I don't know if you could even call this a wedding, maybe legally I guess.
So I was actually one of only two bridesmaids in this "wedding" The bride was the cousin of my then boyfriend and we were pretty close. The only other bridesmaid was the groom's sister.
The bride told us we could stay with her as she had a guest room for us and I was excited.
It got trashy wayyy before the wedding as we were riding there in the father of the bride's car, my boyfriend's uncle. We had to ride in the back of this two door car with all the luggage and his uncle's aggressive dog.
Medium sized dog but it still wasn't fun to get growled at constantly during the 8 hour drive down to the wedding. Uncle had the windows down (in frigid winter) so he could smoke, and he was blasting music the whole time.
Needless to say I did not have a good car ride there and was looking forward to just going to my room once we arrived and resting for the night.
We get there at 9pm. No one is home. We call the bride who tells us that she is out shopping for a wedding dress because the one she bought from China didn't fit her. It's about two days before the wedding and she waited until then to try it on.
She didn't get home until 10:30pm and remember it's winter and freezing out so our choices were to stay in the cramped car or sit outside in the cold. She never apologized for making us wait.
We're also starving because my ex's uncle refused to stop anywhere for food because "it wouldn't be right to eat in front of the dog" and he wanted to wait to feed her until we got inside the house
Then bride then tells us for the first time that we will be sharing the guest room with 3 other people, my boyfriend's uncle, a different cousin, and the other bridesmaid.
And we had to sleep on the floor. And we had to buy our own blankets because she didn't have enough for us. And it was freezing in the room because the house had an ineffective heating system.
Something else that's pretty important by the way is that the bride lives in a very small isolated town, with the closest shops being a Walmart and an Applebee's that is about 10 minutes away. And this was before Uber or Lyft existed and there were no local cabs.
I just want this wedding to be over with because I'm already done with this shit. But it gets worse.
Ex's uncle wants us to pay him for him taking us to the wedding. We didn't think it made sense because riding with him sucked and it was his daughters wedding so it wasn't like he was going out of his way to do us a favor.
But we didn't want to cause any problems so we agreed to pay him and handed him the money but explained to him that we wouldn't be riding back home with him so we're only paying him for one way ride.
He wanted like 200 bucks total I think and we just said screw it, we'll pay 100 and then just take a train back home.
Uncle gets super offended that we don't want to ride back home with him, yells and swears at us, throws our money in our faces and then tells us that we aren't allowed in his car anymore.
At that point we were at the Walmart so now we don't have a ride back to the bride's house and her fiance took the car when she got home to grab something. So we had to wait about an hour for him to come and pick us up from Walmart and drive us back to their house.
The next couple of days were super awkward and uncomfortable as we had to spend the night in the same room as the uncle (who later asked for the money back that he threw in our faces), and the whole house got involved in the "drama" of us not wanting to ride home with him.
Bride is pissed of at us and thinks we're the problem.
At this point I'm dying to just have a little fun at this wedding, be there for the bride, and then gtfo of there.
So I help her set up the night before the wedding. she rented out some super old moldy clubhouse looking place that has a moderately sized empty space, a kitchen area with a fridge and one unisex bathroom.
We are setting up plastic tables and chairs and this is where I start to get a bit worried but I don't want to judge what someone can or can't afford for their wedding.
Bride admits she doesn't have any flowers or a bouquet so I literally make her one with origami flowers and decorate the tables with them. I try to make sure she has everything she needs for the wedding, which is the next day.
So wedding is here, they have no one to officiate it. So we go to the local courthouse to get it done. Then we go to the "reception" at that really old small clubhouse place. The people who show up are pretty much the definition of trashy and are already drunk.
There is no refreshments, no alcohol, and no food. One of the bride's relatives brought a homemade eclair cake that was way too small for everyone to share.
When it comes time for the "vows" there are none. Bride had told me she had some silly ones planned like "I promise not to walk in front of the tv while you're watching it" But I don't think she ever said any.
They did a sand ceremony where each one pours in a little bit of salt into a glass jar. That was probably the nicest part about the whole thing but the problem was her and the groom were just muttering things to each other while doing it.
And I mean muttering. The room was small and no one could hear what was being said so we all just sort of sat in awkward silence as they did their thing.
They could have been saying vows but honestly they both looked so uncomfortable, they could have honestly just been fighting the whole time.
There was no photographer, no alter, no decorations besides my origami flowers. There was no music throughout the whole thing and no dancing.
I get that some people don't like to dance and that's fine but I thought there would at least be some background music playing for ambiance or something.
But no, nothing. We sat around for hours after that in silence and none of the guests were very friendly so it was really awkward.
Then she says that the wedding party is going to go out to dinner. We go to olive garden which is 45 minutes away and is the nearest restaurant besides the aforementioned Applebee's.
Bride and groom didn't reserve any tables for us so we had to wait an additional 30 minutes after we got there for them to find us all seating.
I kind of thought maybe the bride and groom would pay for the meal but of course they requested separate checks for everyone.
Then after we get home, bride and groom invite their trashy friends over to their house to party. That was when me and my then boyfriend got the hell out of there.
We had to use our phones to purchase train tickets, had the groom drive us to the train station, and finally relaxed for the first time in days.
Honestly being in that train felt like luxury compared to what we just went through. We paid around 260 dollars for both of our tickets combined and it was worth every penny.
The bride and groom divorced about a year later and I still cannot believe I ever even went to that thing. It's one of my biggest regrets.