Whether you hate the wedding-industrial complex, are a bride planning a wedding and want to feel better about your own demands, or just need something to read, we’re doing a new series where we share the craziest, most out-of-touch wedding story we found on the internet that week. Submit your own crazy wedding stories to [email protected] with the subject line Crazy Wedding Story, and we just might feature yours. And make sure to follow @BetchesBrides on Instagram and subscribe to our podcast, Betches Brides.
In case no one told you, planning a wedding is hard. As I have mentioned in about 87 other articles, I know firsthand how hard they are, so I am sympathetic to anyone going through this process because it will age you 100 years is a grueling one. To all of the ladies and gents who are just getting started, just remember that all a wedding is is a glorified party. I mean, unless Beyoncé accidentally stumbles in and decides to stay and sing a song during the reception, your rustic chic nuptials aren’t, like, that different from all of the other weddings we’ve all been forced happy to attend. Some, though, are so out-there that we can’t ignore them and must talk about them right this very second.
We received an email submission about a wedding that took place before most of you youths were even conceived, but it is so f*cking juicy that we couldn’t not cover the insanity that went down, so here we are. I was literally cringing the entire time I read it, and my neck is now sore from scrunching my shoulders up to my ears for however long it took me to get through the email. Honestly, worth it, though. Let’s get into it.
Our submitter writes: [The bride,] Jane was the first person in her family to go to college, but they all made fun of her until she dropped out. Fortunately, she met the love of her life, Derek, at that time, so she didn’t feel she needed school. He was a former high school jock now working in a gas station and she got a minimum wage at a retail job. Everyone’s happy.
Good for Jane for being a first-generation college student and f*ck her hick family for making her feel bad about wanting to educate herself. Jane, honey, I know the ‘90s was a different time, but don’t perpetuate the stigma that women only need an education until we get a husband. However, high school me is giggling with glee that this once jock is now the creepy gas station guy with whom you don’t want to make eye contact when the pump eats your debit card. Ya truly love to see it… unless your friend is dating the jock-turned-gas-station-guy. And it’s not all sunshine and rainbows:
Dereck was the f*cking worst. He was totally controlling, jealous, abusive, and he cheated. Sometimes in front of her. She obviously wasn’t allowed to have friends or make plans or do anything that didn’t involve him. And she was required to speak to him entirely in baby talk. To this day I think of him as “Dewek.”
Hold. The. Phone. Ew that she “obviously” wasn’t allowed to have friends or do anything at all without getting her keeper’s boyfriend’s permission? Gross. I honestly don’t even know what to say about the baby talk thing because the second I read that, my bacon, egg and cheese started to creep its way back up my throat. I don’t even like when babies do baby talk, so count me the f*ck out when adults do it. These dudes always turn out to be serial killers. Run, Jane, run!!
Unfortunately, she did not run. In fact, the opposite.
Seven years later, they get engaged, but she and I have grown apart. I’ve moved away and I’m finishing my second degree while she’s barely been allowed to talk to me. Plus Dewek is her only topic of conversation anyway. She seriously DNGAF what’s going on in my life, but for some reason, she asks me to be her maid of honor.
I’m no therapist, but this is textbook jealousy. You represent all of the things she could have been—chief among those things is educated. The maid of honor thing is definitely weird, but maybe she wants to make a big gesture to invite you back into her life and maybe help her escape Dewek? Who knows at this point, though.
Now, the next bit may be hard for the ’00s babies to understand, but use your imaginations and bear with me, kay?
This is in the late ‘90s, but Jane is HELLA ‘80s: like perm, spiked bangs, the works. She comes to the big city I’m living in with her four other bridesmaids to spend the weekend dragging us to various bridal shops trying to find the perfect puffed sleeves, off-the-shoulder, dusty rose scary-ass ‘80s crap that we will all be paying for ourselves. Huge fights ensue, one of Jane’s sisters is a vicious witch to every sales girl, and we all go home without dresses. Eventually Jane orders dresses from some boutique in her small town without any input from the bridesmaids and mine arrives six days before the wedding and is a size too small, so I start starving myself to fit into it.
Drama, drama, drama. Ugh, starving yourself is never the answer. Stand up to your friend and tell her you don’t feel comfortable wearing an ugly dress that’s too small! Also, this is how I’m picturing these dresses:
Then comes the wedding weekend. Turns out that the five bridesmaids were expected to fully create the entire wedding, including cleaning, setting up and decorating the “hall,” and cooking all the food! Apparently this was so obviously our job that no one thought to mention it to us. First, the hall. It was the local small town community center GYM. Like, lines on the floor for soccer and basketball, and no less than six basketball hoops. All five bridesmaids were sweeping, mopping, setting up folding tables and chairs, and blowing up hundreds of white balloons for two hours, and then climbing ladders to try and hide the hoops with the balloons. All while the five groomsmen stood outside and smoked.
I am so over all of these brides asking their guests/bridal parties to cook and clean! I don’t even like asking my roommate to do that on any given Tuesday because I feel like I’m Miss Hannigan-ing her, so asking my friends to clean/cook for my wedding is out of the question. But at the very least, you would think the bride and groom would tell them??? I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve heard such an outrageous request, but this happens in almost every crazy wedding story we do! WTF???
Then back to Jane’s parents’ house where, it turns out, the five bridesmaids were expected to make food for 100 guests in the parents’ tiny kitchen the night before the wedding! The only thing I clearly remember was sitting on a wooden chair at 2am with a huge plastic bucket full of macaroni salad between my legs, which I was stirring with my whole arm. No one seemed to think this was strange or unhygienic. Then we were all given mattresses on the basement floor to sleep on.
If I was in this bridal party, now is right about when I would have staged a coup and/or dipped immediately. Whichever takes less energy. Macaroni salad at a Fourth of July cookout, yum! Macaroni salad at a wedding? Nope! Also, the mattresses on the basement floor is giving me serious American Horror Story vibes and I’m a little scared to keep going.
Three hours of sleep later, we’re all up and getting ready. I’m exhausted and still not eating much because I want to fit in my dress. Jane’s dad, the one who has known me since I was eight years old, is hitting on me. I spent most of the day backed into corners so he’d stop stroking my ass. Jane’s mom has quite reasonably decided that this is my fault, so she is being an utter bitch to me. Jane is demanding that I help her stick maxi pads to the underarms of her dress because she has chosen a long-sleeved, high-necked, massive tulle-skirted monstrosity of a wedding dress, and it is 104 degrees outside.
All I have to say about the dad is:
Re: the maxi pad situation… try antiperspirant, I guess? Don’t even get me started on the dress because it sounds like a direct assault to the eyes. Every bride has her own unique style, but this thing sounds offensive.
The reception for me is blurry. It’s a cash bar, but as mentioned I hadn’t eaten for five days so I started drinking right away and I don’t remember anything after the first 10 mins, except for being expected to go into the small metal stalls in the bathroom with the bride to hold her massive skirts up while she peed.
Ok, to be fair, it’s one of the more unfortunate tasks involved in being a maid of honor, but you are required to hold up the bride’s dress while she pees. However, my sympathy ends there. Cash bars at weddings shouldn’t be allowed. People are coming from far away, buying outfits, getting you gifts, etc. for your wedding, so the least the couple can do is let them drink for free.
The reception ended just as I started to sober up (I ran out of cash) and that’s when I learned that the bridesmaids were solely responsible for cleaning the hall. In our frothy ‘80s dresses and sh*tty dyed-to-match heels. In 100-degree weather. We had to sweep and mop again, pack all the leftover food back into buckets, clean the bathrooms, put the tables and chairs away, and climb ladders to take down the balloons. The groomsmen obviously stayed outside and smoked. Jane’s dad continued to sexually assault me throughout. I finally sat down from sheer exhaustion and Jane’s mom arrived immediately to tell me to “get off your lazy ass and help.”
I’m sorry, but wouldn’t the bride be excruciatingly embarrassed that her dad is literally sexually harassing her maid of honor and do something about it? Like????? Anyway, wtf is with the bridesmaids having to do all of the heavy lifting for this piece of sh*t wedding? Where did the bride and groom even go? And if the wedding is over, why are the groomsmen just standing around smoking still? Enjoy lung cancer, boys! All I have to say about the bride’s mom yelling at the MOH is that she can get off her lazy ass and control her disgusting husband’s hands. But more importantly, WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST LEAVE?? Were they being held at this wedding against their will? I truly don’t understand the lengths people will go to because they feel bad/want to avoid conflict.
I passed out on my basement floor mattress as soon as we got back to the parents’ house, and then got up early and left before the gift-opening. I must have been otherwise disappointing and/or offensive I guess, because Jane never spoke to me again. A mutual friend told me though that the marriage lasted eight months.
LOL. Eight f*cking months. I’m dead. The fact that she even went to the wedding after the whole bridesmaid dress situation is pretty impressive, so she clearly wasn’t that disappointing. I am fully obsessed with this and need to know what the divorcées are up to.
Can you top that craziness? Prove it! Submit your crazy wedding story to [email protected] with the subject line “Crazy Wedding Story”!
Images: NBC; Giphy (3)
