Had a mother of the groom-zilla at tonight's wedding

jbj

Poor old Geordie's array...
Picture the scene:

A wedding. Nice rural castle setting, beautiful sunny evening. Everyone is in good spirits.

Bride and groom want A LOT of Scottish ceilidh / country dancing music early in proceedings.

Groom is Scottish. Bride is English.

160 odd guests split evenly down the middle.

I'm supposed to be calling the moves for the benefit of those that have never done these dances before or haven't done them for years.

First one goes off fine.

Second one - a woman storms up absolutely howling drunk (you know that minging wine breath women of a certain age can conjure up when they're pissed?....) " WE'RE CHEUCTERS (inbreds from up north) AND KNOW WHAT WE'RE FUCKING DOING JUST GET ON WITH IT!!!"

"Uh OK.... Hands up folks if you've NEVER done this dance before?"

Dozens

"Hands up folks if you've not done this dance since high school?"

More hands up

"I DON'T FUCKING CARE, JUST GET ON WITH THE SONG, WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING."


This is in front of pretty much everyone :grin:

"I appreciate a lot of you know the moves but most people here don't..."

I DON'T FUCKING CARE!!!!ONDECIUBUVEIUBIU JUST TELL THEM TO FOLLOW WHAT I'M DOING!!!

At this point the groom, visibly mortified by his mum motions for me just to play the song to shut her up.

Disaster. Absolute bollocks of a trainwreck. Not that she noticed she was so gone.


Next tune, trying to make light of the incident:

"Ok that last one wasn't the most symmetrical Strip the Willow I've ever seen so we're definitely going to run through this one before starting."

from the back of the room: WE DON'T NEED TO RUN THROUGH IT, WE ALL BLOODY KNOW WHAT WE'RE DOING...

Groom again just tells me to roll with it

And for the next one

And the next one

30 minutes of complete and utter shit because the grooms mum got into the sherry a bit too early.

It was a shame too because the first song, the one that they actually got taught the moves for was great.

Groom came over and kept apologising to me all night - had to tell him to chill, it wasn't his fault.


Later on I'm playing and she's stood swaying in the middle of the dancefloor (which is rammed with people loving whatever tune it was) screaming: WHAT IS THIS SHIT? WHAT IS THIS SHIT?

I've had enough by this point so I pull the music down a notch so people can hear her screaming, I get on the mic and say: "THIS is what I like to refer to as a request from the bride and groom."

B0om - big cheer from the crowd, someone came and scraped her off the dancefloor and that was the last I seen of her.

A few years ago something like that would have ruined my night but it's all good, great night had by all except for the one drunk person who wants to be the centre of attention = a good gig :thu:
 
Wedding are WAY to big a PITA. I won;t do them regardless of the pay

This one paid my mortgage for the next 6 weeks, I can live with a drunk annoying woman :grin:

I've actually (touch wood) been really lucky over the years and never had any nightmare clients. My brother does much better with his google rankings than me so he has a much wider pool of nutters clamouring to book him and he has had an occasion or two where the client or their guests have made his shift hard - some wanker got so drunk he managed to knock over a trussing podium and smashed up a £800 moving head light a few weeks back at one of his gigs :facepalm:
 
That's why I am glad I am a "I'll stand out of the way and be quiet" drunk.
 
"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" - Prince Philip to a Scottish driving instructor
 
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"How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" - Prince Philip to a Scottish driving instructor

It does suck quite a lot being the only sober guy in the room - I mean if the bar staff are anything like when I worked in a hotel function suite will be hammered most of the night too :grin: :embarrassed:

And on that note I'm off for a pint :thu:
 
How many times do you play the Twilight wedding song? (I'm kinda glad I'm not doing it on guitar now).
 
Ah as in the movie twilight :rolleyes:

You know I only had to play that a handful of times and it was usually for ceremony or bridal party dances - the big one over the past few years was my pal Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud but even that's died away and I didn't have to play it that much either - I think because I'm higher end and offer a bespoke service and a 24/7 online planning app my couples are more inclined to really think about their music rather than just go for whatever soppy shite is sitting at the top of the charts - when I worked for a cheap ass agency it was always something like Adele or Aerosmith :rolleyes:

In the past couple of weeks I've had first dance tunes from Chance the Rapper, Fleetwood Mac, Daniel Bedinfield, Panic at the Disco :messedup: and INXS - Saturdays is Marvin Gaye and the one after that aren't even having a first dance. :grin:
 
Clearly you're a true professional....great job handling a drunk...

I wouldn't go that far but if you need to deal with enough of them, you get quite handy good at it. :embarrassed:

The way I like to put it to my clients is that I'm very "diplomatic" if a drunk guest starts asking for stupid requests or making a tit of themselves.

I've only ever lost it once when a guy got right up in my face threatening me. He was a good half foot taller than me and build like a tank but I stuck my head back into his and growled - "I'm the soberest person in this room and you can barely stand, if you don't get away from me in the next 3 seconds I'll break your nose and launch you off this stage" not my proudest moment but he shat it and gave me peace for the rest of the night so it obviously worked :grin:
 
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