Wedding guests 'frozen in horror' as groom's friends drench bride in entire bottle of champagne. UPDATED
"Groom’s friends humiliated the bride."
When I was in college (I think about 18 years old), I attended the wedding of a kind of friend. He used to work for my dad and his mom worked with my mom. I didn’t know the bride.
A little background… We’re Asian, specifically Vietnamese. If you know Vietnamese people, you know we can go pretty hard at weddings and events. You get all kinds of crazy though.
For example, my cousin just got married and her sil wore red to her wedding ceremony where the bride was wearing red and then wore white to the reception where the bride was wearing white.
Ceremonies are traditional and the traditional wedding color for us is red. I could not comprehend. Another example was during my aunt’s wedding, one of her husband’s (my uncle) friends got drunk, took one layer of her wedding cake off and started dancing with it… only for it to slip out of his hand and land in the middle of the dancing floor.
But it gets more unhinged. It’s also common in Vietnamese weddings to have karaoke. My mom said in Vietnam it’s pretty common for men who secretly are in love with the bride or the bride’s ex (often secret exes because parents would be strict about dating) to drunkenly sing sad love songs on stage.
Everyone knows what’s going on because the guy is in near tears while belting out a song about his love marrying someone else. It makes everyone uncomfortable but the bride and groom just kind of have to bear it because it would be impolite to make a scene.
At this wedding I attended, the bride and groom went to each table to thank the guests personally for attending (this is traditional). When they got to our table where I was sitting with the groom’s friends (guys I knew from childhood), they started pestering the couple.
This is common. Someone will invent some sort of embarrassing game for the bride and groom to do (usually involves drinking and kissing, which generally is seen as too much public affection so it’s embarrassing for the couple but like in a fun way).
But then one of the dudes proceeds to POUR A WHOLE BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE on the bride’s head. When I tell you it was the longest minute of my life…He didn’t stop until the bottle was empty.
The bride was in shock. The groom just stood there? People at the table, including my mom, looked horrified. No one stopped the guy. My mom and I are typically confrontational and outspoken people by nature but I think we were both so taken aback that we didn’t have words.
When we came to, it was hard to say something because we didn’t want to make a scene, which may have made the bride cry (she was on the brink). When he was done dumping the whole bottle onto her head, he thought we would all be laughing but the whole table was just silent. The bride then left to change and wash up. I had never seen such irreverent behavior.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Wow!! With friends like that who needs enemies?
Man, this would live rent-free in my head and I'd be wondering why nobody spoke up if I was her.
WHY DIDN’T ANYONE INTERVENE???????
And did the bride really just stand there until the bottle was empty? Trust me I’m not blaming her, but if someone started pouring something on my head - at my own wedding no less - I’d punch him in the throat before the second glug left the bottle. And seriously reconsider my choice of groom if he did nothing. None of these guests sound like anyone I’d want to spend time with.
SwadlingSwine (OP)
It was a table full of his close friends. My mom and I sat there because there was no room elsewhere (no seating chart). The guy pouring the bottle wasn’t the only one who seemed like it was a good idea. I think a couple other men did too.
But the rest of us were taken aback, even some of the men in their friend group. I was all the way across the table from her. It was a big table. We couldn’t reach her and the music was very loud, like typical viet weddings.
Maybe someone did say something but no one could be heard over the music. I just didn’t hear anything. The bride also seemed to be in shock and couldn’t believe what was happening. I don’t think anyone has ever seen this behavior before so a lot of people were trying to register what was happening.
It was insane. I don’t know her. I don’t know if she’s the type that would speak up for herself. But I thought when she left to get cleaned up that her husband would at least say something to the men or kick them out.
My husband, also viet, would be so angry and would kick them out immediately. I also would say that most viet people would never pour champagne on a bride’s head. His friends were just the worst and continue to be the worst.
Come on! One of the groom’s friends grabs a champagne bottle, holds it over her head and starts to pour the entire contents all over her. And NO ONE could move? Not one person standing by her smacked that bottle away? Not one person sitting at the friends’ table yelled out?
You and your mom are “confrontational and outspoken” yet you did absolutely nothing as that bottle over her head was poured on her. Ruining her hair, makeup at her wedding celebration? And no one did a single thing afterwards? Wow.
It takes more than two seconds for a bottle to empty, she didn’t take a few steps back away from him?
SwadlingSwine (OP)
His friends were by her. The table was mostly just their friends and I think that was a factor. I think a couple may have found it amusing. These men crashed my uncle’s wedding uninvited and were awful so they have a reputation. None were invited to my own wedding.
The table was big. I sat all the way across the table from her. I was also 18 and had never gone to anything before just seeing how everyone acted, I was very shocked. It took a while to comprehend what I was seeing.
Maybe someone did say something and I didn’t hear because I was in shock and the music was loud but no one did anything. I am confrontational and I do stop things and say things all the time. But it didn’t register to me for a minute because it seemed so surreal. It was like a dream.
By the time I “woke up” from it the bottle was poured. In my older years, I would not respond this way (hopefully) because I’ve been out and have seen things before. Things don’t shock me the same.
But at that age my parents never let me out of the house so new things shocked me to a major degree. I think my mom was also shocked. My mom really does confront everyone and has zero issues with it.
She confronts her customers and our family regularly. She is not a wilting flower. I know my mom didn’t not respond because she afraid or that she thought it was right. So I can only assume she also was in shock. In retrospect, of course we both would’ve done something.
But we couldn’t really help the way our bodies responded to the event. It didn’t last long like a fight or an argument to where when the initial shock wears off, you can intervene. It was quick. I say a minute but I don’t think it takes even a minute to pour a bottle.
I do think about this event from time to time. I wonder how she is. I hope she’s ok. I’ve never spoken to her and never have seen her before or since. I have not spoken to any of these men or her husband either. When I see the men around, I do not say hi to them even though it’s rude.
I do regret not saying anything. I accept that I didn’t. It also made me realize how I can respond this way (freezing), despite having a more confrontational temperament. One time, an engaged friend of mine touched me in a way that made me super uncomfortable.
I have told off many men in my life but I didn’t that time and I had to sit down to ask myself why I just let it happen. I think I was in shock because I didn’t expect that behavior from him. He was someone I never thought would be any sorts of inappropriate and so in the moment, I was trying to register what happened.
In fact, right after it happened, I had to ask a witness if she witnessed what just happened and she said yes. These events, along with a couple others actually, made me more understanding of people who didn’t respond to protect either themselves or someone else during moments that are clearly not ok.
Sometimes it’s not about character or temperament. Sometimes it’s because the body reacts in a certain way and you have to wait for that to pass before you can react how you usually act.
The scene was made. You end the scene by intervening. I understand the irony of an American advocating for intervening in Vietnamese affairs but why all the shame about not wanting to cause a scene? A dude poured champagne on the brides head, THATS A FREAKING SCENE! End the scene and get that F'er out of the wedding.