Just Plain Tacky

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I went to a wedding for someone who did some construction on our home. Dh and I couldn't even figure out how we rated an invite, but decided to go. Fortunately for him, he was called out of town on business at the last minute and was unable to attend.

The horror started when the priest reminded the congregants at the church that the reception would begin "immediately following" the ceremony.

So after the ceremony, we hoofed it over the to the hall. Where we discovered, on this 95 degree day, that the wedding party had asked that the bar stay closed until they arrived.

An hour and forty minutes later -- just as pretty much everyone was getting ready to leave, and certainly not "immediately following" anything -- the wedding party pulls up in the limo, drunk to the gills, and pours out.

Everyone heads inside to the bar, where they're informed that they can buy (yep -- cash bar) one drink, but that it's time for dinner and the bar will be closed until dinner is finished.

So everyone heads to the room where dinner will be served.   The wedding party at the front of the room has four large fans turned on them. There are no fans on the guests, and no air conditioning. They have chilled beer and champagne, and the wedding guests are offered either coffee or milk -- no ice water or anything. Don't forget, it's 95 degrees outside, and infinitely hotter in the hell that is the reception hall.

As the final insult, the wedding party is served a full dinner including beef tenderloin and salad. The guests? Well, we got pasta. Bad pasta. Horrific, icky pasta with jarred sauce. And that was IT. No salad, no side dishes, nothing. So they get tenderloin, we get food I wouldn't feed to my dogs..

And I suppose you can imagine what the thank-you notes were like. Unsigned cards preprinted with the words "Thank you for your gift" and that was it. Which was funny, because we hadn't sent one yet.

We figured they apparently didn't know the difference, so we never did bother.

PlainTacky1119-04

Back in 1997, I attended the wedding of a childhood friend. It started out as a "shotgun" wedding of sorts, and the couple had almost no cash to cover their expenses. That fell onto his parents, who were more than a bit red in the neck, shall we say.

The ceremony was early in the afternoon, and although I wasn't asked to be in her wedding, I arrived four hours early ( at her request ) to help set up and assist in getting attendants ready. ( Now I realize that those things are the responsibility of the Mistress of Ceremonies (MOC).. but she - the bride's soon to be sister in law - sat on the rear and ate Mc Donald's food while her kid ran wild across the basement of the church where all were dressing )

I arrived an hour before the bride ( who was running late..her dress was forgotten ) and started pitching in. By the time she arrived, we had to rush her into her gown and haul upstairs.

The wedding over, we waited around for the limo, who was late. I loaded up the child of the bride's sister and took him out to the reception, in the middle of nowhere, where dinner was suppose to be already waiting and guests had already shown up.

TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER, the wedding party strolls in, drunk and delirious. They had the limo driver stop off by a nearby river so they could uncork some champagne, smoke some pot and "start the party". The MOC and the groom's other sister REFUSED to serve dinner or any alcohol before the couple arrived. People has gotten up and left, some taking the gift they brought with them.

And to top it all off, due to their stupidity, they had to pay the DJ for three extra hours, so they hauled out their gifts and opened them at the hall. In front of the guests, the groom was blatantly chastising anyone who didn't give them what he felt was an ample amount of cash, or a "good" gift.   And since I was the one who got "volunteered" to drop them off at their home, I had to literally fight off people ( all hicks on his side, might I mention ) who were so angry and offended that they wanted their presents back!!

..the couple is still married... and although I am still friends with the woman, I still think her husband is an idiot.

  PlainTacky0701-04

My filthy rich aunt, a society maven who hobnobs in high society found herself suddenly widowed at sixty years of age.  She went to the state fair and was approached by a "gentleman" who swept her off her feet and they married after a whirlwind relationship.  We, her poor relatives have forgiven her for her indiscretions, as we figure she was temporarily insane.

Uncle "Bubba" as we will call the groom, is a good old country boy.  He has a huge beer belly, unabashedly belches when the mood hits and to my knowledge has only worn false teeth one day in his life---the day of his wedding to my dear aunt "Lilly".

My family and I approached the church with some apprehension.  We had only met Bubba the week before at a family cookout.  Our large extended family was present and everyone was being introduced to Bubba as Lilly's soon to be husband.  We were all holding our shocked expressions in, as we figured if she was happy, we should be happy.  Bubba came to the affair dressed in overalls and dress shoes (no kidding!).  One of my uncles (Lilly's brother) asked him what it was that first attracted him to Lilly.  In this loud voice he announced to the sixty or so relatives that it was that beautiful pair of puppies.  Now lest you think she took her dogs to the fair, no!  He was pointing and referring to her breasts.  My aunty, ever the proper lady, laughed nearly as loud as he.  This was the first indication she had lost her mind.   But back to the wedding.

We approached the church in our lowly Ford and viewed the lineup of Fiats, Jaguars and BMW's.  All aunt Lilly's hoity toidy friends were in attendance.  We parked the car and I noticed uncle Bubba was standing under a nearby tree.  I went over to congratulate him on his wedding day and was so relieved to see he was wearing teeth!  He was in an expensive suit and nice shoes.  So far so good.  The church was tastefully decorated and the wedding was beautiful.  We went to the church fellowship hall which had been transformed by professional caterers and decorators.  White linens, candles and tuxedoed waiters abounded.  The food was superb and I was thinking all would be well until the announcement was made that the cutting of the cake was to occur.  

The cake was cut and my aunt fed him his piece of cake; whereupon uncle Bubba loudly exclaimed, "I cain't eat with these dang teeth in" and he promptly removed his false teeth, cramming them in his pocket.  A long string of slobber strung off the teeth before they went into the pocket and landed on the cake, sliding all down the side of the cake.  My cousin's young son, aged 4, expressed the sentiment of the entire room, by announcing, "Oh gross, he slobbered on it".  Aunt Lilly looked like she could crawl under the table.  She hadn't seen the slobber, only the teeth removal, so she soldiered on, drinking wine and eating her slice of cake.  The guests were thinning out fast.  You'd never seen people bolt for the door as quickly as everyone realized that the caterers hadn't seen the slobber and were busy serving up that cake and delivering it to the tables.  That place emptied out like a sales rack at Wal-Mart.  Everyone left except for the people at the back of the room who didn't have such a good view and the family who didn't feel they could leave in good taste.  The next ten minutes was truly disgusting, watching people eat that cake, unawares they were also ingesting Bubba slobber.  No one who had seen it wanted to say anything and my cousin had successfully shut up her child with mints and punch.  The rest of us were trying to figure out how to dispose of the cake without being obvious.  I have been to some interesting weddings, but none more disgusting.  I am happy to report that Aunt Lilly came to her senses a few months later and kicked that rude moron to the curb.   

PlainTacky0815-04

After reading all these stories, I am eternally grateful that our wedding was so wonderful. There is still one story though about a gift we received that is good for a laugh.

We had a small wedding (about 40 people) in my husband's home state. As a result, I did not send invitations to people who I knew couldn't make the trip because I didn't want it to appear as if we were soliciting gifts.

An old family friend back in my home state (who had never in her 70 years left the state) heard about the wedding from my mom. She was my horseback riding teacher for 15 years growing up and we had remained in close touch through my mom. So I was very touched when she actually gave a present for me to my mother to bring to the wedding.

My mother gave me the box, which was plain cardboard and unwrapped. I didnt have time to open it then, but promised I would later. When I went to open the present later, it had an odd musty smell. I assumed based on the lack of wrapping that it had been sitting around in our friend's barn. I knew it was probably a re-gift, but I didn't mind since she was still thinking of me. Plus I knew people were very fond of her and often gave her presents out of affection, even though she really didn't need any more things as she was fond of saying.

I opened up the box and sure enough there's a crockpot with a Christmas card from someone else on top of it. I was still happy because we didn't have one and I thought it would be useful. So I picked up the pot and heard a little rattling noise. I shook it a bit and yep, there was rattling noise. As I shook it, I noticed a couple of bits of something dropped out. And the more I shook the pot, the more came out. As I looked in the cardboard box, there was a bunch of dried out mouse droppings. Apparently there were not just horses living in my friend's barn. Upon opening the lid, it was evident that someone's home had been disturbed when our friend removed the box from the barn.

I sent a nice thank you note along with a wedding photo, but neglected to mention the "bonus" presents and felt really bad about having to toss the pot – but the inside had been so decorated that it seemed unsanitary to ever use it. I know our friend meant well, but it might have been wise to examine her present a bit more carefully before sending it.

PlainTacky0811-04

At my brothers wedding he got into a vicious argument with his new FIL in the parking lot at the reception. The cause of the fight?? FIL was the leader of the group who decorated the newlyweds car during the reception, he decorated it with cake icing (literally it was smeared everywhere on the car including the windshield and back glass, I am not sure how they were expected to drive this car since they couldn't see out of it) and shaving cream (no biggie there since that's usually what is used) but instead of the traditional "Just Married" sign that gets put on the car FIL and his fellow decorators put on a sign that said "Gonna F*** Tonight" (my poor grandmother almost died when she read it). I felt that everyone involved used bad judgment (including my brother) but at the same time you can see why my poor brother was upset, I certainly would be, though he could have handled it better.

PlainTacky0830-04

I was married just a couple of months ago.  My husband has a friend that I've never been particularly fond of.  He's always just kind of ignored me when he comes over.  Well, imagine how surprised I was when we opened our gifts the day after the wedding and he had given us a set of drumsticks and a joint!  First of all, I don't play the drums, my husband does.  And neither one of us does drugs!  Pretty thoughtless seeing as a wedding gift is supposed to be for the couple, not just one of them and we were mortified to open this in front of our families!

PlainTacky0929-04