I thought it may be fun to hear others horror stories when shooting a wedding. not equipment failures but events during the wedding/formals or reception that well made it a horror.
Here is my story
Well today was one wierd wedding....
It all started at the brides hotel with her getting ready she was running late when I arrived. Things move onward from there and I got a bunch on good shots. The church (St. Marys Academy) had no air conditioning (beware if you shoot there) and it was HOT!!!
The formals went good but then the reception... WOW..... all started out ok until the Dinner.
I knew the caterers (one of my favorite resteraunts and where my wife and I eat lots and are known by first name) the head wator told me prior to my eating (by the way it was buffet style) that the guests were animals they were picking up food like chicken and cabage rolls with their bare hands and either putting them on their plates or returning them to the trays if they decided they did not want them after all or wanted to search for the perfect piece of food. (glad I found this out before eating)
the mother of the bride was beyond and I mean way beyond drunk by the time speaches came around and was yelling yes Yelling at the top of her voice heckeling the presenters...
Then the end...
Oh the end.... I had asked the groom if they had a cake... (the staff at the legion where the recep was had no idea) there was a cake it was put in the legion's fridge...
anywho I found the cake and the cake top there was no staff to put it together so I did. I moved it out into the hall area and set it up nice with some candles and their centre piece / wine glasses and bouquets and such it looked very good. took some pics and such and awaited the groom and bride to cut and smoosh....
well it all went a bit twilight zone from there.... the groom after complimenting me and thanking me for setting up the cake and the nice way it looked ran off to get the cake knife they purchased for this event
while he was gone the bride ran her finger along the side (nothing to alarming... she is diabetic and perhaps was in need of some fast sugar)
OR NOT...
she went over to one of the brides maids and rubbed her finger in the bridesmaids face smearing the cake on it... to wich the BM went over and got some cake on her finger and returned the favor to the bride.. then a groomsman got involved and smeered someone and on and on this went until the bride walked up and sank her whole hand into the cake and came away with a fist full and plastered another bridesmaid and then reloaded...
well this went on and on until there was not much cake left (well there was lots of cake... on the floor on the walls on the windows on the ceeling on the faces of the wedding party including the bride. at some point since there was no cake left red wine in the bottles were substituted as the projectile of choice (not the bottles just the wine contents)
someone with the last fist full of cake plunged their hand down the front of the brides dress ripping is it and filling her cleavage with cake and such as well as causing a SEVERE "wardrobe malfunction that would make Janet Jackson proud" (this party was looking like a rerun of animal house and Wild on only with multiple +++ size people)...
Will probably take me some time to get that image out of my mind... sadly
anyway. well I saw the groom comming baring a sharp object. So I met him half way and took the knife (probably a good thing I did) and basically said you probably will not need that. he turned the corner and all I heard was
"What The F" and what an Fsharp it was....
anywho the bar staff (all 2 of them) closed the bar flicked on the lights told the music man to cut the music and pack up this was over....
well the night ended up like this....
With the groom screaming at everyon involved that they had to clean up the mess NOW...!
The bride and groom's child balling because mommy and daddy are fighting.
Drunk guests cleaning up the mess more like making a worse mess of cake, wine, beer, broken glass and such...
The bride crying in her custom made dress her grandmother made for her all ripped and stained with red wine and cake globs
anyway all in all an interesting night. I escaped un-scathed in all of it happy about that
just goes to show that too much booze is a bad thing...
oh well thought I would share... I will put up a few pics of the fray once I have a look at them.... I promise no wardrobe malfunction pics I would not make any of you fine people suffer the emotional scarring I have tonight.
oh well one day they will look back on this and laugh (if they live through the night)
Here we have the bride after getting pied by another person after grabbing a mit full of cake she looks a bit ticked. up until then she was just smearing people with finger fulls of pie. I guess the next level was attained.
here is another of the lovely bride on the hunt for her next victom. she was kinda giving me the eye so I got out of dodge fast ..was using the 28-70 so was not super far...
here are a few of the bridesmaids all decked out in their nice dresses just covered in cake. the forground lady well she just shook her head. she told me she just came out of the washroom and was attacked. the other person she was not as innocent.
the lady in the forground just shook her head the rest of the time I never saw her go on the offensive. she was just collateral damage...
this poor person well they were just goin for some cake I guess and got a pie-faced push to the ground that would make any WWE wrestler proud. I think this person got injured as they basically got up and left holding their head... by the way the shoes you see on the ground are the victoms shoes... she got pied right out of them Hey Vince McMahon do you need another wrestler. I have a clothsline specialist for you...
Here is the bride just prior to getting the free grope from a friend with a pie hand. I did not take any pics of the wardrobe malfunction as well I did not think it appropriate at the time plus as you can see by the next pic the liquids started to fly.
ahh the mighty beer thrower. he is the one that started the liquid fight. He had the last of the cake and beaned some lady in the mellon with it then decided that the ammo needed a bit more toss-a-bility so to the beer and wine he went...
This is when I packed up my gear and stood out of the way with the music man. we just looked at each other and well what can you say. tried to keep dry and clean.
By the way I believe this poor lady was wearing glasses at one point in the evening I am hoping she put contacts in but I don't believe so..
I can see the hall sueing over this... by the end of the night the carpet was stained with red wine, beer, food, cake, broken bottles and glasses and who knows what else. the bartender told me after that they had an event planned their for sunday morning and another event for sunday evening that they would have to cancel and refund the cash for as well as the lost reputation...
I wonder if I will get a call from the hall's lawyer wanting pics... how much should I charge just kidding. Like I said I was not hit in the frey and took cover when the liquid started to fly
By the way I found out from one of the BM's that the bride drank in excess of 20 glasses of beer and 2 bottles of wine (out of the bottle) who needs a glass...
I've had disasters, but never captured anything like this on film (or digital).
I think the worst I've been to was when the groom forgot the rings, and the bride got so angry with him that she refused to pose with him. I did get lots of bride shots and groom shots, but not much of them together. Oh, and she walked out on him at the reception (and walked home in the rain), then had a yard sale the following Monday and sold all his clothing and furniture. (She tried to sell his new Caddy, but since her name wasn't on the title she couldn't.) He filed for divorce, changed locks on the doors, and had a restraining order placed on her, but a couple days later she broke down his door and went after him again. She ended up in jail for a few days.
I didn't sell any reprints. None. At least I was paid for my time beforehand.
This was an amazing capture. It was the redneckest wedding I've seen even though it didn't take place in the south. I have friends that own a wedding facility and will be passing on this thread. They have a few stories to tell, but none that have gotten this far out of hand. It was dicussed on the forum about a week ago having a clause in our contracts on guest that get out of hand. I hope you have one in yours...Yvette
happy about that