r/weddingshaming

Or maybe your own wedding?

Wife got invited to a friend’s wedding we were told to arrive at 9PM. I found it weird that it was so late and decided to look into it - I saw the dinner started at 7PM and they didn’t write the rest of the scheduled in. That’s when it clicked that they were asking people to come just for the dance and party which meant still getting gifts. Ended up not going and not sending any gift.

Who does this??????

Edit: this happened in Canada (in a big city lol) and was not something we’ve experience before. Cool to hear about different cultures and how they celebrate though!

It has happened to me several times. I understand not having enough money/space to provide everyone with a full meal/evening while still wanting alot of people attending your actual wedding ceremony but I feel like it is so tacky. Will be attending another wedding this summer, ( I have to drive two hours to get there and another two to get back home) but my husband and I are only invited to the ceremony. I would rather just spend my weekend somewhere else tbh, but my husband is a polite person who insists on attending, so ya 4 hours of travel for a 1 hour ceremony - wohoo. ( oh ya, and obviously we will also prepare a wedding gift so that will be another 100 dollars.)

UPDATE: apparently there will be cake and finger food after the ceremony, which we are invited to. This part ends at 4 p.m. ( so that is when we are basically asked to leave lol) I googled the venue, and they have a celebration hall for dinner, dancing etc that holds 120 guests. So they can stay and celebrate, but we will have to leave.

I have two stories:

One wedding was at a beautiful, gorgeous venue in the mountains; picturesque location; hotel block was still $450/ night. Stunning ceremony, brought me to tears. Then, the reception…pizza. The little stone fired mobile oven couldn’t keep up. The line took forever, then once we got the thin-crust pizza it was cold. No other food was served. No open bar. Meanwhile, bride had a videographer and a choreographed first dance. Literally felt like we were props at a toddler’s dress-up play date. Hubby and I stopped for tacos afterward.

Another wedding was in an industrial warehouse, but it actually was cool / interesting aesthetic. Ceremony is nice, though bride gets caught on a paper runway (not her fault, venue was idiotic for that). Dinner is family style passed beef and salmon, but it ran out. Whatever, bad luck. No open bar. BUT, the couple, the huge wedding party, and select people got neon wristbands signaling to the bartender that they had open bar access. So like 30/150 people have an open bar, everyone else has to pay. Meanwhile, the bride hired someone to do covers of Disney songs on a keyboard. Once more, felt like a prop at a bad dress-up play date. Would have gladly listened to a Spotify playlist if it meant there was enough food and some drink tickets to spare. Sheesh.

It blows my mind, no one gives a shit about the decor if you aren’t giving adequate food to your guests at a MINIMUM. What are your best wedding guest mistreatment stories? Bonus points if the bride and groom obviously prioritized their own desires over their guests’ basic needs 😂😂

(so obviously this was a while back, and I felt bad about it for years. but it kinda popped into my head again, hence the tale)

My youngest sister got married in the spring of 2021, back when vaccines were still rolling out. She'd gotten engaged a few months prior and the wedding was just immediate family only, no bridal party or friends.

To back it up a bit; one of our parents had gotten suddenly sick during the pandemic (a sudden, debilitating mental illness that I can only describe as a break with reality and extreme depression that left him non-functional; I'd had to travel from three hours away to get him into a psych ward, it was awful.) He was still very ill and spent probably 23.5 hours of the day in bed.

Anyway. My partner and I had just moved in with my parents to help out, so we were there at the wedding, with my parents, and my middle sister and her husband.

It's a nice ceremony, my dad looks like a walking cadaver in a suit (he'd lost like 60 lbs or so) and does his bit walking her up the aisle. I don't remember if he made it to the dinner, which was a side room off a restaurant.

I don't remember the dinner, other than that the food and conversation was fine. Then came the toasts.

His brother and sister give one. His mom gives one. Our other sister gives one.

I should probably note here that I was very angry with this sister, because she had refused to call me back or text me even when I called to tell her that our father was on a three week hold. And there she was, acting like nothing had happened and wow wasn't this pandemic just so boring. I had been living in NYC in 2020. I was not amused.

She spouts something wildly pretentious that goes on for far too long. .

My mom gets up and has a speech prepared. It's fine.

Then. THEN. She sits down and starts doing that mom-gesture when she wants you to get up. There's like no way for me to not say something at this point and not look like a total brat.

And...I got nothing. I have nothing prepared. Because no one had asked me to give one. The only thing that had been going through my head was "I guess I'm good enough to take care of dad for you, but not speak at your wedding?"

I still want to do a good job, because I still love my sister even though she planned a wedding Weekend at Bernies. But in the moment, I freeze. I completely blank on what you're supposed to say AT ALL in a wedding speech. I had never given a wedding speech before. Also I had never met his family before, so I didn't know my crowd.

I have no idea what came out of my mouth. I babbled something I think was G-rated but probably awful. It was like my worst public speaking nightmare.

A while later my sister mentioned that she had been pissed off out our family during her wedding, and I apologized. And felt bad about it!

But honest to god, it finally just dawned on me that I should have said that if she wanted me to speak ... she really should have given me a head's up. Or a head's up that she didn't want me to.

She had a bigger celebration again a year later. I went and did not speak that time.

I need to vent. I still have ill feelings toward’s my husband’s sister (let’s call her “Michelle”) and it’s been over 5 years since we got married.
It’s was a second marriage for both of us. I met his family a few times since they live on the East Coast and we are in California. Even though I had to go to 2 Jr. High graduations, HS graduation and a communion, with the nieces that put really expensive gifts on their gift wish list, this sister left the family at home and came by herself to save money.
My husband and his mom have always had a bad relationship. His mom did not come to our wedding and he was hurt by it. Michelle and their other sister barged into the bride’s room without knocking. She bragged to my bridesmaid and the photographer that she’s her mom and dad’s favorite. Dad passed away and he treated all the kids the same. When she left my bridesmaid that it was tacky AF, but didn’t want to create drama. She boasted about how she went to every table and talk to everyone. My friends later complained about her nosiness. She cornered my son and asked him personal questions and told members of the family he said he doesn’t get along with his dad and he has bisexual feelings. When I later asked him he said he didn’t say either. He may have seen drunk, but he’s not bisexual. I was angry. Even if it was true, it’s not something she should’ve gossiped about. She also constantly talked about out herself and her wedding - 30 years ago.
I should get over this, but I still harbor bad feelings. It’s not the worst in-laws, but it will take time for me to forget.

My older sister's wedding's coming up and it reminded me of my own wedding.
It was a fairly low-key event- people could wear what they wanted, including white (in fact the bridal party were all in white), and any level of formality from business casual to white tie, although we did have a nice mansion-type venue and live music. Plus ones were permitted.
Unfortunately, one of the plus ones of my husband's friend was... slightly crazy.
My husband and I went around greeting guests individually, and I noticed she was wearing basically a pure white lace mermaid wedding dress, but I decided not to fight it, since a) she's just a random plus one who nobody cares about it or could mistake for the bride, b) my dress code was very broad and I guess I didn't specifically say no wedding dresses and c) that lace was very cheap and did not look great.
However, her attention was very forcibly thrust upon me later in the evening. We'd decided to have a karaoke towards the end of the evening free for all as a way to keep the vibes high (it was an alcohol-free wedding so we figured we wouldn't have to deal with any drunken new-found professional singers). It started off great, we had some very cute children singing, a sweet (if slightly embarrassing for my husband) duet between my parents in-law and an amazing rendition of Jerusalem by my very patriotic grandmother. This was the moment when the hapless plus one decided it was time to take centre stage to sing Taylor Swift's Speak Now.
For those of you who don't know it, the lyrics go:
It seems that I was uninvited by your lovely bride-to-be

...She floats down the aisle like a pageant queen
But I know you wish it was me
You wish it was me
Don't you?

Don't say yes, run away now
I'll meet you when you're out of the church at the back door
Don't wait, or say a single vow...

The rest of the song is in roughly the same vein. I was shocked and so (thankfully) was my husband. It was the first time either of us had ever seen her, but it turned out that she had developed something of a crush on my husband from following him on insta. I found this rather disturbing, tbh, but needless to say she did not stay to finish the ceremony, my husband promptly unfriended/blocked her on all socials afterwards and neither or him ever saw her or the friend who had bought her again.

The wedding was the happiest and best day of my life, and I forgot about her until I was reading through some of the stories on this reddit.

Read this if you enjoy petty girl drama.

TLDR: this selfish woman canceled our friend’s bachelorette party out of spite, and now we are rebooking everything way too late and can’t get our old reservations back. 😡

I am co-MOH for a friend’s upcoming wedding, and the other MOH, Clara, is a lovely and proactive woman who is handling the bookings/financials/logistics for the bachelorette, which is a 3 day cruise.

Back in April we started a bridesmaid group chat to plan the cruise for October. One bridesmaid, Nina, lives in a different city and declined the trip, saying she can’t afford to travel for it. No problem! The rest of us proceed to pick a date, book the cruise, settle up payment with Clara, and sign ourselves up for various extras (stuff like brunch on the cruise), and I order matching T shirts, which was my treat to the group.

3 weeks later, Nina gets FOMO and decides she wants to join us, but she can’t do it on the weekend we already booked. So she asks the whole group of 6 women if we could change the date. We all honesty consider this, because Nina is an in-law of the bride and we know the bride would want her there. But, the weekend Nina requested doesn’t work for several of the others. Clara tells Nina we can’t change the date at this point. That’s when the drama begins (Nina starts a grudge against Clara about this, but we didn’t know at this point how mad she was).

Nina decides to make it work and adds herself to our cruise booking. Doing so adds a room (adjoining) and causes us to reshuffle sleeping arrangements, but we are all fine with this and excited she can come. Plus we all get some money back since we are splitting costs evenly. The process to make these changes is coordinated by Clara, who spends a lot of time on rebooking and cost calculations. I also order Nina the matching T shirt which has a custom design for each girl, and spend a few days customizing Nina’s design to her specifications.

Well it turns out, Nina has been on a lot of cruises and has loyalty points, so she then offers to take over reservations so she can use her loyalty status. We say OK, cool. But this involves more coordination with Clara, who hands certain things over to Nina. Nina puts the main room in her name, uses that room to book a brunch reservation and a few special entertainment events under her name too. I can see that Clara is getting whiplash from plan changes and info overload from Nina. Clara’s financial spreadsheet is starting to look like a choose your own adventure. But it’s all good because things are moving forward, we have our bookings, and we even saved some money. So, we all exhale, knowing that all the big stuff is planned.

The group chat pivots to the fun stuff. Clara had suggested (and we all agreed prior to Nina being added back in) that we will have a theme night called “Into the Sunset” where we all get dressy in sunset colors (anything from pink to orange to gold, even brown or bronze or navy blue) and the bride wears white with gold accents. We also planned to split the cost for a few bridal decorations for the room. Nina suggested we all wear a certain Amazon skirt with our matching T shirt, but that idea was vetoed (tbh the bride hated it), and we also told her we want to stay budget-conscious and not go crazy on required matching outfits. So everyone can wear whatever bottoms they want with the custom shirt. Clara delivered this message. Nina felt shot down and apparently added this to her growing grudge, deciding that Clara hates her.

Last week, we get a text out of the blue. It’s Nina, saying “please welcome my bestie Maria who will be joining us on the cruise and staying in our room.” I’m like hold up?? I talk to the bride, and she’s very hurt. She feels like Nina is just there to experience another cruise vacation, not to celebrate her big day. Her inviting Maria solidified that feeling. Nina had asked the bride if she could bring her buddy for moral support because she felt Clara doesn’t like her so she wants an ally. Bride was so taken aback, she said yes in the moment, but feels really weird about it. But since she said yes and it was her final call, we accept Maria into the group with open arms. No reason to assume the worst about someone we’ve never met. Maybe she will be a fun new friend? Looking on the bright side, I order Maria a custom T shirt and Clara recalculates and sends another refund to each of us.

The cruise is 8 weeks away now. In the group chat, Nina voices she can’t afford to buy an outfit for the Into the Sunset theme night. Note that this theme night was Clara’s idea. Clara responds that it can be any range of outfits, the color palette is pretty broad, doesn’t have to be a dress, could be pants or a cute sweater or anything. Clara is a huge thrifter so she suggests thrift stores having something cool.

Well that set Nina off and she starts blowing up my phone on the side complaining about Clara being stubborn and insulting. She says the thrift store comment was uncalled for. I tell her there’s no pressure to dress on theme if she can’t swing it. Then Nina says Clara has been difficult and can’t take suggestions since day 1 when she “refused to change the date of the cruise for her.” I remind Nina that several of us couldn’t make that date work, myself included, and we were locked in already. Nina brings up the suggested Amazon skirts saying she was shot down due to people’s budgets, but “Clara has no problem asking everyone to dress on her theme.” I was not going to engage with bashing Clara on the side, so I shut it down with a gentle “let’s just all move forward and have a great time together, supporting the bride because that’s what we’re here for” to which Nina did not reply.

Three days later, we get the news that our cruise has been fully canceled by Nina. Since everything was rebooked in Nina’s name, when she canceled it, all of the brunches and event reservations also were canceled. Nina did not notify us in the group thread, Clara, or myself. No explanation or excuse or gracious remark. Just a big fat fuck you. She just disappeared from the plans and took her bookings with her.

Now Clara is REBOOKING the entire cruise for us, back down to the original group, no more Nina or her sidekick Maria. The kicker is that now all those brunch and event reservations are sold out, so we’re too late to do all the things we had planned for the bride.

Since we’re back down to 6 girls, we all owe more money to Clara again, which I’m totally fine with because I feel like Nina would have been difficult on the cruise. Bullet dodged. But I’m honestly floored that a person who NONE OF US OTHER BRIDESMAIDS HAVE EVER MET could conjure up so much perceived drama and then punish the whole group for it.

I feel like I’ve been punked.

Note: We are women in our 30s and 40s, if you can believe this.

EDIT for clarification: I wrote that Nina is an in-law to the bride, and some commenters assumed she’s the groom’s relative. Not the case. Nina is married to someone on the bride’s side of the family.

The groom is being rightfully supportive and indignant about this, and even offered to treat us all to a special dinner since we didn’t get the special brunch on the cruise. He thinks the bride should not be so soft with Nina, but there’s a LOT of context I won’t get into here, other family trauma, and the bride is non-confrontational for many valid reasons of her own. I can’t and wouldn’t ask her to uninvite Nina to the wedding. Nina’s husband, kids, and others close to them are close family, and it would mean a ripple effect on all of them. Just trust when I say it’s complicated, and it’s easy to say “uninvite this bitch!” if you haven’t walked in the bride’s shoes. So that’s not an option, but I do agree with the sentiments and appreciate all the validation on here! I came to the right sub, it would seem!

I’m gonna start off by saying…my dad & my stepmom certainly have their issues but they absolutely have my best interest in mind and love me dearly/would never do anything to intentionally spite me.

With that being said, I’m feeling mortified & embarrassed. I wore a sage green gown for my wedding. I spent my entire bridal era sending updates to my stepmom, showing her photos OF MY DRESS and me in it etc.

I had asked them multiple times what they planned to wear and up until a week before they still hadn’t send me any photos. She finally sends me a photo of her dress and I shit you not it was a mini MINI cotton beach dress. Our dress code was colorful/funky cocktail. I responded politely and even sent appropriate suggestions for the MOB dresses.

Finally the day comes, and I see them. BOTH in sage green. My dad in a sage green suit and her in a floor length (at least it wasnt mini) sage green satin dress. My dad hadnt seen my dress ahead of time and my stepmom chose his suit for him.

I know they did it to be “cute” and match me. But it was so fucking embarrassing and it was awkward for my Mom, stepdad, and my in-laws, too because obviously they all wore other colors.

Idk I’m just trying really hard not to feel resentful of her for this…I don’t even want to post any photos with them and they’re both VERY into social media so they’d notice lmaoooo. But honestly it just hurt my feelings a lot, and the more I brew on it the more embarrassed I am.

Other than that the day was perfect & magical lol. Also they ended up leaving RIGHT after dinner because she got so hammered :’) rude :)

So today was the day for trying on wedding dresses. I invited my mam , sister ( MOH) and future MIL. Everyone knew the time I was picking my mam and sister up at 10.30 then MIL at 11. The appointment was for 12

I called my mam & sister told them to meet me around the corner of mams house.

I'm waiting looking at the clock send a voice note I'm here 10.47. My sister replies ok. 11 still no sign of them.

I start feeling anxious it's a 40 minute drive to the bridal shop and at least 15 to MIL house.

11.10 I send message saying " I'm leaving now , I can't be late for this appointment " . I wait another 5 minutes then drive to MIL house.

She asks about missing family , I explain the situation. We drive in silence. I try to shake off the bad mood I'm now in. My sister and mother called my phone 15 minutes after I left. I didn't answer.

I try on dresses the assistant was lovely and giving honest opinions and suggestions. MIL tried to act interested but was looking at her phone.

I had imagined this moment so differently. My family members with me laughing, crying pulling faces, going for lunch afterwards to celebrate but I stood looking in the mirror forcing back tears.

I've done so much for them over the years yet it was too much to focus on me for 2 hours.

When I got home my sister messaged me trying to lie and make excuses , blaming me. No apology.

Thats my rant on my day ruined. Thank you for reading.

I attended a wedding with my dad for a friend of his from high school. During the reception, this guy - who wasn't even invited; he was a +1 - goes up to the DJ and asks if he takes requests. The DJ affirms, and this guy asks for the microphone. The DJ obediently hands it over, which, in hindsight, I'm absolutely shocked about. This guy proceeds to sing a song (don't remember what) for the flabbergasted crowd for probably a good 2-3 minutes. And nobody steps in. The guy then happily hands the microphone back to the DJ and walks off on his merry way, with 0 awareness about what he just did. Total confidence that his actions were normal and unremarkable.

It was me. In my defense, I was 4.

Edit: clarity

My partner (32F) and I (35M) are getting ready for our wedding in October, and my side of the family is mostly checked out. Frankly, I'm beyond hurt by what they have decided, and I fail to process the logic.

It started with our couple's shower-- my parents are both re-married, but neither of my step parents showed to the shower. Not a big deal, as my stepfather is an emotionally closed off guy and he had a big fishing weekend planned, so whatever. My stepmother has chronic illnesses, and also used to be my childhood babysitter, so I get her not showing up. My mom and one of my cousins showed up, so that was nice.

Our friend went above and beyond throwing us this event and we agreed that if this was our actual wedding reception we would have been over the moon. 5 minutes into the event my dad calls and asks if we are "still doing that thing today." I told him yes, it started 5 minutes ago, and he says that he'll head down in a little bit. An hour later he calls me and says he's at X location. I told him that was the wrong venue, and it was at Y location. 20 minutes later, he shows up in cargo shorts and a dirty graphic tee, hangs out for 15 minutes and leaves. I asked him 3 times for us to at least take a picture together but he didn't. He just left, because he didn't want to get in a fight with my mom.

My partners family included her mom, her dad, her stepmom, 3 grandparents, 4 aunts and uncles and most of their partners, almost all of them from several states away. My family lives in town.

I sobbed like a baby when we got home.

A couple weeks later, I'm at my dad's and he casually tells me that they aren't coming to the rehearsal dinner, and they'll probably just drive in to town the day of, stay for the ceremony and drive back (ceremony is in the next city over) so they don't have to worry about getting a hotel room. I didn't know what to say to that, so I just said "do what you've gotta do, I guess," and left shortly after.

I broke down to my dad a couple months prior, begging him to show up more in my life. And this is what I got.

My brother is flying from across the country, and my sister is coming in from Brazil, and I can't get my dad to be there when we live 3 blocks away from each other.

Rant over. Thanks for reading.

Before reading this, please note that I will be seeing a therapist about this, but wanted to find community regarding this topic.

I got married at the end of July. I have been on high alert for the past few months due to the stress of wedding planning. Right before walking down the aisle, as guests were being seated, my nan fell, broke her hip and got sent to the ER.

I noticed myself start to disassociate during the ceremony - thinking about what else could possibly go wrong and if my nan was going to be okay. I remember maybe 50% of the ceremony which isn’t too bad.

Now comes the reception…. a few drinks + tendency to disassociate = disaster. I can only remember the things that were going wrong, and trust me a lot went wrong. I have the worst anxiety about my wedding because I can only remember things that went absolutely horrific and have convinced myself that my guests had a horrible time.

A day after my wedding, I confided in my closest friends to get reassurance that they enjoyed themselves. They told me they did. I didn’t believe them. They sent me so much video/photo poof - and it honestly looked like a blast. It’s upsetting because I also have photo/video proof that I was enjoying myself at the reception. I even have plenty of photobooth photos that I don’t even remember taking.

I spoke to my husband about this, and he said it was the best day of his life. I feel so awful, because I don’t feel the same way about the day, because I only remember the bad aspects.

Has anyone else felt this way?