My in-laws went to a wedding out of town, for his cousin. It was an outside ceremony, but they were not told anything else. They were dressed properly for a wedding, but when they showed up everyone was sitting at picnic tables drinking from a keg of beer. They were so overdressed that they left right after the wedding and went to Wal-Mart for a wardrobe change. They were still dressed a little fancier than everyone else, but had fun at this VERY relaxed wedding.

At a friends wedding, the Best Man made quite a speech. He had been best friends with the groom for years, but being from a rural area, they lived in different towns and the two towns hate each other. Both men HATE each others town. Since the Bride was not from the same town as the groom, the Best Man who was a little drunk, went on for about 15 minutes about this. He proceeded to insult 1/2 of the guest and just wouldn't stop. We are not from either town, so we were quite entertained. It's the most memorable speech I have ever heard.

My DH and I had the Marine Corps swords at our wedding (this was before I joined). Well, I knew that the marines stop the couple on the way back down the isle and smack the bride in the butt and yell "Welcome to the United States Marine Corps" so I had a pie tin under my dress. My mom did NOT want this to happen and talked to the marines who promised her that they would not do it since she asked. My mom finally convinced me - sort of - to take the pie tin out from under my dress and just go get married. Guess what happened? we got stopped coming down the isle and I got hit on the butt so hard I thought the swords engraving that said United States Marine Corps would be engraved in my behind forever. My recruter is the one who hit me too.

My Dad was drunk when walking me down the isle and my mom lost her mind that day and was freaking out about everything! When it came time for us to leave the reception she banned us from going because the preacher didn't sign the marriage certificate yet so therefore we were not technicaly married yet. She called the preacher and woke him up at 11:20 and night and he said "Juanita, you've lost your mind. They are married. I'll sign the marriage license tomorrow at church."

And the best one was that my DH's cousin was secretly married in April but had the ceremony in October. His mom hated the bride and still to this day thinks they were married in October. The priest was actually one of his friends from somewhere and gave the worst cermon you'd ever here. He was holding a book and acting like he was reading out of it. The book was not the Bible but actually a book about sports!

I guess the funniest thing that happened at my wedding was my soon to be SIL.She got drunk and was dancing like a stripper on the dancefloor and everyone was laughing.Now she is a tall,very pretty girl and she had on a tight strappless gown on so you could imagine what it looked like.My MIL was appauled and stormed off!! Needless to say my BIL did marry her the following year and she still to this day doesn't admit she was drunk!!

Does anyone out there have a strange tradition they do at a wedding. My husband, his brothers and their old neighbors do. At every wedding they play "Wipe Out" and dance until the chorus when they drop to the floor, lift their legs in the air and kick them in the air until the chorus is over. I guess it's the drum beat. The first time I saw this no one had warned me. They are getting older and less physically fit, so that last time they did it the legs didn't quite go up! I really hope they invented this when they were 10 years old, but I'm afraid that this was an adult idea.

My husband and I had been living together for about 4 years and dating for about 9-10 years (met in my sophmore year of high school) before we finally got married. During the ceremony when the priest asked the standard "speak now or hold your peace" question *EVERYONE* said loudly "IT'S ABOUT TIME!"

It caught the priest so off guard that he turned to us asking if this was expected and okay. We laughed so hard.

One 'oopsie' moment... my snooty cousin's wedding, I am sitting in the 3rd or 4th pew and her *professional* singer starts singing this song... she is horrible, but that's beside the point. All of a sudden my cell phone starts vibrating, and immediately the speaker system starts going nuts. It's cutting out and making static. To this day I don't know if it's related, but I think it was. It screwed up the majority of the song, but it was almost a blessing... she was terrible!!

One PO'ed moment... same cousin, same wedding, we all get to the hall for the reception, hundreds of guests milling around waiting for food, etc. After almost two hours, all the guests are getting pissed off, some leaving, we find out that the wedding party rented a van and went bar hopping. So, bride's parents instruct the caterers to go ahead and start serving food to the angry mob. Bride gets there and is pissed that they had started putting food out on the buffet. It's been like three hours, it's past dinner time, and the invitation said dinner and reception immediately following. It didn't say 'wedding at 4 and reception at 7'! That would've been different. There were a few diabetics in the crowd that had to go into the kitchen and beg for scraps to keep from getting sick!!

My wedding was wonderful, just a few bumps... My DH was VERY drunk at the reception, and decided to make a speech, to me. He started off by saying my beautiful wife is in the bathroom !! But I was standing right in front of him !! Everyone laughed.
Soon after that a mystery man (probably one of my ex's) showed up univited and told my DH that I only married him because of our son!! (My Hubby had tears in his eyes after this) This person then disappeared and we still don't know who it was

Ok I got one too .. It was my best friends wedding day, after two years of planning her wonderful day, her darling oldest brother put tape on the bottom of her soon to be husbands shoes .... left shoe said HELP right shoe said ME .. poor guy didnt even know it was there until after the wedding when everyone commented on it ... and of course, the photographer managed to get a great close up!

My brother just got married this September. I was a bridesmade and was in a beautiful form fitting low cut thin spaghetti straped gown (thank goodness I'm smaller on top, the big chested girls were struggling to stay in place ) Well, my DH and kids missed the wedding because he didn't listen to the location and went to the wrong place! My DD was suppose to pass out bubbles and missed it. He leaves later to take the kids home and put them to bed. As SOON as my DH leaves a guy I've known since I was a kid (I use to go over to his house to play) asked me to dance. No problem, my DH wouldn't mind a dance. WELL dancing was difficult to do with a drunk person brething down my neck and trying to practicaly molest me on the dance floor! I told him "Thanks for the dance, I have to go check on some stuff now" He told me NO don't go and is holding me by the wrist so tight! I didn't ruin the wedding with yelling at him because my whole family would have beat the snot out of him at that moment and I just didn't want that happening on my brothers day. So ONE more dance it was. The whole time he's telling me he has loved me for almost 2 years. He wants to be my childrens father and he wants me to be his kids mother. That I'm perfect for him and if I just could leave my DH he would devote his whole life to me and family. I'm horrified. Not only is he drunk and holding my to where I can't leave freely, he's crossed the line! Did I mention he's been out of prison for a little over 2 years! Goes on to tell me I'm the most beautiful person there and I've always treated him like a real person when he got out of jail. Let me treat you the way you need to be treated and just come home with me tonight. I finally thought enough is enough! I said I'm sorry I have to go to the bathroom I can't hold it anymore, and I jerked back as hard as I could to break his grasp on my wrists and jetted to the bathroom (even though I didn't have to go) No one knew what happened! Later that night he even hit on my SIL who was the BRIDE!
Only my mom is aware of what happened and she promised not to say anything. My family would kill him if they knew. I was so worried that they caught this on the wedding video and that my DH would see it. He still doesn't know what happened either and in order to keep my DH out of jail I will not tell him.

GAH! KOLMAR!!

Girl, I bet you had a pucker factor of like 148 during those "dances!" You're such a pro, though--

Good girl!

--Knox--

HOLY FREAKING COW! KOLMAR! You are one cool chick under pressure. Holy crapola.

Rachel

I'm always calm under pressure (unless it deals with cake decorating ) I don't get phased by much.


mrsright--your mom's comment was totaly off the wall!

i have one

a friend of mine made the announcement that she was getting married and all the women, i mean ALL of them, decided that they were going to be in the wedding party..i was asked to be a bridesmaid and then i got bumped up to matron of honour...her wedding was huge, she had the maid of honour, he had 3 best men, 17 bridesmaids 17 groomsmen, jr bride and jr groom, minature bride and groom, 5 flower girls, two ring bearers and 1 bell ringer...i told her that i'll go and sit in the pew so there will be someone out there..as it was there were less than 20 people in the church...the pastor wouldn't let her light the unity candle and wouldn't let them read their own vows (is that legal?) her wedding reception was a nightmare...no organization at all..the food was catered but everyone rushed the tables and started piling their plates, no one made plates for the bride and groom (there wasn't a head table) and i remember her reaching around someone to get a bite of food...they hacked away at her wedding cake and the dj didn't show...another bridesmaid and i stood near the exit watching all of this in horror and we cut out to popeyes to get something to eat....it was horrifying...i didn't stay too long after that..

I agreed to stay and serve a wedding cake I made and delivered.

Came time for the bride and groom to cut the cake. The father of the bride told me to stand back. They handed the groom and knife and he threw it from halfway across the room directly into the middle tier of the cake.

His name was NOT Daniel Boone and I was really nice to him for the rest of the evening.

Wow Kolmar. That guy's a freak. Sorry you had to go through that.

jelligirl, oh my gosh, when I wrote a weekly newspaper column on planning weddings, one of my columns was about this very thing!!!!! A distant cousing had 2 Flower girls and ring bearers, miniature bride and groom, jr bridesmaids......and more! I concluded the column with "....the bride and groom looked very nice. Or I think they did. There were so many people at the altar that I couldn't really find the bride and groom!" The column was entitled "Just Say No!"

My DD was hired for a wedding, just out of college with a degree in food service mgmt, only experience was several summers of cooking at a kid's camp. She was hired as a cook, only. The mother of the bride was in charge of everything, just needed DD to direct MOB's crews in the kitchens. Yes, kitchenS - three beach houses on three different sides of the same corner on the wonderful NC coast. The plan was a sit-down dinner for 150, with their choice of shrimp, prime rib, or stuffed chicken breast as indicated on their responses to invitations.

DD went down to help MOB with shopping, lost out on quantities as MOB proceded to buy enough of everything for everybody (quick jump from 150 to 450 units to be prepared). DH and I went down to lend a hand - and legs. It was "fix pan, run across street and upstairs to put in oven, run back down stairs and across to third house, check what's in that oven, run back to first house to fix next pan". MOB's crews were wonderful, but Espanic, with only one who spoke english, so all directions had to be translated through her. The wedding party was staying in one of the beach houses with their own oriental cook doing their meals, and also doing the appetizers for the wedding, Anything needing to be cooked there had to fit in around the other cook's schedule.

DH and I made first run to wedding/reception hall on day of wedding with fruit & cheese trays, found that what was a reasonable kitchen had been completely filled with the rental dishes - not an inch of counter space left free. The main floor of the building was set up for wedding, guests to be moved downstairs for appetizers while crews rearranged for dinner on main floor, so dishes couldn't be moved until after wedding. It was a wild day, DD and crews left with most of the food while DH and I waited for the last of the Prime Rib to finish cooking. We started carrying the last of the food in just as guests were moving to the lower floor - only one set of steps, and only one bathroom, right there on the stair landing.

Managed to get the serving tables set up and dishes in place when Bride decides there might not be enough food, so she wants servers rather than self-serve buffet line. So the crew that should have been serving beverages was now on the food line leaving no one to get out the beverages. We had one server carving prime rib on the line, one on his knees in the kitchen carving with a pocket knife trying to keep the line moving so everyone would get fed before midnight.

The friend who had recommended my daughter for the job raved about everything - the guests were never aware of all the panic going on in the kitchen, and MOB and the happy couple were quite pleased with how it all turned out. DD went on to successfully cater many events, but always maintained full control of quantities. What a learning experience for us all!

Two weeks before my wedding my younger brother ended up in ICU on a vent and didn't get off until the night before we got married. He's always had health problems but that took my mother out of hte planning and turned everything upside down. She is the kind of person who goes with the flow so she said we shouldn't postpone or anything.
I'm still mad at my dad over what he did during our reception, he couldn't find time to buy us even a nice card but he did manage to get a sympathy card for my husband and gave it to him in front of everyone. We have never been close in the first place so it wasn't like we have a good relationship and I thought it was funny, I was humiliated.


My cousin had everyone mad about her marriage, they decided that it was too much work to have a church wedding but they wanted all the trappings of a wedding. They insisted that my husband buy a white shirt, black pants, etc to be a "groomsman" at a courthouse marriage. They each had 3 attendents and no one but parents and siblings for that. SHe had insisted that her mother throw her a bridal shower where they invited a bunch of people who didn't get to see her get married. The day they got married I was about 6 months pregnant and on medication to keep me from throwing up all day but they got mad because after they were married we wouldn't go to a grill/bar with a 3 year old when I couldn't handle the smell to sit there for 2 hours before going somewhere else to eat.
The next day they had their reception so we had to go to that when it was terribly boring.
A week later they had another reception and a dance and were mad that we didn't come to that. We had traveled 6 hours for the first event and the second was 2 hours in the other direction and we would have had to get a room and everything for it.
She's normally very nice but the second they started talking wedding she turned into a monster. I was very glad that I wasn't able to make the cake because of my morning sickness.

WOW! rhondab, good for her! does she have a website?

I was a wedding coordinator at an outdoor wedding - a very nice rural setting next to a farm. Between the ceremony and reception a calf got out of the field it was fenced in and was approaching the reception tent. Some of the guests (the young guys) wanted to go try to tip it, so the bride's mother says, "do something with that cow". I'm a city slicker with no cow experience wondering how the @#$% I'm going to wrangle a cow and get it to move. Luckily it was less interested in my attention then the goings on at the reception, and started to retreat as I approach it.

Ooh ooh you know what we could add to this thread? What was the weirdest gift you got for your wedding?

My parents got some kind of ash tray - they don't smoke.

My husband and I got this HUGE boombox radio thing from his two aunts and cousin..... it made no sense whatsoever. It was some heavy duty thing that construction workers would have - like if you dropped it it was sort of "encaged" and should be protected..... definitely not something we registered for.... it was like they ran into a store at the last minute, grabbed something, and left..... heck if you don't have time to give a gift - throw some money in an envelope - you could at least do that....

I was kinda surprised by some people that didn't show up at the last minute (RSVP is for a reason people! esp. w/ wedding planning!) and also w/ people who didn't give a gift at all - not even a "congrats you're married" card..... I mean i certainly can appreciate money issues - but heck a $20 gift certificate to a restaurant or something like that - is that really going to break someone's budget or put them into debt? It's not like I'm massively wealthy but if I was invited to a wedding and went and ate food and cake and stuff - and was a LOCAL person (not traveling from out of town) I would think you could at the very least send a card..... it was really hard to write thank you notes to those people! Um... thank you for coming....... hope you had fun...... It was weird too -our realtor asked to be invited and said specifically to us "we (she and her husband) give good presents" and to this day I don't think we got anything at all from them...... just weird...

The very first wedding cake I ever did was for my sister-in-law's wedding. The bottom tier turned out so crooked that I used graham crackers to shim up the bottom to make it more level! I still get comments on how great the cake looked though, so it must not have been too bad.

Oh my gosh... What a page-turner thread! We need to put a book together of all this stuff and sell it to brides "WHY your future guests are being honest when they give you feedback"...

1) Bro was invited to a coworker's "cake reception"... He and his other coworkers showed up, $75 registry gift in hand... No one there... Not even a bartender... They thought they heard some people, go to find the bride & groom having a rather lavish meal with enough empty place settings for ALL of the "cake reception" guests to eat.. Several turned around, checks in hand and left, bro ate his CUPCAKE and left as well. They were PISSED! Lesson learned: if you have to only invite some guests to the reception, make sure the dinner is COMPLETELY over and there isn't a spot left for anyone else, and if there is, tell them to "sit down and eat"...

2) A friend had her reception in July at her family's farm. Polka band and tent. I was invited and asked to cut the cake and help with getting food ready and such. Well, it ended up being on a 110degree day (in the shade)... We became WAY too familiar with climbing UNDER the house to go flip the breaker switches which were blowing every 3 minutes. The ice was melted for the drinks before everyone got to the reception.. Frosting melted on the cake which was kept inside in the shade (good cake/frosting though!).. And there was no holding ANY makeup on because it melted off of everyone's faces. It wouldn't have been so bad if there was air movement, but there wasn't any nor was there much shade... AND, the barn fans had to be used on the cattle because it was so hot so everyone was just soaking wet from sweat..

3) We had so many things go wrong on our wedding, it's not funny... The biggies though were... My cousin is mentally challenged and moaned all throughout our ceremony, amazingly *I* was the voice of reason to people and said "He's an invited guest just like everyone else", so I wasn't going to let it bother me (especially after the stuff leading up to the wedding that went wrong too).. The PA system in church was giving some NASTY feedback so all we heard for most of the mass was speaker-echo... It was a 90 degree October day and no AC in the church with a large turnout.. The air shocks on our best man's car went out and it was a 30 minute drive on backroads to get to the reception... We get to the reception, they took me over to see the photo cake I had just spent $330 on, and I just about started crying, it was totally NOT what I had ordered, the bride & groom were "falling in love" on top of the cake, then nothing to cut the cake with... Then, we go do pictures, my bro went out to switch stuff from his truck to my parent's car... Loses the car keys! I kid you not when I had to tell my brother who told me (snippily) "Go climb into the back of the truck and find them because I can't" --- "DUH--- BIG WHITE DRESS!!!!!" He sort of snapped awake realizing that any other time little sis would do it, but not this time... Oh man... it just kept going from there... but anyways...

Not to post hog... But here are a couple from the file... My IL's own reception halls, so you'd be amazed sometimes...

-A couple had a Christmas themed reception, had Yule Logs for centerpieces... Kind of forgot to put something between the candles and the rather dry wood... By 8:00 there were guys running out the door with logs a'blaze'n trying to put them out...

-A couple was too cheap to hire a DJ so had their cousin do the DJing because his Mom said "he's always listening to music"... Well, wedding day comes, 15yo cousin gets SLOSHED, doesn't want to do the DJing to begin with, but REALLY doesn't want to do it that day, refuses to play elevator music or the song the couple wants for the first dance, etc... Anyway, he's so drunk by this point, he SMASHES his laptop computer into a million pieces... There went the dance..

-Of course there's the "reasons never to have a fully open bar" tabs that add up to $2300 because the couple wasn't smart enough to do the math of what open bar REALLY means.

-The cake... oh man... Back in the day when I just took pictures of the halls to put together a photo scrapbook of sorts, there was a wedding that got their cake from Super Target. The person putting the cakes together worked at their bakery and got the couple a discount besides... Well, apparently she hadn't worked with too many wedding cakes because she went to stack the cakes using the sink-in Wilton pillars, set the cake up and couldn't figure out WHY the cake was wobbly... By the time they put the top tier on, it was about to fall over from being so unstable. They didn't know that you need the PILLAR PLATE to go with the Wilton Pillars... SO, they deconstructed the cake, holes left and all, and had "floating tiers" with green wire christmas lights on the table.. Oh man, I never felt so sorry for a couple while feeling not-so-sorry...

-I did a wedding cake for a bride & groom as their wedding gift... Had an airbrush disaster happen just minutes before I was about to leave and transport the cake so the cake wasn't what it was originally going to be... But, the bride still comments on how much she liked the cake and how good it was, the caterer comments that it was the first cake they can remember that they didn't have to clean up a ton of cake left by the guests (it was fondant in a small town too no less), and, it was 4 hours later than I had planned to get there with it... But, the bride was just OVERJOYED to have a cake at that point because the drycleaner had ripped half of her skirt off the night before and she had done two face plants in the dress getting on and off their bus, and she hadn't even had a drink!! Poor gal, but she had by far the best attitude of rolling with it all and laughing even to this day!