Wedding singer shares story of 'the aunt who ruined the vows.' 'SHE FOUGHT US.'

"The aunt who ruined the vows and joined the musicians..."

I sing for weddings - mostly I’m hired to sing Ave Maria and other classical songs for Catholic weddings at a popular destination chapel. I work with a talented pianist. About 2 months before this wedding, the groom’s aunt reached out to us. She wanted to surprise the bride and groom with a solo.

The thing is…we’ve been doing this a while and we know better. The bride and groom paid us to provide music. We want to give them what they paid for. So we told auntie that she would need to ask the bride and groom if this is okay, no surprises. She fought us on this, so we asked the wedding planner. The wedding planner couldn’t get a straight answer from the family, so we told auntie no thank you.

Well, we show up to the chapel 1 hour before the wedding and auntie is there. She told us that the groom’s mother, her sister, said she can sing behind me during some of the songs. She proceeds to lecture me on setting up my mic and the meaning of the music. She wants to warm up with me. Oddly, she’s dressed super old school catholic, wearing a lace head covering. The only one in the family wearing this.

Sure enough, auntie sings every song with me, right behind me into my mic. Including Ave Maria, which is clearly a solo…clearly. And she doesn’t sound great. And then…her phone goes off during the vows. But her phone is in a pew at the opposite side of the church from us.

And it’s loud. At first, everyone looked around trying to figure out who the phone belonged to. The bride and groom and priest didn’t stop. They just tried talking over the phone. And the phone just kept going and going. Finally, someone in that pew, turned around and glared at auntie. Auntie rushed over and turned her phone off. But came right back behind me to sing the rest of the mass.

After the wedding, no one made eye contact with us. Most weddings, we receive tons of praise. But this wedding, we wanted to scoot out as quickly as possible. Auntie…well…she wanted to vent to me about how embarrassed she was over her phone. She was hard of hearing. Blah blah. I didn’t know what to say to her other than, “yep.”

Here's what people had to say to OP:

whoayellow said:

The secondhand embarrassment must have been like none other.

FunnyVariation2995 said:

If that ever happens again just, "Nope. No one sits in with the band."

neuroctopus said:

I can’t imagine Ave Maria with a backup singer. The whole point is the clear, pure notes. This is a yikes!

LarMar2014 said:

I would have paid good money to watch this wedding. It's like watching Titanic, except you rout for the iceberg on this occasion.

Speakinmymind96 said:

Brides sweat every one of the details, of their ceremony…There should be no surprises, no matter how well intentioned. A friend of mine walked down the aisle to see that her groom’s family priest was up at the altar with the priest she arranged to do the ceremony…to make it worse, the unexpected priest kept nodding off during the ceremony.

VivianDiane said:

The only surprise was how badly she wanted to be the main character.