Fuck off, I’m eating: foibles, feats, and wedding fails

The year is wrapping up and you're either in the thick of wedding planning, in the after-glow of your own wedding, or just lurking around drooling over shinies and dresses. Either way, we hope it was good to you and that next year will be even better, and that we get to continue to share your wedding awesomeness for years to come.

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To celebrate and recap 2014, we asked some of our favorite wedding vendors to reveal some of their funniest moments, lessons learned, and biggest foibles from their 2014 weddings. Get ready for determined eating, surprise guest photo bombers, and birds pooping… because we all know that shit (sometimes literally) happens.

Rebecca from Blush Celebrations

In our planning meeting for Patty and Nick (shown above), we were going over the points of eating. I mentioned that most couples don't ever eat a full meal, and I talked about how I lined things up to ensure they had plenty of opportunity to eat throughout the day. Nick was adamant that he would eat his whole meal, and that he would have no qualms about telling people to fuck off while he's eating.

So I made him a sign for the reception that says, “fuck off, I'm eating” for him to hold up so he wouldn't be bothered. The DJ got in on it as well, and added a pair of noise cancelling headphones to the mix. It was seriously the hit of the reception for the guests. And, it should be noted, that he ate his whole damned dinner.

Staci from Revolution Weddings:

I had hidden a pair of granny panties under the bride's chair for the garter removal — a little joke for the bride as her groom was taking off the garter — poof, out come these hilarious underwear, right? I did NOT anticipate the groom taking them out then placing them over the bride's head! This was after he flubbed his lines during the ceremony, saying, “YOU were the lucky one to win my love,” instead of, “I was the lucky one…” We set out to have a FUN wedding, and we did!

You can see the flubbed ceremony line here and the granny panty debacle here:

Emily from Galas and Gifts:

This story is from my own wedding! Four bridesmaids, one flower girl, and I were upstairs letting guests come in a take a seat. “Upstairs” was a store room/apartment at the restaurant where the wedding was being held. The flower girl disappeared into the tiny room for a moment and when we she reappeared, we asked where she'd been. She said, “just eating the marshmallows.” We thought, “what marshmallows?”

Yup, she'd been squatting down behind a chair snacking on biodegradable packing peanuts. Everyone but her mom was freaking out. Mom said, “Eh, she'll be fine.”

Maggie from Pop! Wed Co.:

We had a wedding at a local park and about five kids were playing, noticed the wedding, stopped, and just watched, right in the center of the action. Natalie and Ian, the bride and groom, thought it was adorable because they were so excited to see a wedding happen, and they ended up being closest to the bride and groom of all of the guests (proximity-wise)! Wedding bomb FTW!

The folks at Smitten Chickens:

At an elopement earlier this year, a couple left a bag in the cab — with their marriage licence, passports, wedding rings, credit cards, and cash! They were so distraught. They ended up not being able to get married that day, and we did couple's portraits instead of ceremony photos, and they were able to get married a few days later after their bag was found.

BUT, they learned that there really are some good people out in the world, because their bag was returned with nothing missing, even though they didn't have current contact information there, they had paid the cab with cash, and they didn't have a receipt for the trip.

I am now obsessive about making sure couples get all their belongings out of a cab, and I let people know in advance to either pay with a credit card or get a receipt, because a cab with a missing item can be tracked that way.

Another tale from Smitten Chickens:

At another elopement, the couple was having an outdoor ceremony in a public park, and a bird pooped on one of the brides' head! She was grossed out (obviously), but her soon-to-be-wife stepped up and started cleaning her up with napkins. She didn't freak out, they shook it off, and got married.

That's kind of what marriage is: sometimes one partner bears the brunt of the support, because you know the dynamic will shift around over the course of your lives. Shit (literally) happens, you deal with it together, and you move forward.

Melissa from Melissa Miksch Photography

Our bride and groom were planning their wedding with a good friend as the officiant. It wasn't the first marriage for either of them, and when they found out their friend wasn't going to be able to make the wedding due to severe illness, they made an impromptu trip to Vegas a couple weeks beforehand, and got legally married there in secret. The photo above is of the groom telling their guests that they were already married, but that didn't mean they were getting out of seeing a wedding!

They then had the bride's daughter move from her place as bridesmaid to the officiant's position, and they held their ceremony for their friends and family. It was a great moment of surprise, and showed that just because something doesn't work out how you have planned, it doesn't mean that you can't still have a great celebration!

Ariane from WeddingMix

A caution for anyone planning a bull charge into the reception: watch out for the tiny tots hiding in the back!

Angie from Milestone Images

A VIP wedding guest who was with the wedding party in the private bridal suite during the time after photos but before the festivities officially got underway, discovered that her boss was blowing up her phone with emergency questions, and she was very low on juice and didn't have her charger. A bridesmaid had a cord and the USB adapter that plugs into the wall, but she had an older model phone so the cord itself wouldn't fit in the guest's phone. I had the right cord in my car, plugged right into a power unit attached to my cigarette lighter, but had to get into the party space to shoot details before more guests arrived and attacked the attractive displays of hummus and chartercurie.

I gave the guest my car keys and the approximate location of my car (by the tennis courts), all the while apologizing for the mess in the front seat that could only be created by a wedding photographer on a work day: discarded water bottles, rechargeable batteries, a tissue with lipstick hastily wiped off my teeth before the ceremony, and a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich scarfed down during the ride to the reception venue from the church. She was so grateful for the charger and the ability to appease her boss before the party started that she promised not to judge my PB&J crust and happily walked around the tennis courts to my car, which she had to hit the “panic button” on the key chain to properly identify!

Lessons learned, batteries charged, officiants swapped, and styrofoam eaten — here's to a pretty kick-ass 2014 and even more wild parties in 2015.

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About the Author: Catherine Clark

@enidjcoleslaw @bijouxandbits @bijouxandbits

Catherine Clark loiters at her local library, makes art, watches movies en masse, plays video and tabletop games, poorly cooks healthy things, cuddles with her feline fur babies, and blogs at BijouxandBits.com.