Wedding disasters I have known - Jan 24, 2012

Don’t be late!

Back in my early days in the wedding car business I had a civil wedding to do at 1130 on a Saturday morning at the Register Office in Guildford. Being a civil wedding the Bride and Groom have to be there 15 minutes early for a final interview with the Registrar. I arrived nice and early at the house to find no one ready and everyone in a state of panic. After a while I had to tell the bride everyone needed to sort themselves out quite quickly only to be told “we will be ready when we are and not before”. Some time passed and I had to say that at this rate we would be very late. I was told in no uncertain terms to disappear “I can be late if I want to, it’s my wedding”. I simply said I would wait in the car until they were ready. “Good” they said.

I waited and waited in the car. Finally the bride came out and I got her into the car as quickly as possible and drove like the wind to Artington House arriving at 1155 to be greeted by a very annoyed registrar’s assistant. She said that they would not be able to marry her as she was so late and the 1200 wedding was just about to start (in those days weddings were every 30 minutes) but if she came back at 1545 they could marry her at 1600 as it was the only vacancy available. Needless to say I wanted to say ‘I kept telling you not to be late’, but of course I didn’t.

With the wedding off until 1600 I took her to the reception. So it was my only wedding where the reception came before the wedding!!

Trust your driver

Moral:  Don’t be late, trust your driver he will have done hundreds of weddings, yours will be your only one.

Who let the dog out??

Great song but they should have kept the dogs in the garden. A lovely wedding day, everyone happy, ready ahead of time and all going well until….someone went out of the back door to fetch something and left the door open. The dogs, very excited with all that was going on in the house, rushed in and you’ve guessed it…paw prints all over the dress.

The immediate reaction is panic and a wet sponge. Fortunately the driver managed to stop a problem becoming a total disaster. Water on a wedding dress will leave water marks and just spread the mud all over it. He asked for a hair dryer and a tooth brush. Having carefully dried the mud and using the toothbrush he managed to remove it leaving just the faintest of marks which unless you got down on your hands and knees would have been hard put to see.

Saved by the driver.

Moral:  if you have dogs at home get a friend to look after them thus avoiding a potential disaster.

Dress too big?

This time not a real disaster, just a small problem.

As usual I turned up at the bride’s house a little early and knocked on the door to be greeted by the bride dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Here was me thinking this wedding is going to be called off but no, the bride was smiling. She invited me in and directed me to the lounge where they whole family and bridesmaids were all dressed and ready, quietly sipping champagne.

The next thing was the lounge door opened and there stood the bride dressed in just her underwear carrying a huge dress that stood up on its own.

David, she said, I have been waiting for you to come as you are the only one we know tall enough to help me put my dress on. OK I replied no problem at all, come with me. I led her out into the hallway climbed up four or five stairs and just gently lowered it over her head – done. Oh heck why did we not think of that? Said the bride. Glad you didn’t thought I.

The rest of the day went off without a hitch and the dress fitted into the wedding car OK.

Saved by the driver

Moral:  Always buy a very large dress and get a tall driver to help you put it on!!!

These pictures are from a photo shoot for Fetcham Park, a new wedding venue. The wedding car, a 1962 Bentley S2 ’Rebecca‘, is ours

Photos courtesy of: efc photography

Dress (or lack of it) by: Miss Bush Bridal Wear

Model: Gemma

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