Wedding Recap and Withdrawal

MOH speech from Hell (long)

I got married on Friday and it was beautiful, magical, perfect, and everything I could have asked for and more, except for one thing...

I've known my MoH for 20 years, we met in the first grade and were really, really close from then until high school, we kind of drifted in college, but we started talking a lot again last year and I asked her to be my MoH. And she was awesome and helpful, way beyond my expectations (I planned my whole wedding in just 3 months, and I'm not sure if I could have done it without her.) A few days before the wedding, she asked me if 1 page was a good length for her speech and I said yes, thinking 1 page is a typical typed front of a page, in a normal font.

Well, wedding day arrives and again she is awesome, helpful, and I am truly grateful...she gave me a nice pep talk, everything was great, until speech time

By that point, she was pretty inebriated. I knew things were not going to go well, when she began thanking HER date and a close friend of hers that was also in attendance. She then begins to talk about herself, how her tan is fake but her boobs are real and other nonsensical things. 3-4 minutes into the speech and she hasn't even started talking about me yet! The guests began to sit down and put their champagne glasses down...there are stifled groans going around. Then when she finally does start talking about me, she starts saying really embarrassing things...like how me and her were jumping on the bed in our underwear during our bachelorette party...is this really what I want my conservative in-laws to hear?...then she begins talking about anecdotes from our childhood...and taking them completely out of context, and making them sound really bad, so now my family thinks that I was an alcoholic at the age of 12 and I stole stuff. When she started talking about how she used to forge my father's signature for me when I failed tests in school, I had heard enough...I started gesturing frantically at her to stop, but she only looked down at her paper. Finally, the groom saw how upset I was getting and went up to stop her. She wasn't even halfway done with her speech.

She ran into the bridal suite and was upset and crying, saying that we embarrassed her, and she worked on that speech for 2 days and how the groom and I were ungrateful and how she isn't going to talk to us anymore in the wedding. She told another bridesmaid personal things about me. Eventually she calmed down, and was pretty normal for the rest of the evening. Some of the guests were perturbed by her speech, others thought it was hilarious...I didn't let it ruin my night and I had a great time.

However, it seems that my MoH really does plan on cutting me off. She posts passive aggressive facebook statuses about "ungrateful people" and has not initiated contact with me since, while every other person in the bridal party and most of the guests have, to tell me how great the wedding was, etc.I am still kind of upset about her speech, and even more upset about the fact that she saw nothing wrong with it and thinks I am wrong. I don't want to lose her friendship though...Everyone gives me different advice, some people tell me I should just ignore her and she'll come around, other people tell me I should talk to her and act as if nothing happened, my husband thinks that if I want to salvage the friendship, I should apologize, but I can't bring myself to do that. My parents say that we should blame it on the dj and the food servers and say that they were signaling us to end the speech...what do you think?

Re: MOH speech from Hell (long)

  • I think you need to sit down and talk to your friend about her speech, and let it know it upset you, but then MOVE ON with it if you want to keep the friendship.
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    (Married)meganandshane.weebly.com~
    (Planning)shaneandmegan.weebly.com
  • Sorry this happened, people do strange things when they are drunk.
    Personally I would blame it on the DJ-it is his fault(kinda). A good DJ knows when a speech is going sour and will cue music to end it.
  • I agree that you need to sit down and talk to her.
  • That really was a nightmare.  Oh gosh, I'm so sorry that happened.
  • I would definitely not apologize.  I would just be honest and risk losing the friendship.  I would say to her straight up:
    " Look, I can tell you are upset with us for stopping the speech early.  I want to tell you that I didn't want to ruin your moment or embarrass you.  I also was grateful about how long you spent preparing a speech.  However,  you did really really embarrass me on my wedding day.  The things you said were not appropriate for those guests and they were not things that I wanted people to know.  The things you said really made me look bad like an alcoholic or someone who steals things.  The point of a speech is to bring a person up and praise them not to make them feel embarrassed and bad.  As upset as you are, I am equally upset.  We really need to talk about what happened."  

    After you discuss it and she knows how you feel, she may apologize at which point you can make up or you can stop the discussion and tell her that bygones will be bygones and you'd like to remain friends but you needed to let her know how you feel.  If she's still a bitch after that then she's not a friend worth having.  
  • I haven't met my FI's MOH yet, still 11 months to go and I will, but now I'm getting nervous about not knowing her or if this could happen to us. LOL  My thoughts mimick theresa626 on this.

    Married in Vegas - June 2011


  • So sorry this didn't work out - especially since she did put effort into the speech.  (I was composing the speech for my sister on the altar during the ceremony, it kept me from crying...)

    I thought these toasts were supposed to be pretty short, not give someone's life story...

    I'd give her some time to get some perspective and then talk with her.  She'll probably realize that the speech was embarrassing and maybe she'll apologize first!

    Hope you're now enjoying the wedding "afterglow"!!
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • Any chance she has a personality disorder? Do not apologize! Move on with your life!
  • Did anyone videotape it? Maybe you need to play it back to her so she can see for herself. I'm sorry this happend to you!

    I also agree with MyWedding13, she may have some other issues going on..
    Anniversary
  • Ohhh sucky.  I feel bad since to me, the speeches are one of the most important parts of the evening.  I but like others said, sit her down and honestly talk about it.  Maybe give it another week or two though so you are both calmed down and dont come out swinging.
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  • That really sucks - I would have not been happy either.

    I would sit down and talk with her but if she doesn't respond the way you want her to (apologizing to you, accepting responsibility), then maybe the friendship has run its course and it's time to move on. Hopefully that doesn't happen and you two are able to work things out. Just be mentally prepared in case that doesn't happen.
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  • Don't apologize.  You didn't do anything wrong- an apology will validate her feeling that YOU are wrong for something here.
  • Is there a video? Show it to her! Maybe then she'll get an idea of how idiotic she sounded. People don't realize how stupid they're being when they're drunk. She probably doesn't remember a lot of it. But you are in the right and you should talk to her.
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