The Worst Thing We've Ever Seen Happen At A Wedding Reception In Columbus

Dec 16

The Worst Thing I ever Saw At A Reception
(and how I made it BETTER)

So we love meeting with brides and grooms. One of the questions that we got a lot is ‘what is the worst thing you’ve ever seen at a wedding reception’?

Well that’s an easy one to answer.

This wedding reception (which shall not be named) happened in the early 2000’s, and it happened at one of our favorite venues - The Westin Columbus!

The day started off 100% typical. We had arrived at the Westin early to set up. Both the bride and the groom stopped by the ballroom while we were setting up which gave us a chance to say hi. They were getting married at a church so they didn’t spend too much time in the ballroom, but once again…..its was all perfectly normal.

That was until I saw the bride and groom at the cocktail hour in foyer.

They were supposed to be at the entire cocktail hour but they arrived with only about 10 minutes left. The bride looked like she had been crying…A LOT. And this wasn’t the bride was crying during the ceremony look. It was a full on cry look.

Lots of people were hugging her too. Not a ‘normal hug"‘ you give a bride, but the ‘we are so sorry’ sort of a hug.

Hey…I’m not the smartest man when it comes to knowing women…but even I could see something was wrong.

I quickly found out what had happened. It turns out that the bride’s mom tripped at the ceremony and broke her collarbone. They had to call the paramedics to take her to the hospital. But she didn’t want to leave until the ceremony was over. SO…..these wonderful paramedics gave her a shot to ease the pain. The ceremony went on as planned with the paramedics in the pews of the church.

Two minutes after the couple was pronounced husband and wife, the paramedics took the mom out on a stretcher and to the emergency room. Of course her husband (the father of the bride) goes with her.

The entire reception went on as planned, and it was a fun reception, but you could tell that the bride wasn’t happy about not having her parents there.

Around 10:30 the brother of the bride tells me that he is going to see if he can pick up the parents and bring them to the reception. I tell him to please call me and let me know if this he thinks they will be arriving before the reception ends.

Now you have to aware that The Westin has a VERY strict cutoff time of midnight. That is because they have hotel rooms right above the ballroom, and they don’t want music playing too late. I’ve NEVER seen a reception go past this time - that’s how strict they are on this rule.

Well the brother of brides comes in around FIVE MINUTES BEFORE MIDNIGHT. Now I was planning on introducing the parents to make a big deal out of them making it to the reception. But the bride spots him and her parents just outside the ballroom. Tears start to flow from everyone at this point.

When the brother told me of his plans to get the parents, I had already had in my mind what I wanted to do.

I quickly get the attention of the Westin staff and tell them my plans. They thought it was a good idea and FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER the Westin gave me permission to go past midnight.

I gathered the crowd onto the dance floor and played the father / daughter dance. A huge cheer went up from the crowd as I introduced the father of the bride to the dance floor. It had to be one of the most memorable father / daughter dances I’ve ever done because no one thought it would happen, certainly not the bride or her father.

More tears were shed, but these were happy tears.

To end night - at about 12:10AM - we re-did the bride and groom first dance so that the parents could see it. It might not have been as picture perfect as the first one, but it was a HUGE HIT with the guests.

Creating special moments during a reception is the goal of every wedding DJ (or at least it should). Let me tell you how good it felt to be able to do for this reception, especially given the bad circumstances of the day.

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