This wedding's a washout

Photo / Bay of Plenty Times

It's supposed to be the happiest day of your life, but for some unlucky couples the long-awaited dream wedding can become a nightmare.

Auckland wedding celebrant Peta Hardley has seen everything - from the groom drinking too much, to the bride turning up two hours late, to the happy couple not being able to use the signing table as it had the unconscious body of a drunk guest sprawled across it.

One of the worst was when a family member was run over on his way to the church.

"My daughter, a wedding photographer, witnessed the uncle of a bride get hit by a car just as he was running across the road to beat the bride into the church," Hardley said. "He was all right but was taken off in an ambulance. The ceremony continued but with a very shaky tear-stained bride."

Celebrant Constance Brown said she has attended weddings where one or two of the guests have collapsed and had ambulances called for them.

"It's very stressful, of course, but in each case the couple and their family and friends have rallied and worked together to sort things out."

Emails from wedding guests have told of brides who got drunk and threw up during the reception, venues that cancelled a few days before the ceremony, a family member passing away the day before the wedding and, sadly, a family member who suffered a heart attack while at the wedding.

Online blogs are full of wedding horror stories, including this one on www.fmylife.com:

"Today, I found my two best friends making out with each other. Not a big deal, right? Wrong. Today was my wedding day. One of the friends was my maid of honour, the other was my groom."

Auckland-based photographer Nicola Topping attended a wedding where a specially-ordered British black cab didn't show up to take the bride to the venue - because the company had gone out of business.

"She was from the UK and it was the one thing she really, really wanted because it was the only British aspect of her wedding," said Topping.

"Instead she had to drive herself to her wedding in a Rav, which wasn't exactly what she had in mind."

And sometimes, it's not even at the wedding where things can start to go terribly wrong.

An Auckland-based student, who did not want to be named, said at her engagement party a close male friend showed up drunk and proceeded to flirt with her mother.

"The climax of the night was when he got up on the dance floor and pulled down his pants to flash everyone," she said.