Oops!

Something goes wrong at every wedding. And you never know what it’s going to be until the moment it reveals itself. Although these can be irritating, they are the very moments that stick in our memories. We asked readers from all the Straus coverage areas to share their wedding bloopers. Thanks to everyone who participated. These are some of our favorites. Mia Turro of Wantage wrote: Our crazy wedding day story happened 20 years ago June 1. The day was perfect for a June wedding. I was at my parents’ house getting ready and my husband-to-be and his groomsmen were at the church taking pictures. Or so I thought. It turns out when they arrived at the church, it was full of senior citizens saying Saturday confessions. Our wedding was half an hour earlier than most because we needed more time to get to the reception on time. (Someone failed to tell the priest doing the confessions this.) The florist was also waiting outside and was unable to get in to decorate the church. At this time our best man approached one of the parishioners to tell them they had to move because there was to be a wedding soon and the florist needed to get in. They wouldn’t move. One woman approached our best man and said that she was there to say her confessions and wouldn’t go until she did so. Out best man asked her if she could “double up and go next week.” She did not like this idea. The priest doing the confessions was summoned. He then moved the women to the wing of the church and reassured them that they could still say their confessions. Problem solved. But that is not the end of the story. I walked to church with my matron of honor and bridesmaids (I lived only a few houses from the church). When we got to the church I could hear the bells in the bell tower ringing. I hadn’t heard them in awhile and asked our priest at rehearsal the night before if they still worked. He said the bell tower had been renovated into an elevator and yes the bell could still be rung. He had my fiancé go into the elevator and pull down the rope from the ceiling so the bells could be rung. Everything was going smoothly. (Maybe not.) It was at this time my father-in-law-to-be came out of the church and told us, “Now don’t panic, Monsignor is stuck in a closet and we are trying to get him out.” I laughed because my father-in-law is quite a teaser, and I thought he was just joking. It turns out he wasn’t. Some of our friends were sitting in the pew waiting for the service to begin when they heard some knocking and the Monsignor in his Irish accent saying, “Help! Somebody let me out!” The Monsignor was stuck in the elevator. He was trying to bring it down to get my mother, who was in a wheelchair. The elevator wouldn’t move and the door locked after he went in. My brother-in-law ended up knocking on the confessional door and getting the other priest who had a key to the elevator. (Hopefully the woman who was interrupted mid-confession wasn’t the one who was so angry she had to move in the first place!) They got the key and let Monsignor out. I was still outside the church waiting to come in and thinking, maybe my father-in-law wasn’t kidding. Our photographer came out of the church then and said, “They are getting Monsignor out of the closet right now!” (We all got a little chuckle from that statement.) Very soon after that I was walking down the aisle and became Mrs. Stephen Turro. The rest of the day went on without a hitch. Was it some strange force trying to tell us not to get married? Well 20 years, one house, three kids and numerous pets later, we are still going strong! Jarrett Koby of Monroe wrote: Before my wife and I got married on Dec. 3, 2004, we needed to find the proper deejay for the musical entertainment of the evening. Everything was moving along well until I was asked what song would I like to dance to with my mother. At the time, my mother and I were not super close but modestly accepting of one another. In joking, I told the deejay to play Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back.” Then we laughed and I told him the correct song. So, here comes the wedding day and the church service was flawless. The reception is working out great until the deejay asks my mother and me to kindly start dancing. Once I heard Elton John’s song come on, I almost lost control of my insides. Thankfully, my voice of reason, my wife, was able to get the deejay to play the right song after almost a minute. I just kept going with the flow, hoping that mother was cool with it. I filled her in afterward and we all had a good laugh about it. But that one minute was nonstop torture because of the implication of the song’s title to my mother! Betsy Lohrfink of Hamburg wrote: The term blooper tends to make me think of an accident or mistake that possibly could have been avoided. I don’t know if that is the accurate meaning of the word, but think 'stepping on the bride’s veil as she walks down the aisle’ or 'bumping into the table that is holding the cake’ as things that could have been avoided if someone had just been a teeny bit more careful. Our wedding blooper doesn’t quite meet that criteria, but I will continue. As you state, the wedding planning these days is almost a full time job. Honestly, I don’t remember it as being quite that all consuming for us. Let me say at this point that I’m talking 1969; wedding plans were important, but were not a full-time job yet. I was a teacher and Bill, my fiance at the time, was a business manager. We had our share of showers and parties in the preceding months. As the date for our wedding got closer, Bill was often heard to complain of stomach issues. Our friends were teasing him and saying he had pre-nuptual jitters. We were to be married on November 22. On November 12th, I was having lunch in the teachers’ room when the assistant principal came to the door to tell me that there was a nice looking young man waiting for me in the office. I headed for the office with a bit of trepidation because Bill had never come to school before. When I got to the office, there was Bill’s boss. He had a rather serious look on his face. He started by saying “Everything will be OK...” Not a good opening for a Bride-to-Be less than two weeks before the big event. It seems that on that particular morning, Bill showed up for work absolutely green. His boss took him to the hospital, where they immediately admitted him and prepared for an emergency appendectomy. I got to the hospital as he was coming out of the recovery room...his first words were “Hi Babe, they took out my pre-nuptual jitters!” My father’s famous comment was, “Well, I don’t know if you two will show up or not, but there will be a party at The Summit Hotel cause it is already paid for” The stitches were taken out the day before the ceremony; we had to change our honeymoon plans (no major travel was allowed); our dancing was minimal at the reception; but the ceremony and party went on without a further hitch. The party continues...41 years later. D.F. of Highland Lakes wrote: My daughter and her husband had a small and private wedding — the bride, the groom, one set of parents, the photographer, and the Rabbi. At the end of a lovely, emotional completion of vows, the rabbi leaned toward the couple making a kissing noise to remind the new bride and groom to kiss. A bit overwhelmed by it all, the bride kissed the Rabbi!