TORONTO — It’s supposed to be one of the most magical days of your life. But sometimes, despite all the planning, things can kind of go off the rails.
We wanted to hear your wedding horror stories and you definitely sent us some doozies — like the reception hall that had to be evacuated due to a fire right as the newlyweds were about to cut the cake. Or the (two!) DJs who showed up without music.
Here are a few more of your epic wedding day fails.
Missing priest
For Marie Fraser and her husband, who are both Catholic, it was important to be married in a Catholic church. After going through all the required pre-marital classes, and a rehearsal at the church two night nights before the wedding day, everything seemed to be on track.
“The priest was in fine form and we looked forward to seeing him two days later on our big day,” Fraser wrote.
“Except that, well, he didn’t show up. Catholic Priest M.I.A.
“It was super hot that day and when my father and I showed up at the church in our limousine, everyone was still milling about on the church steps — because they were locked out of the church!
“Increasingly frantic, my dad and I circled the church for 40 minutes, hoping the sweet but elderly priest would arrive.
“We couldn’t reach him. (It was 1992; cell phones were but a distant dream.) Some of our guests called the RCMP in hopes that someone there could marry us, but they weren’t allowed to.
“My brother-in-law actually managed to break into the church so at least our guests could find some shelter from the hot sun.
“To the relief of our guests, this lovely man did perform a ceremony.
“And at the end, when the officiating priest traditionally says ‘and now I’d like to introduce you to you the new Mr. and Mrs. __________,’ he had to lean over and in a whisper, ask us our names.”
“We were married. (Or so we hoped.) Our priest did show up at our glam reception … mumbling something about a golf game.
“My husband and I jetted off to Europe the next day for our honeymoon not knowing for sure if we really were married. And we left our (very Catholic) mothers in our wake, scrambling to contact people at the Catholic Archdiocese in Vancouver to verify the status of our ‘marriage.’
“Turns out that the marriage was deemed acceptable/official. Whew!
“We have been married for 23 years and we are still head over heels in love. We know how lucky we are because it seems that in this day and age, nothing is forever. But we are.
“This funny little story provided great fodder for the churchgoers in White Rock for a long, long time. We are, to this day, known as the couple who got married in a Catholic church by a Pentecostal minister wearing jeans and moccasins.”
“Vive l’amour!”
Wild weather
“Our wedding venue got struck by lightning and burned down two days before wedding. So that was pretty rough,” wrote Kymberley Forest Gall.
The couple had nearly 100 guests coming in from across Canada for the wedding and had to scramble to find accommodations for them. Plus, they had to find a new venue on what was the Labour Day long weekend.
“Despite the chaos, and slight disappointment of not being able to have the wedding I had dreamed of, I got to marry my best friend which meant it was still the best day ever.”
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Also in B.C., a massive rain storm wreaked havoc on Jessica Turner’s October 2003 nuptials.
“We got married on the 100-year storm and no one was able to get there,” she explained.
The rain had shut down a portion of a nearby highway and washed out a bridge. That meant the bride’s dad, her husband’s family, many of the couple’s friends, as well as the photographer were stranded. Her mom gave her the news when she woke up.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
“It was a quiet, quick ceremony to say the least…I was trying my best to keep it together and only cried periodically throughout the day.
“We’ve been married now for 12-and-a-half years. We can laugh now about the events that took place that day. We always talked about renewing vows on our 10th anniversary but time and money seemed to get in the way…Maybe on our 20th we will host the wedding we had planned, times ten.”
In sickness and in health…
Jenny Scheers likely regretted sending her soon-to-be hubby out snowmobiling two days before their big day. He was going down a trail when he hit a deer, which sent him tumbling down a steep ditch into the woods.
“He broke his arm, shattered his hand, broke his knee cap, tore his meniscus, and ripped the tendons from the bone in the back of his knee. Oh, and broke his baby toe. It’s funny how much things like hair and makeup don’t really matter when faced with a situation like this.
“He had emergency surgery on the Friday and then was let out of the hospital on a day pass Saturday to get married…He got out of the hospital at 12:00 and was in his tux and at the church for 2:00.”
READ MORE: Couples reveal what’s behind their long marriages
Another groom, Darren Desrochers, made it to his Mexico destination wedding unscathed. The day after, he got hit by a jet ski.
“Four broken ribs, punctured a lung and severe whiplash. Spent a week — our entire honeymoon — in a Mexican hospital.”
Just for jokes
This submission is from one of our online reporters:
“I have a horrific wedding story to share. It all started on Sept. 29, 2012 when I said, ‘I do.’ The pain and suffering has not stopped since.”
SOUND OFF: If you’ve tied the knot, what do you wish you would’ve done differently on your wedding day? Do you regret spending too much? Or perhaps too little on something? What wedding planning advice would you give to other couples? Share your thoughts through the form below!
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