Forget bridezillas! These wedding planners and florists have had to deal with horrific wedding emergencies:
When It Rains, It Pours
Samantha Goldberg is an Event Designer based in NY-NJ. She has been a regular featured host/planner on the Style Networks “Whose Wedding Is It Anyway” for 5 seasons and “Married Away”. She shares her biggest wedding drama.
I was organizing a wedding last March that was going to be taped for television – it was a big event and the press was also involved. The wedding was supposed to take place at 5:00 in the evening and at about 3:00 it started to rain and it was a torrential rain pour. It got so bad that cars were floating around Hoboken. It gets worse – the limo company was sending a driver to pick up the couple but the driver a heart attack!
They tried to send another car out but the ramps were closed off and there was no way for the couple to get picked up at the hotel to be taken to the venue. I had a truck so I piled everyone into the cab, everyone was sitting on each other’s laps. I’m driving through the flooded roads, the production company’s van was hydroplaning in front of us, and finally we all get there and we all look horrible. Tuxes are ruined, we’re drenched. We arrived at the venue and it wasn’t cleaned at all! The venue was also a nightclub so it still had all the leftovers from the night before. Since the cleaners couldn’t get there, I had the production company and the wedding party help clean up.
Since the ramps and roads were closed the baker was unable to deliver the fabulous cake. Thankfully the restaurant across the street from the venue was still open and they had a cake. They brought it over but they cut it in pieces!! Why would you do that?! The restaurant then made whipped cream and I tried to put the pieces back together but at that time it was too late – I screwed up the cake.
Everything went wrong. Nothing went right. But the couple said it doesn’t matter! They said, “The best part is what really matters – we’re married!”
Frosty Flowers
“My biggest emergency,” says Amy Child Marella, owner of the Hidden Garden in Los Angeles and the contributing floral/wedding expert for Inside Weddings and Better TV, “happened when we were leaving L.A. at 5 am to head up to Napa Valley for the wedding. We opened the refrigerated truck and all the flowers were absolutely frozen!!”
“We had to rush to the flower market on a Saturday, which is not an ideal day for flower buying, and buy all new flowers. Then we headed up to Napa to remake all the arrangements….and nobody knew!! The bride loved her flowers. She thought it was amazing and only after the fact did I tell her what happened. It’s a great story and fortunately, she laughed.”
WHN TIP – Don’t Let an Emergency Stop Your Wedding! Prep a wedding day emergency kit! Designed to meet the needs for every emergency, the wedding day emergency kit is great to have on hand…just in case! Download our Wedding Day Emergency Kit-Bride!
For More Information
- Wedding Disasters: A Bride’s Story
- Bride’s DIY Wedding Day Emergency Kit
- 6 Tips for Preventing Wedding Disasters
Photo Credit: Unsplash