Trolls and The Wedding From Hell...

I don’t even know where to begin other than to say – WTH! I hadn’t planned on posting this, but the more I think about it, the more worked up I’m getting and I think the world needs to know that there are selfish trolls amongst us.

This past weekend, we (J’s entire family) had the pleasure of attending the most chaotic wedding EVER.

I don’t know what people are thinking or in most cases – not thinking. I’m trying to understand where bad behavior comes from. Is it a learned response or is the under 30 generation to blame for their self-entitlement attitude and inconsideration for others? I’d like to believe it is a learned response and that the entire generation is not made up of “self-absorbed, whiney, the world owes me so much and I don’t want to work for it morons”.

Let’s start by saying that J’s niece got married. If we could overlook the fact that the groom is “a piece of work”, it should have been a wonderful family moment. Unfortunately, it turned into mayhem, tears, more mayhem, near disasters, more tears, some shouting, a near heart attack and let’s not forget – sore feet.

A little background – the wedding couple are supposedly “poor”. I use poor loosely since they seem to have money to spend frivolously on other things, except for their own wedding, but then again why would they spend their money when they have obvious suckers for friends and family who’d be more than willing to spend their time and money to throw the “lazy-ass” couple their own wedding.

A year ago when the happy couple announced they were first getting married, J’s brother (the father of the bride) offered to cook and cater the “intimate” wedding for 50. When he agreed, it was also thought, the wedding would be held locally, so J’s parents (the grandparents of the bride) agreed to help their son, throw their granddaughter a wonderful intimate wedding.

Fast forward to 6 months ago – the venue changed from locally to 4 hours away. Father and grandparents of the bride feel sorry for the bride-to-be because she is “poor” and can’t afford the wedding of her dreams, so they still agree to cater her wedding, which has now turned from intimate to 180 people…4 hours away from where they live. Here’s where the phrase “no way in hell” would have came in handy.

Fast forward to last week, father and grandparents of the bride spend 2 days shopping and another 2 days prepping, cutting, cooking over 10 roasts, gravies and sauces, buckets of potatoes and buckets and buckets of salads. Then, they were required to load the mega amount of food into their van and then drive 4 hours away the day before the wedding to get everything put into the venue that would host the wedding from hell.

Fast forward to Saturday (aka the day of the wedding from hell). Where to begin?

• The “minister” was 45 minutes late. Apparently he wrote the wrong time down, so when he received a frantic call, he immediately raced to the venue. He must have been in such a hurry to get started, that he forgot to take his gum out of his mouth, so we had to watch while he smacked and chomped away through the entire ceremony. I guess that’s not so bad, considering he also kept referring to the bride by her nickname and not her actual name.

• Once the wedding procession started down the aisle, it was a race to the finish. They were moving so fast, cameras could not focus fast enough to get photos. Once again, not the most awkward moment – no, that time came when the groom thought it appropriate to high five every member of the bridal party (and yell boo-yah) when they reached the front of the hall. Tacky? Absolutely. But wait, the bride and groom also thought it was totally appropriate to high five once they were pronounced “man and wife”. Tacky? Wait, we agreed it was.

• Drinks and snacks were to be served at starting at 5:30. Seems that no one initially knew who was supplying the snacks, but after some confusion, we started just throwing some stuff on platter and putting it out.

I should take a moment to explain, the “we”. As much as it was J’s brother and parents’ idea to cater this thing, we (aka J’s sister, J, the Boy and myself) couldn’t hang those 3 family members out to dry, so we stepped in and started schlepping food, drink, setting tables, etc., etc. for 180 people.

• It is “alleged” that “helpers” were apparently hired and on their way to assist with the meal service, so the family members could actually sit down and enjoy the event; however by the time the meal was ready, no servers were present. What does that mean? My theory is that the groom purposely did not hire them. Why pay for help when your bride’s family will do it, right? It’s a good thing I have years of wait service under my belt, The Boy had a year of culinary management.

• J’s mother had few too many meltdowns throughout the day, as she does not work well under pressure. For obvious reasons, she had a personal stake in this day and then couldn’t even enjoy it.

• J’s dad, having undergone triple by-pass in the Spring has never fully recovered and the stress of the day overwhelmed him. Shortly after supper was served, he began experiencing chest pains, but he would not tell anyone that he had forgotten his nitroglycerin medication at the hotel. I had saw J’s dad clenching his chest, but instead of telling J’s mom the reason why, we had simply said he wasn’t feeling well.

• J’s mother got royally upset with all of us because we insisted that she needed to leave because J’s dad wasn’t well. She started yelling at us and was upset because we all ruined her day. Excuse me? Yeah, I was behaving and bit my tongue on that one.

• Finally, J was able to wrangle his parents back to the hotel. En route, apparently J’s mom was complaining at J’s dad that she had to leave, how it wasn’t fair to her, blah, blah, blah. I guess J’s dad then snapped and told her, he had to leave because he was having chest pains. Apparently that shut her up and then she was as nice as pie. Stress – it does stupid things to people.

The “piece de resistance” came during the speeches. Everyone, EXCEPT the family of the bride were thanked for the contributions to the couple’s special day. At this point in time, I was too exhausted to care and was grateful that J’s parents had left because that surely would have sent them both over the edge...and to emergency.

It’s sad. I believe it wasn’t done intentionally, I just get the feeling that their generation is out of touch with reality or the people around them. Feelings of others don’t matter. As long as they get what they want, when they want it, their life is complete.  Trolls...the world is full of them.

I wish them the best in married life, but in all honestly, I could care less I ever spent another family gathering with either of them.

Rant over…I feel better now.