Hilarious wedding episodes

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My sister married on a rather warm day in June. The church building was going through some remodeling, and the air-conditioning system had not yet been installed. The windows were open, but since they were only on one side of the sanctuary, there was no cross breeze. We were all sweating. The groom got a nosebleed in the middle of the ceremony and had to go lie down for a little while. Meanwhile, my dad, who was officiating, led the congregation in singing. He thought "Blest Be The Tie That Binds" would be appropriate, but half-way through the song he interrupted us to say that we would skip the last verse. We all chuckled; that verse begins with "When we assunder part"! Well, the groom came back and the ceremony went on, but one of the bridesmaids, 6 weeks pregnant, nearly fainted in the heat and had to sit down while someone fetched her a glass of cold water.

My own wedding took place at home on Thanksgiving Day. My parents were going to be moving over Christmas, so there was neither time nor money for a big ceremony. Tom was not able to fly in until the night before, so we couldn't rehearse anything. The morning of the wedding, we handed out pieces of paper to let those involved know what they were supposed to do and when. I wanted my dad to marry us, so we got another pastor to do the first part of the ceremony up to when my dad gave me away. That pastor forgot to say, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man" as was in the "script"; he just nodded to my dad and sat down! I was rather dismayed, but my dad ad libbed beautifully saying, "It is my privilege to give my daughter, Cathy, to be married to this man" and went on with the ceremony.

Both my sister and I have remained happily married, she for 18 years and I for nearly 15.

-- Cathy N. (keeper8@attcanada.ca), November 05, 2001

Answers

When our youngest daughter got married four years ago in our back yard in Strasburg, Pa..it was like Neil Simon had come from NYC and written the script. Here are the cast of characters: Sarah, 23 and giggly..her groom,who happens to be half White half Black and whose parents are divorced but talk to one another in a friendly manner;the grooms real mother who happens to be a born-again-Christian-Harley- biker and her husband..both wearing black leather jackets with "Bikers for Jesus" embroidered all over them; the grooms real father and his brothers, all African-Americans from downtown Philly;forty of our Old Order Amish friends and their many children, with dozens of buggies tied to the trees next to the wedding gift table and the wedding cake; the thousands of yellow jackets who came uninvited and covered the wedding cake; several of Sarah's friends from Art College in Philly, all with either purple or orange or jet black dyed hair and tons of interesting jewelry;many of our friends from our extremely conservative Christian church and their teen- agers; five foster children who were with us at the time; and lastly, a Scottish bagpiper friend of my husbands to provide the wedding march. You just have to picture all these VERY different folks in a single back yard mingling aimlessly while swatting yellow jackets. THEN, we had new neighbors who had moved in few days before the wedding. As the vows were being said, something caught my eye over the wooden fence next door....I saw a camera appear over the top of the fence, with a hand holding it...the new neighbors apparently could not resist getting this all on film.....It was a great wedding..the Amish watched us all dance and we caught one of the older Amish fellows tapping his foot to "old Time Rock & Roll"..sigh..only in America!

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), November 05, 2001.

It was a hot , sticky, December day. All the sheep were out to play. Dressed in white, the cows were black. The horses bowed , the women yacked. The sun shone down and cause a fright. A man said, be gone. And alas, it was night. So under the moon, the two said their vows. He had cleaned up. She had plucked her brows. And hand in hand, was the lad and his miss. A mr and Mrs. now , as they did kiss. SMMMMACCCCKKKK

-- jillian (sweetunes483@yahoo.com), November 05, 2001.

Lesley, I want to tell you that if you don't write a book, I am going to come down there and transcribe it for you!!! You are just filled with great stories. I can just picture that wedding!!

-- Melissa (me@home.net), November 05, 2001.

Wow - Where do I begin?

We dated a few times in high school. We really liked each other a lot. Then a new high school was built and I was transferred to it our Junior year. We lost touch until after high school. We both graduated in 1978.

I came out of church one night with my grandmother and was driving her home. Someone pulled up beside me very close. I didn't recognize the little blue corvette (after all when we dated, he had a red, white and blue Mustang). My Grandmother asked me if it was someone wanting to race. I laughed and told her I didn't know who it was or what they wanted. Suddenly, he pulled closer and I was about to go off onto the shoulder of the road to avoid him hitting me. I looked over and saw his friend in the passenger seat on my left. Then he leaned forward and I recognized him. I rolled down my window and told them to follow me to my house. We were both 19 then and I was living at home with my mother, stepfather and grandmother. He followed me to my house and we talked. That night was Dec. 16th 1979, my father's birthday. (My father was killed when I was 11 years old in a tragic work-related explosion). I felt Daddy was looking down on me. Bringing me my knight in shining armor. Someone to watch out for me, since he was no longer here to do it. We began dating again and 5 months later, he asked me to marry him. We planned our wedding together. It would be small. Just a few friends and family. We picked Oct. 25, 1980 for our wedding date. We told my mother the good news and she asked me why we had chosen that date to be married. I told her that my husband-to-be wanted to be married as close to his mother's birthday as we could and I asked her why. She told me that Oct. 25th was her and my father's wedding anniversary. I had never known that before. Unfortunately we had to change the date of our wedding to avoid conflicts between guests as my soon-to-be-husband's EX-girlfriend was to be married on that same day (unbeknownst to us). We didn't want our mutual friends to have to choose one wedding or the other so we "did the knoble thing" and changed OUR wedding date to November 22, 1980. We did all the planning that couples do. I picked out the dresses for my two bridesmaids (both soon to be sisters-in-law), and my maid of honor (my sister). We picked out the flowers and the candleabras etc. We chose a beautiful wedding cake - 5 tiers with beautiful pink and mauve colored roses with a punch fountain and coffee urns.

I was late to the church as I drove myself straight from the hair/nail salon. My soon-to-be mother-in-law was in the front of the church crying her eyes out. I just knew she hated me for taking her baby boy away from her. I finally convinced her to tell me what was wrong. She said, "The cake" I went to the reception hall to see it and it WAS a disaster. It looked like someone had done it in an easy- bake oven. The bottom layer was the size of a regular 9" round cake with the top (5th) layer being barely larger than a cup-cake. The cake topper we chose was too large to fit on the top layer, but there it was. The layers were all piled one on top of the other with no pilesters (columns) in between layers like were shown in the picture. I asked what happened and my soon-to-be-husband said he made them take them off because they were all the long ones (not graduated) and the cake looked like the leaning tower of Pisa! I went back through a room in the back of the church to go get my wedding gown on (the guests were already seated by the time I arrived at the church), the pastor who was going to marry us was laid out on a pew and I wasn't quite sure if he was breathing or not. We found out he was "resting" as he had just undergone a dialysis treatment for a kidney problem he had.

As they passed out the flowers for the bridesmaids/maid of honor for their hair, I said, "Wait a minute. These are the wrong flowers." I had ordered wreaths of flowers with baby's breath for the girls to wear and all they sent were these little sprigs of baby's breath. I peeked into the sanctuary to find that ALL the greenery was DARK, FORREST green and I specifically stated NO DARK GREEN. I found out later that the folks we placed our order with, SOLD their flower shop and evidently the new owners didn't quite understand our order. No matter - So the cake was all messed up, and the flowers were wrong at least the pastor hadn't died. I was STILL going to be married to the man of my dreams in about an hour. As I got into my wedding gown and held tightly to the arm of my father's best friend who was going to give me away, I felt nothing else mattered. Everything would be all right.

As I came down the aisle, I noticed someone taking pictures but it wasn't the photographer we hired. The pictures this photographer took came out terrible and he didn't even get me coming down the asile! If it wasn't for my Aunt taking snapshots, we wouldn't have had hardly any decent pictures of our wedding. Turns out the photographer we hired sent his "assistant" as he had over-booked himself.

As the ceremony proceeded, the pastor forgot our names. We helped him out through that part and later during another part of the ceremony, he just stopped mid-sentence and said, "I just have to say this - These two young people are going to make some beautiful children together don't you think?" I couldn't believe it! Well, now it was time to light the unity candle. They had placed it to where I had to go behind the archway with these huge flower baskets on either end and when I tried to squeeze past, my veil got caught on one of the baskets and almost sent it toppling to the ground. We went back and kneeled for prayer and as the pastor was praying, my husband whispered to me, "What do we do?" and I whispered back, "I love you too!" LOL (He STILL gives me a hard time about that one.)

After the lousy photographer finally finished taking his lousy pictures, we joined our guests in the reception hall (that we had spent hours the night before decorating ourselves), where my husband had to apologize to our guests for the mishap with the wedding cake. It just happened that the person who was to make our cake had to leave town suddenly as her father had passed away. My husband told everyone that none of these mishaps of the day made any difference because being married was all that mattered to us. At the end of the evening, my husband did get upset though. He had wanted the day to be perfect for us. Our emotions were riding high that night and as we left the church as husband and wife under the rain of rice that was being thrown, we were a little overwhelmed by what had just taken place. How could so many things have gone awry?

We decided we would go fo a bite to eat. We went to a little diner. The whole wedding party! I was still in my wedding gown, and all the guys and girls in their gowns and tuxes. I don't know how that must have looked to all the folks there. The waitress brought us a bottle of wine. Which by then we ALL needed. After we ate our burgers and fries - LOL, we decided to go to this little club right behind the diner. Me in my wedding gown, the girls in their gowns and hubby and the guys in their tuxes all went in. Everyone asked us if we had REALLY just gotten married. We told them we had and they could look it up in the newspaper tomorrow! They thought it was the greatest thing and we had a huge party with hundreds of strangers. There was a live band and even the kitchen crew came out throwing rice at us.

Afterwards we stayed in a nearby hotel. We left for Disney World the next morning for our honeymoon. My boss back then was KIND enough to grant me two whole days off. It was their company policy that if you didn't work the day before and the day after a holiday (Thanksgiving) then you didn't get paid! Guess there were NO EXCEPTIONS to that rule. Anyway, once we were at Disney World it rained day and night. I decided to call my boss and tell him I was staying one more day.

Our first baby was conceived on our honeymoon. Yes really - Do the math - LOL. She made her grand entrance on the edge of Hurricane David on August 17, 1981.

Three children and 21 years later (THIS NOV. 22 - THANKSGIVING DAY), I am still happy and proud to be his wife. All the mishaps, all the ups and downs, all the times we almost quit but didn't. Some folks are just MEANT to be together forever! I'm so glad God chose US! This Thansgiving will truly be a celebration of what I am MOST thankful for.

Blessings to each of you and yours,

-- Greenthumbelina (sck8107@aol.com), November 05, 2001.


greenthumballina: that was lovely!!! Actually it turned out to be the perfect wedding afterall, eh?

melissa: all of my friends have told me to write a book..I just have to wait until alot of folks pass on so they don't sue me!!!! LOL

-- lesley (martchas@bellsouth.net), November 05, 2001.



Way back in the dark ages, when it took 3 years to become a nurse and required living in a dorm, Bob and I dated for over 2 years. Student nurses were not allowed to marry until the last 6 months of training. I graduated June 14 evening, married June 16 afternoon, had 30 days vacation, then had to go back to the hospital until mid- Sept--they wanted all the free help they could get! One of my brothers was slated to do the pictures but he (along with another brother) drowned April 6. We got another guy that supposedly was familiar with the camera to take the pictures. I took my mom's portable sewing machine to the dorm with me and made my dress. Nothing fancy, of course. A classmate's dad had worked in a bakery and volunteered to make the cake if I'd pay for the mixes and borrow the pans. Thankfully, the pictures of the cake didn't turn out. I can't remember what it looked like, but I know it was a disaster. The other side of the coin--NONE of the inside pictures turned out, something about no light. We had planned to have our wedding in the back yard of Bob's parents, but the day before moved to the church because of threat of rain. We do have one studio picture that required us to drive to the studio after the wedding was over. No air conditioning at the church and in about 10 seconds flat, my hair was flat! Guess the whole thing wasn't quite a disaster--we will celebrate our 45th next June!

-- gibson girl (bobtravous@email.com), November 06, 2001.

The shop where I bought my wedding dress had the wrong date for the wedding. I went to pick up the dress the day before the wedding and none of the alterations had been done yet. I waited around a couple of hours while they took in the bodice enough that I wouldn't fall out of the dress, but I couldn't wait long enough for them to shorten it.

The day of the wedding I got dressed in one of the classrooms in the church basement. As I was walking up the stairs to get in line for the processional I stepped on the hem of my dress and ripped the front of the dress off from the waist down. Fortunately the ushers hadn't opened the doors yet so the guests didn't see me standing there in my undies. I had a small sewing kit in my purse so I was able to reattach the skirt with several safety pins.

-- Sherri C (CeltiaSkye@aol.com), November 07, 2001.


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