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Poll: Your Wedding Drama
This made for some fun stories on another board so I'm totally stealing and re-posting here. Did you have any kind of drama associated with your wedding planning or on the big day?
My stories are pretty tame, actually, but to get us started:
1) Men's Wearhouse messed up DH's tux. I can't even remember the specific issue now, I think maybe the length of the jacket sleeves was off. We had to bring it back to the store the day before the wedding and I think DH picked it up the morning of the ceremony.
2) People got ridiculously drunk at our
reception. I later learned that one of the couples basically drove home
drunk, and they lived about an hour away. They actually ran out of gas
part way, so he walked to a gas station. He filled a milk carton with
some gas, but it only held barely enough for them to hobble the car to
the station to fill the tank. I was so mad when I found out how
irresponsible they had been to get in the car in that condition.
3)
I got really annoyed with my mom about something at the reception and
yelled at her--like, really yelled. I'm still embarrassed about it to
this day 
Re: Poll: Your Wedding Drama
I am trying to think about it...
1) My IL's insisted on inviting some of their friends who DH and I never met. I let DH handle that one. I was ignored for a few weeks...fine by me.
2) On our rehearsal day, I was getting my nails done with my sister when my MIL was frantically calling me saying one of DH's cousins did not make it and was replaced by another cousin. Ok. It was an even swamp. Fine by me. She was freaking out b/c we had the table arrangements set with names. It is a name. Figure it out. I actually said that. I didn't care.
3) My IL's got drunk at our Rehearsal dinner. They were hurting on our wedding day. HA!
4) DH later told me a few days later that when they were taking pictures of his family, my MIL kept tugging on his suit asking if it fit ok. Basically stating he was too fat to wear his suit.
5) Here is a good one: When we were getting pictures taken after the ceremony,my mil kept asking and asking and asking when she could take a picture of all of her siblings. DH blew up at her. It was awesome.
funny how all the drama resulted in my MIL....
1) I'm sorry about the fight with your mom. I can relate.
2) I absolutely remember the story about your dress, and even after all this time it still makes me sad/angry for you (even though I know that the seamstress in question passed away some time ago).
3) LOL at this one
I didn't really have a lot of wedding drama. The only big issues that I still care about are 1) That my grandma threw a hissy fit that I was marrying a non Jew, and cried and hyperventilated when I told her I was engaged. This is a situation that has not really been resolved to this day. 2) That none of my family from overseas came to the wedding (not because of the above). I won't get into the ugly details but the situation was made worse when I got an email from one of my cousins about four weeks before the wedding saying he was thinking about coming to the wedding as part of a bigger trip IF my brother (who lives in a tiny one bedroom condo) would let him stay with him indefinitely. My brother, my parents and I were pretty furious about that one...
One thing that happened that no one told me about till later was that my brother in law's girlfriend - who none of the family had met until our wedding because they'd only been dating about two months - got so drunk at my wedding that she vomited on the bus that took guests back to the hotel from the venue... Whatever.
Other than that, there were a few minor hiccups the day-of with the cake, the music and some of the decorations, but nothing that I really care about looking back. Overall it was a wonderful day.
It's been nearly four years, so I am over all of this, but for a while these things made me really angry:
1. My SIL changed out of her bridesmaid's dress immediately. Apparently MIL had told her it was fine and that BMs did it all the time. She changed into a pair of ripped jeans and a tank top with major cleavage. I snapped at her for it really loudly and a lot of people turned and stared. At the time, I was super angry at her because she essentially changed from being dressed as part of the wedding party (which she BEGGED to be in), to being dressed as the most casual person there. She looks ridiculous in all the photos.
2. I had so many people asking me on the day of the wedding if there was anything they could do to help, so I gave them all tasks. Whomever was in charge of making sure the programs were set out did not do so, and no one got one. I didn't even know until about 8PM when I noticed the full basket of them on the back of a table.
3. My MOH pretty much bailed on me, and being my friend, two months before the wedding. Thankfully I had an amazing other friend that stepped in and replaced her no questions asked.
4. Nick's aunt, with whom he was really close to as a child, missed our wedding because she had already scheduled a trip to Costa Rica. In order for that to be true, she had to have scheduled the trip 12 months in advance, because we had called and told her our date as soon as we knew. We found out later that she has a drug problem and goes down there every few months to get drugs, or something.
5. Our photos were a disaster. My sisters are missing from our big family picture, but instead my cousin's girlfriend (that he isn't even with anymore) was in the picture--with her child (not my cousin's). But even better--my husband's family never took a family picture. As much as I loved our photographer, she made no effort to find out who was family and had no organization when it came to what photos needed to be taken.
Oh, and I forgot a good one:
Nick's grandmother passed away about a year before our wedding. At our wedding, the grandfather brought his new wife. When someone stood up and gave a toast about wishing Grandma was there to see the beautiful day with everyone, Grandpa and new wife stormed out, got in their car, and drove 3 hours back home. They were insulted anyone would talk about grandma in front of the new wife. Ridiculous, and it really hurt Nick's feelings.
1. After Hours messed up all 5 of the tuxes. There were buttons missing, cufflinks missing, shoes the wrong size, shirts too short, one guy had 2 left shoes.
2. My florist forgot to make one bouquet and had to go back and get it.
3. I had 2 separate photographers and one left halfway through. His photos were crappy anyway.
4. My venue had the wrong times on the board so people left way early.
1) Our wedding was in Tahoe and we live in the Sac area. SO my BM's and I all agreed to get up early the day we were to leave for Tahoe and have a nice breakfast and get our nails done so they could set on the way up the hill. The afternoon before the day were supposed to leave, my sister and I (also my MOH) decided that the salon would be full the next day and to be on the safe side, we got our nails done right then. We fully intended to still meet up with the other two girls and take them to breakfast and hang with them while they got their nails done. That night, I slept horribley and overslept the next morning. When I woke up, I frantically called both girls (they were sisters in the ame house) and apologized for oversleeping and planned to meet them for breakfast after they got their nails done. They SCREAMED at me for a good five minutes about how selfish I was for getting my nails done first, for how they knew it was "my day" but THEY had to look good too, blah blah blah. I was a ball of weeping mess. They stood with arms crossed thru the whole rehearsal and didn't come around until later that night when I apologized (to make peace before me special day.... not cause I meant it, lol). Pitiful.
2) Our wedding reception was in a room that only fit 100 people. So we invited a few over that because we knew ppl would decline. Because of this, people without a significant other at the time were only rsvped for 1. My cousin threw a fit and wanted her boyfriend of 3 days to come. I explained that I was very sorry but we couldn't fit anymore people and we didn't know about him when invites went out. She and my aunt proceeded to call every week up until the wedding to ask about him coming. Even though we ended up with room for him, I said no, because they refused to leave me alone about it. So, the day of the wedding, I look over at their table, and who is there?? THE BOYFRIEND. My aunt and cousin had asked my Uncle (the only one fully blood related to me) to stay home so bf could go. She sat on his lap the whole effing time too. Classy. When they were being shuttled from ceremony to receptionn, my cousin said out loud "I didn't even want to go to this stupid thing." One of my friends yelled out "Then why did you?!?!" Awesome.
1) we had a super long engagement so I booked our venue way early. Later, they brought me in and told me they'd be remodeling and here's how much better it would look, then they called me back and canceled my event. Even though it was a chain, they refused to honor their contract at any of their other locations (I ended up at a much nicer place for just a little more money)
2) one of my bms ordered her dress online. She didn't notice that her order never processed. (ends up they didn't carry that size) and we had to jump major hoops to get her a rush processed dress. She was coming directly from a month in Europe so she had to have her alterations done the day before the wedding. (oh, and there was major drama with her flight so she and her family arrived without luggage and choose not to get a rental car so I had to arrange people to take them all to the store to get clothes...like underwear
the day before my wedding.
3) SIL (who was also a BM) didn't attend the rehearsal dinner (barely made the rehearsal) because she had to pick extended family up at the airport (that MIL had scheduled to arrive during rehearsal dinner...so they didn't get to come to the RD either)
4) MOH didn't want to wear lipstick (even though I'd paid a small fortune for this particular makeup artist who she had talked me into). My mom told her to "offer it up" and she was very hurt I didn't stand up for her.
3)
All my drama happened before the wedding and wasn't even that juicy.
My sister in Indiana got a DUI a month or so before the wedding and for a while it looked like she was going to be on house arrest with an ankle bracelet -- clearly not leaving the state to go to a wedding. But thank goodness sentencing didn't happen until after the wedding.
My maid of honor, my only attendant, refused to buy her dress until a month before the wedding because she wanted to lose weight. Nice thought. Not nice thing to do to your friend the bride. And of course, by the time I convinced her to look, everything was fall colors, jewel tones that didn't match my colors. We ended up having David's ship in a dress from some other city.
This reminds me that apparently Men's Warehouse gave my brother the same vest color as my dad (they share the same name). My brother's girlfriend went there the morning of our wedding and insisted they find the correct color vest because the vest will always be part of our pictures. I'm not even sure I would have noticed!
The only thing that I remember not going right is that the table numbers weren't placed on the correct tables. That job got passed off to someone else by accident and she referenced our seating chart and thought she'd put last names near each other. Well, the majority of our bridal party ended up in the corner so that was a bummer. I did make a chart showing how the tables should be arranged, but that chart didn't get passed along to her.
There was very little drama at my wedding. I wasn't stressed out at all but my mom is sooooo type A she was stressing. She even looks stressed in the pictures even though everything went fine.
My in-laws were in the pre-divorce stages during our wedding. About two months before MIL, FIL, SIL, H, and I were crying around the table because all the dirty laundry came out. They held it together through the wedding but it was still awkward. They were in counseling at the time but I think it was just a mask. The marriage was pretty much over at that point.I'm pretty sure, at some point, FIL tried to talk H out of getting married.
We had wedding crashers. It was really funny because they came up and introduced themselves. I thought they were from H's family that I haven't met yet and H thought that they were my family he hadn't met yet. Once they figured out there was no booze and the food was mostly gone they left.
We decided on a prenup several months earlier, but H's attorney (also his friend) completely dragged her feet on drafting it. Then her first draft was wrong, in a way that would be a severe disadvantage to me, which was not what H wanted at all. Then she dragged her feet yet again on the re-do. My attorney tried to light a fire under her and she sent him a nastygram saying that it was somehow all my fault. She still hadn't produced a final draft just a few days before the time period any prenup would be invaild (it has to be signed at least 7 days before the wedding) even though she knew I'd be out of town (and away from my attorney) the week before the wedding. My attorney had to get mega-sharky on her in order to get it all done correctly.
So since this_bitch was also H's friend, she had been invited to the wedding. Just her, as she was divorcing her husband. Well OF COURSE she still rsvp'd for 2 people, the other person being a random friend of hers. When I told H he needed to call her and set her straight, she insisted that I had written "and guest" on her invite. That was total BS since I don't roll like that on formal invitations. Every invitation had specific names.
Finally, at our reception she got totally wasted and acted a drunken fool. At one point she was swigging straight out of a wine bottle. She grabbed the DJ's a$$ and started throwing the rose petals that were on the table into the air (and onto the floor). My MOH's husband had to get her to stop, as our venue contract specifically stated no petals, glitter, etc. on the dance floor.
We have had no contact with this woman since.
On the day of the wedding, I had decided that I was not going to let anything ruin our day; unless someone was dead or seriously injured, it just didn't matter. It helped tremendously when a few things went "wrong" (as they are apt to do). The stuff that did get me riled up happened before the wedding.
1) A year before the wedding our venue called and said "oops! We double booked you!" and at first didn't even offer an apology and was really rude about it. Because DH and I wanted a very specific date, we had a hell of a time finding a replacement venue.
2) A few weeks before the wedding I was calling people who hadn't RSVP'd. I called my aunt, who proceeded to use it as an opportunity to try to make me feel guilty for estranging myself from my step-dad (who I considered my "dad") a few years earlier (I estranged myself because he started using meth and did some awful things to my mom, me, my brothers and others as a result, and because I had recently begun privately confronting the fact that he had molested me as a child). My (step)dad was not invited to the wedding. She started talking about how when DH and I have kids my (step)dad should have a "right" to see his grandchildren. Then she started trying to get me to confess that I thought my (step)dad had molested me (long story... but when my (step)dad was at the height of his meth induced insanity, he kind of mentioned it to a few people, in a weird "defensive" way, as if denying an accusation that wasn't actually made... so I think a few of my family members suspected but didn't really know for sure). When I wouldn't confess anything she started telling me about how she was molested as a child by her mom's boyfriend, but she later decided to forgive him and developed a nice relationship with him
. It took everything I had not to rip her a new a$$hole. I was in my office after work when this convo happened, and I just sat in my office, with the door shut, crying for awhile after I hung up.
3) The day before my bachelorette party (a wine tasting excursion with a limo up to Napa) one of my BMs suddenly started making a stink about where everyone was going to meet. She just didn't want to have to drive down to my house (where the after-party BBQ was going to be -- she even wanted to change the location of that to suit her, forcing everyone else to drive to a very bad neighborhood, where she lived). So when the other two BMs told her "no", she started IMing me and wrapped ME into the drama. I was pissed, but basically used some diplomacy to smooth it all out. To this day, I'm not really sure what came over her -- all of my BMs were girls I trust and respect because they tend to be level headed and not prone to drama, so this felt pretty out of left field.
4) The day of the wedding the caterer ran out of red meat (so that nearly 20% of our guests only had the option of chicken). Even though we told them *twice* that our families were big red meat eaters, and they *twice* promised there'd be plenty and even enough for seconds. Thank God I learned about this after the wedding, because I might have drug a catering representative to a private location and let them have it on the day of the wedding if I had found out then (and ruining my otherwise go-with-the-flow attitude).
5) Aside from the bit we ate during the cutting, DH and I were never offered a slice of our own wedding cake. Neither was my mom (who made the cake).
6) The officiant left without signing the marriage license (we met her the next day though to take care of it).
7) The fire alarm went off in the middle of the reception (while everyone was dancing). We had to evacuate the venue. We totally took it in stride though, and we ended up getting people to whip out their cameras and take a bunch of great pictures of us and the wedding party laughing and posing in front of the fire truck, and later with the firefighters. Then when we were allowed back in, the DJ greeted us with the song "Burning Down the House".
It's turned out to be among one of the favorite memories of our wedding from our guests.
8) We had some family members that refused to show up because we weren't allowing kids. I didn't lose any sleep over it. My great uncle also went off on my mom because we invited his ex-wife (who has remained a close family friend). He tried to tell my mom we needed to uninvite her or he wouldn't come. I told my mom to tell him that I was sorry we would miss him at the wedding. Shortly after the wedding, he called my mom to say that he was sorry he decided not to come.
starlily, sounds like that woman was bitter she didn't have a good prenup in place herself. Must have been awkward for your husband since she was a supposed friend.
dani, I had no idea about #2. I think it explains some of your vague posts in the past and I just wanted to offer hugs. And #7 sounds awesome
She was certainly bitter about something. She had been living with the guy ten years, they got married a year before we did and they were already separated. Although I've heard that she still wears her wedding ring and still hasn't filed for divorce. :-/ I think she's embarassed because she's a well known family law attorney and probably never thought she'd be in her clients' position.
H is still friend with her brother and cousin, but thank goodness he cut her off without me even needing to ask him to.
That's sad if she really is embarrassed. There's nothing to be ashamed of in divorce. But, again, maybe she's embarrassed for not having protected herself given what she does for a living. Still wearing the ring is weird. In any case, yes it's a good thing your H cut her out himself!