You get older, you’re gonna go to more and more weddings.
The people you know get married and you kind of become an old hand at it. And with that experience, you also see the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And you also see the CRINGEWORTHY.
What’s the most cringeworthy thing you’ve seen go down at weddings?
Here’s what folks had to say on AskReddit.
1. All kinds of good stuff.
“Groom changed who his “Best Man” was and didn’t tell the original BM until the start of the ceremony.
Bride & Groom asked a guest to bartend the reception AT the reception.
Groom “dirty danced” with his step-mom (full hands on *ss).
Bride & Groom hauled their wedding party up to do a choreographed dance to Meatloaf’s ‘Paradise by the Dashboard Lights’ but didn’t give them any pre-warning or teach them the dance. That song is 8.5 minutes long.
Wedding was at a scenic boarding school campus during the summer. Guests were told dormitories were complimentary to stay in. Guests were not told there would be no bedding provided or A/C in the building. Groom later emailed everyone who stayed in a dorm asking for money.
Same Bride & Groom chose another friend’s wedding reception as the right setting to yell at a 3rd pair of mutual friends for not including them in their wedding party.”
2. Weird.
“Requiring every attendee to bring a date because she didn’t want “sad, lonely people on her day”.
Not my friends luckily but pretended to be a friend’s date because she really wanted to see her cousin get married.”
3. A sad day.
“Potluck wedding with no alcohol or music.
Groom kept showing people his flask and bragging about it.
Macaroni was only redeamable thing, but when I went to scoop there was hair in it.
Very sad.”
4. Someone wants to talk to you.
“Dated a girl in my 20s and went to her friend’s wedding in upstate New York.
In the middle of the service the minister’s cell phone rang, he answered, it was God, God wanted to talk to the groom, conversation lasted a couple minutes, then the ceremony continued.”
5. Classy!
“The groom and all groomsmen were wearing tuxedos and baseball hats.
The groom had a dip of tobacco in during the wedding.
And the cake was designed like a can of Copenhagen.”
6. That’s kind of creepy.
“The minister used to date the bride and gushed about how wonderful she was.
Told the groom if he ever died not to worry, he’d take care of her. I was shell shocked.
I so wished I could think of a reason to ask the couple for a copy of the video of their wedding but couldn’t quite find a legit one.”
7. The look of defeat.
“The bride got drunk and sat on some other dude’s lap for two hours and flirted with him while the groom sat by himself at the head table with a defeated look on his face.”
8. Bridezilla.
“I worked as a wedding videographer.
This is the only Bridezilla I encountered in ten years. This girl was so self centered she kept everyone waiting at her outdoor ceremony for more than an hour while she was pampered in the makeup chair.
While she’s having them redo this and touch up that, she’s sort of making up her wedding vows in a very relaxed, casual manner completely inappropriate for the hundred people sweating under full summer sun waiting on her.
Her aunt came in and very gently reminded her people were waiting on her and that it’s been more than an hour and she threw a tantrum, screaming, “I feel like everyone’s forgetting this is MY DAY!!!”
Eventually she comes out, “vows” are lame and borderline incoherent, and one of the groomsmen, sweltering under coat and vest and shirt and sun, passes out from heat exhaustion.
The officiant whispers to ask the couple if they should stop and make sure he’s okay and she goes, “Nah, he’s just being dramatic, keep going!”
As the couple is headed back up the aisle, an ambulance can be seen arriving to tend to the poor overheated groomsman.”
9. Tips from an old pro.
“I’m in the wedding industry. I’ve been to over 3,000 weddings.
The singing-your-vows thing is never ever going to work out like you think it will. Never sing your vows. Never attempt to sing any part of your wedding. It will not go as you visualized it.
A wedding day is not a good time for surprises. Don’t surprise your bride with an unexpected part of the ceremony. Don’t surprise your mom by the wedding itself (true story… the bride told her mom she was going to an engagement dinner). The only exception to this rule is if you give the bride a surprise addition to her ring – grandma’s diamond, a ring made from her parents’ rings, etc..
Jokes about s*x later are never funny. They make people uncomfortable, and it makes you look like an adolescent. There will always be crickets after you make the joke.
If you are going to be late, communicate that to EVERYONE somehow. Have your SO, or your parents, or someone tell everyone you will be late. The staff needs to know, especially.
If you forget the rings, don’t stress it. It’s a funny story. If you forget your vows, wing it as best you can (just don’t sing). Ask the officiant for help for last-minute vows.
Finally, don’t get drunk and be an *ss. You don’t want to be that guy. Plus, if you are drunk, you won’t be able to have s*x later!”
10. Sounds like a great day.
“Long ago I worked at a banquet hall and witnessed a fully NASCAR themed wedding.
During the reception they played the audio of the proposal going out over the PA at the track. It was fully unintelligible. BZZT GABBAGBGA MRRRY MEZZZZZ RROOOOOWWWVROOOM.
Other highlights were the owner locking himself in his office to avoid the bride’s father because he was threatening him to haggle on the costs.
In the end we had to call the police because the bride in gown climbed over the bar to steal more sweet sweet MGD after we had closed the taps and the event was over.”
11. Awkward.
“I was a photographer for a wedding where the bride was marrying a man with two kids from a previous relationship.
I was in the bridal suite when the bridal party was getting ready and all of the bridesmaids had matching silk robes. The flower girl (groom’s daughter) was there too.
They asked me to take a group photo of the bridal party and one of the women in a silk robe was standing awkwardly to the side. I thought she was just shy or something so I waved her into the photo and the room got DEAD silent and the bride was like “oh no, we don’t want her in the photos” and glared at me like I should’ve known that!
Apparently she was the groom’s ex wife and was there to take care of the flower girl but WHY DID YOU GIVE HER A MATCHING BRIDESMAID ROBE!
I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.”
12. Don’t drag us into this.
“At my cousin’s wedding, they did the thing where the groom removes the bride’s garter and tosses it to all the single guys.
I guess none of the guys wanted to be next to be married, because once the groom tossed the garter, no one grabbed it. It just landed on the ground a few feet in front of a crowd of motionless guys.
The groom tossed the garter 3 times before one guy halfheartedly picked it off the ground. The bride wouldn’t look at any of those guys for the rest of the night.”
13. Speech!
“My uncle not only brought up his daughter’s ex-boyfriend in his speech but talked about their toxic relationship for a solid 5 minutes.
I highly recommend preparing a speech before talking in front of a room full of people.”
14. A terrible idea.
“They sang their vows to each other.
Neither had a singing voice.
Vows were generally bat sh*t crazy, like submissive in the bedroom, and not asking about where she was going.
The autotune microphones were a terrible idea.
Their vow songs shared a chorus and it was awful and they expected the guests to sing along with the chorus.
The vows singing lasted 20 minutes.
Pure cringe.”
15. A trashy affair.
“My friend got pregnant at 20 with a piece of sh*t guy so they got married.
It was me, our friend, her mom and then just the two of them.. they got married in some random lady’s house, we sat on computer chairs in a small living room with the ladies dogs sniffing us and barking. The whole thing lasted maybe 5 or 10 minutes.
After we proceeded to take wedding pictures in the parking lot of a Dollar Store and then we got McDonald’s. I made a little bouquet out of some ferns and leaves that were in the McDonald’s parking lot, she threw the bouquet and it ended up getting run over by someone going to the drive thru.
Lol needless to say, it was a trashy affair and their marriage didn’t last long.”
16. Third time’s a charm.
“When I was 11 my cousin got married for the third time.
I never really liked her because A.) She was 37 when I was 11, we didn’t have a lot in common and B.) She was pretty full of herself. The wedding itself was fine, pretty boring but fine. Then we get to the reception.
We were told we had to sit down as soon as we got there, some people found it weird but I’ve only been to one other wedding before this (her other marriages were when I was little, no kids were allowed at her weddings) so I didn’t think anything of it.
The Bride and Groom then make a huge dramatic entrance and everyone awkwardly clapped for them as they strutted around the room with actual crowns on their heads. The Bride then gets the microphone and hands it to her mom and asks her to say something she loves about the bride.
She then tells her mom to pass it on and says she wants EVERYONE in the room to say one thing they absolutely love about the bride. Not the bride and groom, not their relationship, just the bride herself. It was super awkward.”
17. That’s way too much.
“They reenacted a scene from an old romantic film, about two lovers in 1800s.
In front of like 300 people.”
18. Sounds amazing.
“It’s a tie between my sister breaking her knee (seriously) at her own wedding dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe and my stepsister having her reception at an honest to god truck stop while 6 months pregnant.
In her defense, the food was good but WOW was it weird walking through a gas station in formal wear.”
19. Pledge your allegiance.
“At the beginning of the reception, we all had to stand up and sing the national anthem.
To be clear, this was in another country I’d never been to a wedding in before, so I thought “ok maybe this is just a tradition I’ve never heard of before here!” Then I told this to other people, and they were all like “no, that’s just really weird.”
Also, at that wedding the father of the groom ended his speech with what I’m sure he thought was an amazing joke, on how it’s easier to build a bridge to Hawaii than to understand what a woman is thinking.
It would have been awkward enough had the man not also been standing between his ex and current wife as he was delivering it.”
20. Sounds like a hoot.
“Serve macaroni and cheese only to the bridal party. Everyone else got mashed potatoes.
I was a hostess so I got macaroni and cheese, after tasting it there was no way in hell they would’ve broken the bank preparing enough for everyone.
It was just really tacky because people were asking for it and I told them I didn’t know much about it I am just following directions.”
21. Freedom!
“Bride entered to Braveheart soundtrack blasting on boom box. Civil service that lasted a few minutes starting at around 1 pm.
She leaves to same blasting Braveheart soundtrack. The mother announces that the reception starts at 5:30 pm. There is no food and no bar, but trays of dessert bars will be served. We are also told the venue is locked until then so there is no place to wait!
My girlfriend and I leave with a crowd of people to across the street to an Irish pub for drinks. A bit of a party breaks out there. We all get told to knock it off and come wait back at the venue in the hall. So we sit in the hall on the carpet for a few hours without drinks or dinner.
Bride and groom arrive and enter the venue to an “honour guard” of floor hockey players wearing hockey jerseys and holding sticks above their heads like swords at a royal wedding. More Braveheart music of course.
Place emptied out pretty quick as people either left to go back to the pub or to the fast food place a bit further away. Our dinner was lemon squares and a can of Coke from a vending machine in the lobby.
Funny stuff.”
22. Cringeworthy.
“The bride decided to sing as she walked down the aisle.
She was not a particularly talented singer, and she was singing over a Carrie Underwood song so we could all hear the original vocal track.
She finished walking about halfway through the song and then stood there and sang the rest of the song at the groom and all we could do was sit there and watch.”
23. Total disaster.
“They began the wedding with the groom playing an out of tune guitar and singing to the bride.
They were sitting on chairs in front of everyone, legit 400 people, and the bride was clearly uncomfortable which made everyone else uncomfortable. That wedding also included a foot washing ceremony, and when the bride put her shoes back on she tripped on her dress and fell flat on her face.
They hadn’t done the vows yet and the ceremony stopped for 20 minutes to deal with the nosebleed she gave herself.”
24. Over before it started.
“Bride shows up almost 2 hours late to her own wedding. Southern California in an open field no water no shade.
She shows up and wants to get married in her yoga outfit. The groom shut it down and when she refused to change her clothes the groom decided to leave her looking stupid and they never got married.
I spoke with my uncle and it turns out he had speculation that his fiancé was sleeping with her personal trainer. When she showed up in her yoga outfit it was all he needed to call off the wedding. She ended up married to her personal trainer and divorced again.”
25. Bizarre.
“The ceremony also was the “Name Reveal”.
They changed their last name because they didn’t want to be stuck to their heritage and didn’t want anything to hold them back.
Turns out they changed their name thinking they could erase their mountains of debt or at least hide from it. Turns out you can’t live under two legal identities….”
26. Livin’ that vape life.
“Instead of throwing rice (or confetti, or sprinkles, or anything like that) the bride and groom asked their friends to save all their empty Juul pods and throw those as they walked down the aisle.
The friends obliged.”
Okay, you’re up!
In the comments, tell us about the awkward things that you’ve seen brides and grooms do at weddings.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
