"How my wedding day was ruined."

These 16 stories will give you good reason to elope.

It’s meant to be the most special day of your life. Days, weeks, months even years of your time goes into the planning of your wedding. But even the best laid plans can fail.

And in these 16 cases? Fail they definitely did.

From the venue burning down three days before the ceremony to the groom ending up in hospital. You couldn’t possibly find more horrifying (and in some cases very sad) wedding stories.

So if you’re about to get married, maybe look away now. These stories of how people had their special day ruined will not instill confidence in your upcoming nuptials. 

1. I got hypothermia during the outdoor photography and missed the reception because I was in the hospital with my brand new wife, who was still in her wedding dress.

2. My Mum’s best friend (and maid of honour) showed up the day of my Mum’s first wedding with her head shaved. Apparently she was in love with the groom and this was her silent protest. The marriage only lasted 2 years and the groom eventually married the maid of honour.

3. A coworker of my husband's (whom he had known for a week) accused him of sexually assaulting her a MONTH TO THE DAY before my wedding. After my wedding was cancelled by my family, thousands down the drain in wedding prep and lawyer bills, and trust issues arising between my now-husband and I (who had to settle for a court house wedding), she confessed to being in love with my husband and had to stop him from making a mistake. I've never wished so much pain on a person before.

4. Not a personal experience, but Dad played in a band at a wedding where the bride's uncle dropped dead in her arms on the dance floor. Talk about bringing the party to a halt.

5. At the reception after the wedding, the best man who had been drinking heavily, decided in his drunken state that he wanted to get some sleep and crawled under the brides car to do so. The bride, not knowing he was under there and not being a drinker, was going to give someone a ride down the street to where they were staying. And yeah, obvious where this is going. The best man lived but the reception came to an abrupt ending as most of the wedding party spent the rest of the night and next day at the hospital.

6. Catering never showed up, everyone was hungry. They went to the billing address and not to the venue, which was in another state.

7. I worked as a wedding decorator for five years, and while this is not my own wedding, it's still pretty bad. Two years ago we did the decor for a really pretty ceremony, and halfway through the day we found out it was a "surprise wedding". Basically, they were not engaged, but the bride planned the whole thing and the groom showed up at the golf course thinking he was just playing a regular round of golf. Nope. He walked into his own wedding, saw her standing at the altar, and freaked out. As he should have.

8. The venue called to say that they had double booked two weeks before the date, asking if we could move the wedding to another weekend.

9. I briefly owned a photobooth business that was hired mainly for weddings. The worst thing I saw was the wedding planner showed up drunk and/or high and disappeared with the best man (brother of the groom) to go hook up. So no one was in charge and the ceremony had to be delayed while people went to find the best man. He also couldn't be found for his speech. The DJ delayed several times. They tried to have sex in my photobooth, so I took her by the arm and told her everyone knew she was wasted and they all hated her. Pretty harsh, but even I was pissed at her as I tried to help the bride and DJ coordinate the event. The wedding coordinator left during dinner. We did our best, but the wedding sucked and the bride was pretty upset that nothing worked out.

10. My husband and I got pregnant while planning our wedding. My parents found out and moved the ceremony date closer. Two weeks before the wedding we lost our child. Not only was that hard enough my mother took it upon herself to cancel our wedding. Catering, music, venue, guests. Even SOLD MY DRESS. We still kept our date. My parents refused to come to our impromptu wedding because, in their minds, we were only getting married because we were pregnant. We had the nice intimate wedding we wanted with my husband's family and our close friends. We had an amazing picnic reception and a kick ass after party. Stress aside we had our perfect day in the long run.

11. At my friends sister's wedding, the best man's speech caused so much pain the family have not spoken to him since. He said, "Mike has always been a greedy bastard, I remember once when we all got hookers in Amsterdam, and he got three!"

12. My cousin's fiance went golfing with his groomsmen the MORNING of the wedding. He jumped a fence to get his ball, landed wrong and ripped all the ligaments in his knee. He still made it to his wedding, though. He was so dosed up on painkillers that he doesn't remember his vows, and the reception was pretty short, but he managed it.

13. Bride had a miscarriage during ceremony and spent the night in the hospital. Made for a very awkward reception afterwards, as they still insisted on doing the speeches, first dance, cake cutting without bride and groom there.

14. Not me but my wife's sister... Her new mother-in-law dropped dead of a brain aneurysm during the best man's toast. It was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. They served food for those who wanted to stay but it pretty much ended there. Sadly they never got a proper wedding reception.

15. This didn't happen to me, but to my cousin. During the cake-cutting portion of the evening, her new husband thought it would be funny to smash a piece of cake on her face. He miscalculated, and ended up essentially punching her in the mouth, chipping her front teeth and cutting her face. The reception ended shortly thereafter.

16. Nothing says “good morning, are you awake yet?” quite like finding out that your entire wedding venue has turned into a smoking, cratered ruin less than three days before the big event. Yup, got a call from my mum at about 7:15 in the morning on a sunny day in early September, and the first words out of her mouth was, “your wedding place has burnt to the ground”. No hi, how are you. No good morning. Just a deeply Germanic nothing-but-the-important-shit, shot to the gut less than ninety seconds after she heard it on the radio herself.

Do you have a story to add?

Want more? Try these:

The worst groomzilla and bridezilla stories you have ever read.

The 15 most appalling stories of wedding guests behaving badly.

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