The Priest Didn’t Know Our Names—and Other Wedding Mishaps
It’s your big day. It’s the beginning of your happily ever after. Naturally, you want everything to be picture perfect.
But sometimes it’s anything but...
Flu season left them without a priest or photographer.
In Texas, Heather’s wedding was hit hard by flu season. Close relatives couldn’t make it. Neither could their photographer. Even their priest was taken out of commission. On the day of the wedding, they still hadn’t found a replacement—though eventually they did locate one.
“The substitute priest didn’t even know our names during the ceremony. He skipped several important customary pieces like the lasso and presentation of the Rosary and Bible. Philip and I were directing the lectors and other participants during the Mass,” recalled Heather, who met Philip on CatholicMatch.
They also enlisted the parish secretary to fill in as their photographer—using the church’s camera.
Heather and Philip
“Nobody knew what was going on and I’m pretty sure that instead of saying ‘I do’ I said ‘Yeah,’” Heather recalled.
The mishaps continued even after the ceremony. For a while, the sound system didn’t work at the reception until a guest stepped in to fix the problem.
But even with a few hiccups, Heather says her wedding was a beautiful day. “Even with the issues we encountered our wedding was beautiful! God has joined us together and given us a great story to tell! I thank God every day for bringing Philip into my life!” Heather said.
It’s a sentiment shared by other CatholicMatch couples whose weddings didn’t go exactly according to plan either.
They were snowed out and almost none of the guests made it.
Maria on her wedding day
In Minnesota, the weather forecast called for a major storm to hit on January 1, the day of Maria’s wedding. She sought the help of the cloistered Poor Clares, “whose prayers were known to be especially efficacious for weather.”
With the ceremony less than a day away, storm winds sheathed the roads in ice as white-out conditions set in, Maria recalled in an article for CatholicMatch.
As the storm neared, a nearby parish priest had offered to host the wedding there if the roads to her church were impassable. Their photographer asked if a family member could fill in in just in case.
By noon, the cancellations from family members started coming in. “The guest list dwindled, but I tried to keep hopes up. It was our wedding day. Nothing was going as planned, but we were going to get married,” Maria said.
The ceremony went on, as temperatures sunk to 6 degrees. “By the time of the wedding, its program looked like more a wish list than a who’s who,” Maria added.
The photographer did make it after all, but Maria had to find another soloist and cousins subbed in for greeters. In his homily their priest talked about the “invisible poverty of Mary and Joseph” and their “invisible wealth” signified by the Magi.
“His words spoke directly to my heart—we could have focused on what we didn’t have—all of our guests, decent weather, even a place to live once we were back in DC—or we could focus on what we did have: this sacrament, our faith, our family,” Maria said. “We got married, and married life is beautiful, even if ours doesn’t look ideal.”
Actually, a lot of couples have weather problems on special days...but none of their days were ruined.
Robert and Mallory
A snowstorm might not be that unexpected in January, but Robert probably thought April was a snow-safe day for a wedding in Colorado. He was wrong—though the wedding still went on.
It wasn’t the first time that weather had messed with perfect plans.
For their second date, Robert and Mallory had gone to an NFL game. But she ended up spending most of her time in the bathroom.
“I wasn’t nervous on the date, just frozen!” Mallory recalled.
“We went to a very cold Broncos game and I made it as long as I could before I needed to go warm up. There was a heater in the bathroom so I hung out there for most the second half. I had told him I was going to warm up so he knew but it helped that he was very understanding.”
Cold weather and snowstorms are one thing, but CatholicMatch editor Cecilia Pigg had to face down an even deadlier weather foe on her weather day: a tornado warning. Fortunately they didn’t cancel, but they had to move their planned outdoor reception inside “last minute.”
And that wasn’t the only snafu. One of their cantors ended up not being able to sing. And, at the end of the ceremony their priest made a major omission. “Our priest forgot to announce us as man and wife,” Cecilia recalled.
This bride got picked up in a hearse...
Salle and Gene in the hearse
Weather isn’t the only big thing that can go awry.
For Sally, her wedding got off to an ominous start when a hearse pulled up to her hotel to pick her up. “It seems that the local undertaker had donated one of his limos to pick me up for the wedding,” Sally said. Still, she got in.
At the church other things were off. The flowers meant for the altar never showed up. And the runner for the aisle was backwards. “You prepare so much for a wedding and worry about things, but really you’re the only one who will notice when things go wrong,” said her husband Gene.
But the details, as important as they might seem in the moment, aren’t what really matter. “Our wedding wasn’t about the flowers or a runner; it was about the two of us getting married in the sight of God—with God present at all moments. That was what was important to us,” Sally previously told CatholicMatch. (Read their full story here.)
Wedding rings are one area where things can go especially wrong.
Of all the things that can go wrong, wedding rings are high on the list. Wedding rings seem especially prone to getting lost, dropped, or stuck—and that’s what happened to Katherine, a bride who met her husband on CatholicMatch. During the ceremony, she was worried she’d start tearing up, but “somehow I made it,” Katherine recalled in an article for Spoken Bride. “To my surprise, I could tell Ian was starting to tear up,” she said.
He was spared by the trouble they had had with the rings. Besides difficulty in getting the rings free, one slipped out of the priest’s hands during the blessing. “The ping as it bounced around on the floor had me shaking and trying not to laugh. It just seemed so perfect; such a reminder that even though this life and this vocation we had chosen was serious business, it would also be filled with laughter,” Katherine recalled.
So, for CatholicMatch couples readying for marriage and wondering what might go wrong, the lesson is: everything could go wrong. You could get snowed out and half your relatives might not show up. Flu season might wipe out the wedding party. The priest might forget your names and drop your rings. What matters is that you profess your love for each other and get married. Everything else is just icing on the cake.
