This is an entertaining tale of a horrible mother of the bride combined with an entire family’s disastrous inability to plan. It’s a secondhand story. My sister “Anna” was one of the bridesmaids. I wasn’t at the wedding. I know the bride, technically speaking, but haven’t seen her since we were in grade school about fifteen years prior to her wedding.

The bride, “Merry Mac”, is a very sweet, bright, happy girl, but a total ditz. I don’t think it’s really her fault. Her mother, Mrs. Mac, is a terrible woman – very abusive and controlling. Merry has spent her entire life being either screamed at for not doing anything or, alternatively, screamed at for not doing things right. At the age of 24 (surprise surprise) Merry couldn’t make decisions to save her life. And the bride and groom were planning on living in Merry’s parents’ basement after they got married! At one point I commented to Anna that if I were in Merry’s place I’d have made my first priority moving out of the house, and gotten married at some later date. Anna said, “Merry did want to do that, but then her mother called her a slut for wanting to live on her own while single.”

When it came to planning the wedding, Mrs. Mac announced that since she was paying for a good chunk of it, she got to make all the decisions. Merry had no say in most things. She wasn’t allowed to pick out her attendants’ outfits despite the fact that Mrs. Mac wasn’t paying for them at all. When it came time to pick out the bridesmaid dresses Mrs. Mac insisted that all the bridesmaids make the trip over the border into the States to shop for fabric (huge waste of everybody’s time and gas when there’s lots of great fabric selection in Toronto). The plan was that my mother would make my sister’s dress, two of the other girls would have theirs made by someone they knew who sewed, and since the remaining two girls didn’t know anyone who sewed Mrs. Mac would make them.

I first saw this dress when my mother was working on it. It had a cheapo polyester underdress of pinkish lavender overlaid by an iridescent blue organza-type fabric. I know this sounds like it might work, but it didn’t. The organza-type fabric wasn’t dress fabric. It was stiff, it didn’t drape, and my mother said it was the worst fabric she’d ever worked with. It frayed as one cut it. Mrs. Mac apparently envisioned a “rainbow effect”, but honestly that overlay fabric looked for all the world like that faintly blue plastic food wrap. When I saw the partially finished dress laid out on my sister’s bed, I stared at it for a long moment trying to think of something nice to say. Finally I just said, “Well Anna, every North American young woman has to wear at least one ugly bridesmaid dress at some point. Think of it as a rite of passage.”

The week of the wedding my sister stayed with me (she still lives with our parents who live two hours from Toronto). I thought after she’d spent her days at the Mac house helping out, we might be able to spend our evenings doing fun things together. Hah. She showed up at my place at 10:30 that Monday night. When Anna came through the door of my apartment she looked around and said, “Nice clean place.” I wasn’t quite sure how to take this, so I said, “You weren’t expecting my place to be clean?” She said, “You should see where I’ve been all day.” She had spent all day (like nine or ten hours!) at the Mac house cleaning. She slipped off one flip flop and showed me the sole of her foot. It was literally and entirely shoe polish black from walking barefoot around the Mac house all day. The house was incredibly filthy and messy and run down — and the rehearsal dinner was to be held there on Friday, and some of the wedding pictures were to be taken there on Saturday.

The rest of the week was much like that Monday. Anna spent all week cleaning the Mac house and trying to help organize the wedding, with some help from the other bridesmaids. She would leave my place early in the morning and not get back until 10 or 11 at night, at which point she would rant about the latest developments in the whole fiasco. The bride spent all of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday shopping for her going away dress and came home empty-handed every night. She said she “just didn’t like anything on her”. One day she sent a message home to me by Anna asking if I had anything she could borrow? (I’m about 5 inches taller than her, but the same size around.) Uh, Merry hasn’t even seen me for 15 years and she wants to borrow my clothes?! Fortunately I was honestly able to say I didn’t have anything suitable.

By Thursday Anna and one of the other bridesmaids were so fed up with Merry not doing anything to help with her own wedding that they went out to the mall and came back in an hour with four dresses. Merry modeled the four dresses for everyone, and a dress was selected by general consensus. The dress Anna liked best made everyone ooh and ah, except for Mrs. Mac, who snapped, “It’s too low cut!” Mrs. Mac’s 85-year-old aunt said, “Pfft, it is not.” Mrs. Mac said, “What happens when she bends over?!” The aunt said, “She bends over.“ That dress wasn’t the one chosen because Mrs. Mac was so freaked out by its immorality. Anna gave it to me instead because she thought it too nice to take back, and I’ve worn it happily to several events without public censure or getting arrested for public indecency.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Mac did not have the two bridesmaid dresses made. She had one cut out and begun, but couldn’t seem to figure out how to progress. She can’t sew very well. You’d think she would have had the sense to realize her skills weren’t up to the task of making those dresses, but no. My mother came to the rescue. She came down to Toronto and picked up the materials for the two dresses. She asked Mrs. Mac if the one in progress would fit the bridesmaid it was intended for. Mrs. Mac said oh yes, she’d measured and it fit. So, Mum took the dresses home, finished the one, made the second, and brought them back. The dress Mrs. Mac had begun didn’t fit. Mum had to sit down at Mrs. Mac’s sewing machine and do substantial alterations — the dress had to be taken almost completely apart and some pieces re-cut out of extra fabric. And then while Mum was trying to work Mrs. Mac kept bugging her to look at her wedding planning book. She was so proud of this book and bragged that it showed how well-organized she was. None of her planning had actually been carried out of course, but to her mind since she had a book in which she’d written down that the groomsmen’s bow ties were to match both the bridesmaid dresses and the pew bows, all was prospering finely.

By Thursday Anna was getting really frustrated with the Mac family for not doing anything while she worked like a coolie, and so she tried setting them to work. She asked Mrs. Mac and Merry to wrap wedding cake with her. They did perhaps two or three slices each before wandering off. Mrs. Mac’s two elderly aunts were coming to stay at the Mac house, and there weren’t rooms ready for them. So Anna sent Mr. Mac (a mild, pleasant, but ineffectual man) up to the two spare rooms, asking him to tidy them and make the beds. He spent several hours up there, and when Anna went up to check the rooms, she saw barely any difference. There was still a lot of stuff piled on the furniture and the unmade beds.

No one in the family seemed to have any ability to plan realistically, let alone carry out the plans. There was very little food in the house, and on Friday Anna suggested that Mr. Mac go grocery shopping. He said they were having the Friday night rehearsal dinner catered. Anna explained that there would be seven people in the house all weekend and they would need something more than the rehearsal dinner leftovers to feed them. Mr. Mac just kept saying, “But we’re having the rehearsal dinner catered.”

Friday morning Anna told me she would be home early that night, because she had decided she needed a good night’s sleep and was sick of doing the Macs’ work for them, so she was just coming home after the rehearsal dinner. She hadn’t been home before 10:30 or 11 any night that week. I had a class that night, but left early so I could spend some time with my sister. But Anna wasn’t at my place. I waited up until 12 and then went to bed. I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and when I passed the open door of my guest room I freaked, because the bed was empty. And it was 3 a.m. I paced the floor of my apartment in the dark wondering what to do. Should I call the Macs? Or my parents? In the end I decided there was nothing to be done until the morning. Either Anna had spent the night at the Macs, or gotten in some kind of accident on the way home. In the case of an accident my parents would have been notified, and otherwise any phone calls would just wake and scare people for nothing. I went back to bed.

In the morning Anna was there. Through the bathroom door I asked her, “What time did you get home last night?” She said, “Five a.m.” I said, “Whyyyyyyy???!!!!” She snapped, “Because they’re idiots. If they call, tell them I’m not here.”

The story was that Mrs. Mac had planned to make the bow ties for the groomsmen, but of course hadn’t gotten them done. At midnight the night before the wedding she said she planned to stay up all night and do them. Anna suggested that someone could go out in the morning and buy basic black ties. Mrs. Mac had a tantrum at the mere thought. OH NO! THE BOW TIES HAD TO MATCH THE PEW BOWS! Mrs. Mac apparently becomes truly psychotic from lack of sleep, so Anna told her just to go to bed and she would do them. But Anna is just a beginning sewer at best, and the Macs’ sewing machine doesn’t work very well (owing to lack of proper maintenance, naturally). Anna did think about bringing the bow ties to my place, because I have a good sewing machine and would be able to help her because I can sew, but decided to power through alone instead. It took her about 4.5 hours to make the six bow ties.

The Friday night rehearsal and rehearsal dinner had actually gone fairly well. The food was good and sufficient because it was catered, and the house was clean and tidy at last, though it looked extremely shabby. But earlier in the week when Anna had asked if they needed things like paper plates and napkins for the dinner, Mrs. Mac had said, “Oh no, the caterer would supply them.” Then when the caterer showed up Mrs. Mac started yelling at the bridesmaids for not making sure there were paper plates and napkins. (“You girls are just useless! Do I have to tell you to do every little thing?”) Anna said, “You said the caterer would bring them.” Mrs. Mac slapped her hand down on a counter and said, “Anna. I KNOW what I said.” Anna simply turned on her heel and walked away.

(My mother later commented to me and my sister (in reference to Mrs. Mac, “And you two think I’m bad. HAH!!”)

Saturday night was the wedding. I decided to wait up until Anna got home because I knew the story was going to be good;-) But there was no need to stay up late at all, as she was home by about 9:30, and the minute she came through the door all trussed up in her iridescent plastic wrap dress the first thing out of her mouth was, “That was the most boring wedding I’ve ever been to!”

The Macs and the groom are fundamentalist Christians, and so there was no dancing or alcohol at this wedding. Nothing wrong with this, of course, but in that case you must provide some alternate form of entertainment for your guests. You can have people sing or do readings, show a power point presentation about the bride and groom, play trivia games, or some such thing. Of course the Macs hadn’t planned anything of the sort. Everyone ate dinner, there were a few speeches, and then everyone just sat for a couple of hours, biding their time until they saw the bride off and could leave and go do something fun. Which is why Anna got home so early. She said she’d never seen a reception disperse so quickly. Oh, and at one point Merry got up to go talk to her guests, but Mrs. Mac snapped, “Where are you going?” Merry said, “I’m going to go talk to people.” Mrs. Mac snarled, “Sit back down! You can only talk to them in the receiving line!!!” Merry sat.

But at least one of the speeches was worthy of note. The groom, Milo, is a Bible college graduate who works as a security guard. Nothing says frighteningly indoctrinated mind like that particular combination. He saw his groom’s speech as his BIG CHANCE to preach a sermon to an almost captive audience. Merry knew he would do this and that there was no way of stopping him, so she begged him to at least keep his speech under ten minutes in length. Well, Milo began talking, and he just kept going. And going. That had to be one of the few groom’s speeches in the history of weddings that actually contained the words, “The wages of sin are death.” Merry wasn’t wearing a watch, but Anna was wearing a little rhinestone studded one that had been one of her bridesmaid gifts, so Merry whispered to her before the speech began, “If he goes over ten minutes, tap my arm.” Anna duly tapped her arm at the ten minute mark, poor Merry jumped slightly, and then sat there looking progressively more wretched as Milo kept going. His speech was ultimately over 25 minutes long. Anna amused herself watching the guests’ reactions to this speech. Mostly everyone was stolidly polite about it, but there were a few dropped jaws. Such a sermon was appallingly inappropriate. Even if your wedding guests share your religious beliefs — and most of the guests at this wedding did, my sister included – they are there to wish you well, not to be lectured on the depravity of their lives.

Well, finally it was all over. And the bride and groom were off to their honeymoon destination. Which was Florida. And this was a July wedding. Mrs. Mac demanded that they go to Florida because that was where SHE went on her honeymoon. Merry and Milo were allowed the use of Merry’s uncle’s Florida condo for free, which is probably why they went along with it. I can’t imagine anything more likely to kill that newlywed ardour than Florida’s July temperatures, but that was probably the point.

And after the wedding? Merry called Anna once after her return from her honeymoon. She gushed with gratitude and promised Anna a selection of pictures (as a bridesmaid, Anna had not been able to take any pictures). But Anna never got the pictures, and hasn’t heard from Merry at all since that one phone call. Anna wore her bridesmaid dress once as a Halloween costume, and then gave it to our little niece for her dress-up box.

Holy crap. Crappity crap crap. This is a great story. And you are quite the story teller! You've made my day. You know what...I'm saving this and printing it out and I'm going to give it to my daughter if and when she ever announces that she's engaged. It's that good.

But how did dimitri the lover figure into all this?

Wow. That's a humdinger, definitely. Anna probably hasn't heard from Merry because Merry's trapped in Mrs. Mac's basement and isn't allowed to use the phone anymore.

That was a great story. Thanks for sharing!

That was astounding. I'm so glad I'm never doing the wedding thing, although I can't imagine anything being worse than that. Well told.

But how did dimitri the lover figure into all this?

He didn't. God, if he had been involved I bet I could have made it into a novel and won some sort of prize.

Oh my gosh. That's insane. Great story, but wtf?

PS Orange are you coming to the meetup?

That is a good story, but I fear Merry's life will not be a happy one. Parents and husbands like that suck. And not in a good way.

That? Is one of the best wedding stories I've ever heard. Fantastic and awful.

Oh. My. God. I would have throttled Mrs. Mac. No doubt about it.

And thanks for the story, sweetie!

I thought it was really sad :(

Great story! This is my all-time favorite bad wedding story. Well, actually it's a police report.

in case you don't know the song

That had to be one of the few groom’s speeches in the history of weddings that actually contained the words, “The wages of sin are death.”

Bwa ha ha ha ha!

Okay, I actually feel terrible for that poor wretched girl. Oy.

Orange are you coming to the meetup?

I'd intended to, SassHat.

you'd intended to... but now you're certian?

I'll try to make it, but I've had a crazy amount of social stuff going on lately, I'm house shopping, and a a friend of mine who lives out of province is due to come to town about then and wants to get together and I promised to gather a bunch of people at my place for that... well, you see how it is. But I honestly do want to meet you people, so I will do my best.

Hurrah! Here's to trying!

Merry's life will not be a happy one.

Mostly she just needs to get away from her mother. Milo is supposedly a very nice guy, though certainly he has some issues.

Some more info about the Macs... They actually raised or partially raised something like seven children all told. One was theirs biologically, and the rest were adopted or fostered (Merry's adopted). It blows my mind that anyone ever thought Mrs. Mac would be a fit person to trust with children, and how did they ever pass the home inspection?!

Most of their children no longer speak to them. Merry does, but she just seems to be the kind of person who is so sweet she just doesn't get resentful.

One time when she was fifteen or so, she decided her bedroom looked terrible and that she wanted to decorate it. With her own money she bought paint, a border, and curtains, and fixed up her room. Then Mr. and Mrs. Mac were about to have another child move into the house, and since Merry had the nicest bedroom, they kicked her out of it and gave the room to the new kid. Merry was assigned to the worst bedroom in the house with not so much as an offer to pay for supplies so she could redecorate that room. Unbelievable.

You've reminded me of my friend, whose parents were ex-nazis, who was marrying a black girl. If that wasn't enough, he decided it had to be in Montauk at sunrise. He booked the motel over the phone based strictly on price, and when everyone arrived late the night before it turned out to be a hot sheet hooker place with crack smokers and pimps running all around.

Oh my god Orange Swan, that last story made my heart break for Merry. I mean, the wedding story was terrible, but that's awful. Poor girl.

My favourite wedding story involves a very drunk best man. I shall call him John.

John rose to make his speech, and went off on some drunken spiel about how th groom had curly hair, and was muttering incoherently, when the father of the bride had enough. The dad stood up and went calmly over to John and very patiently suggested he should sit down. John replied to this by shaking off the hand on his arm, leaning into the microphone and saying, "Whatever, jackass". The father of the bride ended up literally punching the best man into the kitchen, which was behind the dias.

/this was not my wedding by the way.

Wow, that was some wedding. Thanks for taking the trouble and effort to write it all down, it's been a great read.

Holy cow, thanks for sharing, orange swan! I'd thought I'd seen a couple doozies, but this one takes the cake.

Holy fucking hell. Actually, I hope that if I ever get married, it goes just like that. Then I can say "at least the marraige is better than the wedding".

The actual wedding went not badly, my sister says. It was very bare bones and basic as weddings go, but it wasn't a disaster either.

You are a great storyteller. And what a great story! Reminds me of my brother-in-law's wedding. (he only invited his father and stepmom, and a witch aunt he leaned on as a second mom). They were married in a backyard abutting a busy road. The bride was seven months pregnant, and six foot one in bare feet. My brother in law comes up to her shoulder. Both her parents and brother are over six feet. My in-laws are 5' 7" and 5' 2" tall. They looked like dwarfs next to the brides family. The bride wore a white sleeveless dress that she had sewn blue cap sleeves on, and not attractively. She wore a blue veil that only touched her shoulders. My brother in law wore a blue shirt and a mullet. The bride works with the developmentally disabled, which is admirable, but several of them were in attendance and they were...um...vocal. Very vocal. They opened gifts at the reception. We don't have a bad relationship with him, which is why we were shocked that we weren't even invited to the wedding. That's the worst wedding I know of.