At our wedding, my DH’s beloved grandmother collapsed in the pew after being escorted to her seat. DHs Dad and another man carried her to the anteroom. Ambulance arrived, and before my horrified DH’s eyes, proceeded to shock her with the paddles on her chest to resuscitate her. They were able to get a pulse back and whisked her into the ambulance. I knew NOTHING of what was going on. Suddenly the music started and DH had to gather his wits about him and walk out to meet his bride. I noticed when I got to the front that DH’s pupils were enormous, totally dilated. He told me I looked beautiful and we proceeded to get married. I do remember feeling a slight feeling of annoyance as I heard a siren right outside the church as the minister began the ceremony. Little did I know it was DH’s grandmother. I only found out later.
Long story short, DH’s grandmother had a stroke the next morning right after we visited her in the hospital. She never spoke another word after she told DH goodbye. Again, we knew nothing until we got back from our honeymoon. She died five months later.
I hate it that DH has this memory of our wedding. But he told me when he walked back into the sanctuary that he was determined to be in the moment and put aside the events he’d witnessed while we got married. He claims he remembers our wedding with fondness and hasn’t let what happened color his feelings about it.
I did one wedding in which the groom fainted. Twice.
One where the bride’s veil caught fire while lighting a candle. The groom acted quickly and put it out with his hand.
At my niece’s wedding HER niece was flower girl and picked her nose all the way up the aisle. I showed up wearing the same dress as my mother (who now has one more reason to hate me)
I married one couple when alcoholic father of the groom was supposed to be the best man. When he had not shown up for the ceremony I suggested locking the church door but was told not to. Near the end of the service he burst into the church and staggered down the aisle.
I shared a wedding at a private venue with a drunk priest who announced at the beginning of the service that he had probably not brought enough Host for the Eucharist. Told Protestants knew they were sinning if they came forward and that Catholics should rush to be at front of the line. He did run out of wafers.
I reluctantly married my church treasurer’s daughter after she and groom promised they would continue counseling. Two months later I realized I had not sent in the license. Brought it to the court house and gracefully was not fined. A week later she filed for divorce.
@Mathmom’s photography story is a good reminder to thoroughly vet your photographer for anything like this and to make it clear who you want photographed.
In our wedding album, every shot of my FIL has the top of his head cut off. The photographer’s excuse? My FIL is 6’5". :))
I sprained my ankle and got horribly sick with a high fever in the days before the wedding. So sick I fell asleep leaning against a wall in the elevator at the doctor’s office. The seamstress who sold me my wedding dress lied about work that needed to be done on it and the dress looked ATROCIOUS, so bad a week before the wedding I was panicking thinking I’d have to buy something else off the rack and give up on the $1700 dress we had themed the entire wedding around. We ended up finding another seamstress who was able to save the day, but I had to quit my job in order to make it to the appointments. I’d planned to quit anyway, but not quite like that. And of course while all this is going on I’m deathly ill and hobbling around one legged. Then the day of the wedding the baker and the florist got into some kind of a stand off and the baker was blocking the florist from the cake and refused to let her put our floral topper on the cake as previously agreed, and the venue had to come quietly ask my mom to throw them both out. I think our videographer was a no show and somebody else had to be hired at LITERALLY the last minute, but nobody will admit it to me.
In the end the antibiotics and the adrenaline kicked in and I was miraculously recovered for my wedding and honeymoon, and though I had to go trousseau shopping in a cast my ankle was fine, too.
Okay, OP here, appreciating all these tales and ready to fill in the rest of the mishaps from my wedding:
The night before the wedding, H's dad had some kind of weird allergic reaction (never figured out to what) that closed up his throat, and he had to be rushed to the hospital from their motel. He was eventually released after a shot of epinephrine, but neither he nor H's mom slept a wink. They still managed to carry on through the festivities and were kind enough to keep the whole episode a secret until the next day.
I had originally planned on yellow and white decor for the wedding until I realized hardly any of my bridesmaids would look good in yellow. So I switched to light blue and lavender and even gave my florist a swatch of the baby blue bridesmaid dress fabric to work from. Apparently he never changed his notes, because the centerpieces and aisle bouquets were all yellow and white. It didn't look terrible--I'm sure some thought it was deliberate, and heck, it was the Seventies, not an era known for great taste, but my mother, who was paying for the flowers, went ballistic on the florist the next day. He never had the nerve to bill us for the amount beyond the downpayment, so I guess it worked out financially, though it rankled for a long time whenever I looked at the photos.
Speaking of photos, our photographer decided to take full advantage of the open bar and was so soused by the time the reception started that he missed at least half of the pictures he was supposed to take.
Since a lot of the wedding party was from out of town and on tight work schedules, we had to have our rehearsal three hours before the ceremony. Because my sister, the maid of honor, fell asleep poolside and arrived late, the rehearsal actually started two hours before the ceremony, which sounds inconsequential, but mattered a LOT because of what I'll describe in the next paragraph.
With a number of relatives and friends from my in-laws' side coming from over three hours away, H's dad decided to charter a bus to bring them to the wedding and back. His OCD tendencies kicked in big time, and fearful of traffic issues and a possible bus breakdown, he factored in an extra TWO hours for the trip (without consulting us). Of course the bus made excellent time, so there we were, in the middle of rehearsing, with me in shorts, tee shirt, and hair rollers, holding a bunch of green grapes as a surrogate bouquet (my mom's sense of humor), when to our shock, 20 couples dressed in formal wear waltzed into the venue, tripping over the catering staff who were just starting to set up and gawking at the elegant bride.
We had organized the reception room into two parts, separated by a lovely white lattice divider--one side for the cocktails and passed hors d'oeuvres that were supposed to keep the guests busy while we took photos, the other with the dinner tables, band and dance floor. At some appropriate moment, the staff was to pull back the divider and usher the guests to their tables. Of course the bus contingent, which had been cooling its heels for two hours, was not about to stand around for the cocktail hour. They busted through the divider and, ignoring the placecards, grabbed tables willy-nilly, covering the elegant place settings with drinks glasses and used hors d'oeuvres plates. Hot negotiations ensued as the more well-behaved guests tried to claim their proper seats.
I think I’ve covered it all. So I guess the question that remains is whether our marriage has lasted all this time because we are a great match, or have we just been too terrified at the thought of second weddings???
The bride was almost 18. The groom was in his 40s. The bride’s family was very lower-middle/working class with various members in and out of jail; in fact, the bride’s father had been released from prison a few weeks before the wedding. He initially beat up the groom-to-be, because he disapproved of the match. They later made up when the groom scored some cocaine for his future FIL. The groom was the black sheep of a well-to-do, academic family. They came to the wedding (held in his home) but stood in shock at the sight of some of the intense partying. The groom and the bride were both high during the ceremony; she sort of wobbled while saying her vows. The bride’s mother got very drunk, then vanished. A search party was sent out, they scoured the neighborhood to no avail. Finally they found her: asleep in the coat closet, a bottle of alcohol still in her hands. The wedding was annulled six weeks later after the bride and groom changed their minds.
^^
Who the heck agreed to officiate a wedding when the participants were drunk or high? I make a point of telling the couple that I will not marry them in that condition.
Furthermore the officiant is fortunate not to have been sued. I have known pastors who were under those circumstances.
Wow, I’ve never been asked to officiate at anything where the ALL the participants are other than stone cold sober and very excited (and sometimes a bit nervous). I definitely would not officiate if anyone wasn’t 100%, but am glad that has never come up.
We flew to New Zealand to be married by H’s family friend who was a minister on sabadical in Dunedin.
This was 1981 and so we wrote a few letters back and forth.
Our idea was that he and his wife and the two of us and H’s mother, who was BF’s with them, would have a simple ceremony at 11:00 on a Monday in Feb. and then leave for our honeymoon and H’s mom would stay on to be with her friends.
Preface: all I wanted was a simple quiet no tears event. NO TEARS was my biggest wish.
We had decided to not marry near where we lived because it was a small icky town and nowhere for hotels and my mother had made aweful fights for all of sibs weddings–and I was not having it. (She never knew that my MIL was at our ceremony for 8 years and then I slipped–she was furious).
So we arrive in NZ to find out that they have invited 100 guests from their cathedral and had a MORI group of kids honor us (that was nice) and we were 2 times on the Duniden Newspaper and the Mayor attended our dinner that was Lamb and all veggies in lamb broth. Plus a few other events that we did not want.
I had been a vegitarian for 20 years and ate a simple salad and had lost weight due to stress aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAnd forgot to mention i had a terrible head cold the entire time.
And I cried. And cried. We were married on a Tuesday at 3:00 and had to argue and argue that I hate organ music and then still think I had some.
I will not pretend that it has not taken many years for me to forgive this. I wanted nearly nothing!!! No cake, photo
and so on. I do think other personalities could laugh but I am a too serious person.
How does a bride who wants nearly nothing end up in this! Still not funny.
@Oregon101, who organized and paid for all the events in NZ? All the stuff you did not want? Was it your H’s mom, or the minister, or the two of them conspiring together? Was there ever an apology to you by the ringleaders that destroyed your wedding plans?
My dad had a MAJOR kidney stone attack that lasted from the night before the wedding right through until the day after the wedding. He looks a little crazy-eyed in pictures! I felt so bad for him, because he was so proud of hosting his only daughter’s wedding. He did a great job of hanging in there, but I know it wasn’t easy.
We were having our reception under a tent. There was heavy rain and thunder. Well we made it through the speeches, the cutting of the cake, the tosses, the first dances – and were having lots of fun dodging muddy kids (my wife and I were both in ivory… lol) – when, all of a sudden, the power went out.
Thankfully, the tent was placed in the backyard of a large mansion – which we were renting as well – so we carried the necessities and ourselves inside.
It was a blessing in disguise: my wife and I went up to our suite and changed into much more comfortable clothing, the mansion was air-conditioned, the acoustics (for the music) were much better, and people were less fearful of cutting a rug because of the lack of mud. Plus, all of the remaining food and alcohol were inside. In retrospect, the power outage was a blessing.
Another disaster was that one of our guests broke an ankle attempting to descend the front steps of the mansion. She was very tipsy and did not immediately know she had broken her ankle - she hobbled around on it for a few minutes. My wife and I knew nothing of it until the next day, when our friend posted on her FB page that she was having surgery that day. // We’ve since spoken with our friend, and she is going to be fine. She’ll be off of crutches very soon. (we were married June 13)
I am still LOL at the guests stuck to the freshly varnished seats! Pretty sure it was not funny at the time, but it surely made the wedding quite memorable. I read the story to Mr. B, and he had a good laugh. I have to remember this as am going to varnish the front door soon - have to be precise with my timing so no UPS men knocking on it would get stuck!
Attended a wedding years ago in Northern Connecticut. It rained like the dickens and was cold to boot.
The couple had rented a car to depart the reception, and one of the friends had decided to decorate the car with the typical “Just Married” paint job. When I saw it, it didn’t look right to me, so I asked her what kind of paint she’d used. She said she had just gone to the hardware store and asked for “paint the comes off with water”. I never did hear whether the rental car company was able to get the paint off or not.
A few more wedding stories. One couple had mad scientists as groomsmen who rigged the car with a “harmless” smoke bomb that caught fire and they had to tell the newlyweds to rush out of the car until they could douse the fire. They also made the horn continuously sound until someone could figure out how to undo that. To top it off, they accompanied the newlyweds on their honeymoon but the bride insisted they at least have a separate room. (She’s an amazingly good sport.)
Another wedding, the best man insisted on accompanying the newlyweds on their honeymoon. Again the bride was at least able to get a room without best man, but they spent the honeymoon writing thank you notes! The wedding guests were surprised to learn when and where the notes had been written.
We went to one reception (about $75-100/plate 7 course dinner). Sadly, half the tables were only half-filled, meaning a TON of no-shows and/or last minute cancellations. I felt very bad firvthe families involved and newlyweds.
One wedding was called off by bride after groom had a bachelor’s party (I know nothing of the details of said party). They had already committed to the caterer, so they had food and gifts. I believe they went around distributing food – not sure whether they kept or returned gifts (I am a friend of one of the folks who were invited).
powercropper–I believe that the Minister was just use to getting his way. He no doubt thought we would be happy but when we were not he would barely budge. We decided that we would not offer any money and were not asked. I am sure H’s mother wrote a check to cover part of it. I think what hurt the most is the the minister’s wife was lovely and they had 2 girls who were older and had weddings and that she and my MIL did not stop things.
I was confused about what to do and my H was trapped between all of us.
Of course he now knows he should have taken a stand and we should have left the situation…but it really was an overwhelming situation.
@oregon101 Yes, it sounds like am ambush. I think your H’s mom had to know what was up before you arrived in NZ. Which makes it worse, in my opinion, since you have to maintain an ongoing relationship with her. (Hopefully you haven’t had to lay eyes on the pastor since your wedding.)
I can’t imagine if I would have had the courage to walk away from such pressure to bend to their will. Being young and wanting to please others can put you at a disadvantage, while others were pushing for what they thought was best for you.
