Do Tell: Wedding Planning Disaster Stories

My girlfriends wedding was at an estate up in the country and her wedding planner didn't realize there was going to be road construction on the day of her wedding. Turned out the main road to the site was completely blocked off. The only other way to her wedding site was through a 20 minute detour which made the wedding start almost an hour late!! Luckily the sun cooperated and everything else went off without a hitch!

I had a whole host of issues that popped up before my wedding. 2 months before, the florist cancelled, 2 weeks before, the limo company cancelled (i was able to find subsitutes for both) and 3 days before the wedding, the Best Man sent my hubby an email saying he was not coming (they have been able to resume a friendship though) but to take the cake--the limo company I ended up with on the day of my wedding was lost and unable to find me. Even though they had my cell number, they called the church and left a message with our priest. He then handed a note to my husband saying the limo driver could not find me. Luckily, I was able to flag down the driver and make it to my wedding, early even, but with my poor husband sweating bullets that I might not show up! All problems aside, we had a beautiful wedding ceremony, a gorgeous fall day and a great party following :)

when i was getting ready for my rehearsal i decided to rinse my veil (????). it was a family veil and i thought it looked a little dusty. well unfortunately the dust was what was holding it together. as i swirled the net through the water it looked "funny". so i lifted it up and it literally disappeared. i remember thinking "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" and just telling everyone that i had forgotten the veil (at my rehearsal). luckily my wedding was in the evening so first thing in the morning i went to a bridal shop and bought one of the 2 veils they had. the sales woman kept saying "you can't return this you know" and i was like "give me the FREAKING VAIL!"

The five-star restaurant that I booked for my reception went out of business, never contacted me, and promptly turned into a Dirty Dick's Crab Shack. Thankfully, that happened several months before the wedding, so I have been able to change my plans. Nevertheless, it was a nightmare.

:rotfl: haha these stories are terrible! Give me the FREAKING VAIL, Dirty Dicks Crab Shack!! :rotfl:

I had a few minor mishaps but nothing too major...it was 103 degrees on the day of my wedding so the florist could not use most of the white flowers that we had planned for the ceremony because they would have been wilted in no time. So I had a flowerless Huppah and Cake Table. Also, the very specially selected roses that I had ordered got caught in a hurricane in equador, so my bridemaids all carried plain pink roses. The worst part was during the cocktail hour, we had a hibachi grill set up with oysters. The chef cut himself while shucking the oysters and had to go to the hospital. Many of the oysters that we had specially driven down from Oregon just sat on the grill and burned! But other that that, it was a perfect day :)

My biggest disaster - well my husband decided to go surfing with his brother two weeks before our wedding. A couple of hours later I got a phone call that sounded like this: 'Don't wowwy honey but we awe on ouw way to the hospital...' He had managed to get hit in the face with his surfboard and got 13 stitches in his lip! My poor honey looked like he had been attacked by a mad plastic surgeon with a collagen needle! Angelina Jolie had nothing on his bottom lip. He couldn't smile, talk or eat! We went to our dance lesson a couple of days later and the instructor pulled me aside to ask what was wrong - he thought my husband was really angry (poor guy couldn't make any facial expressions). We were really worried about the wedding pictures but in the end he was able to smile -although his smile still doesn't look the same. I had to put it all into perspective and just be glad he was there.

My wedding day itself went very smoothly. The one huge problem I had - I ordered my wedding dress in ivory, but when I showed up for my first fitting, they brought out this WHITE dress - and said it was mine!! Needless to say, it was a horrible experience, but the store (who shall remain nameless, but not blameless!) had another ivory version of my dress in a current shipment, and that bride was getting married after me, so they were able to have that dress delivered to me. Imagine, though, all the excitement of a first fitting, only to be given the wrong dress!! But I was able to laugh about it on the beaches of Hawaii with my new husband after our big day!! CT Reader

Licketysplit, that's hilarous! It sounds like something I would have done, heheh.

lol, yeah i don't know what i was thinking. the evening before????? well the one i used won't get dusty; i had it sealed up for my daughters to use if they want along with my dress.

My husband and I eloped because we wanted to, but his mother threw a fit and we ended up having a wedding anyways. It was an absolute disaster! I had spent thousands of dollars on the wedding that we wanted, which my mother-in-law changed to an Italian wedding at the last minute, and even bringing in her own priest (my hubby and I are Buddhists). She had the flowers changed at the last minute from cherry blossoms to roses, which I'm allergic to. If it wasn't for my really close friends that made it an amazing night, it probably would've been a huge waste of time.

My wedding is October 11th and the following story is ENTIRELY TRUE!!! My first major catastrophy was that most of my BM/MOH dropped out of the wedding due to economic problems but one dropped out was kicked out b/c of being arrested and certifiable (she was really institutionalized when it came time for the day of the fittings) 2nd incident happened as we were leaving from picking out my fiancee tux we got hit by a car?! Last but not least Tuesday morning which happened to be my birthday my car was blown up!!!! not a light blew, or a fuse blew, not the engine went out. Someone threw a fire bomb into my car and completely destroyed it along with all our baby pictures and engagement pictures and things i was moving into the new house. I keep feeling like I'm in some bad night mare they still haven't caught the people and police aren't really telling me anything and I'm having a hard time functioning b/c it was a random act that just completely screwed up my life...

Where do I start?! First, I have a dad and step-dad. My step-dad raised me since my dad was busy being drunk during my childhood. (Now I'm getting married and he wants to be father of the year!) So he and my step dad are splitting the cost of the wedding. They are both walking me down the isle. All was fine, until....my mom's sister, who had no relationship with me as a child, suddenly wants to be 'aunt of the year'! So she's stepped in to plan this that and the other. In the mean time, my mom is too nice to tell her to BUTT OUT! Now she's reserved her seat at the ceremony! My step dad and dad have large families, and we are seating them behind my parents. Now AUNT WITCH thinks she and her husband and 5 kids get to sit up there along with her husband's parents whom she invited!! My solution? I'm assigning seats! Is that tacky or what?! I have no choice. AND....she's bringig my grandmother who is in a nursing home and doesn't know day light from dark! I JUST HOPE I MAKE IT TILL JUNE!!

Oh my, thank god I'm not alone...this is the story of all my wedding disasters to dat! My maid of honor has been my closest friend for the past 5 years. My bm's are all friends from highschool that i'm still pretty good friends with. While attempting to plan my stagette I got phonecalls from all the girls telling me my moh was being rude and wasn't helping with teh planning at all. Finally when it came down to it I had to fire my maid of honor, and ask my other good friend, who was obviously offended by not being asked in the first place, to be the maid of honor. That was finally dealt with, and then it was time for the grooms family to start causing problems. We had about 15 people, mostly family, from his side who didn't feel they needed to rsvp by the rsvp date, and then thought it was rude when we informed them that we needed the rsvp's right away. When I had my whole seating chart finally done, his father informs me that he's bringing his barely with it grandmother and a caretaker for her to the wedding reception, which forced us to get another table, as all the tables were 100% full...which means I had to get another centerpiece, more linens....etc etc etc .... oh, and I had made a great slideshow for the reception of all our friends and family, which I was then told I had to edit all the pictures of his grandfather out of because apparently it would make his grandmother freak out...all in all not huge things, i just hate dealing with inconsiderate people!!!

Two weeks before my wedding, my MOH had to be fired and replaced with my soon-to-be sister in law because she hadn't helped with planning at all. Kind of annoying, and hurt because she'd been my best friend since 5th grade, but we've reconciled since. I also had to have my dress altered, which almost didn't get done in time. My mother in law and I made the invitations to save money, which promptly got poo-pooed by several of my relatives, who even offered to dismantle all of them and redo them so they could be more 'wedding-y'. All of these were minor inconveniences. The real disaster was the day of the wedding, when we went to the park where we were to be married and were told that, although we rightfully had it since we'd booked it months in advance, the party there before us had slipped the park official extra money to have it all day, and they weren't going to make them leave. So we ended up getting married at the only other place we could find- a junior high school where his mother works. So our entire wedding party had to be moved, our ceremony was delayed nearly an hour and a half, all the favors i'd spend hours on (little picnic baskets) to fit the theme meant nothing....it was awful. Instead of pictures by a beautiful lake, we got our pictures taken in a junior high cafeteria, and we haven't even gotten those back yet, a month later, because the lighting was so bad. Plus the school charged us, so we ended up having to eat a bill of an extra hundred and twenty over what we'd already paid. :(

hola

My wedding disatsters were multiple. I had planned my wedding two years in advance. A year before the wedding, my venue for the reception went backrupt, closed and ran off with all of the deposists and money. Fortunately we had paid using Credit Card so we were able to get reimbursed. I had to re-plan the entire venue because the ceremony location hinged on the reception site. I re-planned everything and all was well until a couple months in. My bachelorette almost bombed because BOTh of my maids of honour could not attend (and they were planning it!), they had nothing planned, and my bridesmaids had to pull something together THE NIGHT BEFORE! The night before the wedding I discovered that the birdesmaid's purses I ordered were all in the box but MY PURSE (it was in place of my bouquet) was never ordered. Fortunately my mom had bought a similar purse and I used hers and she got one for free from the store. My dressed tore when my maids were getting me into it (an inner tear), my one maid broke her zipper getting into her dress and had to be sewn into it, they thought they lost my veil, and our Best man and flower girl were late. The ceremony was fabulous, pics were great, we had our first dance and ate, and by 8:15pm I was in our hotel room throwing up with a migraine :( I missed the ENTIRE reception besides the meal. I was sooooo bummed. I was still feeling unwell the next day when we left for our honeymoon. Phew. I am still bummed, but we may renew our vows in a year or two.

At my daughters wedding we didn't have anyone who knew the details checking on the folks that were providing the services. The baker delivered the cupcakes and small cake we ordered but they were completely devoid of any decoration. We had someone assigned to be sure the baker arrived but didn't think to make sure the cake was decorated. It broke my heart when my daughter saw the cake during her first dance with her husband and almost cried.

My partner and i set a date to be married 2 months ago and im already under pressure. we told his parents and they offered to pay for his side of the family, so they could invite there friends also, but... my parents, having paid for thier own wedding.. were'nt so generous. we cant afford to pay for my whole family so now we have to find the money or have a smaller wedding than i wished for, with less of my family members, id really like everyone to be there on our big day. heres hoping all turns out well x x

haha! 5 weeks til our wedding overseas, and just been notified that the priest has 'decided not to marry us in the church', so we're now with 80 guests and no church; although the guests may not be able to fly because of the volcanic ash; and our honeymoon we booked is now in a country that is now considered a war zone (thailand). yikes!

We got engaged in February 2010 and planned on getting married in Summer 2011. However, we changed our mind and opted for a black-tie NYE wedding on December 31, 2010 when we accidentally found a gorgeous venue that said they could do the ceremony and reception in their ballroom at that time. In July 2010 when we tried to firm-up times, menus, etc., the wedding coordinator "suddenly realizes" she blatantly lied to us about their ability to flip the space from ceremony to reception during a cocktail hour in a separate room just in order to make the sale. She tells us that if we "force them" to do a ceremony there, they'll do it, but we'll have to do "at least a two-hour cocktail hour," it'll cost at least an additional $5,000, and it will most certainly be a "disaster." (Quoted language is all her exact words.) Also, they have cancelled our menu-tastings "b/c that doesn't apply to hors d'euvres or stations or buffet food," despite the fact that - after we told her we wanted to do an hors d'euvres and stations menu, she walked us over to a couple currently doing a full tasting and told us to imagine ourselves there (during the sale). So we fight for a week, decide we have to cancel. The general manager acts like a greasy used-car salesman in negotiations, but finally agrees to give me my $5,000 deposit back. Stressed with five months until the wedding, we frantically search but find nothing within the price range for the large number of guests we want, at a setting opulent enough for the black-tie NYE wedding we've been telling everyone about. FINALLY we find a new place, and it's gorgeous and in the area where all of my fiance's family lives. They've available, I am thrilled and tell them to book it for us immediately. We speak every day setting up the menus and final pricing for everything. Eight hours ago I found out that, once again, incompetent hotel wedding staff have snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. She forgot to put my info in the books, so while she was gone this past weekend another wedding planner gave the hotel around to another wedding, who also put down a deposit. So now I'm four months away from my wedding date without any venue. Spent all day calling places, nothing is available under $35k for the venue/food/bev that would be appropriate. If we move it to a summer wedding, I'll have to return/find a new wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses b/c they're all wintery-blackandwhite black tie attire. Anyone know any good place to elope?