The Last-Minute Marriage Meltdown
A funny wedding day short story to kick off my own wedding weekend!
Paid Subscribers: Your exclusive audio newsletter is behind the paywall at the bottom of this post. I’m also going to include bonus scenes and epilogues where appropriate as an additional perk for y’all, starting with today’s story. Enjoy!
New Subscribers: Welcome to The Giggler! We’re on a never-ending quest for amusement and unadulterated fun here. Sometimes in my newsletters, I share updates from my life as a voice actress and writer; other times, it’s all about my adventures in learning to draw. Today is a ridiculous short story to make you chuckle—wedding-themed, of course, because I’m getting married this weekend!
Thank you all for being here!
The Last-Minute Marriage Meltdown
By 4:03 PM, Claire had officially sweated through her third deodorant application. Dark crescent moons had formed below her armpits in her ivory silk-laced wedding dress hours ago. Unfortunately, that was the least of her worries.
“Tropical? I said romantic!” Claire screeched, her voice rising another octave. She cleared her throat, glancing around at her suite of bridesmaids and wedding planner staff. Everyone stared at Claire wide-eyed as if waiting for her to explode like an overinflated balloon.
Keep it together, she told herself. “It’s fine, just a minor detail,” she said, convincing no one. She took a deep breath to keep the rising tide of stress at bay. The entire morning had been one unexpected mishap after the next. The string quartet’s cellist was stuck in Detroit with a sinus infection, a stray dog left a smelly present right at the entrance to the venue, half the guests were MIA due to a freak hail storm, Aunt Margo’s aggressive air kiss left a wine-colored stain in her veil, and the makeup artist used a mascara that it turns out Claire was allergic to.
Claire turned to face her disheveled, puffy-eyed reflection in the floor-length mirror. “Um,” her voice squeaked out, “can I have a quick moment alone with Tara?” Everyone but the maid of honor shuffled out of the bridal suite, muttering and whispering worriedly.
Tara bit her bottom lip and watched Claire’s eyes well with tears. However, to be fair, it was hard to tell whether the tears were from the stress or part of the allergic reaction. Nevertheless, Tara waited patiently for a mental breakdown.
“Oh my god,” Claire whispered. She blinked, shook her head, then stepped away from the mirror, pacing in the tiny bridal suite like a frantic debutante ghost. “What if this is a sign? What if it’s all a sign?”
Tara tried to fan her with a wedding program, but it slipped from her fingers and flew across the room. She started speaking before Claire could notice. “It’s not a sign. It’s just… life. Kicking you in the veil.” She cringed at her attempt to say something meaningful.
“Who loses their vows on their wedding day? What am I supposed to say up there?!”
Tara gingerly placed her hands on Claire’s shoulders. “Speak from the heart. That’s all that matters, right?”
Claire let out the breath she’d sucked in minutes before, rustling Tara’s hair. Tara wrinkled her nose. “You might want to have this first, though.” She pulled a breath mint from her purse. Claire pouted, entirely unamused.
Someone knocked on the door.
“What is it?” Tara called out.
“The ring bearer just ate one of the rings,” the wedding planner’s muffled voice said.
Claire grabbed a throw pillow from the decorative corner chair and screamed into it.
👰♀️💐💍💒
Five minutes to go, and everything that had yet to go wrong did; Claire’s dress zipper got stuck halfway up, so her bridesmaids decided to sew her the rest of the way in… with blue thread (it was all they had on hand). The live-stream setup for Grandma in Florida was somehow streaming a different wedding. The signature cocktails hadn’t arrived. The groom’s grandma called her mom a “shameless hussy” for wearing red. And the DJ played the wrong playlist initially, so the groom and his groomsmen walked down the aisle to “My Humps.”
Despite her carefully planned day crumbling around her, Claire held her chin high as she walked out into the ceremony. Just as she felt moments away from tears… there was Max at the end of the aisle.
He looked like he’d spent the last twenty minutes calming groomsmen, fixing a broken boutonniere, and possibly refereeing a toddler slapfight. The matching level of disheveled he emitted instantly brought a goofy grin to Claire’s face. The moment their eyes met, the day’s chaos faded, and time felt like it stopped.
Claire forgot about the hailstorm, the missing cake topper, her sweaty armpits... All that existed in her world was Max. He smiled at her with the force of a thousand I-Love-You’s.
Claire stepped forward. The wrong flowers in her bouquet didn’t matter. The veil stain? Who cared. The guests they did have were grinning through the chaos. She gracefully took Max’s hands in hers, and the moment she started saying her vows, she felt her world exhale.
They laughed. They cried. They promised forever, and they kissed to a crowd full of cheers.
Then, the real party began.
Drinks were poured, shoes were kicked off, someone did the worm in a tuxedo, and Claire danced like she hadn’t just considered eloping at 3:48 PM. It was wild, messy, and totally perfect.
Toward the end of the night, Max pulled her in, grinning. “I told you it’d be fine.”
“Fine is generous,” she said, grinning back. “But yeah. It was perfect.”
Just then, from somewhere in the crowd, a little voice piped up: “I pooped out the ring!”
Everyone turned.
The ring bearer beamed proudly, holding up a suspiciously clean ring dangling from the end of a plastic spoon like a prized piece of cereal.
Claire and Max looked at each other.
“Well,” Max said, “Nothing says forever like a ring that’s been through it all.”
I hope this story made you chuckle! (Paid Subscribers, keep scrolling for your exclusive bonus epilogues!)
May your weekend be filled with shenanigans and laughter, my lovely Gigglers. Next time you hear from me, I’ll be a Mrs!
Sincerely,
Alexa (AKA The Giggler)
P.S. I recently realized that by dividing my post into free access content and paid content, the settings only allow paid subscribers to comment on my posts. I’m working to find a way around this, because I want everyone to be able to comment on my silly stories. For now I will encourage my free subscribers to reply directly to this email with your comments. I can also create a chat in the Substack App for each of my newsletters. Is that temporary solution something you’d like? Let me know!
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