Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share stories of couples they know that should NOT have gotten married — here's what they had to say!*
*Along with some stories from r/WeddingShaming.
1. "At the wedding party, she stabbed a voodoo doll of him. From what I’ve heard, it’s gone downhill from there. Once she pooped on his bed (they sleep in separate beds), so he took a whiz on her wedding gown. They never liked each other before getting married either. … They actually first met when he accidentally kicked a soccer ball into her face in college. It’s a wildly unhinged relationship, and I truly cannot believe that I live on the same planet as these people."
—Anonymous
2. "I wish I was making this up, but I’m not. At my cousin’s bachelorette party, my cousin (the bride) found out that her MOH had been sleeping with her groom. They fought, but my cousin just demoted her from MOH to a bridesmaid. Fast-forward to the wedding, the replacement MOH caught the ex-MOH and groom hooking up the night before the wedding. The new MOH told the bride, but she still went through with the wedding. The ex-MOH was dancing all over the groom at the reception, which I thought was weird (but I didn’t know about the affair at the time). When she got back the wedding photos, the ex-MOH was next to the groom in every wedding party photo."
"I mentioned that it was weird to the second MOH, and then she gave me the lowdown on the whole affair. Not sure if it’s still happening or how long it lasted for, but the bride is pregnant with their third kid (since getting married five years ago). The ex-MOH is still in their lives and regularly posts pictures with the bride/groom/their kids. It all freaks me out!"
—Anonymous
3. "The groom was my friend who, at the time, was 30 and revealed he was dating his 20-year-old intern. The girl's family were all land-owning old aristocratic people, and she is easily the coldest, most miserable person I’ve ever met. She’s permanently disinterested and unenthusiastic about everything. But after a few months, thinks it probably makes sense that she moves in with her boss/boyfriend. She tells her incredibly pushy, stuck-up mother that she’s planning the move, and the mom is all, 'Why bother with that silly little phase! Cut to the chase and just get married ASAP!' My idiot friend thinks it’s a great idea because he’s basically fallen in love with their whole old-money lifestyle, summer houses in the south of France, and generally what the whole family represents."
"So a bunch of us grudgingly do the few-hours drive across England to go to their rich friend's land where the wedding is taking place. We arrive in nice dresses and heels, our guy friends in suits, hair done, lipstick, and suddenly realize that in comparison look like we’ve rolled in off the set of The Only Way Is Essex. Everyone's dressed in hemp shirts and patchwork dresses, daisies in their hair and no shoes in sight. They're all called Kitty or Titty or Pandy or Toffee. There’s a massive tent in the middle of the field, undecorated, looking like it’s on loan from Fyre Festival. We go to sit down and get this thing over with, only to find out that everyone has been separated and is being sat with complete and utter strangers. Like, couples not even allowed to sit at the same table as each other.
The mother of the bride gets up and does a month-long speech about how hot her son in law is. Someone brings out cake specifically for her to blow out the candles — no, it was not her birthday. She ends her speech by trying to marry off her four other daughters, like we’re cosplaying Pride and Prejudice now.
When asked if the bride would like to say something, she snorts and says SHE'S TOO BORED to say anything. AT HER OWN WEDDING. She has spent the whole day rolling her eyes and being surly. I ask her how she’s doing, and she shrugs.
So the groom steps up to give his speech. Which, as it turns out, is a half hour declaration of love for his mother-in-law. I am, at this point, unsure whose wedding I’ve come to. His deeply enthusiastic and adoring speech doesn’t mention his bride once.
The entertainment was her teenage cousin playing the acoustic guitar and singing really shit songs he’d written in his bedroom. Then someone donated a £50,000 firework display as a wedding gift. What does a 50k firework display look like, you ask? I can’t remember. It was that unmemorable. Having finally had enough, all of the groom's friends excused themselves early, and we all went to the pub.
And yes, they are still together. No, they are not even close to being happy."
4. "There was a couple I used to be friends with years ago who got married, and literally everyone knew it was doomed from the start. First of all, she was cheating on him with multiple guys. And I'm pretty sure he knew, but just felt like he'd never do better than her so decided to go through with it anyway. I was surprised they even made it to almost three years before getting a divorce. And she was already living with her new boyfriend in the condo she and her ex had lived in together before the divorce was even finalized."
5. "My mom married her post-divorce rebound after years of being on and off with him. In general, he was extremely controlling and hypocritical, but what really shows how unsuccessful this marriage was going to be is how he proposed. He proposed to her as a grand gesture in the middle of a relationship-ending fight with a ring he had on stand-by for whomever his future wife may be that he had gotten through questionable means during his 'gangster' days. She said yes, and they sent out save the dates to everyone. They decided to move in together (even though that hadn’t worked out previously) and had a huge fight in the process, and we ended up not moving in, and the wedding was canceled. But of course, they ended up getting back together and married."
"The marriage didn’t last a year. I was so happy to be rid of that man."
6. "My husband's best friend was with his high school girlfriend when my husband lived with him in college. She ended up cheating on him with one of his oldest friends. The two of us convinced him to move on and start seeing other people. What do you know, she comes back into his life, and they get back together. She starts getting very pushy about getting serious again quickly and getting engaged. My husband and I were really hesitant about them getting together, but our friend seemed happy, so what can we do. After five years married, she cheats on him with a married coworker. Now my husband and I have an agreement that if she ever tries to come back, we're sitting his best friend down for an intervention."
—Anonymous
7. "My dad and stepmom. Well, ex-stepmom now. When they finally got married, it was 10 years into the relationship, which was very off and on for a while. Growing up, people and family would tell me things, like she dumped him while he was in the hospital for getting snipped EVEN THOUGH SHE MADE THE APPOINTMENT. She also broke a beer bottle over his head at a bar. She was mad that my mom showed up to my great grandma's funeral — my dad and stepmom were only together for less than a year at this point, and my mom was at my great grandma's house multiple times a week helping care for her. She made my dad send an email to his family apologizing for being an abusive husband (he never laid a hand on her)."
"The best part of all is maybe halfway through their marriage, my dad had asked if I liked her. I lied and said yes. I got back to my mom's that night and sent him an e-mail. Basically the email went like this: 'Hi Dad, please keep this to yourself. Remember asking if I like XYZ? Well, I don't. For blah blah reasons.' AND HE SHOWED HER. The next weekend I’m scheduled to go to their house, and guess who picks me up. She did not say a word for the 40-minute car ride. And then the next day they made me read the letter aloud to them. They denied all accusations I made including the ones where I witness her abuse him. It’s been almost 10 years, and I now know she did abuse him, and even his friends have witnessed it. Oh, and he stayed with her for about a year after I had sent that email. I know he was a victim of hers, but I don’t think he realizes that I also was, too, and he was keeping me in that relationship. Though she never physically abused me, I am deeply scarred from her, their relationship, and what it did to my childhood."
—Anonymous
8. "I knew going in that [my friend's fiancé] was emotionally abusive, but I wanted to be part of the wedding because I worried that he was isolating her from people who cared about her. Here's a sample list of the things the groom did."
"1. Before the wedding, he was not okay with her being walked down the aisle. He refused to stand at the end of the aisle, instead trying to insist that she needed to walk first alone and wait for him, so that he could walk down the aisle last and have a grand entrance that was about him. They apparently compromised because they walked down the aisle last, together.
2. He also stated before the wedding that the wedding weekend was 'about [him] and the boys.'
3. She was excited to get her nails done, but when she showed them to him, he said they didn't look good and wouldn't match her outfit (they were a neutral color that did match).
4, During the rehearsal, he gave no input, instead sitting down and shrugging.
5. During the first look photos before the ceremony, one of the first things he said to her was that she didn't look good, that her makeup and hair did not look good, and he was pointing out her gray hairs that 'stood out' (they didn't, I had no idea she even had gray hairs). As a result she was holding back tears throughout all the photos.
6. She was very worried that he wouldn't like her vows, but she put them together on her phone, and they were very sweet as she read them off with sincerity. She told me beforehand that he would be doing his without notes because he considers himself a good public speaker. After she read her vows, he started his by turning to the audience and saying, 'I don't have anything to read off of because I at least tried to memorize mine.' Cue awkward laughter. Turns out he wasn't very good at memorizing whatever he was going to say. He did say one nice thing about her, but then I think he got stuck because he devolved into saying at least three times some variation of 'I vow to massage your [insert body part here] every night' (which also, way to take vows seriously, I doubt he even massaged her feet that first night). He ended his vows by saying that it's very important for him to look good all the time, and that he appreciates how she tries (tries!) to match that energy.
7. Half of her bridesmaids were his friends, and the assigned speech from one of her bridesmaids ended up being a girl who said, 'I've been friends with him for a long time, I only hung out with her initially because he forced me to (because I was a girl and he wanted to hang out with the guys), but I guess I'm glad I got to know her.' Another bridesmaid took the mic unplanned to follow up with, 'The first time we hung out all together, she was with another guy and showed up covered in bruises...Oh, haha, should I not tell that story? Anyway...' It did not end well either.
8. I left shortly after the first dance, but he also did not sit down with her during any of the dinner. He was barely with her unless it was for a photo, and supposedly, there was screaming before the end of the night because she changed the playlist and he didn't approve.
...I did and have told her directly, including after the wedding, that I will always be there for her and she can always call me. Twice during the wedding I offered to sneak her out and drive away."
9. "A few years ago, my aunt died, leaving behind three girls (5 to 7 years old) and her ex-husband. About eight months later, my uncle was engaged to a woman that everyone thought was perfect. She was pretty good with my cousins, she was nice to my family, and she was good for my uncle (it seemed). Well, when they started planning the wedding, ESM (evil stepmother) said that the wedding could only be on one date: the one-year anniversary of my aunt's death."
"This devastated the girls, of course, and I'm sure it bothered my uncle, too. But it HAD to be on this day because it was the ONLY day ESM's mom could get off work to come to the wedding. Yes, a random ass Tuesday was the only day that this wedding could happen. Riiight.
Everyone in the family tried to discourage it for the sake of the kids until ESM turned bridezilla and threatened to uninvite my uncle's side of the family entirely. She dug her heels in and insisted that the wedding would be all white, including her dress even though she was married twice and had two kids from the previous marriages. Nothing wrong with that, but she shamed my mom for having been divorced once (ESM cheated in her marriages, my mom escaped an abusive situation, huge difference). She had to get married in the St. Louis Cathedral (a pretty big and famous church in LA. It's a big deal to get married there). ESM blew the budget big time, according to my mom.
Ok, moving on. So since we were all still grieving, especially the girls, we weren't all too excited for the wedding, the parties, the shower, etc. And ESM took this very personally — she uninvited my uncle's daughters from the wedding. Five, six, and seven-year-old grieving little girls were left at home with a babysitter while their father married the biggest mistake on the planet. This was not a childfree wedding by any means. Her kids were there, my brother and I were there — there were plenty of kids.
To this day, even now that the oldest is 17, they all hate each other (the girls hate ESM, and she hates them for NOT CALLING HER MOM)."
10. "The only couple I knew from high school that got married (and is still together, supposedly) is the worst. The guy was a complete jerk with a serious anger problem. He got into multiple physical fights with mutual friends and acquaintances, often over nothing more than a perceived 'look.' The gal was his #1 enabler, and she had a reputation of concocting stories of guys 'hitting on her' only so her boyfriend would beat them up. She was arrested twice for stealing from her parents. I believe he had two children by other women while she was serving time. One of those poor kids was removed from their custody recently, according to old classmates. Unbelievably, they’re still married and posting glowing love notes to each other on Facebook. Yikes."
11. "My brother spent a lot of time, effort, and money choosing and buying an engagement ring for his fiancée. A week after getting engaged, he gets a call from his future mother-in-law asking if she can buy her daughter a new engagement ring that was bigger and clearer because the old ring 'showed up yellow in pictures.' After expressing our concern about her superficiality, he decided to marry her anyway. They divorced a few years later after learning she was cheating on him with a much wealthier man."
—Anonymous
12. "The pastor of our church, his son, started dating an 'Instagram model.' She was a bit of a firecracker, and didn’t really treat the son that well, but he tolerated it because she was hot. They both had severe drinking problems, so much so, the pastor dad had to ban them from drinking at family gatherings. One time during a night out, Instagram model disappeared. The pastor son found her later in some guy's van doing coke. She also used to punch and slap him, call him the worst names you could think of. They were forced to get married because the son wanted to move to Texas to be with her, and they couldn’t live together out of wedlock. No one thinks they’re going to make it, but so far, three years later still married, and now they have a baby."
—Anonymous
13. "I have a friend who had been single for about 10 years. He dated some women, but he’s a bit wishy-washy, shy, awkward, selfish, and has some unhealthy views of what he wanted in a relationship and a partner. In 2020, a month before COVID lockdowns started, he met a woman who said yes to more than two dates; by date three he asked her to move in. This whole time he abandoned/ignored his child from a previous relationship; apparently, this woman has a problem with the fact he has a kid, and she has done everything to make sure the kid is never around or that he doesn’t spend time with his own child. If the kid is around, this woman sneers at them."
"Well, flash forward a few months and he proposed, and a total of 18 months after meeting, they got married. As it turns out, he began to have regrets and second thoughts after he proposed. According to him, she has mental health issues and refuses to seek help (even though she demanded he see a therapist when they got together), she refuses to acknowledge his kid’s existence, won’t have anything to do with his friends and family, won’t do a thing for herself, unless it’s cook and then only for her, and other issues.
He seems to have married because he was single for so long he thought this woman was his only chance, and he was almost 31 so he also thought he needed to hit this milestone before he got older. In addition, she’s desperate to have a baby, and he doesn’t want another kid, but he refuses to have any difficult convos with her. There are many cracks in their relationship that his friends and family are seeing; it’ll be interesting to see how long this lasts."
14. And finally, just...everything about this story SCREAMS "shouldn't have gotten married."
