Yikes! We’ve all been to a bad wedding once or twice. However, these weddings take the cake! From entitled and bossy bridezillas to unforgettable family dramas, these wedding guests spill on the worst weddings they have ever attended. Content has been edited for clarity.
The Shameful Sorority Sister Wedding
“I was a guest at my sorority sister’s wedding, ‘Amanda.’ We had shared a room in the sorority house, so we were pretty close. The day before the wedding, another sister, ‘Rachel,’ and I traveled an hour and a half to get to our friend’s hometown where the wedding was being held. Rachel and I were not bridesmaids, but we were going to spend the night at Amanda’s house with the rest of the wedding party. She had invited us to prove we were special even if we weren’t bridesmaids.
From the minute Rachel and I stepped into the house, Amanda’s mother had us doing little tasks. Rachel and I picked up pizza, set up the dinner table, and did other little chores. Little things, but still things you didn’t ask a guest to do. The next morning, Amanda’s mom woke us up and told us to go find Amanda.
Amanda had spent the night with her lover, not her fiancé, or in her bed. Rachel and I were uncomfortable to be put in such a strange situation. It got worse.
We had to fetch breakfast, bobby pins, hairspray, and shoes. Plus, I had to fix the bridal party’s hair. I used to fix hair for all the girls living in the house during this time, but I had no prior knowledge I would be required to style the entire bridal party and bride. Rachel had to iron Amanda’s dress. By this time, we realized we hadn’t been invited as special guests, but as servants.
We were late for the reception after the wedding because we had to clean up the mess left after seven girls finished prepping for a formal event. Dinner had already been served, and Amanda’s mother immediately herded us to the kitchen and instructed us to wash dishes. I was in shock, even more so when Rachel picked up a dish. But I started laughing when she tossed it to the floor. We left, went to McDonald’s, and never spoke to Amanda again.
I still stayed friends with Rachel, even though she moved away a few years later. We never told Amanda’s husband about the cheating. We never told anyone. If Amanda wanted to destroy the man she loved, it was her choice to do so. Amanda was never the person I thought she was.”
The Bitter Bride
“My wife and I attended a wedding of a nephew and his bride, a ‘daddy’s little girl’ type, who was quite spoiled. I was warned about the bride ahead of time. The bride’s parents were not excessively wealthy, but they catered to her every demand. A rented mansion for $10,000, and another $10,000 for the wedding dress. Appetizers included cups of lobster bisque, five-inch long jumbo shrimp, oysters on the half shell, and another seven or eight cooked appetizers. Open drink areas in multiple rooms continued through the entire event. Even the dessert buffet took up two full rooms!
The bride insisted, actually demanded, how one of the groom’s sisters should not attend the wedding. The reason is that the sister has special needs, and she would not feel comfortable around her. Also, any outbursts she might make would ‘ruin’ her wedding. Of course, this upset the groom’s parents who tried to discuss it with her and their son but were told they didn’t have to attend either if they didn’t like it.
The icing on the cake happened when the maid of honor attempted to toast the bride and groom. The hall was large and echoed but she spoke very softly. The result was many people did not quiet down immediately as the background noise and echoes, coupled with her soft voice, made it difficult to hear her. The bride turned red in the face.
She strode over to her, grabbed the microphone, and yelled to her guests ‘Everybody, shut up!’
My wife, who was certainly no prude, left the room. I thought she went to the bathroom. When she came back, she apologized for leaving me.
I asked her why she had to apologize for using the restroom and she responded, ‘I didn’t go to the restroom, but there was no way I was going to sit through a speech glamorizing the bride after the way she treated her guests!’
We ate our meal, hung out with a few relatives for a while, and left. During the reception, the bride and groom never came around to any of the tables to greet and thank their guests and neither did the bride’s parents. They treated us as if we were not even there. I never made any effort to search them out either and we left without ever meeting or congratulating them.”
Let Them Eat Cake
“I have attended a couple of weddings deemed memorable because they were so unpleasant for guests.
My worst experience of all was a ‘long gap’ situation, where my date and I sat around in our fancy clothes for more than four hours following the wedding ceremony that had wound up at about one in the afternoon. We were hungry but didn’t want to spoil our appetites for the dinner we knew was eventually coming.
This was in the days before cell phones, so we left for the reception site good and early, finally making our way through a complicated set of directions to a plain building set in a state park. The barracks-like interior had not been decorated in any way and contained long plastic tables and metal folding chairs. No music played, not even a boombox, and people sat around chatting quietly. There weren’t any adult beverages, either. I didn’t remember if there was anything to drink except water.
Okay, so the ambiance was non-existent, but what about the food? Well, there was food. After making everyone wait all afternoon for the reception, they saw fit to serve us cheese, crackers, veggies, and dip. Period. This wasn’t just the appetizers, there was nothing else coming. At six in the evening.
The paltry ‘spread’ was quickly demolished. I think I only scored a couple of bites from each platter. The wedding guests then went back to staring at each other across the plastic tables. In addition to the no music and no dancing edict, there were no typical wedding reception activities, such as bouquet-throwing, garter removal, or speeches.
My date was mortified and apologized for the ‘family reunion except with a lot less food’ about fifty times. I didn’t know a soul there except for him, so I did my best to engage.
Eventually, a wedding cake was brought out and this was the really fun part. The cake was colossal! Like, eight tiers high with plastic bridges going on either side to even more tiers. I was immediately perplexed because there were only about seventy people on hand and this was easily enough cake to feed hundreds of guests.
Was this Marie Antoinette’s descendant here, thinking, ‘Let them eat cake’ and hardly anything else?
Imagine my vast amusement when only the top three tiers of this monstrosity were lifted off and cut, revealing the rest of the cake was nothing more than round plastic forms covered in icing. I kid you not. I was told the bride had wanted the cake and nothing else, so this was the illusion the bakery employed to make her happy.
The evening also featured the bride vanishing for a few minutes and then reappearing dressed in sweatpants with her hair down, ready to mingle some more. So much for any kind of ‘going away’ festivities. By this point, I had long since despaired of any kind of traditional reception so I truly wasn’t shocked.
My date and I made our escape at our earliest convenience and took our growling stomachs straight to the nearest fast food joint, where we wolfed down hamburgers and laughed ourselves silly over the ridiculousness of the entire affair.”
“The Bride Was A Nasty, Abusive, Bully”
“The behavior of the bride before and during the wedding prefigured her personality and conduct since. The bride was a nasty, abusive, bully and my former friend was unfortunately stuck in an abusive marriage.
So, the wedding took place in Dublin, Ireland, and was a smallish affair, with less than eighty people. The wedding and the reception venue were perfect for the relatively small number of guests. I was attending with my then-girlfriend, ‘Emily,’ who was American and lived in a different country. She barely knew anyone at the wedding, and she had previously met just two of my friends in our tight-knit group. She only met the groom right before the ceremony.
Emily and I had only just arrived at the reception venue and our group had appropriated a table outside on the lawn. I was inside at the bar chatting with a buddy when we heard a commotion. The groom came in and informed us how ‘Chris,’ one of our friends, had accidentally knocked a pint of Guinness onto Emily. Only seconds later, Emily came racing through on her way to the ladies’ restroom.
Chris, when putting his glass on the table, inadvertently knocked over a nearly full pint of Guinness, which toppled over and landed on its side on Emily’s lap. It was an accident, and Chris was mortified. However, we thought we managed to contain the drama in our group.
As anyone who has unfortunately had Guinness spilled on them will know, it is far worse than any other drink because it stinks. Thankfully, Emily’s dress was black so there weren’t any unsightly stains. But the moment when she jumped out of her chair, she ripped a seam in her dress. One of the women at our party was the daughter of a seamstress and got a small sewing kit from the hotel staff. She joined Emily in the ladies’ room, and after washing off the dress and drying it under the hand dryer, they got to work repairing the dress.
As my friend’s wife sewed the dress and Emily stood shivering in the restroom, the bride stormed in and began screaming, ‘How dare you! This is my day!’
Despite Emily’s petite size, she was not easily intimated.
Emily screamed at the bride, ‘Look, I get it. It’s your day and it’s all about the witch in the white dress, but what exactly is your problem here?’
Bridezilla screamed in response, ‘This is my day, and you will not be stealing the spotlight!’
‘If you think I wanted your clumsy friend to drench me in Guinness to steal attention from you, you are insane!’ Emily yelled.
Which was precisely what the bride was accusing her of because the bride was insane.
Throughout the reception, I noticed how every time Emily got up to leave the room bridezilla would stop eating and stare daggers at Emily for the duration of her walk from our table to the door and would do the same when she returned. This became a running joke and Emily began to leave the room more often than was necessary just so we could watch this childish idiot make a fool of herself.
At my wedding, I didn’t have the time to do anything, didn’t get to meet even half the guests, never mind having a running vendetta against a total stranger who had a pint of Guinness spilled on her.”
Best Friends For Never
“A couple of days before the wedding, I flew to southern California and phoned to let her know I was there. I heard nothing back and didn’t want to interrupt the last-minute plans, so I just waited to hear if we would be able to hang out at any time before the wedding, and in the meantime, I went to Disneyland.
Having still heard nothing by the big day, I drove on the L.A. freeways to the venue. I was not prepared for this, but I made it. The wedding was lovely and I was so happy for my friend!
At the reception, I noticed I was sitting at the furthest table away from the bride & groom.
I made small talk with the other people at my table and their general attitude was, ‘I barely know either of them. I don’t know why I was invited.’
I’m talking, like, old grade-school friends and ex-neighbors. Our table was the only one not full.
In the receiving line, I finally got to hug my friend and tell her how happy I was for her and how beautiful she looked, and how I hoped she would live happily ever after.
She replied, ‘It’s so good to see you. I didn’t expect you to come!’
Back at my table, I kept mulling her words over and over in my mind. Why wouldn’t she expect me to come? She was my best friend. Of course, I was coming to her wedding! If I had to start three months early and walk the whole way, I would have come.
You probably have guessed the punchline of this particular joke. I was a little slow on the uptake. The joke was, she never thought of me as more than an acquaintance. It all made sense. You didn’t let people you barely knew to bring a guest to your wedding. You didn’t hang out with acquaintances before your wedding. You seated them at the ‘you’re lucky you even got an invitation’ leftover table, and you are puzzled when they show up from out of state. I was never more than a friend-of-a-friend to her.
Now, let me just say, I never bore this woman any ill will. She didn’t exactly ‘lead me on’ more than just being very friendly and keeping up a correspondence with me, who poured my heart out to her as though she was my actual sister. I was like a pen pal who misunderstood the nature of our relationship and made a fool of myself. Looking back, it was all pretty obvious and kind of sad and embarrassing.
Oh well, at least I got to go to Disneyland.”
Awfully Wedded Wife
“My oldest son’s wedding was a fiasco from beginning to end!
The bride spent $800 on her wedding gown, but the fittings had been done by a family member who didn’t have experience with tailoring. As a result, the dress didn’t fit the bride properly, even at the wedding ceremony.
My son was embarrassed to tell us he couldn’t afford tuxes for himself and his friends. We made frantic calls to different stores and found red vests for rent. As you could imagine, it was not cheap.
The wedding took place in a bar where my son had played gigs, and it wasn’t set up for weddings. The man who was to officiate was wasted, didn’t know the bride and groom’s names, and had a difficult time climbing up on the stage, nearly falling off!
During the ceremony, he turned to my son and said, ‘Do you take her as your wedded wife?’
The wedding colors were red and black. On the white wedding cake, the red icing ran, making the cake look like it was bleeding.
My son’s father-in-law had planned the reception to be a concert at the bar. The band was good, but the volume was at ear-damaging levels. All the wedding party members drank heavily, got incredibly wasted, and quarreled loudly with each other.
My husband and I decided to bow out quietly. I felt bad about how we missed much of the celebration, but my son and daughter-in-law thought it was a great time. They are still going strong after being married for ten years.”
“They Were A Match Made In Heaven”
“The wedding wasn’t horrible exactly, maybe just odd.
When I was fifteen years old, our housekeeper invited my whole family to her wedding reception. We were friendly with her, as she had given one of our puppies a home when our dog had a litter, but we hadn’t known her long. Being fifteen, I didn’t want to go. However, my mom said we wouldn’t have to stay long, and we would just go to the reception for a bit and then go home. The reception was in the town hall, a big, grand room in the neighboring town.
When we arrived at the reception, we saw the bride and groom dancing, but there was hardly anyone else in the room. My mom checked the time, thinking we were early or late for the reception. As it turned out, no one had turned up! There were my parents, my two brothers, and me, and no more than seven other people in the huge, decorated room with a large buffet to feed around one hundred people.
We felt bad for the bride and groom so we tried to make up for the lack of people by dancing and eating a lot, but they were acting as if it was normal. They seemed to be having a perfect time. After a while, a couple of people left and the five of us in my family made up half of the guests! I felt very awkward, and instead of staying an hour or two, we had to stay the whole night, all while pretending we were having a great time.
We found out later the reason no one had shown. It turned out the bride and groom had been married before. They’d been married and divorced nine times! The reception we went to was their tenth wedding. It explained why none of their family and friends wanted to waste any more time on them! They were a match made in heaven!
Sometimes I have wondered how many weddings they have racked up now.”
“The Groom Was Selfish And Immature”
“My youngest sister, thirteen years younger than I, married for the first time right out of college.
We were all invited to a lavish formal wedding, for which I had to travel across the country. I didn’t have much money at the time and I had to run up a credit card for plane fare, something to wear for such an occasion, and a wedding gift. I did not begin to resent this until I arrived and met the prospective groom, and watched the wedding couple together.
It was clear the groom was a selfish and immature young man. It was also clear the bride and groom didn’t know each other very well. He seemed to assume my sister would give up her career plans after their marriage, and I knew how she had no such intentions. Having known my sister since infancy, I knew she was extremely strong-willed.
Wedding plans sank further when the caterer canceled on short notice. My family was left to make emergency alternative plans. My young prospective brother-in-law found fault with everything, had no constructive ideas to offer, and blamed my sister for the whole situation for no reason except being it was his habit to blame somebody else for anything that went wrong.
A few days before the wedding, another grown-up brother-in-law requested a family meeting in my parent’s kitchen, the prospective bride not included.
He laid it out how he had heard every single member of the family express, directly or indirectly, their feelings about how my sister was making a mistake and that this marriage would never work. He proposed a family intervention, urging her to call off the wedding.
My father advised against it. He knew my sister well, too.
My father explained, ‘I think the marriage will be short-lived. Being said, there is no possibility she will take anyone’s advice and change her wedding plans right now.’
The wedding went forward. It occurred to me, sitting in the pew waiting for the ceremony to begin, how this marriage probably wouldn’t last as long as it would take me to pay off the credit card. On our side, it was all a pretty gloomy affair. The groom’s only family was his mother, who also seemed unhappy, drank too much, and left early.
I was right about the credit card. They remained together for just under a year, and there was still a bill to pay.
My sister later married the right guy and had three kids who are nearly through college and on their own. She has pursued a successful career as planned.
I only wish the first episode had been just a quickie elopement with a justice of the peace.”
“The Pettiness And Nasty Comments Were Over The Top”
“I was supposed to be a bridesmaid at this particular wedding. However, I got kicked out of the bridal party because I couldn’t buy the particular shoes the bride requested the bridesmaids wear. I couldn’t get the shoes because, due to a birth defect, I could not wear heels higher than two inches. Even short heels were painful. The bride knew I couldn’t wear high shoes even before she met her now-husband.
When the wedding day came around, it was fine at first. However, things started going downhill at the reception. The bride put me at the worst table in the room, and I had to sit next to an ex-boyfriend who I had a nasty breakup with. The bride ‘forgot’ about how I didn’t eat meat, so I couldn’t eat the first two courses of dinner.
During the bride’s speech, she made comments about how she was glad that all her ‘true’ friends were able to be bridesmaids. Later on, I heard her make nasty references to me, calling me derogatory nicknames instead of my name.
Before I left I went to say goodbye to her and she said, very loudly, ‘Hey, wait! You still haven’t paid for your bridesmaid’s dress!’
This dress hadn’t even been ordered when I was told about how I was no longer allowed to be a bridesmaid.
The next time I heard from the bride was a year later when she invited me to her baby shower. I felt like the only reason she invited me was to receive another gift.
Of course, the bride had every right to request I no longer be a bridesmaid, but the pettiness and nasty comments were over the top. Especially as it was all over a pair of five-inch heels.”
