of this? He abandoned his new girlfriend and ran away (he’s proud of this fact by the way).
Somehow, their relationship actually lasted for a few years after that incident.”
“You Could Tell He Was Tense”
“My friend, we will call her ‘Klarah,’ invited me as her plus 1 because her girlfriend couldn’t make it, and she didn’t want people to try and 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 (whom she had known since grade school). Not knowing anyone, 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 cancelled’.
On the outside, I was like ‘Oh no, whatever do you mean?’
But on the inside I was screaming for joy and going Talk about a freaking plot twist!
Turns out, the old man was the groom’s Dad, and he had proof the bride-to-be was only using his son as a meal ticket. 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 by the bride. I’m talking 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 the news to hit the fan.
I see the dad skulk off towards where the groom was, and an hour or so later the proceedings begin. 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 forehead and was shaking with rage. Everybody was confused, the bride’s family started screaming at the groom’s family, it was a horrible sight.
The groom announced to everyone he’s calling off the wedding because, and I quote, ‘Because she’s an unfaithful brat who’s not even fit enough to work at Hooters.’
The bride stormed off, fights broke out , and I was giggling in the background watching this all unfold while Klarah was dying from embarrassment. The whole time we were there, she was talking about how rock solid their relationship was.
Last I heard the bridesmaid and groom ended up getting together a few months after the wedding. The bride ended up getting hooked on some seriously nasty narcotics after the boyfriend (who she was cheating on the groom with) dumped her, since he was also just using her as a meal ticket. Klarah’s girlfriend was mad she missed the whole thing go down.”
“She Wasn’t The Problem, Everyone Else Was”
“I refused to sign the marriage certificate and complete the process.
My ex, I’ll call her ‘Karen,’ was on multiple psych meds for her issues and was really cool, but stopped taking them cold turkey a few months after we were official. The main issue that caused our issues were her crippling body dysmorphia and her psychopathy. Both were diagnoses she got from counselors, not just buzzwords she used to describe how kooky she was.
It started as her asking me to avoid movies with unclothed scenes because it upset her. I agreed, but then it became anything racy. Then, it was anything with women at all. Then it was animated women. She came into a room I was playing Fallout 3 in and knocked my TV to the ground because she found out I was playing a female character. And the characters look like anthropomorphic potatoes, so she was just mad I was playing a girl.
Another time I was driving and she saw a girl in a bikini top and covered my eyes as I was passing through an intersection. She clawed me in the neck (I still have scars there) because I told her I wasn’t going to break my DVDs in half to prove I loved her, since they had women in them and I should want to break them. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house alone because I might see a girl and cheat on her. I went to Wal-Mart alone once, and ended up having to apologize loudly and beg her to unlock the front door so I could get inside. Incident after incident.
Why did I stay?
I had an abusive mother (and father) growing up, so I think I was already programmed to just deal with abuse. My first girlfriend was a manipulator and ended up stealing a ton of money from me. I had proof but didn’t do anything, telling myself Whelp, lesson learned
I was just used for a long time so when Karen came along, it was comfortable to be miserable.
She decided we should get married and I reluctantly agreed. The day came, we did the ceremony, but after I had my first moment of clarity. I refused to sign the marriage certificate to make it official until she started getting counseling.
She refused. She said all a counselor would do was tell her she needed to work on herself, but she wasn’t the problem, everyone else was. She continued grinding at me and my sanity. I lost my job and for 8 months I sat at home, playing World of Warcraft all day, eating delivery, and getting unemployment checks. She didn’t want me at a job because I might meet a girl and cheat on her, but of course she wouldn’t work. I ended up at a new place and it was world war 3 with her when she ‘discovered’ other girls worked there with me. I stood strong for keeping the job, at least. It was just years of mental and physical abuse.
Finally, the time came. I discovered she was cheating on me. She would hide her phone from me, never let me see it, panic if I was near it. She left it at home by accident and I read her texts. I blamed myself, I talked to her, everything was going to get better because she did something so bad. Then I caught her again, with the same guy. I discovered this because I put a keylogger on my computer and went into her Facebook to see her bashing me with the guy and talking about his member. She was incredibly hateful with me all the time, accusing me of looking at other girls, accusing me of trying to cheat. Telling me over and over how she was never going to cheat, and then making fun of me and making love with another dude.
That is when I suddenly grew a spine. Everything clicked for me. I opened a new bank account, I put my tax return into it and moved my military disability check and my paycheck to direct deposit into that account. I left a couple hundred in our joint account to keep it open. After a month and a half I had 11 grand saved up. I waited until she went out with her ‘friend’ for the day, and I went and got an apartment and just quietly moved on her. She got home and flipped out. She screamed and threatened and cried and tried to guilt me, but I was done. I was free.
Or so I thought.
Fast forward two years and counseling for myself. I met a wonderful woman, I wanted to marry her. The day I was going to propose guess who sends me an e-mail? Karen. She, in her weirdly childish way of communicating, lets me know she wants a divorce so she can marry the next sucker she roped in.
I was like ‘Yeah, we weren’t married, remember? I didn’t sign anything.’ She said that I may not have, but we were married.
What?
See, Karen had a friend, I’ll call ‘Brian.’ Brian and I looked very similar, like we could be related. Brian was in love with Karen and would do anything she asked. A week after I said I wasn’t signing anything, my wallet disappeared for a couple days. I was somewhat absent minded, so I assumed I misplaced it. It turned up and I forgot about losing it. What Karen did was take it, and have Brian pose as me at the courthouse. He forged my signature using my information. We were married this whole time.
I called a lawyer and asked what I could do. But there was nothing that could be done because there was no proof that it had happened. Yeah, she admitted it, but she could also just say she was messing with me and deny the whole thing. Brian had moved states and I had no idea where he was, not that he would admit to it. I had no recourse.
I was already ready to marry my new fiance but Karen, after three years, wanted to try and reconcile as friends. I said no. During this time, her new dude found out about it and bailed. So she submitted divorce papers but stated I wasn’t responding, so I couldn’t do anything. So I was stuck with her dragging her feet for almost a year, making threats and demands. I finally invited her out to lunch to catch up, but instead dragged her into a legal assistance place. She was a coward at heart ,and didn’t know how to deal with me being forceful. So she was cowed into signing all the documents and agreeing to having them submitted on her behalf by the legal assistant. Two weeks later, we were divorced.
And she still has the gall to blame me for everything, because I made her go through with the divorce instead of going to couples counseling with her 3 years after we split.
Oh, and right after the divorce was final she demanded a baby from me to keep as a memory, saying I could sign over all parental rights and never have to be part of its life. I passed.
From what I’ve heard, she is still unemployed, still lives with her mother, and goes through boyfriends like crazy because they are all smarter than I was and drop her once the shiny of her wears off.
I’m happily married to the same woman I wanted to propose to. We’ve got a loving relationship and are going on 8 years without any strife. We have two beautiful daughters and I get to be a stay at home dad for them.
I won.”
“She Was Dumb For Caring”
“My mom called off a wedding to a man she was engaged to before she met my dad. It was only one week before. She said they got into an argument over something very trivial (something having to do with cows?), but it was enough of a wakeup call for her that they were not right for each other.
I know this man and she was right not to marry him. There were people that did not get word the wedding was cancelled, and showed up at the church.
Years later, I asked my mom what the deal with the cows was. I guess they passed by a pasture and my mom commented on how lovely the sound of cow bells are and he basically told her she was dumb for caring.”
“Thought I Could ‘Fix’ This Internal Conflict”
“In 2017, 4 days out from the event, I called our wedding off. Everyone was shocked, except her (we had been going to counseling for a while). I was not ready for marriage, and was having severe anxiety about this looming deadline approaching. I was also doubts about my spirituality, life purpose, a bunch of melodramatic heady stuff. Felt constricted, trapped, hopeless, etc. I thought I could ‘fix’ this internal conflict it by being honest with my feelings, attending counseling. At times things got better, but they would occasionally slip back into dark thoughts. I saw us getting divorced had we got married then, and I really didn’t want that. I also believe now I was very depressed and didn’t know it. Regardless, not a day goes by where I really wish I had made this decision sooner.
After the decision was made, our respective best man / maid of honor helped us call friends and family. I sent an email out that afternoon to all the guests.
Hardly anything was reimbursable, but some people showed some grace (more on the money aspect below). It was a surreal few days, since no one’s flights were set to leave for another 4 days and it was an extremely remote part of the country. It was also a very small town, so I ran into ‘guests’ several times over the next few days. Looking back, we had no idea how to handle the fallout in the immediate aftermath, emotionally, logistically, etc. We spent most of the time separate, but occasionally we would meet up and either talk, cry, carry out logistics. It was very weird.
The night that we were supposed to have our rehearsal dinner, a few of my side of the family still showed up to a venue space. They knew what had happened, but also had nowhere else to go, so my family said we would still be there if they wanted to talk. I used this time to apologize to the people that had made it out, and had many one-on-one conversations with friends and family, some who I hadn’t seen in a long time.
Later that night, my ex wanted our friends to get together. Again, in shock, you don’t really know what to do. So we went to a restaurant. It was odd, but people started drinking and loosened up a bit. My best friend’s wife had some pretty choice words for me and I didn’t react well to it. We never spoke again and her husband and I aren’t friends any more, sadly.
The following day, I met up with her father. This was easily the hardest conversation I had ever had in my life. He had 3 things to talk about: he wanted to know why I broke it off, he wanted to tell me how he felt, and he wanted to let me know he still loved me.
When I asked why to that last part, he said ‘Because you were a few days away from being my son-in-law. I will always remember that.’
I wanted to repay my ex’s side of the family for all of the money they spent on the wedding, but didn’t have the liquidity to do it. Thankfully, my dad was willing to float me the money to pay them for their expenses, and I am still paying my dad back monthly for that.
Three years have gone by and I can’t honestly tell you if I made the right decision. It is truly a line of demarcation and I wish I could tell you I have all these life lessons, but I feel that I’m still putting the pieces together. Unfortunately it was more so a matter of right her, wrong time. I miss her and life sort of lost its ‘shine’ after this. But it’s the bed I made and I gotta lie in it.
I became somewhat of an outcast/pariah after being quite the social butterfly for most of life, but that part is getting better with therapy. I recognize mental health plays a factor here as well. I guess you could say I learned to forgive myself and take blame, at the same time. It was hard to do both for a while because I felt like such horrible excuse of a person.”
“She Wouldn’t Join, So He Broke It Off”
“My wife was set to be a bridesmaid in this wedding of her college friend. It was an out of state wedding, and they had people coming in from all over the USA and Europe for this. Expensive sorta deal, just my wife’s dress was over $1,000 easy.
Five days before the wedding, the groom called the whole entire thing off. The reason? He was Church of Christ and she was a Baptist and according to him, she was in the wrong church and she wouldn’t join his church, so he broke it off.
The bride actually worked at a Baptist church as some sort of counselor. When dating they one week would attend hers, then his the next. They had supposedly agreed to find a ‘neutral’ church once married.
But this dude, I think his name was Jerry, just wanted her to convert to his church ultimately and she wasn’t feeling it. This is some old southern protestant nonsense, which is all wild to me because I’m Catholic so…..
To the weeping bride’s credit, her parents did pay back everyone, including my wife the money for her bridesmaid dress.”
“They Had Only Talked Via Texts”
“My buddy was engaged to be married a few years ago. Everything was going great up until about 2 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 had only talked via 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 fiance’s list as he was a mutual friend.
Mutual friend still went to the wedding where he found….a wedding. The woman had been seeing someone on the side, still went through with the wedding but to a different guy, all on my friends dime. He had left her in charge on cancelling everything.”
“The Music Just Kept Looping And Looping”
“I was the DJ.
‘Please take your gifts home with you when you leave’ was one of the weirdest announcements I’ve ever made.
Of the 80+ Weddings I’ve done, this was definitely the weirdest, and I guess, technically not a wedding.
The ceremony walking-down-the-aisle music just kept looping and looping until the parents walked up and announced the couple was ‘postponing things’
Which was code for ‘Dang, I really hope they work this out, because if they don’t… that’s a lot of money down the drain.’ (they never worked it out)
The bride and groom never showed their faces for the entirety of the day, both sets of parents were crying on and off, bridesmaids and groomsmen had changed out of their wedding attire…
I was forced to make announcements like ‘The buffet has now opened, yes they are serving the food’ and ‘There will be no ceremonial cutting of the cake, so… feel free to grab some.’
I was furiously texting my friends, saying ‘What the heck do I play at a canceled wedding?’
I got replies like ‘We are never getting back together” and frankly most of Taylor Swift’s catalogue.
instead, I just played jazz and daft punk, seemed to fit somehow…
There was a complete 6 piece Katy Perry cover band that was a surprise to the bride… they just packed up and left without playing anything.
No, there wasn’t a dance party. Can you imagine?
Anywho, I only took half of my original payment because they were friends of mine.
The best part is through a game of telephone with the maid of honor, I had to get the mother of the bride to write the check for me and she wrote my name as ‘Russ Brooke’
My name’s not Russ Brooke, and it’s nowhere near that.
The check cashed anyways, crazy.”
“Her Demeanor Instantly Changed”
“As someone who was left at the altar, that sucked balls. I was dating this girl for 5 years. I popped the question and she happily agreed. Ten months in and the day had come, everything was fine until that question from the padre. I didn’t notice at first but someone walked in as a guest to watch. When my bride-to-be saw him, she literally changed her tone, her demeanor instantly changed.
So when the priest asked if she would take me as her husband, she said a loud NO. And she walked away with that guy. As it turns out, she was cheating on me with that dude for 1 year. Apparently, he knew about our wedding and walked into scoop her out. I was left with severe anger, not even a shred of sadness, just extremely mad.
I screamed at her family and mine to get the heck out of the church and let me be. Soon after the sadness came in. But I got over her surprisingly quick; it only took me 4 months. Which was good, because I found out the dude was using her hard earned savings for his crack addiction. Last thing I heard from heard she is living in a homeless shelter. I am forever thankful I had no kids with that girl; I’m happily married to someone else now with kids.”