You know you've got some. Share, share, share. I'll tell you mine if you'll tell me yours ... oh, wait, most of the perpetrators of mine have this URL. Perhaps not.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

Answers

This cracks me up still. At our wedding last year we invited a couple who are friends of my parents. They're kind of annoying at times - he's a bit boring and full of himself, and she's very boring and obsessed with her kids - but they're basically nice people.

At our wedding they hardly spoke to anybody, and just kind of sat in the corner. She was all dolled up and had a special hairstyle, whereas he was just wearing a jacket with no tie (weddings in NZ are always fairly casual, and there are never any dresscodes).

Anyway, a few months later, she was speaking to a mutual friend of my mother's and mentioned how uncomfortable they'd felt, because they'd felt much more dressed up and smart than everybody else! Pretty stupid thing to say when you must know it will get repeated, particularly as everybody else thought they looked like crap.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

My sister got married about 4 years ago. She and my mother fought non-stop for the 13 months my sis was engaged. You'd think it would be my sister being all unreasonable, non? NOT. My mother. My sister was trying to talk sense into her.

Examples? -My mother got out our *city phone book* to look for people to invite for the wedding. Well, she didn't want to leave anyone out, right? -My sister wanted a country b-b-q (we live in Texas, ya'll - that's what we have at weddings. If we were in Louisiana and it was crawfish season, we'd have a boil.) Anyway, my sister and mom fought for weeks about the vegetables at said b-b-q. My sister wanted green beans and her husband wanted corn. My mother would have none of that - salad for all. We ended up having green beans, corn, AND salad.

Luckily, it looks like my memory of this is beginning to fade.

I swore the day my mother pulled out the phone book that I was eloping. And I haven't changed my mind yet. That's my idea of hell. Why, why, why would you want to start the first day of your marriage in hell? I said that day my honey and I will drop announcements of the marriage in the mail on the way to the airport.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

A wedding horror story? A very good friend of mine married 2 years ago and asked me to make the cake. I spent all night making one of the best wedding cakes I'd ever done--I'd been making wedding cakes for 20 years.

Something happened "structurally" to the cake and the vibration of the car driving it 20 miles to the reception caused the entire outside of the cake to just fall off. I removed the cake from the car in pieces and they served it from the kitchen because it couldn't be displayed.

Fortunately it was her second wedding and she was more interested in marrying the man of her dreams than having a beautiful cake, but I was devastated.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

My wife and I had a fairly medievalish wedding; we were very active in the SCA, and so we asked everybody to wear clothing appropriate to "a time when swords were worn." We had the caterers cook medieval food, in medieval clothes. Most of my relatives needed help, so we hit up all our SCA friends for loaner garb for them. My father rented a Henry VII costume, my female relatives from Merced all wore bridesmaid dresses with flowers in their hair (and looked thrilled to get the chance to wear the dresses a second time), some people made their own. It was great.

The ceremony begins. The wedding party arranged itself at the front of the hall. The ceremony was supposed to be quick and simple, except for one small point: we forgot to tell my father, who thankfully has a sense of humor, that the 'priest' and 'priestess' were witches.

When the high priestess got to the line, "and by the powers invested in my by the State of Minnesota and the Minnesota Church of the Wiccan", my father laughed.

Thus completely derailing the priestess's train of thought. She could not for the life of her remember the words, "I now pronounce you husband and wife," so she ad-libbed "so mote it be", which is an alternate ending.

A follow-up: a few weeks later, somebody from the Oakland County offices called to confirm a few points. The person who performed the ceremony, her name was Taor? Yes. And her title was High Priestess? Yes. With the Minnesota Church of the Wiccan? Yes. Long pause. Okay, that's all. Thanks.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

I went to a wedding for two of my friends, intending to have a very nice time. I had intended to give them a set of crystal wine or champagne goblets with their names engraved and the date as their gift.

I was in the receiving line when the groom asked me for my envelope of money. I couldn't believe it. I mumbled something about leaving it in my purse back at the table. He said that was no problem and that i should just go get it and hop back in the line.

I asked someone (my ex, actually) what was going on and he had just found out as well that each person was required to pay $150. This wasn't considered your gift either, it was to help cover the costs of the wedding.

Um, okay. One, that's tacky. Two, if you're going to demand that your guests pay a cover fee, at least be honest and upfront and include that in your invitations as i don't tend to carry around wads of money in the bottom of my purse. Three, George met the bride and groom *that day* outside the church so why would he spend $150 on two people he doesn't know? (he wasn't there as a leech, the bride and groom told me to bring him since my ex and i had split up a few months prior). Four, i couldn't afford the fee for myself, let alone both of us.

What did i do, you ask? I did the only thing i could. I drank my champagne, got my purse and joined the other bewildered guests who were filing out the door to go to the ATM downstairs. Except we waltzed right past the ATM, got in our car, and had a nice affordable dinner in a restaurant with two friends (and the total for all four of us for our food and drinks STILL didn't come even close to one meal ticket at the wedding).

If you can't afford your wedding, cut back on something. Don't expect your guests to pay for it, especially when you ask for the money in the *receiving line*. Sheesh.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

My husband and I decided not to have a big ceremony long before we set a date. We decided to go to Puerto Rico for the honeymoon, and decided getting married there would be great. So we got all the paperwork and blood tests that Puerto Rico required ready before we left. We got there on a Friday night, and decided to get married on Monday (that was when the offices opened up). We got up early, got dressed, got flowers, and headed downtown San Juan. We went from office to office and no one was helpful or friendly. Our taxi driver was an angel and she sent us (finally) to her own doctor to verify the blood tests were valid (no hospitals would accept them because we didn't have insurance) and she translated for us when no one would speak in English. Finally, she took us to the court house and dropped us off. They made us wait and wait and wait, and they took our paperwork and made us wait and wait and wait. Finally, after waiting forever watching people getting booked for who knows what (how romantic, eh?) they told us they were no longer marrying people for the day - we were 15 minutes late. But we had been waiting for over an hour. *Then* they wouldn't return our paperwork to us - they REFUSED to give it back to us, and they told us to go home and come home in the morning. So crying and extremely pissed off, I threw my flowers away (my husband got them out of the trash for me) and we decided taking a taxi was a bit too expensive, so we took a bus. And we got lost. And I was a nutcase, going from laughing at the whole thing, to yelling about what jerks they were, to crying about the whole thing. Looking back, I must have been a beautiful bride! hehehe

So we got home, and our hotel, who knew we were getting married, had moved us into a bigger nicer room while we were out. We told them what happened, so they called a few judges they thought might come out to the hotel. I guess our day was coming to a close - it was almost 6:00 pm. At 8:00pm, we got a call from a judge that our hotel had contacted, and we explained our situation (which made me cry some me, and then laugh some more and then cry and then laugh...oh man...) and he said he would fix it. He pulled some strings at the court house, picked up our paperwork they wouldn't release to even us, came to our hotel and married us in the beautiful tropical garden we had originally wanted to marry in. It was over and done with at about 10:45pm, and we walked to a pay phone, called our parents to let them in, went to McDonald's and got happy meals and went home to our super huge new hotel room...and we're living happily ever after.

I don't think looking back I would change a thing. The day was eventful and crazy with emotion, but it was us - doing our thing, making our mistakes. It wasn't perfect, but it was just us, and that's

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

I love tacky wdding stories.

#1. While still an undergraduate, I attended the wedding of a girl from my residence hall (dorm). The bride's parents, who rank among the 100 wealthiest families in Canada, are notoriously cheap, and because of this, as the bride explained to us ahead of time, she could invite friends from our rez hall, but we we couldn't bring dates. Ok, so fine, We went, 16 of us, knowing we would be the only two tables made up entirely of women, but we liked this girl, and wanted to see her wed. At the reception, the only dancing music played were waltzes, and a few songs you could lindy to. All partnered music. Do you know how impossible it is for 16 women without dates to find dance partners? We spent most of the night sitting by the atrium, smoking.

But the really tacky part was that the mother of the bride, a woman I really dislike, came over, and started grilling us on which presents on the gift table were ours. She asked me several times, and finally, I answered truthfully, "none of them." Which was true, as I had sent them a present several weeks before the actual event, instead of bringing it to the wedding. We all had sent our presents weeks ago, as we had clubbed together to buy the bride her table silver, and then sent it as 16 separate presents, directly from Birks. A few of the other girls sort of chimed in that they didn't bring a present to the reception either, but also did not elaborate, because we were rather appalled at her line of questioning, and the way she justified it by explaining over and over again that a guest ought to bring a gift equivalent to what the bride spends on each of them at the reception, food and drink wise. She went nuts. I think she told everyone at the reception that we were a bunch of freeloaders who had gatecrashed for the free booze, and within about 15 minutes, we were complete pariahs. Then she asked us all to leave.

So, I was out front with my friends, not welcome back in the house, in the cold, when the valet says to us that it will be at least an hour until he can get our cars out of the crush, and I was 18 years old and sniffling into someone's shoulder while we waited for the car.

The best was the thank you note, which was sent to all of us as one entity instead of each of us, individually - Dear everyone, Thank you for whatever you gave us as a wedding present. Love, Y.

#2 This is truly awful, but I worked a wedding once where two guests were caught (and arrested) for stealing wedding presents from the reception.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

A while ago I was invited to be my boyfriend's date at a wedding. He was the best man.

Now as the best man, I know that he was expected to do a few things, and because this was sort of a budget wedding, that stuff included setting up the hall. As a nice girl, I volunteered for napkin duty. I folded almost a hundred napkins, and I also put cutlery and glasses on the table. The night before, I helped cut veggies and stuff. I was cool with that.

At the reception, I found out that, along with two of the bride's friends, were going to play caterer. I wasn't asked, I was told. So I was stuck, with a few friends, serving the meal. In my $200 purple dress. Messy beef and veggies. They gave me an apron, and as every course was brought out, I had to go serve the meal. The thing is, I didn't know these people. I had met the bride and groom the day before the wedding. If they had been lifelong friends, I wouldn't have cared. But they were strangers. I kept my mouth shut, though, because they were my boyfriend's lifelong friends. And I liked them.

Guests showed up wearing jeans, and the DJ was the bride's uncle. He had a boombox.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

My brother married a woman who comes from a family of ten kids. Her mom is one her father's three ex-wives (hence all the children).

The list of Too Tacky to Be Believed begins with the keg getting tapped long before the ceremony. My brother, the groom, actually walked down the aisle drunk. They RAN OUT OF BEER one hour into the reception. Mind you, it wasn't hot and there weren't an excess of guests. The wedding party had just inhaled most of it before the ceremony. But wait, there's more.

My Sis-in-law to be had six bridesmaids. Four had the bodies of Barbie dolls; two, however, could gently be described as Rubenesque. She dressed them all in bridesmaid dresses that could only be described as chemises (for the uninitiated, read: spaghetti-strapped nightgowns). Have you ever seen a chemise on someone who doesn't resemble a supermodel in body type? A cruel joke on women who were supposed to be her friends. Feeling faint yet? Hold on to your hats....

The father-of-bride proceeded to walk around the wedding reception handing out what he claimed were "chocolate covered moose turds". Yes, you read that right. And his toast, quite drunk, was to all of his ex-wives, not to his daughter or son-in-law. He was apparently quite impressed with himself and his ability to be such a wonderful host/ex-husband.

The piece de resistance, though, was the behavior of said Barbie doll bridesmaids. Several members of our family are not slender gentleman. They are, in fact, rather portly, but not morbidly obese. They are also really wonderful guys; gentle and genuine. These "lovely" girls made quite a point of exclaiming (quite drunkenly and loudly and on video to forever be immortalized) that one of my relatives "looked just like Newman!" from Seinfeld (not a great reference) and laughing hysterically as he danced with family. I was appalled. He was terribly hurt.

My brother can't understand why I'm not overeager to spend time with he and his charming bride. All I can say is I'm glad they live in Alaska and only visit once a year, if that.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

Thanks, Beth- terrific topic!

Sherry... omigod. I can't believe it. No, wait, I can... poor you! Kristin- ditto. Both of you should consider posting those to the mother of all tacky wedding stories, Etiquette Hell.

My own little tale is far tamer. Simply put, I was sent an invitation to a bridal shower, told to bring party food and a gift of kitchenware... not so bad, right? Except that it had already been explained to me that I would not be on the guest list for the actual wedding. And this wasn't the also-rans shower; most of the other girls going were invited to the ceremony and reception.

So really, this was the couple's delightful way of saying "we don't like you enough to buy you lunch, but here's your chance to pony up a gift anyway." I didn't end up going, claiming a prior commitment (yeah, like washing my hair), but did send along some baked goods and a small present.

A few months later, I was gently teasing the groom on a completely unrelated topic. His riposte, delivered in front of my ex and a small crowd of other guys, was "well, now I know why you were on the B'List."

Charmed, I'm sure.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

Okay, most of my stories aren't really horror stories, per se. They're just mildly amusing.

1) Three years ago, at my friend Devik's wedding, we had a _wonderful_ time. The one disaster of the evening was that the DJ didn't bring _any_ of the songs the bride and groom requested. That didn't matter however since watching one of the groom's friends sing _all_ the words to "Baby Got Back" on top of the head table was _far_ more entertaining. One of the bride's friends also wound up going home with said DJ, who was rather cute.

2) At another wedding, I was a bridesmaid and we found out on the day of the wedding that my dress didn't in fact match the other girls', since they'd all been purchased separately off the discount rack. It was very close in style and cut to the other dresses, so I blended in all right but it was kind of embarrassing to walk down the aisle in a slightly different color.

3) At the same wedding, the maid-of-honor, the bride's sister, was so busy getting herself all gussied up, that she neglected to help her sister dress, leaving that task to myself and another bridesmaid. To boot I wound up completely stitching up the hem of one bridesmaid gown when it was discovered that she was trailing skirt about 6 inches along the ground. Busy morning for me -- thank goodness I brought my sewing kit and plenty of safety pins.

4) We once flew 1500 miles and paid for a hotel to go to a wedding and reception. We expected that there would be a full reception afterwards, since the invitation was for the wedding and the reception. However when we go to the wedding we discovered that the reception was just a dessert reception. We were a little bit disappointed that we wouldn't get a full meal and some dancing after flying all that way, but we really love the friend who was getting married so it was worth it just to see her smiling in her pretty dress.

5) At the same wedding, a disaster was very nearly avoided right _before_ the wedding. A mutual friend of ours and the bride announced just a few days before the wedding that she would be arriving with "20 other friends" that she'd invited along to liven things up a bit. Needless to say, some phone calls were made and in the end she didn't come at all. But I have to say, that that is the tackiest thing I've seen in a while -- you just don't invite people to gatecrash someone else's wedding.

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2000

I forgot to mention - these people who required assistance for paying for their wedding?

They went on a three week honeymoon. Two weeks in Greece, one week in Amsterdam. Yeah. Sure, here's some money, i don't need a vacation myself so please take one on my behalf.

Kristin, that's a great story. I still think that your story about the redneck wedding takes the cake though!

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Well, I'm getting married next year, and every single family member that's coming will be flying in from a great distance.

Thing is, we'll be footing the entire cost of the wedding ourselves, and won't be able to do the big "A Wedding Story" blow-out with a sit-down dinner in a fancy hall with a live band and nine-tier cake...

What we're planning is an evening wedding, followed by a huge party at a friend's house. In case the late hour isn't a tip-off, the invitations will be worded such that everybody will be aware that there'll be plenty of cocktail food and desserts, but no dinner.

And we're doing most of it ourselves. I'll be making my own dress and cake- not as huge a deal as it sounds, I've done both for other brides and now get to do my own! We'll be doing as much of the food as possible ourselves, with friends and family helping. We've already made and bottled a few cases of wine.

All we really want is to have the people we care about there to celebrate with us, and to make sure that our guests have a fabulous time. A bride whose dress I made last year gave us this invaluable advice: "just remember that a wedding is you two plus the officiant. If all the right words are spoken and vows are made, you're married and that's the important part. Everything else- everything- is gravy. You don't have to do anything."

She had an afternoon wedding with a medieval theme, that she and her groom had saved seven years to afford, and it was one of the sweetest ceremonies I'd ever seen.

Bottom line: have a good time, make sure your guests have a good time, don't get too greedy, and try to stay out of Etiquette Hell.

Okay, I'm done rambling...

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

My only wedding nightmare story was my first experience as a bridesmaid. The person who asked had been a good high school friend who graduated early but had been MIA in my life for over a year. She calls me out of the blue and begins telling me an awful story of how she just had surgey and the whole time thought of me (huh?). Once she gets through telling me this she goes on about how much she wished I were there with her (?). She then tells me she's getting me married (don't know him) in a few months and wants me in the bridal party. Dopey me says yes without asking a question. Don't hear from her for weeks.

She calls me and tells me that we are going for our gowns in 3 days, bring at least $100 for the deposit and if you can't make you'll have to go into New York City by yourself SOON. I'm 18, I make $4.00/hour, I'm putting myself through college, paying my own car insurance, the works. Suffice to say the trip was awful all the way around and I was out $140, more than 2 weeks pay. Don't hear from anyone until I get a call AT WORK on a Saturday.

"The bridal shower is tomorrow, here's the directions, bring $100.00 CASH. That's what you owe for the gift. We got her a washer and dryer combo." Jesus, I don't even know where I'm getting gas money to get to this thing.

I go and when I finally find the place (directions were wrong) I find out I was also supposed to bring my own separate gift. "That's OK. You can bring it to the wedding."

Wedding day: I somehow got up the nerve to make up an excuse as to why I could not come to her house the night before and sleep over. I did my own hair and showed up on time. By the time we got to the church the bride was cursing - "Mother F-ing" - in the vestibule. I don't even remember why I just remember the embarassment as the priest tried to ignore her. My partner refused to kneel at the altar (it just made me feel weird) nor would he sit at the head table (the best part because my date got to sit with me - we knew NO ONE). What song did the happy couple dance to - White Lines (going through my mind...).

The best part of all was the thank you card I got from her 2 months later. She went on and on about how disappointed she was in me, that I ruined her wedding and that I was a lousy friend.

P.S.: All the money I spent on this wedding came courtesy of my father. My brother clued him in on my situation so instead of xmas gifts my father gave me a small box of socks with cash inside them which covered most of the expenses.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

All of these stories are pretty bad. But, Sherry, yours is the worst breech of etiquette I've ever heard! What were those people thinking? It sounds a lot like a polite mugging! "OK, everybody empty your pockets! Nobody panics, nobody gets hurt. Ka-ching. Thank you very much. Next!"

I keep shaking my head and muttering, "envelope of money...in the receiving line...no fucking WAY!"

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Ack! Dawn posted at the same time I did, so I just read her story. I can't even believe this shit...how can people be so horrid at a time when they're supposed to be all mushy and in love?

I knew I shouldn't have read this thread! I feel so indignant now...

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

At my sister's rehersal dinner, the groom's mother got drunk and started flirting with my date. She held his hand on her ample bust while telling him a story. After the dinner, my family went home and went to bed, the groom's family (including his sisters who were bridesmaids) went out to a bar where they got even more plastered. The groom's mother got thrown out of the bar for yelling at the bouncers, and she CLIMBED over the beer garden fence to get back in. They called the police. She was issued a citation and she ripped it up and threw it in the officer's face. My bro-in-law-to-be stepped in and she didn't get arrested. The next morning, bro-in-law's sisters were badly hungover, they had stayed out drinking until 5 am that morning. During the ceremony, the sister in front of me at the alter had to leave to vomit. Charming. Both my sister and her groom drank too much at the reception and ended up in a fight, so my date had to drive them to their bed and breakfast. According to my sister, the groom passed out while consumating his marriage.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Cameron --

I'm with you on the fun thing.

We'll probably quietly get married the week before the "wedding" with a JoP officiating and then cut loose with the celebration.

We're planning a very low-key kind of reception with a fun back-yard party, because what's important to us is that everyone have a good time. We want really good food and music and laughter, not a bunch of stuffed shirts trying to "do what's expected."

Of course I could find myself in a whole different kind of etiquette hell from wanting this instead of a "traditional" Big White Wedding.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Oh, God...

My brother's getting married this Sunday. I really, really hope I won't be posting anything here Monday morning.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

:: reading all of this and eyes slowly glazing over in a look of utter horror ::

O God. Oh no. Three months, or, as "theknot.com" so helpfully reminded me today, 94 days to my wedding...

None of this will happen to me, right? RIGHT?! I can't hear anyone...

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2000

Do what we did. Elope. We got married with nobody there except my brother and sister-in-law, and *they* only got invited because their adorable five-year-old daughter announced that we needed a flowergirl - her!

Apart from a bit of wind-blown-ness, nothing went wrong. And reading the above - thank god we chose that way!

cheers

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

My stories are pretty mild compared to most here. I've been an attendant 3 times with a 4th coming up, and my only complaint is strapless or backless dresses I couldn't wear a bra with. And braless is uncomfortable for me.

However, one of my friends was a bridesmaid a couple of years ago and one of the other bridesmaids made a pass at her. That would have been fine, in my universe, if it had been the "Hi, I think you're interesting. Let's get together later" kind of pass. But the other woman started groping my friend from behind during the formal picture-taking of the bridal party. I just don't think that's appropriate whatever your orientation is.

-- Anonymous, June 24, 2000

Cameron - your plans sound way cool to me!

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Ok, I haven't read all the stories yet, so I don't know how mine compares. But I think it's worth the short read. When my ex-husband got remarried, he and his fiancee informed the maid of honor that she would have to wear a dress. She was appalled, and said she wouldn't. After much talk, she was convincedabout the dress, but decided she absolutely would not shave. As the wedding party strolled into the church, the maid of honor set the tone of the wedding by showing everyone in the church that yes, she had not shaved her armpits. Yee-haw

-- Anonymous, June 27, 2000

Wow. All of this makes me really glad that we did our wedding in the most casual, "us-oriented" way we could think of. We married at home, with our immediate families and five close friends, and had our cake and 'finger food' there. Later that day, we took everyone (total of 12 people) on a river cruise that included dinner and dancing.

I don't think anyone was offended or put out. If they were, tough for them!

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2000