Best/worst: Weddings you have attended?

Best:


Wedding with huge floral arrangements all over the reception and ceremony, plus huge cake. Biggest cake I ever saw in person.
Worse:
When the bride cried when her mom leaving her wedding crying because her dad came. Recently divorced parents. He cheated on his mom with much younger semi celebrity. Quite a few people cried seeing the pain that day.

Best: I have lots of examples of lovely wedding experiences and they all come down more to the wedding couple's gracious, relaxed attitude and the warmth and conviviality of the venue and guests, than to any particular detail. This is why I maintain that as long as people provide a comfortable setting (that is, not too extremely hot or cold, plus enough seats for everyone), enough food to feed everyone, and a schedule that prioritizes spending time together celebrating a joyful event (so, no long gaps, no long disappearances by the couple for photos, minimal planned activities that impede socializing, etc.), then the rest is just icing.

Worst: One where I was voluntold to work both a wedding and day after brunch (set up, serving, clean up) for a close family member. I guess I could have said no, but this was a really close family member and if I had said no, I would have been abandoning the person who's home was "hosting" the events (also voluntold) to even more work. It was a very unpleasant experience all around. The cherry on the top was that the bride never spoke to, acknowledged, or thanked us the whole weekend.

Best: an intimate wedding of a close friend. We were about 20 people and everyone had the best time just talking and enjoying the evening. The food was delicious, the ambiance was romantic, just overall a beautiful celebration.


Worst: went to a wedding where the bride spent the entire night complaining over every little detail. Even made the bridal party walk the aisle again because it wasn't timed the way she wanted. Everyone left either right after dinner or right before the cake cutting.

Don’t really have a best
Worst:
Outside in the heat I’m the middle of no where and hard to find, drove past it got lost. Started late. “Meal” was served pot luck style with veggie trays and home made sandwiches on white bread cut Into triangles while the newlyweds ate jersey Mike’s in front of everyone. No alcohol, no dancing. Dirt floors and port-a-potties. I left shortly after munching on some broccoli to get food. On the plus side they did have incredibly sweet vows.

Best: I went to a carnival style (adults only) wedding. It was the most fun I’ve ever had at a wedding. There was a popcorn station, a cotton dandy station. The bride and groom had the guests participating in carnival style games. The food served was fair/festival food. It was delicious.


Worst: Went to a wedding on a farm and it was hot and smelled so bad the whole time. The caterers were late and the bride refused to start the wedding until her drunk father sobered up and the ceremony started about 2 hours later.

Best:. All of them! I have been to over 20 weddings from over the top to sweet and simple. Each one is unique in its own way whether location, vows, food, decorations, music, dessert....I can't really pinpoint a best! Looking back, something stood out at each one.


Worst:. The one that didn't happen. My cousin was getting married out of state and we all had nonfundable tickets. The bride broke up with him the week before (was having an affair) so we all went anyway and turned it into a family reunion as we consoled the jilted groom.

#1 Buffets are the worst! If you have more than 75 people you need two buffets. Standing in line to get food that's not extraordinary (which it usually isn't) is a total bummer.

#2 Cash Bars. Expecting guests to pay for drinks Is no bueno

View Quoted Comment And voluntold is now my new favorite word 😂😂

As I’m thinking about all the weddings I’ve been to I am realizing the best ones were really more about the guest list than anything else. When there is a really fun crowd you don’t need a lot of extras to have a great time! And some of my least favorite weddings have been ones that I didn’t know a lot of people in attendance or the guests were older or just really boring.

One bad experience I've had at a wedding was the wedding was a buffet and that was my first time experiencing it. I don't want to stand in line for food. I don't see the wedding elegance in it personally.
Another was the dj they had was just awful... I love to dance! It's my favorite thing about weddings. This dj was playing songs over when no one asked. Also he just couldn't bring people to the floor! You gotta try and make people want to dance! I can honestly say me and my fiance were the only ones that danced the whole night! I think DJs are a huge part of ur wedding and they gotta make it fun!

I’ve actually never been to a wedding that I didn’t like at all. I’ve been to weddings where the food wasn’t great but everything else was good. I suppose the worst thing I’ve experienced was a large gap between the ceremony and cocktail hour. The venues were only ten minute apart, but we ended up having two or three (I can’t exactly remember) hours with nothing to do. It was an hour from home, so it’s not like we had a hotel room to go back to for relaxing and didn’t have enough time to go home.
The best wedding I’ve been to had everything: great food, awesome DJ, guests that all wanted to dance, open bar, great photographer, gorgeous location, and beautiful decorations.

Some of the worst weddings I’ve been to had long waits for the buffets, cold food, huge bridal parties, far distance in between the ceremony and the reception, and ceremony was way too long.

Worst:
#1) Wedding in AZ... in August... at noon. 🥵 It was 120 degrees. My boyfriend & I were dripping sweat from the walk from the hotel to the car. We were late, missed ceremony. AC barely worked at reception.
#2) Super nice wedding at a hotel with 200+ guests... cash bar. 😑
Best:I’ve been to several destination weddings with fewer than 50 guests. Amazing venues, intimate feeling, fabulous food & drinks. Interestingly, none had DJs or dancing, didn’t miss it!

Worst was the one I mentioned in the food thread.... but it gets worse.

It was my Ex's family, so you've got the minor complication of my own distaste for anything connected with him (...and his cousins are decent people, even if he's not, but ... association).

As family, we were told that the ceremony would require women's shoulders to be covered and men to wear a head covering.

We found shawls, dresses with sleeves, etc.

Bride walks down the aisle in a strapless dress. (Her tulle veil covered her shoulders, I guess?)

Bride's family was also from another country, and had a bunch of really interesting traditions... that no one explained or introduced to the majority of the guests, so we were all left feeling very confused as to the flow of the wedding, when the food would come out, and what was happening with the traditions. (Would have LOVED to have known so we could all have participated, or at least understood, basically.)

And then there was the food, which the bride and groom *were apologizing about* during the wedding.

Best:

Can I saw our own? Seriously, we had a great time and people complimented us on how good the food was and how much fun they had!

I don't know, after the mess of the wedding with no protein, it's all uphill from there!

View Quoted Comment Second this!
My least favorite wedding was mostly because of a generally unenthusiastic/boring crowd. No one wanted to dance, and lots of people left after dinner even though the reception went on another few hours. I was a bridesmaid so I tried to be *very* energetic and upbeat to help the bride have fun still. 😆

Best: I went toa modest barn wedding and just had a blast. Fun music, tons of food all night, everything was just nice.


Worst: was invited without my fiance because we weren't married. Went anyway because it was for a close high school friend and all of our group was going, so I knew I wouldn't be alone. Well, they sat everyone outside family and wedding party randomly, so I ended up at a table with a 4-child family, a single older woman, and two random college friends. Dinner took more than 3 hours. The kids were so hungry they were crying. The wedding was "black tie" but all kinds of corners were cut so it was frankly a terrible guest experience. The bride's uncle made suggestive comments about me on my way to the bathroom. Left immediately after dinner.

View Quoted Comment Oh yikes! That sounds horrible!

Best: A beautiful wedding in a ballroom in Pennsylvania. I've only see that sort of stuff on TV. Huge centerpieces and beautiful flowers. The food was amazing.
Worst:
Ex boyfriends sister was 8 months pregnant getting married. She asked me to be a bridesmaids changed her mind and replaced me with my ex's ex girlfriend. And then when the husband was giving the toast he started saying how he originally wanted to be with his wife's cousin.

View Quoted Comment The carnival wedding sounds so fun! 🍿🎪

Best wedding was one that took place at a zoo. I haven't had any bad weddings.