My twenty-fifth wedding anniversary is coming up and I happen to mention it to a coworker.

Coworker: “What are you going to do to celebrate?”

Me: “We are going out for a nice dinner.”

Coworker: “No! You have to have a vow renewal; it’s twenty-five years!”

Me: “I don’t know how to plan anything like that; we got married at city hall. And I would only have a really small budget of $2,500 for everything.”

Coworker: “That’s fine. I’ll take care of everything!”

She is starting a wedding consultant and party planner business and I am to be her first real client. I know she has planned small things at work, so I trust her.

It is only three months before my anniversary, so there’s not a lot of time to get everything done. We aren’t going to have a lot of people, so that helps. She asks me for songs and colors I like and says she is setting up a makeup artist and hairstylist, setting up dress appointments, hiring a DJ, buying favors, etc.

Every time I ask her for an update, she says:

Coworker: “I’m waiting for them to call me back with prices.”

She takes me to one bridal place that is way overpriced for my tiny budget, but I do get the “bride” experience of trying on dresses, so that is nice, even though I can’t buy any. She doesn’t take me anywhere else, only that one bridal place. Red flag number one.

For the venue, she keeps trying to get me to use a park, which would be fine but there are no buildings there we can use if the weather goes bad or if anyone needs to use the bathroom. I’m not sure what she expects everyone to do if they have to pee. Red flag number two.

A month before my anniversary, she says she needs more time and I have to push my renewal out a month, so instead of an August renewal, my actual wedding month, I am having it in September. Red flag number three.

Three weeks before the renewal, I ask her for an update since she’s avoiding me at work. Red flag number four.

Coworker: “I haven’t had time to call the makeup person, the DJ, or the photographer. Here are their numbers; you call them.”

I am floored.

Me: “I put off my renewal — which I didn’t even want to do in the first place — for an additional month because you said you would handle all this. Now I have to call people?”

She actually says to me:

Coworker: “Are you going to be a bridezilla?”

Me: “I’m not being anything. I’m pointing out that you have done nothing to plan for this renewal and I only have three weeks left. I can’t even cancel because I told people about it months ago!” 

I walk away and call the people she gave me numbers for. The makeup person is way overpriced and too far away; I’m in Illinois and she is in Wisconsin. The DJ never calls me back, and the photographer says he isn’t interested.

I go back to tell my coworker that.

Coworker: “I can’t do this after all. I’m far too busy.”

I am so very glad I never gave her any money. Another red flag of flakiness. So, for someone who was supposedly creating a new business, she failed miserably right out of the gate.

So, now, with two and a half weeks left to go, I went on eBay and found a wedding dress, shoes, and a veil; I’d never had a wedding dress before, so I really wanted one. I also found a venue that I drive past all the time and popped in to see if they would be available on the day I wanted. They were, and I also picked out my table colors and food. I went on Amazon and found small, pretty gift bags and bought customized treats to fill the bags that had our names on them and our wedding date. I went on Craigslist and found a makeup and hair person a mile away from the venue. Music was on our phones from a list my husband put together, pictures were done by friends with their phones, and the venue had flowers as part of my package. We got the cake from an Italian bakery a block from the venue.

Total cost for all: $2,370 for a vow renewal for forty people with about two weeks to pull it off. 

And the coworker? I never spoke to her again, but it didn’t matter much; she quit about three months later. 

Despite her totally dropping the ball, and me having to scramble to take care of everything, the vow renewal was a great success, and I have some wonderful pictures to mark the occasion.

Related:
Well, It’s Certainly Memorable, Part 2
Well, It’s Certainly Memorable

My younger sister had a summer wedding in Las Vegas where she was living at the time. It was hot as heck, in the nineties even at night that week. My dad had to pick me up at the airport. The flight was delayed three hours, so I got into Las Vegas just after 7:00 pm.

The groom’s family was supposed to take everyone out for dinner. They did not wait for us, so only my sister was there. They all got drunk as h***. My parents, grandmother, and I ended up eating at [Australia-Themed Chain]. Our dinner was very nice, but it was around 10:00 pm.

The groom and best man had a fistfight in the restaurant’s parking lot, which led to the groom and my sister spending the night in a Las Vegas emergency room. The best man ended up in jail for the entire weekend. My sister refused to leave her intended in the emergency room, so she called my mom about every two hours during the night. My folks did not get much sleep. I shared a room with my grandmom, so we slept okay.

The next day, the day of the wedding, the groom’s family, the groom, and my sister all showed up. They were all hungover and unhappy. The wedding was supposed to be at 1:00 pm, with the ceremony held at a cheap-looking walk-in wedding chapel. There was no shade or outdoor seating. The prior wedding party ran late, so we all spent an hour outdoors, in Las Vegas in July, where the outside temperature went from 108 to 110F during that hour. After about twenty minutes, my dad let my mom, grandmom, and me sit in their rental car with the air conditioning on so we didn’t get heatstroke.

Finally, a little past 2:00 pm, the ceremony could begin. It turns out that the chapel could hold twelve if everyone squished together, and there were more than twenty there. My dad squished inside, but I stayed in the rental car to keep my ninety-year-old grandmom healthy, and after a little bit, my mom came to sit out the ceremony.

We had to go back outside for wedding pictures. Photos for the ceremony were done by one of the groom’s friends. Everyone had to stand out in the sun again for another half-hour and I was ordered to not wear my prescription sunglasses for the pics. Since I never saw evidence of any pics, my guess is he screwed up somehow.

By this point, I had used all of a (large) tube of SPF-fifty sunscreen on myself, my grandmom, and my mom — and everyone else attending because no one else brought sunscreen. I was the only one who wore a hat. I was in long sleeves/full coverage, dying in the heat, because I’m pale as f***.

As the wedding group was getting into cars, someone rammed into me, knocking my prescription sunglasses — in their case — onto the asphalt, and a car drove over them. They were crushed beyond salvaging.

For the reception/wedding dinner, my sister had booked twenty reserved places for us at a bar she liked, and thirty were in the party by then. We got there and only two six-person booths were held for us. The catering guys never showed, but they did call the bar to alert them. This meant there was no food available, only drinks.

The cake, ordered separately, never showed up, either, but my sister only found this out an hour later. The bar’s staff lied that it was “in the back” so the entire group wouldn’t leave before spending money there.

Everyone got drunk — no food and lots of booze — except for me, since I don’t drink. I ended up driving my mom, dad, and grandmom back to our motel.

We were told there was another fight in the bar later that night which ended with more police involvement, but my sister didn’t want to talk about the details. Her new husband was arrested but not booked that night. My sister says they got out of the police station at around 3:00 am.

The marriage lasted less than a year.

I’m working as a server for a caterer. We’re at a wedding that he’s catering and the band is playing painfully loudly. At one point during the reception, the caterer notices the father of the bride looking upset and goes over to check what the problem is.

Caterer: “Is something wrong, Mr. [Father]?”

Father: “Yes, I told the band when I booked them that I didn’t want loud music. I just asked them to turn the volume down and they refused. They won’t even listen to me.”

The caterer walks over to the band and unplugs the loudspeakers. The members of the band start to get verbally belligerent with him, but the caterer merely points to the father of the bride and starts to speak.

Caterer: “You see that man over there? He’s the one paying for your services tonight. If you want him to sign your cheque, then I suggest you do as he asks and turn the volume down.”

Point made. The band backed down, and the volume of the music was lowered, to the relief of the guests and workers alike.

My mother-in-law works on her own schedule. I am 100% convinced it’s a power play but she insists it’s always just bad luck. It also only seems to impact the events that my husband and I plan. If you tell her to be somewhere by 2:00 pm, she likely will not get there before 3:00 pm. And it’s never her fault; someone else took too long in the shower or traffic was bad or she got a phone call. She also never gives you a heads-up about what time she will actually be arriving.

When my husband and I get married, we decide to go to a courthouse and have a celebration and reception at the local park the next day. The courthouse has us scheduled for 3:00 pm. When we call my mother-in-law to tell her the time, we tell her 2:00 pm. When my husband calls his dad — they’re divorced — he tells them 3:00 pm. Everyone arrives around 2:30, except for my mother-in-law. At 2:55, she comes strolling in, all smiles, and… dressed in white.

Mother: *Fake sad* “I am so sorry I’m late! I hope you waited for me? I can’t miss my son’s—” *air quotes* “—‘wedding.’”

She takes her son’s arm and turns to me.

Mother: “What did you tell the justice? How did you get him to wait?”

Me: *Smiling* “We’re scheduled for 3:00 pm. You’re right on time.”

Her face fell, and she turned red and stormed out. We went through with our “wedding” without her. The next day, she didn’t show up at the park until the very end. She tried to make it sound like we had purposely told her the wrong time and that we wanted her to miss it, but everyone in attendance was familiar with her shenanigans and she ended up sitting alone, pouting.

This story is part of our Best Of September 2020 roundup!

Read the next story in the Best Of September 2020 roundup!

Read the Best Of September 2020 roundup!

My husband and I are both volunteer firefighters at a volunteer fire company in Delaware while he is stationed at Dover Air Force Base. The fire company has a banquet hall that it rents out for events and also provides catering and bar service.

My husband and I have volunteered to assist the catering manager for a wedding. The groom is an Airman originally from West Virginia but stationed at Dover Air Force Base and the bride is his high school sweetheart. The wedding is a total disaster or a laugh-out-loud redneck fest, depending upon how you looked at it.

Here are some highlights:

After the wedding ceremony concluded and cocktail hour had started, my husband caught a bunch of rednecks drinking moonshine — illegal bootleg corn whiskey —  in the fire hall parking lot. This is illegal and could have cost the fire company its liquor license. My husband kindly asked the gentlemen to stop drinking in the parking lot. When they refused, he radioed on his duty radio for the town police to come. Said rednecks were angry about the police coming so they decided to storm into the fire hall to confront my husband. They ended up being chased out of the hall by our fire chief at the time, a very large Native American man who happens to be able to bench press over 300 pounds. The offending rednecks were then ordered off of the fire company property by the town police.

During the dinner, my husband and I were serving the requested meal of roast beef and gravy, mashed potatoes, etc. I was serving the gravy to the guests by ladling the requested number of scoops onto the guests’ plates after my husband put the plates down before the guests. I was walking back to the kitchen when a little girl tugged the sleeve of my shirt and said, “Paw Paw wants more gravy!” I had already served “Paw Paw,” an elderly man, three scoops of gravy. I took a fresh pitcher of gravy over to Paw Paw, and apparently, he wanted a grand total of ten scoops of gravy, literally flooding his plate! It was really lucky that we were in a fire station, just in case Paw Paw had a stroke from consuming that much salt!

The evening concluded with the bride getting into a knock-down, drag-out drunken argument with her mother because there wasn’t enough money on the bar to cover an open bar for an entire night. The bride then puked all over her gown and the handicap stall in the women’s restroom. She started screaming at me and stating that I should be fired because I was quite obviously trying not to laugh at the disaster that I had been watching unfold all night long. I informed her that both my husband and I were volunteers so we couldn’t be fired. The bride then tried to scream at me again but ended up puking all over my shoes.

One of her more sober friends drug her out of the fire hall and stuffed her into a pickup truck, separate from the groom. The groom, who wasn’t nearly as drunk, ended up apologizing to us for everything. 

It’s been five years since this happened and my husband and I often wonder if the bride and groom are still married.