Being left at the altar is something that must only happen in books, TV shows, or movies, right?
Shocking though it may seem, it does indeed happen, albeit rarely.
On these rare occasions, we are left with countless questions.
Specifically, how does one suddenly get cold feet on the day of the wedding after months, if not years, of planning and spending tens of thousands of dollars to make it happen?
Redditor pimpyocean was eager to hear some first-hand accounts of last-minute wedding cancellations, leading them to ask:
"People who left their partner the day of the wedding, what happened?"
Always Late To The Game...
"Unfortunately the one I know of was the day AFTER the wedding."
"Huge beautiful wedding, 250+ guests, mid-20s college sweethearts, parents were in the same social circle in their Southern town."
"They were religious so a big deal was made that they 'waited'.”
"On their honeymoon flight the next day, the groom turned to the bride (my older cousin) and said 'This was a mistake'.”
"Then completely shut down and didn’t talk to her."
"They landed in Tahiti, she flew back on the next flight home, and the story goes he stayed in their honeymoon suite and banged a bunch of different women."
"I did not verify this personally. You know how family rumors go around."
"Then a month later, he came crawling back, but she was too humiliated."
"Had spent the last month returning wedding gifts and writing thank you notes and dealing with the fallout while he partied."
"He wasn’t ready, felt pressured, that sort of thing."
"They got an annulment, and now, apparently, it’s super awkward at alumni events, lol."
"She’s now married with three beautiful kids, so I guess he made room for the right person in her life!"
"You never know what goes on behind closed doors."
"What looks perfect from the outside can be totally different for the people in the relationship."- butterbean8686
When The BRIDE Doesn't RSVP...
"My brother went to this engagement party, everything was great, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Wedding comes around three months later, he shows up."
"And it’s a totally different bride."
"Same groom, same date, same invite, just... new bride."
"No explanation."- zzibhai
Back-Up Plan...
"My wife’s family has a story from the early 1900s, in which a bride and groom had courted mostly by mail."
"The day of the wedding, bride got cold feet."
"The family was trying to figure out what to do when the bride’s sister piped up and said 'I’ll marry him'."
"The groom thought about it for a few minutes and decided he was in."
"The wedding proceeded as if nothing had happened, and they allegedly were married 50+ years and produced a big happy family."- jasfad
Was Bound To Get Out Eventually...
"Obligatory not me, but;"
"Bride's best friend decided the wedding was the perfect time to announce that Bride was secretly pregnant."
"Problem is, Groom was religious and saving himself for marriage, and Bride agreed to it."
"They hadn’t had sex before."
"Turns out she had been cheating for most of the relationship because of this."
"I believe she planned on waiting until after they had sex and telling him the child was his."
"Turned into a very interesting situation where groom's parents were VERY upset, thinking he broke his promise of abstinence to them, Bride's parents were celebrating the pregnancy, Bride and Groom both had looks of absolute horror."- anonymous_supe
Mother Doesn't Always Know Best...
"My friend did this like 20-some years ago."
"She was engaged to a guy from a very well-off family."
"The wedding was in California, but they were living in Seattle."
"Very posh, very expensive."
"But the MIL was always a b*tch to her."
"Right at the beginning of the reception, the MIL came up and said some nasty things to her in a whisper, thinking she would just take it again."
"She lost it, families got involved, and she ended up on a plane back to the PNW that night."
"Her family had already started moving her things out of the apartment that evening."
"Never spoke to him again."- snail_juice_plz
The Things We Need Are Not Always What We Want
"I don’t know if this counts, but 6 years ago in March, my fiancé and I decided to postpone our wedding."
"The weekend the wedding would have been, he left me home alone to go spend the weekend with his parents… we lived an hour away from our parents, didn’t have cell service or WiFi, no landline."
"His parents posted all over fb that they were celebrating him not getting married to me and were celebrating his 'new girlfriend', a friend of ours he constantly told me not to worry about."
"My mom screenshot all the Facebook posts, drove an hour out to where I was and said, 'hey sister, what are we going to do here?'”
"I took a HOT shower and cried, then we packed all of my stuff up and left a letter to him on the dining room table with the ring."
"Later he texted me asking, 'is this what you really want?'”
"I replied saying 'nope, but it’s what I need'.”- Clean_Awareness
episode 11 engagement ring GIF by The BachelorGiphy
Oops...
"Not me, but my best friend."
"I was set to be his best man at his wedding."
"While I was organizing his bachelor party, I reached out to some of our old friends to invite them."
"One of them who showed up we hadn't really seen in like ten years and asked who he was getting married to, and I told him."
"And he was just silent for a minute and said, 'Bro, I literally just hooked up with her a couple of weeks ago'."
"I thought it was a joke, but he sent me a pic."
"Hardest f*cking conversation I have ever had to have."
"And it was only like 12 hours to the wedding."- Guardian-Boy
Good Thing She Didn't Sign...
"A colleague of my husband’s texted him about a week before the wedding saying something cryptic like 'If I’m in Key West on Friday, the wedding isn’t happening', so he was clearly having thoughts prior to."
"But social media showed that the rehearsal dinner happened the night before the wedding and he was there, so we figured he had gotten over it."
"We had family in town and weren’t planning to attend the wedding anyway, but my husband texted a congratulatory message later on the day of."
"Guy replied from Key West."
"He did not show for the ceremony."
"His excuse was that she wouldn’t sign the prenup."
"The reality was that he was already seeing someone else."- AppropriateAmoeba406
Some People Just HATE Wasting Food
"We called it the 'non-wedding'."
"It was a very small backyard do, and when we showed up, a relative of the groom ushered us out back and whispered that the wedding was off, but they had all this food and to help ourselves."
"Apparently, just that morning, the groom found out that the bride banged the stripper at her bachelorette party, but his family said they'd already spent all the money on the party, so they'd just tell people when they arrived."
"It was one of the most awkward experiences of my life because the groom just sat dejectedly in a chair while people tried to cheer him up."
"We ate a little out of obligation and then got the hell out of there."- Empkat
Dinner Eat GIF by TRTGiphy
Initial Doubts...
"My cousin's backyard shotgun wedding."
"She changed her mind because they got in a fight that morning."
"My uncle still made BBQ, which just turned into a typical family hangout."
"They got married the next weekend anyway."
"Not a very exciting story."
"They are still married like 22 years and three kids later, though, so that's something."- Suitable_cataclysm
Talk About Wrong Time, Wrong Place...
"This happened to a friend; he found out she was cheating on him and still was on the morning of the wedding."
"That's when he found them together in a separate room for the wedding party."- PollutionOld9327
Mayday!!!
"It was my sister and It wasn't the day of the wedding, but ...
"On the honeymoon cruise she found his heroin-fentanyl shoot up kit." - Complete-One-5520
Cruise Ship GIFGiphy
Some People Are Grateful For Their Mothers-In-Law...
"Not the day of, but my mom's first marriage lasted 13 days."
"He was mentally unstable, locked her up in the apartment..."
" She was eventually able to get his mother to rescue her and take her to a shelter."- mlachick
Well...
"This happened at a venue I worked at."
"The groom went missing between the ceremony and the reception."
"The bride was frantically looking for him and eventually found him in the disabled toilets, bent over the sink and getting banged by his best man."
"She smashed her wine glass in his face and left."- karamellokoala
Celebrate How I Met Your Mother GIF by LaffGiphy
It is more than a little perplexing that none of these people couldn't have come to these realizations earlier than their big day.
That being said, it is MUCH easier to cancel a wedding than to end a marriage...
Even on the day of the wedding.
