Stories of mishaps at your (or someone else's) wedding

Knottie1437445399

They say no wedding is perfect and there's always something that doesn't go just right. I wanted to share mine and want to hear yours.

My wedding was January 9. That Friday, I get word that my ring bearer tried on his tux, everything fit perfect but they received a call when they were 5 minutes from home to say that the worker neglected to put the vest in his bag before they left. (It was a 45 minute drive one way for them to get to tux place.) Caller proceeds to all his they want to handle it and of course the only option is to drive back to get it. Caller at that point had the nerve to tell her that it really wasn't a "big deal" because the color I chose for him was so light it wouldn't even be noticeable and it would save her a trip. Well she did go back to get it and I did call that store to complain about the unprofessionalism of that individual.

Fast forward to day of. It's cold and rainy. My FI is already nervous as it is. The girls are finishing up pictures when the guys arrive to get dressed. I wait in the sanctuary till he's ready so we can swap places without seeing each other. I'm sitting up there waiting... And waiting... And waiting... I keep asking if he's ready only to be told he was waiting to the changing area to free up. Everyone is acting odd and of course I'm thinking he got cold feet, took off, etc. FINALLY my planner and the officiant come up to say we are ready to begin (20 minutes late) and that bridge/Bridal party is not waiting in foryer with doors closed. Everything goes off without a hitch and add my new husband and I are waiting in the same foyer for the bridal party to exit, he hugs me and apologizes for the delay. Come to find out when he was changing into his tux he was also missing part of it (and it was there two days prior when he tried it on). The guy helping our guys try on (same chain as vest ordeal, different location) neglected to put his PANTS in the bag. We were delayed because the best man called store to let them know (and they said they knew because they found the pants after closing but didn't know who they belonged to!!). Best man basically demanded they deliver the pants add it was clearly their mistake. The obliged with no question. I laugh about it now (him not so much) but I'm not sure I would have found that same humor had I known at the time.

Things happen and the way I see it, we have a funny story to tell and look back on each year on our anniversary!

ILoveBeachMusic

My wedding was 33 years ago. My dress was being stored in my step-mothers office on the campus where I was to be married. I had had it steamed and the ceiling was tall enough that the long train would hang without getting wrinkled. She gave me the key to the building/office but forgot the alarm would be set. I set the alarm off trying to get my dress a few hours before the ceremony. Campus police came in answer to the alarm. Luckily, they could see my dress through the window so they believed my story. They ended up opening the office so I could get in and retrieve the dress.

lyndausvi

We had a storm tropical storm (almost a hurricane) for our beach/tent wedding.  60+ mph wind drive rains.   It was so bad it rained came through the window and door sills.   Tent collapsed the morning of.  It was fixed, but 2 dudes from the tent company 1.5 hours away had to stay all night to make sure it was all good.

Cake top melted.     So winds were so loud it was hard to hear us say our vows.  Had to use the reception area as the ceremony place because we couldn't have the wedding on the beach.   

Oh and we lived in St Thomas and one of the reasons we had the wedding in NJ to avoid this kind of thing (and it was closer for family to attend).

It was a great time.  I never cried.    We had good food, full open bar and a great DJ.     And more importantly we got married.

drunkenwitch

I'm sorry OP but I can't stol giggling at the image of a pantless groom.

monkeysip

I had a great wedding otherwise, but to this day it still bugs me what our DJ did.

He misunderstood our directions for some reason, and he cut the first dance song really short.  H and I danced for maybe 45 seconds.  We had practiced some dance moves (nothing youtube worthy--just some basic dance steps so we didn't have to do the middle school sway).  But he cut the song off, and we stood there looking awkward for a minute, until he invited others to the dance floor and played a different song.

It sounds like such a little thing, but it just still bugs me 2 1/2 years later, lol.  I wanted my first dance with my husband.  But oh well.

Even more awkwardly, he played the full length of H's and his mom's groom-mom song.  They kept looking around like, "do we have to dance to this entire really long song?"  lol.  I guess the DJ was too afraid to cut any songs short at that point!

luckya23

My wedding was much like Linda's - a monsoon.  Although it was also a freezing 50 degrees in late June.  The reception was outdoors in a pavilion, and the walk to the bathrooms was uncovered.

The DJ didn't really announce anything besides the beginning of the buffet, so I've heard a lot of people missed later things like the clam bar and ice cream sundae bar.

I was so thankful that the place I had chosen to do our first look (an old train station) had enough of an overhang that we were able to still do it.  The rest of the wedding was bad enough - I wanted those photos!!

spockforprez

monkeysip said:

I had a great wedding otherwise, but to this day it still bugs me what our DJ did.

He misunderstood our directions for some reason, and he cut the first dance song really short.  H and I danced for maybe 45 seconds.  We had practiced some dance moves (nothing youtube worthy--just some basic dance steps so we didn't have to do the middle school sway).  But he cut the song off, and we stood there looking awkward for a minute, until he invited others to the dance floor and played a different song.

It sounds like such a little thing, but it just still bugs me 2 1/2 years later, lol.  I wanted my first dance with my husband.  But oh well.

Even more awkwardly, he played the full length of H's and his mom's groom-mom song.  They kept looking around like, "do we have to dance to this entire really long song?"  lol.  I guess the DJ was too afraid to cut any songs short at that point!

The DJ did this at my brother's wedding too! If I didn't know better, I would say you were my SIL! He faded out their 2.5 minute first dance song after 90 seconds or so, and played the ENTIRE 5.5 minute mother/son song, which was "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd LOL. AWKKKKKWARDDDDD.

OliveOilsMom

I had removable straps made for my gown.  It wasn't noticed until the morning of that the straps were not placed in the bag after the bridal salon steamed the dress.  So I called the bridal salon that morning to ask about my straps.  I also informed her that it was my wedding day and she laughed and said "Oh!  It's today!"  They found the straps and my mom ended up going to pick them up.   

At my friend's wedding, the photographer came into the bridal suite to start taking pictures.  He asked my friend to sit on a chair for some poses, but no one notices their was a glob of liquid makeup and she sat right in it.  MOB was livid and talking about suing the MUA.  I stepped up and started scrubbing the dress with the things I brought in my emergency kit.  MOH was trying to contact the wedding planner to get a tide stick.  Eventually we got the bride out of the dress, so I could create a new pleat (thank God the dress was pleated) to cover the spot.  Then we had to get her back into the dress, which had a million buttons.  Did the first look and were walking back to the hotel.  MOH was mostly useless and I was carrying the train back.  We get to hotel and about to walk in the door, just then the tulle layer dropped and I stepped on it and ripped the hem.  At least it was an under layer and not seen normally.  She also had red wine spilled on her at cocktail hour.  That dress was just not meant to be kept pristine!

And at another friend's wedding.  MOB is zipping the bride into the dress.  She goes to do the hook and eye at the top and it breaks.  That was needed to help hold up the strapless dress.  So we ended up having to sew the dress onto her.

I guess there is some bad dress luck when I'm around!

monkeysip

spockforprez said:

monkeysip said:

I had a great wedding otherwise, but to this day it still bugs me what our DJ did.

He misunderstood our directions for some reason, and he cut the first dance song really short.  H and I danced for maybe 45 seconds.  We had practiced some dance moves (nothing youtube worthy--just some basic dance steps so we didn't have to do the middle school sway).  But he cut the song off, and we stood there looking awkward for a minute, until he invited others to the dance floor and played a different song.

It sounds like such a little thing, but it just still bugs me 2 1/2 years later, lol.  I wanted my first dance with my husband.  But oh well.

Even more awkwardly, he played the full length of H's and his mom's groom-mom song.  They kept looking around like, "do we have to dance to this entire really long song?"  lol.  I guess the DJ was too afraid to cut any songs short at that point!

The DJ did this at my brother's wedding too! If I didn't know better, I would say you were my SIL! He faded out their 2.5 minute first dance song after 90 seconds or so, and played the ENTIRE 5.5 minute mother/son song, which was "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd LOL. AWKKKKKWARDDDDD.

Haha, their song was "Forever young" by Rod Stewart.  Nice song... but not for over 4 minutes!  It just sucks that my husband got to dance with his mother for like 5X the amount of time he got to dance with me!

CMGragain

At my late mother's last wedding, the priest's poodle dog got into the church and came prancing up the aisle as the couple was exchanging vows.  The dog became nervous and started barking.  He ran under the pews and resisted all attempts to catch him.  My mother finally threw down her bouquet, held out her arms, and the poodle jumped into them.  She turned around and said "I do" with the poodle in her arms.  I thought the priest was going to faint.

kimmiinthemitten

My sisters wedding has two good ones:

1.  Their pastor was ESL, so my sister recited the vow "where you live I will live" and then her H said "when you leave, I will leave."

2.  After the wedding, we go back to the hotel where the block was and he stayed with the car to dig their bags out from under all of the decor, and she went to check them in.  Apparently, he made the reservation because despite standing there in her wedding dress, they refused to check her into the room because she had a different last name.  He read them a riot act when he came in since the wedding block was under "Brides Last Name-Grooms Last Name."

thisismynickname2

I have several.
1) my parents. A blizzard in an area that never gets blizzards, remote area. Fire trucks had to bust my mom out of the house, basically. Was an hour late; dad was drinking in the local pub. Married nearly 40 years now!
2) my close friend. A BM got the wrong color dress. MOB to the rescue and the BM had a new dress before picture time.
3) same friend. She mixed up the color coding for the meals when giving final counts to the caterer, and 150 guests got the wrong meal.
4) me. My photographer didn't deliver the photos. It took over a year to get all the digital copies I was owed. A good contract saved us and has cost the photog thousands of dollars in consumer fraud fines to the city alone.

NavyBlue143

We had a blended ceremony, so we had two officiants. My pastor forgot to let us do our vows, and his officiant forgot how to read and every phrase was jumbled or left out. We laughed about it, because what else can you do?

Also I had bronchitis and hacked up a lung all day.

collegechic

I was a BM at one of my closest friend's wedding and OMG where to start? XD  Her husband was 30 mins late (the best man, his brother, was bringing him to site and apparently he was hung over and got lost), the wedding cake was misplaced somehow, and her cake topper fell and the head of the bride fell off (her Mom put the head back on using cake frosting!). My friend took it all in strides, we look back at it and laugh now haha. The cake topper was our favorite!

lovesclimbing

All the weddings I have been in including mine have gone smoothly. (Two times as MOH, one time as a BM, and then my wedding).  Any mishaps have been tiny.  After the fact, my mom was disappointed that she didn't get any photos of my entire immediate family plus my new H. There were photos of my parents and us, but none of my parents, H and I and my siblings. We forgot to put it on the list and the photog, although excellent, was new to weddings and didn't think of it either.

But then, my two sisters got married one year and 1.5 years later respectively, so my mom got two weddings worth of family photos with the new H's!

missfrodo

monkeysip said:

spockforprez said:

monkeysip said:

I had a great wedding otherwise, but to this day it still bugs me what our DJ did.

He misunderstood our directions for some reason, and he cut the first dance song really short.  H and I danced for maybe 45 seconds.  We had practiced some dance moves (nothing youtube worthy--just some basic dance steps so we didn't have to do the middle school sway).  But he cut the song off, and we stood there looking awkward for a minute, until he invited others to the dance floor and played a different song.

It sounds like such a little thing, but it just still bugs me 2 1/2 years later, lol.  I wanted my first dance with my husband.  But oh well.

Even more awkwardly, he played the full length of H's and his mom's groom-mom song.  They kept looking around like, "do we have to dance to this entire really long song?"  lol.  I guess the DJ was too afraid to cut any songs short at that point!

The DJ did this at my brother's wedding too! If I didn't know better, I would say you were my SIL! He faded out their 2.5 minute first dance song after 90 seconds or so, and played the ENTIRE 5.5 minute mother/son song, which was "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd LOL. AWKKKKKWARDDDDD.

Haha, their song was "Forever young" by Rod Stewart.  Nice song... but not for over 4 minutes!  It just sucks that my husband got to dance with his mother for like 5X the amount of time he got to dance with me!

My DH is still pissed at our DJ for screwing up our parent dance music.  He had spent hours before the wedding making a slideshow with pics of him and his mom and me and my dad, and he'd timed it all to the music (You'll be in my heart--we're both big Disney geeks).  But it took a while for the slideshow to load, and the DJ started the music before it was ready, so the timing on the slideshow was off.  The DJ ended up playing the Peanuts theme song to finish the slide show.  I thought he handled it very well; we still got to dance with our parents, and everyone got to see the slideshow.  But to this day, almost 3 years after our wedding, DH can't listen to that song without going off on our DJ.  

AddieCake

I got the wrong size sole mates for my shoes and didn't discover it until the morning of. Because the ground was extra soft from the mist that was happening that morning, I didn't dare wear my heels, and I had to go barefoot down the aisle. My feet were filthy with grass and 2 former students washed them for me in the bathroom at the reception. 

I messed up the vows. If you can't tell, we are all laughing in one of my sig pics, and that's why. 

My husband stepped on the back of my dress right after it was bustled, and it broke the bustle loop. Thank goodness the dress wasn't complicated, so not too terribly long to walk around in. 

Knottie1437445399

These are all great stories! Big or small, mishaps happen and it sounds like you all took it in stride. Thank you for sharing!

Knottie1437445399

drunkenwitch said:

I'm sorry OP but I can't stol giggling at the image of a pantless groom.

Lol no apologies necessary! One of my sisters snapped a picture of him with their phone while he's sitting at a table with his head hung down, obviously upset. I hope my photographer for one because it's definitely going in the album!!

thefanciestbeckler

We had to start our ceremony 5 minutes late because half my family got lost on the way to the venue. They are pretty directionally challenged, so I wasn't too surprised.

The only other thing I can think of is that my cake arrived and it was crooked. The venue was down a long gravel road, and despite the baker's best efforts to drive slow and steady it shifted on the way. I didn't really care - it tasted amazing!

tigerlily6

I was a MOH in a budget wedding, and both the bride and groom are fairly conservative in styles and tastes, not too big on showy parties. This was fine, but during the reception, which was supposed to last from afternoon into evening, there wasn't anything planned after the dinner and cake. It was a dry wedding, and they hadn't booked for a DJ (neither of them is much into pop music). It was clear that the guests were getting a bit restless, not sure what to do, and both the bride and her father expressed some concerns to me in private as we tried to figure out how to use the extra time left. I found my brother, who was one of the guests already, and asked him if he could run home quickly (about 5 minutes away) and get his speakers (he was in a band and had pretty good equipment). The bride already had her MP3 player in a car. We moved a few tables, set up a dance-floor space, plugged the MP3 into my brother's speakers, and played a bunch of the bride and groom's favorite hits (some video game scores, a little techno, some Classical, and Christian rock). Even though a lot of us didn't know the tunes, almost everybody got up and danced, and had a great time well into the evening. We even were able to quickly put together an impromptu "first dance" for the couple that was one of their favorite songs. 

missfrodo

Tigerlily6's story reminds me of a wedding I went to.  The ceremony was fine (except it was in a public park w/o proper sound equipment, so none of us toward the back could hear a thing they said), and I'm sure dinner was edible, but then the DJ did so many "special" songs, including a special presentation for the bride, which included performances by the BMs and GMs, which lasted in excess of 10 minutes.  This is not an exaggeration.  Apparently it's some tradition they do in Hawaii, which I'm sure would be a beautiful cultural display if not for the fact that no one really knew what was going on, we were Maine natives (and certainly not a soul from Hawaii), and it was the most boring, tacky presentation I've witnessed.  I think the bride herself wanted to jump out a window.  This was followed by a series of spotlight dances (approx. 20 minutes or more), followed by special songs (like the YMCA, where the DJ gave us special hats and we had to line up against the wall to perform for the bride).  We got to dance to maybe 5 songs total that weren't performances or choreographed.  I got up and danced, mainly so the bride wouldn't feel as awkward (the DJ kept yelling at people to get up and dance, but you could tell it wasn't a dancing type of crowd), but my main take-away from that wedding was I WILL NEVER DO THAT TO MY GUESTS.  I made it very clear to my DJ that we would have our first dance and a combined mother-son/father-daughter dance, and then all songs would be by request (either from us or the guests), but no more staged dances where people had to either sit and watch us or perform for us!  

scrunchythief

-My Aunt's wedding:  There was some sort of mishap with the dress fitting and it was too long to walk in on the day of.  They tried pins, duct tape, etc, but it kept flipping up when she walked.  So my grandmother and the photographer (who used to be a seamstress) hemmed the dress the morning of the wedding.

-My wedding: I made the bouquets and boutonnieres, including a special boutonniere for my H with celery leaves as a Doctor Who reference.  I forgot to bring it to the church the morning of.  My mom drove home like a maniac insisting he needed his celery. Luckily, she made it back so we could start in time.  
Then we did a Spotify playlist instead of a DJ and one of our friend offered to stop and start it for the special songs in the beginning.  I didn't anticipate that my H's younger cousins would go up to him and insist on knowing what songs were coming up.  When he went to look through the playlist, the program put it in alphabetical order, undoing the order I'd spent ages crafting. We worked it out, and our friend was awesome with it, but it was a bit stressful at the time.  Moral of the story: have back up playlists if you're DIYing music!

ShesSoCold

My brother got married in the fall at this beautiful outdoor location. The day before, hours before the rehearsal, his now wife was cutting prairie grass from their backyard to use to decorate the ceremony location with an electric hedge-trimmer thing. She cut her left middle and ring finger pretty badly and went to the ER. They told her she'd probably need surgery but they wanted to wait until the next day. Since the next day was her wedding, they didn't do any surgery at all and her hand was bandaged up all huge. She was determined to get her wedding ring on during the ceremony and apparently she did.

At my wedding, we had cancelled the original wedding plans about a month before and planned a new wedding for three weeks earlier. It was a really rushed few weeks with a lot going on. H and I wrote our ceremony the morning before the wedding in about 10 minutes and sent it to my brother (the officiant). At the wedding, after the "kiss the bride" we recessed. There was a whole 'nother paragraph my brother had to read but we just up and left. Oh well.

badbnagdway

Our wedding basically went off without a hitch. We did have some little vendor errors. The florist didn't pack up the flowers at all so they were a big ordeal to get to the venue. Our caterer provided the bartenders and they clearly had zero bartending experience - they were pouring glasses all the way to the top full of straight whiskey and really struggled to make an old fashioned (I was assured on the front end that they were experienced bartenders). That wasted an incredible amount of booze but oh well, the biggest casualty there was that everyone was completely sauced at our wedding. Uber got everyone home ok. 

My sister's wedding though - two days before the ceremony the planner told my sister and her groom that there was an infestation of black flies at their outdoor venue, and that the back-up venue, a nearby chapel, was being tented for termites. That left them with a last option which was a room of a lodge. That would be fine except the wedding planner said they couldn't move ANY of the furniture, including the couches and coffee tables, and couldn't add chairs. So, they could basically get married among the living room style furniture of the lodge with 90 unseated guests (except for the ones who snagged couches I guess?). Luckily they got the resort to bug bomb the outdoor location to suppress the black fly population. It worked out but geeze, 

ScottishSarah

luckya23 said:

My wedding was much like Linda's - a monsoon.  Although it was also a freezing 50 degrees in late June.  The reception was outdoors in a pavilion, and the walk to the bathrooms was uncovered.

The DJ didn't really announce anything besides the beginning of the buffet, so I've heard a lot of people missed later things like the clam bar and ice cream sundae bar.

I was so thankful that the place I had chosen to do our first look (an old train station) had enough of an overhang that we were able to still do it.  The rest of the wedding was bad enough - I wanted those photos!!

I would have been really bummed to of missed that clam bar, sounds fab!

princessleia22

Luckily, there wasn't anything too major with mine, but a few little things. 

1.  The cake design was all wrong.  It was supposed to be a criss-cross quilt pattern on it, but it has some frilly decorative piping instead.  Cake flavors were correct and it tasted amazing, so I didn't care too much.

2.  Our DJ was horrible.  He pronounced our names wrong.  Then he started playing my father-daughter dance song instead of our first dance song. He got about 20 seconds into it, of everyone standing there awkwardly looking at him, before he stopped the song and started the right one.  We had a funny song (Fish by Craig Campbell) that we asked to have played during the reception... he decided to play it during the cake cutting instead.  Our requested song genres was a mix of country, pop, rock, some oldies (about 1/2 our guests were in 30's and 1/2 over 60 years old) with specifically requesting no rap or R&B.  About half way through the reception, he starts playing some rap song filled with profanity and not wedding appropriate. That was when our wedding coordinator had a nice chat with him.

3.  During our first dance DH's shoes were sticking to the floor, so he kept lifting his feet and stepped on my dress a few times.  We had taken dance lessons and had a nice choreographed dance (nothing crazy, but enough that we weren't doing middle school rocking back and forth).  Well, him stepping on my dress messed up our steps and we were cracking up laughing through most of our dance.  We just kept moving, nobody noticed that we messed up and they all thought we were just having a wonderfully fun time dancing.  And the photos of us laughing while dancing turned out great.

ETA #4: I bought DH pistol shaped cufflinks as a wedding gift. He forgot to put them on for the wedding and I don't think they made it back home after the wedding/honeymoon.  Maybe he didn't like them and conveniently lost them?  I don't think that's the case though.

MyNameIsNot

Our wedding was pretty smooth. The only hiccup I remember was that my FIL got lost on the way to the ceremony (despite the map and step by step directions that I'd specially made for him). We waited about 10 minutes for him to get there, but after that we had to start without him. He slipped in while I was going up the aisle.

My sister had all the bad luck. The worst was 3 days before her wedding her dress was hanging in her basement where she'd steamed it. A pipe burst and her dress got drenched. She was able to get it dry with fans, but you could still see some water stains in a few places if you looked closely.  

lembaslover

For my grandparents wedding, I wasn't there but the story is told very often in family, my grandpa cut off the pastor and just said "I Do" during the part where he says "Do you take [grandma's name] to be your wife, to have and to hold etc... so the pastor just cut it short for my grandma as well.

For my parent's wedding , again I wasn't in attendance but the story and pictures live on, my father had chickenpox and got into a car accident the night before the rehearsal dinner. Luckily the rest of it seemed to go off without a hitch.

For my own wedding nothing really went too wrong. I did forget the card box but my mom went out and got another one for us. Our DOC were great so if anything else did go wrong they handled it and never told me.

Jells2dot0

Our wedding was held on a private island accessible only by boat from a nearby island. While on the way to the island the day before the wedding, the boat's engine starting sputtering. The crew was able to keep it up and running, but they said it would need to be looked at. The next day, the boat was to bring over our officiant and photographer. They could not get the boat running to get them over and all of the other appropriate sized boats were being used. Finally, they got it working and they got to the island, though a bit late. Obviously, since it was just the two of us, we weren't upset at all about starting the wedding late. We just sat around and drank champagne until things were ready. We weren't sure what was going to happen for the return trip, but somehow the boat made it to pick them up. That was the last trip the boat took for the next 3 days.

Some of the resort guest had to extend their stay. We didn't mind, as we were booked for 3 additional nights. But, the day we were to leave, the boat was late getting to us. We were able to catch a helicopter from the other island to the mainland, but we missed our flight to our HM destination.

emmaaa

Our marriage license was in our car which DH had driven to the hotel 45 minutes away so we could leave first thing in the morning for our HM. DH's aunt and uncle had to rush to go get it.

I forgot about ceremony music until the morning of and had to play it off my computer.

The flowers on my cake were not the color I wanted. I just had cream colored "rough" icing and said I wanted cream roses. They were a bright pink. Still pretty but NMS.