Etiquette Hell = Where the ill-mannered deserve to go

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Weddings From Hell

The Whole Thing from start to finish is a disaster

2000 Archive


 

This is a real winner! First of all the bride and groom were very young 19 and 20 I believe. In the months leading up to the wedding they were constantly fighting, even if there were people around them, and I'm talking shouting matches with some really choice words.

Well, the day of their wedding(this is November on the East coast, so remember its very cold, you'll need this info. for later!) the groom is waiting patiently for his bride, and so are all the guests, 45 minutes past the time the wedding was supposed to start, when finally the bride shows up. She scurries down the aisle after her two bridesmaids, and the pastor says his part then begins to ask them to repeat after him. When it got to the bride's turn, she was slurring her words, skipping words, and actually said some pretty bizarre stuff. The chick was toasted! Drunk as a skunk! Three sheets to the wind! And on her wedding day!

They made it through the ceremony, but just barely, and then we all went on to the reception. This is so lovely.... when we arrived at the hall we couldn't believe how it was decorated... a few blue and pink streamers on the wall and some balloons. Wait, is this a baby shower or a wedding reception? I found out the bride and her friends just threw it together as fast as they could because they were in a hurry to start the bachelorette party.

After a few moments of being inside, a very distinct stench started to permeate my nostrils.... EWWWWW! Rotten Eggs! Then after I found my table and sat down, I took off my jacket, but suddenly noticed how cold it was in there. And there was a nice gust of wind howling through. They opened the doors to get the smell out apparently, and would rather freeze, than have to smell that God awful stench.

Well, at least there must be some hot food. Nope. If you wanted you could go up to the counter and get yourself a piece of rolled up bologna or ham on a toothpick, and a finger sandwich, which was okay, since I figured they must be on a budget. The bride and groom showed up and within minutes began arguing(oh, the happy couple!), and the bride is after another drink. "Don't try the punch!" I want to yell, since it tasted like someone stirred it with their dirty feet. Someone got them to calm down, and they mingled with guests a little.

I asked where the cake was, and someone said upstairs, so I went with one of my cousins to check it out. Unfortunately the smell was so intense upstairs, and the cake had been sitting there so long, I was guaranteed to get a mouthful of rotten eggs if I tasted that(no thanks!). Okay, I'm outta here! I really didn't want to watch that couple smear cake in each other's faces, get into another argument then really go at it. Luckily, by the time I got back downstairs, I noticed the guests had diminished a bit, and found out that the bride and groom were ready to leave themselves because they thought it sucked.

The good news is, this lovely couple moved in with his parents and lasted a whole 3 months before they filed for divorce! Wow! Ain’t love grand! The bad news is, after I got engaged myself, I had nightmares along the lines of their wedding, imagining that everything was going wrong, I had to wear a dress with big daisies all over it because my dress was torn up, everyone pointed and laughed, and at my reception bologna on a toothpick and little slices of Twinkies were offered. Wedhell0305-01


I've had a great time going through your website. I don't think I have ever laughed so hard in all my life! Working in the wedding "industry" (I'm a floral designer) I get to hear my fair share of wedding hell stories. The story I'd like to share with you concerns my cousin "John", who married "Daisy" about ten years ago. It's a great example of the old adage: If something can go wrong, it will.

To start with, John and I had never been all that close. He is much older than me and had always been a bit of a loner, opting to avoid family gatherings. So needless to say I was a bit surprised to hear that I had been asked to be a bridesmaid at his wedding. I didn't even know that he was engaged! As it turns out, as soon as John's mother, my aunt, heard the joyous news, she decided that it would be her job to organize the event. It was upon her insistence that myself as well as two other female cousins should be included in the wedding party. Add that to two of Daisy's friends serving as bridesmaids, and the wedding party soon ballooned up to twelve people, including John and Daisy. Oh well, the more the merrier, as they say...

Four months before the wedding, all of the bridesmaids gathered at the dressmakers shop to have our first fitting. I hadn't as yet seen nor heard anything about these dresses, but being the easy-going sort of person that I am, I wasn't all that concerned. I wasn't disappointed either. The dresses were absolutely beautiful. They were an elegant sheath style with a beautiful lace overlay. Rather gaudy by today's bridesmaid's standards, but ten years ago they were absolutely stunning. The problem arose when my two cousins tried on their dresses. At the time they were rather, shall we say, "rotund", and the dresses were not at all flattering for their body shapes. Then the crying started - "I can't wear this!", and "I'll look like a stuffed sausage!", etc...

Daisy, of course, had her heart set on these dresses, and it didn't take long for what was supposed to be a simple dress fitting to turn into what I can only describe as something similar to a WWF Smackdown. In the end Daisy ceded, if only to keep the peace with her future mother-in-law, who sided with my cousins. The dresses ended up being these horrible electric-blue taffeta creations, complete with a removable overskirt held together by a hideous bow and a lace bolero jacket. Ugh. I still have nightmares about it.

Fast forward to the wedding day. As I've said, my aunt went about making most of the arrangements - she booked the church and the reception venue, hired the photographer and DJ, ordered the flowers and invitations, etc... Throughout it all, she reveled in telling everyone how she was going to throw the most lavish wedding our family had ever seen, and how she was doing it at a really low cost by using all of her "connections". Should have been an omen, I think.

Well, the big morning arrives and all the bridesmaids congregate at Daisy's house to await the limousine. The flowers arrived on time, but instead of being the small posies of fresh sweetheart roses that Daisy had requested, they turned out to be these hideous artificial bouquets with orange lilies and blue baby's breath. It seems that my aunt made "special" arrangements with the florist, one of her "connections", and had changed the floral order without telling Daisy.

After getting over our collective shock, we went back to waiting for the limousine.... and waiting.... and waiting.... well, it just plain never showed up. So we ended up piling into our cars and racing to the church. Ever seen a bride arrive at her wedding in an '82 Volkswagen Jetta with more rust on it than paint, and which probably hadn't seen the inside of a car wash in a year? The photographer caught every beautiful moment on film, including when Daisy said, "Get out of the $@^%$#$ way - I'm late for my wedding!"

The ceremony itself went off without a hitch - I even shed a tear or two. After the vows were said, we exited the church and lo and behold - there was the limousine. Seems that he had gotten lost that morning and couldn't find the bride's house. Well, we all make mistakes, right? But then we faced the next problem - there were supposed to be two limousines at the church in order to accommodate the full wedding party - we had only one. How to solve this problem? Let's pile twelve people into a limousine designed for eight! It's only a short drive to the park where the pictures were to be taken, and don't worry about the fact that the limo's air conditioning was broken on the hottest day of the summer - we can open all the windows!

By this time Daisy was near tears. What else could go wrong? A lot, actually. When we arrived at the park to take the pictures, it was discovered that the photographer had never bothered to get a permit, which is a requirement in the city in which we live. No permit, no pictures. The photographer apparently thought that if he tried to slip the park administrator a twenty, the guy would let us in. Uh uh. So we ended up back in the limousine, all twelve of us, cruising the city for an appropriate picture spot. Nary an appropriate venue in sight. We ended up back at my aunt's house, taking pictures in her backyard. Some may think it quaint, but one glance at the rusty old swingset and the dilapidated shed that found their way into most of the pictures will change your mind. It does not end there, my friends.

Next it was off to the reception, held at a hall not far from my aunt's house. Again, one of her "connections". Entering the hall, the first thing out of everyone's mouth was, "My goodness, it's hot in here, isn't it?" Guess what? The air conditioning was broken. It was a veritable oven in there. The next question was, "Where's the DJ?" Yup, you guessed it - he didn't show up. My aunt called in another of her "connections" - a "personal entertainer" who arrived with his very own karaoke machine. Never mind that the man could barely speak a word of English - he wasn't busy that night and he worked really cheap. To this day, Daisy is convinced that my aunt cancelled the DJ without her knowing so that she could call in this friend of hers to sing, very badly I might add.

The food was like nothing I had ever seen - the pasta looked as though it had been cooked the night before, the roast beef was sliced so thinly that if you held it up to the light you could see right through it (trust me, I tried it...), and the "creme glacee avec des baies sauvages" ended up as nothing more than a scoop of ice cream with an under ripe strawberry on top. Throughout it all, Daisy was in hysterics - John, on the other hand, didn't seem to be bothered at all. The night ended with the top tier of the cake sliding off its' plate and crashing to the ground, breaking the cake top figurines in the process. It really was the "wedding from hell" - I have not since seen so many things go wrong on one single day.

Since their wedding ten years ago, I have seen John and Daisy only three times - since that day, they like to keep to themselves. Any wonder? So that's my "wedding story from hell". Thank goodness it wasn't my wedding. I've changed the name of the bride and groom - I have no doubt that if anyone in my family knew that I was spreading this story around, I'd be lynched.        Wedhell0307-01


When I got married on New Year's Eve 1997, my mother and I went all out to
plan an elaborate white tie affair. The men in the bridal party were dressed
in tails, I wore a Colonial style gown and my Maid of Honor and bridesmaid
wore hunter velvet. Instead of a traditional reception, we decided to attend
a New Year's Eve party instead.

My husband wasn't very involved with the
wedding plans and mistakenly told the best man (his only attendant) that the
New Year's Eve party was casual, so he might want to change into something
more comfortable before he came to the party because he had to drop off his
date anyway (She was shy and I assumed that she didn't feel comfortable
attending the party). The best man arrived at a very formal party dressed in
jeans and a T-shirt. I felt so bad that he'd been the victim of bad
information that I offered to drive him back so he could change back into his
tux. He was very thankful, but declined and left immediately after dinner.

The banquet hall of the hotel that the party was held in was a non smoking
facility, but the lobby was a designated smoking area. Since nearly everyone
we had invited were smokers, we frequently gathered in the lobby to have a
cigarette. Early in the evening, a group of people passed us in the lobby,
did a double take when they saw that I was in a wedding gown and one of them
announced loudly to her companions that "I give that marriage 6 months".
Maybe they were right or maybe that comment had something to do with it,
because my husband and I did separate 6 months later, but it's certainly not
something that you say to newlyweds.

After the wedding, I sat down to do thank you notes and wrote a long letter
to the Best Man and his girlfriend, thanking them for attending the ceremony,
apologizing for the attire mix-up and expressing my regrets that the
girlfriend couldn't attend the reception. They lived in the same apartment
complex that we did and a couple of weeks later, I ran into her. She said
that she had received my letter but she was somewhat confused as to the
remarks about her attendance at the reception. To make a long story short,
my husband apparently told her that she was not invited to the reception
because it was so expensive and he wanted to save money. The truth of it was
that he plainly didn't like her and didn't even want her to attend the
ceremony. I ended up taking her to lunch at a nice restaurant to apologize
to her, but I don't think she ever really got over that slight. Wedhell0319-01


I was looking for proper etiquette for my brother-in-law's upcoming wedding, and found this site. (big smile) It makes me feel like my problems were NOTHING in comparison. Nevertheless, I submit my story for everyone's enjoyment because I certainly didn't think it was the best possible event. I'm married for 13 years to date, so it's but a memory.

When my boyfriend did the unthinkable and didn't ask for their approval first, my parents saw the relationship as something that they could break up and my mother was still trying to set me up with other men. When I moved out, my parents said they would not attend the wedding. Though Mom helped me pick out a wedding dress, made silk flower arrangements and my bouquet and helped with many other things.. she still insisted that they are not coming to the wedding.(very confusing)

So, I arranged for my only, younger, brother (16) to give me away.  My mother-in-law arranged for a photographer (who asked if he could also try videotaping everything). He took wonderful pictures, but some I can't bare to look at. (same goes for the videotape.) My father had me crying as I was at their home getting ready. So the photographer captured not only the stills of my red-eyed smile.. but also in my bedroom, upset, as I was getting ready.

Putting on my acrylic nails, I had my old room full of people, so I switched languages, just so I could talk to Mom and not be reasonably embarrassed. But now I will always have my words to haunt me on tape for how upset I was. The photographer didn't have the sense to 1: not tape a bad emotional scene(s) (I was too upset to think of sending him out) and 2: not sense enough not to put it final edited copy! My MOH bowed out and vanished, a couple months in advance so I promoted my bridesmaid, but I still needed 'maid, so I asked my boyfriend's cousin's girlfriend. She accepted with the comment that she was second choice.

Let's see, my new husband was nowhere to be found at the reception, so I danced the first dance with my grandmother. Soon after, I find that he was upset that I did that. I was not going to just stand there while everyone enjoyed themselves on the dance floor just because I hadn't danced with my husband yet. And lastly, my grandmother supposedly call out to us during the vows for us to 'speak louder'. My parents, who insisted to the end that they would not attend the wedding... did, but did not attend the reception. All in all it was a very successful wedding, with many minor problems. I try to keep it in perspective now; husband, children and the good overall memories to look back on that was my wedding. (but sometimes it's not easy.) Thanks for the stories. Wedhell0319-01


My brother got married to a lovely girl this past August. We moved to a different state between getting the invitation and the wedding, and we couldn't really afford the wedding, but we decided to eat noodles (more or less) for the rest of the month so we could make the round trip from Virginia to Indiana. Well, we settled into our home and started thinking about a wedding gift. I e-mailed our mother to see if she knew where they were registered, and she told us JC Penney. So we got a copy of their registry and went happily off to buy something. We had about $55 we could pay for a gift, so we thought we were pretty well off for this, none of the families involved being exactly rolling in dough. I was further determined to get them something from their registry because NO ONE had gotten us anything from ours!

Well, I was wandering around the store reading their registry when I got shocked. My DH & I had made sure that we registered for gifts in a wide price range, including many under $5! The cheapest thing on the list was $8--and that was for MEASURING CUPS! Well, I hunted all over the store for something to get them, enlisting the aide of a saleslady (many of the things they had registered for weren't at that store). Obviously we wouldn't be getting them the $200 comforter they wanted, or the $90 sheer panel for their windows. We bought them a wicker dressing-table tray (which my brother held up at the reception and asked me what the hell it was) and the napkins and napkin rings that were on their list. The whole time my husband was grousing that we shouldn't buy them anything, as they certainly hadn't gotten us a gift for our wedding.

The time comes for the wedding. We make the drive, but we seriously underestimated the time it would take us to get there, so we arrived about 12 hours late. Upon arriving at the hotel my mother told us about the rehearsal dinner. I was upset at not having been invited (believe me, had I been I would have made sure I attended!). Come to find out, my brother's foster mother WOULD have invited us--on the off-chance that we had called her before leaving for Indiana. (Keep in mind, this is a lady whom I have met once in my life, when I was five, and I am VERY shy.)

Okay, no problem. I was disappointed at not being able to get hold of my brother that night, because it would mean that I wouldn't get to meet my future SIL until after the wedding! We arrived at the church and were seated in the front. The church wasn't air-conditioned, but there were little paddle-fans on the pews--from the local funeral home! I read through the wedding program and was extremely upset to see that the children of my brother's foster-siblings were listed as his nieces and nephews--especially as I had been put in the acquired position of explaining to our half-sister why she and her family weren't invited!

The ceremony itself was very strange. There was a unity candle ceremony of a sort. Admittedly, I had only seen this ceremony at one wedding before, but it was my impression that the bride and groom would light the main candle themselves. The minister did it here! My brother and his bride just stood rather awkwardly at the altar whilst a family friend sang the 23rd Psalm (you know, the one with the line "Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall feel no evil") in German.

The reception was another frightening matter. The decor of the church had been my first indication that this girl had let an invitation catalog dictate her wedding decorations! For some strange reason, just inside the door to the sanctuary there was a fake-flower covered arch, and the aisle was covered in one of those runners that are supposed to serve to keep the bride's dress clean (I would have expected the church carpet to be clean, but at any rate the purpose was defeated by having all the guests walk on it to get to their pews).

The reception was held in the church's gym below ground. It wasn't air-conditioned either, but there were several large fans (the type you'd expect to find in an unairconditioned gym). The reception tables showed more of that decorating spirit. There were not only thank-you scrolls (which even the catalogs admit are favors) but Hershey's Kisses wrapped in cellophane to resemble roses as favors, personalized napkins, and of course the ubiquitous floating candle in a bowl centerpieces.

The cake table was decorated in an equally frightening manner, and the cake itself had a lit fountain underneath it. (!) My mother later told me that my brother's bride was one in a family of five girls, one of whom has severe cerebral palsy, and the family lives in a doublewide trailer--so it was obvious they had gone to a lot of trouble to give their daughter the wedding she wanted! It was obvious to see where they had decided to scrimp. The buffet was set with cold cuts, chips, and bread, and the champagne fountain poured Kool-Aid. Most of the guests left immediately after the bride and groom entered--not even staying for the toasts or the cake cutting!

There was a large table where all the gifts were piled, and when things started to wind down about an hour later my brother pulled up a chair and so did one of the bridesmaids armed with material to note who gave what. Cards were looked at, their envelopes thrown into the trash. Most of the guests were gone by now, which was a good thing because it meant they didn't have to hear their gift being discussed!

My husband and I left soon after. I had had to leave the room several times because I couldn't get over being upset that our half-sister wasn't invited (the program listings had really been the last straw). I kept having to go collect myself so I didn't say something to the bride and groom about it! We did get a thank-you note, I am glad to say. Of course, we got it several months after said half-sister got hers (she didn't send anything, but I signed the card on one of our gifts as being from her in an unsuccessful attempt to at least make them feel guilty). Seems they had sent it to Connecticut, somehow missing the new address I had been very careful to write on the card we gave them! (On a side note, even after giving them our new address several times, our Christmas card arrived in January because it, too, had to be forwarded.)
wedhell0410-01


The worst wedding I have ever attended (well, so far at least) was about two years ago. My cousin, after being engaged for only three months to a man twice older than her was getting married. Now, I know people do fall in love quickly and get married as fast, but in this case my cousin's mother (my aunt) really pushed her daughter to marry this guy. Apparently because he is well off and owns a couple of houses. Ok, yeah, that's a good reason to get married. This side of the family has been notorious for being tacky and rude all of our lives, but we just grin and bear it. This family has never been religious, never attending church or baptizing their children or anything, but my aunt insisted that her daughter have a church wedding. I thought that in itself was funny.

So, the wedding day comes and my husband and I arrive at the church (it's a 10:00am wedding). We notice a lot of scaffolding and Danger Do Not Cross tape all around the church. We are then told that the church is still under construction and the ceremony will be held in the gym out back. Ok, not their fault …things happen. The ceremony proceeds without a hitch, but the bride did look a little queasy. I later learned that she wanted to back out of the wedding only hours before telling her mother that she didn't love the guy she was going to marry. My aunt told her that she had already paid for everything and that she was going through with it no matter what! What a lovely woman (saying it in a sarcastic tone).

Move on to the reception. We arrive at the restaurant where the reception is being held and I wonder why everyone is just standing around in the hallway and not actually in the banquet room. Well, apparently the wedding party hadn't arrived yet and they wanted to be the first ones to enter the room so no one was being allowed inside! I might add there were several elderly relatives there and no place for them to sit down. Finally after about thirty minutes of just standing someone persuaded the wedding coordinator to open the door. We file in, unload the gifts at the gift table that we had been carrying, and find somewhere to sit. There are no seating charts so we proceed to the closest table. My mom picks a table that is just in front of the wedding table and puts my elderly grandmother in chair and the rest of us sit. None of these tables have any cards that say 'Reserved' or anything. We find out later that the table my mom picked out was supposed to be for my aunt and her friends and family. How were we to know that?! A sign would have been nice!?

It was a sit down dinner. Now all of the past weddings I've attended they are either buffet, and you have a choice of several foods or it's a sit down dinner. In the case of the sit down usually you are given a choice of either beef, chicken, fish or whatever when you get the invitation. That's how it was at our wedding in any case. So, I was surprised when (two hours later!) the wait staff start bringing out the food. And as I observe every single meal is the same. Roasted chicken, steamed rice, and steamed vegetables. Too bad for you if you don't like chicken, because that's it! We notice a bar and I ask my husband if he can get me a soda, since the wait people are too busy to refill the water pitcher (after asking them three times). My husband also gets drinks for the rest of the table. He comes back and tells only me that he had to pay for everything. Even the sodas were $2.00 a glass (not a full glass, just the small hi-ball size). I've heard of having to pay for the liquor, but sodas!

The evening crawls, the DJ is too loud and no one is dancing. The beautiful cake is still uncut two hours after dinner is finished. My husband and I finally cannot stand being there any longer and we decide to leave, under the glaring eye of my aunt who later confronts my mom as to why we left so early (at 10:00pm!). My mom says she wanted to stay because she wanted some cake. I find out later that my parents finally left at about 11:45pm and they still hadn't cut the cake!    Wedhell0411-01


I'm not sure where you would categorize this one, since it went bad from
start to finish, but here goes.

My old Army roommate, Holly, and her boyfriend Keith (also military) decided
to get married. Since military personnel don't make a lot of money, they
knew this would be a shoestring budget wedding.

Luckily, Keith's mother ran a country club, and was able to get them free use
of the clubhouse for the ceremony and reception as a wedding present. So
having a date and place, they proceeded to plan a modest wedding. Holly
decided to have only two attendants--she asked Keith's sister, Mary, to be
her maid of honor, and asked me to be her bridesmaid. Mary's daughter Katie
would be the flower girl.

From the word go, Holly was very casual and relaxed about how this would
work. She decided that since Mary and I didn't look anything alike, she
wouldn't have us wear identical dresses--she just simply asked that we each
pick a hunter green bridesmaid's dress. She also asked if I would mind
making my own bouquet--she suggested that I just go to Hobby Lobby and buy
one of their fake-flower bouquet sets. I know some people out there would
scream "tacky", but Holly didn't want people blowing their budgets for the
most expensive stuff when in her opinion, nobody would know the difference.

So I buy the dress and make the bouquet, and it all looks very nice. In the
meantime, my service time is ended, and I moved to Oklahoma, but I was only
four hours away from the wedding site, and my aunt lived in that area and
told me I could stay with her that weekend.

So, comes the wedding day....and everything that could have gone wrong, did.
In spades.

We had been advised ahead of time that due to the budget limitations, we
would be decorating the clubhouse ourselves, plus we were being sent out to
the grocery store to buy food and drink, so to please arrive at five o'clock,
and the entire wedding party and the immediate family would get it all
together. This was fine, and at five, we were all there. Except Keith's
mother--who naturally, had the keys. She wound up not getting there until
six-thirty--in her nervousness, she'd locked her keys in her car. So we're
rushing around trying to get the clubhouse decorated in less than an hour,
since the ceremony is supposed to start at seven-thirty.

We very impressively got the place done in 30 minutes (nice to know all our
military training came in handy, one wonders what our drill sergeants would
say) and Holly, Mary, and I went to change into our wedding outfits....and
there's only one place to do it--the ladies' room. It was the kind where
it's one toilet in a large room, rather than several enclosed stalls. This
meant any female guests who might need to use the facilities wouldn't be able
to until we were done, so we corralled the best man and asked him to be the
"bathroom monitor", and direct everybody to the men's room--we figured it was
the same setup, so as long as everybody knocked before entering, it would
work. Sadly, it didn't. Throughout the entire changing process, the female
guests *insisted* on using the ladies room!

But we're in there trying to change, and this is where I started to have many
issues with Mary. First thing she noticed was that our dressed looked
*nothing* alike--and mysteriously, in two seconds flat she has the flu so
badly that she elects to not take part in the wedding! So fifteen minutes
before the ceremony is to begin, I'm suddenly the maid of honor. Mary
stomped out of the ladies' room, then stomped back in with Holly's dress.
Mary had rented a wedding dress for Holly, since obviously, buying one wasn't
in the budget either. She hung the dress up, still in its plastic bag, and
stomped out again. Holly decided to go after her to try and talk her back
into taking part in the ceremony. So while she did that, the mom and I
pulled the dress out of the bag to get it ready for Holly to put on.

Imagine our horror and disgust when dead moths fell out of the dress. There
were so many you couldn't see the floor directly under the gown. As
disgusting as this was, we quickly scooped up the dead moths and flushed them
down the toilet so Holly wouldn't know. The mom inspected the dress, and
found a stain (faint) on the bodice, and a rip under the left arm. We
literally didn't know what to do! Holly came back in, unsuccessful with
Mary, and her future mother-in-law showed her the dress. (We kept our mouths
shut about the moths.) Holly decided that her world wouldn't come to an end
if the dress wasn't perfect, and joked she wouldn't do the hokey-pokey and
wave her arms around in the air. (She was being such a good sport about
everything, I really have to say this!)

We got her in the dress, and despite everything, she looked absolutely
gorgeous. Mary must've felt somewhat badly about her behavior, because she
came back in and did Holly's makeup, and made her look absolutely stunning.
It's seven-thirty, and we're a *little* late, but it's not too bad.

Another problem. Holly's father and grandmother aren't there. And Holly,
naturally, is worried and doesn't want to start without them. We start
making phone calls all over the city trying to track them down. Finally,
they show up at eight-fifteen. Locking one's keys in the car must have been
an epidemic for the city that night, because that's exactly what had happened
to Holly's father as well!

So now we can begin. The music starts, and the flower girl gets overexcited
and goes charging down the aisle ahead of me, forgetting to throw her rose
petals, but hey, she's only two and a half. I go ahead and walk down the
aisle, and halfway down, a guest stands up, and announces he was supposed to
get the ice for the reception and he forgot, could we wait while he took care
of that? I looked him dead in the eye and said, "You *are* kidding, right?"
His response was, "It'll only take me fifteen minutes." Nobody said a word,
we just all stared at him. Finally I told him to sit down and wait until the
ceremony was over. He sat down, but he gave me the *dirtiest* look!

I finish my walk, and Holly starts hers. She meets Keith in front of the
minister, and all is good. The flower girl then remembers she forgot her
rose petals....and turns her little basket upside-down over the train of
Holly's dress and proceeded to jump up and down on the gown. Her mother came
running up the aisle to get her, the kid sees her coming, and crawls under
Holly's skirt to hide. *That* was entertaining, let me tell you. Anyway,
got the kid out of there, do the vows, the minister amusingly gets Holly's
surname right (and it's one of those long more-consonants-than-vowels type),
and botches Keith's, who has a very common surname. He then proceeds to
refer to me as the "best bride, I mean the best woman, I mean the woman of
honor...."

The ceremony is over, and time for the reception. The food being served?
Mexican finger food. On paper plates. And nobody thought to get tables--we
were going to have to hold the plates on our laps and eat! You can imagine
how quickly those plates started to shred under all the grease the food had
been cooked in!

Much to mine and Holly's disappointment, there was no dancing. Seems that
somebody on Keith's side of the family invoked a "no-dancing" ban for
religious reasons. (Keith's family is Southern Baptist.) Funny how the
bride was not informed of this beforehand!

Now it's time for toasting the happy couple. To my disappointment, they used
Seven-Up, but between Holly's family being Mormon and Keith's being Southern
Baptist, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. But I decided it wasn't
going to kill me, so I raised my glass up with everybody else--except one
blonde witch standing next to me, who said, and I quote, "What the f*** do I
care about their happiness?" I looked at her, completely stunned, and said,
"Excuse me?" She looked at me and said, "You heard me b****. Why should I
care if they're ever happy?" I responded in a whisper, "You will raise your
glass with a smile on your face or I will break your damn jaw." Yes, I know.
Hardly the way to handle the situation, and I was immediately sorry, and I
felt badly. It could have gone way bad. But I guess the girl thought I
meant it, because she raised up her glass. Didn't smile, but as long as she
kept quiet, I didn't care.

Turns out she was Keith's ex-girlfriend. She heard he was getting married
and managed to get the details from *somebody* and crashed his wedding!

If you're still reading this, take heart--it's almost over. :-)

The toasts are made, the happy couple are saying their good-byes, and I
noticed that some of the guys went out with all the stuff appropriate for
"decorating" a car. It must have been some sixth sense, because ten minutes
later I suddenly ran outside--Keith and I both owned the same type of car,
and the colors were similar. In the dark, it was hard to tell whose was
whose. You'd think the guys would notice that one car had Oklahoma plates,
and the other had Texas plates, but oh well--I stopped them before they got
too far on mine. :-)

I am happy to say that the whole disaster happened five years ago--but Keith
and Holly are still together, and ultimately, I suppose that's what counts! Wedhell0412-01


I have just thankfully survived my April Fools' Day wedding. (Mental note... When planning a wedding on April Fools' Day, plans will follow accordingly.)

We started planning our wedding 13 months prior. Within the first week, 90% of the plans were done. Wedding party was set, hall rented, tuxedos reserved, dress purchased. But, the best laid plans... 6 months later, the hall "lost" our reservation for the grand ballroom, and instead booked us a windowless second-floor conference room that could seat 25. We had 80 on the guest list. Had to wait a full month for the return of our deposit. Three months prior to the wedding, our head usher announced that he'd rather be a bridesmaid. After the tux was fitted and paid for. Lovely.

Two months prior to the wedding,, as all good brides do, I joined a gym to get toned up for the honeymoon cruise. It backfired. Although I lost 25 lbs., I built up so much muscle that the top 12 inches of my dress could not be zipped. Had to wear a brocade jacket over my dress for the entire wedding. Two months prior to the wedding,, bridesmaids decide on dresses. Order placed, deposits paid. MOH doesn't show, had to guess on size. Third bridesmaid waits until others have left and throws a HUGE hissy fit over how much she HATES the dress she just picked out. Dresses are due in 2 days prior to wedding. (They arrived on time!) MOH is severely allergic to her dress, bride has to reline the dress in 100% silk on the day before wedding. Silk costs more than the dress did.

Two weeks prior to the wedding, sister of groom decides she doesn't like the brides' seating plan and decides to redo it. She doesn't even KNOW 50% of the guests. I was less than pleasant when I found out. Original plan reinstituted. One month prior to the wedding, MOH planned a "Jack and Jill" for us. Best Man cancelled it, stating that he could get a better, less expensive hall. He never did.

Five days prior to the wedding, MOH sent out note cards to EVERYONE on my guest list (attending or not), which said "In lieu of the shower that was cancelled by the best man, please mail a check made out to bride's MARRIED name, to MOH's address. These will be given to the bride and groom to be spent on their honeymoon. And the person who sent the largest donation would be presented with a unique, handmade gift. Let's review how many levels this one note card violated etiquette laws... 1.) Public humiliation of Best Man. 2.) Tacky request for money. 3.) Many on the list were "courtesy" invitees only. Some others were living on severely limited income, two persons were handicapped! 4.) Checks made out to the bride's MARRIED name? Get real. Takes 2 weeks to get the marriage license to change the name! 5.) MOH lived out of state. 5 days for the USPS to deliver the notes AND get replies? Have you ever USED the USPS??? 6.) Wedding was on a Sunday. We were leaving for our honeymoon that night. How were we supposed to CASH the checks???? 7.) Yay. A crafty little unknown gift for sending money. (I'm still doing damage control on that one. People don't seem to understand that not only did we not know she'd be doing that, we were appalled, but it was too close to the wedding to raise a fuss over it. Our advice to people was to pretend it never happened.)

Now, for the wedding: DJ only brought 3 hrs. worth of music. Reception was 5 1/2 hours. Wedding coordinator changed all organization of the wedding/reception without consulting with ANYONE in the wedding party, photographer or DJ. We danced to the wrong songs, cut the cake between salad and entree, and didn't get to have a reception line. Hall would not allow candles in centerpieces to be lit unless they were purchased from the hall. MOH showed up with a fever of 102 and wouldn't go home. I'm a computer tech. One guest brought a computer to my wedding, hoping I would fix it. I'd never dreamed I'd be so happy to have my wedding OVER WITH.       Wedhell0419-01


I should have known this wedding was going to be tacky from the beginning: the bride announced the engagement to me during the funeral of my fiancé’s beloved grandmother. There I was, grieving for Gram, and I was expected to ooh and aah over the engagement ring. I tried to be as enthusiastic as I could, under the circumstances. When we got the invitation, they had misspelled both my first *and* last names (a pet peeve with me), and they had used clear labels to type the recipient's name and address. It looked unbelievably cheap and cheesy. Of course, the invitations contained those horrible little registry cards, announcing where the happy couple was registered.

The groom, my fiancé’s cousin, had asked my fiancé to be one of his groomsmen, in order to even out the seven bridesmaids on the bride's side. They're not very close, but my fiancé agreed anyway. They had planned a Saturday morning wedding, and the rehearsal was scheduled for Thursday night, so that "nobody would be hungover at the wedding". Even though it was extremely inconvenient, my fiancé and I took a couple days off work and made travel and hotel arrangements in order to be at the rehearsal. We got there around 6 p.m. and waited, in the sweltering July heat, for someone to show up and open the church for us. I think we waited about an hour. Either we were the only people on time, or we'd been given the wrong time for the rehearsal to start. Once it got started, I found out that one bridesmaid and the ring bearer were told they didn't need to come to the rehearsal because they were from out of town. Helloooo, we were from out of town too! Nobody told us that we didn't need to be at the rehearsal. To top it all off, after the rehearsal was over, my fiancé and I were standing around, wondering about where the rehearsal dinner was (it was about 8:30 p.m. by this time, and we hadn't eaten since lunch). Obviously someone else was wondering about it too, because we overheard the groom say, "We don't have enough money to feed all you [expletive]'s". There was no rehearsal dinner, no attendant gift, not even a verbal thank-you to my fiancé for being a groomsman. My fiancé and I had to go in search of fast food, in an unfamiliar place, for dinner.

I really question the "not enough money" remark from the groom, because during the wedding ceremony they had hired dancers to do an interpretive dance. An interpretive dance! I've never seen anything quite as ludicrous or unnecessary. Then, at the reception, everyone was served two entrees, one of which was prime rib. That prime rib would have been pretty welcome two nights before! Needless to say, my fiancé and I left the reception as soon as politely possible and went home. Wedhell0509-01


As I am preparing for my own wedding I came across this website. LOVE IT!
Here is my (not really mine but one I experienced) WEDDING FROM HELL story:
Last summer my future sister-in-law "Joan" was planning her wedding. My
fiancé’ (bride’s brother) "Jim" was in the wedding. I was just fine being a
guest when one the girls in the party dropped out at the last minute. Well, I
was asked to be in the wedding (which was fine) and the dress fit perfect.
All of a sudden I got a really bad feeling about this wedding, I didn't know
why but it was there.


So the big day comes everything is going great, we (the wedding party) got
the "DANCE" that we performed walking down the aisle perfect during
practice.(the wedding and reception were held in the same place) So the guest
start filing in, we line up, but wait the minister has not arrived yet. No
biggie the bride is not sweating yet. He finally show's up about two minutes
before the ceremony was to begin. So we dance down the aisle to the selected
music. When the last bridesmaid and groomsman reach the alter it is the
bride's turn. She stands and waits for the bridal song to begin but it does
not. See the DJ forgot to bring that song. So she too comes down to the same
song we did.

The rest off the evening is great, everybody getting along
great. The food, music, people all great. I begin thinking "what was I
worried about??" Well, "Tina", the bride's cousin she has a little too much
to drink (she also was in the wedding) and begins dancing with some of the
groom's friend's and family a little too seductively. OK, we all think she
is nasty but deal with it. Well, the last twenty minutes I felt I had to use
the bathroom. So I go in and when I come out there is a HUGE fight on the
dance floor. Now mind you I have NEVER EVER been in a fight let alone been at
a wedding that had a fist fight. So now I know what that bad feeling was all
about. Well, they get the fight outside and I am ready to leave NOW. But I
cannot because "Jim" is right smack in the middle. We finally get him to
leave, his white tux bloody, my white car bloody.

When we regrouped the next
day here is what happened: "Tina" got angry at one of her "dancing" partners
and she pushed him. He in return hit her. This, all seen by "Tina's" brother,
"Gary" steps in and hits the guy for hitting his sister. "Jim" seeing his
closest cousin hit someone, he has to come to "Gary's" rescue (not really
both of these boy's are big and have a few brawls come there way) mass
hysteria takes place and everyone is fighting. By the time the fight reaches
outside there is 20 of the groom's family and 4 of the bride's family
fighting. Although I DO NOT BELIEVE IN FIGHTING, "Jim" and the other 3
definitely held their own. Come to find out that one of the groom's cousin's
(female) brought a knife to the wedding and she thought she was stabbing "one
of our side's" she actually stabbed her own uncle. He to this day "doesn't
know who did it" but we all know that is not true because the police were
involved and he didn't want his niece getting in trouble. Here is a tip in
case you too are involved with a wedding like this" TUXEDO'S ARE MACHINE
WASHABLE!!!!!!" Wedhell0528-01


"What's a Nice Bride Suppose to Do in a Situation like This."

A few years ago I attended the wedding of a family friend that ran like a fairy tale on acid. The groom was the pride of the local neighborhood; oldest son, altar boy, Honor Society, Naval Academy graduate, specialized survival course training graduate, etc. He was a nice guy though not quite as nice as everyone thought up until the time of his wedding. Now the family was Italian and rather comfortable money-wise, so naturally, they had been planning, and the mother especially had been nagging him to get married for quite awhile and they expected this wedding to occur with a great deal of pomp and circumstances (i.e., overblown spectacle).

Finally, he does get engaged to a woman he met in Europe. His mother starts pulling out all the stops to create a lavish affair, dozens of ice sculptures, multiple champagne fountains, something that, in her own words, "the whole neighborhood will remember." She wanted to fly to Paris to meet the bride and look for wedding clothes in designer salons. At one point her guest list looked like the voter registration roles for the state of New Jersey.

Then the bride-to-be brought everything to a screeching halt. It seemed she didn't feel it was appropriate for her and the groom to have a lavish wedding since she was a widow. (And she was quite correct on that point). She especially refused to walk down the aisle in spotless, virgin white with a train the size of a parachute. The groom's mother ranted and raved for days, weeks. This was her golden boy, her favorite son (she didn't use exactly those words, but she came awfully close). They couldn't just have a simple family celebration with close friends and a low-keyed atmosphere! They just couldn't!

Well, the groom's mother and the bride-to-be fought and fought and unfortunately, the bride mostly caved in. The giant reception was still a go. The champagne fountains, ice sculptures, tons of flowers were still a go. About the only thing the poor bride won out on was she still wasn't walking down the aisle in white with a veil like this was her first wedding. The day of the wedding arrived and the whole neighborhood is there. The wedding was a three-ring circus, but well orchestrated. The bride wore blue. It was a beautiful, but subdued dress, the kind of dress a well-mannered widow would wear to remarry. On the whole the bride seemed quiet, very shy, and rather demure. It was easy to see why they groom's mother had got her way, but everyone was happy for the couple. The groom was the local hero and the bride seemed to be the sweet, little widow who was too kind for her own good.

Then during the receiving line, before the reception even starts in barges on of the groom's long ago flings/bed buddies dragging this little kid with her. She marches up to the bride, shoves the kid in front of her and announces "Since you got him to marry you. You might as well take his kid too!" Golden boy apparently had an illegitimate daughter that was the family secret until now. Needless to say the reception did not go on as planned. The entire receiving line disappeared into the back of the catering hall while everyone fiddled with the appetizers and wondered what was going to happen next. According to people that went back toward the bride room to find out what was going on, the demure little bride was screaming bloody murder at the groom in at least two languages! Finally, she returned to the main reception room. She took frazzled. I guess she had every right to be. She picked up the MC's mike and slowly, but evenly thanked everyone who had come and announced that dinner would be served soon, but there would be no cutting of the cake or further wedding related events. She started to leave, but the groom tried to talk to her, along with a couple of the groom's men. Now the groom and the groomsmen were all in the Navy and they were all in dress whites, so it looked like a bunch of polar bears surrounding a blue bird.

Then it really got good. They were over by the cake and the cake knife which really wasn't a cake knife, but some sort of sword the groom had picked up in his military travels and thought would be great to cut the cake with. Everyone could tell that the bride was growing angrier and angrier. Nobody was eating. Everyone was watching them. The groom grabs her arm. Remember the cake sword. She swung it at him! Apparently, he had learned how to move fast in the Navy. One of the groom's men got between them. He did get cut, though thankfully, not seriously, but on a white uniform it looked like guy was bleeding to death. The marriage was annulled. Wedehll0531-01


My fiancé was to be a groomsman in his cousin's wedding. His cousin was the groom. The wedding was to be outdoors at 11:00 a.m. at the bride's family home (a BEAUTIFUL area on a hill with a grand view.) My fiancé picked up his tux Thursday night and showed it to me. Silver/gray western cut with yellow cummerbund and tie. I thought it wasn't the most attractive style or combination of colors, and the overall effect reminded me vaguely of something else (I didn't figure it out until later), but I figured if it made the bride happy, then so what? I knew a tux that early in the day was a faux pas, but hey, it was her wedding.

As I had to work Friday, I missed the Friday afternoon rehearsal and met up with my fiancé that night at the casual, outdoors bar-b-q dinner (also at the bride's house). I could see that a very pretty gazebo had been built for the ceremony and many potted plants, trees, and flowers brought in. My fiancé told me that I was in for a "treat" the next day and that he could not believe what they planned to do, but he would not explain what he meant except to start laughing whenever he thought about it. The wedding site looked very pretty Saturday morning. White chairs were set up for the guests and white ribbons were hanging from the gazebo and trees.

As the music started playing, I noticed that it was all old, southern tunes (Dixie was the only one missing). There really was a little feeling of antebellum in the air. The music changed to "My Old Kentucky Home." Then came the seating of the mothers. First the groom's mother was escorted to her seat followed closely by the groom's father who wore the silver/gray western tux but with tails (and from his expression and posture he seemed to understand that it was far too early to be dressed that way). She wore a dark, solid green dress with a heavy brocade jacket and flowing, calf-length skirt. Her only jewelry was a pair of simple, gold earrings. She was stunning. She, too, looked a bit sheepish, however. In a moment I found out why.

The bride's mother came next. She was wearing a solid WHITE, floor-length, hoop-skirted dress that looked as if it were yanked out of some old movie depicting the Civil War era -- except hers was much more ornate and had crescent folds (much like curtain swags) going down the skirt with large, fabric roses at each upswing of the folds. Her hair was in the BIGGEST, poofy, helmet style. She had gaudy rings on her fingers and dangling rhinestones on her ears. She was beaming. I was not the only guest who gasped. Some whispered, "Oh, my God!"

The groomsmen filed in at the gazebo with the groom who also wore the silver/gray western style tails tux. My fiancé caught my eye, smiled, and winked. Suddenly I realized what the gray and yellow reminded me of…. they were the colors of the uniforms of confederate soldiers. The music changed again, and (I swear) the theme song from Gone With the Wind started playing. Down the aisle came the bridesmaids. Each was wearing a HUGE, hoop-skirted, floor-length, yellow dress with a broad-brimmed, yellow, garden party hat and yellow, lace gloves. Their bodices had the look of sequined tube tops, but their shoulders were covered by a shawl of yellow organza. All seven swayed down the aisle giving the full, swinging bell effect to their skirts.

Then came the bride. The bride's gown was a white, hoop-skirted ordeal that had more ruffles and crystals and pearls and lace and bows and organza than (in my opinion) are carried in the average fabric store. Who knows what, if any, pattern was supposed to be represented on the skirt as there was too much stuff on it to allow such discernment. The satin train - trimmed in bows - somehow attached to the waist and made it over the skirt to flow a good fifteen feet behind the bride. It, too, was overly decorated with sparkly beads and pearls. The sleeves gave her the shoulders of a football linebacker while the front plunged so low, she may as well have been topless. The bride's entire head was masked by yards and yards of tulle on a crown of white, silk flowers and rhinestones. How she saw through it all, I still wonder. The overall effect was of a fairy godmother whose wand had exploded at a glitter factory.

Her father had to have known that a beer belly that large should never be allowed to hang out of the cut of a tails coat, AND that a cummerbund is insufficient to act as a girdle. By the time this parade had finished, half of the guests were covering their mouths to stifle their laughs. Unfortunately, their shaking shoulders gave them away. I kept thinking that there HAD to be a hidden camera somewhere and that any minute someone would jump out and say we all were on Candid Camera. The ceremony had three solos in it (all current love songs) , but otherwise was fairly short. After the minister pronounced them husband and wife, I imagined the bride raising her first and crying, "With God as my witness, I shall never be single again."

One bridesmaid (the bride's brother's girl friend) stole the moment by swooning (literally back of the hand on the forehead with knees buckling straight downward ) thus causing some commotion as three young men came to her rescue and made her sit down on the front row. We finally heard Dixie as it was played for the recessional. The word "abundant" does not do justice to the reception. It was in another section of the yard (really big area) and spilled into the house. All the waitstaff were black. County music blared and the keg beer flowed. There was even a champagne fountain into which someone had tried to pour beer - the result of which was a large, frothy mess. Many guests got loud and drunk. Half the guests went wild each time the Cotton-Eyed Joe was played. Condoms filled with shaving cream and vulgar expressions of copulation were the main decor for the couple's car. I truly expected to see the confederate flag flying somewhere. Thankfully it wasn't. It WAS on the bride's garter, however.

Through it all the groom's poor parents smiled, but their eyes revealed the discomfort and embarrassment that was just behind those smiles. I was born, raised, and still live in a former confederate state, so I am not some "Yankee" laughing at southern style. This simply was one of the most "memorable" events I have ever attended.   Wedhell0620-01

Photos!  We must have photos!


My husband and I received an invitation to a coworker's wedding. The wedding was scheduled for 5:00, with a reception to follow. We found the site: an old appliance store that went out of business about six months ago. The store logo was still painted on the windows, and you could see where the store shelves had been on the floor. Inside, there were tables set up with no table covers, and a cleared space apparently meant to be a dance floor. Thank goodness for the wedding balloons or we wouldn't have known that was the location.

We get there around 4:30... then it was 5, then 5:30... finally, around 6:30, the bride walks out onto the makeshift dance floor. There are no aisles, no designated area for the ceremony. The guests, confused, get up from the tables and go to the dance floor and kind of stand behind the bride. Meanwhile, the groom and the JP have been drinking Crown since 5 by the DJ booth (which had two very tall, very large speaker boxes) . After the JP, obviously wasted, stumbles through a ceremony, a few guests start catcalling and making crude requests for the bride kiss. Right after the kiss, the DJ starts BLASTING music louder than its played at hard rock concerts... in this area no bigger than 1500 square feet. We retreated to the far tables to try and recover. By then its 7, and we are starving... but guess what? No food. The invitations were tacky enough, with "money tree" and "bring your own beer" written on them, but you would think there would at least be cheap chips or something to absorb some of the alcohol. And by then, alcohol needed to be absorbed. One fight broke out between one of the couple's children (drunk but definitely under 21) and a guest. Needless to say, we left soon after... but we heard that the mixture of liquor and no food produced quite a few disgustingly drunk people spewing on the nasty linoleum floor. Oh, and no, we didn't receive a thank you note, but after that experience, you can't expect one, now, can ya?   Wedhell0702-01


I have a friend, Stacie, from apartment-sharing days of old. Having moved
away from her area we now keep in touch through letters and the occasional
meeting. She is a large lady with few morals and a strange taste for
exaggerating the truth. To tell you all about my friend Stacie and the
things she has done would be a whole new story.

I received an invitation from her a couple of years ago, inviting us to her
wedding blessing. She and her husband Bert had married in Vegas the week
prior, and this was a ceremony and reception for all her friends and family
here in UK. My husband and I arrived at the church at 5.30 pm, expecting the
ceremony to start at 6pm. At 5.45 pm the bride’s side of the church was full
of guests, the grooms side had one elderly lady and a man who was incredibly
drunk and groaning. He turned out to be the best man.

Around this time, to our complete surprise, Winnie the Pooh, Tinkerbell, Mickey Mouse and a dwarf all came into the church, and walked up and down the aisle, waving and
patting a man's head who was sitting in an aisle seat. They proceeded to
walk around the church for over half an hour, patting this guy’s head each
time they went past. After the 10th or so time, the guy stood up, angrily
and shook his fist at Winnie the Pooh, and basically shouted at him to quit
patting his head as he was messing his hair.

At this point, the bride's mother and the bride’s young 2 yr. old daughter arrived. We were pleased as Stacie and Bert were now very late. The little girl was allowed to run
around the church as she pleased, and she was screaming, and laughing and
generally running riot. At 6.30 the bride & groom finally arrived and a
taped song began to play to announce their walk together down the aisle. It
was played so quietly we had to strain to hear it. The strange Disney people
hid at the back of the church, behind the font. As Bert and Stacie got about
half way down the aisle, Stacie (the bride) suddenly caught sight of the Disney weirdoes, and yelped with glee, running back up the aisle, and leaving Bert stranded
there uncomfortably whilst she went to speak to them all and hug Winnie.


Finally she rejoined her husband and proceeded down the aisle, where the
vicar asked her to take a seat, insinuating that Stacie was ill. Throughout
the blessing, the little girl continued running around and screaming with
laughter, bumping into the vicar and then falling over and screaming in pain.
Nobody controlled the poor mite and just left her to her own devices. The
vicar then asked the mother of the bride to do a reading, and she got up and
produced a piece of paper. We all expected a love poem or a bible reading.
Wrong. She began telling a speech all about Stacie and what a terrible child
Stacie had been, and then listed all the bad things Stacie had done in her
life. It was quite humorous but was incredibly out of place at the church
and would have been more apt for the post-dinner speeches.

Finally we were all allowed to leave. I was told en route to the reception dinner that the
Disney characters had been the idea of Stacie's older sister Sharron. She
had done it as a surprise for Stacie. This seemed to make sense, since
Stacie and Sharron absolutely hated each other and Sharron was wearing the
Tinkerbell costume, which was really quite pretty and looked incredibly
similar to the fairy tale dress that Stacie herself was wearing.


As we entered the reception, Stacie and Bert were already there. Stacie had
a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other and was telling a
very rude joke at the top of her voice, which included many, many expletives
of the worst kind. Hardly the ideal way to greet your guests. My husband
spotted Bert, a big, shaven headed, tattooed, pierced ear guy, standing at
the bar so went across to congratulate him. Bert was so drunk he just
grunted a strange pig-like sound and turned his back on my hubby, who was
left standing with his hand outstretched in an empty handshake.


I managed to corner Stacie and ask why she had been seated during the
ceremony. She explained that she had developed food poisoning on the plane
on the way back from Vegas and had suffered such bad diarrhea that she could
hardly stand without needing the bathroom. She described it as 'coming out
like a flock of sparrows' which was a little more than I needed to know. We
went to the buffet and found that each and every dish was meat (I am
vegetarian). The only exception was a broccoli quiche so I had to make do
with 3 pieces of that. Our table was crammed up against the top of the
stairs and every time a new guest came into the room, they had to squeeze
past me and my heavily pregnant frame. There were also little children
running past, and I was terrified they would fall down the long staircase.
At the bottom of the stairs I could see a coat rail, and hiding inside it was
the brides mother. She was drunk and for some reason chose to spend most of
the evening hiding amongst the jackets. Everyone could see her, it was an
open staircase and the tables were placed around it, however she seemed to be
oblivious to the fact she was being observed by everyone, even when she kept
trying to entice some of the younger male guests inside the coats with her.


After the meal, Stacie and Bert went to the dance floor and got a microphone
to make a speech. They thanked all the ushers and asked them to come forward
to receive their gifts. Each usher shook their hand and took the gift and
left. But not the best man, who in the light of the dance floor had an
extremely obvious and recent black eye. He shook Stacie's hand and grabbed
the microphone from her, and demanded to make a speech. As he is rather a
large guy nobody argued. He began by saying that Bert was a 'tosser' and a
'great big tosser' at that. Someone told him there were small kids around
and he just said, "Oh you all know what a tosser is kids, don't you?". At
that moment you could hear small voices saying, "Dad, what's a tosser?'"Then
the best man went on to tell everyone that he had hated Stacie when he met
her but seeing her and Bert in love he thought she would probably make a
reasonable wife. However, he said this was on the condition that she "sorts
her life out" and he then detailed her previous admittance to a psychiatric
ward with mental problems. Stacie went bright red but he kept on telling her
she needed to get her head straight. He ended with telling the mother of the
bride to F*** off, completely out of the blue and with no apparent reason.


Luckily the bride got the microphone back at this point and we relaxed a
little, hoping she could save the day. She began by giving a speech to her
father which went something along the lines of this... "Dad. You have always
made it clear to me when I was a little girl that nothing I did was ever good
enough for you. All the time I was growing up I could never do right in your
eyes. Well I just want to tell you that now I have got Bert, and it doesn't
matter what I do because he loves me no matter what. And if I do right by
him, then I do right by you". We all gasped because this sounded possibly
the most hurtful speech, but Stacie filled up with tears and her dad ran up
to hug her as though they both thought it was the most meaningful, touching
speech ever written. Then Stacie's father took the mike, and said, "Stacie
and Bert will be happy, just as long as all you interfering people keep out
of their business and stop meddling in their lives". And that speech got a
huge round of applause, which was completely bizarre.

My husband and I could bear no more, so we set out into the pouring rain to get in our car. We could hardly see a thing in the rain as the windows were steaming up, but as
we reversed, my husband shouted at me to hit the brakes. Standing behind the
car was a limp, soggy figure. We had nearly run over Winnie the Pooh. We
were glad to get home. If I hadn't witnessed that wedding myself, I would
swear it was all just a bad dream. And to top it off, I spent the night curled up in the bathroom as the quiche had been bad. Wedhell0721-01


My fiancé and I only wanted a simple, informal ceremony poolside at his parent's home. His family owns a ranch with cows everywhere, but his father promised he would herd the cows to the back pasture, out of sight. His sister insisted on making us a wedding cake even though I kept telling her that I really didn't want one. We were having a barbecue after the ceremony, complete with a keg of beer and a DJ. We just wanted everyone to relax and have a good time and enjoy the pool party. His sister shows up at the house 2 hours before the wedding with all this cake, some of it in broken chunks. She tells me that she didn't have time to frost and decorate it, that if I want it decorated I will have to do it myself. Well I didn't want the cake to start with so I just ignored her and the cake. During the ceremony the cows somehow got through the fence from the back pasture and came up to the front pasture. While we were exchanging vows one of my FIL’s bulls and another cow decided to procreate, so they were going at it, loudly.

Then as the food is being put on the table my sister-in-law throws a fit because I didn't do anything with the cake she labored and slaved over so she brings it out and plops it right down in the center of the table and starts running her mouth to anyone that will listen. Then the 16 year old daughter of my in-laws best friends gets drunk and starts coming on to my new husband. She was being extremely lewd, embarrassing to everyone that wasn't blind, so we had to kick her out. Her mother gets mad and starts cussing me out, so I threw her out too. My husband and I have been married now for 10 years and this kind of stuff happens every time we visit with his family. I guess that's what I get for marrying a guy whose family is inbred, just wish I'd have known that then.    Wedhell0721-01


A few years ago my aunt was to be the MOH at her best friend’s wedding who we'll call 'Edna'. You could tell offhand that things weren't going to be extremely classy when my aunt described to us what the bridesmaids dresses were going to look like, black silk on the top with maroon velvet on the bottom. The color scheme itself was no biggie, but the style of the actual dress was a harken back to the 80's, poofy frou frou sleeves and all. Needless to say we dismissed Edna's bad taste in that she hadn't had much time to plan the wedding and had been under so much stress from her disapproving parents since she was to wed the son of old family enemies. Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. To top it off Edna had just turned 18 and her future husband was 26.

Before you knew it the day of the wedding arrived. The ceremony was a typical Catholic one, and when it was finally over, we headed off to the reception anticipating some good food from the caterers who we knew personally. When we arrived at the hall, it was already full from guests who had skipped the ceremony or those who had left early to grab a seat I suppose. There were no indicators as to where one should sit, and the long tables and folding chairs that were provided were sticky from a previous reception, not to mention there was absolutely no decorations other than red paper table covers. I knew Edna was not very rich, so I didn't mind the lack of luster so much as the events to follow. Being that Edna's family as well as her now husband’s family were old enemies, their families were split between the hall, not even so much as exchanging looks. Since no one was hired to serve the guests, Edna's in-laws did the serving. We looked on as trays of full plates were passed on to all the guests of the groom, not once, but twice, and then three times, leaving guests of the bride, with absolutely nothing. We were lucky to have even received a cup of water, in a Dixie cup no less.

I didn't care that they were serving the food on paper plates, or that my chair had gum on it, I, along with the other of the brides guests, were damn hungry, and her in-laws, purposely served every single bite of food to their side of the family, leaving everyone else with a growling stomach and a dry mouth. To top it off there was no air conditioning, children ran amuck screaming, people were already drunk beyond belief, the cash bar had spilt liquor letting it run onto the floor, the band was late, the DJ played one song a million times, and Edna's in-laws refused to speak with her parents or siblings. Edna and her husband didn't speak to each other all night, they didn't even bother to apologize to the people who didn't get any food, instead they ordered buckets of KFC and pizza, about 3 hours later, for those poor guests. By that time I had left with my family to eat a nice dinner else where, and returned for the dancing, or should I say, the elbow to elbow sway. At the end of the night the bride was in tears because she had gotten her period, the groom had gotten into 2 fights, there was no security so the cops had to be called, people came who weren't invited, and 2 weeks later the couple honeymooned at a Best Western, in the same town they lived in, having fought the whole time. Three months later they divorced. I never got a thank you, no favor, no food, only a Dixie cup with water, and some bad memories. In a lot of ways I felt sorry for Edna, she was young and naive, but boy was that the worst wedding I have ever been to. Talk about nuts. Wedhell0812-01


Ken and Sharon had begun their courtship May of last year... by September, true love prevailed and they were engaged. They hand delivered the wedding invitations made on their home computer with a telephone number as an RSVP contact, so it seemed to my fiancé and I, as well as everyone invited, that this was to be a casual event - which made sense as this was the groom's third marriage and the bride's second. We received said invitation in mid-October; the wedding was to be in mid-November, in the evening. With this in mind, my fiancé and I chose to wear nice suits, just to be on the safe side. We then find that the happy couple are registered at several stores in the area - we oblige, and purchase items specifically off of their registry.

Two weekends prior to the wedding, I find through conversation with the couple that no one has thrown the couple a shower, or even had a party in their honor, so as my fiancé and I are good friends with the groom, we throw the couple a shower and invite several guests for a party for the couple, and also purchase another gift off of their registry.

The day of the wedding, we call a friend who is already at the site helping set up the decor. The "caterer" - the girlfriend of yet another friend - has not shown up, but the food (unprepared) is already there. "Not to worry," the friend replied, "She said she'd be here shortly." We arrive 30 minutes before the ceremony is to begin, and there is no caterer... only food and supplies piled on a back table. I jump up, and start setting everything up as NO ONE HAS SET ANYTHING UP - fixing sandwiches, recruiting people left and right to cut vegetables, set tables, heating up the side dishes... for 100 people. The wedding was to start at 7:00pm. Since the reception was in the same room as the ceremony, we were all (guests, mind you, not hired help) trying to hurry as quickly as possible in setting everything up. Other guests arriving late began grumbling at us, and one actually asked me the name of the catering company I had so they would never use my services! The embarrassed look on that man's face when I told him that I was simply a guest helping out the couple as the caterer had yet to arrive was priceless.

Finally, around 8:15pm, the wedding began. The DJ had forgotten to bring the power supply, so the processional was to the tune of the bride's dress *whisking* on the tile. (I had to elbow my fiancé and a few male friends to NOT hum the wedding march.) Around 8:30, the caterer finally arrives three sheets to the wind; my fiancé runs outside to help bring in the wedding cake that she had made at home - we find that she (the caterer) had DROPPED the cake and it had cracked all over it. A few more guests came to the rescue, salvaged what was left, and covered it in flowers. Speaking of being covered, my fiancé was covered in chicken grease as the caterer had thrust a tray of chicken into his arms and it splattered all over his suit.

Throughout the whole ordeal - yes, at this point it had become an ordeal and not a wedding... no, it was the Titanic of weddings! - the couple was in shock. My fiancé and I left shortly thereafter as it was a one hour drive back home, and we needed to have a drink to recuperate... and also rethink our decision to have a wedding as well. The clincher of it all, to me, anyway, is that the couple never invited us over to their home afterwards and never thanked us for anything. I mean, I am not a petty person, but I grew up differently (maybe etiquette is different here in the Deep South?). When my now husband and I married six months later, we received an RSVP from them that they would be attending, of which, of course, they no-showed with no explanation or excuse whatsoever. Wedhell1023-01


A friend of mine had asked me to be a bridesmaid in her August wedding. I accepted of course! I think maybe I should have gotten a clue when she took me to the store to get the dress... it was this slip - literally. Every single body flaw could be seen. Still, I kept my mouth shut & went to look for some Body Shapers...

During the months that followed, my friend would tell me stories about her mother and how she just took off out of state (twice!) when she told my friend that she would help her with the wedding. So, it was just the bride & groom (occasionally) planning this wedding. Fast forward to the wedding day. I get to the place early to help set up, only to find out it's a family campground. Ok, fine. There were people milling about that had nothing to do with the wedding, I think some of them were the Missing Link, because they sure were missing teeth... I literally spent the whole morning decorating the altar (outside) with streamers & plastic tablecloths that the bride bought for decorations. She had to rent chairs, and only got 20 - there were over 50 people invited!

The reception area was absolutely disgusting, we spent the remainder of the time before the wedding scrubbing tables down - while her mother - who decided she should come back to the state, stood by and complained the whole time that we weren't doing it the way SHE wanted it done. Then - we get dressed. It is 10 minutes before the ceremony is supposed to start, and her mother is sitting outside having a cigarette, NOT EVEN IN HER DRESS, telling anyone who will listen how disorganized and selfish her daughter is because SHE OFFERED her help but my friend wouldn't take it, look at the mess, etc etc. She also didn't wear her teeth (don't ask...) I was getting madder & madder by the minute.

Well, it's finally time to walk down the aisle, and the ring bearer is missing. So my friend sends his father to find him, he comes back with the child - his tux covered in mud. We finally get down the aisle & take our places. It's probably 100 degrees out, and we're all drenched in sweat in our already too revealing dresses. They do their vows, and I casually look over my shoulder - only to see 3 rednecks walking around with live iguanas and snakes on their shoulders. This all went on while campers were driving their motorcycles up & down the road. So the ceremony is finally over and we are standing around waiting to be announced.

Groomsmen are wandering off, my friend's mother is whining because she can't smoke inside... the food was TERRIBLE (people had to cook), and I spent the rest of the reception cleaning up after guests because I sure wasn't going to let my friend do it on her wedding day. There were no garbage bags, so I asked my friend's mother if she knew where any would be kept (because she's a regular at this campground). She told me to go check her trailer... like I knew where that was... when I asked her where the trailer she was renting was, she flipped out on me and said she was a MEMBER there and she had her OWN trailer. Excuse me.. and you're PROUD of this? I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up as much as I could while her mother stood there and complained. I finally left it all to her mother, then came to find out later that she called me every name in the book (to her daughter) because I didn't help. I had a nice drink when I got home that night. Wedhell1109-11


The wedding/reception was a modest affair, everything taking place at a local hotel. The odd part was that she had picked a song by Depeche Mode called "I Want You Now" for her processional. I wasn't familiar with the song until that day, when I realized that the first 30 seconds or so of it consists of heavy sighs and moaning. The hotel banquet room was very short (10 rows of chairs or so), so she proceeded to the sole sounds of these moans. She got to the front just before the lyrics began, so then everyone sat there as the not-terribly deep lyrics of the first couple of versus played, culminating in the phrase "I want you now" before the tape was loudly and abruptly clicked off. Wedhell0111-01


I went to a horrible wedding last November. A uncle of the bride's was the photographer, and since they had a horse drawn carriage, he was thoughtful enough to take a picture of the horse's crap in the middle of the street. The cafeteria style buffet had food slopped upon a plate which has handed to the guests. Being a vegetarian, I was unable to eat anything on the plate except the rubbery green beans. Besides the styrofoam bowl of lettuce that we were served with little packets of dressing which we had to share that tackiest part of the wedding involved the bride's mother and the men's bathroom. You see, she was upset about the marriage and she had placed pictures of the bride and her husband in the urinals so the male guests could piss on them. It was a horrible wedding that both sides did not want to happen. Those were just some of the more memorable moments.   Wedhell0128-01


I'm dreading the wedding I'm about to attend. My brother-in-law is getting married this weekend, and we're going to have to drive eight hours to another country to attend the ceremony. As such, the crumbling status of the event is causing us more than a little stress, particularly since my husband is a groomsman. I present my case:

Exhibit 1: There was a bridal shower in January. I, wife of the groom's brother, found out last week. No invites, no notices, nothing.

Exhibit 2: Rehearsal and rehearsal dinner? Did we actually want to know when it was? Mind you, it's my husband's parents that are throwing the rehearsal dinner, and he talks to them every single week at the same time, same day. As with the bridal shower, there were no invites, no notices, not so much as a casual mention. If I hadn't hounded my husband to ask about it so I'd know how many dressy outfits I needed to pack, we'd never have known until we arrived. Excuse me, haven't they heard of invitations? Or are groomsmen now considered optional attendees in the rehearsal process?

Exhibit 3: Six+ months ago, our friend who works at a tuxedo store measured my husband for his tuxedo for this wedding. He'd been told to send the groom the measurements by X date so they could turn them into the store they were using (not my friend's chain). Last week (notice a trend here?) we get a call from the groom. They changed their plans and tossed/lost the original set of measurements, so now, my husband is getting fitted for his tuxedo the day before the wedding. We still don't know where. The wedding is three days away. Most tuxedo stores can do very little with this short of a notice.

Exhibit 4: There's "something" going on the day after the wedding. The groom isn't sure what or where or when, but it's something to do with the bride's mother, and we should "plan" on attending. Maybe her house, he's not sure.

Exhibit 5: We got a phone call last night from the groom. By the way, could we bring two bottles of vodka for the bar at the reception? I was tempted to ask if I should bring the cake, too, just in case.

Exhibit 6: Do not even get me started on the wedding invitations. No stamp on the RSVP (but at least there was one). No directions to the wedding or reception. The card isn't even a card, it's a piece of semi-artsy paper. Not cardboard or cardstock...paper, with a sheet of hand cut vellum over it. And not charmingly handmade either; it's sloppily hand cut. You can see the cutting guidelines. Looks like they used the wrong type of printer to print them, too, because the ink is flaking off. And it's all tied together with a bow that won't stay tied. Wish me luck. Will report in from the other side of this glorious event. Wedhell0620-01


Dear Jeanne- My entire wedding was such a disaster that it is still too painful for me to relate it all. While I think it should be under "Weddings from Hell," breaking it down into different categories keeps me from getting hysterical again, and protects the guilty. Here goes:

Guests from hell: 1. My parents "adopted" a grandchild in the adopt-a-grandchild program at their church. She is the only grandchild, and the light of their life. Before the wedding, we thought that we were all very close. The mother of the flower girl decided - the morning of the wedding - that work was more important. She blew off attending, no call, no notice no nothing. My wedding just wasn't convenient, but, apparently, having a crying, little girl in her very public place of business is. 2. As it so happens, I am very devout and had a religious wedding. I am not, however, Christian. Two of our wedding guests were, and they strongly disapproved of our religious beliefs. They saw the wedding as a key opportunity to minister to us. The present they gave us was a plaque stating that only Protestant marriages are successful. They gave us a nice, religious card - but handwrote a note inside that only a Christian marriage is a real marriage. During the middle of the reception, they changed clothes in the bathroom to jeans and T-shirts, and left half an hour into the two hour reception. When I saw them leaving, I said, "Oh, what's happened?" thinking they had spilled punch on their clothes, or something. They told me that they had to get out of there, because my wedding was sooo long (not a quickie 15 minute Protestant thing.) Then, they launched into a little speech about how we must invite God into the marriage, or we are doomed to hell. What did they think that hour wedding was all about? 3. Our wedding site forbade us from having anything thrown - rice, birdseed, anything. We thought no one would notice. They didn't. A guest took one look at our favors - blanched almonds - and announced to the rest of the guests, "Oh, hey, they want us to throw THESE." Some guests started to throw them during the reception, not even waiting for "the getaway." There is a lovely picture of me being hit in the head with almonds. Other guests were eating them, including a little girl who shouted to everyone else, "These are STALE!" Her mother said, "No, honey, they're just blanched. You're only used to roasted and salted." She kept telling guests, "These are STALE!" over and over again. This convinced the remaining guests that they weren't to be eaten, but to throw them. So, as we left, we were pelted with almonds. Not only were they painful (little pointed edges,) but the clean-up crew spent hours on their hands and knees after the reception picking them all up. 4. No one had told me that my father had served jail time for physically assaulting (not sexual) one of his students during class. My family didn't want to upset me just before my wedding. I only wish they had. During the reception, he started to "massage" one of my brand new nieces' shoulders and upper chest over her clothes. Although several guests were watching in horror, one of them had the foresight to snap a photograph. I am only thankful that my mother stopped him before he went any further. I may never speak to that monster again.

Wicked Witches or Just Plain Tacky: 1. When I told my father that I was engaged, his immediate response was, "Well, I'll have to find a date for the wedding!" He had recently divorced his fifth wife, and was seeing a few women. I told him that I was sure whomever he chose was lovely, and that I'd really love to meet her on my next visit, but that my wedding wasn't the best time to do so. So, he married one of the women. The first chance that I had to meet her was at the dinner the night before the wedding. She was wearing all black, so I didn't notice the black support for the cast on her leg. However, it was much easier to notice the next day, because it was contrasted by her white, beaded gown. I couldn't help but notice, since she was the only woman wearing white in the room. I wore a simple, platinum dress, according to my religious tradition - white, beaded gowns being inappropriate, even for the bride.

Attendants from Hell: We invited a beloved, elderly aunt to our wedding. She is so important to us that we chose a special, padded chair for her comfort, located up front so she could see everything easily. Unfortunately, we chose two young "laid back" men as ushers. They didn't put any cushions on any of the regular chairs. They didn't seat anyone until ten minutes before the ceremony, forcing everyone to stand outside. What they did do was tell everyone I was being "uptight" and that "SHE wants us to take all the cameras away." I didn't decide that; cameras are forbidden in my place of worship. Then, they let everyone seat themselves. Of course, someone else took the reserved chair, forcing our dear aunt to sit in last remaining space - the children's bench. Jeanne, that's all I can stand to submit. Believe it or not, it gets worse, much worse. May these trolls feels the flames of etiquette hell forever! Wedhell1207-01