The Overshare with Gemma Atkinson - WHEN WEDDINGS GO WRONG: No one had a worse wedding than ME!

Episode Date: March 26, 2025

We’ve all heard Wedding Horror Stories but here’s a selection to beat all of yours! From a Bride being taken to Church in a Funeral Procession car, to your Best Friend ‘Bridesmaid’ ditching you, to What your Niece was caught doing in the toilets! Oh; we guarantee no one’s had a worse wedding than this lot!

Disclaimer, right? If you're engaged or if you're planning to get engaged, especially if you're planning to get married, this episode may not be for you. I'm hoping you've seen the title. Hello and welcome back to the world of oversharing. I'm Gemma Atkinson with real life stories from real people. People who have lived through the horrors and have now come on here to talk to me about them in between all of our gasps. In this episode, when weddings go wrong,

maybe you think your wedding day could have gone smoother. Maybe you think your wedding day shouldn't have gone ahead at all. I guarantee you, after you've heard this, you will be a bit happier as you glance through your wedding day shouldn't have gone ahead at all. I guarantee you, after you've heard this, you will be a bit happier as you glance through your wedding photos. Author, psychologist and relationship expert, Sam Owen is back with us.

Thank you for coming back, Sam. You're gonna relive some unfortunate moments with the Overshares. Remind us again what it is you do, Sam. I'm a relationships coach, so I help people to resolve issues in their relationships, stuff to do with dating, anxiety, confidence, that sort of thing. So we're in good hands

especially in this episode. Right let's dive in and reminisce the happiest moments of our Overshares lives. Well maybe not. Getting married doesn't mean giving up who you are. The best man rushed past. He was followed by the bride who was shouting it should have been you. Putting someone, whoever it is, through short-term pain is actually a gift you're giving them. Did you know that one of your guests was found having sex in the toilet? was found having sex in the toilet. In this episode, we have changed the names of some of our blushing brides, just to save, well, their blushes. Liz has sent us a voice note, there's loads of ways to get in touch.

Let's listen to what Liz has got to say. I hadn't seen my two bridesmaids since my wedding day over 11 years ago. She was my best friend friend or so I thought. A couple of weeks before my wedding day a third party told me that she'd been slagging me off behind my back. We worked at the same place so she'd been saying stuff like you should see her in that dress, she thinks she's something she's not and other crap like that. I confronted her and she really denied it but something just wasn't sitting right with me.

So I said we would wait until after the wedding to discuss it properly. Her little girl was also my follower girl so I didn't want to let her down. The day after I got a message to say she was really hurt that I hardly spoken to her. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I was sort of busy getting married and stuff.

Anyway, after the wedding, I tried numerous times to discuss the incident, but she wouldn't speak to me about it unless she was drunk, which I wasn't prepared to do. I wasn't prepared to have it out to her unless she was sober and I could get to the truth. Anyway, the message is phased out and that was that. I was really hurt that we couldn't

fix it as I would have probably forgiven her if she'd had an explanation or whatever. And I've always wondered if the third party was causing trouble and why couldn't she explain to me what it was or whatever. Anyway, it is where it is and seen her a couple of times, but we've just looked the other way. That's clearly a frenemy situation, isn't it? Definitely. I mean, who goes around slagging off the bride, thinking she looks good in her outfit for her wedding day? I mean, of course she should. And if you're a friend, you should be happy for her.

She's bridesmaid as well. So it's her job to like pep the bride up. Yeah. A daughter's part of it. A daughter was flower girl. It's so sad. We want a way to lose a friend. Yeah, it sounds like she's also, she was jealous of her. And there's obviously something deep seated there prior to the marriage for the ex friend

that's then come out in, when it's a special occasion. Isn't it funny, you really learn who people are in your life when something good happens to you, because actually, if they can't be happy for you, or in this case, go by the way to make you miserable, then, or slag you off behind your back, then you really see who's who in your life. So actually, sometimes it could be great to have a good thing happening in your life because you really work out who's who. It'd be great to know if, I mean, obviously we can't know, but if the friend maybe was single or had a crush on the husband to be or there's got to, I always think when people are mean

about someone, especially their friends, there's a backstory as to why isn't it? Yeah, there's something they resent. Yeah and you think for your mate getting married, know, there was a running joke in my family. I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. I mean, it didn't bother me. I was bridesmaid for my sister, my best friend Laura, and another girl I used to know, Helen. And, but it didn't bother me being the bridesmaid. I used to think it's less hassle just show up in a dress, stand with some flowers for 10 minutes, then have a party. But for some, that can really get them down, being invited to so many weddings,

but not having their own. They feel like a failure almost, and you shouldn't. Yeah, no, absolutely not. Your time will come when it's meant to come. Don't get hung up on how long you've been single, how many failed relationships you've had. They didn't work out for a reason, learn from them. If you want to get married,

then put the effort into finding somebody, know who you are, know what you're looking for, and go out and try and make it happen in some form or another. But don't begrudge other people their happiness, because actually, and if you do, if you begrudge other people's happiness, particularly those who are supposed to be dear in your life,

then it's really a sign that you need to work on yourself. If that's bothering me, then why is it bothering me? What is it that I wanna address in my own life? I see it more from a groom's point of view, which sounds strange, but I understand how, you know, lads have a bromance. And for some guys, the thought of losing their best mate to a woman or another man, whatever,

that I understand because they say, oh, he's my man, he's my dude. He's always the one who I can go to the pool hall with, go for drinks with, go to the footy with. Suddenly now it's Saturday mornings, I spent, you know, going on walks with his partner, they're taking the kids swimming lessons. So I can understand a little bit of jealousy and it's not even a rivalry, it's jealous that their best mate is now having their time taken up with their new partner. How does someone, because like you say, they've got to be happy for them. You've got to be happy for them, but at the same time as well, you shouldn't have to completely lose somebody out of your life. Now granted, they might be all loved up and all caught up in their

new marriage and great for them, you know, let them enjoy it. But at some point, you know, you should still be able to have your own personal social life as to married people. Getting married doesn't mean giving up who you are. You know, you just have somebody in life to compliment it, you know. So still make time for your friends and still make time for yourself, your self care, your me time, and doing the things that you enjoy

and that are good for you, for your mental and physical health and your happiness, whilst you enjoy this new chapter of your life as well. I think that's another mistake some people do is when they find their partner and get married, they shut off everyone else. Yeah. And then if and when it goes wrong down the line,

they've no friendship circle to fall back on. Cut them all off. Yeah, and you need that group of friends to take you out socializing again, to introduce you to new people, to be a shoulder to cry on. So if you isolate them all from the off, because you're now with this one person,

that can be damaging too, can't it? Definitely, you know, at the end of the day, those people in your life, you know, they deserve your continued, you know, love and affection if they've been there for you so far. I always find that odd when people completely for the long term cut out, you know, the people that have been close to them, dear to them and prior to that relationship. And also, if you are really kind of hiding your relationship away from everybody else, what is that world about? You know, are you not confident about that relationship. So you're not comfortable to and

You know blend your two worlds together, you know, what does that really tell you about your relationship? Thank you for joining us, Susan. From what I've read, you had to work really, really hard to convince everyone that your wedding was a good idea in the first place, didn't you? Tell us what happened. My dad really didn't approve of it. It was a shotgun wedding, found with, and he was a working class minor, covered in tattoos. My dad was a very middle class person, and he wasn't what he wanted for his daughter at all. And obviously for you, you were in love, or so you thought. Did your family raise these concerns with you before you got married?

Yes, they did. My dad said to me, get me an ultimatum. You either stop seeing him or you move out. Well, he was three years older than me. He had his own house and I moved out. When you're 18 and you're given an ultimatum like that, not really, you know, live life much, you think you know better don't you? I'm assuming you didn't live happily ever after. No I didn't, not in the least. I should have learned from the beginning really because when the cats came to pick me up to say I'm to the church, it was actually one of those cows that follows the hearse. It was one of them's ones. I kept saying to my dad, I can't get in that, it's a funeral car, because he was best friends with people

who died after. So you reluctantly get in this car and go to your church wedding. How did the actual wedding go? Well, I was trying to get down there and my dad was trying to pull me back and he kept saying to me all the way down, you can change your mind, you can change your mind. No, no, I'm not going to change my mind, this is what I want, you know. And I think because my dad was so strict, don't get me wrong, I loved my dad more than anything,

he was a fantastic father. Because of the job that he had, I was very much his daughter and it had to be seen to be doing the right thing. And how did the reception go? The wedding reception, after you'd done your vows, you'd done the legalities, how was it? Was it a frosty reception with your family there? What happened there? We went to a very nice new venue. It was a well-to-do area and then early hours in the morning, we kept getting phone calls. Everybody would come down to spoon poison him from the book line. So it's almost like the odds were against you from the start with this wedding. What would you do, Stan? Do you listen to the people around you when it comes to getting married? Because in some cases, obviously, I mean, I've got two children and I'm trying to think

if it was, if it was my son or daughter going through with a wedding that I didn't think would last, it's kind of like, you don't want them to make the biggest mistake of the life, but you also don't want to be the reason that they don't make that mistake because they'll forever blame you down the line. It's a hard one to navigate as a parent. I mean, it's so difficult, whether it's your parents or your siblings or your friends, it's so difficult because, you know, to some extent, people don't know what goes on behind closed doors, so to speak.

So how much do people really have a grasp on your relationship? You know, that's going to play on your mind. And the other thing about listening to other people, obviously do listen to what they've got to say, because, you know, then you can still make up your own decision. But always be aware of who you're taking your advice from. What's their own sort of track record when it comes to relationships? Do they have a very negative attitude, for example, towards relationships? Do they really have your best interests at heart? Is it really a frenemy? Because sometimes when weddings happen, the frenemies can show themselves. Yeah. Particularly with friends, you know,

or even maybe siblings, you know, you start to see actually who they really are and how they really feel about you. So, you know, you do have to kind of listen to yourself in the end. How long was it until you inevitably did split up? We stayed together, married for about six or seven years. I stayed with her for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. But I was, it wasn't a good marriage, so it was a marriage that was hard to get out on.

And I didn't want to say anything to my parents, especially not to my dad, because I think I did felt like a failure. Oh yeah. And you're so young at that age. I mean, you know, it's so much to navigate on your own as an adult, you know, when you're that young, you're married and now you've got to do your own thing and you're trying to prove to your dad that you made the right decision. So it's so much to contend with.

Ultimately, when mistakes are made, you want to be the type of parent who, instead of saying, I told you so, did you say, do you know what, don't worry about it. You can come back, welcome back. When you did split up, did your family and your dad let you go back home? What happened? Did they support you in the breakup? Absolutely, yeah, he did. 100%. I really wish I would have said something to him a lot sooner, but if I can say, I think it was that thing of, I didn't want to let him down. It's not an egotistical thing, but I've been there where you just want to prove to people you can make something of yourself.

You can make it work back then as well. You were told that it could only work if you had the happy family at home, whereas now it's changing a little bit whereby you don't need to be in a relationship. You can still be happy. You can, you know, I was single on my 30th and everyone was like, oh, happy birthday. You okay? And I was like, that's the best day of my life. Do you know what I mean? But there's, there's less of a stigma now. And I think people are choosing to get married later on. Yes, definitely. I have to say, it did make me a better person. And I am pretty sure about that, you know, because it made me a stronger person too.

And I think it formed me into a person that actually he was proud of and could be proud of. I think as well he would have been proud that you stuck it out even if it wasn't 100% right. You stuck it out and there's something in that that it's like go on girl, you had some grit. He says a lot about you as a person in a good way. And how you felt about your dad at the end of the day. And I love the fact they just kind of welcomed you back with open arms without making you

feel bad for what had happened. They were probably just glad to have you back home. Yeah, they were. And it is so important to be honest with yourself and also just to be authentic with other people as well. You know, that's a really cool part of having healthy, happy relationships is being your authentic self. And because then also you really work out who's really there for you and who really cares for you and who's meant to be in your life and who's not, you know, when you're your real self. So, but you were young.

Oh, Susan, thank you for coming on and oversharing. Now it's a lovely story. I mean, obviously, I'm sorry it didn't work out, but I love the fact that throughout this whole story, your dad was the kind of shining light, the knight in armor who at the time you didn't know you needed. But they always say, don't they, ultimately parents know best. And at the time you think, no, they don't, I do, because I've been there myself. But ultimately that's, their role is to protect you, isn't it? And that's what your dad thought he was doing.

And when the time came to it, he did. Oh, Susan, thank you so much. Thank you for oversharing. Thank you. So Sam, you have a background in helping people with anxiety. You've got a book on anxiety. For the bride or groom, the wedding day could be one of the most anxious days of their life. For what reason? You don't know. Like you say, you just feel it in your body. What is that? What could it be and how do they navigate it? So the thing about anxiety is that it is alerting you to something. So you have to pay attention to it. You shouldn't be afraid of it. You know, it's your friend. It's there to help you. And so in my book, Anxiety Free, I talk about the three pillars of anxiety and it just helps you to resolve any anxiety in your life whatsoever.

OK. And completely resolve it. And so it's just gone. And so those three pillars are in simple terms, it's identify, solve and resolve. So it's like identify what's the cause of the anxiety, identify solutions for resolving it and then take thoughtful action to completely resolve it. So identify, solve, resolve. And the thing with if you're feeling anxious

about your wedding day, you really got to work out what is it I'm feeling anxious about? So is it the fact that certain guests are going to be there at the wedding that you feel maybe embarrass you? Is it the fact that your two families don't get on and so you're concerned about that dynamic? Is it the fact that you actually don't think it's the right person for you to be marrying? So when you go to that first pillar of identifies,

working out what is the source of the anxiety? What is the threat that my brain is alerting me to? So that you can then work out what the solution is and then take thoughtful action to resolve it. I like how you said it's your friend, it's your body and your brain telling you, whoa, hold up, let's put our defense up here because something doesn't quite feel right. 100%. That's a good way of looking at it. 100%, it's a survival mechanism.

It's there to serve you, not to sabotage you. So when you get anxiety as uncomfortable or horrible as it can be, just be grateful that it's helping you. This is our overshare on when weddings go wrong as we've been talking about so many juicy wedding stories. By the way, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast as well while you're here. You'll get all the episodes when they land that way. They're out every single Wednesday. And thank you for tuning in so far.

We've got loads of clips on our socials as well, so you can have a look at the whole series back on our social media page. Let's have Annette's story, shall we? Annette's got another voice note for us. So we got married in December 2009, the venue had two weddings that day, ours and somebody else's. We had our separate part and they had theirs and while we were standing outside chatting to some of the guests in the evening. The best man rushed past and he seemed to be in a hurry. He was followed by the bride who were shouting it should have been

you and then the groom sort of followed shortly after after both of them. The next morning we all had like a private area where we all had breakfast with our guests and the other wedding was in the same room and there was all of our guests and us sitting there in one on one side and there was only the bride and the bridesmaid from their wedding who just kept staring at us and we felt really awkward. Once we left the venue, my husband did actually say, I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall at that wedding to see who flinched first when they said, does anyone know why they can't get married?

That's an episode of EastEnders, isn't it? And it's do, do, do, do, do, do. Why do people leave it so late to explain their feelings to another person? I don't understand why we do that as humans. We have feelings for someone. We don't, we don't voice it until it's too late. You know, I think when you're about to get married, it's so hard because now you've got all these people invested in your wedding. It's like, how do you at

this point call a wedding off? It's difficult. And so that probably muddies the water a bit. And also, and more specifically to your question, sometimes you ignore your intuition because you explain it away in other ways. You know, I see that happen with clients, you know, they're being really on the ball about the bad relationship that they're in, but they keep explaining it away as their low self-esteem. You explain your feelings away something else instead of just paying attention to them. And secondly, you can sometimes only work out what the right path was for you once it's too late. Yeah. Once you've been forced into taking a different route, you realize actually

this isn't the road I wanted to be on at all. It's so tricky because if you think of, so we have a bride and groom and a best man and the bride and groom are getting married, but the bride is in love with the best man and the best man is in love with the bride, but he's best friends with the groom. We've been speaking to guests who went ahead with the wedding, even though they knew it was wrong for everyone else. And we've said to them how they should have got out

because they should have prioritized themselves. And in that situation, what is the right thing to do? Do you go ahead with it because of everyone's feelings? Do you think, no, do you know what, this is true love. I'm gonna tell her how I feel, forget my best friend's feeling. This is, it's just a mess. Isn't it?

Of so many people who were going to get hurt, no matter what your choice is, someone will get hurt. Definitely. And also, you know, it's what have you been doing with those feelings? Have you been flirting with that person? So have you been essentially, you know, engaging in infidelity? There's a lot that comes into the mix in a situation like that, but ultimately, sometimes it's like that saying, you have to be cool to be kind, you know, sometimes

putting someone, you know, whoever it is through short-term pain is actually a gift you're giving them because you're saving them from long-term, much longer lasting pain and embarrassment. And yeah, and it's a lie, isn't it? And I would hate to think of my partner or any partner being with me because they felt sorry for me, but had feelings for someone else. I would hate that.

Yeah, and also you should set that person free so that they can find someone who actually does really love them for them. You know, they deserve better. So, you know, just remember that even if you feel guilty about having to be honest about the situation, you are actually doing them a favor by being honest with them and letting them go and find true real happiness for themselves. It's just makes me shudder the thought of being at that wedding, but very interesting over breakfast though. I love that she, her husband and her mum and them could look over

breakfast. That was funny in the breakfast buffet. Right strap yourselves in for Jackie's story. Here's a wedding day scenario no one could plan for or ever forget. Take it away, Jackie. To give some background to the story, I live in Northern Ireland and my ex-husband had been married before so we couldn't do the traditional church wedding. I contacted a local university and you had to get permission to get married in the university if you didn't study there. But because I worked with them, I was able to get permission. Two of their members of staff wrote letters of recommendation for me. So it was a big deal to get married in this place. They had a lot of rules and regulations.

One of the regulations was everybody had to vacate the building by midnight. So my ex-husband and I went on our merry way to where we were spending our wedding night, oblivious to what was going on. When we came back from honeymoon, one of the people that had written me a letter of recommendation got in contact saying, did you know that one of your guests had set off the alarms? And I said, no. And he proceeded to tell me that she was found having sex in the toilets with her boyfriend and that set off the sensor alarms.

I mean, the embarrassment. I mean, even for the bride to be told it's one of, if someone rung me up at my wedding and said one of those guests, I'd know exactly which guest they meant from my friend group. Oh God, it'd be so awkward wouldn't it? And be like, thanks, thanks for shadowing, overshadowing our memories and everybody else's memories for the big day. I do kind of wonder, were they trying to kind of overshadow her big day or? It's almost like the episode of Friends when it's, is it Monica's wedding when Ross and

Rachel kiss? Because there is, there's always a fun thing at wedding where you always think one of the bridesmaids hooks up with one of the guests. That's kind of fun. And when it's a, it was a family member in, in Jackie's case, it was a sister's, a then sister-in-law's daughter. Oh my gosh. And by the sounds of it, she was from a strict family background as well. Not a random girl from the office. It was her niece who she'd have to see again and again and again. Do you think Sam weddings are a good place to meet your partner? Because there's two

types of wedding guests. There's ones that are just excited to be there and are living the dream with you. And there's those who are there miserable as hell because they've been single for so long. And they're actively thinking, will I find Mr. Right Now here? Is it a good place to meet a partner? I mean, why not? Yeah, you can meet your perfect partner anywhere, online or offline. So keep an open mind. As long as you know what you're looking for,

what's right for you, then you never know where you might meet them. I always think with weddings, why people go over the top. I mean, I've heard stories of people paying 25 grand plus for a wedding. And it's almost like, you know, the bottom line is you're doing it as a commitment to your partner, isn't it? A lot of them, they

do it for the wrong reasons. I think maybe that's why there's a declining amount of people getting married, because they assume it has to be this multi-thousand pound venture. It is so over the top sometimes what people do. And you know, I've known people to go into debt over it and say, what a way to start your marriage. And like you said, you know, it's about your commitment to somebody you love deeply and want to spend your life with them. And actually for that, it could just be the two of you away somewhere. Yeah.

You know, it doesn't need to be a big show. I think people just get so caught up nowadays, we keep it with the Joneses, particularly because of social media. And they get, and all they just get caught up in it all because they see other people's weddings like, oh, I want this and I want that. But really most people aren't going to be careful a lot of that stuff. It is more about the energy, the atmosphere, and if everybody's happy and if it is a genuinely loving, romantic, positive occasion, you know, because you are deeply in love and you do

want to spend the rest of your life together. So, you know, just stick within your means. And does a good wedding always equate to a good marriage? Oh, God, no. You know, people can have a number of times I've heard of people having these 20, 30, 50,000 pound weddings and then it's over six months later, you know, it's like, what does it matter? I do notice that more people now as well are opting for, you know, just going to the registry office, you know, the town hall and just doing a small thing there. And I think I love that idea in many regards,

I think, you know, because it's focusing on what's important and what it's actually about, which is about you two joining forces together, not about the showy aspect of it. And you're not forced then to invite your cousin's sister's neighbour because you've met them once at a Christmas party. You think, why am I going to pay for them to have a chicken dauphinoise? I don't think so. Oh, well, thank you so much to everyone who sent voice notes and got in touch with us.

I may now pronounce this episode complete. Thank you to everyone, to those who came on and sent stories, I really really appreciate it and if you are about to get married, good luck, you now know a little bit about what to look out for, what those warning signs are. Thank you so much Sam, I'm sure you've helped a lot of people. I've actually took some tips and things from you, things you've said. I've genuinely loved having you on so thank you. Don't forget to subscribe and to follow us and please comment and leave us a review, we really really appreciate it.

The Overshare is produced by Matt Foister and Wally Carter for Bauer Media. We shall return with more episodes to come. I'm Gemma Atkinson. Thank you for being part of The Overshare.