Being a wedding planner is a brave career path filled with a frenzy of flowers, stressed bridesmaids, venue meltdowns, surprise expenses, and vendor haggling...
So, when a Reddit user asked wedding planners everywhere to share their horror stories, people who work in the wedding industry were ready to vent about entitled in-laws, bridezillas, tipsy aunts, and day-of disasters.
1.
Officiant here, Sat with a couple to talk about their ceremony. They asked for the barest of bare bones, 5 min or less package. Welp, ok I guess. Show up, knowing the ceremony was casual and poolside in their backyard. Didn’t realize it was in swimsuits. Ok, cool, sure. Hottest day in Phoenix ever, so we all appreciated the shortest ceremony ever.
Get a call Monday from a family member that bride and groom broke up, he had been cheating. Right as I dropped the license in the mail. So, if you’re ever cheating on someone and don’t plan on staying married after the air comes out of the floaties, just ask your officiant to be a bro and not mail the thing, that way you’re only out $75 and not the cost of an actual divorce. - goodsnusnu
2.
Wedding Coordinator here - The couple that never paid their final balance for the reception. I'm a 'day of event' coordinator (so I'm not part of the arrangements, only handle the details to make sure everything goes smoothly. This was one of the rare times it didn't.
Once the ceremony started, I headed over to the reception hall to oversee the setup, only to find out that the couple paid the deposit, but never paid the balance-about half of the total cost (IIR about $30k).
The catering hall was refusing to hold the reception until they got their money in cash (no personal checks allowed). It was a Sunday before a bank holiday and while most commercial banks would have been fine, their local bank was not open until that Tuesday.
Slightly panicking, I called the main coordinator who was still at the church with the couple to try to figure this out. The older brother tried to help by trying to get money from relatives, but they were obviously short of the sum needed.
We were at the point where guests were starting to arrive. After going back and forth, the catering manager said they would hold the cocktail hour since the deposit covered that.
When the couple arrived, the groom, the brother, and my lead coordinator met with the manager and they basically offered their money box, along with whatever payment they were able to round up to hold as ransom until they made the payment. The reception went on as planned, and once everything was set, I broke my work rule and had a strong drink. - ec1722
3.
Bride and groom were fighting when they arrived for the reception, groom starts chugging back wine and passed out before he could make a speech and had to be carried out by his groomsmen. - ihatepeasoup
4.
Bridal room flooded with the bathroom's septic water while the party was out getting hair and make up done. The dress was ruined. - [deleted]
5.
A jealous bridesmaid who tried to sabotage the wedding multiple times. It started with her going around to multiple guests as they're sitting down in church and saying if you feel faint please leave and go outside as the family couldn't afford to bring in additional AC when the climate was OK. I mean how do they have Sunday service every week?
Then she pretended to faint when the vows were being exchanged after bragging earlier to someone that she was going to do just that and cause a scene. She also did another fake faint as the bride was leaving the church and caused a domino effect of falling bridesmaid luckily the bride and groom got away OK.
The mother in law who was in tears for all the wrong reasons asked her if she is feeling ill perhaps go to the hospital in an attempt to get rid of her. She said that she is feeling better and that she can't abandon the bride.
Things got super f*cked at the reception when she was seen by the coordinator taking a dead rat out of a plastic bag and attempting to place it by the food. Luckily she caught her and confronted her about this and told her to leave or she will call the police.
She told the bride and groom a week after the wedding. Turns out she was the bride's best friend and jealous that she didn't marry her brother as they previously had a thing. - thenetraven
6.
Not a wedding planner, but a member of a string quartet booked to play the wedding & reception afterwards.
The person who was going to officiate was a rabbi who was also a professor of the bride and groom. He never showed up for the wedding. So our quartet was asked to keep playing while the couple desperately tried to find a last-minute justice of the peace to perform the ceremony.
We played for hours, and were invited to eat the food offered to the guests. In the end, the couple found someone to perform the ceremony. I cannot imagine what it must have been like for them to see their professor the next day. - gardano
7.
The maid of honor (sister of the bride) had a fight with her boyfriend and threw herself onto the hood of his car as he tried to drive away with her poor father trying to pull her off. In a purple satin, puffy-sleeve 1987 atrocity. Mass quantities of alcohol was involved. - Shaolin816
8.
I did see a wedding coordinator talk down a full grown groomzilla from screaming so loudly at my manager in a gourmet chocolate shop that she almost called the cops. Just full on red faced “DO YOU KNOW WHAT A WEDDING IS? WE’VE HAD IT PLANNED FOR MONTHS TO HAVE HAND MADE GODDAMN ARTISINAL CHOCOLATES FOR ALL OUR GUESTS. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH MONEY WE WERE PLANNING TO SPEND?'
'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN TOO SHORT OF A TURNAROUND? YOU BITCH I CAN SEE YOUR STAFF SITTING ON THEIR HANDS, YOU’RE TELLING ME YOU’RE TOO BUSY? ITS A GHOSTTOWN HERE AND ITS. BECAUSE. YOU. ARE. SH*T!”
The wedding planner was fluttering around him like an anxious moth while my stone faced manager had to explain to this full grown man that just because he wrote it down in a binder months ago it didn’t mean he’d placed the order. And that it’s way too late to order 400 individual chocolates for a wedding a week out. - Hereibe
9.
Photographer here. I was just getting into the wedding photography game, and was taking any client that would let me shoot them, often on a shoestring budget with very late notice. Only had one client that ended up being so bad that I thought i was getting pranked.
Some of the highlights included:
bride and groom showed to the church up an hour and a half late with McDonalds
bride got ready in a room that was under construction - had to avoid 2/3rds of the room when taking photos as they were torn apart.
groom got ready in a room that had signs leftover from a church production that said things like 'I was addicted to crack' and 'I sold my body' etc.
Ceremony happened in a room that was so small you could hear the brides 3 month old baby crying in the next room over
Ceremony was in a church with two very short isles instead of one big isle, they decided to last minute have people walk down each seperate isle, i couldnt be in two places at once - missed a lot of essential shots there
They turned the lights on and off at different parts of the ceremony in an attempt to highlight the bride, but the person flipping the switches had awful timing, and the isles were so short i couldnt adjust my camera perfectly - created a TON of work in post
person playing piano & singing couldnt sing or play the piano well at all.
reception was 45 minutes away - keep in mind they were an hour and a half late, so now photos that shouldve been at sunset are now done at night
The reception was at a nice townhome with a pool. Dancefloor was in the living room. Wall on the west was playing the game. Mirror on the east wall was reflecting the game. North wall was open and led to the pool where a tv was playing the news, south wall was non-existent and led into the kitchen where everyone was eating.
I asked if they'd turn the TV off - they said they wanted to keep it on so people could watch. At this point i had given up and just delivered pictures with donald trumps face, or reflections of a cripsy chicken sandwich commercial playing on the tv. - cchrishh
10.
Not a coordinator, but a tale about a coordinator. Bride and groom decided to get married in an old boutique hotel/theater. The building is a three story affair; ball room on the first floor, 'rooms' on the second and a theater on the third.
The coordinator had failed so hard on the wedding from the very beginning. As guests arrived for the event, no one had a clue of where to go there were no signs leading the way to the theater.
So the guests gathered on the second floor instead; the problem with this was that is where the wedding party was getting ready. The bride and groom were constantly be barged in on from every single guest trying to find a seat.
The wedding was set for 3:00pm, the coordinator had the audacity to hold the wedding party back until 3:45 to account for stragglers and to be 'fashionably late.'
Being in an old 1800s building, let's just say the lighting isn't the greatest, I think a candle would of put out more shadows than the lighta in the room. This was compounded by the only windows in this theater were on the south facing side of the building which was where the audience was facing.
You literally could not see the wedding party. Because the coordinator delayed the ceremony for so long, the daily 4pm train came whistling through as the couple were saying their views. - Blitziel
11.
Mother of the bride was noticeably drunk (like leaning over to one side drunk) and noisy during the ceremony. The stepmother of the bride was in a snit. The father of the bride was being his typical spineless self.
The bride, groom, and wedding party were all chain smoking and drinking natural light beer before, during, and after the ceremony, and most of them were a lovely shade of orange from the fake tans. The officiant showed up in a t-shirt and sweatpants.
There wasn't enough food for the guests, not even enough for everyone to get a bite of something. Arguments broke out all over, between all members of the bride's family. If there had actually been dinner, it would have been a great 'dinner and a show' thing. - kc-fan
12.
Not a planner (sorry), but a witness. My cousin’s wedding, everyone is there and has a role. I’m a scripture reader, my little sister and cousin are in charge of handing out the programs. Cool right?
Until the wedding planner runs up to the girls minutes before the guests arrived and ripped the programs out of their hands, chastising them for not standing outside to greet the guests.
It was 98 degrees outside, a mild spring day for Texas. The bride had to come away from photos to tell her own wedding planner to f*ck off and leave the church for making the girls cry.
We later found out that the planner was only there at the mother of the brides insistence, and the bride just planned everything herself while her mom and the planner would get drunk at brunch “planning” the wedding. The girls were fine and the wedding went off without a hitch. - socksandpoptarts
13.
Not a wedding planner but was directly involved. A few years ago my sister got married. The wedding was in a small town up north and the church was old and small but beautiful. Of course she asked my brother and I to usher the wedding.
Wedding day comes, everything is great, everyone is seated in the church. We close the outside doors to prepare for my sister to walk in. The wedding planners are standing outside with us doing a final check.
Everything appears to be okay. Except no one knows where the priest is. He is no where in any part of this small church. My sister comes out and calls the priest, who as it turns out, thought the wedding was actually an hour later than it really was.
So he started speeding towards the church, in the mean time, the harpist that was playing keeps playing and everyone inside is getting a bit antsy.
Then we realize that while we were figuring this whole thing out, no one bothered to clue in my soon to be brother in law, who was just standing alone at the altar. After this event the planners added 'Check that the priest is there' to the list - [deleted]
14.
I think my friend's wedding was probably her wedding planner's horror story. Over an hour into the meeting, the groom-to-be still hasn't shown up. The bride called him up all pissed and yelled, 'If this is your attitude to our wedding planning, maybe we shouldn't get married!'
The groom yelled, 'You're right! Cancel the wedding!' It wasn't a joke. They actually broke up. Only a bunch of deposits has been paid, and it was split almost 50/50 by both families.
Apparently, they can't agree on who needs to pay who back, and neither wants to back down, so both families decided they'll both have a party instead of a wedding instead.
The wedding planner ended up planning 2 separate 'Christmas parties' for 2 feuding families, in the same ballroom. People showed up out of morbid curiosity and apparently it was awkward as f*ck. - eraser_dust
15.
I had a couple and her mother come to see me by appointment to plan wedding music for their forthcoming church ceremony. Each time I'd demonstrate a potential processional on the organ, the bride and groom liked it, but the bride's mother objected and asked to hear something different (when asked what her idea of 'something different' might be, she had no ideas).
The situation got more and more tense as the groom and bride's mother argued. Finally, the mother said, 'Listen - I'm paying for this wedding, and you'll do it MY way, and that's the end of it!'
In an effort to bring harmony, I said to the mother, 'It's the couple's wedding, not yours or mine. Let them make the choices they like, and I'll provide music at no charge, so the question of who's paying for it is no longer a factor.'
That solved the problem instantly. But the groom left glaring at his future mother-in-law, probably wondering what he was getting into for the long term. (To my surprise, the best man came to see me at the organ on the day of the ceremony, and gave me an envelope containing double the normal amount. - Back2Bach
16.
My mom made wedding cakes for almost 20 years in the 1990’s-2000’s. Several of her horror stories involved Precious Moments figurines, of all things. They’re the ones that look like creepy babies/angelic children.
For some ungodly reason, Precious Moments cake toppers were all the rage for awhile. Unfortunately, they are made of ceramic, and can be a bit heavy to place on top of stacked pastry.
One time, Mom was mid-cake-setup when the mother of the bride (MOB) handed her a 5 lb. Precious Moments wedding car, and told her it was their cake topper. Besides being heavy, it was also larger than the top tier of the cake. My mom flat-out told her, “No way. That thing is way too heavy, it will crush of top the cake.”
MOB didn’t want to take, “no,” for an answer, and kept insisting that the wedding would be ruined if they didn’t have this cake topper. Mom refused, and explained several more times that the cake could not support the car.
She placed the car next to the cake, and got a pretty spray of flowers from the florist to put on top, instead. An hour later, she got a frantic call from the reception hall, because the cake fell, “all by itself.”
Turns out, MOB waited until Mom left, placed the car topper on top of the cake, and left for the ceremony. The reception manager found the cake all over the floor shortly after. A similar scenario occurred with a motorcycle-themed Precious Moments figurine several months later. Mom banned all Precious Moments after that. - SmthgWicked