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 older couple, I’d guess in their forties or fifties. The limo driver calls and tips me off that the bride is being a problem.
She arrives and is extremely rude to the staff, while the groom is apologetic and super nice. The ceremony starts, and she fast walks down the aisle and doesn’t wait for the groom. The groom sheepishly catches up at the altar.
When it’s her time to say, “I do,” she says, “Yeah, whatever,” in an annoyed tone. The groom says, “I do.” You could cut the tension in the room with a knife. The minister keeps things on track and finishes the ceremony, and we get to the kiss.
Instead of kissing the groom, she turns her face and gives him her cheek. She then fast-walks back down the aisle, signs the paperwork, and leaves. The groom was in tears.
I never saw them again, and I’m sure it didn’t last. Here’s another: I would guess the bride was in her seventies, and the groom was in his early twenties. One side of the chapel was all walkers and oxygen tanks, while the other was intoxicated people in their twenties.
I’m pretty sure it was a money grab, but it was notable because, usually, the genders are reversed in these kinds of weddings. Another fun one: The wedding was at the top of the stratosphere tower. The couple shows up, and the bride is a new-age crystal type, very, let’s say, spiritual, and the groom looks like an 1849 gold miner—rope belt, floppy hat, three teeth, the whole thing.
The bride tells me there would be spirits and angels in the photos, and the reason they got married at the stratosphere is because it’s the closest place to heaven where they could get married. They were so weird about it and said so many times that they wanted to be with God and go to heaven that the hotel had the dog sniff them before getting on the elevator to go to the top. We lie and tell them it’s standard practice to have the dogs sniff everyone.
The wedding happens, and they start chanting nonsense words, then proceed to have the grossest kiss I’ve ever seen. It turns out they met that week in AA. u/Greylings: My mother was a wedding photographer till I was about 18-19, and I helped out on many of them.
The one that stands out the most was at a campsite where the wedding and reception were being held. About halfway through the reception, I hear the groom start laughing maniacally. I peeked over his way and saw two groomsmen hauling the screaming bride toward the lake.
They threw her into the cold water with her veil and dress still on. When she got out of the water, I genuinely thought she might get furious. Her hair, makeup, and probably the dress were ruined beyond repair.
The fact that the groom laughed and didn’t do anything stuck with me as being a terrible move, even as a teen. Apparently, she thought so, too, because they didn’t even make it six months. u/EndlessOcean: The bride was so terrible her mom gave me a $500 tip for not walking out on the event when she was treating everyone (even her now husband) like a bad employee.
She did the whole clicking fingers thing when wanting someone to do something for her, and she berated the DJ for grabbing a sandwich when he’d been there for about 8 hours. He was told that he should’ve brought his lunch, and she would be taking the cost of the food (like an open buffet style) out of his paycheck. The bride was divorced within three years, but not before having three kids that have stupid names.
u/Past-Independent2575: Wedding photographer from India here. The bride’s mom dissed non-stop about the groom to a couple of our photographers. She believed that her daughter was too beautiful for the guy they promised her hand to and that she’d rather have him die sooner than see him with her daughter after the wedding.
The bride and the groom had the first dinner separately because the bride wasn’t in the mood to have their reception dinner together. This one is the final nail in the coffin: post the wedding, when we were about to photograph portraits of the couple, the groom walked up to us saying that he was too tired from the wedding, so it’d be better if we could use the photos from the previous weddings we shot and morph his face on to those and walked away. They divorced three months later.
u/samprimary: Her three kids from a previous marriage (8, 9, and 12) were screaming, covering themselves in soda, and overturning tables while making extremely hostile, profanity-laden demands for a drivable Hot Wheels car, and escalated to just randomly hitting people with baseball bats. The entire time, the mom was going, “Haha, aren’t they so crazy? Oh, it’s okay.
They just get to express themselves.” The marriage lasted somewhere between four and five months. u/Portly_pug: When cutting the cake, the bride playfully got some on the groom’s face. He proceeded to grab a giant chunk and PUNCH her in the face with it, several times hard.
She was digging it out from underneath her eyelids, bawling, and her Dad needed to be held back. EDIT: Many people have been asking, so here is a bit more backstory. My guess as to why people were holding the Dad back was that the groom was in full Marine dress uniform, and they used his sword to cut the cake.
That sword was very much in arms reach of the groom after this happened, so everyone was probably worried something terrible could happen if those two got near each other. After the incident, it was awkwardly silent as the groom apologized to the family. If I remember correctly, the groom and the Dad went outside for around 20 minutes, then came back in.
The rest of the reception went as planned after that. u/Pancakes_Whisperer: The wedding was on a golf course. The bride had a vision of her husband driving up on a golf cart to see her for a first look.
He got one look at her from the top of the hill and vaulted the cart, ran down the hill, picked her up, and twirled her around to tell her how gorgeous she was. We caught it all. It was the best first look ever.
Once he set her down, she straightened herself, looked back at us, and said, “Okay, I don’t want that. Let’s do the golf cart now.” And she sent him back up. u/Aeri73: The couple had practiced their opening dance, a tango, in a large room, but the wedding venue was a long and narrow, tiny room.
So, one step forward in tango style, three steps ahead, but trampling in place due to guests sitting in their way. Three steps backward, trampling in place again, to take two steps back to reach the other side guest and start trampling in the area again. Right in the middle of all this, the kitchen starts bringing out food (they hadn’t served any food before, so this was after complaints from most guests about being hungry).
I have videos and photos of the couple trampling, with no guests watching them. Not even the bride’s mother because she was busy destroying a pack of fries with her back turned to the couple’s opening dance. u/cheese_shenanigans: There’s the time I went to a destination wedding of a friend.
The day before my flight, somebody broke into my hotel room and stole all of my equipment, including two cameras and all of my lenses, everything. The bride and groom were super chill and still wanted me to photograph the only way I could—with my phone. It was embarrassing, but luckily, my phone had a decent camera.
But then, while I was trying to take group photos, the bride’s aunt kept stepping in and rearranging people after I had just got them into positions, etc., just trying to take over my shoot so she could get her own photos. u/lulu125: My first wedding was a small ceremony with a small reception at the couple’s house. We almost finished with posed photos, and the couple went in to grab their dogs for photos (these dogs were their babies).
They had closed the dogs in the basement so they wouldn’t get out during the setup. One of the dogs had fallen through the steps and was severely hurt. The bride grabbed the bloody, crying dog, and they left in their tux and gown to the vet.
I was stuck at their house with their guests for three hours as we waited for the newlyweds to return. When they did, it was with the news that the dog didn’t make it. The bride’s gown was dirty.
Most guests left, and we called it a day. u/StephaneCam: I had a mother of the bride lay into me after the ceremony because I ‘didn’t get the bubble shot.’ I had no idea what she was talking about. It turns out the bride wanted a shot of them walking through a cloud of bubbles blown by the guests, like a confetti shot but with bubbles, which sounds lovely!
I would have loved to do that! But at no point was it mentioned to me by anyone at the wedding, and no one had brought bubble wands with them. Apparently, I should have a) read their minds and b) supplied the bubbles?!
The bride gave me an extensive list of shots she wanted on the wedding day. It did not mention bubbles. It was, however, particular about other photos they wanted, including a ‘shot of groom wiping tears from his eyes as he sees the bride for the first time.’
I thought, “Okay, I can do that.
He’s obviously a crier, and they know it’ll make a good picture.” When it came to it, the groom looked entirely unemotional on seeing the bride. There was no reaction at all. It was like totally deadpan.
I’m not sure if they expected me to stop the ceremony and waft an onion under his nose or what, but I did not get the shot she wanted, and she wasn’t best pleased. This wedding also had a classic ‘guest with an expensive camera he doesn’t know how to use,’ so throughout the whole wedding, it kept beeping as he tried to autofocus, and the little auto flash kept popping itself up. Then I was getting dirty looks because other guests thought I was disturbing the ceremony.
He also told me to move over during the group photos because he wanted to take pictures, and I was ‘ruining his field of view.’
I heard they divorced less than a year later, so I’m guessing the day was more about her ‘vision’ than the couple themselves. These things happened when I was setting myself up as a photographer, too, so I charged them way less than the going rate. u/Sarah-JessicaSnarker: I can’t pick just one.
A bride’s father was “into photography” and emailed me a list of dozens of issues he took with dozens of photos, complete with pictures of his hairy fingers pointing at his computer screen. One couple held their reception in a park in Texas in June and didn’t arrange for any help cleaning up. So, when everyone left, it was down to me to clean up the entire site.
I have seen more than a few relatives who thought their cell phone shots were more important than my professional images, including people shoving me out of the way, slamming me with their backs, etc., to get in front of me. A venue was double-booked, and we found out when we arrived. A few times of “sit!
eat!” only to be accosted for sitting and eating, even though no one wants to be photographed during the meal portion of the evening. I have encountered countless super rude people. I loved my job, though, and for every awful wedding, I had a dozen dreamy ones.
I also had a bride send me Pinterest links to beach weddings and wanted me to copy them, but she got married in a barn in the fall. One of the worst, though, didn’t happen to me, just in front of me—the groom slapped the bride. u/Whisky919: The bride and groom, who were wonderful to work with and had a fantastic wedding and loved the photos, started a rumor that I was hooking up with my assistant at the wedding.
I filled in at the last minute for a friend who couldn’t shoot it and did it at his rate, which was half my rate, and it was a destination wedding, and that’s the thanks I got. u/gakattack9: I worked at a big wedding last year where one of the guests gestured our main photographer over and then pulled her mask down and said she should smile more. He also commented on my ability to reach under the stairs and grab the equipment we had stashed there by saying, “YOU’RE SO FLEXIBLE.
WOW.”
Years ago, some older uncle tried to balance his iPad on the main videographer’s shoulder to get his shot while the videographer was filming the ceremony. Deleted user: A week after I served as the photographer at my friends’ wedding, I’m jolted awake by my phone lit up with like, 30 missed calls from the bride. I call her back.
She: “WHAT DID YOU DO?! DID YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE PHOTOS BEFORE YOU SENT THEM OUT?!” Me: “Yeah, of course, what’s the problem?!” She: “YOU’VE DESTROYED OUR MARRIAGE,” and then she just hangs up on me. I’m flipping through the photos at lightning speed.
My heart just stops at 41st photo. There it was, something I missed before. The photo showed the groom in the background, caught in a candid moment with a woman who definitely wasn’t the bride.
Panic set in as I realized this was the rumored mistress who’d been the subject of whispers long before the wedding. The image, a silent but damning piece of evidence, had just blown the lid off a secret that was never meant for a wedding album. Deleted user: Wedding photographers, what is the worst thing you’ve caught on camera and had to remove then?Just sent the bride her photos when I get this message:
Bride: DELETE PHOTO #21 RIGHT NOW, ARE YOU BLIND?
Me: ??? Bride: OUR MARRIAGE WILL BE OVER BECAUSE OF YOU, DELETE THAT PHOTO IMMEDIATELY! My jaw dropped.
HOW DID I MISS THAT?! I apologized and quickly delete photo #21. In it was the moment the bride was kissing the groom’s brother, thinking no one was seeing them… Turns out, they were having a secret affair…
Deleted user: I always ask couples if there’s anything special at their wedding I should know about.
The bride catches up to me, whispering, “You MUST take THIS ONE crucial photo” (explains the details). By the time she finished, I was in shock, but a client’s wish is my command. The wedding went by, and I did everything she asked.
Then the groom calls me, yelling, “OUR MARRIAGE IS RUINED, HOW DARE YOU TAKE SUCH A PHOTO?!”
Me: ??? He: “PHOTO #13! ARE YOU BLIND?!”Me: “Your bride asked me to take a shot of you and her best friend.
She said you two were lovers and would definitely kiss. I caught that moment, just as she asked…
These confessions from wedding photographers show what goes on behind the scenes as the bride and groom pose for the camera. These first-hand experiences prove that weddings are not as glamorous as they seem, and there are moments when things don’t go as planned during weddings.
Have you ever experienced something similar at a wedding you went to? We would love to know about your experience.
