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Guestzillas


Jan-Jun 2000 Archive
Jul-Dec 2000 Archive


 

My Mother and Father did not have the money to pay for my wedding, and being as I was thirty-six, I didn't believe that they had to. However, they spent a lot more money than they should have for things I wanted because they love me. My Mom, my sister, my niece and me went to pick out my cake to be made by a woman who made a really wonderful one for a friend of mine. Now I was fully prepared to pay about a dollar a slice for this cake, to serve to about 200 guests. After the cake style and decorations were chosen, the woman told me that with deposit, etc. it would be about $375.00. I reached into my purse to take out my checkbook, and my Mom put her hand up to stop me and proceeded to pay for the cake. I was stunned. She simply did not have that kind of cash to spare. I could not thank her enough. The reason that I needed to tell this story from this point is that I wanted you to see how much this cake meant to me. Because what happened while I was enjoying this cake was one of the most horrible things that I have ever seen done to a bride, and that bride was me.

I had decided that because this cake cost an arm and a leg, that we were going to serve it for dessert instead of the dessert provided with the per plate price at the hall. I told the caterer, "Cut it up and serve it, I will not have people taking home cake and throwing it away the next day because it is stale." So, after a lovely meal, my cake was served. It was delicious.

While everyone was eating cake, the DJ was going to separate tables to have people offer us congratulations over the microphone for the videographer. When he came to my father-in-law's best friend, the man started to say something, and I was enjoying my cake.   He then decided that I was not paying enough attention to him, and said "Hey, you want to stop stuffing your mouth with cake and listen to me?" He then made a motion to his mouth with the heel of his hand like he was stuffing his mouth and proceeded to make pig noises. This hurt in particular because I am a large woman and I felt that this was a dig that large woman eat alot. I just sat there stunned beyond belief.

After dinner (and my cake), I was dragged over to this man by my husband and his two best friends, at which point they said,   "*Bob* has something to say to you."   I expected an apology, but what I got was, "I was only kidding."   I just said,  "Whatever, I am going out to enjoy my wedding reception."  I later learned that my husbands friends had literally accosted him and called him every name in the book for ruining my dinner and demanded that he apologize. You see the apology I got. Some people have no class.    guests0802-00


I am marrying a lovely man in May. He is a widower with three young children. Because we are marrying in a resort location, we sent out "save the date" notes with hotel information to all the folks on our guest list. A friend of my fiancés promptly called to say that she assumed her (pre-teen) daughter was invited. Bill hemmed and hawed and said that due to severe space constraints and the intimate nature of our wedding (his second wedding, after all), while we would love to include all of our friends' children, we simply couldn't. She went on to say that her daughter would just be coming to the wedding, not the reception, and that she would stand in the back so that her daughter had a seat.

Here's the best part:   the guest said it was sooooooo important for her daughter to come because she (the daughter) was, "...such a big part of Anne's life and Anne would want her there".    Anne is, of course, my fiancĂ©'s late wife, and I'm pretty sure she won't be attending the wedding...

guest1120-00


A few years ago one of my brothers got married. The guest list had to be limited due to the size of the reception hall. His future in-laws graciously offered to pay for most of the wedding. Both he and his fiance have large extended families. Due to the large families it was decided that only first-cousins and their spouses would be invited, but not their children. My brother was shocked to find that one of our cousins, who has 4 children, RSVP'd with 6 guests. He, his wife, AND his 4 children would be attending!

As the RSVP went to his fiance's parents' home he was also embarrassed by our cousin's lack of good manners. His future in-laws politely let him know that he needed to call our cousin and let him know that there literally wasn't room to accommodate another 4 people in the reception hall.

Now, I should tell you that this cousin is not well liked by most of the family. He's never made anything of his life and makes up for it with passive aggressive jabs at members of our family. He was only invited at the insistence of one of our parents.

At a family event my brother was relaying his frustration about our cousin's RSVP to the immediate family. When our Aunt Hyacinth heard about this she volunteered to call this cousin and set him straight.

Well, when Aunt Hyacinth called and our cousin's wife, who is not exactly the "Cool Grace Kelly" type, answered. Aunt Hyacinth proceeded to tell her about the space limitations. You'd think that having had a formal wedding herself that she'd understand. But no, she chose to be insulted and said that if her kids weren't invited she and her husband weren't coming. This was fine with my brother, he was all too glad that this trouble making cousin wasn't going to attend. But unfortunately, a couple of days later my cousin recanted and let my Aunt know that he and his wife would be attending.

The wedding was beautiful, all went well. The reception hall, at the local country club, was indeed packed. At around 7:00pm we all began to seat ourselves at our "assigned" seats. There were only a few no shows. At 7:30pm, right before dinner was about to be served, who walked in but my cousin and his wife FOLLOWED by their 4 daughters AND 2 other young girls I didn't recognize. They had brought "6!!!!!!!!" uninvited guests. To top it off, all were dressed way too casually for a wedding. The girls in grubby clothes and dirty hair; and my cousin, who had just finished his shift at the local Pizza place, waltzed in wearing his Pizza delivery coat!!!! (I firmly believe that refusing to dress appropriately for formal occasions is a form of passive aggression.)

They stood in the back of the room talking to my Uncle, who was seated in the back. My cousin's wife looked mad as she gazed across the packed room. I could see my Uncle gesture towards the place cards and the few empty chairs in the middle of the room. Suddenly, she turned and angrily stomped over to the gift table, removed their wedding card from the card basket, opened the card and removed the check from the envelope, threw the card back in the basket and stomped out the door with the children and her husband close behind.    guest 0913-00


My female cousin (we'll call her "Lucy") was getting married. Her uncle (her father's brother) was, of course, invited to the wedding and reception. (We'll call him "Dorkface.")

Unfortunately, at the reception, the bride's father paid for an open bar. Dorkface proceeded to get totally sloshed, and then began a game of #*@-grab with all the females at the reception. This included my sister and I (who are also his nieces) and... most horrifyingly... the bride herself.

Dorkface asks her for a dance, so they're dancing, and the entire time he's caressing and grabbing her butt. This is his NIECE.  Everyone was mortified and didn't know what to do. The only bright spot was that when Dorkface tried that with me, I told him off good. He didn't try it with me again.

How truly embarassing for her and everyone else. (And, needless to say, he is on my "not invited" list for my own wedding.)  guest0915-00


We had a morning wedding and afternoon reception, after which my in-laws generously hosted a party and dinner to which all of the guests were invited.  Into the evening, it happened that my husband and I, some members of the bridal party, and some friends of my husband's were all sitting at a round table under the tent, having some drinks and talking about our best man's upcoming wedding.

I didn't find out until later, but apparently one of the groomsmen, a childhood friend of my husband's, had a great deal to drink and at this time asked the best man to speak up in order to "cover" for him while he urinated under the table with all of us sitting there! He had to have been bare inches from us all...I cringe whenever I think of what we were unwittingly exposed to that evening. And I've heard of drunkenness, but never witnessed behavior like that in my life. I've seen the guy several times since, and I can't think of anything else when he's talking to me. Talk about making an impression.     guest1005-00


We hosted a formal wedding for our daughter. It was an evening, black tie, dinner orchestra event. The invitations made this clear in style and substance.

We got a reply from a young couple( friends of the groom) accepting for themselves and their baby (an infant a few months old). We felt bad to have to tell them their baby was not included so we offered to provide a babysitter at the hotel for the child so they could attend. They agreed & we hired a sitter and arranged for her to care for the little one in the bridal suite reserved for the bride and groom.

Comes the wedding day. Comes the sitter. They never showed up. They never called & we never heard a word from them again.  Sigh.    guest1013-00


I don't know if my story is as fantastic as some of the others, but it did stain my otherwise-perfect wedding day.
 
I am a rabid Victoriana buff. If I could wear a bustle every day, I would. Thus, when it came time to marry my beloved husband, he agreed, whilst chuckling, to my demands that we have an "authentic Victorian wedding".
 
We both come from extremely small families, so we planned to assemble them and our closest friends alone at our chosen church (a beautiful, tiny little thing from the mid-eighteenth century, with a gorgeous rectory attached) for the ceremony itself, and then to invite our every living acquaintance to the reception, which was to be held at a large, rented hall. This would not only be the small, intimate arrangement that my husband desired, but it would allow us the fun of having costumes made for each person in attendance -- we had every seamstress in the town buzzing about thirty or so people. We all looked fabulous; I will not begin to gush over my gown, or I'll end up taking it down from the closet just to touch it...
 
The ceremony went off without a hitch...we even got the pastor to wear a frock coat! After much hugging and picture taking, we clipped off to the reception, in our hired horse and buggy.
 
Now, we had merely specified that it was an afternoon wedding on the invitations to the reception. I did not want anyone to feel that they had to go to the trouble of finding a costume. However, I made the mistake of snubbing Belinda, it seems...the new wife of one of my co-workers, whom I had never met before.  Belinda, as I heard many times that day, was a "vintage reenactor". She was absolutely LIVID that she was not included in our ceremony. She went so far as to, in a group of large people, tell me shrilly that my wedding dress was absolutely "gaudy by REAL Victorian standards...did you take it directly from the pages of Harper's Bazaar? That's HIGH fashion! NO ONE would have worn that!"
 
Methinks her husband never so much as chuckled at her demands. And he would have looked so nice in a cravat...     guest1114-00


My daughter had the privilege of standing up in a friend's wedding this past spring. During the prayer time, while the minister was invoking God's blessings on this new couple and their families, a phone rings. Well, we figured whoever it belonged to would be sufficiently embarrassed, discreetly turn it off, and move on. Much to our surprise the owner of the phone, answers it (loudly) and gets up (from the front of the church) marches down the aisle while talking (loudly) to the caller. It did not end there. While right outside of the church sanctuary she continues to give a blow by blow account of the activities that were going on and directions to the reception (which, by the way neither the caller or the guest were invited to). Can you get any dumber?     guest1119-00


The following is one of those not too uncommon submissions to Etiquette Hell where the sender is exhibiting a faux pas more egregious than the one they are venting about.  It was sent originally as an example of a "tacky but funny idiot bride" story but readers can see where I have placed this particular story in the Etiquette Hell categories. - Webmistress

I have a tacky, but funny "idiot bride" story to relate.  My cousin (let's call her Jamie) got engaged to a really nice guy. Well, the engagement lasted for more than a year, during which time she put on A LOT of weight. Having bought her dress at the beginning of the engagement, she was in severe denial about that dress fitting. My mother tried everything to make that dress fit one week before the wedding when my cousin finally tried it on again. They cut the back out and everything but it just looked terrible. Thankfully, one of my male cousins had married a quite large lady sometime earlier and she loaned her dress to my cousin. There was no time for pressing it or anything, but she wore it and didn't look too bad.

The kicker is this...during the "decorating" of the groom's truck, his friends had taken Oreo-type cookies apart and stuck them to the truck using the creamy filling as "adhesive". These cookies are all over the truck and spell out things like "help" and "dead man". Well, the guests assembled to toss birdseed on the happy couple as they departed. While we are standing there, our elderly grandmother takes one look at that truck and says, "Jamie will have those cookies eaten before they get to the stop sign!" Needless to say, we all missed the birdseed throwing we were laughing so hard. Aren't we terrible!    guest1130-00


About a year ago I attended a very grand engagement party.  The Groom's family were Sicilian, and therefore this engagement party was also a statement of position - bowers of tulle, chandeliers, red carpet, discreet 5 piece band, something like 7 seafood courses (including caviar) etc. You get the point.  Black tie and formal wear. 

Anyway, the bride-to-be's  best friend  'Matt' (who was lovely but didn't have a spine to save himself), brought along a girl he had been dating for two weeks.  She hadn't been invited as they had not been a couple when the invitations went out, and in the week that the bride-to-be met her she had been rude, vindictive and so vicious in 'her opinions' that it was decided not to add her to the list.  She came anyway, wearing thick, black, 'Cleopatra' eyeliner, and a wisp of a black dress with no back and barely any sides.  While the effect was more stunning that cheap,  but she still looked like a high price call girl.  Altogether this may have been an inconvenience and a bit of an eyebrow raiser it would have been forgotten in the end except for this next  incident.

My friend and I were rather poor and a gift became a financial problem (I had flow interstate, my friend from overseas), so we decided what we couldn't afford in $$ we would make up for in sentimental value.  To do this we bought a lovely hard covered book of handmade paper (with rose petals inbedded in the pages), and a beautiful calligraphy pen.  We then had the book passed from table to table for all guests to write their well wishes to the couple, which was boxed and left on the present table at the end of the evening with our own well wishes on the first page. 

What we didn't know, but were informed by an upset bride-to-be later that night, was that when it had passed through the hands of  Matt's  'date' not only had she announced her own engagement to Matt ( no prior warning from Matt!) but, after Matt had signed it, she added a PS and went on to say that Matt no longer needed her as a friend, and she was not to contact him again!!!    What a nerve!     guest1204-00