Your wedding day is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. Minor problems are bound to come up, but all in all, nothing is supposed to ruin your day. Unfortunately, some weddings have more than just minor issues. Some, like the ones in the following stories, have such colossal problems that it's a miracle if anyone makes it to the end of the night without a black eye or a police record.
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
That Was A Quick Marriage
wavebreakmedia/ Shutterstock
‘He’s doing who?’ she screamed. The bride’s father overheard the exchange and ran to the toilets, dragging his brand new son-in-law directly onto the dance floor. The bride started crying as it was confirmed what had just happened, and she ran off into the night, trailed by her wedding party. Everyone else kind of milled about for 15 or so minutes, drained their drinks and filtered out themselves.
We found the groom about three hours later as we were packing up the bar, head in the toilet, vomiting his guts out, a bottle in one hand.”
It’s My Day And I Can Destroy What I Want!
svershinsky/ Shutterstock
“Once I saw the entire bridal party (bride and groom included) being forcibly removed by police officers just minutes before the reception was about to start. They got inebriated and insisted they were allowed to freely roam the historical, state-funded, highly protected building next door to the reception hall. Employees did all the could to quietly usher them back but they started swinging punches, and the cops had to be called.”
A Classy Affair
Oleg Kozlov / Shutterstock
“I work in a relatively high-end country club in the American South. We had a doozy last season. It was not only the bride who was crazy but the whole wedding party. The ‘Happy Couple’ were not members of the club but had convinced our coordinator to sign off on it. She quit shortly after booking. The new girl had to deal with the fallout.
First off, they had been extremely rude to our new coordinator and managers through the whole planning process. They had a private coordinator as well, but she was pretty useless. Ours didn’t even know she existed until the rehearsal. The bride had demanded all kinds of free stuff during the planning. Now, I have no problem doing a drink tasting to go with the food tasting. However, if you come back three times to try the same HOUSE WINES, after two original food tastings, I’m not playing ball anymore. You’re paying for it at that point. You and the five people with you.
Fast forward to the rehearsal. We had regular dinner service going on in our dining room. For our (rather exclusive) members. Renting the ballroom for a day does not entitle you to take over the entire clubhouse. The bridal party was drinking, yelling, cursing, and being ugly all over the grounds. Nothing was right, according to the private coordinator that had never seen the space before this. We had to move everything. ‘What do you mean your covered terrace can’t accommodate 250 people for the ceremony without an extra tent?’ ‘I was told the dance floor would be by THOSE windows, not these.’ ‘We absolutely cannot let anyone into the ballroom until after the ceremony, so I don’t care that the terrace is only accessible through it, make them all walk around the building through the wet grass.’
The bridal party was getting louder and louder the more they drank. The little old ladies trying to eat poached salmon in peace were obviously annoyed. The father of the bride set up a provisional account to pay for the wedding (we don’t accept cash or cards, only accounts). The bridal party knew the account number, and we were told to put everything on it by our managers, as long as the person ordering knew the name. You can see where this is going. He didn’t see it that night, but he argued every single drink when the bill came. Even the bottle that he alone was drinking.
Okay, enough of the day before. On to the main event. Most of the day I was on the periphery since I was working on the other end of the building. The end they weren’t supposed to be on, except the bride and bridesmaids, since their dressing room was on that side. I could still hear pretty much everything that was happening and saw way more than I should have.
As guests arrived, they were directed to the outside, as per the request. The mother of the bride freaked out because, OF COURSE, they didn’t want HER side of the family to have to go that way. They needed to be allowed to walk through the active dining room and around the other side where the golf course is. At this point, the groom and groomsmen were getting positively sloshed in the men’s locker room, which our members were still using as well. The bridesmaids moved out of the ladies’ locker room and were rampaging through the members’ bar. By that, I mean that we caught them multiple times pouring drinks behind the bar while the bartenders were getting their bar ready in the ballroom. With the same look every time of ‘Oh, gosh, how did this bottle get in my hand and why is it suddenly half empty? Silly me!’
The ceremony went well enough, considering everyone standing up front could barely stand. You may be asking how we let it get to that point. They had snuck in a lot of drinks. I mean, a lot. They were only serving limited drinks at the reception, so everybody and their grandmother had flasks and airline bottles and whatever they thought they could hide. Spoiler: they couldn’t.
At the reception, the bride was cursing. A lot.
During hors-d’oeuvres, the maid of honor came out of the locker room and informed me that it ‘needs attention.’ You know, the room where only they had been for the last three hours because they had scared off all the members already. It shouldn’t have been my job, but the attendant had gone home early due to an emergency. I figured I would take a look. I came right back out to get every manager I could find. I even cleared the coast so our chef could look after he saw my reaction. It was, quite simply, disgusting. Small wastebasket overflowing because they had put a bunch of stuff on top of the nice big covered one and then forgot about it. Part of the overflow was a used tampon. There are separate baskets in the stalls for those. Dirty panties, about 10 empty bottles, everything a normal person would put aside or throw away just wherever it had fallen. I removed the trash (with gloves on) and didn’t touch one thing that was personal. I should have thrown out a lot more.
About two hours in, the bride asked the bartender what black people drink, so she could get something to give to the band. When she was told we didn’t serve bands due to liability, she flipped out. More cursing. How dare we not do precisely what she wanted? Did we know how much she was paying for this? She’ll get all of the black people fired because they were racist against her for not violating policy and laws about overserving. New hubby managed to calm her down eventually.
By this point, all of the guests were so loud and obnoxious and not staying on their end of things, that we called in extra security just to stand at all access points and wrangle them.
Remember all those ‘hidden’ bottles? About two hours into the reception, the security guard nearest the men’s restroom hears an awful noise from inside. Goes to investigate and finds a broken urinal and an empty bottle.
Time for cake! This can’t go wrong, can it? Wifey smeared cake on the lower half of Hubby’s face. So cute! Hubby put a tiny dollop of icing on end of Wifey’s nose. ‘OH MY GOD! HOW DARE YOU DO THAT?! YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!’ She proceeded to go running through the entire clubhouse and most of the surrounding grounds screaming obscenities at the top of her lungs.
As it was a nice night, many of our members were enjoying the patio off the dining room. One member, in particular, had been listening to the hubbub and asked me the names of the couple. I had to laugh when I remembered that he’s a prominent divorce lawyer. I, jokingly, asked if he wanted me to pass out his card. He, very seriously, said yes.
The party was shut down two hours early. Cops were informed of potential inebriated drivers leaving the property. The bridal party was staying in rental houses on club grounds, so our security escorted them back.
You’d think that would be the end, but, alas, no. I did not witness the next day’s meeting, but I gather it involved a lot of apologies from the groom and a lot more angry words for everyone from the bride. Plus debates about the bar bill from dear old dad, because they could not possibly have had that much in that sort of time. He was right, sorry for the mistake; we should have charged for more.
About a week later, we were informed of an investigation claiming one of our staff had stolen the bride’s laptop. For maybe two weeks, we were randomly called by the local cops with updates on the case. Then she found it in the trunk of her car, where it had been the entire time because they used a club-owned laptop to play their slideshow. Which she had tried to walk out with.
I think that’s the whole story. I probably blocked some stuff out. We think the original coordinator did this to us on purpose. She didn’t leave under the best terms, and confirming the booking was one of the last things she did.”