19 Horror Stories from People in the Wedding Industry

Even the most in-love couples can be difficult to work with at times.

A recent AskReddit thread asked people who work in the wedding industry to share their own tales of weddings gone wrong. Their stories are pretty unbelievable.

via: Shutterstock

My mom made wedding cakes for almost 20 years in the 1990s-2000s.

For some ungodly reason, Precious Moments cake toppers were all the rage for a while. 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.”

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. –SmthgWicked

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

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 had been paid, and it was split almost 50/50 by both families. Apparently, they couldn’t agree on who needed to pay who back, and neither wanted to back down, so both families decided they’d 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–k. –eraser_dust

For my cousin’s wedding, everyone had a role.

I was a scripture reader, my little sister and cousin were in charge of handing out the programs. Cool right? Until, the wedding planner ran up to the girls minutes before 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 fuck 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 bride’s 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

This next wedding was a very casual affair.