*updated, below*
Hal and Fable at a friend's wedding last Saturday
My favorite Momversation eps have to do with story-telling and deep, dark secrets so the following episode (about funny wedding experiences) was especially fun because weddings much like life, never quite go according to plan, womp womp.
I mean, if you told me at age fourteen, that my wedding would be held in a tiny chapel, chaperoned by a receptionist, attended by the chapel ghosts, legitimized by the power vested in Reverend Mothball Breath and the state of Nevada, I would have been like, "No way. I have big plans with Prince William and Buckingham Palace."
But it happened in Vegas. And it happened with Hal who is far funnier than Prince William. And it was awesome. And I wouldn't change a thing. Except for maybe the purple velvet maternity pants I was wearing. Bad call, self.
It just so happens, we have a few wedding attendance bloopahs of our own as evidenced by the facial expressions in the following photo, taken soon after Hal tried to bribe Archer with a scone that was not a cupcake:
More on that story, here
Speaking of bribes, tell me what went wrong/unexpected on your (or a friend's) wedding day in the comments below and be eligible to win one of four autographed copies of Laura Joy Rennert's new children's book, Buying, Training and Caring for your Dinosaur. Names to be picked at random by Friday 5pm, PST.
Looking forward to your tales.
...
**UPDATED: Congratulations to Prasti, Paula, Amber and Gaby (2:02pm) for winning the autographed books! Please email me so I can get your books to you! Thanks to all for your most entertaining stories!**
GGC
79 comments:
Ha, my wedding I planned for maybe over a year. We had a destination wedding (so no yuck relatives would come). I invited maybe 14 of my best friends and our parents and it was basically a drunken weekend on an island. We got smashed the night before (skinny dipping in the resort pool).
Day of wedding, I sat in the pool for hours then decorated my wedding car ( a golf buggy). I put on my poofy princess dress and was thoroughly embarrassed by all the tourists taking photos of me on the back of the buggy (yes, unfortunately I looked pretty).
I sprinted down the aisle (to KC & Jo Jos All My Life....I hate this song, I wanted Michael Buble doing Feelin' Good so I could walk down crazy burlesque style...wasn't allowed).
We went on a sunset cruise afterwards. Great. Had dinner later. Pity all my friends were too hungover to take advantage of our bar tab so I pretty much drank myself stupid. Unconscious bride on wedding night. That was me. It was great.
I am one of those who laughs uncontrollably at the most inappropriate time...like the entire time we were reading our vows, I couldn't keep a straight face. My poor husband was so annoyed.
At my friend's wedding that I was photographing last summer, the groom had to ask the minister to repeat the things he was supposed to repeat because he forgot what she said -- it was REALLY just cute & everyone giggled. ^_^
We got married in Gatlinburg, the Vegas of the South. I was a little late to the service because I got lost trying to get there. My mother in law had the nerve to go in and tell my husband that I wasn't there yet and might not show.
I showed up, by golly!
I wasn't much of a wedding planning girl, and if I'm being honest, my mom did most of the work on our afternoon wedding and dessert reception. I knew my few must-haves: the dress, the flowers, and the BBQ afterparty at a lake house with boat rides and karaoke with only my besties. I got two of those three.
You see, my grandfather died about a month before my wedding, and the florist had been his high school classmate, making her about 80 years old, but a total sweetheart who wanted to do our flowers as a gift to us and to honor my grandfather. And my bouquet was one of the only things I had a clear vision about. I wanted a small, hand-tied bouquet of mini white calla lilies, with a blue ribbon.
I spent most of my wedding day smooching my husband in the hallway (good luck be damned)and laughing with friends, so I didn't even notice until we were literally about to walk out the door to walk down the aisle that I didn't have a bouquet in my hands. "Anybody seen my bouquet?" After some of my friends did some frantic searching, it was discovered that NO bouquets or boutonnieres had arrived (they were the only real flowers I ordered, because of my allergies, the other decor was all fake). We had a good laugh, the church's wedding coordinator managed to throw together a bouquet made of leftover chrysanthemums and daisies from the reception hall, and she handed each maid a mum and put one in each man's pocket. BAM. Flowers. Despite it all, I never really panicked. The way I saw it, flowers or no flowers, I was getting married and I was having a blast. And about five minutes later, I walked down that aisle with that hasty bouquet, and now I have a funny story to tell.
I got married 4 days after 9/11. Enough said!
I hired a seamstress friend of my mother's to do the alterations on my wedding dress. She also said she could make the mother of the bride dress, flower girl dress and four bridesmaid dresses. Yeah...not so much. She ended up having a breakdown the morning of my wedding and nothing was finished on time. A half-hour AFTER my wedding was supposed to start, I was still pacing my parents' living room in my Levis and veil, swigging champagne and begging for my bridesmaids to tell me what time it was. (They'd hidden all the clocks when it became apparent I was going to be horribly late to my own nuptials.) I was an hour late; thankfully, the groom was still waiting at the altar.
Oh, and then our photographer disappeared with our money and our photos. I finally tracked her down eight years later and she mailed me one long roll of film taken on our wedding day. I haven't gotten the nerve yet to make the first cut on that roll, so we still haven't developed any professional prints from our big day -- and we just celebrated our 10th anniversary on 10/10/09!
Sometimes Vegas seems like it might have been a better idea....
Well, I got married two and a half years ago. On my wedding day, my step-dad got sick. We just thought he had the flu and my mother was basically telling him to just stay away from everybody and we were joking about how he just didn't want to get dressed up. He, of course, wasn't going to be able to attend the wedding. During the wedding, my mother got a call that he went to the hospital and needed an emergency apendectomy! So... right after the ceremony and a few pictures, she took off along with my sister. I ended up having no family at my wedding reception since my mom and sister were at the hospital and my grandparents wouldn't attend because alcohol was being served!
Oh well, we got married during a category 5 hurricane.
Our reception hall flooded (think beautiful venue on the river, and then the river inside the beautiful venue.)
love the pics!
I was a personal attendant at my friends wedding and she was stressing about everything. To make things all the more stressful, the photographer "forgot" that my friend had paid her to come to the salon while we all got our hair done...and she was frantic and on the verge of tears. I of course got to be the one who tried to call the lady, who had her phone OFF. In the end she missed the entire hair fixing extravaganza and it was awkward all day because my friend was mad and ready to strangle the lady.
A ring bearer who managed losing his pants before sprinting down the aisle. Cute in theory, immensely embarrassing to his red faced parents running after him and pretty awesome to watch. It's moments like those that make weddings memorable!
My wedding day...my hairdresser completely stood us up. Which actually, in retrospect is really funny. She up and went to ocean city for the weekend without telling anyone, so my little sister did my hair.
Also...we forgot all about a guestbook. Guests? What guests? But really -- why do they need to sign in?
Aaaaannnd by the end of the night my new brother in law toasted me as a "sweet broad"...again...funny. It wouldnt be a wedding without some mishaps.
First off my husband forgot our wedding bands (his one and only duty of the day); so my father-in-law hauled ass back home to get them for us BUT he got some vintage rings my Papaw had given me for Christmas one year THAT DIT NOT FIT. So we just used my engagement ring and my Dad's wedding band. To top things off, when we were exchanging rings, I was so nervous I put the ring on my husband's wrong HAND and wrong FINGER (I put it on the right-hand, middle-finger). It was a huge slip-up of the day, but it's kept laughing every day since then.
We didn't find this out until about a year after our wedding when we finally got our video. My mother-in-law had a few too many drinks at the reception, and when she filmed her best wishes to the bride and groom, she called me my husband's ex-wife's name! Fortunately, I went to the bathroom just before it came on, so I missed it, and I never watched it, but we very quickly had her part edited out!
My honor ushers pulled up the carpeting in the church trying to get the aisle runner to unroll. It was pretty funny and I missed it all because I was behind a closed door.
Ah, wedding disasters. Good times. My wedding snafu wasn't a "disaster" so much as a big freakin pain in my side. First, my aunt, who wanted to help so much that I gave her a simple task for picking up these mints, forgot the mints. Then, as I'm walking down the aisle, I realize I can't hear anything. The officiant is really quiet and the cello quartet is barely audible. After the wedding, as we walked down the aisle, my husband told me the sound guys never showed up! No sound! No DJ! Nothing! All the stress got to me right then and I started crying before we signed the marriage license. Then come to find out one of the groomsmen had an inseey weensy diabetic situation that morning and his LEGS DIDN'T WORK until 30 minutes befor the ceremony. Ugh. Weddings suck.
Oh my. My wedding day was something I like to call a disaster. We did it on the cheap, deciding a big wedding was not in the budget. We planned our wedding in a week before my MIL flew back to Peru (where she lives for 6 months/year). We did it in my sister-in-law's living room with our immediate families & 2 friends each. Sounds nice huh? My MIL got us a cake and we had wonderful food and wine.
Except my sister-in-law's house? 2 hours away. So all my family is truckin' it up there, about 10 minutes ahead of us. Until I realize an hour into the trip.. OOPS! I forgot the dress! And my husbands dress shirt! Awesome!
So we turn around. Go home. Get the dress. Luckily our four month old is just taking a really long nap back there and has no idea that this is about to be the longest ride of his life.
We head back out. Get back on the interstate. Oh hey, guess what? TRAFFIC. TRAFFIC FOR THE ENTIRE DRIVE UP. Oh yeah. I was 4 hours late to my own wedding. I cried. My 4 month old cried.
I had no time to get ready for my wedding. I was rushing and I felt like hell and I was pissed off and my son was pissed off and I just wanted to get it over with so I didn't have to think about it anymore.
Lets just say I drank A LOT that day.
My maid of honor forgot to wear underwear.
And because my wedding was outside, I had to pee in an old dingy local grocery store that was near the lighthouse that we got married at.
My veil got snagged as I was coming down the aisle. I stopped short, my breain short-circuited and I stood there for a second; a kind guest smoothly got up and unhooked me and away I went. Some guests could see that I was caught; others thought, I don't know, that I had suddenly changed my mind? 10+ years later, I still haven't. ;)
Oh my wedding! A day I wouldn't repeat if you paid me! Three years out, it's all funny. On the day it was actually funny too, mainly because I was so exhausted with the whole thing that I didn't even know how to deal other than to laugh.
Some backstory :
My husband and I met because my brother was dating his sister. (You follow?) From the start, his whole family believed I was temporary and began planning the wedding of my brother and his sister (despite the fact that my brother was, at this point, in the middle of a messy divorce from someone else). When those two broke up, my husband's wife and mother took their frustration about the break up out on me.
Some of the highlights of my wedding day :
- Despite me saying repeatedly that my hair won't hold curl, the hairdresser insisted on curling my hair. Not only did she burn me twice, my hair fell flat before I even left the salon.
- My brother and his new fiancee had offered to pay for the hair dresser as a wedding gift. Several times in the weeks prior, my future sister in law called the salon and confirmed that they had her credit card on file and could run it without having the actual card. Every time she was told it was fine. On the actual wedding day, they refused to do it, saying they couldn't. I ended up paying and telling everyone I know in the local area about it.
- While walking through a parking lot in my wedding dress to go meet the menfolk involved in the wedding so we could go take pictures, I was completely unaware that my skirt was brushing against the sides of the vehicles and gathering mud. We have pictures of the wedding party in the WalMart parking lot with Shout Wipes, the top layer of my dress up around my waist as they all surround me and try to clean the mud off. Shout Wipes? Totally worked magic.
- My husband's sister (my brother's ex girlfriend) was supposed to be in the wedding but up until the actual day kept going back and forth, to us, on whether or not she actually intended to show up. At one point she asked to not be part of the wedding party but to instead be a guest - and wear the white dress she had purchased as a potential wedding dress.
- After deciding to be in our wedding, my husband's sister proceeded to sob loudly through the whole ceremony until my grandmother stood up and quietly escorted her through a side door so she wouldn't be a distraction. Great idea, right? Except when I should have been saying my vows, we all got to listen to her screaming about how it should have been her and my brother getting married and how I stole her happily ever after and ruined her life.
My husband was the one who wanted the big wedding, I wanted to elope. Now he tells everyone we know who is getting married that eloping is a way better plan.
During our wedding ceremony, my husband dropped my ring. Bad luck? We'll see about that. ;) Also, we totally forgot to bring the wedding favors that we poured our tears, sweat and blood into making them: handmade oatmeal soap with handmade Irish flags attached to them. Other than those two incidents, everything went well. =)
OH MY WOW. These are HILARIOUS. Classic. We should seriously put together a book of these. So much good.
we were getting married outside so my bridesmaids and i were scattering leaves over muddy areas so guests could stand there during the ceremony. when my maid of honor bent to scatter leaves, she lost the ring. fortunately, i never knew. she had the girls search through piles of leaves until it was discovered. she told me much later about it.
and we just attended a wedding where the mintister got the groom's name wrong- and my husband was the best man who was so nervous he dropped the ring. It clanged to the tile floor. But luckily everyone was cool abt it and kept on "weddinging."
My Grandmother was hospitalized the night before, my cake wasn't delivered my dad had to drive and hour to go get it 3 hours before everything started, and I had a bridesmaid drop out the day of.
This is my mom's wedding story actually, but it sure is a good one. My dad was pretty sick with a cold the day of the wedding, so he was all drugged out on cold meds. The minister for some reason refused to actually say the words "You may now kiss the bride", so they were just supposed to know to do it. My dad sort of forgot and got ready to head down the aisle, so my mom yells out "Aren't you going to kiss me!?!"
Reception: My grandpa got a wee bit tipsy before dancing with my mom. He dipped her. He DROPPED her. She landed on her head, was out cold and finished out her wedding day with a concussion.
I am right smack dab in the middle of planning my own wedding and though I'm trying to get things in line for lovely day, I also know that things have a tendency to go awry. I'm not too worried about that making for a "doomed marriage" however. My parents will be celebrating their 30th anniversary a couple of days after I say "I do." :)
We got married in Maui and I chose our location (fancy schmancy golf course) for the sole reason that I did NOT want to get married on the sand. I had adorable pearl vintage shoes (bought the shoes before the dress) and I wanted to show them off.
Well you see where this is going. As my dad and I are riding down in the little golf cart I see all my guests sitting...on the sand in front of the ocean. I could also see future husband arguing with the wedding planner.
And you know what? My first thought was "Hey, whatever! I'll get married on the sand. No biggie." I had my dad go calm everyone down and I kicked off my shoes, handed them to my mom and got married barefoot.
I was the maid of honor in my best friends wedding so I had the grooms ring. In a stroke of genius I put the ring on my finger, he is a not-so-big guy so the ring fit well...when I put it on...I guess my hands swelled when I was standing there. About five minutes before they asked for the ring I realized it was totally STUCK! I tried to be calm, but I thought I was going to have to rip my finger off to get the damn thing loose. The bridesmaid behind me realized what was going on and started to giggle, which made me even more nervous. Seconds before they needed the ring I got it off, my finger burning with pain. In the wedding video you could totally see what was happening, and several of the guest that knew me well came up to crack jokes. My finger was black and blue for weeks afterwards, but they got the ring and I did not have to say, "sorry, I got the ring stuck on my finger and I will give it back as soon as I can get to some soap," in the middle of the ceremony.
Ooh, and during the last prayer I noticed a giant spider crawling around on the brides dress, right as the pastor said amen the thing crawled right down the top of her gown. I never told her that part. My own wedding went perfectly, I would not have changed a thing!
Because I was paying for my dress, I decided to have it made which was sooo much cheaper than buying a dress. Turned out the seamstress was a cat owner- I am allergic to cats. Every time I went for a fitting I got sick but chalked it up to being in her house. Well, when I took my dress home 3 days before the wedding, I was fluffing it out and got crazy sick... yeah, those cats had been all around and in my dress and I was now allergic to my own damn dress. My mom located the dry cleaners to DC's equivalent of "stars" and we raced the dress there at 6:30 the next morning with the hope it would be OK since it needed to hang from the rafters for at least 24 hours to dry following whatever chemicals were needed to rid the dress of cat. I ended up paying more to have my never been worn silk gown cleaned than I did to have it made. Luckily, the dress came home as I was leaving for the rehearsal. It was in one piece, and cat dander free. Needless to say, I was pretty high strung that week.
I decided to elope after 6 months of planning a big wedding. We jumped on a plane, did not tell a soul, and headed to Jamaica. I was assured by the resort that all would be fine. We wrote our vows and picked out a few readings. I bought am ivory silk slip dress and we were off! When we got to the resort and met the planner, we were handed a thick book of scripted wedding vows, prayers and readings. I told her, "We wrote our own". The planner responded with "We've never done that." Add to this problem the fact that we were to be married by a priest....we are not christians...this was not going to work...I began to cry...The resort found a Justice of the Peace in Kingston, a 3 hour drive from the resort. He made it, but forgot his glasses. The vows and readings we had planned were lost and we had to write them all out again, by hand....I was married on the beach, in bare feet. It was lovely and meant so much more than the big bash we were planning. In al of the photos however, there is a woman looking over the officiant's shoulder telling him what to say. I can't beleive we pulled it off, but it was worth it.
At a friend's wedding I was in recently, the pastor started the service before the bride had come down the aisle. The maid of honor had to interrupt him to let the bride's music start and let her make it down the aisle.
erniebufflo said her florist didn't deliver her flowers... mine did but I totally forgot my bouquet when I walked down the aisle - didn't even notice at all until I went to hand it to the maid of honor. I was crying so hard going down the aisle (my mother in law later told my husband she thought it was b/c I thought I was making a mistake) that it didn't even occur to me that I wasn't holding it. Oh well - made it easier on the maid of honor - it was a big heavy sucker! Got it in the pictures and that was good enough. Oh, and my parents decorated the stage (yes, stage, not by choice) and the decorations fell apart after people started arriving, but the 'rents got them back up before the ceremony started so all was good. And I didn't even care - just sat back in my room drinking wine coolers (yea, I know, wine coolers) and eating chocolate hanging with my girls.
(at another wedding, no one was sitting down, so to get things moving I decided I'd go sit down and it turns out they were all waiting on a specific person - grandma maybe - before they started sitting. oops!)
I was a bridesmaid at my girlfriend's wedding. She had a friend of a friend "designer" make our dresses. The night before the wedding we still had not had our second fitting. The wedding dress, at least, came out beautiful. The rest of us, not so much. The dresses were all too tight - I mean skin tight. I had red marks on my shoulders and inner arms from the crinoline and tightness of the fabric in general. Also, I tried to go natural with my curly hair and due to time constraints and humidity ended up looking like a frizzed out poodle.
my husband and i decided 5 days before that we were going to get married in new york city hall. we told a few friends and the bread and puppet band (they had a show in the east village) said they would play a few tunes in the park for us. then there was the big mta new york city transport strike of 2005, and we thought no one would make it downtown. but everyone did! happy ending!
I picked a nice catering hall on the water. My florist made me two wreaths of fresh flowers for the door, and the hall said that I couldn't put them on the entrance doors. Rather than give me another option, they threw out my $900 arrangements. The waitstaff was joking around during the ceremony, and I have photos of them standing just to the side of the ceremony, facing my guests, throwing up gang signs.
I really wanted to fly to Vegas.
The last wedding I went to, the best man made the worst speech I have ever heard. He told the bride her hair was ugly, said mean things about the groom, insinuated that he was trying to get with the bride and then said to the bride "there are three things you need to know about the groom: He's a liar, a cheat and a thief." He then proceeded to expound upon each one in great detail. We were all sitting there squirming while he went on and on and one - we were waiting for the redeeming punch line - but it never came. Just an aweful, horrible, mean speech with a toast at the end and a teary bride. The worst part was that he was reading from notes - he actually prepared the speech, and wasn't drunk.
We got married almost eight years ago (HOLY GOD HAS IT BEEN THAT LONG?!?) and I remember vividly the final speech/charge given by my husband's very religious uncle. He was SUPPOSED to talk about mothers and how they are important to family (as both my hsuband and I were raised by our mothers, not fathers) but INSTEAD his VERY RELIGIOUS UNCLE decided to have his own sermon and talk about Wives SUBMITTING to their husbands. He used the word submit, I swear to you, at least 25 times. I wanted to DIE. My husband wanted to DIE. It was awful. There we were, in front of 225 of our friends and relatives and BAM I'm being told to submit.
Bryan spent our entire honeymoon calling my entire side of the family and apologizing. Whee!
On our wedding day my best friend and Maid of Honor was so busy being nervous for me that she left the wedding ring for me on the dresser instead of giving it to my husband. She made this eep noise when they asked for the ring but the best man was quick on his feet and I was married in a pewter demonic skull ring.
I still wish he would have let me keep it.
Actually some people's lives DO go according to plan and it's annoying! Maybe I'm jealous though.
I'm getting married. Two weeks from Saturday. The blooper from my first wedding was that there WAS a first wedding. The bloopers from the impending nups? Oh Dear. I can only imagine. We are doing a destination of sorts: Sitka, Alaska. We live in Anchorage. It is rainy this time of year. About fifty people are coming including all five of my boyfriends siblings, his 17 year old son, my three year old daughter, my parents, some mutual friends . . . oh. and my sister wasn't invited, i'm sure my mother will be happy to share her thoughts on this will all my new in-laws. Repeatedly.
So. Walking down the aisle with a three year old. That will be something. Sure there is no room for error in our plans. Yep, non.
One of the groomsmen set a cheeseburger on a bed in the chalet room at the lodge where I got married. Cheeseburger on the bed= my groom sat on said cheeseburger in his white tux. Everyone thought I would freak out so nobody told me until just before the ceremony...'Tide to Go' really works though!
My own wedding went off without a hitch (except the one for my hubby and me, hee), and for a long time I counted it the best day of my life. That doesn't mean I don't have a wedding blooper story, though.
My aunt got married when I was 21, and I spent half the night before her wedding riding around visiting various Wal-marts in central Florida to find the stuff for a last table centerpiece that she was missing. I also helped her decorate the reception hall that night too. Apparently her maid of honor was supposed to have accompanied her on these outings, but was AWOL. That same maid of honor did show up to the wedding, but changed out of her dress after the pictures (before the reception), and decided to have sex with her boyfriend in the women's bathroom while the reception was going on. My sister discovered it- she came out of the bathroom and grabbed me, saying, "There are two people in one stall, and one of them has very large male shoes." A bunch of wedding guests camped out in the hallway waiting to see who the guy was. He barricaded himself in there for about half an hour, until finally he and the maid of honor left the bathroom sheepishly, to much applause. My aunt was furious, and ended up giving me her maid of honor's gift. I'm pretty sure they weren't friends after that.
I've got two:
1) Right as my dad and I approached the rest of the wedding party, everyone in the congregation could hear a gurgling sound. I thought it was my dad (who was mic'ed), and the minister is lactose intolerant, so you know what he was thinking! It turned out to be the baptistry--it was set to filter, or drain or something, at 1:00 each Saturday, and there we were at 1:30! The noise went away, and we eventually figured it out.
2) The night before the wedding, my now-husband and his friends went out to the playground (an ark play structure) and were playing tag. My husband was tagged "it" and he turned to run after someone else, jumping down the two stairs...and running into the mast. He had the BIGGEST knot on his forehead. You can barely tell in the wedding photos though. (I was just glad that he didn't need stitches or have a concussion. His friends decided I was a keeper after I didn't blow up when I saw the damage!)
I was walking up the steps to the church, having just had my hair done, when I hear a "yelp!" Turns out, my mom had just slipped on the (highly waxed) interior steps of the church and had broken her wrist! So, there I am, standing in the entry way as my soon-to-be grandma-in-law shoves a rolled up magazine under my mom's elbow to try and immobilize it (g-ma used to be a school nurse), my mom's crying and apologizing to me, and all I can dumbly think is "Um, I think I need to be getting my dress on. And someone needs to take my mom to the hospital." My in-laws sped my mom to the ER, we delayed the ceremony by about 30 minutes (which I felt terrible for causing my flute-playing friend to nearly pass out! I completely forgot they were playing the whole time), and my mom returned with a soft cast as a temporary fix and a lot of pain killers. We opted to NOT have her light the unity candle (drugs + fire = bad, bad things), but the wedding itself was lovely.
The reception, with the DJ who went renegade and decided to play lots of line dances which we had requested not be played, asked about the Cubs score, and screwed up my father-daughter dance and BLAMED me for the mistake? Not quite as lovely. Ah, well.
My fiance and I were attending the wedding of a friend in Des Moines, Iowa. The drive from Chicago wasn't bad and we arrived at our hotel with plenty of time to spare. But, we got a little greedy with our time, and ended up leaving late for the wedding. The directions from the invitation were nearly impossible to figure out...turn north onto west avenue and the church will be on the northwest corner. That would have been all fine and dandy, but we had never been to Des Moines before and didn't know up from down. So we find a church and were like, "oh, this has to be it!" We rushed inside, just in the nick of time. As the bride was getting ready to walk down the aisle, I was reading the program and said to Pete, "I thought your brother was in this wedding." To which he replied, "He's the best man." Uh oh. As the bride started walking down the aisle, it dawned on us that we were at the wrong church. We waited until she made it up front, and then we dashed out the back door...and drove to the church across the street. Whoops!
I got married on a riverboat in pittsburgh and an Our Lady Peace concert in the middle of our vows. Nice.
Nothing too bad happened at ours. The night before a good friend of the groom got punched by a security guard and had a huge fat lip not to mention it ruined the whole night for the boys who were partying. The day of I forgot my veil so I never ended up wearing it or even getting any pictures of it. I forgot my garter in the hotel room so we didn't get to do the garter/bouquet toss which my husband was a bit disappointed by. Our ceremony started about 45 minutes late because our invitations had the wrong address and the place was just plain hard to find. Did I mention it was a cold evening in January and the ceremony was outside? Our minister was a good friend who we ordained so he had never done this before. He missed the whole part on the ring exchange so we just shoved them on each other and we all flubbed our vows since we never rehearsed it fully. At least it was funny.
Besides all those little things it was fantastic and we really loved every moment (except for our friend getting punched). So, it all worked out, we got married which is all that really mattered anyway.
That look on Fables face. Priceless.
We got married in Reno, which is like Vegas for rednecks.
This is my mother's wedding story:
She & my father had a simple wedding, with my father's much younger brother as the best man (my father was 36, my uncle was only 22). The wedding went off without a hitch. My 22 year old uncle proceeded to drink himself stupid at the reception. After the reception was over, the bridal party, including my wasted uncle, headed back to my parents' home (they didn't honeymoon). My mother dropped everyone off at the house, then went back to the reception hall; she forgot the basket where everyone had been putting their monetary gifts!! She retrieved the basket o' checks, and went back to the house, where, she discovered her brand spanking new brother-in-law had gotten sick all over the bathroom. ("All over the bathroom" entails: vomit on the sick, floor, toilet, wall, and all surrounding areas.) She spent the first part of her wedding night cleaning up champagne-vomit. And when she went to brush her teeth before bed, discovered that the vomit-comet had crash-landed there, too.
I was designated photographer for a friend and 2 hours before the wedding my date smashed a hammer INTO HIS FOREHEAD while tearing down a fence. We made it to the wedding in the nick of time while he sported a gigantic bandaid over the stitches and swelling. Everyone was wonderfully understanding so apart from my near coronory upon hearing the news that my date was headed to the ER it all ended up fine in the end.
Well, so far the only thing wrong with a wedding, is that we haven't had one yet :o)
Maybe I should stop dating other people and he'll see that I am serious and will ask me... hmmm, maybeeeee...
(I kid, I truly kid)
We hired some random minister to officiate our wedding... We just said short and sweet, nothing long or elaborate. So this dude proceeds to give a 20 minute diddy about hands. Yep... Hands. My husband and I were so confused about what he was talking about we got the giggles... And then because I'm Captain Inappropriate, I whispered to my soon-to-be hubby, "I don't know what to do with my hands" which is a favorite quote of ours from the Ricky Bobby movie, and we totally lost it. We were laughing almost uncontrollably. My mother was so proud. Good times! :) And of course nobody knew exactly why we were standing up there looking like two idiots laughing for some unknown reason. It was awesome. :)
My wedding was a big to do, mostly because of my mom. She wanted the sit down dinner, dancing, etc. All I cared about was that A)we got married, B) there were pictures, and C) I had a beautiful yummy cake. I'm not sure why I cared so much about the cake but I did. It was beautiful, three layers, blue and green with white scrollwork... Amazing. So I am walking in with my new husband and they announce "For the first time Mr and Mrs..." and I look over where my cake should be an about burst into tears. It was in three pieces on plates on the cake table.. and someone had put fake flowers on top of it. We went right into the first dance and all I can do is go "Oh god. What's wrong with my cake?? Do you SEE it? What happened.. Did you see the poor cake?". Turns out what happened was that it got too hot.. and started to melt.. then started to slide... and thankfully the caterers saved it and salvaged what they could. It was still delicious and most people didn't even know it was supposed to be a tiered cake. Oh. And wow. How could I forget the unity candles.. I'll keep it short.. They wouldn't light. People were starting to laugh at our attempts. :D. Love reading everyone else's.. Good to know we all had problems.
He proposed and we found out I was pregnant one week later. A week later we were married. We went to the (beautiful) courthouse in Austin, TX. When we got there we realized he'd left his ID at home so he had to drive cross town back to our apartment to get it while I nervously hung out with my cousin, her girlfriend, and his sister (aka our witnesses). We ended up having to wait for two more hours since we had missed our official appointment.
The best though was when the judge walked in decked out in his robes, complete with cowboy boots and matching hat, and proceeded to say "Let's get ya'll hitched before ya change yer minds". Seriously, the best intro to a wedding ceremony, ever.
The thing I liked most though was not having all my crazy family present and also, the complete lack of planning worries. It was spontaneous, and fun, and perfect.
Ooh, I have a great one. The week before my American cousin was to marry her British fiancee, he was to fly into the country to finish his end of the preparations. When he reached customs in NY, he was DEPORTED for having the wrong kind of visa. They had planned a 400 + person bash complete with open bar reception at an immaculate southern plantation. Talk about stressful!
My cousin and my aunt and uncle put a call (and I imagine a donation) into their state senator who managed to pull some strings so that her fiancess could get into the for two days. She lost so much weight that week that we literally had to take in her strapless dress hours before the ceremony because it kept falling off of her.
In the end though, it was fabulous and everyone had a wonderful time. Plus, it is one hell of a story.
Got married on Maui as hubby and I did not like to be the center of attention or endure the stress of planning a wedding. (Walking down the aisle? I would have spent the previous year worrying I would barf while doing it!)
Anyway, lovely trip planned with lots of side trips (snorkeling, road to Hanna, Luau, dinner cruise..) except I felt so nauseous and had to eat ALL THE TIME.
Getting married was lovely. Spent the morning on a beach collecting shells, having a wonderful time. Got married on a beach, just us and the minister, a ukulele player and the woman who organized it and her BF. I had a pretty vintage lacy dress, hubby in his suit; bouquet, pictures and video for friends back home.
Dinner in a VERY swanky place (champagne $12 a glass and this was over 17 years ago) and divine seafood dinner which I could not eat even though I LOVE seafood.
You probably see where this is going but it took me two days after we returned home when I could NOT muster the energy to unpack to maybe think my pre-menstrual symtoms had been with me for some time. One pregnancy test later and bingo. The bride was pregnant :)
Do not regret a thing, my son is now 16 and a darling guy who towers over me :) Must go back for our 20th and do all those things again WITHOUT the nausea!
anmatthes3@gmail.com
If you had told my fourteen year old self that she would be married:
On the top of a mountain at sunset by a man wearing demin overalls while she was six months pregnant to the song "Wild Horses"
she would probably say, "Sounds about right."
Hi Rebecca,
I am in Australia and have never been able to read your Babble posts, because it automatically takes me to Babble Australia!!
Do you know how I can get to your posts?!
Thank you!! :)
xx
Well, we had our wedding in a loft in downtown Chicago. Despite having the worst stomach ache and anxiety, things went okay for the most part. That is, until the elevator broke and my husband + his cousins had to carry his wheelchair bound grandparents down the three flights of stairs.
Despite the minor snafus, it was still a pretty good day and in the end, I wouldn't change a thing.
So, I went and got engaged while finishing up my thesis film in graduate school. I got it in my head that we could get a honeymoon out of it. What I really needed was a vacation. I wanted to get married at my parent's house but that wasn't good enough for my mom so she basically planned this totally not me wedding at a golf course close to my parent's house in Vegas because my Dad was going through a phase where he didn't want to drive more than five minutes away from his house for anything.
Then a few days before the wedding my grandfather died. I thought we would postpone but everyone wanted to come from back east, even my grandmother. So I was like, ok. But OMG I should have just taken the honeymoon and blown off the wedding because my grandmother went insane overnight. It started as massive wailing from grief and then she went senile and thought that she was about ten years old and kept talking about her relatives that were long since dead. My mom and uncle had to keep her sedated in an upstairs bedroom. Then my mom handled the stress like she always does, poorly. She basically ditched me and I had to go pick up my dress and all other wedding stuff by myself. While getting ready for the rehearsal mom blurted out, "I just can't wait until this is all over". I got upset. Then she gave me the cold shoulder as if I was being a bridezilla. WTF? The wedding was just something we got through. And got on the plane and got to the honeymoon. Which was ok for the first couple of days until my husband went balls out on a booze cruise and drunkenly ate stuff you should NOT eat in Mexico and spent the rest of the time near death giving the toilet all his love.
I have decided that this is my motto about weddings:
Bad Wedding=Good Marriage
I can't say it is exactly true but I like anyway. On a side note, someone also told me this one and it makes me have an internal smile whenever I hear someone talking about what a good sleeper their kid is:
Babies who sleep through the night are stupid.
Also not exactly true but I like it.
I was a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding a couple of years ago. The night before the wedding, myself and another bridesmaid were driving around at 1am because the bride had forgotten part of her dress.
During the wedding, the bride's soon-to-be stepdaughter started yelling, "MY EAR! MY EAR!" which is what she says when the batteries in her cochlear implant go dead, leaving her completely deaf. Luckily the ceremony only went on a few minutes longer, so I was able quiet her down for those couple of minutes.
The bride forgot part of her DRESS, but had somehow remembered, in all the hubbub, to put a pack of tiny replacement batteries for the cochlear implant in her little bride purse.
We spent maybe six months planning a small to do for our wedding- we wrote the entire ceremony, built a scrollwork iron archway to put in my parents' gardens to be married under, found a cute venue and ordered up some meat on a stick.
Perfect.
We were also in the process of buying a house. Turns out the broker had told the mortgage company we were already married. He figured close enough, right? Well, not so much for the VA. We were told 5 days before the closing that we would need to provide a marriage cert. To the courthouse we go! Flip flops, pipe cleaner rings, magic.
We decided not to tell anyone because we didn't want to undermine our wedding, with all the special touches and planning. Did I mention meat on a stick?!?
I made a speech at the reception explaining it in fun, lighthearted manner. It went over like a fart in church. My uber conservative, ultra religious in laws? Loved it. My pot smoking hippy parents who eloped themselves? Irate. My bro and sis in law, both part of the wedding party, left. My maid of honor had to track them down and give them the whole "I don't care how you feel its not your day" speech, and they pulled it together for the rest of the night. 3 years later, we still can't mention it in front of them. I've never even gotten to tell them about our first "honeymoon" to a cheesey Lynyrd Skynyrd concert where my husband got drunk and lost my pocketbook. It took a police report and some lost-ID-before-a-house-closing hysteria before we figured out it was on top of the car- I'm too short to see up there. Good times!
Still though?!?- neither of us would change a damn thing. It was perfect. And since our marriage and our wedding were 3 months apart,but both so important to us, we split the difference and celebrate our anniversary in the middle every year. My family calls or sends cards on the wedding date though. Ahh well....
My hubby and I got married at home by this guy who had the charisma of an undertaker. We wrote our own vows, but he brought some too and proceeded to take literally a half an hour reading through the vows he had brought before we said our own. Needless to say we were thrilled when the ceremony FINALLY ended, the undertaker was gone. our friends came by later that evening with a cake, and just when we thought our wedding couldn't get any funnier, the bakery had written "Happy Birthday Den and Kay" Umm...yeah. It was hilarious.
my oh my. My mother ended up in the ER the morning of, panic attack - too many out of town family members staying in her house and too many late nights wedding planning.
Then my father in law ended up with the flu. He made it through the ceremony and pictures and was MIA the rest of the evening.
oh - and my husband leaned over a candle and got white wax all over his tux jacket...at least it didn't catch fire!
First our flower girl freaked out and had to be pulled down the aisle by my aunt. Then, my grandfather said the opening prayer and asked God to bless me and my husband's brother's name in our marriage. Since I had casually dated his brother in the past, it was an uncomfortable situation and my husband was pretty annoyed. People were actually snickering and my grandmother was shoving her elbow in my grandfather's ribs really hard. He still had no idea what he had said wrong. The thing I was most upset about was the fact that I had printed the vows we had written on notecards for the preacher off of my computer. When the preacher started the "repeat after me" part, I realized that I had acidentally printed the example vows we had been looking at instead. So we said the complete wrong vows. Ooops.
Lots and lots of rain for our outdoor wedding. But it cleared up for plenty of merriment to be had by all. Also, the cake collapsed - but it still tasted divine. In the end, it was the most fun I've ever had at any wedding.
In the excitement leading up to the ceremony, I completely forgot to give my maid of honor, (my sister), my husband-to-be's ring. When the time came to exchange rings, I looked at my sister and she just shot me this look like, "I don't have it?!" Then that look went all the way down the line of four other bride's maids, like that cheesy thing that all the best men like to do...you know you've seen it.
In the end my mom had to run upstairs to where we had gotten ready and fish it out of the box it was still in! We all just laughed it off, and I really wouldn't have had it any other way. Weddings can be so boring, I'm glad ours had a little humor.
We had a fairly traditional resort style wedding. We invited our college roommate's parents, whom we adored. Unbeknownst to us, they passed out about 15 cowbells to other guests and when we kissed the cowbells filled the room. It was so awesome and in Montana very appropriate. I loved it. My friend's mother recently passed away from cancer and I will always remember her for giving us the best unexpected wedding memory of the day.
Oh this one I wanted to share too...I was a bridesmaid in my childhood friend's wedding. She was five months pregnant ( not really an important detail to the story but she was) and her husband was an avid golfer so they had the wedding outsidwe on the golf course. What they didn't account for was the wind. I'm talking gail force winds. As we walkked down the aisle chairs were flipping up into the air and being tossed around like pom poms. Then it was my friend's turn to take take her walk down the aisle right as she started to walk a huge gust of wind blew her veil up into the heavens and it came down around her face. Her father tried to hold it down but it was nearly impossible. She made it down the aisle but her father could see her tears and seriously, people were holding their chairs down! Her father called off the ceremony. We had about an hour gap and then restarted the ceremony inside.
Our reception was held in a hotel ballroom in South Carolina, mid-July, approx. 3:00pm. In other words- blazing hot outside. Inevitably, someone unrelated to our wedding pulled the fire alarm on one floor of the hotel. Hundreds of guests had to be evacuated and forced into the SC sun. Thank God the bar was already serving or there would have been no guests to greet us as we arrived at the reception.
Third marriage for me and it's been the charm...almost 10 years and still going strong! Only regret is why oh why didn't we think of dancing down the isle ala the Youtube couple!! DARN IT!!! LOL
I KNEW we were so much alike! I thought I was going to marry Prince William!
My wedding day was 99.8 percent perfect and if I could go back and change ANYTHING, it would be not asking the bitchy bridesmaid to stand up with me. ;)
I was married in 2001, when internet reservations were just taking hold in the small town where we were married. My husband booked our wedding night in the fanciest B&B in town via the internet. Half way through the wedding reception I noticed he had disappeared. Found him frantically trying to find our reservation, to no avail. Due to other events in town there were NO hotel rooms anywhere. Wound up spending my first night as a married woman in my parent's guest room.
I got the best proposal of all..."Just choose a fucking day ok..." We had 1 almost year old son at that time...we did the court house wedding followed by dinner at a local italian resturant...the whole thing cost us about $300...came home to watch the wedding on video before our "reception" at the inlaws, only got through some of it before we got sidetracked. When we cut the cake (that had my husbands name wrong, should have been Dave it was Doug)we started filming only finding out weeks later when we went to use the camera again we'd forgotten to get to the end of the tape before we started recording...so allllll of the wedding was gone. And replaced with jittery too much to drink shakey video...ahhhh...so much fun!!
i was a bridesmaid @ my sister's wedding this summer. my husband was sitting w/ the kids. we had a plan A, B, C, etc. in case our 2 month old baby wailing during the ceremony to be nursed. it was an afternoon wedding so we had to cut our daughter's nap short to make it on time (and she's one of those girls that REALLY NEEDS her "beauty" sleep). the procession starts, everything's all good. then the bride and father make their grand entrance, but it was overshadowed by the LOUD, inconsolable screaming of my daughter (this is what happens when she doesn't get enough beauty sleep). what's worse was that it was an outdoor wedding so no matter where my husband took her, you could still hear. of course the baby SLEPT pretty much the whole time w/ no fussing at. all. hmmmm....
I was in a boat, going to my dream wedding, and my husband to be was at home depot. enough said! he forgot the time of his own wedding. Typical. in the end, it was od, I got a free ride around the lake...
What I love about all these bloopers is that none of it matters as long as two people show up and say I do, or I will or YES or whatever.
- My husband's Grandma missed her taxi (deaf as a post) and no one decided that they could help an 80+ year old woman to the airport to catch another flight. So, she just didn't come.
- My mom was convinced that the cute painted rocks lining the outdoor aisle were going to be thrown by the groom's Mom and Dad who hadn't been in the same room together since their divorce years before. (No rocks were thrown. Thanks for the confidence, Mom.)
- My maid of honor ("best friend" for years) and I had a blow up fight. She Fed-Exed me her skirt and a note that she didn't want to be my MOH anymore. The DJ almost announced the wrong girl's name as my NEW maid of honor came in. And we had to go by first names only because the DJ couldn't pronounce anything. Thank God hubby and I changed our last names to something non-Czech and non-Norwegian, because that guy could never have pronounced either of our original last names!
Oh, and my hair went from curly at 10:00 am to straight as a stick at 3:00, an hour before the wedding started.
We were just married on August 29th, and even tidbits might have been snafus were funny and the day was awesome!
My husband's godmother did get one priceless photo of me at the church door just prior to my processional.
See, the chapel had no vestibule and it was pouring so my dad had to come get me outside and there was no place for a matron of honor to wait to unbustle my gown.
So when I got inside the chapel door my butt was barely in out of the rain and it took a few minutes for everyone to remember to roll the runner down the wooden-planked, rain-dirtied floor for me and for the male chapel attendent to step in and stick his hands up my skirts to unbustle me.
And in the photo she snapped my eyes are as round as cookies and I look completely in shock.
The actual wedding went off without a hitch. Well, other than my new mother in law getting smashed and having all of my relatives and friends ask me who the angry drunk woman in the royal blue rhinestone dress was.
We rode home in our old jetta, which had been over-zealously decorated by the "other than groomsman guys who were spouses of the girls in the wedding party" - with that white spray can paint, so we had lots of honks and giggles from other cars on our way home.
Unfortunately, the "groomsman" hung out at the apartment between their part in the pics and the reception. With the spray paint.
My first clue upon arrival was to be greeted by my very freaked out black cat, who had been painted to look like a skunk, stripe down the middle. How do you wash a cat, assholes?
When my new hub took me upstairs to undo the thousands of buttons on my gown, we needed the bathroom light to see.
Wow. The entire bathroom -glamour bath with sunken tub, mirrors all around- had also been lovingly decorated/painted. Every single mirror was covered with graffiti- sheep fornicating, someone getting a blow job, you name it.
Holy crap.
So romantic.
Those mutton.
sigh.
I know the contest is closed but just had to come on to comment that my wedding day (which we only spent about $6,000 for EVERYTHING) went off perfectly. A strap broke on one of the bridesmaid's dress' and the photographer had a small sewing kit and fixed it. I forgot to get a knife to cut the cake and our caterer had one. Otherwise, everything was perfect. Beautiful weather too!
I'm usually NOT even close to being that lucky. It was amazing.
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