Weddingbee

For all the horror stories you could ever hope to read, check out:

http://www.etiquettehell.com

I spent (no kidding!) four days reading all the wedding stories on the site–so entertaining and addictive!!!

I posted this on indie bride earlier, but I’ll put it here too. I apologize if people go to both sites and have read it twice. This is literally a copy and paste.

Ok. I write a column for a local paper and made two mistakes:
1. wrote about many wedding traditions around the world, including ancient tradition where shoes were thrown at the bride and groom (do you see where this is going?)
2. Showed it to my well-meaning but poor thinking future mother in law (only because she is always bugging me to see my column. I usually never bring her copies).

Without talking to me first, she filled baby booties with dense, heavy potpurri and handed it to the people outside the church to lob at us after the ceremony (including nieces and nephews anxious to do anything after sitting through a catholic mass). We weren’t scheduled to greet people after the ceremony. The bridal party and paretns were sequestered for photos since we had a 30 minute window (per the church) for photos at the church (BTW: Everyone knew this). She insisted we greet people instead after the ceremony and, naively and still filled with the glory of our day, we stepped outside only to be pelted in the face and eyes by those damn booties. We were pelted HARD. It actually really hurt.

1. I washorrified and livid since it was the equivalent of being slimed on a candid camera show
2. Completely lost the bridal party and parents — and the narrow window for photos
3. since she used baby booties, some people assumed that I was pregnant, forcing me to answer questions I didn’t expect I’d be answering seconds after taking my vows.

The wedding was Saturday. I’m still a little mad. I know she knows something is up though I didn’t want to ruin both of our days by reeming her out. I know she wasn’t thinking and when I see her next I plan to guilt her out and explain how people thought it was terrible my moher in law wanted peope to think I was pregnant and having a shot gun wedding and how because of the incident the family has lost photos they should have been able to treasure for years and we had to cobble together things at other sites which weren’t as nice as the lovely cathedral. Since we are the only wedding (not even she had a wedding or her other children) i think they didn’t know what to do — and maybe didn’t realize how bad an idea this was. I think that will make sure that she so guilty she will consult with me so that she can do something that makes her happy without it ruining anything.

thankfully this is not my own story…!!

two years ago, i was the wedding coordinator for a close friend, and there were so many disasters from the wedding that it got to the point where it was almost funny… almost.

1) the photographer - that in and of itself could be an entire rant… in spite of many many instructions, he drove himself to this random park, several cities away, thinking that that was where the bridal party was going to be taking pictures… not only did my friend never instruct him to go there, but they were all waiting for him at the church! his car broke down at the park, and he called the bride to tell her to come pick him up. of all the nerve! she was sooooo angry, she told him to hail a cab and for HIM to pay for it. when she tried calling him back, he didn’t pick up his cell phone, so for an hour, he was MIA. he finally made it to the church barely in time for the ceremony - but so much time was wasted, that they didn’t get any pictures of the bridal party or family.

2) my friend asked another “amateur” photographer to do back up pictures, in lieu of the hired photographer charging more for a second photographer… she was hoping that the amateur would get great candid shots. instead of picture of her and the wedding, this “friend” ended up only taking rolls of pictures of… his girlfriend, who he brought with him to the wedding, uninvited.

3) the four guest-book attendants were these young college girls that were supposed to come to the church an hour early, to set up the tables and bring the guest book and decorations. they had a slumber party (themselves) the night before, and ALL OVERSLEPT… they barely made it to the church 15 minutes before the ceremony, because they spent so much time doing each others’ makeup and hair - AND, on top of that, they forgot the guest book and decorations. i had all these korean parents chewing me out, telling me how unprepared i was because there was no guest book and i ended up taking a piece of notebook paper and having them “sign in” on that… i was LIVID!

4) my friend (the bride) didn’t order enough corsages and boutonnieres for the various family members that came all the way from korea - she was on a tight budget, and neglected to tell her mom or the groom’s mom that there were very minimal flowers… well, they all arrived at the church early (for the scheduled photos - which never happened), and for an hour, they kept following me around, asking me where their corsages and boutonnieres were… asking if i could call the florist myself and order more flowers for them… asking if i could steal flowers from the church arrangements to make make-shift corsages for them… it was a nightmare.

5) the guy that was in charge of assembling and making all the wedding programs (a graphic-designer friend of the bride and groom) waited until the last minute to work on the program… like WAY last minute. he didn’t get started on them until friday night AFTER the rehearsal dinner, and thought he could finish it all by the morning. well, his printer died on him in the middle of the night, and he was scrambling to call other people to get all his stuff printed out… he showed up at the church at 10:15 with the programs… but the wedding started at 10am. not cool.

oh, i could go on and on… there were maybe 5 other mini-disasters, but these were the big ones.

BUT, the worst one of all, which made my friend (the bride) devastated… after the wedding, months later, she tried to follow up with her photographer to get her proofs and prints and her album, etc. he went missing - disconnected his home and office phone, stopped his cell phone service… weeks went by and repeated phone calls went by with nothing - she knew of 2 or 3 other brides that used him for their weddings, and none of them were able to find him… FINALLY, months later, they discovered he had a mental breakdown. he had never developed the pictures or made proofs or anything. one of her friends, who was also looking for her own wedding photos, tracked him down at his house and literally camped out in his front lawn until he came home - she then forced herself into his disaster of a home and made him pull out all his film that he had taken from the past few months…

… by a stroke of luck, she came upon my friend’s negatives, and “stole” them from him to give to her. so, she (at least) has her negatives, but doesn’t know where to go to get them printed out into albums, etc. she lost thousands of dollars in the process and many many sleepless nights and tears shed.

the moral of the story. ONLY USE RELIABLE PEOPLE WITH GOOD REFERENCES!!