Content edited for clarity. Weddings are joyous occasions filled with love, happiness, and excitement. Well, they are supposed to be filled with those things. Some weddings are as far from fun and happy as possible. And we have a few here. If you're going to get married, don't do what the people here did!
Yes, She Wanted Lions
“The bride had been a total pain in the butt while planning her wedding. She wanted the most lavish food, the best drink package, the most over-the-top decor. Fine, we can make your venue look like something Donald Trump might describe as ‘a a little too gilded’, whatever. After that was done, she demanded mirrors, and disco balls, and anything else reflective we could cram into the space.
Then, she demanded to interview all the wedding officiants, because she wanted a ‘really hot guy’ to perform the ceremony. She complained that everyone she saw was, ‘like middle-aged or something’, and insisted we had to find her someone that looked like Chris Evans. Because she wanted everyone in her pictures to be hot.
Day of the wedding, she asked me to procure as many lions as I could get my hands on, and have them sitting around the head table. Cause what you really need at an open bar are a bunch of apex predators. When informed she could not have lions at her reception, she dissolved into tears, complaining about her awful little wedding (of 300 guests, cases of Cristal, and lobster tail as the main dish), and how her little sister always got everything better than she did. We all knew, that this was not about marriage, and was all about a party. When your wedding is just about outdoing someone else’s reception, there’s no hope for your relationship.
All the way through this mess, the groom had just rolled his eyes, and let his bride spend like a wasted sailor on leave. He never objected to any of her insane requests. Just let her have whatever she wanted. However, he didn’t even bother to come up to the suite while she was having a meltdown over the lions, because, “I’m too wasted to deal with this, and also I don’t want to have to hear her scream about seeing the goddam dress.”
The bride was back a year later with a friend to help plan the friend’s wedding, sans ring.”
“To This Day”
“Years ago I was a waitress at a fancy restaurant where we regularly had weddings.
One night we had this massive wedding party. His side was one of those families with loads of money but not an ounce of class. They were just rowdy, loud, and incredibly rude, making sure to let everyone know how rich they were. She was a quiet, shy girl with a small family full of boring mousy types. As the night progressed his family got wasted and louder as hers hid in the corners, visibly annoyed.
At one stage the groom grabbed the microphone and did a heavily wasted version of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ whilst his whole family cheered him on. Afterward, he turned to his bride and slurred over the speakers, ‘Tonight, we will do it my way, wifey!!!’ and then proceeded to make doggy thrusting gestures.
The bride flushed bright red, got up, and walked out, her mum on her heels. She didn’t come back. The groom stayed and got so trashed his disgusting family had to carry him out at the end of the night. It was spectacular. They didn’t last long.
It was a small town, I didn’t know them personally but knew of them. They were divorced about a year and a half later. No kids, thank goodness. She got remarried rather quickly (with someone much more suited) he’s still single to this day I believe.”
“Why I Became A Bridezilla”
“It was approaching time for my sister’s wedding and she treated the entire sanctity of marriage like it’s one big joke. For example, when he asked her to marry him, she said, ‘I guess.’
That and cracking jokes about making it a cheap wedding. Our bridesmaid dresses were literally short, flannel, plaid dresses from the old navy. That could be cute, I’m not knocking a wedding theme, that doesn’t determine a marriage, but knowing the ‘I don’t give a darn, I mean, I guess’ attitude she had for the entire shebang made it hard to take anything seriously.
My parents were spending money on this lil’ party that would just end in divorce anyway. What about my inheritance? I’m just kidding, but it still is a major waste of time and energy, and money.
My sister showed me a google doc about the wedding and one of the excel tabs had a strange label like ‘why I became a bridezilla’ or something along those lines. I opened it up (because duh) and it was a freaking block paragraph about everything that has gone wrong so far from the catering being over budget due to someone else’s error to a miscommunication causing the in-laws to come for a day longer than expected, resulting in more hotel expenses. Literally every little planning obstacle they’ve come across since starting to plan the wedding.
So, naturally, I’m asked, ‘What is this for?’
She said, ‘That’s for when someone eventually asks me why I’m so upset! When they ask me what’s wrong when I break down! I’ll have a list to read off of everything that’s gone wrong and lead to my eventual bridezilla fit! So that way I can tell you what happened!’
I said back, ‘It’s really negative to keep tabs of stuff that goes wrong. This isn’t healthy.’
But then the best update came. The wedding got called off. They broke up.”
That’s The End Of That!
“I am a wedding planner (Amateur, but getting there)! As a favor to the president of the company I work at for as my day job, I agreed to coordinate his wedding. This was his third wedding, and the brides first. He’s a decent enough guy; wealthy but stingy, scatterbrained, stubborn, but has a lot of really good friends that said a lot of really great things about him at the wedding. She’s ditsy, gorgeous, younger than him by about 20 years.
They had been engaged for a while (over a year, I think) but waited until about six weeks before their wedding date to start really planning anything. The guest list was over 300 people. The venue was an amazing barn in the middle of nowhere, with minimal electrical power, no running water in the barn. There were multiple homes on the property that can be rented out. They rented the entire property for a week, and it was covered in campers, trailers, etc.
The whole thing was a catastrophe from planning through the reception. The live band didn’t have enough power and we ended up powering them from one of the RV’s generators (lesson learned here: let the venue talk to the band, don’t get in the middle) There was no seating chart, and there were about six different caterers running food stations around the barn. Somehow a rumor got started that the wedding was at 5:00 pm, it was actually at 4:00 pm. So critical guests were arriving very late to the ceremony. On this crazy large property, their ceremony site was up a steep hill, so a shuttle van had been rented and was driving guests up the hill, 15 guests at a time.
By the time the ceremony was ready to start, the bride and groom were wasted. Even the bride’s father was too far gone. There was a bubbly station at the ceremony site, which was completely drained before the last of the guests were arriving at the top of the hill. The guests were upset.
The rest of the night went how it went. Water was poured from gallon jugs with spigots. The bar ran out of most of the bottles with a couple of hours to go. There was no propane in the heaters for the patio (this was in late fall; it was cold). The whole thing was a major struggle and I controlled as much as I could. My point of contact to /everyone/ was thru the groom. I had to remind them almost daily to go to the county building to get their license, then make them hand it over to me so it would make it to the wedding. They changed officiants 3 times. The father of the bride disappeared before the father-daughter dance, was found passed out hours later. The ‘planning’ was done by the bride and groom. I just managed the chaos as best I could. I put out a lot of fires that night. All the nonsense mentioned was managed in the moment. It was just, overall chaos. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if I hadn’t been there. I left at around 11:00 pm (having arrived that day around 8:00 am).
I know the bride and groom had a stay-cation honeymoon planned, so I didn’t expect to see my boss at work for a few weeks (he’s often traveling for work anyway). What I heard later from a coworker who helped at the wedding was that the marriage didn’t even last the night. The groom was found (by the father of the bride) in the middle of getting it on with one of the bridesmaids, that night, in the honeymoon/party house. The kicker is: more than half the bridesmaids were the bride’s sisters, so the odds are pretty good that he slept with one of them.
Upon hearing all this, I kept my mouth shut. I haven’t told a single person (save my husband, who was my assistant at the wedding). I had tried friending the bride online because I really wanted to see the pictures (the photographer was incredible), but she hasn’t accepted yet. I have not seen her at work since the wedding (she used to visit frequently), and my boss hasn’t ever worn a wedding ring.”
The Toasts Were A Little Too Crispy Part One
“I coordinated a wedding where the bride literally went from this sweet, kind, and very fun person, to a meltdown-laden bridezilla. It was bad. I knew it wasn’t going to last the moment she arrived at the venue. She tore up the guest list and was furious at the groom because his family, most of them either elderly and disabled, weren’t at the ceremony yet (they were five minutes late, and parking was awful). So she decided to start the ceremony even though they weren’t there yet. The groom had zero say as he was a really quiet guy. During the bridal procession down the aisle, people kept arriving and having to walk down the aisle to get to their seats. She insulted each member of his family as they would enter the venue.
Then, during the actual vows, the groom was so terrified, he literally couldn’t look at her. Instead, he did his vows while looking at the minister. She grabbed his face mid-vows, pointed his face to hers, then said, ‘Do them over. Now!’
It was probably the most cringe-worthy moment I’ve ever seen in my entire career. The guests tried to laugh it off, but we all felt bad for him. The icing on the cake was during the toast. She decided to talk about his mom, then passive-aggressively insult her. And then completely insult the crowd, then her new husband (yes, she was sober). After the dinner, more than half of the guests just up and left.
Another thing. Something that always fascinates me is what people decide to do for their ‘cake.’ Sometimes they do cupcakes. Others I’ve seen the bride and groom do a full candy bar. Well, this cake was massive. The guest count was roughly 100 but this cake could’ve easily served close to 300. It was very elaborate and shipped in from New York from some high-end bakery. There was Chinese lettering/design on the cake (The wedding theme included mariachis, Mexican food, etc) so the cake felt very out of place from a design perspective and it was apparent the groom had no idea what cake they were getting. But hey- it’s their day so I’m not one to rip apart the theme.
When it was time for the cake cutting, she grabbed the mic out of my hands, which she did numerous times throughout the evening, and told everyone to shut up. She started talking about how high-end the cake was and how people at this wedding should be happy to eat it. The crowd went from silent to upset, again.
Then she pointed out three of the symbols on the cake, which were the largest. I’ll never forget this because what followed was a silence I can only describe as ‘pin-drop-worthy.’ She said that they meant, ‘Obey, Listen and (I think) Service/Loyalty.’ She said that she expected these three traits from her husband at all times. And not in a joking way.
The room was silent the whole time the cake was being served.
When the toast starts, traditionally the best man kicks it off, then the maid of honor, then anything goes. We had planned it in traditional order before the wedding, but the bride took my mic as I was introducing the best man and told the crowd to, ‘Look up. Look to the left and right. Look at the tables.'” Story Continued Below.
The Toasts Were A Little Too Crispy Part Two
“At this point, we all thought it was going to be an Oprah moment and they would give the guests their favors, but instead, she said that everyone should be both honored and appreciative that they were invited to the wedding because she paid (not true) top dollar to have it at such a beautiful venue. The looks on the people’s faces were truly uncomfortable. Some were confused as to whether she had actually said what she said, and others were absolutely ticked off. At that point, I knew this wedding was going to be off the rails.
Now for some insight: Stress can completely change people. After being involved in the wedding industry for nearly 10 years- I can completely see why people become unhinged on their big day. It’s often two-fold:
Event management is hard. There is a lot that goes into it and a whole back-end that nobody ever sees. Plus you are trying to manage (crowd size) personalities and expectations, complaints, last-minute changes, vendors, etc. Now take all that, and put those responsibilities on a bride and groom during their wedding day. Some can pull it off, but most do so at the expense of their sanity and enjoyment of the day. Not saying that this was the case with this wedding, but I can empathize with why some people get branded a bridezilla or groomzilla.
It was one of those weddings you don’t forget. After each insult, I was trying to figure out a way to minimize the damage. I ran AV for this wedding as well since I was emceeing the event. She had a wireless mic and I ended up killing the mic so I could get some form of control back, blame a technical glitch, then give another mic to the best man.
There was so much more than happened, but it was a total circus. I knew this one wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. They divorced a few weeks later. How do I know? She stiffed me on payment and kept blaming her now-ex-husband for not having any money and everything that went wrong in their marriage.
The company I worked with at the time took her to small claims court. They called the company the day before the court appearance and paid. Sadly, I think it was her mother that ended up paying it in full. At that point, they were divorced.
Trust me. I won’t forget that wedding. Ever.”
It’s All Her Fault Part One
“I managed the bars at a sports venue and was the ‘bar consultant’ for our catering department. As you would expect, most of the time we worked during sporting events. Occasionally there’d be a concert. So when the stadium marketing team told us in our weekly meeting that they’d just booked a wedding, we were shocked. We’d never hosted a wedding before, and most of us were unmarried so we didn’t have that much experience with the industry. The marketing team brushed our concerns aside (warning sign number one) and gave us the details for the event.
After asking around the office staff, we learned that this was being done as a half favor, half side deal for one of the big corporate sponsors of the team. One of their Vice President’s sons was getting married and was a huge fan so he insisted on getting married at the venue (warning sign number two). We had our first meeting with the family and it was an eye-opening experience. The husband-to-be was clearly disinterested in the planning, wifey was less than excited about his chosen venue, and mother-in-law (husband’s mom) was a lunatic.
The mother-in-law started the meeting off by giving us her list of demands for the wedding. She had picked almost everything out from the food to the decor to the place settings. The only thing the bride had input on was the flowers. I and the rest of the catering staff were looking over her list and quickly realized that this was going to be pricey. We asked the crazy woman what the budget was for the entire event and she said $10,000. We asked how many people were going to be attending, she told us there would be 200 guests. This is the exact moment when we realized there was clearly a disconnect between the mother-in-law and reality. The Catering Director hesitantly tried to tell the woman that the things she wanted and her budget weren’t exactly congruous. We got a haughty reply, ‘Well other vendors have said they could make it work!’
This should have been the huge warning sign (with neon lights) number three. What followed was months of catty threats, complaints, and criticism from the mother-in-law about everything from our prices (exorbitant), to our policies (ridiculous), to our staff (inexperienced and inept).
Our first step was to give her exactly what she wanted, along with what that would cost. The first proposal included everything she wanted, at a price of about $30,000. Cue the first round of angry emails and phone calls. During this phase, she threatened to cancel the event twice (fine with us, we didn’t want or need this event) and went back to the marketing department to complain about how unreasonable we were being.
During the second phase, she had begun climbing down off her previous demands to wheedling and trying to bypass us to bring costs down. First, she didn’t want us to provide any adult beverages, she said she’d bring it in (through the corporate sponsors, a brewing company). I told her flat out that was not going to happen. The beverage license was in our name, we were to be the only providers of adult drinks on this property. She could either use us or have no drinks at the wedding. She then proceeded to ratchet up her complaining all the way to her husband who talked to his buddies in the front office about ‘the drink problem.’ Now we had Vice Presidents and C-level executives getting involved in the nitty-gritty of planning a wedding. Fortunately, we were able to hold our ground on this.
In the third phase of planning, it got really sad. The crazy mother was still angry about having to downgrade all her plans and sent us a new list of what she wanted for the wedding. She had gone 180 the other way.” Story Continued Below.
It’s All Her Fault Part Two
She decided to request the cheapest of everything. Plastic folding tables and chairs, no linen except at the head table, paper plates and napkins for all guests, the cheapest buffet option (basically beans and hot dogs), and so on. We were in the middle of preparing this new proposal (it would have come in at around $8,000) when the bride came in to meet with us. She was visibly upset and we got the distinct impression that she had little to no part in planning her own wedding. It turned out her family didn’t have much money but her fiance’s family was well-off. Her soon-to-be father-in-law offered to foot most of the cost of the wedding, but mother-in-law had insisted she be the financial adviser so that the money was used judiciously. The bride was able to pick out her own dress, but that was one of only three things she’d been allowed to have a say in so far. We all felt bad for her, especially since we’d been dealing with the disaster that was her soon-to-be mother-in-law for months now.
The bride made a few requests and we changed the budget to reflect those. The new proposal came in around $14,000. We didn’t hear from the crazy mother-in-law, bride, or anyone for three weeks. We reached out to marketing to ask them if they had heard anything since the actual wedding is one month away and if we were going to do this, we needed to start ordering products and arranging things now. They hadn’t heard anything either. We sat waiting for another week. Finally, we get faxed(!) from the loony mother with the contract signed.
The next three weeks were awful as the mother-in-law was back in full force, trying to get us to make changes to the contract as we refuse repeatedly. Finally, we got to the day of the wedding and technically speaking, it went off without a hitch. However, it was entertaining to watch this family party. The mother got sloppy and alternated between criticizing everything we were doing and trying to seduce one of the groomsmen. The groom got absolutely blasted and passed out mid-way through the evening. His groomsmen thought it would be hilarious to carry him, unconscious, through the stadium on their shoulders. The bride spent most of the day sitting at the head table, surrounded by her bridesmaids. The happiest I saw her all day was when she had her father-daughter dance.
This wedding was a topic of conversation amongst the staff for years afterward. Occasionally we’d hear updates on the family from the front office. The bride got pregnant soon after, her husband got a job with his daddy’s company but made the mistake of getting plastered at a company event and making a joke of himself so he’s in flux there. So who knows if it will actually last.”
There Is No Happily Ever After For Cheaters
“I worked the most amazing wedding ever! The marriage didn’t last six hours. I was bartending for the reception. Everything seemed pretty typical and standard as guests arrived, drank, and conversed. The wedding party arrived and everything seemed to be completely normal. Everyone was happy, having fun, etc. When it came time for the formalities, the bar closed and everyone took their seats. The speeches began, with the maid of honor, and the best man. Everything was going as per usual for a wedding; until the best man finished his speech and the food began to be served.
The groom grabbed the mic after the best man’s toast and wished everyone a great night and a nice meal. That’s when it all hit the fan.
After his well wishes, he asked for the attention of his best man and bride. He told them that he knew they were hooking up behind his back for the entirety of the engagement and that he would be filing for an annulment on Monday. He thanked everyone for coming, and apologized to the father of the bride saying ‘I would have called it off weeks ago, but I figured you would be way more upset at your little princess when you couldn’t get out of the bill for the reception.’
He turned to his wife and said, ‘Fyou,’ then turned to his best friend and said, ‘From what I overheard, my package is still bigger than yours.’
Mic dropped, groom out the door, absolute chaos. My fellow bartender and I looked on in amazement. We had to go into the kitchen to laugh and high-five.
There was a lot of fallout. The bride ran directly to the bathroom both furious and inconsolable, with bridesmaids running after. Her mother, aunts, and about 20 other women tried breaking into the bathroom which she apparently locked herself in. She refused to come out until everyone left the facility. She left through a back door with her mother and a few of the bridesmaids after an hour and a half.
The best man was surrounded by the groomsman in what seemed to be a circular questioning of what the heck had happened? He made a run for the door, only to be followed by his parents who had the most saddening look of disgust on their faces. He made it out the door. The groomsman and the majority of the crowd wanted him gone (for obvious reasons). He got in a cab with his family. Apparently, his mother was crying from the moment he was outed until they left the facility. He was gone with his family in a matter of minutes. A lot of people were focused on the bride, and the majority of people were still in disbelief. Outside of the embarrassment and the obvious anger from his immediate family, he got off easy. Though I have no idea what the residual effects were the days following, I imagine he lost quite a few friends and the respect of his family.
The bride’s father went from complete disbelief to anger then to rage and ended in tears, all in a matter of minutes. Nobody would say a word to him. Friends tried to approach and he pushed everyone away. He kept his composure better than most would from what I saw and heard. Just kind of faded to the back and tried to apologize as people gathered their things and left. Weeks later I found out that my boss did give him a big break on the bill. My boss said he felt so terrible, and as much as he hated to lose money, he felt it was the right thing to do.
The crowd was like a group of zombies walking out the door. Quiet whispers and shuffling feet with looks of horror on their faces. I remember one guy started laughing, and his significant other hit him with a purse. That place was cleared out in about 15 minutes. The bride still waited another hour before she thought she could leave and spare further embarrassment.”