Wedding Horror Stories - What's the worst thing you experienced as a guest at a wedding?

A long time ago, I went to a wedding about a 3 hour drive from where I lived. I had been give a guest and had RSVPed that a friend would be coming with me, b/c a) I didn't know anyone besides the bride and b) I couldn't drive, so someone would have to take me. So, anyway, we get there, sit through a full Catholic mass (very nice, but looong), and then have a 2 hour gap between the ceremony and the reception, which my friend and I spend at Wendy's (because there is literally nowhere else). Finally get to the reception, and guess what-- there's no seat for my friend. Looking back, it doesn't seem like such a big deal-- I could have just told one of the catering staff and I'm sure they would have been able to fix it-- but at the time, I was SOOOO humiliated. Here this guy had driven me 3 hours (and had to drive three hours back), spent about 4 hours waiting for dinner, and then this happened. We ended up leaving, which I know now is just as rude as saying "hey-- can you find a seat for my friend?"- but really, I just didn't know what to do.

I went to a Greek Orthodox wedding when I was younger, much younger, with friend. I didn't "get it" at all. I'd be a lot more open-minded about it now, but we stayed two hours into the reception and STILL hadn't eaten yet. There was a lot of dancing going on, which we also didn't understand.

I haven't had anything really awful happen, but there've been a few things that could've gone better or that have irked me.

~One wedding I was in, after spending tons of money on the pre-wedding parties, gifts, etc, I was given a +1 to the reception but pressured incessantly by the bride to not bring anyone because she didn't want to pay for it. She also "forgot" to give us any kind of bridesmaid gift until months later, and even then it was clear that she just picked up random stuff that was on sale at TJ Maxx.

~Another wedding I was in (again, after spending a bajillion dollars as a bridesmaid), I was given a +1 and was the only single gal in my group, so I asked a friend to come with me as my date so I didn't feel like a 13th wheel lol. He was a mutual friend of mine, the bride's, and some of the other bridesmaids as well. He came in from out of town with our mutual bridesmaid friend and her husband the night before the wedding since our mutual bridesmaid friend and her husband would also be attending the rehearsal dinner. I was the only one of the bridesmaids invited to the rehearsal dinner without a date, and so my date sat alone in the hotel room on the night of the rehearsal dinner. I, of course, got to sit through the rehearsal dinner, sticking out like a sore thumb with a bunch of couples.

~Another wedding I was in a bridesmaid in, the picture spot the bride and groom chose was very far from the church...and it was also very far from the reception venue. We got stuck in traffic, missed the photos all together, and everyone was miserable because we all had to pee from drinking in the limo. No fault of her own, just some bad luck and maybe not the best forethought.

~I was a guest at a wedding that was 3 hours from home, and in the middle of nowhere. The ceremony was at noon and the reception didn't start until 6:00, so we had a five hour gap of just sitting in a random bar twidling our thumbs and talking about how we really should just go home already. We did go to the reception, where the guests were held captive, standing, without having been fed, while the father of the bride, MOH, best man, and mother of the groom, all gave extremely long toasts that consisted mostly of inside jokes.

One of my best friend's got married two years ago, and the ceremony was in a beautiful church, but the reception was in this really old hotel that ended up being closed down the next month I believe. The reception was still nice, but we found out later that almost everyone at the wedding came down with food poisoning that night/next morning, including the bride and groom! What happened was the groom's cake had a special cream cheese frosting and the cake people hadn't refrigerated it properly, so anyone who got a slice of that spice cake got violently ill. Thankfully no one told the bride/groom/ or either of their families about it and everyone still thinks it was what the wedding party had for lunch that caused it, but I know a ton of people that got really sick that night and the only thing in common was the groom's cake. Thank god I don't like spice cake!

The power went out in a massive thunderstorm at a fancy golf resort so there was no A/C, no lights, dinner was only partially cooked, no DJ, no microphone to tell people what was going on, ice in the ice machines started to melt.

One of the guests was a welder so he went home and got his pick up truck that had a generator on it. It was enough to give the DJ power, mic, and finish the cooking for the caterers. Everything was still hot, delayed and dark though! haha. Thank goodness for the candle light.

The only thing that happened at a wedding I went to wasn't disastrous but was definitely poor planning. My cousin and his husband were married in one of the parks in Savannah, GA. Directly after they provided transportation via a trolley to the reception location not far from there. When we got there, the doors were locked and we weren't able to get inside. No one even let us know how long the wait would be. We were locked out of the building for at least an hour with just a parking lot to stand in. Nowhere to sit, no rest rooms, nothing. And since we were all from out of town, no one had a way to get us back to the hotel after the trolley dropped us off so we could hang out there in the meantime. It was very uncomfortable for us ladies in our high heels plus we had a bunch of elderly family members there.

Went to a 6pm wedding and dinner was NOT served. Just a few (like 4) apps were served. We starved. Went home and ordered pizza!

My worst experience as a guest was my cousin’s wedding yearssssss ago. The ceremony was in a church where her entire bridal party danced down the aisle like it was a Soul Train line. To each his/her own. But what made the experience so bad was that her reception was at her apartment and she had NO drinks. No soda, water, alcohol. So me, my father and my uncle went to the store and buy all that stuff for her to serve her guests. My father’s a softie and felt bad for her. I figured since I had to put in $ for the beverages, she wasn’t getting a gift from me too. But my uncle (my father’s brother and another softie), told me to be nice. So not only did we travel from the Bronx to Brooklyn, but had to pay for her beverages for her reception and gave her a gift. SMH

The bride and groom kept leaving the reception to open their cards and count money, they were gone half the time

I went to a wedding where the bride and groom let everyone bring a plus one, kids, no problem! there weren't enough chairs and she ran out of food REALLY early. But she was nice and liquored up so she didn't care.

I worked a wedding where the buffet had only one side open and 300 guests to serve. It took 90 minutes for everyone to go through the line. Absurd.

Had another with no appetizers or snacks available at the reception hall, but 2.5 hours between guest arrival and dinner. When I announced that we had one hour til dinner, around 30 people (out of 200+) left (mostly seniors and parents with kids) because, screw that noise.

After the ceremony they shuttled us to the reception. The bus forgot to make a pickup so we had to turn around. Almost and hour later we got to the reception site. The reception, with the exception of the dance floor, was on grass (not great when you are wearing heels) and then guests had to use outhouses which when it got dark they got tricky to maneuver around in... just kind of gross. For those worrying about guest comfort, I would sacrifice a "beautiful location" if it meant indoor plumbing for all to use, not just myself.

Like Tricia, went to a wedding where the invitation didn't say anything about how there would not be any dinner served. They had crackers and cheese, potato chips and caesar salad out on one table and it was demolished quickly. We left and went out to dinner.

The worst was when they only offered hors d'oeuvres and no actual meal. They were supposed to be "heavy" hors d'oeuvres but really, how many bacon wrapped scallops can you put on a napkin at one time? Pretty soon the food ran out and everyone left. I still feel bad for the bride, she was trying to save $$ and wound up so sad.

I went to one that was more poor planning than anything. The bride had been engaged for for about a year but had spent so much time finding a Elvis inspired dress (it was a pretty dress) that see did not plan anything else to the last minute. Invites were ordered and sent out a week before the wedding because she did not get a venue to a couple weeks before. The ceremony was at a pond at someones house which was very pretty but the reception was next door in a tiny community center that could not hold all the guests. The bride and groom and to pack up chairs from the ceremony after taking pictures and by the time they got to the reception most people had left. The MOG was suppose to cook the food instead she got KFC and BBQ and put it out in the buckets it came in with chips because she was drunk by the time the ceremony started. No dancing but people were getting drunk outside and I felt over dressed for it since most people had shown up in their dirty work clothes. The favors were match books and candles and they had to guest leave by 8 or 9 because they had to clean up or be charged for not cleaning. Most people including my mom and I left and went to McDonald's a hour into the reception.

Afterwords I found out that the FOB had not told her that I said if she needed any help planning I would do it for free. She found out at the wedding and was upset with her dad because it was not the wedding she dreamed of.

Another wedding upset I had was at my FSIL's wedding a few years ago. She got married at a country club that the whole family is very familiar with and they do a TON of weddings in town. Well, they had chairs set up outside for the ceremony. Literally 3 minutes before we sat guests, started to drizzle. It rained for probably 15 minutes then stopped (it's Indiana, this happens all summer long). Without anyone from the CC rushing out to help, My FH and I were put to task of wiping off the chairs - FH was in his suit and I am in a nice dress and heels.

There was NO ONE at the CC to help do this?!!?!?! They also had NO TOWELS. We had 4, yes, only 4 golf towels to wipe down 200 chairs. In the middle of all this, guests started lining up to be seated. That was when the rain cut loose again with lightening. Everyone ran to a nearby tree for cover as only like 2 people had umbrellas. The bride was on a golf cart and they had to drive her back around to the front door - which for some reason was locked in between the time pictures were taken and when we started dealing with the rain and chairs. The DJ was scrambling to get his stuff out of the rain too - again with no help from anyone at the CC.

Because the front door was locked, they ushered us THROUGH THE POOL area where a birthday party was being held...so here are older women, in muddy heels, having to walk a cobblestone path no wider than 3 feet from the pools edge to get into the back of the CC. Kids were splashing and cutting up and we were trying to get in before we got electrocuted. The life guard was also fighting with the kids because they would not get out of the pool, so they were jumping out and flinging water on guests. It was a mess...I have been to more weddings where things have gone wrong than to ones where everything seemed to work out just fine.

I have NEVER been to a wedding with horror stories to tell but these are making me think "WTF" haha who does this to guests. I can't even imagine what would happen if the power went out at my venue for the entire evening. I'm about to call up and find out if they have a back up generator of some kind! LOL

I actually haven't been to a really bad wedding. The only thing that happened at a wedding that made me and everyone really mad was that after dinner was served and we ate there was going to be about a 20-30 minute wait while they cleared off the tables and moved away the buffet to make room for the dance floor. Not a big deal, it was on a beautiful lake so most people went outside to get some air, chat, etc. But when they cleared off the tables, they took away everyone's glass including water, liquor, etc. And this was a cash bar wedding, so my barely drank wine that I paid $6.00 for disappeared. I was really pissed. I mentioned it to the manager, the bartender and the wait staff. I was given a free glass of wine and water glasses were put back out.

A wedding I went to a couple years ago was in the height of summer. It was an outdoor ceremony and then games and stuff until the reception. That part was fine as we could go in the shade to cool down. The reception was not very fun though. To start, all the 300+ guests arrived at the same time and so it took us over half an hour to get into the place as you had to queue up to see the (one) seating chart and then sign the guest book. The room was so hot that we just sat there sweating, and FH and I were placed at a table with my parents and their friends, even though a whole bunch of my friends were there. Dinner was a buffet that you made your own sandwiches and it took ages for everyone to get through it. The bride's dad spoke so long that the projector (for the video of the bride as a kid he wanted to show) died and instead of moving on, he spoke for 5 more minutes until the projector could be turned back on... and then spoke for about 10 more minutes after the video. It was about a half hour speech. The cake line was also huge and we ended up having to go outside to cool down as we were all getting headaches. The punch and water (dry wedding) was at a table across the room and so we didn't get enough to drink because we just couldn't refill that easily. After dessert, they announced that people could stay to chat (no dancing!) and everyone just left because we were hot, hungry and just done. We got ice cream after lol.

I've always had fun at weddings,but I suppose if I had to pick a worst thing it was at the dinner at my bosses wedding.

after hearing for months from both the bride and groom that 'everyone better enjoy this food!' since it was going to be so expensive, I saved my appetite big time.

my groom and I were eating the dinner while everyone else was intentionally not touching it.

they yelled at us for eating it since it was so expensive. turns out that just about every guest at the wedding intentionally didn't eat the food since they thought that if you didn't eat the food, then the couple didn't get charged for it.

found out later that people at the venue told guests that to keep them from eating it so they could charge the couple more for packing up the leftovers, and more food for them to donate to a charity and get credit for.

credit for the venue mind you, not the bride and groom that actually paid for it all!