"The worst wedding I've ever attended..."
After recently discovering this sub and reading the stories, I wanted to share my own tale. This happened 25 years ago, but so many of the details are burned in my brain. Sorry for it being so long, but this was a mess (before, during, and after the wedding).
I was a groomsman for two friends getting married (or, rather, I was friends with Bride and friendly acquaintances with Groom). Both were 20 years old, but were from very religious families who pushed young marriage so they could start having children right away (think the Duggars without the TV deal or as many kids).
They met at church, where Groom's father was the pastor, and dated less than six months before they were engaged. They were then married less than six months after that. Some of the details I remember from being a part of this clustermess of both the wedding and the lead-up to it...
Bride had spent years telling our entire friend group that she was going to be a virgin when she got married. Even a month before the wedding, she was lording her virginity over the heads of our non-married, non-virgin, female friends. That, alone, caused a lot of hurt feelings and fights. I didn't find out about any of this, though, until well after the wedding.
Two weeks before the wedding, Bride suddenly stopped proudly proclaiming her virginity. No one knew why until the day of the wedding when Bride broke down in tears while getting dressed. As was relayed to me by a bridesmaid, Bride was terrified she was pregnant and that her marriage wasn't sacred anymore.
Were the Bride and Groom intimate before the wedding?! Nope. She was so woefully naïve that she thought simply getting a man's "seed" on her hand would get her pregnant.
To make matters more awkward, she refused to believe the bridesmaids when they told her pregnancy doesn't work that way. She only calmed down when she told the story to Groom's mother, who promptly had a "birds and bees" talk with her soon-to-be daughter-in-law. Now, onto the wedding itself...
Due to the stress of planning the wedding and trying to navigate the expectations of her HIGHLY conservative, traditional, "women should be seen and not heard" future husband, Bride had put on quite a bit of weight from stress-eating. I am not shaming her for that at all.
The problem was that she had done her dress fitting almost four months before the wedding. When Bride's mother tried to convince her to go back in for a new fitting to account for her new size, Bride refused. She swore up and down that she hadn't gained weight, despite half of her wardrobe no longer fitting her.
She picked up the dress a week before the wedding, but refused to try it on. Again, she swore it would fit. She finally tried it on the day before the wedding and had a panic attack that it didn't zip up anymore. Her mother, a sweet and wonderful woman, stayed up until nearly dawn sewing panels into the side of the dress to make sure it would fit Bride.
Was Bride thankful for her mother's efforts? Nope. She complained and moaned that the panels weren't the exact same shade of white as the rest of the dress. Bride's older brother (the black sheep of the devout family) brought his on-again, off-again girlfriend to the wedding.
She wore a dress that was probably two sizes too small along with no underwear. We know that because, during a dance with the older brother, she interrupted her grinding on his crotch to bend over and shove her ass against him. The promptly ripped her dress along the seam (which was on the back).
She didn't notice, apparently, because she stood up, turned around to continue grinding him, and flashed her bare butt...and more during subsequent dance moves...to the entire reception.
I was one of two gay guys at the wedding, the other being a long-time friend (and fellow groomsman). Groom knew we were both gay, but didn't tell his family. Someone, though, spilled the beans to Groom's fire-and-brimstone preacher of a father.
During a slow dance, for which my friend and I were sitting at a table talking quietly, Groom's father came over and practically threatened to kill us if we danced together at the reception.
We had no intentions of dancing together. We, from the day we met, have had zero physical or romantic attraction to one another. We are friends, that's all. But, the idea of two men possibly dancing together in public sent Groom's father off the deep end.
Groom's younger brother (14 or 15 at the time) snuck a bottle of wine away from the bar and was found drunk, puking his guts out, in the grass behind the venue. Of course, fire-and-brimstone preacher didn't care. He was too busy giving the side-eye to me and my gay friend for the rest of the night.
When the party was over, Bride and Groom went to leave. Written on the back of Groom's car wasn't "Just Married" or something like that. Instead, Bride's two brothers had written "Free to F." Bride cried, Groom laughed and refused to wash it off.
A few months after the wedding, I had lunch with Bride at her request. After lunch, as I was dropping her back off and her and Groom's apartment, she told me that this would be the last time we'd speak to each other as Groom had forbidden her from having male friends, especially gay male friends.
When I tried to question why she was turning her back on me now after years of friendship (we met in middle school), she just said "Groom is my husband and he is in charge. I cannot disobey him."
Like I said, that was 25 years ago. True to her word (and to my own desires after that lunch), she and I have never spoken again. In fact, no one in the friend group (who were all groomsmen and bridesmaids) spoke to either of them again. Groom insisted that Bride cut off all men and non-virtuous women from her life. Bride, like the "proper" wife she was, did exactly as she was ordered.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
cuddlyredditor said:
This reception sounds like a fever dream lol
Accomplished-Ad3219 said:
What a sad damn story. I hate that there are still women not only subjected to this mindset, but AGREE with it.
VivianDiane said:
Bride spent years bragging about her virginity only to end up in a marriage where she had zero autonomy. The irony is almost poetic. Glad you escaped that mess.
sunnydaleubervamp1 said:
Poor girl did not want to get married.
CckamouseGoesWee said:
This story just kept getting worse and worse in every single way. Wow. What crappy, brainwashed blueberry muffins. Also you sir have a gift for storytelling.
icecreampis said:
Sounds like these awful people deserve each other.