Wedding season is in full swing, but chances are some of the currently-engaged couples won't even make it to their vows. In fact, according to a survey conducted by specialist diamond buyers WP Diamonds, who polled 1,000 people between the ages of 20 and 60 across the US, this happens a whopping 20 percent of the time. So in order to find out why folks untie the knot, let's take a look at a Reddit post that asked its users to share the exact moment they realized there won't be a ceremony.

#1

Not at bacheler party,though my uncle got left at alter on his wedding day.(5yrs relationship)
My grandad had to go up on alter, thank everyone for coming and say there would be no wedding.
My uncle was heartbroken and went on a trip to New Zealand.
He sat on plane next to a dude from there. He invited him to his familys home. And my uncle ended up marrying his sister.
They are still together and have had 3 kids.
She is awsome and all happy days, eldest child 21 yrs.

Best Aunt.

Image credits: Betty5boop

#2

Here is a more upbeat story: the night before their city hall wedding, the bride and groom had separate big parties and got so wasted they both slept through the wedding. They didn't realize it until city hall called asking where they were, and they decided f**k it we'll do it later. They did eventually get married, and still are as far as I know, over 20 years later.

Image credits: khendron

#3

There's a story that goes around, I can't vouch for the truth of it or not. Call it an urban legend.

First of all, if you've never been to a Jewish wedding, the way it goes is, first they have the reception (with the bride and groom in separate rooms), then the ceremony, then family goes away to sit for pictures while the guests sit down to eat, then the bride and groom come in and the dancing starts. In between the ceremony and the pictures, though, is what's called "Yichud" which doesn't really translate, but it approximately means "isolation together": the bride and groom lock themselves in a room and are observed by two reliable witnesses outside the door to have stayed therein long enough to have consummated the marriage (although nobody actually does it there: it's considered declasse). This is what actually solemnizes the marriage. (well, one of three things: the other two are signing a marriage contract, called a Ketubah, and transfer of a piece of chattel property (traditionally a ring, though it can be other things) from the groom to the bride.)

So. After the yichud, the bride comes out and announces, "Sorry everyone, the wedding's off. We'll be getting a divorce, and we're returning all the gifts . . . except for the bedroom set, where I caught my new husband trying it out with my sister last week."

So? There are far worse stories here in this very thread. What makes this one noteworthy? Well, think about this. She knew about the episode before the wedding. Why'd she go through with it? Because under Jewish law, if you've once been married to a woman, even after divorcing her you aren't allowed to marry her sister at any time until your first wife has died. By going through with the ceremony, she in effect locked her sister out of ever being able to get together with her soon-to-be-ex...

Image credits: ShalomRPh

#4

College friend was to get married to a guy she had only known for 4 months. She found out where the bachelor party was and wandered in to find the groom getting some head - from the best man.

Image credits: anon

#5

While the working the night before a wedding at a hotel, the staff and I heard a loud scream from upstairs. Cue the bride screaming and sobbing shouting "The weddings off!!!" while storming out the place followed by the groom stark b*****k naked covering his nether regions with his hands apologising profusely. Turns out she caught the mother of the bride and the groom shagging. Safe to say we had an easy shift the next day as we didn't have a wedding to cater for.

Image credits: Shockwavepulsar

#6

One of my best friend's wedding was cancelled when he learned she slept with a stripper after her bachelorette party. Like three days after.

He is happily remarried now with a kid.

Worst part was that it was a destination wedding/honeymoon and he couldn't get a refund so we all went anyway and he was super depressed the whole time. His family was all there too.

Image credits: slightlydainbramaged

#7

Bachelor party in Vegas.. Bachelor hooks up with a girl, gives her his cell phone number so they can continue the party that night.. Bride to be is sitting at home with the iPad getting all of the iMessages from the girl. She canceled the wedding that day.

Image credits: hfi

#8

This happened to my cousin. Apparently she was having a destination wedding down in the keys. Her fiance booked the flights for her parents and herself, but "forgot" his wallet and would take the next flight.

He never showed up, he never booked the hotel or the restaurant. He checked himself into a mental institution back home.

Image credits: j42justin

#9

Obligatory not me. I worked at a music venue in the Detroit area that was also a popular wedding reception location. Came into work one week in the fall, when pretty much every weekend is booked solid with weddings, and noticed Saturday was open, no one scheduled. Talked to the wedding planner, she tells me the groom cancelled... Odd. Talk to wedding planners younger brother, who was our head bar back.

He tells me that the groom, excited for the wedding, left work at lunch on Friday, bought a nice bottle of wine, and headed home to surprise his bride to be. Except, he was the one in for a surprise, as he walked into his new house to hear sounds coming from their bedroom.

He walked in to find his bride in bed with another man... His dad.

We tried to talk him into doing a big f**k you party because we'd never fill the space and there was no refund, but he declined.

Image credits: cornnndog

#10

As work related case we had this one accident. Bachelor part group were drinking heavily and middle of the night they get this great idea to try drive up skiing slopes during summer time. The slopes were very steep and their car came down rolling for 80 meters down the slopes. Groom got taken to hospital by helicopter and spend his supposed to be wedding day in tubes.

Image credits: Roynalf

#11

This ex-friend of mine (who has a daughter with another woman) was at his wedding reception with his new wife. While dancing, she said he should forget about his daughter. He thought she may be kidding and forgot about it. Later on, she told him again to forget about his daughter because she could give him as many kids as he wanted. He got super angry, told everyone to get the f**k out, party was over. The bride didn't know what the f**k happened, but he was already gone. He went to see the bride a week after, just to return the ring the bride's family gave him. He never spoke to her again.

Image credits: OshiiCat

#12

Several years ago, I got a phone call from the maid of honor for a wedding I was going to attend (as a guest) two weeks hence. She was flustered, but managed to get out "There's no wedding, Groom called it off. He's in love with someone else."

Well, I didn't press. I was friends with both, so I knew that the full details would eventually make their way back to me.

Oh, and boy did they...

Turns out, a couple weeks before the wedding, Groom called Bride and said he was coming over. They needed to talk. When he got to her apartment, he broke down in tears and confessed that he was in love with someone else. He loved her, but couldn't marry her because he didn't love her in the way a bride deserves.

There was much crying and shouting over it all, but eventually the bride recovered from the news enough to ask him who he was in love with.

"Well," Groom said, "it's [Bride's Brother]."

The wedding was definitely off at that point. Now, five or six years later, Groom and Bride's Brother are married and happy. Though, I lost contact with Bride shortly after her wedding plans went tits up, so I'm not sure if she ever forgave the boys for that one.

Image credits: NexysVI

#13

I'm a musician. I work on an infamous street for drunken revelry and debauchery. One night, a bachelor party came in around the same time as a bachelorette party. The show I work with does special things like funny songs for special events, so I bring them both up at the same time to do something special. In the middle of this, on stage, they start making out. And they Do. Not. Stop. I finish my routine as best I can and get them offstage.

Later, as I'm looking around the audience, my eye catches on them again. They're in the back corner just going at it ,
while their respective parties hang out up near the front of the stage. And they are really getting into it. Hands down pants and up skirts. At some point they disappear. I take a break and head to the restroom. It's locked. I hear a woman screaming from within. Not moaning, not sighing. Screaming "f**k me harder!!!" I sit in the lounge area outside the bathroom for about 10 mins. The bachelor and bachelorette come out, looking a bit disheveled, but not too bad. They see me, and immediately want to chat (for some reason, people always want to get to know the musicians here.) there's curiously no guilt on them at all. I have to p**s like a race horse, but this is too good to pass up.

Come to find out, they both are getting married to other people, but know each other from having lived in the same small town of about 5,000 all their lives. They ran into each other for the first time since high school graduation at our bar and old feelings emerged that neither had ever attempted to act on. They don't stay long, and as they leave I hear the bachelor say "I have my own room, let's go there." The rest of the party stays till the show is over, partying hard and having fun. Possibly the best bachelor/bachelorette parties I've had. (Usually bachelor parties get too drunk and bachelorette parties devolve into crying fits and arguments)

Anywho, I wind up seeing the "bachelor" and "bachelorette" together at our bar and out in the street every night for 4 nights. Always holding hands and/or getting frisky.

They came back a little over a year later. They got married here in our town to each other instead of who they were engaged to that fateful night. Most of their respective bachelor/bachelorette show up for the event.

With this story, I always feel torn. Did I participate in the destruction of two relationships, or did I facilitate the meeting of two soulmates?

Image credits: Slowhandpoet

#14

Had a weekend of golf planned a couple weeks before the wedding as his Bachelor party. His fiancee drops him and cancels the wedding. We all still went golfing and had a great time. Ended up being the first of our annual golf trips. We will be on our tenth next year. One of our buddies makes a giant scorecard for our trip and always has the title real big. "Fiance name memorial golf tournament"

Image credits: drainbaby

#15

One of my dad's friends got way too drunk, left with a stripper, disappeared for a few days, and then came back dating said stripper. Eventually, he actually married the stripper and they've been together for over 20 years. They seem pretty happy too. Romance can be weird.

Image credits: hehbur

#16

A friend of mine apparently came to the realization he never wanted to get married. After the bachelor party and the hangovers he sat down and thought about it, then called his fiance and broke it off. Yeah people were pissed, but he admitted he really didn't want to get married and this was better than the divorce they were headed for.

Image credits: anon

#17

Best friends bachelor party a few years ago. He had dated his fiance for 6 or 7 years at that point. She made a male friend at work that became a groomsman. I hated him, didn't trust him and told my buddy that. The night of the party after huge amounts of alcohol the groom breaks down crying, leaves and walks home. Didn't say anything to anyone, just left. Found out the next day that the bride to be had been banging the piece of s**t groomsman for months and they were trying to work through it. He couldn't get past it and cancelled the wedding.

Image credits: americanadian78

#18

After the wedding at the reception, the newlyweds took forever to show up. They were nearly an hour late. When they did arrive they were arguing loudly the entire time. They got "introduced" and we all clapped as per tradition and they sat down at the main table in a huff.

Sometime between the appetizer and the main course the argument started again. The groom stormed off and my girlfriend and I were nosey so we went to see what was up.

He ended up in the hotel lobby on his cell phone. We thought nothing of it and we were about to go back when the wife shows up still obviously in her wedding dress and continues to ream him out.

Now for the first time, we can hear what the argument is about. He had invited his ex to the wedding. She showed up to the ceremony and that through the bride off. Apparently also...he had cheated on the new wife with the ex-girlfriend several times with the last time being only about a month prior to the wedding.

..additionally...the ex/girlfriend/mistress was on her way to come pick up the new husband to take him away from the new bride...cause she was "Acting crazy." according to the groom.

After a couple minutes of watching this train wreck of an argument, a s**tty rust bucket sedan shows up with the ex-girlfriend in it. The groom gets into the car with his ex or whatever the f**k she is and they drive off.

Last words went to the bride though who screamed at him as he tore off, "Well I guess I'm going to go back to f*****g your brother then you a*****e!"


Sooooo....they're no longer married now...

Image credits: aussydog

#19

My cousin runs a popular upscale marriage venue and always tells the story way better than this so here is a rough overview. The groom's mom was a heavy drinker and got belligerent when she drank so understandably the bride wanted the groom to try to limit her drinking. The afternoon before the wedding the bride arrives to see groom's mom smashed with the groom himself giving her beers. Next thing my cousin knows (she was there to oversee preparations) the bride and groom are in a straight up fist fight which leads to an Anchorman-style street fight between members of both families in the parking lot.

Apparently they recently scheduled a new day for it. I can't imagine the tension there.

Image credits: zacktyzwyz

#20

I've got a pretty good one. Not mine, but a friend of my wife. Destination wedding in South America (we live in the U.S.).

Because it was a destination wedding, they both had their bachelor/bachelorette down there. Bride to be went looking for the groom the night before the wedding. No one knew where he was...eventually found the dude locked in a bathroom with some local girl doing coke.

Bride was obviously pissed, but they went through with the wedding.

Cut to a few years later, we randomly went out to dinner with just me and my wife with the bride...turns out she never mailed in the wedding certificate. All this time they haven't been married.

She said she had too many red flags to go through with it. Dude has no idea they aren't really married, even though they have been married for years and have two kids together!

Image credits: Robot_Warrior

#21

Buddy of mine went out night before wedding. Crashed his car and died. They dated for like 5 yrs and the morning of the wedding, he was dead.

Image credits: tech_kra

#22

Friend invites me to his wedding. He and fiance are fairly poor, have lived together for years.

They're both semi-disabled (his is PTSD, hers is physical) and on fixed incomes, and live in a somewhat expensive area.

They have three gift registries (Target, Macy's, Crate & Barrel) and a HUGE invite list - over 300 friends/family members. All the stuff on the registries is standard stuff like towels, coffee cups, flatware, etc.

Anyway, people fly out, get ready for wedding, two days before wedding is Bachelor party and friend gets drunk and admits that she's not really his fiance, they are just roommates and they have no intention of getting married they just needed the stuff. They're going to cancel the wedding tomorrow and keep all the gifts.

Had to protect him from getting his a*s kicked by about two dozen people. Then had to have the fiance come clean to everyone since he was too hungover.

They ended up returning most of the gifts to people - but a surprising number of people let them keep the gifts. As his grandfather said "If you needed these things that badly to lie like this, you must have been very desperate."

Image credits: gaqua

#23

A guy i somewhat knew from working on a site (construction) ended up getting drunk at a bachelor party and driving a side by side (basically overpowered offroad gocart/golfcart things) he ended up rolling it and not only paralyzing the groom but also killing the best man. Hes facing a lot of charges and it basically crushed his entire self. He wasnt a bad guy or anything. Just made one stupid decision that ruined 3 lives for good.

#24

Sister of the groom chatted with the sister of the bride. Just casual conversation but it came to light that almost 100% of what the bride had said besides her name was a complete lie. Sister of the groom calls him up and says he really needs to figure out if this is right. A few fights and some long thinking later the groom leaves her and leaves town.

It got worse though, turns out pretty much all the bride's friends had been lied to as well. They all stopped talking to her.

Image credits: anon

#25

My friend had a cousin that he was getting married. The night before the wedding day we were invited at a pub with a stripper. We were like 50 men there. When the stripper showed up, we realized it was the wife's sister. The family was in a terrible mood so the wedding was canceled. They got married a month later.

Image credits: JimmyJim10

#26

Neighbor's ~~friends~~ jealous harpy frenemies convinced her to cheat on the Husband-to-be at the Bachelorette party. Her friends were very drunk and SnapChatted evidence to him as "a joke." Obviously, he didn't take it that well and left her. Packed up all his things in their apartment and drove to his parents instead if getting married. Bride apparently didn't leave her room for about 3 weeks, totally distraught with how her relationship fell apart.

Fast forward 6 months later, the two are talking again. Not sure if they are trying to make things work.

Image credits: dlang17

#27

Paramedic. Bachlor party mixed with drunk driving, one of the groomsman killed. Believe the entire wedding was canceled and the couple split up.

Image credits: Alpha1998

#28

A week before his wedding a friend of mine walked in on his dad having sex with his Fiancée. The next day in a fit of rage he trashed their room and in the process found explicit love letters between his recently married best friend (and best man) in her underwear drawer. The letters were as recent as the past week. The wedding was cancelled. Whenever I ran into him at a bar I made sure he never had to buy his own drinks.

Image credits: Stopikingonme

#29

One week before the wedding he left for work and left a note saying he didn't want to get married and was leaving her. Turned out he was seeing somebody else and had built a load of debt. They'd been together for about 12 years, since they were teenagers.

#30

A few years ago now, I went out with a group of guy friends. We went to a few bars and ended up at one with a bachelorette party. After talking to them, I was the only married one in the group, and one of the bridesmaids was the only married one. We spent a good portion of the night talking while the rest of the group got plastered. They loaded into a van, and we followed them to their hotel to continue partying. We were playing cards when the bride and one my my friends wanted to go get more booze. They left and were gone for about 30 minutes before we noticed.

Went looking for them, and they were f**king in the back of his car. They finished up and saw three of us standing there. We left and the bride went back to the room. I'm still casual friends with the bridesmaid, and the wedding didn't happen.

Image credits: excusemef**ker

#31

This happened maybe two weeks ago..
The night before the wedding groom ran out, butt naked, down the streets of an apartment complex in Eugene screaming "I'm not ready."
Long story short.. the wedding was beautiful.

#32

I used to work at a banquet hall. Wedding was cancelled because the bride caught the groom screwing one of the bridesmaid in the bridal suite.

#33

Went to buddy's bachelor party (#3 of 4 actually). Typical night of drinking downtown and hitting up all the bars we frequented in college. Two of us are single and we get separated chasing girls. Get home the next morning to find the bachelor party attendees at my house. The bachelor is in the shower. I ask the best man how the night went. He says he and the bachelor took a random chick back to his cousins place. They didn't have a plan with her but one thing led to another and the best man is nailing her while the bachelor watches, naked. He tells us, "(bachelor) was just sitting there so I told her, 'you suck that d**k' and she did." They had a crazy 3-way and the cousins wife found out, was pissed cuz it took place in her kids playroom and she told the bachelorette. Wedding off. Best/grossest part was that the bachelor was in the shower because the best man pulled out and shot his load on his arm.

Image credits: Geniifarmer

#34

Groom's ex just happened to be at the bar where we were having drinks, they hooked up, no wedding later.

Image credits: Makabajones

#35

Sort of related. An old friend ended up marrying his cousins ex-girlfriend. Ironically, the best man had also slept with her. During the wedding one of the guests who was aware of everything that went on turns to me and says, 'three people on that alter banged the bride...I'm just saying'