speaking of wedding planning... what is the worst wedding you have attended?

I think the *worst* one was friends of my H whom we have not seen since.

We were casually invited along - no invite - and we said we would attend after the ceremony. Spent time getting ready, nice dress, curled hair, sorted ourselves for a fun night out.

we arrived at the hotel and asked the clerk for the wedding reception of the happy couple. She did a double take and said 'umm..well they are all sitting through in that room' and we walked in to about 15 people sitting round a coffee table.

This was it. No reception. Having had no dinner and counting on a buffet we had to eat several bags of golden wonder, i drank a lot, sang a few songs after being egged on, and then we went to a pub with another couple.

Very odd state of affairs really....

Holy crap Jules........ you still in touch with the pair?

This thread is amazing so far. I have never been to a really bad wedding. Been to a few where there was alot of waiting about for stuff and standard food but nothing major.

More stories please! They are really cheering me up while I am sat at work with a stinking cold! ?

Ive been to 5 in the past year and hate to say it but...my best mates wedding was the worst..and i was bridesmaid

The venue was lovley, just too big for the amount of guests, which led to very little atmosphere and times of quietness where no one knew what to say or do...

the kitchen to the place was down some stairs, through an alleyway outside so by the time the food got to us it was cold....

the bar only stocked 'house ' stuff so no branded drinks....

bride and groom had a row because groomw asnt sposed to get drunk as they were supposed to try for baby 2 that night..

lets just say, id have been very dispointed if it were my day

Oh flo, did they make their fall out public then?????? baby details n all????

Public to those around them at the time yes....it was hideous, i didnt knw what to say or do so i tried to avert peopels attention by putting my bouquet in my hair (no, i dont know either lol).

..even tho shes my best friend i have to say its her fault as she quite a meticulous, organised to the second type of girl..its like 'we need another baby by this date so must try at this time'..shame really.

plus my bridemaid dress was minging lol

Oh my some of you really have attended some stinkers!! The poor couples, I would be so gutted if my day ended up being like that or worse still someone writing a thread about it on here!! lol!!

That said my OH and I attended one the first year we got together and it was dreadful.

We were attending the ceremony and reception and as it was far away we travelled down the night before and stayed at the reception hotel/venue the night before and the night of the wedding. The hotel was lovely - only redeeming factor of the day really but from the morning of the big day it started to go slowly down hill.

Groom decided to have another mini stag the night before with the guys who had travelled to be there and was no where to be found the next day. The Bride was losing the plot and when she was waiting at the hotel was getting so freaked out she fainted and bumped her head and ripped part of her dress!! Hotel first aider wasn't happy with giving her the ok so they called a friend whos a paramedic and she gave her the once over and said if she calms down she should be ok to go on with the day.

So stiff drink or 5 (not sure its what i would recommend after a bump to the head!!) later the bride seems to be a lot cheerier but still no sign of the groom then the police show up with a naked man wrapped in some blanket in the back of the car - yep it was the groom.

We don't quite know what happened or how he managed to lose his clothes, wallet all his credit cards etc and to be honest its still a very sore subject with the bride.

But they did get him sober enough and dressed in time to get him to the church.

Unfortunately because of the delay of the ceremony everything else was running behind - the photographer had two weddings as did the videographer so they lost out on a lot of time and pictures/footage etc.

Then it came to the meal (apparently the food was nearly ruined due to the delay but in all fairness it was warmish and edible so we all coped) and the atmosphere from the mornings events hung like a black cloud.

The bride was seriously cheesed off - the mother of the bride looked like she could kill him and the father refused to mention the groom in his speech. The groom could barely smile or open his eyes he was that hanging.

The whole day was doom and gloom and we felt so uncomfortable as did all the guests because they kept going off and you could hear the couple and their families all having blazing rows in the corridors/toilets/other rooms it was awful. And the poor reception guests had no idea what they were turning up to (I even text a few of my friends who were on their way to warn them!!) - so we did what everyone else did and just got very merry, tried to ignore it and vowed our day would never be like this ....... I pray to god!!!!!

Sorry didn't actually realise how long that was!!!!! I'll shut up now!! ️?️

My friend had a really small completely unplanned wedding. She got married in a registry office in town which is in the middle of a concrete jungle, the wedding breakfast was held in a local resturant and the table was in the middle of other diners and the evening reception was at her flat.

There were no invitations and she had even changed her surname to her Husbands before they got married so they were Mr and Mrs ****** before the ceremony. They giggled all the way through their vows and their exit song was 'It Must Have Been Love' by Roxette as they asked a 'friend' to put together a CD and that is what they put as the first song...

Jules - jesus!! that sounds terrible. Not surprised you left early.

I cant say i've ever been to a bad one. I've only ever been to 4 weddings. one was when i was about 5 and i was BM, another was when i was about 13, one was last year and the other one was my own!

OMG!!! ?

@Claire: That is just shocking! ?

Good god Claire!!! I cannot think of anything worse - what a state!!

I'm pretty certain that had you ended this sentence with "all black people", you might have been flamed hugely by now. Racism against the travelling community and/or gypsies is rife in this country. A good story about a horrible wedding but just found this first bit unecessary. Not starting a fight again, so will leave it at that.

FTLOMB - she didn't say all gypsy travellers are like that, just that the bridal party happened to all be gypsy travellers. I don't think that is being racist.

Let's not get all PC round here - it's a fact that many weddings involving gypsy travellers are known for their extravagance and showmanship as part of their culture.

That's all. It's not a slur. Just an observation of a particular demographic that are known for a certain type of wedding, that's all.

Because Claire seems to be unable to:

WHS!

One of the very few times I agree with ajdown!

It is well documented that a lot of venues have problems with the travelling community. I have heard reports of places being set on fire, TVs being thrown from windows etc and also what Clurr mentioned.

The worst wedding I went to was my first one! Seriously, everything went wrong - it poured with rain and when the groom picked up the little bridesmaid so her shoes wouldn't get muddy his silk flower buttonhole left colour on her dress - my mum had to cover the splodge with a ribbon from a pew end. After the ceremony we did photos - the TOG asked me to feed the horse (we had a horse & carriage) and it decided to empty it's bladder, splashing horse pee all over my dress. People kept standing on the train of my dress at the reception. The venue had booked one of our rooms out for another party so my guests had to wait in a corridor while they rearranged the furniture from buffet to dancefloor. The TOG's camera jammed before we cut the cake - so no cake or evening photos. The disco didn't turn up (serves me right for booking a 'friend') but the TOG redeemed himself by finding an alternative. And the best man substituted out overnight case for one filled with balloons and rubbish - so we had no toiletries, toothbrushes or clean clothes for our first night.

Apart from that, the worst one I went to was where the Bride's parents had organised a raffle at the reception to help them recoup the cost!

Genius... I must remember that one.

I've only been to a handful of weddings in my life (3 being this year!) And I have to say they were all lovely, although one of them was a church wedding and the vicar kept blabbering on about how to women should fulfill the needs of the male! If I was the bride I think I would have politly told him to shut up and get on with the service!x

??

Thats awful!

I've never been to a bad wedding, some have been more enjoyable than others but never one that i'd class as bad

I went to a wedding where someone went through all the pressies and cards and nicked the money and also some from the grooms mum's bag.

what made this worse is that the couple had exclusive use of the venue so it was one of the guests or a member of staff!

there was also one when a relative grabbed the mic off the DJ and sang then tried to promote their CD but apparently he did ask permission b4 hand, it was still a bit cringey!!!

i havent seen anyone having rows, being drunk or battered and definatly no soft porn at the reception!!!

There are some great stories on here.

I think the worst wedding I went to was that of an ex-colleague. The actual service was nice, it was in a little church in a village in the North East. Really lovely and thoughtful, but the reception was awful. They had a nightclub that they had hired for everyone to attend at afterwards. But it was a really tacky place in more ways than just being naff, my shoes stuck to the carpet. It stank of stale booze and vomit.

The skirt of the bride's was made of white net (you know the stuff that little girls tutu's are made of but white), and all in a big circle around her, it didn't look too bad when she was standing up, but at one point at about 4pm in the afternoon she sat on this sticky floor with the skirt bunched up around her, pint of cider in one hand, fag in the other effing and blinding at her kids for being too in the way. I just found that depressing. The food was awful as well. It was a perfectly standard party buffet. Sarnies sausage rolls etc. That's fine by me but god knows how old this stuff was as the bread was hard and the pastry on the sausage rolls really flat and soggy.

I'm not usually a snob but they just made no effort to make it special or to include their guests after the wedding and I really did stay just long enough to be polite!

Sneaking on here at wor - tut tut...

The worst wedding I have been to was probably of the freidns of my ex - I didn't know them very well. Their church was really, really evangelical, so the vicar kept trying to get everyone converted. His sermon was basically " T & J say they love each other now, but without god's love they will fail each other, cheat on each other and divorce. So we all have to beg god's assistance in keeping them together, because they won't manage it themselves" erm...? WTF?

The reception was really wierd as well - only one drink over a 2 hours "drinks reception" it was really hot and I was gasping for a drink!! there was no music or dancing after the meal, so everyone just stood around going "so what happens now??" and then we went home.

And that evening my ex broke up with me, so it was a really depressing day, overall!!!

My brothers wedding was pretty special. His bride had a dress with a low cut back & you couldn't fail to see her tattoo on her back of a butterfly on her shoulder blade. Now, each to their own when it comes to tattoos but all you heard for hours afterwards was Great Aunt Ethel (yes she really did have a Great Aunt Ethel!) banging on about that 'thing' that was caught in her veil! The church service was CofE but actually very high brow & went on for almost 2 hours of severe bible bashing (sorry to anyone who is religeous but this was pretty extreme for a CofE ceremony).

The reception was held in a very elderly three star hotel which I'm sure must have been rated three star on a good day. The staff were rude, the food was cold & tastless & the carpets throughout were sticky. The father of the bride got drunk. In fact, he got beyond drunk. He was always a bit 'odd' anyway but when drunk he became positively letchy. He was groping anything that was female with a pulse between the ages of 12 & 100. He tried to put his hand up my skirt in front of my boyfriend at the time. He did all this right in front of his wife who was practically in tears. He also lost his way 4 times during his speech as he was so drunk so that in the end the best man took the speech off him & read it out on his behalf. Oh, and the best man was a nightmare as his 'date' was another mans wife. All in all, it was a very um... classy wedding & I would rather get married in a registery office with 2 witnesses off the street than have a wedding like that!

Oh god, that reminds me of my cousin's wedding when another cousin's boyfriend complimented my - jeez, what was the word he used? - "front buns" or something. In front of his girlfriend/my cousin. And my boyfriend at the time. And my Nanny. When we were eating our main course. But the rest of the wedidng was good so might have been unfair for me to slate a whole wedding based on that!

Can I just say ??? at some of the stories on here! You couldn't make them up!

I have only been to a handful of weddings in my adult life so I have no bad experiences yet. But from this post it seems that we will all attend a 'bad' wedding at some point - fingers crossed it won't be mine!

X

The worst one i went to i had no transport as we flew over to northern ireland, well the venue was a 45 minute drive in convoy apart from the uncle that was driving us, needed to stop and get fuel and got lost and it took us 1.5 hours to get there and when we did the bride wouldn't let us have a drink as we had to do the posed photo shots and i was gasping as it was a really hot day! the rest of the wedding was fine apart from that the worst i have been to were the ones where i got hungry and nipped to the corner shop for supplies

That reminds me of most of the episodes of DTTB!

I'm bumping this one because it's just really made me laugh ?

I've never been to a really terrible wedding, haven't been to that many really! But it's funny reading about the others.

Winner so far for me has to be 'oh look the cake is moving' LOLOL

I went to one 18 mths ago, it was an 80 mile round trip for us with baby and we were only invited to the evening reception.

When we got there and saw the bride, she said the speeches had run over and they were running a little late. Everyone was hanging around in the bar area wondering what was happening and becoming increasingly frustrated with having to stand up and wait. We managed to find a settee to sit on and entertain little one. After about 3 hours, yes 3 hours, the band and dance floor laying people were still none the wiser when they were getting into the room and it was then that we decided to make our excuses and leave.

As you can imagine, we thought we would have been able to have some nibbles at the evening reception, so didn't have any dinner beforehand, but ended up buying out Macdonalds on the way home.

When we met them a few months later for some lunch, I thought I'd bring it up in conversation. I said what happened in the evening then, she said what are you talking about, as though nothing was wrong. I said why such a delay, she said oh i don't know, but it actually worked out better for us that way?????????

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I think the worst wedding I was at was my OH cousins...it was on the 13th July - which is a bank holiday in NI after the orangemen marching....

Many of you will know the vast majority of NI residents are either protestant or catholic.

This was a 'mixed' wedding. So those of the protestant religion were either A) knackered for spending all day walking or / and B) hungover. Didnt create a great ambience.

It was a civil ceremony in a hotel - very quick & over in 5mins.

We than had to hang around the hotel with no tea or coffee or anything offered while they got their pictures taken. I'd say we were hanging around for about 3 and a half hours. I wasnt even drinking that much because we were flying to Ibiza the next day.

The speeches were very very personal & meant nothing to approx 90% of the room - all in jokes.

We were at a young table with a girl who doesnt eat. It was very obvious & I felt really conscious eating - as did OH. This girl grated non stop & just drunk coffee.

The evening entertainment was cr*p - cheesy cheesy DJ and then a karaoke. Well it was horrendus and a load of the brides friends turned up in jeans & vests for the evening do & took over the karaoke - they were actually kinda scary!

And there was no evening buffet to even get a break from the karaoke growlers!

So maybe not a truely awful day but it was not a wedding I could say we enjoyed.

And we were only invited cause they had to have 100 guests or else pay for the deficit.

*SHAMEFUL STORY*

I was at a wedding with an Ex - to be honest we should have been ex's a long time ago - and everyone knew it.

I really didnt want to be there & to make the day slightly better I got drunk - very very badly.

I ended the night throwing up at a table where the bride was over talking to people - ran out of the hotel, 1 mile into town & landed at a friends house. Left my bag, purse, camera, mobile everything at the hotel. The next day I think my parents could have killed me! I texted the Groom the next day to apologise profusely. And funny me & ex stayed together for another year after that!

I've never been to a bad wedding however there is a memorable one....I made it memorble for all the wrong reasons.

I was a bridesmaid at 13 for the friends of my parents, it was a church wedding boiling hot day i'd had half a ham sandwich and a glass of bucks fizz all day. We got to the chruch (couldn't tell you which one) walked down the aisle and the bridesmaids weren't being seated we stayed stood behind the could for the ceromony on some little steps. Just as the couple go to the 'I do' bit i felt really dizzy knew i was going to pass out, reached forward and grabbed the ribbon on the back of CBM dress and collapsed, ripping her dress in the process. My dad ran to pick me up and i screamed put me down daddy the whole way back up the aisle (i have no memory of this bit) got to the back of the church and was past a jug of water to drink, which i did. Turns out this jug of water had been specially blessed for some event r another by someone important and I drunk it, then the photographer had to go to the shop and get me something sugary to eat and drink as i couldn't stop shaking. After that i was fine and wedding progressed as normal. I did steal their limelight a bit. Oops