Wedding planners have to contain the insane amounts of crazy that even seemingly normal people contain. That special day brings out a lot of feelings in people, but usually they aren't so immature and bizarre as the ones in these stories! Content has been edited for clarity.
Was There A Method To His Madness?
“Although he wasn’t a groomzilla, one groom was weird to say the least. The bride was in her late twenties, and the groom was in his mid thirties. From what I understood, they’ve never been in relationships before, or at least not serious ones. They were in a long distance relationship and had never actually lived together. Since the groom was living in another city, consultations and communication were done with the bride only. She seemed a little awkward, although generally nice and easy to talk to.
When I got there, the groom was very stressed. I figured it was the normal pre-ceremony stress, and he would warm up to me later, but nope! Once we got to the reception venue, I wanted to chat with him and check if everything was okay. I can’t remember what I said exactly, but it was something like, ‘Hey! I could tell you were very stressed before the ceremony! How are you feeling now?’
For some reason, he took it the wrong way and refused to talk to me for the rest of the evening. He asked his mom (remember, he was in is mid thirties) to tell me to leave the reception because he didn’t like seeing me walk around while doing my job. After asking the bride if that’s what she wanted too, she reluctantly agreed and asked me to come back later. I ended up sitting in the hallway for thirty minutes like a child until he gave me the permission to come back to complete my job.
He also refused to do couple portraits after the ceremony. The bride managed to convince him at first, but after ten minutes he was done and refused to cooperate. Needless to say, they ended up with very few good photos!
Something tells me he grew up very sheltered and didn’t know how to act with people, but who knows! I have no idea if they’re still together. One thing is sure though, I will never work with them again!”
Don’t Look At Me
“I worked a wedding where I basically had to play a game of telephone all day long. I came onsite the day of a wedding to meet with the other planner/coordinator, who promptly told me to be careful around the bride. Apparently at the rehearsal the prior night, the bride thought the coordinator was taking too much of her time (after two questions), and relayed through her bridesmaid that the coordinator was no longer allowed to speak to the bride or even look her in the eye. All communication would have to go through a family member from there on out.
I had worked with this coordinator in the past and knew her to be a consummate professional and pleasant person to be around. She had actually assumed the bride would get over her tantrum the day of the wedding, but nope, still no talking or eye contact. The coordinator tried her best to keep the wedding day going smoothly and on time, but it was really tough to do so through proxy. Taking photos took forever because I had to make sure a bridesmaid or sister was always with us to tell the couple where to stand and how to pose. It was one of the most awkward jobs I ever had.
Also, I should mention that when I came onsite for the wedding, I was able to locate the bride by the sound of her screaming at her hair/makeup artists. By the time I came into the bridal suite, she had switched to screaming at her bridesmaids for looking prettier than her and made them change their hairstyles to ‘look uglier’.
After I was done with the getting-ready portraits, I found the groom outside on a balcony just smoking and staring into the sun, with the longest sigh I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Too Young At Heart
“I’ve had a few weird couples for sure. The one that comes to mind first is one that is getting married later this year. The bride and groom are around nineteen or twenty years old, and they act like literal children. Like the bride literally will only talk in a baby voice to her parents, who hover over everything. They also decided to go with ‘Spider-Man and Beauty and the Beast’ as their theme. Yes, they want both to be depicted, and not in a fun adult interpretation of it. It turns out that they wanted to use party supplies that you would use for a kid’s birthday.
My venue also rents out a fog machine that can be used for the first dance. We had this one groom that was obsessed with ninjas and wanted to try to ‘hide’ in the fog. He really wanted to jump out and do crazy karate moves and such. It was weird. Those are the only ones that stand out to me, but I’ve definitely dealt with a lot of weirdos.”
What A Terrible Toast!
“Not the newlyweds. but it was the parents of the bride at a wedding I coordinated during my first year of business. I had not been warned of any family drama until the bridal party was walking in the door for the grand entrance, and I hear the bride and sister repeating, as if hyping oneself up, ‘Get lost, Debra.’
Debra is the bride’s mother, and I get a crash course of her style of crazy.
There are no planned speeches for such reason. However, the mother of the groom takes it upon herself to give a toast. Understandable, but there is a schedule for a reason in these settings. So the father of the bride soon after approaches the DJ for the mic so he could give a toast. The poor bloke looked like a deer in the headlights, unsure what to do. Obviously it’s a normal request but again, he had been warned about the mother, not the father right?
Wrong. The father barely got five words out before the mother took the microphone from him and launched into a (very narcissistic) speech about how it wasn’t easy being a doctor’s wife and it was so hard to conceive the bride. I’ve never in my life heard nor expect to again hear the word placenta used in a wedding toast. Eventually, the mic was cut and we got it away from her, but it was after the bridal party and family had tried and failed to use normal social cues to intervene.”
Glorified Babysitter
“I’m a former wedding coordinator for a very small, very high-end company. You can make a LOT of assumptions just on observing someone’s wedding morning. This was the most memorable encounter. It wasn’t necessarily ‘weird’, but ‘terrible in every way imaginable’. This bride and groom were clearly both so rich and so entitled their entire lives that they didn’t know how to function properly. The bridal party suite (in a penthouse hotel room in downtown Chicago) was completely silent, except for a comment here and there from the bride’s mother about it being a big day. The bride complained about everything: the mimosa being too strong, the water being room temperature, the bagels being bagels instead of fruit, practically everything. She didn’t respond when I asked her questions, and instead looked at a bridesmaid with annoyance to answer for her.
The groom’s suite was trashed with bottles, and they were walking around in boxers five minutes before photos. I told them we had five minutes, and the wasted groom responded, ‘Hey, HEY, I’m pretty sure I’m really important today. It’s not going to happen without me. And it’s not happening in five minutes!’
And then the guys decided to slide down the back stairwell banister instead of take the elevator to the lobby. One of the groomsmen didn’t go with them and told me, ‘Hey man, you really needed to take control of the guys, otherwise why are we paying you?!’
OH, and the groom’s mom came into the suite with her dress, which showed almost all of her chest, and said, ‘How do I look, boys?!’
They all hooped and hollered for her. I had to stifle a laugh. 0/10 would not recommend.”
They Knew Exactly How To Get Back
“I work for a florist/event coordinating shop, and we have several pretty high-end venues we are exclusive with. We’ve seen how lots of money breeds lots of entitlement. We get pretty horrendous bridezillas on the regular. One bride I remember was a woman who was very sweet up until after her wedding. We had to substitute peonies (every bride and their grandma’s favorite flower) because they weren’t in season and to get them, she would need to pay a ton, so she opted for garden roses instead. It rained on her wedding day, and not like ‘maybe we should make a rain call’. It was like tornado sirens and things falling over. The power went out and the hotel used all of their backup generators to light her ceremony and reception for the three hours that the power was out. The rest of their guests just had to be rich by candlelight I guess.
None of that was her fault, but none of it was ours or the hotel’s either. Nature gonna nature. She tried to sue not only us for ‘messing up her bouquet’, but also the hotel for not letting her ceremony be outside and for not letting her ceremony be in ‘the prettiest area’ of the inside of the hotel.
Thankfully, we always have two coordinators meet with brides from this venue (it’s our biggest client), but we also record consultations and have contracts notifying all parties. So she couldn’t do stuff to us, but she did decide to blast us on any social media medium she could. Thankfully, we threatened to sue her back for defamation, and she removed them all. The hotel has similar practices, but also a ton of money to throw against her in court, so they basically told her to bring it and she backed off.
More recently, a groom from a wedding we just did is claiming the venue they used stole from them because he didn’t receive wedding presents from all of his guests, and he’s 100% certain every single one brought them something (they requested money by the way, only money). So now he’s wanting to sue the venue while also calling all of his guests to make sure they gave him money for his wedding gift. This one is more fun to watch burn.”
Bizarre Groomsmen Customs
“I’m not a wedding planner, but I manage events at the facilities I currently work at. Now we had a wedding there, where the groom wore a three-piece tuxedo, all white, with banana yellow converse and a banana yellow bow tie. His groomsmen wore all black with banana yellow converse and ties. Throughout the wedding service, the groomsmen would hold up emoji signs reacting to things that were happening. They each held up puke emojis when the couple kissed.
When it came time to get the rings, the best man acted like he had lost it. Uh oh. All of a sudden, a man in the audience stood up and threw a Frisbee with the ring taped to it to the groom. Apparently, they were all avid Frisbee golfers. The Frisbee also acted as their guest book, which was signed by everyone who came. The thing that saddened me the most is that seemed the bride really did not want to be marrying the groom. One of her bridesmaids came to me before the wedding asking for any snacks for the bride. It turns out that the bride felt like she was gonna throw up from crying so much.
I hope the best for them in the future, but it was all a little hard to watch.”
Fairy Princess Fantasy
“I was a wedding coordinator intern at a local banquet hall once summer. The actual coordinator on staff would work with them for months, then I’d typically help out with the rehearsal, ceremony, and reception the next day. We had one couple that we knew was going to have an interesting ceremony. We knew she was going to have elements around the hall that were woodsy and natural because she liked fairies, and also their best friend was going to marry them and it was his first time doing so.
They show up to rehearsal and she’s in full fairy wings and she confirmed that, yes, she was going to wear them in the wedding. Sure, whatever. We start getting a ceremony order together. The groom is super awkward and won’t give a straight answer. He barely even looks us in the eyes. The bride has somehow failed to inform us that her parents are divorced and haven’t spoken to one another in years. Great. That eventually gets worked out and they walk down the rehearsal aisle to the poor guy officiating. We tell the officiant that he can practice what he wants to say or just skip it and cut to the ring exchange. This man pulls out a stack of papers and proceeds to read a 25-minute speech. The bride looks like she wants to ascend to another plane of existence, and the bridesmaids are barely containing themselves. They were nice and their wedding day was great and frilly and warm. Oh, and the officiant had them do their vows while he twirled a wand with streamers on it. What a weird weekend.”
The Wife Had A Secret Plan
I was working with one of those cheesy wedding chapels on the strip in Las Vegas. The story I remembered most was this seemingly normal couple, who had the normal service and took the photos. We told them to return the next day for their photos. The next morning, we get a call from the groom, who we will call ‘James’, saying that his new wife ‘Emily’ threw him out of the car last night and left him on the side of the road. We come to find out James wasn’t an American citizen, so he essentially paid Emily supposedly $10,000, so he can start the process of becoming a citizen. He was now asking if he could annul his wedding after being scammed out of all of that money.
It’s a fairly common process. You would go online or even to other chapels to ‘shop’ around to compare prices and the types of wedding packages other chapels offer. Well, a few months later we see Emily on another competitor’s wedding website with a different guy! So we assumed that she was making this a business, marrying dudes for money and leaving them high and dry. I wish I had some more resolution to the story, but unfortunately that’s all I have on my end. Other than that, you encounter a lot of interesting types of people doing Elvis themed weddings, or ceremonies with the occasional costume themes.”
Were They In A Cult?
“My company coordinates everything for the couple, unless they request not for us to. We always learn the crazy stuff about the couple directly from the employee who has been meeting with them for months and is coordinating their big night. Otherwise, we get to to witness the craziness firsthand if it occurs at the wedding itself. One couple got married in a gorgeous old venue. No spirits. No music. No dancing. The couple had their actual first kiss after the vows. They barely looked at each other the whole entire night. A waiter found the officiant’s wife crying on the floor, ‘Not knowing if she could keep doing it.’
She pleaded for a drink, which we didn’t have because it was a completely dry ceremony. Then she disappeared for a while. We suspect that they might have all been in a cult. But that particular information wasn’t relevant to the booking, so we can’t know for sure.
After seven years of working in this industry, you see some truly bizarre stuff.”
“He Was A Condescending Nightmare”
“I had the groom who wanted the minister to do the whole ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ thing, at which point the groom would reveal the weapon holstered on his belt by lifting up his suit jacket. I nixed that immediately. The bride was perfectly normal and sweet, and I honestly worried that she was in an abusive relationship.
Then there was the father of the bride, who was a very strict Presbyterian and was hosting a dry wedding for 225 guests and reprimanded me for using the words ‘drink hour’. Like, yes sir I understand there will be no strong beverages served at this wedding, but it’s still called drink hour. He also wanted 225 prime ribs served in 20 minutes, which was impossible with the size of our kitchen. He was a condescending nightmare.
Then there was the mother of the groom that pretty clearly didn’t like the bride, and she didn’t want to pay one penny more than she had to for the rehearsal dinner (which turned out to be a rehearsal luncheon). She decided on a deli buffet menu (make your own sandwich style) at $13 per person. She didn’t even splurge for the $15 per person version, which would have gotten her some potato salad and desserts. She also liked to call me on my cell phone at 7:30 a.m., well before I was in the office. I stopped answering her calls until she would call my office phone.
All in all though, most of my couples were perfectly normal and nice. I honestly had more trouble with parents than I did with couples.”
The Cracks Were Clearly Showing
“I had a couple who were born in America, but both sets of parents had emigrated from India. The couple had already been married for seven years, but they had only had a civil ceremony. They were now giving their moms the big wedding with all the traditions. The game plan was a Hindu ceremony, drink hour, western vow renewal, another drink hour, and then reception.
He was such a groomzilla, he was worse than any bride I ever dealt with. I could go into plenty of examples of why they were a weird couple, but one moment truly sums it up. It was August and scorching hot. Hindu ceremonies are long, and this couple’s ceremony ran longer. During the first drink hour, the couple was changing for the western vow renewal. It was time to start this second ceremony, and the guests had been outdoors for two hours and counting. The bride said she needed twenty more minutes do redo her hair. The groom demanded I hold open the dressing room door, and he started screaming at her to get her butt out here and was just tearing into her.
And she started laughing hysterically. All of this took place as I stood there between them, holding the door, wondering how on earth they had already made it seven years together.”
Why Would They Do That?
“As a former caterer and venue manager, I’ve certainly seen my share of crazy. Like the mom who insisted on serving chicken, but then said our (brined) chicken was raw and swore up and down for months that we were trying to poison her. I was never able to convince her to just switch to the short rib!
But the selfish couples are the ones who really make me sad. I had one couple book an old barn for their wedding. The ceremony was out in a field, drinks on the first floor of the barn, and the reception up a narrow staircase on the second floor. THIS WITCH booked a non-accessible venue, knowing that one of her guests uses a wheelchair. He showed up to this venue one and a half hours outside the city and was basically only able to attend the drink hour. We served him and his wife a nice private dinner on the first floor and made them as comfortable as we could. They were super nice, but you could see the sadness in their eyes. They thanked us for dinner and left without saying goodbye to the couple.”
New Levels Of Weirdness
“I was away on my own honeymoon when this wedding happened. I did all the planning with this couple though, and I thought they were a little reserved but overall very nice. As my staff slowly filled me in once I returned, I was sure they were joking. Turns out it’s all true.
During the rehearsal, the mom prompts some petty jealousy between the bride and her two sisters, who were both bridesmaids. They literally escalated to a physical fight, and no one could quite figure out how it happened. The day of the wedding and the ceremony goes okay. There’s some fantasy elements thrown in, but nothing we weren’t used to. Fairy type accessories and nerd culture references were in the vows.
The bridal party makes their entrance to the reception, and somehow the sisters slipped bathrobes over their dresses without anyone noticing until they were walking in. They walked in stone-cold, no dancing, no smiling, and went straight to their seats. The bride and groom entered immediately after them, and most guests were still trying to figure out what was going on. The cheers for the newlyweds wasn’t full swing. Just what the sisters wanted.
The bride’s family apparently left shortly after dinner, which the bride refused to eat. Things got better after that. Still, a little weird though.
The groom pulled out a katana out for the cake cutting, which had never been discussed in planning meetings or prepared for. He disappeared and returned, wildly swinging it.
And to top it off, the bride changed into a Batman unitard for the grand exit. I really thought my team and conspired to come up with a crazy story until I spoke to the photographer, who confirmed everything.”
Rampaging Groom
“I work on a mobile bar that travels to different weddings in our region of the country. We had this couple who were a bit strapped for cash, so we did their wedding for cheap (we normally serve more lavish weddings). Anyway, they were so nice to begin with but a lot of their guests brought their own drinks to the venue, which isn’t allowed. We confiscated it and promised to give it back at the end. One of these guests was the groom’s father, who brought a whole keg. Around 10 p.m., most of the guests were leaving (the party was supposed to go on until 1 a.m.), as the bride and groom had been taking illegal substances and were pretty mashed. We weren’t selling any more drinks so we decided to leave early, refund the customers a bit of money, and leave all the confiscated drinks behind. The bride (who booked us) was cool with this, so we proceeded to leave.
The groom was not cool with this.
Just after we packed up, he started demanding drinks and the phone numbers of all our female staff. We denied him of course, as the bar was packed away and nobody wanted to give him their number. Eventually we had packed everything in to my boss’s trailer and were ready to leave. We all ran to the parking lot as the groom was kicking off by this point, and everyone jumped into my boss’s car apart from me (as I drove myself). My boss pulls out of the parking spot as the groom comes out of the venue and starts hurling chairs at her car and trailer, screaming nonsense and swearing at the same time.
The groom hadn’t noticed me yet. I turned the key in my car (a classic VW Bug), which of course didn’t start. He noticed me then. I kept trying the engine and after a few tries it started. I turned on my headlights, and there he was. 6’2″ of completely wasted groom standing in front of my tiny car.
I couldn’t get around him, as he kept running in front of me, so I decided to drive straight at him and hope he moved out of the way. He didn’t. Instead, he jumped on to my car and eventually fell off the curved bonnet.
Never looked back. Forget that guy.”
Witness To All The Horror Stories
“I am a wedding/special event planner in Toronto. I own my own planning company, and I have been in the industry for about eight years. I have so many horror stories that I don’t know which to choose.
I had a really high-strung groom who yelled at a one of his young guests (the kid was 12) for sitting out of his assigned seat, and he told the kid and his parents to leave.
I had one horrific couple that didn’t care about anyone. The groom was thirty minutes late for the ceremony, but it was no big deal, because the bride was two hours late. After the ceremony, we had to shorten the drink hour to make up for lost time. The couple got wasted in their limo, and both ended up falling asleep. They were both so late for their own reception, that I had the venue serve dinner without them. Their parents were furious. The bride’s parents left early, and the couple didn’t arrive until eleven at night. Half of their guests left before they arrived, and they yelled at me for allowing dinner to start before their arrival. (This was a 400 guest wedding).
I had one horrible bride who I planned an amazing wedding for. She raved about how much she loved the food all evening, but the day after the wedding, she wrote a bad review about the caterer on yelp, and she told me she wouldn’t remove it unless they gave her a discount. She’s a horrible person.
I had a bride that openly spoke utter and complete nonsense about the groom’s family (in front of his face). She would say that they were ‘crazy, unclassy, and annoying,’ and come the wedding, her family was actually the hardest family I ever had to deal with, and the groom’s family was absolutely lovely. On top of all this, the bride yelled at all the vendors all day, resulting in the videographers leaving after just one hour of shooting. The photographer cried in the bathroom, and the groom and the bride’s cousins apologized to me for her behavior all night.