Everybody dreams of a perfect wedding day. From picking out the wedding dress, venue, and music, everything is completely in the bride and groom’s control. Or so they thought! Unfortunately, these brides and grooms couldn’t tame their unruly wedding guests. Buckle up, because these wedding stories get wild! Content has been edited for clarity.
Messy Manhattan Wedding
“My wife and I had around one hundred and twenty-five people at our wedding. It was a seven-course affair, and it lasted over six hours spanning three different rooms. We had two bands, each playing a different style of music in different languages. Everything was set with views of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan skyline.
It was what my wife wanted, and I intended for her to only get married once, so I was fully on board with her desire for a dream wedding. Invitations were sent out as ‘black tie optional.’ Essentially, we wanted to get the point across that it was to be fairly formal without imposing wearing a tuxedo on everyone.
Two of the guests in attendance were a married couple. They were old friends of my new in-laws. No one liked them, but to avoid problems, they were invited.
The wife showed up to our wedding in sneakers. The husband wore black shoes which were old, lopsided, and with laces untied. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and no tie at all. Okay, whatever. We were fine with it, and we could get over it.
Following the ceremony was an outdoor drink hour with appetizers. Afterward, everyone was taken to their assigned seats while my wife and I waited in our changing room. Once everyone was seated, the captain took the microphone and announced us as husband and wife for the first time, as we entered the room to Led Zepellin’s ‘Rock and Roll.’ It was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek joke for those who knew the song. We had dated for a very long time before marrying, so the song seemed appropriate.
Once we reached the dance floor, the band played Elvis Presley’s ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love,’ as we had our first dance. Eventually, everyone else was invited to the dance floor as well. The music switched to more upbeat dance tunes, and the party started.
I noticed this guy (a friend of my in-laws) walking around the room, leaning into people, and saying things. Obviously, I didn’t know what he was saying, but I could see from the other people’s hands waving and shooing him away, that it was disturbing them.
My wife and I decided to head over to our table, but I made sure to keep an eye on him. I saw him go over to the band, and they ignored him. Then he came over to my wife and said something in her ear. She looked stunned, so I went over to see what was going on. He’d obviously already had a significant amount of drinks, and he smelled like he did too.
He grabbed my jacket sleeve, pulled it, and said, ‘Tell them to turn the music down. I can’t hear myself think. What is this horrible music? We’re having a terrible time here. If you don’t do something, we’re going to leave!’
It took me a second to think about what he had said and let it sink in. I gently put my arm around him and walked him back to his wife. I put my other arm around her and leaned in so they could both hear me easily.
As I gestured with my head in a particular direction, I told them, ‘Do you see this stairwell? It will take you down to the street. Down the street is the venue where we are having dinner. You won’t want to miss the wonderful meal being prepared.’
We weren’t having dinner at a different venue, but they didn’t know any better. The couple left and were unable to get back into the building. I walked back to my wife and didn’t give them another thought.”
Destination Wedding Disaster
“I went to a destination wedding twelve years ago in the Caribbean as part of a short vacation trip I took. I didn’t know anyone except for my traveling companion and her daughter. The rest of the wedding party were strangers to me.
The bride looked beautiful, the weather was great, and everybody got along. It was actually one of the best weddings that I had ever attended, and I was grateful I was allowed to be a part of it.
After the ceremony at the wedding dinner, the bride announced that she was expecting a child. Everyone began to applaud and cheer, except for one person. What I didn’t know was one of the bride’s friends who attended had her own child, but the child passed away from health complications a year prior. This woman had a difficult time dealing with it, and she began to cry after the announcement. Not a ‘face in your hands weeping,’ cry, but loud sobbing and wailing that required intervention and comforting.
Had she stepped away from the table, or even allowed herself to be led away to compose herself, everything would have gone fine.
However, she quite loudly yelled, ‘I’ll be okay! I just need a minute!’
Long story short, she never composed herself for the remainder of the wedding. The rest of the reception turned into an attention fest for her. The woman occasionally calmed down for brief periods of time, but as soon as people weren’t paying attention to her, the waterworks started again. This lasted roughly two hours.
Afterward, I asked my traveling companion about it. She informed me it wasn’t the first time the woman had done something like this, and she was surprised she was invited to the wedding at all. Apparently, the bride had cut down the time her and the friend were spending together because she would always turn the conversation toward the loss of her child.
This woman was apparently the bride’s cousin, and she had told everyone prior to the wedding she would be fine to attend. She wasn’t, and she really should have excused herself from the table or led out of the building.
I can read people fairly well in person, and I could tell a lot of her actions were meant to make herself the center of attention. Over the next few days at the resort, her mood improved to the point where she was laughing and drinking with friends. Basically, her low point was at the one place where it would garner her the most attention when she wanted it. I lost the little amount of sympathy I had for her at this point, although I’m quite certain that my opinion of her was meaningless.
Until this experience occurred, I never really understood why weddings were referred to as the bride’s, ‘special day’. Now, I understand why. The day was definitely ruined for the bride.”
“It Was Like A Werid Cloud Had Fallen Over The Whole Evening”
“I worked as a wedding videographer, so I have seen my fair share of obnoxious moments. By far the most memorable one I have seen and heard was at a destination wedding I attended as a guest.
The ceremony was perfect, the bride looked radiant. Everything went without a hitch. The toasts were about to begin, and the older sister was going first. She had a bunch of people roll out a projector screen in the middle of the ballroom. Then, she began making a fuss about why it was taking so long to set it up. The event planners were having trouble connecting her laptop to the projector, and it was inevitably causing a delay. Why did she need her laptop and a projector?
She made a PowerPoint for her baby sister.
Twenty minutes passed, and the event planners finally got the projector to work. The bride’s sister proceeded to talk everyone through a presentation on how to make her little sister’s marriage ‘work,’ by using her own marriage as an example.
Each page detailed her and her husband’s marital issues and included what they did to fix their problems. Every slide included a photo of them, too. It was bizarre.
The presentation took half an hour, and it was shown to nearly five hundred guests. Everyone was awkwardly smiling and laughing waiting for the sister to finish.
By the end of the presentation, the bride’s brother-in-law was red from embarrassment. The bride was clearly less than pleased at how her own sister tried to shift the attention to herself on her special day. Had the whole presentation finished quicker, it might have been easier for the mood to pick itself back up again. But because the sister’s toast took about an hour, it was all everyone could talk about. It was like a weird cloud had fallen over the whole evening.
Even if her sister had the best of intentions, it was ill-timed and hardly the appropriate platform to share the information.”
The Poor Pastor
“A few years ago, I worked with a young lady who was rather shy. She was the type of person who always wanted to please everyone, and never stood up for herself much.
Anyway, I was invited to her wedding. I hadn’t been to the venue the wedding was being held at, but I had heard that the pastor liked to hear himself talk. I didn’t know what to make of that statement, but I sure found out!
The service started out nicely. It wasn’t a very big wedding, and there were only about fifty people in attendance.
About halfway through the service before the vows were to be exchanged, the pastor stopped the wedding and had the couple turn and face the crowd. He started a long speech about how the couple had been through marriage counseling with him. The pastor was openly spilling personal details about the couple’s issues before their marriage!
The bride looked hurt, and the groom looked embarrassed. The pastor sounded as if he had been drinking by the way he kept talking and joking around. The whole venue was silent and in shock, and the bride’s father looked like he wanted to fight the pastor.
Into the silence fell these words, ‘What a moron!’
I looked around to see who had yelled, but it was too late. The words had fallen out of my own mouth.
Others yelled, ‘Yeah, get on with the service! Stop harassing the couple!’
Finally, the service finished up and the couple walked back up the aisle and out the door. When I got out of the door, I spotted the bride crying.
She turned to me, hugged me, and cried, ‘Thank you so much!’
I replied, ‘For what? Calling the pastor a moron?’
She responded, ‘Yes. Nobody knew what to do, and you got the pastor back on track. Thank you again!’
The couple ended up having another wedding in a friend’s garden. It was very nice, and they were sure to book a different pastor. They are still happily married today.
Unfortunately, the pastor from their first wedding still works at the same venue. I hear there are very few people who have their wedding there anymore, and now I know why.”
“Your Wife Is Stealing You Away From Me”
“My own mother did this at my wedding.
It started at the venue, and the first thing she uttered to my in-laws was, ‘Am I even allowed to be at this stupid wedding?’
My father-in-law snidely replied, ‘Well, you got an invitation, didn’t you?’
I did the right thing and invited her. Unknown to me, she had arranged secret meetings beforehand with my in-laws. In the meetings, she tried to manipulate them and lead them to believe she was a victim.
She told them, ‘My son has been terrible to me! He deserted me and left me all alone. He never should have left home!’
Mind you, my father and two younger brothers still lived at home. Plus, I was already thirty years old! I moved out of the house when I was nineteen, but it was simply because of the way she had treated me.
Towards the end of the reception, she grabbed me and began to wail, ‘Your wife is stealing you away from me! She doesn’t deserve you at all!’
Everyone in the reception hall heard her screaming. She hadn’t even been drinking, this is just how she always acted.
My uncle stepped in and dragged her away.
He muttered under his breath, ‘You need to stop! You’re making a scene and embarrassing yourself!’
She loudly replied, ‘She is a witch and she’s taking away my son! She should be embarrassed, she doesn’t belong here!’
She continued to scream and point at my wife, and my uncle was beginning to struggle to hold her. My very good friend, who happened to be a tall guy, grabbed my mother by the arm and dragged her away from the crowd.
I shouldn’t have been surprised about her dramatic act at the wedding, as she made a similar scene at our engagement party. She swore like a sailor in front of my friend who was a pastor.
My friend politely asked, ‘Do you remember who this party is for? Be gracious and let the bride and groom be the focus.’
Unfortunately, she couldn’t have someone else have the spotlight and proceeded to throw a fit. She had no choice but to leave when ten of my friends surrounded her and walked her to the door.
Needless to say, I don’t think any of my family members will be inviting her to weddings going forward.”
The Gloomy Grandmother
“A while back, I went to my nieces’ wedding. The bride’s grandmother, who is also my mother, decided to complain about everything at the wedding.
She whined about not liking the groom, the groom’s family, and the bride’s friends. She didn’t like the wedding dress or the bridesmaid dresses, which angered my sister because she made them by hand. There were adult beverages available at the wedding, and guests were allowed to drink during the ceremony. She thought drinking during the wedding and at the reception was inappropriate.
My mother whined about not liking the food, which did my mood no favors because I made most of it and picked out everything that I didn’t make. She hated the makeup the wedding party was wearing, which also offended me because I was the makeup artist for the bridesmaids. She didn’t like the venue or the fact people were dancing during the reception. We ordered a sugar-free wedding cake just for her, and she complained about not liking that, either!
Right after the ceremony ended, she decided to start a huge screaming match with the mother of the bride and the groom. All I could do was touch up the bride’s makeup between the ceremony and the reception. My mother was uncontrollable!
As I was touching up the brides’ makeup, guests kept coming up to me and asking, ‘Dude, what the heck is wrong with your mother?!’
Eventually, my sister elected to kick our mom out of the venue. The reception was much better afterward.”
The Maddening MIL
“At my wedding, my mother-in-law announced, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if your grandmother became a great-grandmother before she dies?’
She said this mere minutes before the conclusion of my husband and I’s wedding ceremony.
It was obvious which grandmother she meant, and what she meant by the comment. My grandmothers were both deceased, and my husband’s paternal grandmother was already a great-grandmother. My husband’s maternal grandmother had two grandchildren, my husband, and his first cousin. His cousin was child-free and had a few health problems that would make pregnancy problematic. Besides, at the time of our wedding, she was already going through menopause.
So, what my mother-in-law actually meant was, ‘When are you two going to have a baby? When do we get to be grandparents? Nine months from now, perhaps?’
We’d made it quite clear to my mother-in-law that we were not going to try for a baby right away. My husband and I were both pretty young and just starting our careers. It simply wasn’t the right time to have a baby. The cherry on top was she expected me to become a stay-at-home mom, too.
A few years went by, and my in-laws started really laying into us about having a baby. But by that time, I had realized that I’m childfree, and I went and got a tubal ligation.
My mother-in-law has apologized for her crass remark, but it took her over twenty years. I’m still not even positive her apology was sincere.
In the meantime, my husband and I are living it up with a dual income and no children. My mother-in-law is just going to have to deal with the fact that the only ‘grandchildren’ she will ever have will have four feet, are furry, and say ‘meow.’”
“I Wish I Had Kicked Her Out”
“When my partner and I got married, it was a crazy couple of days. Everything was planned very last minute, right down to the venue.
My mother-in-law never approved of the relationship her son had with me. When she found out we got engaged, she went absolutely crazy. Needless to say, we didn’t tell her about the wedding.
Somehow, my mother-in-law found out we were getting married exactly a month before the date. Since she found out about the wedding, we decided to invite her, figuring not much could go wrong. Then one day, a couple of weeks before the date, she decided she didn’t want to attend anymore.
Not only was she not going to attend, but she stopped his entire family from attending, too!
Only his brother and his cousin attended from his family’s side. After the wedding, we found out his cousin only came so she could spy on us and report back to his mom.
The worst part was that we invited the cousin to sit at the main table with my husband and me. When she sat down, she wouldn’t stop complaining about everything.
She rudely asked, ‘Who even has a wedding on Sunday?’
Afterward, she forced my husband’s brother to take her home early.
Looking back, I wish I had kicked her out. My husband’s side of the family wasn’t invited to anything else going forward.”
“She Complained About Nobody Paying Attention To Her”
“My husband and I had our wedding at a location about two hours away from home. We decided to leave a couple of days before the wedding so we could have everything prepared and relax at our hotel. My husband’s grown daughter was bringing his mother the day before the wedding. His mother was furious that we didn’t take her with us. Couldn’t we have just a little bit of time to ourselves?
I booked several rooms for our family at the same hotel and had them grouped in specific locations for various purposes. When I met the first group at the hotel the day before the wedding, I learned that my mother-in-law had called and rearranged all of the rooms.
During the wedding, my mother-in-law sat in the front row.
She turned to the person next to her and said, ‘Wow, I wonder how long this will last.’
During the reception, she complained the entire time about how there was nobody paying attention to her. Attention to you? It was my wedding day! My husband had to threaten to have somebody take her back to the hotel.
On the first morning of our honeymoon, my husband slept in and my mother-in-law called his phone twenty times by noon.
My mother-in-law is dead now. Surprisingly, I didn’t kill her.”
White Dresses and Dilemmas
“At a wedding I attended, the mother of the bride chose to wear a white gown. The gown was remarkably similar to what the bride was wearing. I was the coordinator and officiant, and the bride approached me to ask if I could do something about the situation. So I did.
I politely asked the mother, ‘Do you have a spare change of clothes? Your dress is awfully similar to your daughters, and your daughter is becoming quite upset about it.’
The mother rudely replied, ‘I’m paying for this wedding, so it’s my wedding too. My daughter can’t tell me what to do, and I want to feel like a bride myself. You can tell my daughter she needs to get over herself.’
I was in complete shock! I went back to the bride and explained what her mother had said, being sure to leave out the offensive elements of the conversation.
Not only did the mother refuse to change, but she demanded to walk her daughter down the aisle in their matching dresses.
But wait, there’s more.
The father was remarried, and he insisted his new wife should be able to walk the bride down the aisle too. Not only did the father’s new wife join, but the mother’s new husband joined in, too. Due to the width of the aisle, both sets of parents were forced to make two trips with the bride.
Had I known this issue would come up on the wedding day, I would’ve most likely spent more time interviewing the bride regarding wedding attire and who would be walking her down the aisle. This wedding was truly one of the more volatile events I’ve endured over the years.”
“I’m The Bride’s Prettier Sister”
“My sister did this at my wedding. Where do I even begin?
First, you should understand that my husband and I paid for the wedding ourselves. We were forty and forty-nine years old, and we didn’t need our parents to pay for anything. We decided to have the wedding in my in-law’s backyard. My mother-in-law lived in the beautiful Texas Hill Country on eleven acres of land. She was also beginning to suffer from dementia, so we decided it would be best to bring the wedding to her.
The week before the wedding ceremony my husband, family, and I began clearing up and prepping the area. As we were cleaning, my sister found out her son had gotten his girlfriend pregnant. She assumed it would be fine if we let them get married at my wedding and have a double ceremony. She figured since our entire family would already be there, it would be easier for everyone to attend one wedding instead of two. Absolutely not!
Then, the day of the wedding arrived.
My sister walked around and kept repeating, ‘Hi, I’m the bride’s younger, thinner, and prettier sister,’ to my husband’s friends and family.
One of my friends almost decked her in the face. I should have let her do it.”
