12.
“I was a DJ for several years, during which time I did many, many weddings. Only once did I ever see someone left at the altar. Prior to the day of the wedding itself, I had met with the bride and groom to go over the wedding details. My initial impression was that the two of them were a lovely couple with a bright future. The groom-to-be, however, had been cheating on his fiancé for months before the wedding with an ex-girlfriend.”
“On the actual day, I found myself playing pre-ceremony music for a half hour after the ceremony was scheduled to start, as ~150 guests sat and waited awkwardly. As it happens, the groom had admitted to one of his groomsmen the night before the wedding that he had been cheating on his fiancé. This groomsmen rightly thought that was a particularly shitty thing to do, so he told the groom that he should tell the bride the truth, or he would himself. The groom’s response was to wait until the morning and just leave. He eventually called his parents an hour before the ceremony and told them he wouldn’t be coming. They spent the next hour and a half trying to convince him to change his mind. Meanwhile, the bride is in her dress with her bridesmaids and has no idea where her fiancé is or why he left.
I learn all this, by the way, well after the fact. I often acted as an MC during weddings, so I kept in constant communication with coordinators, caterers, venue staff, photographers, etc. All of us were aware that the groom was MIA, and it became clear that something was up when the groom’s parents arrived at the venue and he had not. They eventually had the coordinator break the news to the bride, since the groom did not wish to speak to her, and they didn’t want to do it themselves. Naturally, the bride was devastated, but she didn’t want to simply tell all her guests to leave. The reception was at the same venue as the ceremony, so she decided to go ahead and have the party without the groom. She changed out of her wedding dress and still attended. The next day I call my boss to tell him what happened and he and I both decided that I would forgo my pay and we wouldn’t charge the bride’s family. The photographers were good friends of ours, and after they talked to us, they decided to do the same. The bride and the bride’s father were so grateful that they both called me personally a few days later.
It turns out that about a year later, one of the bride’s sisters was getting married. They booked our company for their wedding and requested that I DJ. This wedding went off without a hitch, and everyone had a great time. After the reception was over, I was packing my equipment when the bride (who was left, not her sister) came up and struck up a conversation. We ended up talking for a while. I worked up the nerve to ask her out, and we were together for about two years.”
