2009 Wedding Lessons Learned: The Out of Control Guest

Series: 2009 Wedding Lessons Learned

Weddings are a joyous and celebratory occasion ~ its only natural that drinking and celebrating have become two peas in a pod. I've encountered many a overzealous guests in my time and nine out of ten times, they are completely fine and harmless, just enjoying themselves and the open bar. The times though when a guest has one too many and becomes a liability, it puts your vendors in a very awkward position of being bouncers.

The particular wedding in which I am referring to, one guest made it her mission to be incredibly inebriated {at one point I thought she had been hazed, that's how bad it was}. She was seen in the hotel bar drinking for two hours prior to the ceremony, which meant that she was trouble from the beginning. {Don't get me wrong, I am all for having a few drinks here and there, but being sloppy and slurring before 3PM is just well, sloppy) She proceeded to spend the entire wedding either drinking more or harassing all the vendors. The bride kept insisting that she was fine, but her behavior was actually very detrimental to the service providers, never mind that we were on a rooftop and I kept having the most horrible visions ... the final nail in the coffin came when she made an unsolicited speech during dinner that was well, a once in a lifetime experience to hear. The bride was so hurt she left the dinner and I was put in the position of having to remove this guest from the wedding. Its not a role that I want to put in, but I will when the guest is ruining the celebratory atmosphere.

If you know before the wedding that certain persons are going to take things too far with alcohol, give your vendors the heads up. We have seen it all, but if we know who to watch for in the beginning, we can cater things so that theirs and yours night doesn't end up badly.