Guest shares nightmare story of 'the wedding that made me thankful alcohol exists.'

"The backyard wedding that made me thankful alcohol exists..."

First of all, I don't mean to shame budget weddings. I think they can be lovely, charming and heartfelt, and they suit some people a lot better than big ceremonies. This was not that.

Backstory: A friend, D, has divorced his horrible first wife and promptly became deeply depressed. In a misguided attempt to help, another friend, L, suggested D jumps back into online dating just a couple of months after the divorce.

Long story short, D, despite loudly and repeatedly saying he never wants kids only a week later ended up dating a single mother of two. Within half a year ago they started sending wedding invitations.

D and L were best friends, and despite the fact that L is a professional wedding entertainer, D always loudly proclaimed big weddings are a huge waste of money. Rude, but whatever. His wedding would be small, intimate, and held at his suburban, semi-detached house.

Now this is in the UK, and if you're familiar with the architecture here, you might know how the gardens and those semi-detached homes are typically fairly long but narrow.

This one was narrower than most - you could maybe have five people standing shoulder to shoulder. I get there with L, and instantly we exchange a glance. We will HAVE TO get drunk to get through this. Some of the wedding's lovely features:

1. The already narrow garden is about half -filled with pretty sharp gravel, very uncomfortable to stand on.

2. To add to the excitement in the garden there's plenty of dog poo the hosts didn't bother to clean up.

3. Even though there aren't many guests, it's still way too many for the tiny house or garden. There's maybe a couple of seats and perhaps 20 people at peak.

4. There's almost no food, and what there is, is mostly snacks, largely what me and L brought with us.

5. Amongst the guests are two of the bride's exes, including the father of her children.

6. Both of the exes look almost identical to D, the new groom - lean, long haired dudes with beards and kind of biker-ish aesthetics.

7. Later that evening the father of the kids corners me and tells me about his mead production for what felt like three hours. In that conversation I also learn he's living with the happy couple - as is the other ex.

8. D has a cozy job in IT in lovely English countryside but bought himself a Harley and went in hard on the whole biker aesthetic. No big deal, only he decided to lift his vows from Sons of Anarchy. "I promise to take care of you like my leathers and ride you like my hog" or something to that effect. I was willing my soul to leave my body out of sheer cringe.

9. D got drunk as hell. Personally I'm a happy drunk - he is not. When the neighbor gently asked, at 1 AM, that we keep it down a little, D was ready to fight him like the tough biker guy he is. Afterwards I did ask L "why are we friends with this guy?". We haven't spoken much since.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

NastyMsPiggleWiggle said:

This is incredible. I have a feeling there will be more interesting(cringe worthy)stories in D’s future. One burning question: Are the happy couple in a throuple now or just living communally with her ex?

SATXS5 said:

"I promise to take care of you like my leathers and ride you like my hog." I would have burst out laughing if I heard this.

pug_fugly_moe said:

Can’t blame ya. If you can’t laugh, you’d cry, right? This isn’t even funny. It’s just weird.

texannachos said:

I wish people had more shame

VivianDiane said:

The real question: How much of that mead did it take to forget this?