My (deceased) bff’s daughter’s wedding was planned at a resort in Key Largo and said resort informed them that ongoing renovations would not be completed in time for their wedding, so sorry. Poor kids, what a hassle. So, they found a great alternative and we will be changing our plans for Key Biscayne.
Anyone else have any wedding planning woes to tell about?
How about the bride having to be taken by ambulance on her wedding day (she was able to be married in a very brief ceremony) to have emergency surgery? She missed the entire reception (which went on without her), and was hospitalized for ten days.
A friend of mine tells this story about his mother and father’s wedding. No sooner had the preacher pronounced them man and wife than the preacher dropped dead right there at the altar!
He had not signed the marriage certificate yet, so they were not legally wed, and they had to get married all over again another day.
Another friend’s reception venue had a serious fire just one week before her wedding. She had to scramble to find another place in a hurry, and inform all the guests.
We had several wedding catastrophes. Our priest had a heart attack 3 weeks before the wedding, our organist ripped his Achilles’ tendon away from the bone the day of our rehearsal and my cousin’s 4 year old felt out of the pew during the ceremony.
Back in 1985 , a family friend was getting married and a series of events happened that in retrospect , should have been viewed as signs from above.
It started with the reception venue closing down unexpectedly leaving them scrambling to find an alternative during a busy time of year fr weddings.
Then the honeymoon had to be changed in a hurry because there was a serious earthquake in Mexico and the resort was heavily damaged.
Then came Hurricane Gloria…that baby took a turn inland and impacted an area that normally would get brushed with the high winds and rain. The day of their wedding , they had no electricity in the area so it was difficult to even get her hair done for the day…
Somehow, they got it done despite all the roadblocks , but they eventually divorce
One day at lunch we were all comparing wedding disaster stories. The car my sister hired stalled and had to be jump started (the Rolles jump stared by a Jeep), one friend lost the wedding license and the pastor refused to marry them without it (court official was contacted and it was fine). Then my co-worker said, ‘My grandfather died at my reception.’ She won the contest. Gramps made it through the wedding, but while the bridal party stayed at the church to take pictures everyone else went to the reception and her grandfather had a heart attack.
Thankfully no one died at/after our wedding, so I suppose we didn’t have any real catastrophes. A few things did happen that I could have done without. The worst was probably one new BIL getting caught having s_ _ with my brother’s (now ex) wife after the reception. My mother was not amused. I later learned that my BILs took a hooker back to the hotel the night before the wedding and they were all discovered (passed out drunk) the next morning by their dad. I’m glad I didn’t hear about that until years later.
The rest were minor hiccups. Several relatives ended up in our wedding thanks to my mother, who didn’t tell me until shortly beforehand. The wedding was in my hometown and was my mother’s event. I chose the dress and flowers, then she did the rest. As long as I had the right groom, I didn’t care about anything else. My MIL told me that we didn’t have a “real” wedding because we didn’t do a sit-down dinner but had “just” a buffet at my parent’s country club. Who says something like that to a bride? It took a while for me to realize it was her insecurities talking.
Yikes, @Silpat! That’s quite a family you married into. Tell your husband you are a saint.
@doschicos , I’ve tried to tell dh that but he just laughs. (He does tell me he was very lucky though.) Dh is definitely the cream of the crop compared to his siblings. One of my brothers was involved in the pre-wedding escapade, too (not the one whose wife was caught the next day.) He mentioned it about 35 years later, and took great pains to make sure I understood that dh did not participate but had gone to bed much earlier (alone.) I wish I never heard about any of that stuff.
My friend had a winter wedding and her parents weren’t sure what to do when they were calling for a severe snow storm that morning. She ended up getting married that evening after the roads had gotten cleared.
My other friend had to cancel her wedding the night before when she found out her fiancé was married and had a wife and child in Canada. He just wanted to come to the U.S and thought marrying her was the best way to do that. BTW she is now married to a very nice man.
I was a guest at this event.
The bride and groom’s families Did. Not. Click. And that’s putting it politely.
The bride and groom got stoned – REALLY stoned – during the reception. Not discreetly; everyone knew, even the 80-year old aunties.
Then the bride’s mother vanished. A search party finally came upon her, asleep on the floor of a coat closet, clutching a bottle to her chest.
The marriage lasted eight weeks.
We had a formal wedding with a JP marrying us. We had written our own vows which were quite lengthy. When he got to where I was supposed to “repeat after me” he skipped a page! My husband and I were ready to burst into laughter and couldn’t even look at each other for the rest of the ceremony. My maid of honor heard me holding back and thought I was crying, so she started sobbing which made us want to laugh more. I’ve been telling H ever since that I didn’t promise him anything, so I’m off the hook. The JP left immediately without payment.
At one relative’s wedding, the entire wedding party hiked down a muddy path to a waterfall area which had turned to a swamp. Fortunately, folks were able to remove the mud prior to the ceremony.
At my wedding, we were happily taking photos prior to the wedding and then I realized I didn’t have my veil, which the bridal shop didn’t give me. My brother rushed there and made them find it in a hurry! It was in place before the ceremony started.
Another relative had a wedding where a thief came and grabbed the purses and cell phones of the wedding attendants while everyone was dancing. One of the groomsmen saw it and gave chase. The thief jumped off the balcony of the 3rd floor and broke some body parts and had to be carted off in an ambulance. He later had the nerve to sue! The attendants never recovered everything and everyone was pooped the next day!
Am glad we were spared sex and death issues–wow! Tame lives don’t make as exciting stories but are easier to live! No deaths or illicit sex that I know of at our weddings.
There was a snowstorm the day of the wedding, so most people were unable to attend. It was an evening candlelit ceremony, and the bride’s veil brushed a candle and caught fire. The groom’s mother got sick and couldn’t attend.
They met when she was a novitiate nun and he was attending a seminary. Neither had taken their final vows when they met. They have now been married for 35 years.
Sounds like eloping is in order.
This is not so bad compared to others, but toward the end of my reception my aunt took an offhand comment that H made entirely out of context and threw a literal screaming tantrum. Thankfully most of the guests that weren’t close friends or family had left by then, but she was screaming at my husband that he was a word that ends with hole and making a huge, embarrassing scene. She then spent the rest of my wedding night texting me that she was disowning me and never speaking to me again (that didn’t happen). Thankfully my aunt’s propensity toward histrionics is welllllll known in my family so everybody knew it was a her thing and not H’s fault. She was itching to make a scene so she made one. This is the same aunt who made a huge scene out of getting trashed at my older brother’s wedding and acting like an idiot (she grabbed my then boyfriend’s butt and shook it, to give you an idea of the behavior I am talking about).
I was at a wedding where the table holding the six tier wedding cake collapsed. Luckily they were able to salvage enough of the cake that didn’t hit the floor to still serve it.
What a sight!
At my sister’s wedding there was a massive thunder storm causing the tent in which the wedding and reception was to held to collapse. It smashed all the tables, plates and glasses. No guests injured but everyone was soaked in the rain (which stopped in five minutes. It was a brief but destructive tropical storm). We were in the middle of nowhere but the night before we (the bride’s family) had been to a restaurant at the nearest village. We had to drive there and beg to borrow their crockery - despite not speaking the local language. All good fun…
Some of those stories are quite the testament to resiliency. I will add more.
I was at a wedding where they dislocated the grooms shoulder when they lifted him up on a chair. Ems was called, and they popped it in so he could stay at the reception, but he was in a lot of pain.
I was not there, but a friend’s father who was a doctor had to do cpr to someone who collapsed at a wedding. The patient lived that day but died soon after.
I was at a nice hotel where they have weddings - the kind where people come and stay for a few days. It poured rain so that the ceremony had to be inside, not so bad. However, at check out, I happened to be behind the groom and his credit card was declined. The bride paid, and the Mob, was very upset saying that it did not bode well.
Flower girl jumping on the bed and landed on the bedside table giving herself 2 black eyes.
Little girl wore cute shades down the aisle and in one of the pictures the whole wedding party wore shades.