Music goes down with no way to continue playing.
The bride immediately bursts into tears and spends the next hour in the bathroom crying. The groomsmen come to the rescue by backing a pickup truck up to the open reception doors and plugging in an iPod – pre-smartphone days.
u/mytevesen: I was filming a wedding ceremony for some friends this summer. The bride’s stepfather was sitting in the front row.
She had already warned me he could cause trouble, so I noted where he sat before the ceremony started.
He sat down in the front row and promptly fell asleep.
He slept for the entire 20-minute ceremony. I was so angry on the bride’s behalf. Who sits on the front row and can’t stay awake for the few minutes the ceremony lasts?
I managed to avoid him in the final edit, thank God.
u/angry_baboon: It was really sunny and hot, and I think the bride didn’t eat or drink for several hours because she was nervous.
The ceremony was outdoors, and I had to take a picture of the couple with all the guests standing in front of the wedding arch after the ceremony finished.
So, people start gathering around the couple. There are 80 guests, so it takes some time to ensure everyone is visible in the picture.
Finally, when everything is perfect, and I say, “Look into the camera and smile!” the bride closes her eyes and collapses.
The groom caught her right before she fell to the ground. It was so hot that day, and she was probably dehydrated, so she fainted!
And I captured that moment in my picture.
u/invisiblebody: When I was twelve, I was at a wedding with those disposable cameras on the table. The wedding was in a mansion’s backyard and got cleared away for the reception right there.
I walked around using the camera to take pictures of flowers, bees, and butterflies, and not a single photo was wedding-related.
I had totally forgotten myself and didn’t realize what I did until I got told to put the camera back. I mistakenly thought they were for us to take home.
Whoops.
u/soldatbullfrog: I did freelance photography for a while after I graduated high school. I got hired, along with another photographer, by a company to shoot a wedding.
This company instructed us to get as many candid photos as possible per the client’s request. The other photographer was female, and we split up during the preparation phase.
I hung out with the groom and groomsmen, and she went with the bride and bridesmaids.
It became clear that the groomsmen had been drinking for a while when I arrived, and that did not stop. For the groomsmen, getting ready took only a few minutes. Put on tuxes, boom, done.
So we had a few hours to hang out while the bride got her hair/makeup done.
The groomsmen took full advantage of this period to drink more. I got a few good shots during this, as the friendship between these guys was evident. Unfortunately, they drank a bit too much.
Once the time for the ceremony came, they could barely walk straight, and the groom was in the worst of them.
I broke away from them to get my position for the ceremony and let the other photographer know what a mess this would be.
She told me the bride had expressed concern that the groomsmen would drink too much before the ceremony. We both braced ourselves for what was to come.
The ceremony started, and the groomsmen came up the aisle in a parade. The groom stumbled and almost took a knee at one point.
Then, the bridesmaids came in, and watching their anger and concern bloom on their faces as they took in the groomsmen standing unsteadily on the dais was hilarious in hindsight but felt like a slow-motion train wreck at the moment.
Then the bride entered the church, and even through the veil, you could tell she was vacillating between fury and sadness.
She stepped up to the little platform, and in the silent moment between the music fading away just before the pastor could begin speaking, one of the groomsmen ripped a horrendously loud fart.
The bride’s face fell, and half of the people in attendance started laughing while the other half let out a breathless, disgusted gasp.
The groom barely stifled a laugh, and one of the other groomsmen turned and punched the farter in the arm.
It was as if these guys had no clue where they were or how important the event was to everyone but them, apparently. The other photographer and I did our best to get shots and just do the job we were getting paid to do.
It was difficult to get any close-ups of the bride or groom as the bride settled on furious facial expressions for the remainder of the ceremony, and the groom could barely focus his eyes on his bride. She uttered her vows through gritted teeth, and he slurred through his while slowly rocking back and forth.
The reception only spiraled out from there.
The groom threw up on the floor before the cake-cutting and was ensconced somewhere.
After one of the groomsmen struck out with the bridesmaids, he set his sights on the other photographer. Eventually, our agreed-upon time ran out, and we left. I handed off all of my RAW files to the company that hired me and wished them luck editing that travesty.
u/Bonzaigiraffe: We got married in a friend’s front garden I had helped put together as a teenager.
Just as we got to the vows, you could hear people sniffling, just about to cry, when the tell-tale sound of an ice cream van started to build.
It got louder and louder until it abruptly stopped. The driver noticed what they were approaching and shut off the music at the property line to the next-door neighbor.
Silence as they crept by the house. Then, as soon as they hit the next home full blast again, “Do your ears hang low…” Everyone burst out laughing.
The driver should have returned 10 minutes later because they would have made a lot of money.
u/Nelly0112: Not me, but my buddy was the videographer for a wedding. During the ceremony, they had candles lining the aisle, and the bride’s mother decided to get closer so she could get a better picture.
While she was taking pictures, she started walking backward. Well, she walked backward right into one of the candle holders and knocked it over right into someone’s lap.
Commence chaos!
The guy jumps up, trying to put out the fire that’s now in his lap. His wife starts screaming at the woman. It took about 20 minutes to get everything calmed down.
The wedding went on as planned afterward.
And yes, it was all caught on camera. The bride insisted it be cut out of the final video. So, my buddy put it on a separate tape for us all to laugh at later.
u/VealIsNotAVegetable: Not a photographer, but ours caught a truly perfect moment.
In the foreground, I leaned forward to kiss my wife’s hand in a lovely romantic gesture, perfectly framing the bridesmaid in the background.
The background—a lovely view of the small cove we’re in, with one of the bridesmaids bent over to look at something in the tide pool, accidentally exposing her bottom to the camera.
u/[deleted]: I was helping a friend, who is a wedding photographer, take shots of everyone else at the wedding.
When it was time for the signing, my friend had a problem with his camera, so I took over for a few minutes. The bride and groom were sitting at the table, signing the book.
The groom, best man, and ushers all wore kilts. I had been paying attention to the happy couple, but for a couple of photos, I knelt to get some more eye-level shots.
Little did I know that I had accidentally taken photos of the groom’s private parts exposed because of his outfit.
I didn’t notice until I reviewed the images later on the laptop.
u/baviddowie23: I was a wedding photographer in Las Vegas at several hotels and downtown wedding chapels. I’ve got so many of these stories. Here’s a fun one.
On a Monday, I got booked to shoot the wedding.
On Wednesday, the hotel called me to cancel because the bride backed out.
On Thursday, the hotel called to rebook me because the wedding is back on. It was the same groom but a different bride.
On Friday, I shot the wedding with the new bride, who was around 19 years old (the groom was early twenties). It’s clear they barely know each other.
The bride just kept saying, “This is so crazy. I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Neither could I.
Here’s a sad one: An
