30 Wedding Staff Members Reveal The Most Outrageous ‘I Do’ Disasters They’ve Seen

Bride warned groom several dozen times — in my presence — if he smashed the cake in her face they would have issues. Using phrases like “I am *not* kidding” or “I am *completely* serious.”

Groom was a good ‘ol boy type. His friends found out about his bride’s one stipulation about the wedding. She was flexible on a lot of other things, but no f*****g cake-smashing. They started making whip-cracking sounds, teasing him that he was “whipped” and needed to Put His Foot Down And Show Her Who’s Boss.

Yeah, he smashed the cake in her face.

She had it annulled.

Bride and groom both lovely people, but the groom’s mother… at the reception she got so drunk that she leaned over in her chair and just puked on the floor. She spent the next 2 hours wailing and crying because she (told everybody) thought her son deserved better. As I was packing equipment back into my car, I spotted MIL in the bushes, dress around her head, legs in the air and a group of people trying to get her out. I later found out that she s**t herself at a later point in the evening – and the bride spent time cleaning her up. Didn’t think the marriage would survive with a toxic MIL like that around. Then I saw on social media that the bride and groom moved overseas, far away from their families!

Minister friend did a wedding once where in the vows the woman wouldn’t say “for richer or poorer”. Just kept saying “for richer or richer”. And she wasn’t joking. They didn’t last long.

I worked the most amazing wedding ever! The marriage didn’t last 6hours! I was bartending for the reception. Everything seemed pretty typical and standard as guests arrived, drank, and conversed. The wedding party arrived and everything seemed to be completely normal. Everyone was happy, having fun, etc. When it came time for the formalities, the bar closed and everyone took their seats. The speeches began, with the maid of honor, and best man. Everything was going as per usual for a wedding—until the best man finished his speech and the food began to be served. The groom grabbed the mic after the best man’s toast and wished everyone a great night and a nice meal. That’s when s**t hit the fan. After his well wishes, he asked for the attention of his best man and bride. He told them that he knew they were having sex behind his back for the entirety of the engagement, and that he would be filing for an annulment on Monday. He thanked everyone for coming, and apologized to the father of the bride saying ” I would have called it off weeks ago, but I figured you would be way more pissed at your little princess when you couldn’t get out of the bill for the reception.” He turned to his wife and said “F*** Y**”, then turned to his best friend and said, “From what I overheard–my d**k is still bigger than yours” Mic dropped—groom out the door—absolute chaos. Me and my fellow bartender looked on in amazement. We had to go into the kitchen to laugh and high-five.

Many of you asked about what happened after. Here ya go. Fallout…. Bride ran directly to the bathroom both furious and inconsolable, with bridesmaids running after. Mother, aunts, and about 20 other women tried breaking into the bathroom which she apparently locked herself in. She refused to come out until everyone left the facility. She left through a back door with her mother and a few of the brides maids after an hour and a half. The best man was surrounded by the groomsman in what seemed to be a circular questioning of WTF? He made a run for the door, only to be followed by his parents who had the most saddening look of disgust on their faces. He made it out the door. The groomsman and the majority of the crowd wanted him gone–for obvious reasons. He got in a cab with his family. Apparently his mother was crying from the moment he was outed until they left the facility. He was gone with his family in a matter of minutes. A lot of people were focused on the bride, and the majority of people were still in disbelief. Outside of the embarrassment and the obvious anger from his immediate family–he got off easily.(Though I have no idea what the residual effects were the days following)–I imagine he lost quite a few friends, and the respect of his family. The Brides father went from complete disbelief–anger–rage–tears, all in a matter of minutes. Nobody would say a word to him. Friends tried to approach and he pushed everyone away. He kept his composure better than most would from what I saw and heard. Just kind of faded to the back and tried to apologize as people gathered their things and left. Weeks later I found out that my boss did give him a big break on the bill. My boss said he felt so terrible, and as much as he hated to lose money—he felt it was the right thing to do. The crowd was like a group of zombies walking out the door. Quiet whispers and shuffling feet–with looks of horror on their faces. I remember one guy started laughing, and his SO hit him with a purse. That place was cleared out in about 15mins. Bride still waited another hour before she thought she could leave and spare further embarrassment. Edit—I noticed the comments about hearing this kind of story or myth before. This story is 100% true. Happened in Cleveland, Ohio–2008.

Years ago I was a waitress at a fancy restaurant where we regularly had weddings.

One night we had this massive wedding party. His side were one of those families with loads of money but not an ounce of class. Just rowdy, loud and incredibly rude, making sure to let everyone know how rich they were. She was a quiet, shy girl with a small family full of boring mousy types. As the night progressed his family just got drunker and louder as hers hid in the corners, visibly annoyed.

At one stage the groom grabbed the microphone, and did a heavily intoxicated version of Frank Sinatras ‘My Way’ whilst his whole family cheered him on. Afterwards he turned to his bride and slurred over the speakers:
‘Tonight, we will do it MY WAY, wifey!!!’
and then proceeded to make doggy style thrusting gestures.

The bride flushed bright red, got up and walked out, her mum on her heels. She didn’t come back. The groom stayed and got so trashed his disgusting family had to carry him out at the end of the night.

It was spectacular. They didn’t last long.

Not a wedding planner, however I worked as a banquet server for an event center that hosted wedding receptions.

Bride was hammered drunk and very upset with her husband because he was not drinking. This led to her telling every person at the reception, “he’s just no fun anymore.”

15 min later she is standing in a hallway sucking face with one of the groomsmen. Husband walked out and the entire party collectively flipped s**t.

They left half a keg though an me any coworkers got smashed. So that was cool.

Event Manager with a caterer. Pregnant maid of honor told the bride’s sister that she’s been f*****g the groom and the baby is his. She was dead sober, which is what made it so odd that it came out like that. Needless to say we got to go home early that night.

I’m not like a pro photographer anymore but I was asked by a friend if I would and so as a gift I took photos of the event. Caught the wife making out with one of her bridesmaids.

Had a wedding I coordinated where the bride literally went from this sweet, kind and very fun person, to a meltdown-laden bridezilla. It was bad. I knew it wasn’t going last the moment she arrived at the venue. She tore up the guest list, and was furious at the groom because his family, most of them either elderly and disabled, weren’t at the ceremony yet (they were 5 minutes late, and parking was awful). So she decided to start the ceremony even though they weren’t there yet. The groom had zero say as he was a really quiet guy. During the bridal procession down the aisle, people kept arriving and having to walk down the aisle to get to their seats. She insulted each member of his family as they would enter the venue. Then, during the actual vows, the groom was so terrified, he literally couldn’t look at her. Instead, he did his vows while looking at the minister. She grabbed his face mid-vows, pointed his face to hers, then said “Do them over…NOW!”. Probably the most cringe-worthy moment I’ve ever seen in my entire career. The guests tried to laugh it off, but we all felt bad for him. The icing on the cake was during the toast. She decided to talk about his mom…then passive-aggressively insult her… then completely insult the crowd… then her new husband (yes, she was sober). After the dinner, about 75% of the guests just up and left. There was so much more than happend (and if there is enough interest, I’ll share more), but it was a total s**t show. I knew, this one wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. They divorced a few weeks later. How do I know? She stiffed me on payment and kept blaming her now-ex-husband for not having any money and everything that went wrong in their marriage.

I have seen brides fight their grooms at the reception, I’ve seen a bride bash a family member over the head with a bottle of champagne, I’ve seen small children whip burning tea lights at guests from a floor above, I’ve seen a guest try to fake a slip & fall to sue the venue. Probably the most “WTF?” was a very obviously arranged marriage. Most of the planning was done by the parents, because they were local and the kids were “traveling overseas”. Red flag. Day of, we meet the happy couple to be. I’m really bad at judging ages, but she seemed at least old enough to consent. And, I should add, she was gorgeous. Could have been a model. The groom, however, almost a foot shorter than she, very lanky, looked like he was squarely in the middle of an adolescent awkward phase. My staff and I had difficulty not giving any outward signs that we were very uncomfortable. The body language was perplexing and then just sad during photos. Culturally, its not uncommon for PDA to be kept to a minimum, but the way she leaned away from him and could barely look at him …She was so obviously miserable. To this day I regret not offering to help her escape through a bathroom window. I told myself it was not my place to interfere and that I should just shut up and do my job. I will never take another client without a face to face with the bride first. I hope they’re not still together.

Telling the groom: “You don’t have to go through with this.” and him replying; “Well, I already paid for the wedding.”

Limo driver here. They were screaming at each other in the back on the way to the reception. The bride never made it inside. I later learned she left to go sleep with another guy. She just wanted half of his fortune.

Worked for a wedding planner.

Groom was gay. Bride was not.

When the sister of the bride said ‘I’ll make this speech as short as the engagement’.

I helped cater a wedding once and was slicing up the cake the bride and groom just cut for serving. The groom asked me if he could lick the icing off my fingers, with his new bride standing right beside him. I picked my jaw up off the floor and hid in the kitchen for the rest of the wedding.

I not a wedding planner but I work for a florist who specializes in wedding. We supply pretty much everything from the dj equipment to the dance floor…

Any way we work closely with the wedding party for upwards of a year before the big day, depending how prepared/a**l the party is.

The couple that the entire store knew wouldn’t last seemed sweet at first. They sat down and planned their wedding with the usual staff, seemingly the bride and groom flawlessly agreed on every detail. A day later the bride came in and changed almost the entire order and specified that we weren’t to tell the groom. Later that day the bride’s mother called and changed the flower order from roses to lilies and from pink to white. She also specified that we weren’t to tell the bride. As you can imagine both the bride and the groom both found out when they came in for the final meeting. A giant verbal fight broke out and they were escorted out of the store. The wedding was “postponed” for another year. 8 months later the groom came in with another bride to be.

In the days before pinterest, I was working as a florist in a very expensive shop. A young bride came in for her initial consultation and we go through her scrap books with ideas, then she was flipping through our photo books and then oohing and ahhing over everything. She came to one pricey high-style bouquet- very architectural, with unexpected elements and she say, “Oh, I love that! Not for a first wedding, but I’m so going to have it for my second!” And she gives this naughty little smile that one could tell she thought was cute and pulls a second wedding scrapbook out of her designer bag and writes down the design number! Apparently, she actually was planning her second wedding. No idea how long they actually lasted, but I’ve heard it said that the more expensive the wedding, the quicker the divorce and the flowers alone for that wedding were over $10,000- and this was about 20 years ago.

The bride had been a total pain in the a*s while planning her wedding. She wanted the most lavish food, the best alcohol package, the most over-the-top decor. Fine, we can make your venue look like something Donald Trump might describe as ‘a little too gilded’, whatever. After that was done, she demanded mirrors, and disco balls, and anything else reflective we could cram into the space. Then, she demanded to interview all the wedding officiants, because she wanted a ‘really hot guy’ to perform the ceremony. She complained that everyone she saw was, ‘like middle aged or something’, and insisted we had to find her someone that looked like Chris Evans. Because she wanted everyone in her pictures to be hot. Day of the wedding, she asked me to procure as many lions as I could get my hands on, and have them sitting around the head table. Cause what you really need at an open bar are a bunch of apex predators. When informed she could not have lions at her reception, she dissolved into tears, complaining about her crappy little wedding (of 300 guests, cases of Cristal, and f*****g Lobster tail as the main), and how her little sister always got everything better than she did. We all knew, that this was not about a marriage, and was all about a party. When your wedding is just about out-doing someone else’s reception, there’s no hope for your relationship. All the way through this mess, the groom had just rolled his eyes, and let his bride spend like a drunken sailor on leave. He never objected to any of her insane requests. Just let her have whatever she wanted. However, he didn’t even bother to come up to the suite while she was having a meltdown over the lions, because, “I’m too drunk to deal with this, and also I don’t want to have to hear her scream about seeing the goddamn dress.” Bride was back a year later with a friend to help plan that wedding, sans ring.

Obligatory not a wedding planner.

I worked as a receptionist for a conservatory and garden. We were an extremely popular wedding venue 7 days a week year-round. But this is the one that stuck out.

A couple of families came in on a Sunday afternoon during business hours. They were dressed very nicely, but again, was a Sunday, so not all that unusual. There appeared to be a older teen girl, a boy around the same age, their respective parents, and a smattering of grandparents. Looking back on it, with the exception of a couple of the grandmas, everyone looked either ill or angry. Everyone but one of the fathers paid their admission and went inside. The father made it known to me he was still waiting for someone. No big deal. Well about 10-15 minutes later, in came a *priest* ! Black robes, white collar, the works. It then occurs to me that all these people must be here to scope it out as a wedding venue. I took the admission, then went to get our on site wedding coordinator, in case the family wanted to see her. I find her, and we start heading towards where I last saw the group. We were floored to see them by our water feature very obviously conducting a wedding! Very obviously a shotgun wedding that the kids had no control over. Was startling and funny and sad all at once. With the amount of strong arming they got, I doubt they lasted.

I’m a baker, not a wedding planner, but I deal with them + weddings constantly. Once was doing set up in a venue for this monster cake for 500 guests + a dessert table. Usually with something that big and expensive, I’ll stick around and ask the couple or the planner for approval before I leave. I finish and ask for the WP’s approval and she comes in, sweaty and frazzled, and tells me it’s okay, and I explain how to cut the thing, because it was so big if you didn’t to it right it would topple. I ask her what is wrong, because she’s out of it, not paying attention. She explains that the bride’s boyfriend showed up to the reception space to get into the bridal suite… with the groom’s boyfriend in tow. it was a sh**show and people were going crazy fighting in the bridal suite. She thought it was going to come to fisticuffs. I came back to pick up the set up pieces for the dessert table the next day. Somehow they went through with the wedding, but that wasn’t going to last.

NAWP, but a few years ago I was serving lunch and cocktails poolside at a fancy hotel in Hawaii. Lots of wedding parties, at least 4 or 5 a week during the summer. The bride and her party were having a spa day, and the groom and his men were poolside in a rented cabana. They were hitting on all of us, and on some of the ladies lounging poolside. We kept an eye out in the event we had to cut them off or call security. Later in the afternoon, we noticed the groom and one attendant (there were only 5 total) were not with the rest of the group playing bocce on the lawn. A glance over at their cabana, and I saw it was zipped up completely. At the end of the night when we were cleaning it out, there were 2 condom wrappers (no actual condoms, thank goodness). Whether they were going at it with each other or with a willing not-bride lady or two, I don’t know. But two years later the bride and two of her bridesmaids came back (I remembered her bright red hair) and she didn’t have her ring. It’s not my place to ask, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she found out about the cabana tryst.

Ex-wedding photographer here. This one couple we shot were in their late thirties, both grumpy, unkind, and just unpleasant to be around. The groom didn’t seem to take care of his hygiene or appearance even on his wedding day. His hair was unbrushed and had the shiny look that only comes from it being unwashed. His tie was in a loose knot around his neck. If I remember correctly he had very few groomsmen–less than three and one was his dad–which isn’t uncommon, but it seemed like another red flag in a f*****g flag day of red flags. I asked him if he’d like to go outside to get some solo groomsman shots before the ceremony. While we were riding in the elevator together down to the street he looked at himself in the reflective metal door and said to himself, as if I wasn’t there at all, “What the f**k are you doing?” I was at a loss for words. I think I said some weak platitude like, “Everyone gets nervous.” There’s no way in hell they’re still together.

Oh man. The poor bride was 6 months pregnant at the time of the wedding, puking regularly. The groom was 3 hours late to the ceremony. By hour 2, he hadn’t even picked up his tux. The venue almost cancelled the reception because the groom’s number was the only contact they had and nobody knew what was going on. He finally showed up and everything went as planned, albeit 3 hours later.

Am wedding planner as well as officiant. I forgot to ask for and sign this couple’s marriage license (I sign and send to the county for recording). So I texted the bride and she said oh, no need, we haven’t gotten our license yet and we’ll do it legally a different day. Okkkkkkkk…..

A few months later she’s with husband/not husband’s BFF. And now *they’re* engaged.

I wonder if she’ll be a repeat customer of mine?

The bride got pregnant and the groom decided to “do the right thing and marry her” I am not sure it was the right thing to do. They decided to have a wedding at a Casino in the little chapel and have the reception in the ball room. She was so demanding, rude, insulting and difficult to the minister, that the minister said she was about to not perform the ceremony. This minister did weddings at a casino, where I am sure half of marriages fall apart. The groom had to convince her to go through with the ceramony. The minister was hard to hear and completely monotone. The chapel was not big. During the reception her family member gave a toast and said something like, “Bride has never been happy in her life, but hopefully this marriage will make her happy.” They are still married 2 years later, but ‘joke’ about when they find their next husband or wife after they divorce. She is the most unpleasant person and we all cringe when we have to see her.

Wedding photographer here. Two things come to mind. In one instance the bride and groom just could not be bothered to be seen together at the wedding. I had to virtually drag them for getting some photos of the two of them together and they kept walking off hang out with their friends. It would be one thing if they hadn’t seen their friends in forever but one friend they lived with and the others were in the same town.

The other one was a groom who looked like he was 16 (he was actually 21 but was tiny and looked young). When I started taking photos he said, in all seriousness, “You have to tell me what I need to do, this is my first time getting married…I’ll do better next time”. Turns out the wedding only happened because the bride’s mother was dying and the bride wanted her mother to see her get married.

I worked at a bar while at Uni and we got booked to do the catering and drinks for a wedding at the local Botanic Gardens. IT was the most schizophrenic wedding I’ve even seen – half classy, half bogan.
The string quartet alternated between classical and Metallica and Bon Jovi covers. The Hors d’oeuvres included Caviar and cocktail weenies on toothpicks.

I wasn’t sure if they were both trying to be “Classi” but couldn’t fully commit, or the groom was just straight up bogan marrying a rich girl.

At the end, when we were packing up after everyone had gone home, there were two people left. The Bride and the Father of the bride. She was on the phone to her new husband. He had disappeared, so when she called him, he told her he had left and was at the pub with his mates.

As a bandleader in NYC I at least twice thought, “This guy’s gay.” Voice and occupation mostly. This was years before same-sex marriage.

Wedding DJ here. I meet with brides all the time. I remember meeting with a bride who kept touching me behind her (soon to be) husbands back. I even saw her after the wedding recently and she gave me a full body hug, which kind of turned me on, tbh. Lol

But yeah, I’ve been thinking to myself, I could take this so much further if I wanted to. My mum taught me better though.

Last time I checked they were still married, which makes them together now for less than a year. I’m going to give it one more year for them. :/

Audio guy here. Groom passed out not once but twice during the ceremony. Like standing there… gee this guy isn’t looking well, BAM. Groom on the deck.

Smelling salts, we get him up. Get him some water and orange juice… get through the vows and yep… here he goes again, not as bad.

How bout we just sit down on the steps and finish the ring ceremony?

The whole time his brother, the best man has that look like “I really should just scoop and run with him out of here….”

The poor bride has the worst look on her face like omg what do I do?

6 months later, it was over.