Your Best (Worst?) Wedding Wardrobe Malfunctions

Well of course this week’s great sharing of wedding wardrobe malfunctions was going to be cringe-worthy, in the best possible way. Every kind of sartorial disaster you could imagine, and several thousand (rough count) you couldn’t, have befallen, you, our beloved brides. If you’re anything like me, buckle in, pop a Xanax and enjoy the ride.

Wonder Womaaahn‘s story is one half of a bookend set of bodily-fluids-gone-wild stories we have today.

My second wedding, a beautiful Donna Karen satin gown (40’s boudoir), presided over by our Rabbi friend. As Jewish tradition dictates, we retreated from the wedding to “consecrate” our vows. In the old times, it was for the groom to verify the bride’s virginity, but as we had our children from previous marriages involved, it was just absurd. Except that we decided to go for it…instead of eating cheese and drinking champagne, we had mad, hot sex on the floor of a tiny room, about 15 feet from the guests. The issue was when we walked out and my maid of honor gasped and pulled me back into the room – I had “him” all over my dress, looking like I either sneezed or barfed on my inner thigh area (ah silk). And when I said,”It’s ok, I spilled champagne,” she said, “No, the sliding door had been partially left open, we heard it all.” The entire wedding, our parents, grandparents, relatives and (cringe) children heard us, as we awkwardly said things like “This was easier when we did it in the car last week, but who cares – let’s go for it, HUSBAND!” As my coworker (ugh) said later, “it’s obvious you two love each other, so that’s good.”

In this double dress fiasco, IWasSayingBoourner demonstrates that you can always learn something new about your partner.

We very narrowly averted one. We didn’t realize until the morning of that Mrs. Boourner’s dress was transparent, and also we didn’t realize until the morning of that she was colorblind, so she’d signed off on two different shades of blue for her bridesmaids’ dresses, and in the meantime my aunt was trying to find a store that was open so she could buy the bride a slip, and I was trying to see if she was okay but my little sister was determined not to let me see the bride before the ceremony no matter what and was physically blocking me even though she weighs like a hundred pounds.

Poor Cate-Soup got caught up in some lanterns.

For my wedding I had decided to have the center aisle lined with ivory silk rose petals and brass lanterns containing electric (thank God) candles. I tasked my dad with placing the lanterns, telling him to leave room for us to walk. Apparently he didn’t take my dress in to account. As I started down the aisle, I knocked the first two lanterns over. I adjusted how I was walking, and missed the rest of the lanterns. My skirt was lace though, so the lanterns stuck to it, and I wound up dragging them halfway down the aisle. One of my friends rescued them from my skirt and put them back, but when my husband and I walked out of the sanctuary, I made sure to hold my skirt up.

While KC got caught up in her mother-in-law. YIKES.

Along the lines of hugs causing issues… I had a very lacy dress and when my new Mother-In-Law swooped in for a big hug immediately after the ceremony her earring got caught on my dress. It was a good two to three minutes of struggling out of that one without tearing the lace. But, I’m one of those who tossed my wedding pics after the divorce so I don’t have a picture to share :p

Then there was Mia Thompson, who got caught up in own dress when it gained sentience and attacked her ankles.

I got married in 1985. The hair was big, and the dresses were bigger. Think Princess Diana. Yikes. Anyway, my voluminous dress had an equally voluminous slip. Around the bottom of the slip were several strips of lace. You would think, considering how expensive the damn thing was, that it would be well made. You would be wrong. As I was walking from the car to the back of the church, a strip of lace came loose and with every step wound itself around my ankles until I could only take steps of a couple of inches. Scissors, anyone? That would be a no. So one of my resourceful bridesmaids lit a cigarette in flagrant violation of the church rules and held it up to the yards of lace now binding my ankles and burned the sucker clean through. Problem solved. At least for a few minutes.

We hustled to get in position for my big moment, and in the process a second strip of lace came loose and again began winding around my ankles. My walk down the aisle got progressively slower. My step-father leaned over and asked me if I was having second thoughts. “You can still get out of this,” he said. I tried to explain to him what was happening while maintaining a frozen, bride-like smile, but he didn’t really get what I was saying. Finally we made it to the altar where Mr. Mia was waiting. At the top of four stairs. That I could not lift my legs high enough to climb. I looked at Mr. Mia completely panicked and gestured for him to come get me. This was not part of the rehearsal, and I am not a spontaneous person, so he was thoroughly confused. He mouthed “What’s wrong?” Totally not giving a shit at this point, I blurted out in front of my priest, God and everybody, “MY FUCKING SLIP IS TIED AROUND MY ANKLES AND I CAN’T FUCKING WALK!” He basically held me under the elbow while I hopped up the stairs.

Later I got my period and it took all five bridesmaids to hold up the damn dress so I could put in a tampon. When the reception was over, I took the damn dress off, rolled in it a ball and threw it in a corner. Should have fucking eloped.

In what will be a surprise to no one who read through the comments, the Comment of the Week goes to Dorothy Zbornak and her unfortunately loose bowels:

Thankfully this was *before* I got ready, but it was humiliating. I was a ball of nerves on my wedding day (aren’t we all?) and had only coffee in my system during my hair appointment. One of my bridesmaids drove with me to my parents’ house where I was getting ready, and I let one slip. Only it wasn’t just a cute little gas situation. It was a full-on shart. A 33-year-old grown ass woman sharting up her favorite pair of purple undies.

My amazing mom helped me clean them and handwashed them since the only other undies I had were the blue ones I wore under my wedding dress and I was so afraid of sharting more, I didn’t put them on until right before I put on my dress. All of my after clothes were at our hotel so the only thing to save my jeans until then were a really old pair of my mom’s underwear.

(I want to apologize also, for using the word shart so damn much, but this felt good to get off my chest.)

Programming Note: Maybe you’re wondering where all the period disaster stories and tales of brides who set themselves on fire. I saw them, I promise! Due to the popularity of this series, we’re going to expand it in order to feature more of your great experiences. Those two examples aren’t there by accident—my goodness, a lot of you set yourselves on fire!—look out for posts featuring thematically clustered tales; they will not, however, replace our Tuesday/Thursday Pop The Question fun. If you’ve got topic ideas or stories to share, please email me at [email protected]. —JK