By Deborah Sharp
I tied the knot 21 years ago, but I still remember the stress of wedding planning. Even so, the nuptial scene seems a lot nuttier today than it was back then.
I've been researching fun ideas to tie-in to this summer's launch of MAMA GETS HITCHED, the third book in my mystery series. It's opened my eyes to all the ways that weddings can go horribly (and, let's face it: amusingly) awry.
Turns out that getting married in modern times is a nightmare, y'all. And just like everything else in life today, the Internet is there to collect and catalog an infinite supply of weddings gone wrong. Etiquette Hell. Cakewrecks. TackyWeddings.
And don't get me started on YouTube. Sure, you'll see those cute, dancing-down-the-aisle clips, with good-looking, high-stepping bridal parties and guests. But those clips are outnumbered by far by bridesmaid catfights, bridezilla meltdowns, and drunken groom swear fests.
Lordy, lordy, people. It's supposed to be a Special Day. A Blessed Union. Can't we all just behave?
Funny thing is, I thought I'd gone over-the-top tacky writing the fifth trip down the aisle for my Mama character: A Gone with the Wind theme at the VFW hall, bridesmaids wearing five pounds of ruffles AND holding parasols, and a ring-bearing Pomeranian in a satin vest and top hat. Turns out I could have gone a WHOLE lot tackier, and still not been as tasteless as the ceremonies captured at White Trash Weddings.
Looks like Mama will have to trip down the aisle for Sacred Union No. 6, just so I can work into the wedding party a Rottweiler in a Rebel flag neckerchief and bridesmaids wearing camouflage.
How about you? Care to share any details from tacky weddings in your past? Horrible bridesmaid dresses? Drunken toasts by the best man? Tipsy bride nearly taking a tumble off the dock into the New River? (No, wait: That was MY wedding ...)
17 comments:
Last wedding we attended, one of the bridemaids got stinking drunk, threw up all over the ladies restroom (so lovely to take my daughter in there), and stole one of the groomsmen's cars to drive off in a huff (and DWI).
The TackyWeddings site is just scary/depressing/strange. Is this a great country, or what? (They all look like American weddings, which is scary/depressing/strange on a whole other level.)
Hi, there L and GM: yep, nothing like the vomit in the b-room to set a classy nuptial tone ... and yep, scary/depressing indeed.
I try to avoid weddings, as a participant, or observer. The most "interesting" one I've been to? Two different people fainted on stage. Yep, they were dropping like flies that day.
Boy, has my wedding-going life been dull. As many weddings as I've been to (and none my own, thank you very much), nothing has ever gone awry or been considered tacky. I once went to a wedding where the bride and groom rode to the alter on horseback (the wedding was in a corral) and we adjourned for a reception of long-neck beers, barbeque and country music, but even that was done with a lot of flair and taste. The worse I've experienced was a family wedding where both grandmothers of the bride unintentially showed up in the same dress. One laughed it off. The other nearly had a stroke.
In my Odelia Grey book #6, which I'm writing now, a dead body is found in the coat room at the reception. Again, no personal experience there.
Looking forward to Mama's wedding. Pardon me while I go google "drunk, swearing grooms." I really need to invite myself to a few more weddings, just for research purposes. But I probably won't drink too much. Probably.
I haven't been to any tacky weddings either. Must be lucky.
My daughter's best friend & her husband got married by a justice of the peace. First they got lost, then they had to wake up the man who'd gone to bed early. He (the JP) wore golf pants and his wife was in curlers. That's the closest to tacky I've been - and I wasn't there - just heard about it a week later. They are still married.
My best friend's wedding (I was one of 5 bridesmaids) took place in June. She wanted the entire wedding party in white. We looked like the Wedding from Glad. (Assuming y'all remember the "Man from Glad" commercials--I know I'm aging myself there.) It was hot. Very hot. Loooong Catholic ceremony--1-1/2 hours. All the bridesmaids were inside the altar rail. So it comes time for Communion--and yours truly is no longer a Catholic. The only member of the wedding party who isn't, natch. Rather than sit in my chair in front of the entire congregation making lacy white butt the center if attention, I got in line with everyone else. When the priest held the Host up for me, I made a very small negative gesture and shook my head. I thought that priest was going to rain fire and brimstone on my heretic head! Fortunately he just waved me away.
My own wedding, which had potential for angry divorced guest food-fights (I was truly woried) went off beautifully. Except for the gorrm and the best man watching the local college football game in the limo on the way to the reception. *eyeroll*
Oh, now we're talking longest weddings we thought would never end? That would be a Catholic/Jewish ceremony that had to have gone on 2 hours - because we were in essence getting a hybrid of 2 complete ceremonies rolled into one.
Several of the children in the wedding party had to be scooped up and hauled away about midway through. The adults were not so lucky.
I was on a plane & this groomsman rushed to the head ibwas exiting & Lordy lord....
Oh, that's right, you said can't tell this story any more.
Haha
My SIL and BIL were married by his Rabbi, but in a restaurant (reception on larger room of that restaurant). Very short, very sweet. No one mentioned to her about the tradition of hoisting the bride and groom in separate chairs and carrying them around the room. Suddenly we heard a SHRIEK! and there she was, clutching the arms of the chair for dear life. Her hubs and all the lifters were laughing--and so was everyone else. Great moment.
Thanks for all the laffs, y'all. Nothing truly tacky, but that's why we have the Internet sites, right?
Cheers!
Nothing tacky in my memory, either, thank goodness. I did hear once that someone I worked with was arrested on her wedding night, at the hotel, with her new husband. Evidently they got into a brawl that was violent enough to warrant intervention.
An Aussie wedding wouldn't be traditional without a family blue - Uncle Wazza wackin' Cousin Jill's date.
It's amazing what an industry bridal planning is today. As a parent of a daughter, the potential cost is enough to give me shudders, but I'll want her to have a dream wedding like I did. As with anything, moderation is the key to maintaining a budget and one's sanity.
I'm sadly finding out now that the worst wedding isn't my own horror stories, it's going to be my daugher's. She's 1200 miles away from me, in Texas, and a family friend is taking on wayyyy too much of what should be MY responsibilites. She's driving my daughter up a wall, and me too, in absentia. We have a Bridezilla mother who isn't even her mother, which is breaking my heart and annoying my daughter no end.
Hi, again: Charmaine: I'm betting a family blue in "Aussie'' is like a fight? Plenty of those in Himmarshee, Fla.! Nancy ... it's amazing how much money can be spent on these things, even the tacky ones ... more money doesn't always equal more happiness, for sure (See Kathleen's comment about the bride-and-groom brawl ... Happy Day, right?!)
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