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Wedding Warnings: 61 Signs Guests Noticed Before A Short Marriage
Not all marriages are meant to last. But that doesn’t stop couples from believing theirs will beat the odds—and having a whole wedding with the assumption that a happily ever after is basically guaranteed.
The thing is, sometimes the warning signs are obvious to everyone except the people getting married. And in one Reddit thread, wedding guests shared the exact moments they realized the pair in front of them was doomed. From awkward vows to reception drama and family chaos, these are the red flags they said were impossible to ignore.
Discover more in "The Marriage Lasted Two Months": 62 Times Wedding Guests Realized The Couple Was Basically Doomed
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#1
I was the groom. A bunch of friends/coworkers (military) gave us 6 months at our courthouse wedding. We had dated for 6 months, 2 of which she was deployed.
Our 30th anniversary will be this April. Frick those guys, lol.
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#2
When the best man (groom's roommate) gave a 30 + min toast about how much he was going to miss living with the groom, how horrible it would be not having him in his life everyday, started crying and kept talking about how much he loved the groom. Both men were crying and hugging each other.
That marriage lasts 2 years. The Best Man and groom have been married about 5 years now last I heard.
#3
The Bride's daughter (6yo from previous relationship) asked the bride for water and she screamed "Shut Up! You are the reason I am in therapy!" in front of a big group of guests, then the bride went back to socializing.
#4
In both vows, they apologized for previous and vow not to commit domestic v****e anymore
Everyone was mouth open in shock.
#5
They had two fights during the ceremony.
One was during the vows, he was wearing sunglasses (outdoor wedding) and she ripped them off and said “you will look me in the eye when you say this.” The second was during the ring exchange. He said he couldn’t wear it because he couldn’t wear it at work and she said “well you aren’t at work now, are you”
Other highlights of the wedding: he wore jeans, a leather vest, no shirt; all the bridesmaids were barefoot; the ONLY drinks were bud lite in the bed of the pickup which was filled with ice (there were kids at the wedding but frick their needs I guess); and a motorcycle shaped grooms cake.
People do not believe me when I say how redneck my family is.
#6
When the groom shoved wedding cake into his new wife's mouth hard enough to give her a b****y lip and kept pushing her backwards until she fell and broke her wrist.
#7
The bride’s vows were all about how much she loved him. The groom’s vows were all about how he had to tolerate her. He sucked.
#9
We were placing bets in the parking lot before the reception, and then the groom's mom introduced me to some family as "the one M should have married". I was married holding my infant, and M and I had never dated. Lasted about a year (their wedding, mine is 19 years and counting, happily!).
#10
None of us had met my friends fiancee prior to the wedding. We all immediately knew, but especially when we were all hanging out after the ceremony and someone mentioned something during a story she (the bride) was telling and she yells "DO NOT INTERRUPT ME WHILE I AM TALKING!", and then goes back to telling her story. Everyone froze, including her friends. My friend who married her claims thats the first time he really saw her true self (they only dated 6 months before getting engaged).
Surprisingly the wedding lasted 5 (miserable) years.
#11
I sang at the wedding. As I went through the reception line, the bride hugged me and said, “That was lovely. You can sing at my next wedding too!”.
#12
When I heard that the groom invited his best buddy and his gf to come on the honeymoon with them.
#13
Im ordained and have done a good amount of weddings. The biggest indicator to me has always been mismatched guest lists. Like she has 8 bridesmaids and 100 guests and he has Tyler from middle school and his Mom.
Its not that she has too many people or that he's doesn't have enough, its that they are not even enough. That always works out to be that the one with a bigger social group going out far more frequently while the other sits at home and grows resentful. That resentment grows until the relationship is over.
#14
We were only at the reception. The bride was 5 months pregnant and drinking. The groom was extremely intoxicated from multiple substances. They danced once, but not for the whole song, and spent most of the reception apart, with their respective friend groups.
#15
She cried and cried at the end of the night when it was time for them to go home. She just wanted to stay with us, her friends. She's married again now to an amazing guy and has a baby.
#16
I showed up to photograph the getting ready part of the day, and the mother of the bride came up and said, ‘The storm has passed! We’re good to go!’ I asked what she meant. Apparently the bride and groom got into a fight the night before (after the rehearsal) and said they were calling off the wedding… but never mind! They did not last a year.
#17
When I and the other bridesmaids found out that the bride to be was still legally married to her first husband (apparently they were too lazy to get a divorce) and hadn't told her future husband. I think the marriage lasted about two months.
#20
The bride was barely paying attention during their vows, messed around rolling her eyes while the vicar was talking about love and god and whatnot (it was her church), and only lasted about 30 seconds into the first dance before she went and danced with her friends instead. Turned out, to no one’s surprise, she was already cheating on him before they got married.
#22
The bride was a drunk mess and clearly overcompensating with over-the-top fake niceness the entire night. The groom was in denial and kept insisting everything was fine, but clearly didn’t even believe himself. They were divorced about 20 months later.
I am the groom. The groom is me.
#23
When my cousin and his wife entered the reception to the WWF theme Let’s Get Ready To Rumble. The marriage lasted two months.
#25
Not as the guest but as the "minister" (I got ordained online a few weeks before.) My best friend was marrying this guy that still hadn't told his family that she was 3 months pregnant or that they were getting married. So 20 minutes before the wedding in my living room, I was talking to the groom and he said, "yeah but what if it all goes wrong?" And I said, "totally fair. But what if it all goes right?" Left him to smoke his cigarette and call his mom who joined us on face time for the wedding. I remember asking my friend before all of this, "hey girl, I'm in no matter what, but are you sure?"
Anyways she spent 5yrs trying to get divorced from him and he kept blaming the failing marriage on the lack of god at their wedding. Not the cheating, illegal substance use and financial control lmao.
#26
We had a destination wedding to New Orleans and somehow the grooms mistress was on the same flight...
#27
When the bride's brothers were discussing what to do better at her next wedding, while at the reception. Marriage lasted 3 weeks before she left the j**k.
#28
When the doves he spent so much money on (and bragged about endlessly) refused to fly during their ceremony kiss. the handler was awkwardly pushing the doves out of the cage to try to encourage them to fly and they just hopped onto the ground and walked around looking for crumbs. something in me just knew the universe was making a point.
#29
The groom was crying, the bride said "I really hope these are happy tears", but something just told me that they weren't. They were separated 3 months later.
#30
The bride decided to wing her vows. She repeated most of what the groom said and then rambled on for another 10 minutes. It felt like she didn’t want to be there and was stalling the ceremony. It was so uncomfortable.
They divorced about a year later. Found out from a mutual friend they started dating when she was in high school and he was a substitute teacher.
#31
The bride did a strip tease on the groom in the middle of the dance floor while all the wedding watched (half of the wedding were conservative Muslims the other half weren’t religious but still leaned more conservative) the groom was EXTREMELY uncomfortable. They were seperate before they got back from their honeymoon.
She also insisted at being called the bride and wearing white to my wedding which was 2 weeks before hers.
#32
The groom projectile vomited during her vows for a full 10 minutes... the bride kept going and said her vows to the guests lol.
#33
At a different wedding. I just met the groom for the first time (I was living out of the county). The groom was completely off his face said to me in front of his mates. “If it was not my wedding today. I would take you to bed tonight”
Sir that would never happen for a million reasons!
#34
I've got 2 for you (from different weddings):
1) The Groom was so drunk he couldn't even walk in a straight line down the aisle. The Bride was absolutely mortified. That was the START of the day... the rest didn't get any better.
2) The Bride was on her third marriage. At 25.
Neither one lasted a year.
#35
My buddy was at a wedding where the couple broke up before the wedding ended, and when the cake came it devolved into a food fight amognst the guests. The mother of the bride was apparently just standing at the bar, weeping.
#36
The groom's daughter announced at the reception that she got married to the brides ex boyfriend (groom is 45, bride is 25, daughter is 23, ex boyfriend is 25.
#39
She wore her weddings dress from her first wedding for her second wedding. I don't know if she wore the same dress to her 3rd wedding, as I didn't attend the 3rd...
#40
The bride looked p****d while walking down the aisle. straight face no smile. The bride and groom never looked at each other once during their vows. Their first dance was painful, it didn’t even last a full song and they looked like brother and sister being forced to dance with each other and the rest of night I don’t think they even talked to each other once.
#41
When the maid of honor sat down next to me, downed a shot, and said "I give them 3 years, tops."
And she was right!
#42
I was able to look past the bride (our neighbour) walking down the aisle to 'Highway to h**l'.
But even 13 year old me knew it was in extremely poor taste for the groom (who was wearing his unwashed work jeans) to pause during the ceremony to roll & light a cigarette.
There was some kind of altercation which the police got called during the reception. Later what evening the groom threw a 4kg block of cheese at his new teenage stepson. 3 months later he left after another alcohol-fueled argument ended in him throwing a beer bottle at a stepdaughters cat (killuing it)
About ten months later he arrived back in town with a new wife and a newborn daughter. She was born on Melbourne Cup day and was named after the horse that won the big race that year.
#45
Drunk parents mom of bride and dad of groom both talked about their divorces during their speeches.
The picture was on my fridge longer than the marriage lasted.
#46
When the matron of honor included in her introduction to the rest of the bridal party that she had “pledged to attend all of [bride’s name]’s weddings”.
#47
The full, Broadway style, one woman performance of a dramatic song by the bride, to the audience and not the groom .
They divorced 2 years later.
#50
1. Groom attacked new mother-in-law at reception, then departed before dawn in an attempt to not pay for the venue. Eventually arrested.
2. Wedding ceremony with only one person not a family member: the maid of honor. She glowered and squinted at the groom without ceasing. 13 people at the "reception" that consisted of eating pieces of a grocery store sheet cake in the church basement.
#52
When the groom freaked out at the reception right after the wedding and started telling all of the guests that he wanted a divorce while crying.
#53
When the bride only posted photos from the wedding with her family in them, not one with any of his family in it.
#54
Bride had forgotten to write her vows. Groom said his, bride realized she had forgotten and told pastor to 'just use the ones in the book'.
#56
This was as a photographer but when I showed up at the bridal suite, the bride was in the bathroom crying. No one seemed interested in consoling her.
Fast forward to portraits between the ceremony and reception, the vibes were OFF between the bride and groom. I was the second shooter so I don’t have their info to look them up, but I’d bet a few bucks they didn’t last.
#57
When I met the the groom for the first (and only) time before the wedding, and discovered his pet name for my friend - who had had issues with bulimia - was “pumpkin”.
He didn’t mean anything bad by it, but I knew at that point that he really didn’t know my friend.
I was overseas so couldn’t afford to go to the wedding (Aus-UK flights cost thousands). My friend later said it was the worst moment of her life going up the altar and saying the vows “knowing I was saying them to the wrong person”.
It fell apart on the honeymoon.
They’re both happily remarried to other people now with families, nice homes, good jobs etc. So all good.
#58
I wasnt her wedding guests but my friend was showing me her wedding photos and in every photo she is facing the camera, even when theyre kissing. In some photos her hubby is staring at her but again she is looking at camera. That's how i knew.
#59
When they forced the priest to retell the story of how they met and proposed and he kept making off hand remarks like “yeesh, you waited that long to propose? And that’s all you said?”
Like there was nothing at all in that story that made me feel they were madly in love and that the feelings were magical and romantic .
#60
You know the couple that tries just a little too hard to show how perfect they are? Constant professional photos of their perfect life, calling each other their best friends even though they fight constantly and bitterly off social media, etc? That was this couple.
The family of the groom (abroad, but one direct flight away) didn't attend. None of them. The grooms sibling that lives in the same city attended, but was miserable the entire time.
The bride had always made 0 effort to be around the grooms friends and biggest supporters, including at the wedding. Everyone really wanted to root for them, but that was because they adored Groom and were tolerant of Bride. They also fell into the unfortunate era of having their wedding originally planned during COVID, and my theory is that they realized during that time they weren't actually compatible but mistakenly thought it was just COVID stress and not the detriment of their relationship.
I don't think the marriage lasted an entire year, and honestly I fault neither of them for it. Bride and I didn't mesh, but she's not an evil person or anything. She just didn't want to have children with an immigrant who's family despised her and would treat the child similarly/ be unsupportive. He deserved to be loved by someone who was all in regardless of his familial situation.
They are both happily in other relationships now, and I think it's the best possible outcome!
#61
According to my father in law any wedding without an open bar wont last longer than a year....
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