Marta Acosta has offered up three ARCs of her new book Bride of Casa Dracula for Bitchery readers – and all we want is your best or worst wedding memory. Easy, right? Doesn’t even have to be your own wedding. Could be someone else’s.
For example, I know a certain Smart Bitch who was once a bridesmaid, and the dress was a certain shade that turned that Smart Bitch a very greenish shade of green, without the added enjoyment of nausea. To add fun to frolic, said Smart Bitch was the lone short dark haired attendant among a sea of tall, lithe, blonde, and tanned Southern bridesmaids. Oh, it was lovely. I mean, compared to some dresses out there, she got lucky, but still. Oy.
Marta says, “I actually don’t have a worst wedding memory. City Hall ceremony, small gathering at my parents’ house, margaritas and Mexican food. Okay, except that my husband and I woke up the next morning and we both said, ‘What the hell have we done!’”
Now, my very favorite worst wedding story, one that I reread for added laughs when I’m having a hard day, is the Titanic wedding dress story from Etiquette Hell. Enjoy – but do not feel like your comment has to be that long!
I’ve often said that people do two things at weddings: they get married or they get offended. I usually try to make sure I’m not in the latter group, since I’ve already participated in the former. So what’s your best or worst wedding memory? Share! Your comment enters you in a chance to win an ARC – you have 24 hours, and Marta will pick the winner. Ready, set, go!
My worst wedding memory happened the night before my older sister’s wedding. She had this chick who invited herself to be a bridesmaid (my sister was too good-hearted to say no) who hit on the father of the maid of honor the night before the wedding, pissed everyone off, took off, we had to go searching for her, I got a wicked sore throat, so my sister had me drink straight Midori – bad advice! – so I was a little out of it but slept real good. Anyway, we found the chick, worked things out – and then she proceeded to hit on every single guy at the wedding! She was a nightmare. But the wedding turned out okay itself.
My first husband had been married when he was 18 and stupid. However, he said that it had been annulled. Being a good Catholic girl I had wanted to get married in the church. We did the whole counseling thing and everything. I had him talk to the Catholic Church to find out if we could get married in the church due to his annulment and he said he called and that we didn’t. The day before our wedding (out of state) we go and get the license and they mark a big red X about him having a divorce. Apparently, Iowa annulments are still called divorces elsewhere. This meant the night before the wedding we found out that we could not get married at the church. We frantically called around for a judge and managed to find one who would come to our reception to actually marry us, which we did. However, the kicker was, almost no one in his family knew about the fact that he was married before, and he didn’t want me to tell anyone in my family so I didn’t. My family found out since I didn’t want to lie to them about why I wasn’t getting married at my church, but he still lied to the rest of his family (about 90 people) and told them it was a paper error. OH and I could only have two bridgesmaids because he didn’t have enough friends to fill in the groomsmen. Needless to say it shouldn’t have been a surprise that the marriage fell apart in about 9 months and we’ve since divorced.
Worst wedding memory…I haz one. Only one, since I generally learn from my larger mistakes and don’t repeat them. NEVER getting married again.
Met my future ex husband in Japan, while we were both active duty US Navy serving aboard an aircraft carrier. We flew to Hawaii to get married. Azzhole shows up 20 mins late, and basically grunts the “I do’s”. Later that evening, he orders me take out Mexican at the hotel. Just me, not him, since he chose that time to inform me that he hadn’t seen his friends in a few years and was going out drinking with them. On our wedding night. Despite the fact that he had spent the previous several days having a week long bachelor party. Which turned into a 4 year long bachelor party that ended abruptly when he actually took me out to dinner this time, if only to tell me that his secretary was pregnant…with his child.
Happiness is feeling more joy the day my divorce was final than I did on the wedding day.
I was married on a Tuesday in a skateboard park, but had a wee tiny church ceremony, completely DIY down to the bride’s bouquet and the boutonnières, for my Mom’s sake. We were so broke we didn’t have the wherewithal to take time off for a honeymoon, and neither of us were big on frills, so this was the plan, but I made the mistake of mentioning it to the people at work that I was having a church ceremony that weekend. I worked at a juvenile facility, and some bright bulb thought that my wedding would be a perfect outing for the kids who had behaved well that week…
As I said, it was planned to be tiny—and here came this onslaught of kids and staff (plus the head of the facility and his wife), but the kids weren’t a problem other than being vocal and obnoxious about the fact that the music was just from a CD, and there weren’t drinks except punch (we were barely twenty-one and legal, much less the twelve-and-thirteen year old delinquents).
It was a sweet little service with church people I’d known all my life, people who went out of their way and brought finger food and made a little reception for us. And then: my boss had had a few drinks of his own—and in the midst of that cozy, churchy, pot-luck gathering banged his spoon on a table and called everyone to silence to make a toast. He bellowed something slurred and incoherent about “Here’s to long, hot nights, lots of fights, and lots of sweet, sweet love and making up.”
There was this horrified pause.
And, by tacit agreement, we all ignored his little outburst, and went on.no
An outdoor wedding.
A bride going – shall we say, al fresco? – whether for fashion or for ventilation, I still don’t know.
A venturesome bee.
A honeymoon night to remember, but very much not in the way I’m sure she had hoped.
Well, I can’t beat those worst…lol…so I am going with best. My own. My husband and I flew to Vegas, and got married. No worries about offending anyone because of not picking them to be a bridesmaid, or sitting so-and-so beside the other so-and-so. We told everyone what we were doing, we just didn’t invite anyone. We had pizza for a wedding meal, my dress was a prom dress, I made my own bouquet (we live in Canada, and I would not have been allowed to bring back live flowers). It was the best.
I was young and too gutless to stand up for myself. I, along with a couple of others, had been bullied into being bridesmaids by a slightly psychotic acquaintance. I took time off work the week leading up to the wedding, and was exhausted from being her errand girl. I was literally at her beck and call the whole time, as she insisted I spend the week at her place. Trapped like idiot, it was the week from hell.
The wedding day rolled around, and we had been herded like sheep to the hairdressers. I decided to nip out while she was getting her hair done to get some champagne for the limo. She took such offense that she packed everyone up and left me there, no car no phone. I managed to get a lift to her house, and discovered that she was no longer speaking to me. It was about this time that I decided to see just how drunk I could get. I managed to get through my reading at the church without a giggle, smirk or eyeroll, so felt I had earned a reward. I then proceeded to the reception getting totally off my face with the cute best man, while enjoying a marathon bitch session about the bride.
At one stage early on when I was barely tipsy, she came and told me I’d had enough to drink and that I was making a fool of myself. For shame, we live in Australia where the national sport is getting pissed, you can get deported for saying shit like that! Anyway, red rag to a bull and all that, I drank even more thank-you very much and had a pretty good time. When I was saying goodbye to her family, to my horror, her goaty old granddad grabbed me and ground his mouth into mine, giving me stubble rash from hell, while her mother squawked at him to let me go.
Oh yeah, and my dress was a hideously unflattering deep purple taffeta number.
My fondest memory was discovering that the church’s unity candle stand was way too tall in the middle of the ceremony when we tried to light the central candle. It was a moment that would have flipped many brides out and sent them running off in tears, but I just found it hilarious at the time and still do. It was and still is stunningly ridiculousness that the church had this stand that was so tall that even my 5’10” husband had to stand on tiptoes to actually light the candle, while I just stood there and tried to make it look like I was helping.
I still wonder what other couples end up doing or how we were supposed to light it. It wouldn’t work to put it on a lower step as the tripod base was too wide for a step. Do other couples not put the candle in the stand until after lighting it? I still can’t fathom how it was not an continuing issue for the church that nothing about it was mentioned during the rehearsal.
Spam word – times27. 27 times the overgrown candle stand foiled happy couples before the church got rid of it??
The worst thing that happened at my wedding is the bar ran out of whiskey and vodka. Yes, my guests were lushes.
We were at a state park in the middle of no-where. When we polished off the booze available at the lodge, we were out of luck. It was an open bar, so everyone went nuts.
My worst wedding memory was at a friend’s wedding. After the ceremony, the wedding party went off in a limo and started drinking. By the time they got to the reception, half the bridesmaids were so drunk they could barely walk. Only the bride and groom were able to do the wedding party dance.
I spent half the reception in the bathroom, bringing bread and water to the girls who weren’t throwing up. Good times.
Condensed version—my car died, the veil was somehow ripped from the headpiece, my mother-in-law made a big deal about hosting the rehearsal dinner—which turned out to be brownies and a cheese log rolled in corn flakes—AND she managed to misplace the key to the hall, so we couldn’t begin decorating for the reception until midnight.
The next morning, my family somehow left for the church, never noticing I wasn’t with them. I ended up having to flag down a neighbor on her way to work and beg for a ride. With my dress, shoes, make-up case, hair kit, but not my purse. The purse with the rings and the wedding license.
While everyone was dressing, my 6yo brother realized “I’m not wearing any underwear,” my 11yo brother discovered the legs to his tuxedo pants were sewn shut, my 9yo sister found she had no shoes, and the future sister-in-law I’d been forced to include in the wedding party no longer fit in her dress.
The florists delivered the wrong bouquets, the DJ never showed, and our photographer (hired by the mother-in-law) was on his second-ever gig.
During the ceremony, 15 pagers began sounding (my now-ex and many friends were/are volunteer firefighters) and a quarter of the guests left for a 4-alarm structure fire.
The best man’s toast was, I quote, “Good luck to my best friend and his new wife. You’ll need it … now that she’s knocked up.”
To top it all off – my new husband informed me – as we were leaving the reception – that the first day of my honeymoon would be spent driving a U-haul 500 miles in the opposite direction of our intended destination, to deliver my new sister-in-law to college and move her into her dorm. He then proceeded to fall asleep while I was in the bathroom slipping into my sexy lingerie.
And yes, that’s the condensed version. The longer one is a hellova lot funnier.
Two stories, as I’m not sure the first technically counts as a “wedding story.”
Although we lived in Georgia, my husband and I chose to be married in Florida as a friend of the family had offered us her beach house for the wedding. Because we were out of state, the licensing process took a little bit more time than usual—there was an extra form to fill out—so we wound up sitting at the clerk’s desk for a bit while she was rummaging around for the right paperwork.
As we were waiting, the phone rang, and we were honored to be able to overhear the clerk’s side of the following conversation:
“Why yes, ma’am, this is the right place to get a marriage license.”
“Well, you and the groom will need to come down together to apply for the lic…”
“Yes ma’am, we need the groom too.”
*pause*
“No, ma’am, you can’t come down at different times.”
“There are just a few questions that we have to ask you—if you’ve ever been married bef…”
“No, ma’am, I can’t not ask you that question.”
*pause*
“Yes ma’am, I have to ask you that in front of the groom.”
“Yes ma’am, you have to answer.”
“…yes ma’am; I believe that the man you are marrying should know if you’ve been…yes, your divorce must be final before you can say that you are divorced.”
“You’re welcome, ma’am. Good luck.”
With much giggling, we filled out the rest of our paperwork—including the statement that neither of us had been married before—and chuckled all the way home.
——
The second story is the tale of the worst decorations ever.
My best friend got married in a small wedding chapel in middle Georgia. She warned us ahead of time that the decorations were a little “cutesy” but the place was friendly and (best of all) reasonably priced.
We arrive somewhat early, so we settle down and start taking a good long look at the chapel. Cutesy does not begin to cover these decorations. There were cherubs hung at every possibly opportunity—and not just cherubs: spray-painted gold, cheaply made, plastic cherubs nestled into sprays of artificial ivy and baby’s breath. There were the occasional strand of gold mardi-gras beads draped around the room, and then there was the cross.
It was large. It was gold. It was the bright gold that you can only get from a spray can. It was also very curiously textured. It was so curiously textured that I spent more of the wedding staring at the cross and thinking “Just what the heck is that made from?” than I did paying attention to the perfectly lovely ceremony. It was hypnotic.
After the ceremony was over, I ducked back into the chapel and got close enough to see what the cross was made from. Macaroni. Elbow macaroni noodled glued to a foam background and then spray-painted gold. It was an Arts&Crafts;project from summer camp gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Naturally, I came back, told my date and we both vowed to never breathe a word of it to the bride. It really was a nice ceremony, and who actually wants to know that they were married in front of a giant, gold, macaroni cross?
1983 I was MOH for a gal because she didn’t want her future SIL to take that spot, and no one else would/could do it. We’d been friends on and off since elementary school, but after I moved away at age 14 the friendship wasn’t as close. Anyhoo, I said yes because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
Her mom made godawfulugly bridesmaids dresses. My mom made mine. Green. Mine was seafoam green with satiny ribbons shot through the filmy fabric. Peasant style top with the shoulder ruffle, full skirt. I still have it and my girls wear it for dressup. The bridesmaids dresses were green with brownish flowers – ugly – in the same pattern.
Parents on both sides were first gen immigrants from Scotland. So was the minister. We could barely understand a word spoken. No rehearsal, no rehearsal dinner. Did it rain? I don’t remember. I do know that the bride lost her engagement ring somewhere in her bedroom the morning of, and I was on hands and knees methodically looking for it. She wouldn’t marry without it… it was under the bed.
The reception was at some Army/Navy club, in the cave-like basement, smoke thick as fog. Food was horrid. I didn’t eat it. There was no head table, but I liked being in the back of the room observing. The band was also Scottish – and I love Celtic music – but was too loud for the cave and my ears were bleeding from the noise. And you couldn’t dance to any of it. The happy couple cut and run as soon as they could – most of the guests were by then half bagged, and most were friends of her parents, so they didn’t care. I, however, was stuck.
I drank a bit, but not much, flirted with the rather gawky younger brother of the groom – including making sure he was a few steps behind me whenever I walked: the better for him to see my butt-wiggle. I tried my best to understand the 90 year old relatives who’d flown in from the motherland for the occasion. Accent and band combined to make me smile and nod a lot.
At some point, I went to the bathroom only to discover that my period had started a good half hour earlier in the evening. When? Who knows. But it was before I’d sat on my duff chatting because my dress was stained. A nice round six inch across bloody stain, brownish around the edges. I tried sponging it with toilet water and tp, but to no avail. I had to find the sister of the bride (who had the sense to stay out of the wedding party), back edging the wall so no one would see my blood-stained back of dress. She told her mom (the MOB), and SHE told the FOB to drive me to the house and let me pick out a dress from her closet, grudgingly, since all I had of my own were tshirts and jeans.
The woman had horrible taste, and I ended up with a brownish jobby in the same peasant style. I should have known, since she did pick out the fabric for the bridesmaid dresses. I didn’t want to go back, but they insisted.
I can laugh now, and my mom managed to soak the stain out (which is why I still have the dress in the dressup trunk for my girls). And when I think of that gangly brother of the groom seeing that stain on my butt… ugh. I saw the bride only once after the wedding. Her hub was in the military, and they were stationed just outside the town where I was going to university. I’ve never heard from her again and google has let me down, alas.
But… once, fifteen years ago, while living three Provinces from our hometown I thought I shared a bus ride with her. She was pregnant (something my ‘friend’ said she’d never do), and when the bus slowed for a turn in a subdivision, someone outside called to her – by my friend’s name! – and she waved. I was only three rows back, so I got a good look at her as she sat sidewase on the ‘pregnant/old folks’ seat. The engagement ring wasn’t the same, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t her, but I’ve always wondered.
The altar candles set the artificial altar flowers on fire at my brother’s wedding. A huuuuuuge blaze resulted, crawling up the wall toward the big cross. I was a bridesmaid and noticed it when it was still a relatively small blaze, so I darted away to find a fire extinguisher. At first, more people noticed me leaving (Is she throwing up? Does she have to go to the bathroom? Is she objecting to the wedding?) more than the fire itself.
I found a fire extinguisher, and the pastor put it out, resulting in billows of smoke and white extinguisher powder. In the confusion, the bride’s mother fell against a pew back and broke a rib. (She’s OK now, and she did eventually make it to the reception.)
In the end, a firetruck, an ambulance, and two police cars showed up to the church. We’ve got cute pictures of the couple in the firetruck, with my sister-in-law wearing a fireman’s hat.
I was always told that your wedding day is the happiest day of your life, but I’ll never know if mine was or not. I remember getting dressed. I remember putting on my makeup. I remember standing in the doorway of the sanctuary, praying, “Please don’t let me step on my dress, please don’t let me step on my dress,” and then, nothing.
Just nothing.
I have no memory of my wedding after that point – not the ceremony, not the receiving line, not even the reception. And this is not a recent phenomenon. I wish I could blame it on aging, but even the very next day, it all was a blank.
So, not a best or worst memory, but a non-memory. Does that count?
I can’t compare to any of this, but in the video made of my wedding (which was in a chapel in Vegas), during the vows you can see a man’s hand reaching onto the screen and repeatedly grabbing the butt of another guy standing in the audience. We had about 17 guests present and on the way there, some of his friends had airline issues that resulted in them being bumped to first class, with free liquor.
That was a great wedding!
I don’t have worst wedding memories yet, but I’ll be a bridesmaid in two weddings two months apart next year, so I’m sure I’ll make some! At least in the first one I get to pick my own dress…I just have to stick to the interesting shade of green the bride picked for us.
My best friend just got married in June. It started out with her three-year-old son not wanting to be the ringbearer and hiding under the cake table. It only got worse when he saw the cake after he came out from under the table. DURING the ceremony (It was a very small venue, all in one room. Second marriage so they just wanted really simple). He started crying about how he didn’t want “to turn into a blueberry like Chocolate Factory”, since the cake was blue. So as I’m standing up there next to my best friend and her daughter, my fiance, who was the best man, was holding said little boy and trying to get him to stop crying about becoming a blueberry so that people could hear the bride and groom saying their vows. It was memorable to say the least. =) My own wedding is in two months and I have the same ringbearer. I’ve vowed to make sure there is no blue around him before the ceremony!
Best wedding memory ever—my sister’s. After oh, a decade of living together my sister and her boyfriend decided to tie the knot. They choose to embrace the idea of a Vegas wedding…historic wedding chapel with the Elvis impersonator and everything. She had a wonderful dress (1950’s cocktail dress from one of the reissued Vogue patterns) and lovely flowers. The minister had more jewelry than any other person present plus a bright purple shirt. Elvis performed after the ceremony. Only family attended—but since the groom has 5 siblings who are married with kids it was a full house. It was just sooooo ‘them’ that it couldn’t be topped! But the part that still cracks us up 7 years later is the fact that the new groom was drinking gin and tonics before the post-ceremony dinner and the more he had to drink the more he showed us his ‘pin up tie’ (one of the ones from the 1940’s which look like a normal tie but when you flip it over there is a spectacular pin-up in the style of a Varga girl on the lining!) This from a usually very restrained man—as only those of Scandanavian descent can be. To this day we all remember and think, “Awwwww.” No drama, relatively little unexpected craziness. How it can and should be done. Sigh.
Well, hell, I have two sets of ugly memories to choose from . . . lucky me.
The second wedding, done on the cheap, took place on the shore of a big, cold lake. Dog as best man; dude of dubious credentials, known only as “the Rev,” as the officiating agent (paid with a case of beer).
We put a bottle of champagne in the lake to cool it. Waves started carrying it to the east. None of the four other people present wanted to go grab it—the wusses—and the dog/best man was no retriever. So I, in my red silk dress, waded into Lake Michigan . . . which, in early May, is none too warm. The bottle kept drifting toward Petoskey; I kept sloshing in deeper. Just before I had to go horizontal and start swimming, I managed to lock my hand around the bottle’s neck.
That champagne was so utterly craptastic it wasn’t worth the effort. In fact, the whole incident ended up being a metaphor for the marriage.
Unless I find a sugar daddy, or Nathan Kamp tells me he can’t live without me, I’m staying single.
JennK, you win. There is nothing in my memories can top that.
I must mention 21 years ago I got married to Mr. Perfect. If you doubt that, just ask him. We’ve had the inevitable speed bumps and very few sorrows, and we’re still happy with the decision to go ahead & take vows.
My memory is a good one. Yeah, my wedding had glitches but I cannot remember them now. For the reception, since neither of us has been able to dance since the Twist fell out of style, we had a non-dance event. At the local Renaissance Faire, we found a group that played medieval & renaissance music on flutes, recorders, viols, etc., and we hired them to play at our reception instead of the DJ or the band. May not work for everyone, but it worked for us! Many people have mentioned since, that ours was one of the more fun & relaxing weddings they’ve attended.
antispam: bed57. Oh yes, and still counting.
My last attempt at this got eaten, so I’m going for the condensed version now (probably a good thing!).
My mom remarried when I was 17, and I was Best Woman. I got lost driving myself to the church, and showed up 30 minutes after the ceremony was to start. Even better, the minister made repeated references to my lateness during the ceremony.
When I was 12, my mom’s best friend got married. The couple was on a tight budget, and chose to cut corners in all the wrong places. They married in a country club, and had some very nice champagne during the reception. Unfortunately, the wedding was in the evening, right around dinner time. The ceremony started late, and there were a lot of photos afterward, so the guests were starving by the time the buffet opened. Those cut corners I mentioned? They were all missing at the buffet table – the bride spent $200 on food for 50 guests, and there was just enough for everyone to have 1 chicken wing, and 1 meatball, and 1 roll, and 1 cheese stick. And that was it. I’m not kidding when I say there was a stampede once the cake was cut.
Oh, and did I mention that the bride and her husband were New Agers who wanted all of their attendants to wear costumes during the ceremony? (The B and G wore standard wedding attire). There was no central theme, so as the flower girl I was dressed as a jester, and my mom, the Best Woman, wore a black-and-white striped prison jumpsuit from a costume shop.
Well, my bridesmaid/sister got a horrible sunburn trying to tan to best show off her yellow bridesmaid dress and looked horrible. They mixed up the flowers and drove a pin into the white leather cover of my prayerbook with my new name. I sat on my wedding cake in the car. The organist didn’t show. My father wasn’t at the wedding. The priest got our names wrong and forgot it was a double-ring ceremony. My bouquet got caught on the ceiling fan when I threw it and flew back to me. The photographer never returned our pictures so I don’t have any. Our honeymoon consisted of driving a UHaul with all our worldly goods halfway across the country to live with his parents for 3 months. BUT, we’ve stayed married for 41 years so a bad wedding doesn’t mean a bad marriage necessarily since we all kept our sense of humor and didn’t let it bother us. Adversity like that shows your true colors pretty quickly.
I’d love to play, but I’ve never been married myself, the one wedding I was a part of was my brother’s (and I had no idea that the wedding party was supposed to sit at the head table—since no one ever told me I was supposed to sit there; I was 18 and had never been in a wedding before and didn’t really pay any attention at the ones I’d been forced to attend; and no one came to drag me up there, and it’s not like I was hiding in the pepto-pink dress or anything so they couldn’t find me to tell me—so when I found out three years later that my sister in law had been furious with me that day, it was news to me) and the only wedding any of my friends has had happened a full three days before I, or anyone else, for that matter, found out.
They just went on their lunch hour and got married, went back to work, and forgot to tell anyone. I always thought that was the most romantic thing, ever. As if their bond was so much more important than the ugly dresses, bad food and the chicken dance, and it was completely natural and right and organic to just…make it legal and go on with things without any special fanfare because it was such an obvious thing to them.
I doubt their mothers were as happy and enchanted as I was. They didn’t find out until a week after I did!
Before my wedding, my bridesmaids and I had gone to get our hair done. We all rode in the same car to the church. As I got out of the front passenger side of the car, I shut the door at the top corner and left my hand resting on the car. That was a bad idea. My bridesmaid Jenn then got out of the back passenger side door and shut it, crushing my thumb between the two doors. To top it off, the driver had already gotten out and LOCKED THE CAR. She fumbled around in her purse for about a minute before she found the keys, while my sister was freaking out and I was trying not to scream and have all the guests in the church hear me! They finally got the car unlocked and got me inside the bride’s room. My mom takes a look at it, pronounces it broken, and has me run it under some cold water. A splint was fashioned from a penny and some scotch tape, and I hid the thumb behind my bouquet!
Bad weddings are in the eye of the beholder . All my relatives were horrified at my wedding plans, but I stuck to my guns and got the wedding I wanted.
At the time I was 6 months pregnant with my first child, and though my boyfriend and I had been together 8 years, we never felt the need to tie the knot. Until my 6th month, when suddenly I realized I needed to be married. You just dont fight those emotional things that happen to you when you are with child. So we made plans to go to Las Vegas to get married. I told all my relatives to stay home and just invited my sister and best friend. He invited his Best friend. I bought the only dress that fit me in my enormous state, a sleeveless black dress. My mother was horrified, she couldn’t believe that i would wear black. I informed her that everyone could see I was preggers, so I was no virgin, and white would seem kinda wrong anyway.
But the thing that everyone was hung up on was the fact that we were going to be married by Elvis. The fat one. In a sparkly white jumpsuit.
Oh how we basked in the awesomeness!
He lip-synced elvis toons from a boom-box behind him, in the most gaudy of chapels known to man. We got a free cake and a ride in a pink caddy. It was all caught on video for everyone back home to see. Everyone in our family thought it was the most unromantic wedding ever, but we wouldn’t have changed a thing. We’ll be going back every 10 years to get re-married.
We had a fairly normal wedding on a tight budget. However….
I nagged my husband-to-be mercilessly at the courthouse to put the wedding license in my possession because I was absolutely positive he’d forget to bring it with him. He finally gave in, gave it to me, and I shoved it in my backpack (I was an undergrad at the time).
Guess who forgot to bring the license to the ceremony?
Luckily, we live in a small college town and our Best Man was the hero of the day. He rushed over to the house, dumped my backpack on the floor, snatched the license and brought it back within 30 minutes without anyone the wiser.
My husband insisted that it was a subconscious message from me that I didn’t want to get married to him. But 30+ years later we’re still together, so all’s well that ends well.
I am occasionally “hired” (read that “volunteered by cheap relatives”) to play piano at the weddings of family members. I really don’t mind so much, but I do appreciate it when a paying gig comes along. That brings me to my first paying gig/ wedding nightmare story. A man I worked closely with approched me about playing the piano at his brother’s wedding. (I’ll call him Dan.) The pianist originally hired was in the throws of her first trimester, and she didn’t think she could make it trough the entire ceremony without getting up at least once. Since it was the last minute, I didn’t get a chance to meet the couple or any of the other family before the night of the rehearsal. I had only been given the music selections and order of the ceremony and told it would all be worked during the run throughs. I rode to the church with Dan, and on the way he filled me in on the couple’s story…dated two years, first marriage for both, family on both sides including Dan were really happy with the match, etc. Sounds great right? Rehearsal starts normally. Everyone seems happy. When just as the bride-to-be gets about half-way down the aisle as I run through the wedding march, her mother turns to the mother of the groom and says, “This is going to be so much nicer than her last wedding.” It was said loud enough that even I heard it over the piano, and even louder was the intake of breath by the MotG. Everything froze. The bride and her father froze, the groom froze in his practiced position standing next to the minister, the mothers just stared at each other. I didn’t know whether to keep playing or stop, so I just ended in mid-measure. The silence really did seem to go on forever. It was Dan, practicing his best man position, who broke the silence with the ever eloquent statement, “Oh sh*t.” With that, everyone started yelling at everyone else. The minister tried to make peace as I just sat watching a future episode of redneck weddings unfold before my eyes. It finally ended when the groom yelled for everyone to “SHUT the F**K UP!” He grabbed the arm of the bride and led her outside, announcing, “We need to talk.”
It turns out the bride had been married twice before and also had a child in the custody of her ex-husband. Her family, thinking that Dan’s brother was a great catch, had never brought it up in case he should decide to change his mind. She had covered it up to the groom, his family, the minister during their pre-marital counseling, and had even lied on their marriage license by checking the “never married” box. I wish I could end this by saying that at least he found out about her lying ways before he married her. Except, the next day, he MARRIED HER ANYWAY! It was the most tense wedding I’ve ever been too. The bride and groom weren’t speaking, barely mumbling their vows. The minister refused to marry them, so they quickly found a justice of the peace to marry then at the reception site. The families weren’t speaking to each other. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were taking sides. The shoving the cake in the face scenario took on a whole new meaning. The marriage ended 18 months and 1 child later….big surprise. It made me appreciate playing for my family’s weddings in a whole new way.
Okay, now for a good memory to counteract all the bad. My niece and her fiance became engaged a year and a half ago and last summer began actively looking for a reasonably priced place to hold the wedding. Since my Signifigant Other and I live in a farmhouse with a two-acre front lawn, I suggested our yard as a viable alternative if nothing else presented itself, and the couple who help us cook at our annual family picnics said they would be happy to cater if the wedding was held here.
To make a long story short, the couple settled on our yard some months later and decided on an early June wedding date. The preparations started in early April, and I really feel as though I made out like a bandit on the deal, since my sister (the MOTB), my niece, her fiance, my mother, and assorted friends all pitched in to do the landscaping, which included weeding and mulching roughly 600 feet of gardens, mowing, weedwhacking, AND planting annuals in the bride’s colors! Thank God we have a backhoe! My sister even paid to have a cleaning service come in and do the house from top to bottom.
It was a lovely, simple ceremony. The bride wore white silk crepe and flip-flops; her bridesmaids and MOH all wore matching (but not identical) short cocktail dresses that they LIKED and could easily wear again for other events.
The roses were in bloom. Everyone raved about the food; nobody got too tipsy and made an idiot of him/herself; the yard didn’t get trashed. The rental company guys, the photographers, and the caterers all commented about how nice, laid-back, helpful, and stress-free everyone was—a pretty unusual state of affairs, apparently, for a wedding.
The only negative was 90 degree heat and humidity, but since the day before the ceremony was freezing and the day after poured rain, we felt we got off lucky.
How boring was this?! 🙂
Deb: I’d say you and everyone else who’s still happily married wins.
I hope it doesn’t sound like complaints, because I truly view the whole thing in an hysterical light. The ex and I, and our families, have a wonderful time recalling “When Murphy’s Law Attacks!” (It’s better when I tell it in person—I have voice, gestures, and more.)
The best thing is, as you said, to do what works for you. You also need to approach the entire event with a sense of humor. Something is going to go wrong, maybe even several (dozen) somethings, but if you can laugh, it will turn out perfectly.
Cannot compare to any of these, but my worst wedding memory was of one I went to when I was about 11, so late-80’s. I have no idea who thought this was a bright thing to do, but remember those wee-folk mascot costumes with the flapping mouths that are popular in parades and such? Yeah, there was a bride and groom of those at the reception.
I was at my friend Nicole’s brothers wedding. My friend was a bridesmaid. When their
father gave the toast he said congratulations to Lauren and Nicole, may they
have a happy life together! He should have said Eric and Lauren. It was very funny
There were a couple of years in the late 90s when it seems everyone in our circle, including us, was tying the knot. Not so many bad memories, lots of fuzzy memories from too much of the vino at times. I did manage to bring home a lovely champagne flute from the top country club in town without even realizing it. The ever-present disposable table cameras gave us the best memories. We felt it was our place to take the pictures the bride and groom really want to see – and the MOB will be appalled by. Shots of putting on the golf course behind the country club, playing the drums with the band, using flower arrangements and centerpieces as hats, laying on pianos like Michelle Pfeiffer, you get the idea.
My own wedding went off without any dire happenings. Coming thisclose to getting laid off three weeks before the day that was going to clear my savings account, well, that made any little problem that cropped up seem rather minor in comparison.
The players are:
husband’s buddy Nick: Groomsman extraordinaire. Enormous guy (over 6’, quite possible 260 lbs.), huge fro, mountain man beard.
Grandmama: petite, at possibly 5’3”, 100lbs, classy rose colored suit, white kitten heels, 90 years of age.
The scene:
Reception hall, dance floor. A rumpus raged to the tune of “The Seven Deadly Sins” as sung by Flogging Molly. We were all doing some fantastic combination of wild Irish dancing and the sort of jump-mosh madness that occurs at a Flogging Molly show.
I had my arm hooked through Grandmama’s, twirling in a circle. (This woman dances like nobody’s business; not out of the ordinary for her at all. )
As I broke away from my grandmother, Nick dove in and picked me up, bouncing me around for a few beats, setting me down near Grandmama again.
Grandmama said: “Oh that looked like fun!”
Nick overheard this and swooped in, picking up my grandmother and giving her the same treatment for quite a bit longer.
When he set her down, I asked: “Do you feel suitably 25 again?”
Grandmama giggled and said: “I feel 15!”
It remains one of my favorite memories of the whole day.
I am told later that my uncle looked like he wanted to kill Nick. (pissing off my uncle has absolutely nothing to do with my love of this moment…nope. Not at all.)
…I’m not sure it appeased him at all that Nick ripped the seat out of his pants gettin’ down to “Black Betty” later in the evening either.
People still talk about our reception as one of the best parties they’ve ever been to. This is good, since the party was 75% of the reason we decided to have a wedding in the first place.
I haven’t been to too many weddings, but my family still talks about my older sister’s. (Part of me feels bad putting this out on the interwebs, because my sister still cannot see the humor in this story—so read with sympathy, y’all.)
My sister and husband-to-be didn’t want to get married in church, not being members of one, so they just rented a hall for the reception and decided that my uncle, who is a minister, could marry them informally, and then people could share stories, make toasts, etc. before eating and dancing. Really nice, really cozy, full of love and good wishes.
It was decided that this shindig would be dry—and the invitations said so—specifically because of some family members. A couple of weeks before the wedding, MIL calls my sister and asks that even though booze won’t be provided, people can still bring it, right? My sister says no, but they do anyway—they just tailgate it out in the parking lot between courses.
The runup is a constant stress for my sister (ex. MIL has been inviting people who are not on the guest list—folks from my BIL’s past that he doesn’t know or care about and who have not received invites. My sister must tell her to dis-invite them, which upsets her). My mom is doing a lot (sewing my sister’s dress, organizing food, etc), so to make MIL feel included, MIL gets assigned flowers. My sister specifies FRESH. She replies no problem, yes, of course. The day of the wedding, we all arrive at the hall to find mounds of plastic flowers and plants (including two fake trees) being parceled out as decorations and centerpieces. My mom and sister take a deep breath, and say, okay, that’s okay, not what we wanted, but not the end of the world. The vows/marrying go off without a hitch, and lots of lovely, heartfelt speeches are made to the couple. Food is put out, people eat, music is played, and people start dancing (although some folks are still eating). This is about 6pm. We have the hall until midnight. After eating, MIL and her friend start to . . . TAKE DOWN THEIR DECORATIONS. WHILE THE RECEPTION IS GOING ON AROUND THEM. Centerpieces get whisked away, wall hangings are stripped, and a side door near the dance floor is propped open so they can load all this into their truck trailer. When my dad asks, politely, what she is doing, she says something vague about getting things in the truck before dark.
So picture this: the DJ calls the new couple up to the dance floor to dance together—a soft, romantic song comes on and they hold each other, swaying and turning with the music on the empty dance floor. All around them, their friends and family gaze at them with love, smiling through happy tears . . . until the Mother of the Bride’s friend walks past them, right through the dance floor on her way out the door, carrying a plastic potted tree.
My dad and I looked at each other in disbelief—and started cracking up. It was just too surreal at that point.
Best Wedding Memory – The expression on my husband-to-be’s face when my dad walked me down the aisle.
Worst Wedding Memory – My future sister-in-law wearing white to my wedding. (hey, if that’s my worst…can’t complain I guess)
Best: When the doors to the sanctuary opened, I stood by my father and gazed down the aisle to see the man I was about to marry standing rod-straight, a single tear on his cheek. He caught my eye and never broke off as my father and I walked slooooowly toward him. At our approach, a second tear appeared. He took my arm, shook my father’s hand and leaned in to whisper to me, “I am going to make sure that you are as happy forever as I am right at this minute. Always.”
I swear, if I had read that scene in a book I’d never have believed it. That it happened to me I count as one of the many, many blessings of my life. He’s made good on his promise, too.
Let’s see, other than his grandma asking both of us about 100 times on the wedding day if we had condoms for the honeymoon…… her cake she made would have to be the worst thing about the wedding, she decided she’d bake our cake , which pissed me off because being a country gal I was looking forward to store bought cake..
Anyway, she made one cake, it fell apart. So she made a second cake, it fell apart. She was so irritated that the third attempt she put in double the eggs. It held together and it was pretty but you couldn’t cut it with a knife and we ended up throwing it to the chickens. I’m pretty sure we severely injured a few chickens when it hit LOL.
Now maybe if she made condoms…………
We got married outdoors. In August. In southern Oklahoma (where the humidity gets as high as the temperature). We’d already had to spray the white chairs set up to keep the ants off. The wonderful friend who officiated was Australian and he had never performed a wedding ceremony, even though he was a licensed minister. (This had to do with being a psychologist serving at a leper colony in his youth.) He was nervous. He had the book open and was reading the ceremony. A little bug popped in and started crawling up the page. Bruce turned the page and the bug happily flipped over and started crawling across the new page. My hubby-to-be and I bit the insides of our cheeks until we bled. Then we gave in to the giggles. Bruce was laughing. Greg was laughing. I laughed so hard my hat almost fell off. My pregnant-due-to-pop-any-moment matron of honor laughed. The best man laughed… When we tried to explain, no one else thought it was funny, least of all the parents – on either side.
Something must have taken, though. We celebrate our 25th Anniversary next week.
This is one of my best memories of my wedding day, but I suppose other people might put it down as a worst.
Right in the middle of the ceremony, when the entire church was listening to me and my other half exchange vows, my niece, who was about five at the time, asked in a very serious, very thoughtful and very penetrating voice, “Mummy, why do little girls need daddies?” Unsurprisingly, the church wasn’t so quiet after that.