Worst wedding you’ve ever been to...

I officiated a wedding that someone I have known for years asked me to do as a favor. I cut my usual fee in half and at the last minute the bride asks me to take off even more for a wedding I had to drive an hour to get to. I agreed because she had a real sob story about her mom's brain cancer and I can be a softy now and then. I arrive 30 minutes early as I always do and bride is running around in sweats, no hair, no makeup yelling at everyone in her bridal party. When actual guests arrive I greet them and let them know things were running behind and to go ahead and have a seat while the bride finishes getting ready. Then I hear the bride scream that she has to make her FH's favorite tea or he won't drink anything at all. The woman had not even showered yet. The groom and best man leave about 20 minutes after I arrived (10 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to start) to pick up the bride's mother!!!! Meanwhile wedding party and family members are just walking in and out of the "bridal suite" because they have sandwich platters in there but actual guests are sitting around waiting for a ceremony and dinner! Finally after being gone more than an hour the bride's mother arrives and is quickly seated. Here is where my heart went out, she clearly was not aware of what was happening, had fought the groom about leaving her home, and began shouting things at me like "who are you?" "what are YOU doing here?" I felt for her. The MOH asks me when I need to leave. I think she saw the look on my face. I told her I had to be somewhere else at a specific time so she turns right around and shouts into the bridal suite that they had me till the time I had to be somewhere. Another 20 minutes later and the bride is finally ready. Everyone lines up and from the hall we hear the bride screaming obscenities at everyone around her. Classy! The best man had to play music on his phone, no speaker, and when we got to the vows the bride began with "I couldn't stand you when I met you." Real nice! As soon as I pronounced the couple I grabbed the license and signed as fast as I could. The poor couple I greeted two hours before stood up before I even finished signing and walked out. I don't blame them. My FW calls it the Children of The Corn wedding and it is by far the worst wedding I have ever seen. And I had a couple show up 20 minutes late with all their guests and without a marriage license!

I'd say it was probably my partner's sibling's wedding. Get ready for a bit of tea.

1) Since we were family, we came about 1.5 hours early for pictures. They didn't have drinks/ food there, and the poor bridal party had been there even longer. Hot and uncomfortable.

2) The wedding was on a Friday, out of town (about 7 hours away) on my birthday weekend. Little did they know that originally my partner had been planning to take me on a trip that weekend and propose....so yea, that got switched around - he proposed a few months later before Christmas.

3) During the pictures, there was one set where the groom wanted "just family." So I stepped off to the side to wait, and the groom jokingly said to my partner "well, if you went ahead and married her, she'd be able to stay in the pictures." ....le sigh. He didn't know that we'd been planning to get engaged, and I thought it was a little bemusing that he's over here in his maybe 2 year relationship talking some noise about our 8 years. ...Sure buddy, okay.

4) Due to the lack of food I'm guessing, a bridesmaid passed out during the ceremony. So that was something.

5) We're not religious, but the new lady and now the groom apparently are. Her grandfather's speech during the ceremony included one of those uncomfortable "marriage is between a man and a woman" pieces for pretty much no reason (...this wedding is between a man and a woman, so just be happy with that sir.) Then her vows included a bunch of ye olde vows about serving her husband. I think my eyebrows went up into my hair. Both my partner and I put on our sunglasses almost at the same time, just trying to sort of hide some shock.

6) No booze, no music, no dancing. Like the town from footloose. Following the reception, which did have AMAZING food - so props on that yall, the fam went back to his parent's house. I brought out the moonshine and did shots with his gramma and we all had a great party at the house. ...when life gives you super religious lemons....you spike the lemonade.

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Whelp, that's flippin' horrifying. Guess I've got a nice low bar to try to exceed.

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That had me squeamish until the bit about the moonshine with gramma. WOW!!!

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And every time I get anxious that everyone will be bored and hate us forever, I think about that wedding a breathe a sigh of relief it won't be anywhere close to that tacky chaos.

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That's insane!!

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" ...when life gives you super religious lemons....you spike the lemonade."

This had me rolling! lol

Lucky to have been in mostly good weddings so far... I think couples need to be aware of their "audience" - it's always very nice of the couple to explain when there's unique cultural pieces to the ceremony --- and keeping it to a manageable time frame versus expecting everyone to just know what's happening.

Hopefully I’m not too late to reply!
The first day of being officially bf/gf my FH asked me to be his date to a friends wedding. Here we go...
The bride and groom live in the same small city as us and yet held their wedding almost 2 hours away in the middle of nowhere. It was outdoors with a gazebo over a stagnant pond with a million bugs everywhere. Then the reception was held right next to that. It was HOT out. The ceremony was super long, they closed the open bar 20 minutes in so you even had to pay for water, someone STOLE the cake topper, they passed the mic for speeches to whoever wanted to give one and the grooms (drunk?) father proceeded to give a VERY lengthy prayer/speech that boarded on uncomfortable long enough that they decided to let him keep taking while they pushed tables through to the buffet, someone sort of whispered a first dance announcement which was apparently being held under the gazebo and no one knew so no one went over, and she asked my FH to wear a doctor who cosplay (since it was their wedding theme) so he did even though his coat is wool and it was blistering hot out and she just gave him a passing hello (which I get brides are busy on their day of but I saw her standing around more than once or coming back to talk to other friends and not acknowledging him)
someone brought their dog so that kinda made up for it...

A few moments from various weddings I've been to that I remember... I don't remember any one wedding being a special disaster, but I remember moments from a variety of weddings that were kinda..."special"...

1. My uncle's wedding. I was 8 years old. It was held at a country club at a golf course. For some reason, they seated my uncle's siblings (my dad and his other 4 brothers and sisters) and their families) at a table near the door where everyone was going in and out to the veranda. It was rainy and windy outside and every time someone went in or out the door, everything on our table would get blown around. As they got drunker, my dad and his brothers started shouting "Thar she blows!" every time the door opened.

2. My mom's brother's wedding... His wife was a real piece of work and made it quite clear she wanted nothing to do with the family. During the Locomotion, my uncle grabbed my mom to join the train line dance thingy, and put her in front of himself so he could dance with her. The new wife was right in front of her. As soon as the song ended, my 'aunt' whirled around and screamed at my mother "YOU WILL NEVER COME BETWEEN HIM AND ME AGAIN!"

3. Fast forward to their daughter's wedding a couple years ago. We're all out on the dance floor and I'm dancing with my cousin. Doesn't that same aunt get in between me and my cousin while we're dancing! Whatever, I went and danced with a friend.

4. My first wedding... My late husband had these friends who were real weird anyway. But i had just moved to the area and none of my friends from home wanted to make the trip to be bridesmaids. So I asked her and he asked his friend to be in the wedding party. We go to their wedding about 6 months before ours, and they make quite a production over the fact that they are paying for every single thing themselves, and no one is helping them pay for it. I hated the bridesmaids dress, but I kept my mouth shut because it wasn't my day and I wasn't the bride. Fast forward to my wedding day. The former groom accosts my mother, who he has never met before, and starts swearing at her about all kinds of outrages from his own wedding. Then he pulls me aside, gestures around the reception, and says "It must be nice having Daddy pay for everything." Then a few hours later, pulls me aside again and says, "Looks like you got your revenge for that bridesmaids dress from our wedding"... Nice.