28. The other wedding
My buddy was engaged to be married. Everything was going great up until about two months before the wedding, when the bride freaked out about something very minor during a family vacation and stopped speaking to him.
They would text once a day, so the other knew they were okay. They would say "I love you," and she would assure him she still wanted to get married.
One month before the wedding, she called it off.
They still hadn't talked except for the texts. He called all his people and told them the wedding was off. Only he forgot about one of his friends who had been on his fiancee's list, as he was a mutual friend.
Mutual friend still went to the wedding, where he found ... a wedding. The woman had been seeing someone on the side. She still went through with the wedding but to a different guy, all on my friend’s dime.
He had left her in charge of cancelling everything.
|AskA
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27. Maid of dishonor
I went to a wedding where the bride ran off during the reception.
The wedding was lovely, the reception was pretty lavish and we all had a sit-down meal, then drinks and dancing.
Just before the first dance, the bride got up to sing a song. After that, she went to the bathroom with her maid-of-honor.
Eventually, it was realised that they hadn't come back, and people began searching for them.
Not sure how it was found out, but it turned out that the bride had run off with her maid-of-now-(dis)honor, because they'd been having an affair.
26. Emotional baggage
My fiance had issues. I knew that.
I was going to be okay with becoming stepmom to three children and knew that I would be bringing home the bacon. I even bought a house that would be big enough to house him and the three kids.
He told me he never married his baby-momma and that he would leave my house at night for occasional night-shift work as a cop.
I asked to see the court decision regarding the kids, just so I knew what was going on. He kept the first page from me that read "Divorce Decree.”
So when his parents made a "second marriage" comment, I was thrown for a loop.
I told him to leave, and he swore up and down that was the only thing he lied about. I called his "employer" and it turns out he's not a cop either.
25. A public affair
Not me, but a wedding I attended in a public park.
The bride was watching from a house across the street for two hours when she decided there weren't enough bystanders to give her attention and called it off.
A friend of hers had her wedding at Hoiser Lane in Melbourne, and while taking wedding photos, she had quite a lot of random strangers watching and taking pictures.
So the bride thought that doing it in a park in a busy area would attract the same thing. It didn't. She had over 200 people invited but wanted the attention of random strangers.
24. One way to make an entrance
I was standing at the entrance of the church. When the bride was walking towards the stairs, she tripped and face planted on the steps. Being a wine farm there was a lot of dirt everywhere, so her dress was filthy.
She dusted herself off and continued walking. I noticed she was wobbling from side to side and thought she got hurt in the fall.
As she started walking down the aisle, she was stopping to greet people, making jokes, making faces.
It immediately hit me: She was loaded. By the time she got to the groom, she was swaying from side to side and slurring.
The best part is that she insisted the wedding proceed. The more the groom wanted to suspend proceedings for a bit, she insisted they proceed.
Then she exploded at him in the church in front of everyone, shouting and accusing him of ruining her wedding day and then she stormed out of the church, crying.
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23. It's the fall that hurts
My cousin was getting married and about 15-30 minutes before the wedding started, she was told that the man she was going to marry was arrested.
We found out he had been on Washington’s Most Wanted for illegal activity.
He ended up in prison for whatever it was he did, and right after she told everyone, the back porch collapsed right under her and her friends.
Luckily, it wasn’t much of a drop, like six inches, but that’s when she burst out in full blown tears.
It was a very awkward day, and honestly if I wasn’t there to witness it, I wouldn’t believe it either.
22. One-woman show
After 30-45 mins of waiting, the old ladies in the church and my aunt started talking. I found out that this is the second time the bride and groom have tried to get married.
We continue waiting (one and half hours total) and finally they tell everyone to go to the reception space.
During the reception she does it all: the first dance (with my uncle), the dance with her dad, all the traditional wedding reception things.
No one knows what to do at this point, can’t really give speeches because the groom isn’t here and it just seems awkward to celebrate something, that for the second time, did not happen.
The bride decided to get on the mic and tells everyone about how maybe she’s just not meant to be married, how she’s tried twice to get married to this guy and it just isn’t happening.
Then she goes, “You know where this jerk is?! He’s in jail because his dumb groomsmen let him drive home from the bachelor party, and he got a DUI. Yeah, he’s in jail and we’ve been trying to get him out.”
21. Seen it all
My mother owns a wedding photography business and she has personally shot well over 1,000 weddings in her career. She has so many stories.
One of my favorites, though, was when the groom put photos of his fiance cheating on him under everyone's chair during the ceremony.
When the ceremony was about to begin, he told everyone to look under their chairs and grab the picture.
He called her a cheater and walked out, leaving her father with the bill and leaving her standing there in front of everyone.
The ceremony never happened.
20. Life with a wooden spoon
My best friends ex was getting remarried to his long time girlfriend.
The new wife has two sons from a previous relationship, as does my friend and her ex.
The new wife was nice enough, but she was a bit uptight (to give you an example, her two new stepsons are not allowed to call her by her name, but they have to refer to her as "Miss Kate").
Anyway, during the wedding the pastor asked the sons how they were feeling on this "joyous occasion."
The younger of the two, who was about eight at the time, leaned forward and said quite clearly into the microphone, "I honestly don't like it. Her sons are bullies and she hits me with a wooden spoon when I’m bad.”
My friend caught it all on her cellphone. Best wedding video ever.
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19. The third time’s not always the charm
Wedding was called off and back on again three times during the week before the ceremony, including the night before.
The bride and groom were so hungover at the altar it took all they had not to throw up on one another. They both mumbled their vows and fumbled the unity ceremony and the ring placement.
My mother, his father, his brother, and the groom’s best man all begged him not to marry her the night before the ceremony.
We told him that we'd all just go have an epic party and drink ourselves sober over and over the rest of the weekend.
He went through with it, and the rest of us drank ourselves sober anyway.
They lasted three years. Bride made off like a bandit (10K ring, new college education, new car).
18. This takes the cake
This bakery had a thing of not doing wedding cakes because the brides typically go crazy over them.
My friend's fiancee, though, she was friends with the owner of the bakery, so she decided to make it just to be nice. Part of her gift, a free cake.
The bride went absolutely crazy. She was screaming and yelling and in tears over this cake. This was the day before, so the friend was trying to be nice, decided to remake the cake from scratch and got zero sleep that night working on it.
The next day, me, the bride and groom were in the bakery to pick up the cake, and she just got so angry, she picked it up and threw the cake over the counter.
She starts screaming her lungs out over how her friend ruined her wedding and how awful the cake was.
She turned to the groom and said, “What are we going to do about the wedding now?!”
The groom responded with, "What wedding?"
17. Crazy is as crazy does
I was supposed to be in a wedding yesterday that got called off three hours prior.
A lot of us were glad about this decision.
The bride was crazy. Supposedly she threw lighter fluid on her fiance when she had a lighter in her hand. She would throw household objects at his head constantly. One time she even tried to slash his tires with a huge butcher knife.
She did a bunch of other crazy stuff too.
Then, she put on Facebook that she hoped God had no mercy on his worthless soul.
She has no sense. Gladly he saw this and came to his.
16. Run away fast
I've been to one wedding where the bride bolted about 20 minutes before the ceremony.
She asked everyone to leave the room she was getting ready in, saying she needed a minute.
The family thought she was being super spiritual, but in fact decided to leave.
And another one, in the middle of the vows, the guy stopped the priest and said, "I can't do this," and literally ran out of the place.
From what I found out later, he hid on the resort's property in some bushes until his mother (who hated the bride-to-be) happened to walk by.
He had her retrieve his cell phone and keys from his room. The groom also went on the honeymoon trip with his mom.
15. Not how a wedding should begin
I was at a close friend’s wedding in Manchester, U.K.
Everything seemed to be going as planned. Sort of.
Suddenly, the police came in and arrested the couple.
'Someone' had notified the police that an 'illegal' (sham) wedding was taking place. Lots of people from both sides of the families explained that they have known the couple for quite a few years, but the police didn’t care.
Everyone was confused and had no idea what was going on.
The case went to the court, and the CPS (crown prosecution service) got told off. My friend and his then fiancee (now wife) were compensated 22.50 pounds!
14. Don't underestimate a sister's influence
A friend of my family had been together with his lady for seven years and decided to have a lavish destination wedding.
We're from Australia and they wanted to have a Las Vegas wedding. If you wanted to attend you had to pay the ridiculous amount to fly over to America, and for most of the family it took a lot of savings.
Apparently, for months before the wedding, the sister of the bride had been saying spiteful things about marriage and about not going through with the wedding.
The big day came, everyone had spent a lot of money getting to their dream destination and the ceremony was beautiful.
However, when it came time to sign the documents and make it legal, the spiteful sister decided to have one last "joke" about marriage being forever.
The bride then proceeded to freak out and didn’t sign the paper, she just said, "I can't do this" and ran out.
The sister and the bride ended up taking the honeymoon.
Needless to say, everyone was pissed that the bride insisted on a lavish overseas wedding that most family members couldn’t afford, and didn’t end up going through with it.
13. A missed photo-op
I was hired as a photographer for an old high school friend's wedding.
Up early, photographed the run through, and the girls getting their hair done. There was some tension between between the bride and groom at the reception site, but thought of it as just jitters.
We arrived at the chapel site, no guys, so we set up the girls for the bride and bridesmaids pictures.
Finally the guys arrive, and I direct them around for groomsmen and entire wedding party pictures. More tension between the bride and groom, the groom getting irritated with the number of pictures I was taking.
The time for vows draws near, the chapel fills up with people. The time the wedding is supposed to start and nothing. The bride and groom are in a separate building from the chapel.
I'm running through my route for shooting, when the pastor and the groom walk into the chapel, down the aisle to stand at the altar. They face the family and friends in the pews and the groom announces that his heart isn't into it.
The pastor falters for words, the groom is tearing up and the bride is bawling.
12. Blame it on the distance
A while ago, two of my friends planned to get married.
Meanwhile, the groom-to-be was working a job in another state, so they hadn't been spending much time together. A month or two before the wedding — I don't remember exactly — he said he wanted to postpone the wedding.
He said that they'd spent so much time apart, he wanted to get to know her better again, before the wedding. Spend some lost time together. That sort of thing.
Unfortunately, this turned out to happen just after the bride-to-be had sent out the wedding invitations.
She was mortified, and absolutely enraged, and thus the relationship ended there.
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11. She’s not waiting for him until the cows come home
My mom called off a wedding to a man she was engaged to, before she met my dad.
It was only one week before. She said they got into an argument over something very trivial (something having to do with cows) but it was enough of a wakeup call for her that they were not right for each other.
I know this man and she was right not to marry him. There were people that did not get word the wedding was cancelled and showed up at the church.
I had to ask my mom what the deal with the cows was. I guess they passed by a pasture and my mom commented on how lovely the sound of cowbells are.
He basically told her she was dumb for caring.
10. This marriage is a sham
The ceremony was never called off.
In fact, the bride and groom had decided not to get married, but didn't tell their guests that.
So my friend was telling me how this couple were having problems before the wedding. He would say going to their house was just awkward and that they would always complain about each other to him.
On the day of the wedding, everything from the outside looked normal. Bride and groom seemed like they were genuinely happy, but the bride and groom had decided not to actually get married.
They never went and got a marriage certificate, so it was basically a fake wedding.
They had a ceremony where they exchanged "I dos," but it wasn't actually real. Guests brought gifts and everything for the couple and they just cashed in and went separate ways afterwards.
My friend said he found out months after the wedding that the whole thing was just a hoax, and how they weren't giving any gifts back.
9. Patience is a virtue
The groom's mother had painstakingly planned the wedding for months and even spent a considerable sum on the wedding as a gift.
Cue the wedding day, and two flight cancellations meant the groom's mother would be at least two hours late.
The catering company, priest and everyone else were all happy to wait, and the mother offered to pay any extra fees.
The bride declared the wedding must go on and simply didn't want to wait. Regardless of the groom's attempt to convince her, loudly and in front of everyone, she was adamant that she be listened to.
The groom declared that if he was marrying that, then he didn't want to get married. He stormed out, leaving her for good.
8. Next-level poker face
My best friend called her wedding off nine days before the big day.
She discovered that he had emptied their joint wedding bank account playing online poker after he emptied his own personal bank account.
She told me that the feeling of losing a down payment on a house, as well as the catering money, wasn't anything compared to how she felt when he asked her for her inheritance from her mother to pay off more gambling debts.
Her mother had only passed a year ago.
She walked, and eight years later she's happily married to another guy.
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7. Liar, liar
A friend of mine was engaged to a girl. She turned out to be a pathological liar.
She was an army vet. Came from old money. She had a daughter, or maybe she didn't, or maybe the girl was her niece or her friend's kid. She was military police.
The lies got so bad that she decided to move across the country in the middle of the night, with my friend, to avoid a warrant out for her arrest for fraud and impersonating a police officer.
She told him there were jobs for both of them waiting there with her family business. He had been working on a Ph.D. but had dropped out at her suggestion.
So they moved in with her mom, and there weren't jobs for either of them. I think to distract him from that fact, she told him she was pregnant. He proposed.
The ultrasound photo she showed him showed up on the first page of Google image results for "ultrasound."
He finally broke it off and called his dad to get some money to fly home. She called him a few weeks later from jail to talk about their "baby."
6. Never forgiven, never forgotten
My own wedding got called off mid-ceremony.
I had just finished saying my own vows before being arrested by local police on an assault charge.
I beat up my almost brother-in-law for stealing my car.
For what it’s worth, he punched me in the face first, but that doesn't matter in my state.
Police didn't care what was going on, so I got carried out in handcuffs in front of all of my family and friends.
There are many negative consequences to having your wedding day end like that, beyond the obvious.
I have never been able to repair my relationship with her family.
5. Cut them both out
After a day of trying on wedding dresses, just me and my maid-of-honor, we met my family and hubby-to-be at my brother's house for dinner.
While showing a picture of myself in a dress to my mother, which was on my maid-of-honor’s phone, she gets a text message from my fiance. This is odd because I can see him in the next room and I can see my friend in the kitchen.
I read it, and it’s a huge confession from him to her, addressing how they had fooled around a few weeks ago and he was really regretting he hadn't taken things further with her.
He had no idea I had her phone in my hand.
I simply stood up and walked the 10 feet to him, held up her phone and looked him in the eye.
The look on his face was priceless. Needless to say, I don't speak to either of them anymore.
4. Never speak of this again
My idiot brother was married before. He and his new fiancee had been together for a while and had a little boy together.
As the wedding approached he ‘learned’ that his ex-wife had never finalized the divorce papers and was not in any rush to do so.
This was a surprise to the new fiancee, who had asked him repeatedly about it.
He then showed little interest in trying to get her to finalize the papers, and just let it carry on for months, until they were ultimately unable to get their license for the wedding (as he was still married).
She kicked him out of their apartment and ended the relationship.
He tried to move in with me, but I didn't have room, so he moved in with his ex-wife and her new boyfriend.
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3. Guess Who
I know of a wedding where the groom asked everyone in the room to stand up and started asking people with certain characteristics to sit down, he made it into a game.
He was left with eight men standing and asked them to turn over their plates and the men without orange dots on their plates were asked to sit down.
He then proceeded to tell everyone in the room how his wife-to-be had cheated on him with the four men left standing. He dropped the mic and left.
I know it's not a left at the altar story but that man goes down in history as a hero.
2. Forced proposal
I left my ex-fiancee a month before the wedding.
Backstory: I never actually proposed to her, she more or less did it to me.
We were in a mall and she wanted to go to a jewelry store to look at engagement rings. I wasn't expecting to walk out of there with one, but we did.
The salesperson even took a "just engaged" polaroid.
She became more and more controlling, and I couldn't take it anymore. After I left her, her friend texted me on the day of the supposed ceremony telling me the cake was delicious.
My ex also somehow managed to break into my email. After I left her, I had received an email from a girl, and my ex asked me who she was. I could understand her reasoning if it was before, but it wasn't.
1. A promise is a promise
My mom's friend was dating a man with a drinking problem. When he asked her to marry him, she said she would marry him if he never has another drink again. He agreed to give up alcohol for her.
The night before the wedding, his friends threw him a bachelor party, and he got loaded.
When he walked down the aisle, he was staggering a bit and she noticed.
When asked, "Do you take this man to be your lawfully, wedded husband?" She replied, "No, I don't."
They paused the wedding and went to the back with the priest for a counseling session. The priest came out and sent all the guests home.
