Wedding receptions from hell

True stories of big reception mistakes you’ll be glad to avoid

With the ceremony safely over, will your reception see your guests getting down -- or will it just get them down? As always on confetti, we urge you to learn from some real-life mistakes...

The one where my partner was seated half a mile away...

'I'd travelled two hundred miles to this wedding with my new husband,' sighs Cath, recalling the wedding of her school friends, Tim and Suzie, 'to find that they'd come up with what they thought was a marvellous idea... to split all their guests up from their partners and make sure everyone "mixed". I was sitting on a table where I knew no one. And my new husband was about eight tables away. Everyone ate in silence; we were all in the same boat. I just thought it was really dictatorial and rude.'

Moral: Mix and match couples at your peril.

The one when the food was inedible...

'I'm no gastronomic shy-baby but the food was drenched in chilli sauce and every conceivable spice,' says Peter, recalling his friend Ian's wedding. 'Ian had been on holiday to South America and insisted on imposing his new-found favourite cuisine on everyone else. Unfortunately, people didn't know what they were eating. Anyone who braved eating more than a mouthful spent the night on the loo.'

Moral: Choose a menu that anyone can eat.

The one with the comedy waiter...

'We were in the most beautiful setting,' remembers Stephane, cousin of Xavier who married Nicky in March, 'just about to get stuck into the bubbly, when this waiter dropped a tray of glasses. We just thought it was an accident. He turned out to be a hired actor who then spent the whole night causing "hilarious" incidents and orchestrating side-splitting accidents. I think the bride's dad made him leave in the end.'

Moral: A good party atmosphere can't be manufactured on the spot.

The one with the cliquey parlour game...

'To round the evening off, the bride's family were forced to play some ancient game (that only their family knew the rules of), at the suggestion of the bride,' recalls Tom, a landscape gardener from Tonbridge, of a wedding of a good friend he recently attended. 'There wasn't enough space for everyone to play, so about 20 of us were left at the end of the night, just milling about at the bar, feeling totally excluded. Hannah, the bride, is Austrian and over there it's a tradition -- only not one that apparently we were allowed to take part in. It was a real anti-climax.'

Moral: A game is one for all or not at all.

The one where everyone made a speech...

'And then the groom's mother's best friend's auntie got up to thank everyone for their thanking her for helping to do the flowers!' says Monique, a trainee barrister, of her best friend Neil's wedding. 'It was the eighth or ninth speech, so I gave up and slipped out until it was over. I'd been sitting there for an hour and a half, my bum was numb and I was dying for the loo. Nightmare!'

Moral: Less is more on the speech front.

The one where we all had to barn dance for three hours solid...

'I don't mind dancing but I like to dance when I want to, not when I've been told to,' says Su, a teacher from London. 'So you can imagine that three hours being forced to barn dance is not my idea of fun. Everyone was press-ganged into it, there was no escape and it was horrendous. The man who was leading the dance up on stage even shouted at people who were just leaving the room to go to the loo! I was black and blue by the end.'

Moral: People enjoy dancing but hate being made to.

The one where the photographer was a former drill instructor...

'Without being melodramatic, the guy nearly got his lights punched out by three or four different people,' recalls Phil, referring to the photographer at his brother's wedding last year. 'He just pushed people around, told my mum to "lose that hideous hat", barked orders at us like we were kids. He was recommended to my brother through his work but we didn't check the guy out beforehand. Big mistake.'

Moral: Check out recommendations of wedding 'helpers', don't just take them on trust.