It’s often said that a wedding is the most important day of our lives. And while we don’t want to downplay that significance—it’s a hell of a legal contract, to say the least—it also feels like, well, a lot of pressure. Mistakes are inevitable even during the most impeccably planned nuptials, they just rarely make it into the Instagram photo carousel.
So this October (spooky season!) Vogue asked brides, bridesmaids, and guests if they’d be a little bit more, shall we say, honest about what really happened on the wedding day. From fashion mishaps to beauty blunders, here are their anonymous horror stories. And as the saying goes: “The worse the wedding, the better the marriage.” (Except for the bride who found out her groom was still on Bumble two weeks before they were supposed to walk down the aisle.)
From the Bride:
“I wore a 1950s vintage dress to my City Hall civil ceremony. It had lovely princess seams down the front and back that hugged my body—unfortunately, a bit too tight. Stepping out of the car and into Manhattan’s City Hall a seam fully ripped wide open and I had my stomach on show as I said “I do!” Thank god for Photoshop.”
“I hired a string quartet for my ceremony and an entirely different band showed up. I have no idea who they were to this day.”
“I had a clear dress code of ‘all black’ black tie that I mercilessly worked on and explained for an entire year and a half. I even made a mood board explaining what it meant. Bows, taffeta, fringe, kaftans, silk, capes, gowns, sequins—all welcome! It just had to be black. On the day of the wedding, I was pleased. I saw black only from the tables to the bar until… a guest showed up in a neon green denim jumpsuit. Not only was the outfit insanely odd and casual, but the neon was so obvious that when she walked into the reception, several people turned and stared at her.”
“A freak hail storm struck suddenly during my outdoor mountain wedding right as I began to walk down the aisle. My guests sat and witnessed a wedding I never saw.”