In Ireland,  fourteen people were taken to hospital after a bus carrying 60 wedding guests toppled into a ditch and onto its side.  The accident happened as the vintage Routemaster bus took guests from the Church service to the reception. 

In the UK, two love birds thought a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic would be romantic and memorable.  But because the couple had been given incorrect information about the Dominican Republic’s wedding waiting period, they had no choice but to wed three days earlier than planned without any of their guests present.  Then on the day of the reception, the bride, groom and many guests got food poisoning.    “I was so ill ... that I vomited outside the restaurant where we were eating three times and almost fainted,” the bride told the UK’s Evening Post. “It completely ruined what was supposed to be the best day of my life.”  My guess is that, as a result of the events, it was really memorable, and the guests probably spoke about it for years thereafter. 

Imagine having a police mug shot in your wedding fineries.  This happened to a bride who had over-imbibed at her wedding.  She yelled obscenities and threw cake and vases at her new husband, “flipped out” when the bar at the reception stopped serving drinks for the night and this was followed by obscene gesture at the police. She attempted to bite an officer who put her in the back of a police car,  and then kicked a police-car window out of its track. For her efforts, she was awarded a $90 fine. 

A bride in England had spent three years planning a fairy-tale wedding that included a $3,000 dress, handmade invitations and a horse-drawn carriage. But on the big day, the horse got spooked and bolted, throwing the driver and his assistant from the carriage and leaving no one at the helm.  As the horse sped into the pathway of an oncoming truck, the bride’s father pushed his daughter from the carriage and jumped out after her. Six weeks after the accident, the bride and groom were eventually joined in matrimony in a much more intimate ceremony. 

And then there is the lovely story of the American couple who separated after a traumatic union.  She had taken out a protection order against her ex husband.  They soon found out that they missed the biff and bam of matrimony decided to remarry.  However, at the ceremony, the groom quarrelled with a guest and the police were called.  They recognised the groom standing next to his new wife at the altar, which was far too close to her, and in breach of the protection order. 

How do you swallow a ring?  Easy when you pretend that you are an intelligent being and put the engagement ring in your special lady’s milk shake in the hope of surprising her.  Imagine his surprise when the milk shake was finished without revealing a ring.  Perhaps not as great as her surprise when the X-ray revealed a ring in her innards.  The good news is that the ring was eventually passed, cleaned, and after a long journey in dark places, is now proudly worn in the light. 

The UK has Gretna Green.  The USA has Las Vegas. In Sweden couples can tie the knot in a chapel made entirely of ice, while animal lovers can get back to nature with a luxury ceremony in a South African game park.     The more adventurous bride and groom can swap wedding whites for dive gear, and exchange vows with hand signals under Hawaii’s turquoise waters.  Perhaps there is an opening for a small Australian country town to carve out a reputation as a destination for small weddings, as a service to the community by preventing the many major, traumatic and life changing disasters as well as the crippling medical bills that can accompany some big nuptials.