"It Was The Tackiest Wedding I Had Ever Attended": 14 Hot-Mess Weddings That Had Guests Cringing The Whole Way Home
We recently had members of the BuzzFeed Community tell us about the tackiest things they've ever witnessed while attending a wedding, and yikes, it's messy. Here's what people shared:
1."My wedding started out beautiful but took quite a turn. My mother, stepfather, father, and stepmother were all in attendance. It's important to note that my mother justifiably hated my stepmother. At the reception, my mother walked up to my stepmother and pinched her hard in the side. My father unsurprisingly got upset and started yelling at my mother, which made my stepfather react. As punches were about to be thrown, my sister and a few others stepped in to separate them so my reception didn't turn into a brawl. Amazingly, I didn't find out about it until after my honeymoon. My sister and guests kept it quiet so my day wouldn't be ruined."
—Anonymous
2."I was invited to a friend's wedding in Canada in November. Considering how cold it could be, I was surprised to hear that it was taking place in an old barn. The invitation said the reception was taking place at 6:00 p.m. At 5:00, I walked into the barn. It was a very old, run-down barn where the wooden boards on the walls had huge gaps. It began to snow, and the wind blew the snow inside. I was freezing and never took off my coat and scarf. Then I looked at the buffet table to find that the wedding party had started eating at 4:00, and no more food was left. Everyone came in for dinner at 6:00, and at least 50 people were in line. The caterer was scrambling to find food for everyone. For dinner, I got three cold fries, a small carrot, and half a chicken wing. I was lucky because some people got even less. It was the tackiest wedding I had ever attended."
—Anonymous
3."I was invited to the wedding of a telephone company coworker who was marrying a city police officer. There was a lot of tension at the wedding between several groups of relatives in the bride's family, other family members, and several friends of the groom who were also police officers. The tensions grew and grew during the reception as the amount of alcohol consumed increased. My coworkers and I then chose to leave, but just as we got in my car, we realized we had forgotten to grab the slices of wedding cake we had promised to bring to the coworkers who had been scheduled to work during the wedding and the reception. So a friend and I went back into the reception hall, and as we wrapped up the cake slices in wedding napkins, hell suddenly broke out between these different groups."
"The bride's parents and bride were trading punches with other family members, and several of the police officer's friends were duking it out with other people. Chairs and decorations were also flying through the air. My friend and I had to go through an obstacle course just to return to the doors and safely leave. And somehow, my friend and I were able to hang on to our cake slices.
As we left the parking lot, almost 10 police cars came flying in with lights and sirens on. We later heard from several people that nearly the entire congregation at the reception was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct, including the many police officers who were there as guests of the groom! Can you imagine being a cop and having to arrest so many of your fellow police officers? That was a very memorable and very unusual wedding!"
—Anonymous
4."So, my best friend got married last year. From the beginning of their relationship, it was clear that the mother-in-law did not like her (despite my friend being a lovely person and everyone else in his family adoring her). She's always been possessive of her son, which has caused many issues. At the wedding, his mom's speech made people uncomfortable; it was a bit Freudian, if you know what I mean. It was dead silent when she finished, and there was a notable amount of awkward side eyes happening."
—Anonymous
5."I was a bridesmaid for a friend in high school shortly after graduating college. She was a bit of a tomboy, so I was shocked by how quickly she became a bridezilla! She demanded we pay for really expensive (expensive for us college students) dresses, didn't even bother to ask the dress shop for a group discount, and even body-shamed one of the bridesmaids because the shop didn't carry her size. She told her she needed to figure it out to fit the available sizing, aka size down. She expected us bridesmaids to learn a 'surprise' dance TWO DAYS before the wedding and had no concept of a plan to teach us and was enraged when we had to leave to go home. I was a two-hour drive away and had work the next morning. At the time, I had a three-hour work commute."
"On her wedding day, she served pies from Marie Callender's. During the reception, she came up to me while I was talking to my plus-one and berated me, saying I needed to go to the kitchen and help serve pies. She expected us to ask people one by one what slice they wanted. I cut up a few pies, left them on the shelf, and walked away. She made us bridesmaids also stay behind and clean up the venue!!!
Lastly, I got some bogus half-ass thank you card and never heard from her again, but my plus-one and parents got this elaborate thank you card because she stated the more guests she had, the more presents she got. Oh, we also had to pay for our hair and makeup, get ready at her parent's home, and pay for our corsages (she was so tacky, we didn’t even have bouquets). I've never heard from her again."
—Anonymous
6."My parents told me about a wedding they attended years ago. The ceremony was lovely, and afterward, they went to a very expensive wedding reception banquet room. There was a buffet dinner, and the speeches took place while the food was being brought out. The last person who spoke didn't invite the head table first; he just said, 'It looks like the food is ready.' Suddenly, a huge crowd made a beeline for the buffet table and began randomly grabbing plates and spooning food with their hands! It looked like a feeding frenzy in a lion's den. My folks got up and left and found somewhere else to eat."
—Anonymous
7."At an outdoor park wedding with a glamourous view of the ocean, while walking down the aisle, there was a flock of seagulls that flew over. The guests ducked, but poop landed on the mother of the groom (which had to be cleaned up). The reception was nice, on a ship…"
—Anonymous
8."My cousin and her husband brought their two young children to my wedding, even though the invitation stated 'no children.' We were in our 20s, and few people I knew even had kids. We simply did not want kids there! Not only did she bring her 5 and 7-year-old, but she also let the 5-year-old daughter participate in the bouquet toss, where she proceeded to literally wrestle my maid of honor (sister) to the ground in order to get the bouquet out of her hands. We had to choose an 'alternate' so the gentleman who caught the garter could put it on with his teeth. You know, the 'adult' FUN way! Honestly, some people are clueless!"
—Anonymous
9."At a college friend's wedding, instead of throwing rice as the couple left the church, they had condoms for everyone to throw! The condoms were all peach and green (the wedding colors). PLUS, some of the kids at the wedding picked them up, tried to fill them with water, and they were all defective!"
—Anonymous
10."My neighbor's daughter (I'm not very close to her) got married a few years back. The wedding was okay. About six months later, I was talking to the bride's mother, asking if thank you notes were sent out. Her reply was, 'Everyone got a general thank you on Facebook.' I don't go on Facebook very often. I wish she had invited me through Facebook."
—Anonymous
11."My family (we live in a city area) went to a wedding (in a more rural area) because we were friends with the groom. We normally dress up in our Sunday best to go to a wedding. Well, let's just say we were way overdressed for this wedding. The reception hall was quite small for the number of people invited, and it was a relatively warm day in May with no air conditioning. The bride's family prepared all the food, and quite a few mayo-based dishes did not look appetizing or safe to eat. Then, many of the other guests wore blue jeans and shorts, not necessarily clean ones. One guy wore dirty jeans and an undershirt that looked like he had been wearing it for a few days. His dirty-looking ball cap had his fishing license hanging from it because he had apparently been fishing the last few days, which probably also explained why he looked like he did."
"As this guy was going through the food line, he took his undershirt, lifted the front end of it, and brought it up to his face to wipe the sweat from his brow. We were just glad that we had already been through the food line. To top it off, this guy also thought the best thing in the food line was the cheddar cheese bologna.
The bride's family invited everyone to come back to the hall the next day to watch the bride and groom open their presents. Everyone else in my family decided to skip it, so my husband and I decided to be nice and go, but we left as soon as they opened their gifts because her family was putting out the leftover food from the wedding for people to eat. Now, since a lot of the food seemed questionable the day of the wedding, there was no way we were going to risk eating any of it the day after. I do not know if anyone ended up with food poisoning, but it would not surprise me if they did.
Oh, and the bride thought it would be funny to joke about divorcing during this get-together, and her family were all cracking up thinking it was so funny. It was very strange. Needless to say, they are no longer married, given that the groom was only a few years younger than the bride's parents. I think her parents thought they could pawn their daughter off on someone unsuspecting because she was a mean, verbally abusive, nasty person who ended up cheating on her husband."
—Anonymous
12."This was a huge wedding at a luxury hotel on a cliffside bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The ceremony was held at 5:00 p.m. under the blazing sunlight. It was an impossibly long ceremony for the 200 or so guests baking in the sun. After that, there weren't enough appetizers to go around even once during the happy hour. Then, we were allowed into the banquet room filled with extraordinary floral arrangements. The centerpieces included hanging bunches of champagne grapes and stood probably six feet tall on top of the tables. The room was absolutely stunning."
"At 7:00 p.m., the music started playing, and the couple started dancing. They danced for more than two hours. It was explained to us that this was a Persian tradition. Nothing was served during this time. Guests finally started to eat the centerpieces when it was 10:00 p.m., and dinner still hadn't been served. My date and I left before dinner even made it to the table. We stopped at Burger King on the way home."
13."I didn't actually attend the wedding. But I received a letter in the mail at work. It was in a standard number 10 envelope with a label fixed for the address, my work address, and my name. I opened it up. Inside was a white ribbon with the invitation to a wedding in silver foil. I was horrified because I didn't know who the couple getting married were. I was embarrassed, confused, and truly horrified. I thought about it, and after a while, I realized it was a woman who I had been introduced to by my coworkers in the hallway at the office. At that point, I was no longer embarrassed. But I was still horrified because I realized she was inviting people for gifts. It had nothing to do with being good friends or family members. It just felt gross. I threw the invitation in the trash and did not feel bad about it."
—Anonymous
14.And: "My great-aunt is pretty young for a great-aunt, like maybe 60ish, and her son got married last summer. For context, my mom lived with her when she was 9, and the aunt was in high school. This aunt physically abused my mom and even stole a dress my mom saved up for. My grandmother was still in Taiwan and frankly didn't care for my mom either, so no one did anything about the abuse. Since we're big on tradition, we still attended the wedding. The wedding was a six-hour drive from where we live and was even longer for some other attendees. This aunt dared to ask my mom, who is 52, to donate as an elder. For Chinese people, these elders are 65+ and donate big bucks. My mom and her sisters gave $20 since they hadn't expected this. Then, my great-aunt gave a speech at the dinner about how no one cares about her and her children and how we're all selfish."
—Anonymous
Have you ever been to a wedding that made you cringe? Have you ever seen someone behave in poor taste at a wedding? Have you ever attended a ceremony or reception that just screamed "tacky"? Tell us about it in the comments, or share your experience in the anonymous form below.
