Just Plain Tacky

Jan-Jun 2000 Archive
Jul-Dec 2000 Archive

My fiance and I had just moved to a new state, and we were staying with my niece who lived next door to my sister. We were looking for an apartment and jobs, and had planned just a quick trip to a justice of the peace to tie the knot. My sister said "Oh, I'll give you a nice wedding at my house."

The ceremony itself was the most uncomfortable I have ever attended.  The most horrifying moment came when the bride "surprised" her groom by singing to him in the middle of the ceremony.  I suppose she did this because he was in the glee club during college and thought to impress him.  Anyway, she had pre-taped the music with herself singing (she taped herself singing in case she couldn't make it through during the live performance) and than sang along with her head bowed, crying through the whole thing.  The poor groom had to stand there holding both her hands while looking at the top of her head.  Yes, the singing was horrible.  I know I was left squirming in my seat from embarrassment.  The whole ceremony seemed to be an attempt to wring tears out of everyone attending.  I was left more dry eyed than any other wedding I've been to.   tacky0701-00

The worst part of all, though, was that the women were allowed to go into the house to use the restroom, but the men were supposed to go to a field behind the house!  There was even a sign near the dance tent that said "MEN" and was pointing to the field!!!  We didn't stay for long and wound up stopping for Thai on the way home.  So here we were, out of $135, not to mention the money spent on gas, eating Thai because we were starved from not eating at the reception.  But all in all, I'm thinking that it's nice that we went. 

Well, the clincher comes about 3 months later when I'm starting to wonder if they got our gift because I haven't received a thank you note.  I ask the groom if he received our present, and he says "Oh yeah.  By the way, what's your email address?"  Two day later I receive - you guessed it - an email card thanking me for the gift.  So here I am out of $135, gas, and lost time I could have used to plan my own wedding, and I get a lousy email card to thank me!  The bride later had the gall to ask me if I got the card and then gripe because she had 197 thank-yous to write when she got back from the honeymoon.  Needless to say, I had a hard time feeling sorry for her, and will definitely be doing things differently at my own wedding!  tacky0802-00

My college roomate decided to get married at the last minute to his girlfriend who was on the brink of being deported. Ignoring the fact that he constantly spoke badly of her and slept around,  I suspected part of the reason he was doing this was to shore up his student loans and to get a quick cash infusion which a wedding often brings.

The only invitation I received was a telephone call. After asking him if his wife was to move to our town he said that she would remain in Toronto because "she had a really high paying job". As she was a refugee, I began to suspect what that "high paying job" was. (stripper or prostitute).

As it was a civil ceremony I was only invited to the reception at his mother's house, I was suprised to see that dinner consisted of a series of submarine sandwiches cut up into little pieces from the local Subway. While I was not very late I discovered by the time I arrived that all the food was gone. All that was left was some rubber cheese on a platter prepared 3 days earlier.

About the bride... Her 6 inch stilletto's gave it away, she stripped at a local bar. The drinks consisted of a series of 60 ounce bottles stacked on a coffee table by the door. Unfortunately they were surrounded by the grooms drug dealing friends, pagers and all, discussing the various prisons they spent time in. Needless to say most people were shy about getting a drink.  I left as soon as it was polite to do so.

As a gift we gave the couple a voucher for a very nice meal at a very nice hotel. While using the voucher 3 weeks later his wife informed him that she had fallen in love with the women in her lesbian act and that she now preferred women to men. In the end this moron spent the next two years paying lawyers to help him deport his then ex-wife as he was on the hook for supporting her for the next 10 years according to the Immigration Department.    This was 8 years ago, but I still laugh about it with friends to this day.     tacky0815-00

Where do I start.  I was married last year in July.  First off, I had only 3 months to work with my mother in pulling this off as he wanted to get married quickly and we didn't have a big budget but wanted to have it look nice.  We had a very small private ceremony outside in a park.  The kicker?  It rained on us on the way.  No big deal right?  Well, it wouldn't have been except that my husband had his heart set on all of the groomsmen/bridesmaids etc. ride their motorcycles (mostly Harleys) so we did.  I looked absolutely ridiculous wrapped up in a rainsuit over my gown. 

It stopped raining by the time we arrived at the park, but we got eaten alive by mosquitos during the ceremony so everyone was hopping around swatting them during the whole thing.  When we left, the sun came out and we decided to take a long roundabout tour through several towns on the way to the reception.  Downtown in a very busy tourist town the Harley we were on died in the middle of traffic.  I had to walk across 4 lanes during rushhour in 4 inch heels!!  We got to the reception, things went well there.  My husband decided he wanted to keep the reception going longer so he sent me to check us in at our hotel.  I took my MOH and friend and went.  After we checked in, the vehicle died at the end of the driveway.  Luckily the owner of the hotel let us borrow her brand new van.  I got back to reception nearly in tears to collect my husband only to find out that the DJ refused to wait for me to get back and went ahead with the last dance without the bride!!!  I collected my husband, than realized I had sent my dad ahead to collect his vehicle that had died and had left our clothes and the lingerie in the backseat!!  We had no clothes for the next day, no car, and no lingerie.  What a mess.  To make things worse my mother was in tears thinking that she had somehow ruined my wedding!!  Oh my God.  If I ever have to go through that again I will die.  It was not a bad wedding after all.  The food was great, the deco was lovely, the cake was gorgeous and the pictures turned out wonderful.  What a day to remember!!  tacky0824-00

Note from the Webmistress:  Riding a motorcycle with a wedding dress is beyond tacky, it's dangerous as there have been incidents of the bride's gown becoming entangled in the wheel causing serious injury and death.  Secondly, don't  think for a minute that taking a roundabout tour of several towns on the way to the reception is an acceptable usage of your time between the ceremony and reception.   It is never polite to keep your guests waiting for you while you go sightseeing.

Kelly and I had been living together for a few months before we got married (this was generally known and accepted - no problem <smile>), but financially we still weren't doing all that well. The area where we had the biggest problem was our car. It ran OK, but when the weather got rainy, it went on strike.

Now, I had met Kelly's mother a few months before, but it was at the rehearsal that I met her father and her brother (the brother I shall dub "Zeke," for self-defense purposes). We asked Zeke to be one of our ushers, and we willingly covered the tux rental for him -- he was broker than we were, which was saying something!

Well, our outdoor wedding went off great, after which we began migrating for the rehearsal site. Our wedding party had surprised us with a limo in which to ride to the reception, and my new in-laws were kind enough to drive our car to the reception.   Enroute to the reception it started raining. Hard. By the time we got to the reception some guy had opened up the door of a huge boat and was leading in pairs of animals.

Kelly and I got into the church for the reception, and the guests in various stages of saturation filed in. Everyone was in good spirits about it, though -- both of our families pretty much embrace the "if life hands you lemons, make whiskey sours!" philosophy. Finally, Kelly's parents and her brother made it in... riding in someone else's car, because, sure enough, our car decided to have an allergic fit from the rain.

Okay, so everyone's finally there, we can get going with things. Well and good. Everyone proceeds to have a good time, when Kelly's brother talks to another member of the wedding party and disappears. About half an hour later they return... and Zeke is driving our car. We were delighted until my new brother-in-law exited the driver's seat. It seemed that when Zeke went under the hood of our car to try to fix it, he hadn't bothered changing clothes. His dove-gray tux had engine grime all over it... and he didn't see anything wrong about it!

It wasn't funny at the time, but 13 years later, Kelly and I still chuckle about it when we reminisce, and we hope to keep doing so 103 years from now!    tacky1102-00

Maura and "Tim's" wedding could not have been more carelessly planned. They left six hours between the wedding ceremony and the reception, and planned it at a busy weekend resort, which had no vacancies for the wedding guests, who were encouraged to stay at a Holiday Inn 45 minutes away. Because it was the local university's homecoming weekend, the parking lot at the "resort" was full and we had to park one half mile away on a football field.

When we arrived, we were handed our "favor", a pasta fork with the $1.99 tag attached (which had been crossed over and marked .99). When we went to order two glasses of wine, we were "warned" by the bartender that only if we wanted to feel like crap (his elegant words) the next day, he didn't advise it. For good measure, he pulled up the box (yes, the cardboard box of wine) to prove it. When we asked for something different, he said the only mixer he had was for Fuzzy Navels. Spying two bottles of beer, we asked for those as they seemed the safest bet. Needless to say, the night went downhill from there.

The hot dinner was ice cold and inedible. The bathrooms were filthy and some were unusable. No one danced as the band - and not a good band, as you can imagine - was in another separate room and both rooms were ice cold. The bride spent the evening telling everyone how easy it had been to "plan" this event, as she just re-used all of her sister's wedding plans from the year before (meaning she KNEW how bad the place was but couldn't have cared less).

The bride's mother walked around tapping people saying, "I want to see YOU on the dance floor". I wanted to add that she would see us on the dance floor. On our way to the parking lot. But didn't.   tacky0629-00