A few weeks ago, we asked our readers to share stories of the worst guest they ever saw at a wedding—and the responses have been rolling in ever since. This is our fifth volume of matrimonial horror stories written by our fans (Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4). On the one hand, we're now terrified of marriage. On the other, we now feel way less bad about that time we passed out at a friend's wedding. That's nothing. At least we're not these X people:
1. Siri from Facebook attended a wedding where all three generations of one family managed to be horrible guests at once.
The worst wedding guest I've ever encountered was my niece's new mother-in-law. She wanted nothing to do with the wedding planning, but then showed up half an hour late (after the outdoor ceremony had already begun), and at the reception, tried to rearrange the buffet and cake tables to her liking since she didn't like the way things had been set up.
About 30 min. into the reception, she left with her daughter (groom's sister) supposedly to go get the newly married couple a wedding present. What no one realized until they had been gone for awhile is that the daughter left her 15-month old baby there toddling around with no one actually watching her. The child climbed onto the table and started demolishing the wedding cake.
The sister also had 2 other, older, children who were left unattended, but they were out running around somewhere playing in the park. The pair returned after about an hour or so (no wedding present in sight) and the mother starts tearing down all the decorations saying she thought the reception was "over."
She then made the photographer redo all the pictures so she and her daughter could be in them. She also made a scene because no one made a dress for "Mary." Mary was the groom's little sister and one of the kids left running around that day. I guess that comment was directed at me, since I had made a white dress for the bride's little sister, who was the flower girl. In the end, we had to rearrange the cake for pics of the cake cutting so that the damage the child made wouldn't show, but there is a baby bottle clearly visible in every single damn picture of the cake.
2. Lisa wrote us a short story about someone who isn't that bad compared to the others on this list, but with a great ending. Read your invitations, people.
It's the day of my wedding, and my husband's cousin decided to show up with his three-year-old daughter (mind, you we had already sent out the invitations stating we did not want any small children at the ceremony). I was having the wedding recorded by a friend, and of course they sat right next to the recorder as the daughter proceeded to call out "daddy daddy daddy" throughout the whole ceremony. The only thing that saved him from me going ape s*** on him afterwards was the fact that while trying to quiet his daughter down (without leaving the room), she clocked him in the nose with a cup hard enough to give him a bloody nose.
There is karma.
3. This letter from an anonymous reader
My wedding. So, my mom kept saying she wanted to be involved from day one after we were engaged. However, every time my fiancé asked her for help or her opinion on anything, she was busy or had a headache. She didn't even show up to the bridal shower.
Fast forward to the wedding. My sister was going around getting video of people's messages to us. My mom's message was "Well I wish I would have been more involved, but whatever." When the time came for the groom to dance with his mother, I couldn't see her anywhere. So, my wife's mom came to the rescue and started dancing with me. Apparently, she was sitting in the back waiting for me to come find her. My aunt walked her out and then she started crying in front of everyone and saying I didn't care about her. Well that pissed me off and we started fighting on the dance floor. My brother came and grabbed her and I danced with my aunt. This is also all on video. Needless to say we don't watch our wedding video ever.
4. Amy's sister-in-law story is kind of like if you boiled every sister-in-law down to their essence and then grew the perfectly typical sister-in-law in a petri dish.
My sister-in-law called me every day for several weeks leading up to the wedding, demanding seating arrangements be changed every time because she "absolutely would not" sit with her parents. Or her brother. Or her cousins. Or strangers. Or anyone gay. Said she wouldn't come if her boyfriend couldn't bring his son.... ok. But she wasn't completely sure if the boyfriend was coming, because if they fought that day, he wouldn't. She asked if she and her boyfriend could stay in our house while we were away. Missed the ceremony, but arrived at the reception... in jeans. Spent the entire time complaining about everything. Spoke to no one, other than to make rude comments and to complain to her whole family that she wasn't in the wedding. People were asking me about "the bitch in the jeans" for weeks.
5. This anonymous reader has a sexist father-in-law who's so cliché, a screenwriter would reject it as being too obvious.
They say it's the mother-in-law that's the awful one, but I truly have a father-in-law from the depths of hell.
His true side was exposed right when we got engaged. My wedding planning started off by being corralled into a room with him alone, where I was grilled for 30 minutes on financial expectations to protect his son from me getting my hands on "the family money." All while reminding me how unfortunate I am to be in the situation where I have to pay for my own college education, and the repercussions of my poorness with college debt.
Mind you, I started dating my husband over 8 years ago, and without ever asking for a single gift. The first piece of jewelry I have ever received or wanted is my engagement ring. This right off the bat let me realize how he views women, in addition to middle class, and how my status as both of those things are seen by him as a negative.
Our engagement period went by without much annoyance. I only had to hear him on calls with my then-fiancée, trashing women and how "women don't have any concept of money and just let me know if you ever need help." Every time, he happened to be on speakerphone. Eventually, my husband stopped using speakerphone.
Because I don't believe extravagance is necessary, I planned the wedding to be as cheap as possible, down to plastic plates and silverware (which were still beautiful). I killed myself to make it beautiful and affordable in attempts to appease his father who thinks of me as such a succubus. To incorporate family into our special day, I asked my father to be justice of the peace and my fiancé's father to play acoustic guitar for the ceremony, to which they both accepted.
The rehearsal dinner and morning of the wedding go by smoothly, and the ceremony begins. I hear the music start playing, and he is doing a beautiful job. My bridesmaids walk down the yard, but when it becomes my turn and I walk down with my father, the music abruptly stops playing and I walk down in the deadest of silence I have ever heard. A fly could have farted and everyone would have heard it. I didn't see him, because I was focusing on my handsome husband, but after the wedding everyone came up to me asking why my father-in-law disappeared and stopped playing when I walked down the aisle. I still don't know why I got the silent treatment. He avoided me for the remainder of the night.
I guess I should have been born with an Adam's apple, cause a groomsmen of ours who met my father in law twice just received nearly a dozen high end watches from him for no reason.
6. Sian wrote us about an entirely new flavor of disappointed mother: the mother of the groom's lesbian best friend.
I look back fondly at my wedding, but sometimes get reminded that my husband's best friend's Mum showed up outside the church (his best friend, although invited, was overseas), exclaiming loudly to anyone who would listen, "That should be my daughter with him, not HER." Her daughter is gay, just got engaged.
My bridal party literally approached her, held out a hip flask, chucked it in a waiting car and she followed it in.
I now go out of my way to chat with her in public. She's so uncomfortable and I love it.
7. This anonymous wife has a mother-in-law who starts off at "interesting" and just keeps escalating from there.
The first time I met my future mother-in-law was 2 days before my wedding. My fiancé, MOH, best man, and myself met her for lunch at a fast food restaurant. She was very candid on her views of sex, threesomes, and ex-husbands (my fiancé's father included). That just seemed out of place to me, but I kept my mouth shut for the lunch.
Fast forward to wedding day: this woman shows up in a very tight, short cut dress (she's in her 60s). She has her hair up in a ponytail with a scrunchie... mind you, everyone else is in black tie affair. As the night wears on, alcohol is flowing, she begins cornering my family members, my mother especially, to tell them that the wedding should not have happened. She states how her son is just like his dad and that he will cheat on me, that he can't be trusted, and urging them to talk me into an annulment.
At the same time, she tells her side of the family that my husband shouldn't have married me, "a white girl," because "they can't be trusted" and that "hopefully he comes to his senses." By the end of the night, she tells everyone that SHE paid for the wedding, and to this day swears by it, but I know my parents helped my husband and I. She did nothing except cause drama and drink my alcohol.
8. It's fair to say that this anonymous reader was not a fan of the entire wedding they attended, but the worst guest award definitely goes to the fun police in this story.
I moved to a large city in a Southern Bible Belt state, and a college friend of mine invited me as the plus one to her co-worker's wedding. The co-worker lived in a very tiny conservative town like an hour away from the city, near the border of a SUPER conservative Deep South state. I met some of her friends and family at the bridal shower, and I knew this would be interesting when I was asked literally 20 times if I'd found a church yet, and about my church back home (for the record, I didn't go to church regularly at that point so it was just super awkward).
Which leads me to the wedding day and the bride's sister in law. The friend that brought me was in the wedding party and therefore at the HEAD TABLE. Being "conservative," the reception "party" consisted of non-alcoholic drinks, a potluck and a CD of hymnal type church music played on repeat. Since there was no dancing or drinking, we had to basically make due with talking to whomever we were sitting with. Which is what my friend was doing—I looked over and saw her making polite conversation with the guy who escorted her down the aisle.
The bride's sister-in-law walks up and grabs the guy by the arm and proceeds to publicly and LOUDLY chastise him for flirting with my friend... because he was married and he was making a fool out himself. (Basically, they had longer than a 10 second conversation, and therefore it was tantamount to cheating.) She called him everything BUT a child of God. It was so bad, I almost thought she was going to give the poor guy an exorcism or something. It was so bad, the bride was about ready to step in. The poor girl looked so overwhelmed. My friend grabbed me and we got out of there... not because the SIL was still yelling, but because the reception was over at 9pm and the cd was repeating for the 3rd time.
9. This person sent us two stories, which we will list as two separate entries because the second one is pretty long. The first one, however, is really intense.
At one wedding, the bride and groom had to hire bouncers, expecting the bride's mother to show up. RAGING alcoholic and junkie. It went well until the bride went to her suite for a short breather.
In the hall leading to her room she was attacked by her own mother. She was pregnant. Still not at the bad part.
No one noticed the bride was missing or taken away in an ambulance or the police presence taking away the bride's mother in cuffs. Not even the groom, who was caught screwing one of the bridesmaids by the bride when she finally got back hours later. They are now divorced and she still doesn't speak to her mother.
10. This story comes from the same anonymous reader as #10, but it's about her own wedding. We've met a lot of bad mothers-in-law in this series. This one—racist, scheming, cruel, probably murderous—is the worst, hands down.
My husband and I wanted to elope. We paid for a wedding package, and I had the most beautiful black and cream colored dress made for the event. We told my husband's parents our plan. His mother immediately started crying, and fighting with me. I was stealing her son from her, I was a whore because I was a single mother, I was going to go to hell because it wasn't a white dress, some pretty racist comments directed at my son and I... I left crying. It didn't end there.
For a week, she was calling us both leaving these sobbing messages, showing up at my job causing a scene almost daily, until I gave in and agreed to a very small, intimate wedding. Which she decided she was going to plan but I had to pay for and coordinate. She told my husband she wouldn't attend unless I agreed to a white dress. She told my priest that he was the leader of a cult just minutes before and again after the ceremony. Her and my father in law both wore ALL BLACK to the wedding, because they were losing their son (we lived and still live only 5 blocks away).
My family was unfortunately unable to come last minute as a huge flood happened in my home town, leaving everyone without homes and jobs 3 days before the wedding. My mother-in-law made sure all our other guests knew my family wasn't there in her speech because "they refused to come."
During photos, she wanted a photo of their family with just the groom so one day when they look back they didn't have to be reminded that I was there. This of course was said during the wedding in front of everyone. Then she demanded a photo of me and my family. All the while laughing and pointing at me standing alone as I cried because my family was dealing with a natural disaster. She demanded a photo of all the guests and wedding party, minus me.
She complained about the food, which I had to make the night before right up until 10 minutes before the ceremony because she called the caterer and canceled the event two days before. I found out the night before, when my friend who worked there told me what she had done.
She fired and chased off the DJ as he was setting up. She sent her other son over to the event early to take down the tent (backyard wedding). She "accidentally" tripped me as I was walking down the aisle. She took bets on how long we would last.
She tried to kill me. Knowing I have severe food allergies, she poured something into my drink. Woooooo hospital visit and epi pen!
I didn't know one of my friends worked for her. She was fired at the wedding for being my friend. Don't worry, she got a nice settlement for wrongful dismissal.
The whole time I was in tears. Just a few days earlier, we found out I was pregnant, we didn't tell anyone. Her final words in her speech were about how we should never have children together and cursed any future children. I miscarried at Christmas later that year. Then again the following year.
Oh, she took a huge chunk of cake before we even cut into it, then washed it down with a bottle of champagne, red wine and nearly (and I'm still kicking myself for stopping her) drank a bottle full of bleach that I was using to keep my decorations fresh. We are still married. Honestly, I want to divorce just for a do-over. WITHOUT my mother in law. Seriously best and worst day of my life!
11. To wipe the taste of that insane mom from our mouths, let our final reader takes you through a tasting tour of three bad (but not scarred-for-life bad) guests.
At my wedding, there were three, each with their own individual antics.
The first was one of my bridesmaids who had yet to have her bridesmaid dress hemmed and altered only days before the wedding; had been talking smack about me behind my back during the whole planning process; and during the reception ended up flashing some friends of the family while at the bar. She was a real peach.
The second guest was the best man... yes, the best man. When it came time for his speech, I silently cringed, because I had an idea of the sh*tshow we were gonna be in for. See, the best man was so close to my ex-husband that the two would finish each other's sentences, literally talk on the phone each and every day, and would end each phone call with an 'I love you.' It was the weirdest friendship I had ever witnessed.
So, as the best man pulls out several pages he wrote out to read from, he starts going on and on about how he and my ex-husband shared a bond no one could ever live up to. Guests literally start to yawn and look around the room with this look on their face like they were looking for the Candid Camera because they were on a prank show. I had so many guests and family members come up to me at the end and ask 'what in the hell was up with that guy?'
But the third and ultimate worst guest was one groomsman's girlfriend. First, let me start by saying how much I could not stand this chick. Every time she was brought around, she would flirt with my ex-husband, and I just got the vibe that she was a little batsh*t crazy.
Anyways, we're at the reception and she starts dropping F-bombs on the dance floor as she drunkenly told me how 'f-ing beautiful' it was that we included my daughter in our ceremony vows, and how she wishes she was a better 'f-ing mom' to her kid. That was just the start. She ended up spending the whole evening walking around, talking obnoxiously loudly, and then dropping one of the glass candle holders we were given as a wedding gift when she insisted on helping us bring all the gifts to our car at the end.
But the grand finale was when she went up on stage to pull down the top of her dress to show everyone what she had under it, and then proceed to roll around like a toddler and flash everyone, showing how she went commando that day... all while my then-4-year-old daughter was up there playing with her cousin. Needless to say, I no longer talk to any of these individuals. The ex inherited them all in the divorce.