I’ve Attended Hundreds of Weddings, but was Only Invited to Five?
The Ultimate Wedding Crasher?
You might be wondering how this is possible. Am I the ultimate wedding crasher, obsessed with free food, drinks, and dancing the night away with someone’s weird uncle?
Nope, I was a cater waiter or wedding server. I did this job off and on for many years throughout my 20s and 30s. I did this job in different parts of Canada and New Zealand…and I loved it.
You learn a lot about a country and cultures by how they celebrate this most wonderful and joyous of events.
From small weddings to weddings that lasted all weekend, I clapped for the wedding party, listened to speeches, and dropped my jaw at some guest shenanigans…I also served food, cleared tables, and cleaned up after a long night.
So as we enter the spring/summer wedding seasons here in the northern hemisphere, I thought I would write a quick post about the good, bad, and the ugly of my years of experience.
Maybe you can delight, or maybe you can relate, or maybe you might think twice about fighting with your date after too much alcohol…someone is always listening and watching…at these events.
The Good
Probably one of the most heartfelt moments was a wedding between a rather well-spoken bride and her painfully shy groom.
First, they walked down an aisle lined with groomsmen holding up hockey sticks. The guest gifts at each place setting were a hockey puck and gift certificate to shoppers drug mart (very Canadian).
Later the groom stumbled and floundered through a speech that was as excruciating to watch as I’m sure it was to give — all in the name of love for his bride. She spoke after and pointed out how much his struggle and effort meant to her.
I worked at some fantastic weddings in New Zealand. Many weddings started with a rehearsal dinner on the Friday night, the wedding ceremony and party on Saturday night, and the goodbye brunch on Sunday.
These weddings were elaborate and heartwarming that people flew in from around the world to attend them. It was quite common for the bride and groom to take dance lessons; one groom even learned how to do a backflip as a finale to their first dance.
Another wedding featured the bride and bridesmaids arriving by helicopter and at the same venue, a bride and father of the bride arrived in a sulky pulled by their favorite trotter/pacer horse with ribbons in her hair.
And although I worked for a catering company with contracts with many wedding and event venues, the backyard weddings were often just as elaborate.
At one spacious backyard wedding, the bride and mother of the bride must have read a million bridal magazines. I have never seen so many buffets and little tables with all kinds of cookies, cakes, and candies displayed on various stands or in jars, baskets or on trays. The attention to detail was beautiful and impressive.
The Bad
Most of the weddings went off without a hitch, and I never encountered too many bridezillas.
Ironically enough, I once served a wedding of a childhood friend I hadn’t seen in years. It was a surprisingly low-key affair on a day cruise with minimal food and drinks.
The father, who I remembered as being rude and elitist sure enough, hadn’t changed a bit as he insulted the staff and demanded more food; after all, he was paying for it.
Lol, it was amusing because no one with good taste would ever brag about what they had ordered for this wedding — like the cheapest catering package possible — think cream cheese on cheap crackers with parsley mixed in by a teenage kitchen(galley) worker.
Another wedding in New Zealand had some mysterious technical problems. Strangely, it was a religious wedding, and at first, the speakers wouldn’t work, and then later, scratchy, white noise and some kind of scary deep voice echoed from the speakers.
Later, the wind blew over the large umbrellas, breaking glasses and damaging one of the tables, not to mention sending plates and napkins flying everywhere.
I had to cringe as I know a lot of Christians and how all of this would have seemed like a potential spiritual attack or demonic presence- not just some bad electronic luck or pesky weather.
Weddings are a time of heightened emotions, but amazingly I never saw a volatile bride, groom, or even immediate family. Usually, if there was a problem, it was with a distant uncle or co-worker.
At one wedding, I watched an older man grow increasingly agitated every fifteen minutes. I don’t know if it was alcohol-related, but what started as annoyance toward his young adult daughter later turned into full-on yelling about nothing.
It amazed me why someone would get so upset at an event where all he was obligated to do was eat, drink, and dance if he felt like it.
The Ugly
Hands down, the worst wedding experience ever didn’t start out so badly, but by 9 pm was a disaster. The bride and groom met on Saint Patrick’s Day and caught each other’s attention from across a crowded bar by dancing on tables and tops.
Years later, not much had changed, and their friends and co-workers had the same hard-partying mentality. The first offense was guests grabbing the female server’s butts as they walked by.
Gross but also especially vial because some of these ladies were maybe 17 or 18. A guy in the butt-grapping crew got very drunk and decided it was time to go home.
While speeches and laughter filled the dining hall, he got in his car and hit at least three cars in the parking lot before some fellow guests heard the smashing of metal and breaking glass.
A few men managed to get the guy out of the car and call the police. As well, some people weren’t able to drive their vehicles home that night, to say the least.
The Best
My husband’s cousin’s wedding! Picture Seville, hot summer heat, a beautiful catholic service in a traditional church with lots of gold and many statues. Later bus coaches took us to the most gorgeous southern Andalusian wedding event center.
Buffet tables lined a walkway filled with traditional Spanish food and wedding favorites. A tray of vegan tapas brought to us one tapa more tasty than the next.
Later there was a sit-down multi-course dinner and then dancing — oh, the dancing! It was amazing not only people getting down to old and new hits but a special presentation by the bridal parties of an authentic Sevillano dance.
Later we sang songs and watched a slide show of my husband’s cousin(my husband was in a few shots) and the groom as children.
If that wasn’t enough, there was plenty of beer and wine, a photo booth with hilarious props for memorable party photos, large words like LOVE to take photos with, and a decorative travel-themed table to leave thank you notes.
We still talk about this wedding to this day every time we visit the cousins in Seville.
The Bestest!
My wedding! Tiny, a throwback to the 1950s with a quick reception in a shin-length white dress with a white blazer, beautiful flowers, some vegan cupcakes, well wishes, and then off to Cuba for our honeymoon.
For someone who loves weddings and all the planning and grandiosity of the events, this wedding may seem quaint- but it was perfect!
