There are wedding stories, and there are wedding horror stories.
Then, there’s this wedding horror story.
Because what was meant to be the best day of Nichola Tuohy’s life quickly spiralled into a series of extremely, painfully unfortunate events no decent person would wish upon any bride.
Guys, she missed her own wedding.
“I started crying. I had a bare face, no make-up on, no dress on, no flower girl dress and half an hour to get ready,” the mum-of-three told The Sun of how she completely missed her £12,000 ($AU20,900) wedding her and her fiance had been planning for 17 months, and how it eventually cost her their relationship.
Retracing her steps on that ill-fated morning back in July 2016, Tuohy put the whole mess down to a particularly disastrous makeup appointment.
Waking up on her wedding day “with a huge panic about how much [she] had to do”, Tuohy’s first stop was a makeup counter at her local department store where she’d booked in to get her wedding makeup done.
Sure thing, it took far longer than expected. And it as all for nothing, as it turned out.
“When it was done it didn’t look like me. I wanted to cry. I felt like an extra from [British reality TV show] Towie,” she said.
LISTEN: Speaking of unfortunate wedding stories, did you catch last night’s episode of Married At First Sight? No stress if not, you can just listen to the recap below (post continues after audio…)
That alone would be hard enough – anyone who’s ever had their makeup professionally done only to feel like they’re wearing an orange mask can understand. But with just 90 minutes to go before the ceremony, Tuohy had no choice but to suck it up and make the best of the situation.
Then, she came home to find her parents, who were meant to be in charge of organising her three kids, were boycotting her wedding.
“I was in tears at this stage as I could see the clock ticking and knew I didn’t have long to get myself and the kids ready,” she said.
Only in the rush to get her and her kids to the hotel, Tuohy left her daughter’s flower girl dress at home with her horrible parents.
Pretty bad, right? At such a point you’d think to yourself, things can’t get any worse… right?
Not in this case. Next, the bride received a text from her bridesmaid. She could no longer make the wedding because her kids were sick. A TEXT? ON THE MORNING OF THE WEDDING? Who is this miserable excuse for a bridesmaid?!
At this stage, Tuohy rang her husband-to-be, who promptly told her to get her butt over to the church where all their family and friends were waiting for her.
So that’s what she did, shepherding her kids out the vintage style car that’d been hired to take the bride to the church. Then she realised the car didn’t have seat belts. Sure, she could’ve made it without a seat belt, but she couldn’t drive her kids in the car safely without them.
Finally, with 35 kilometres to the ceremony location and just 30 minutes to get there, Tuohy chucked her wedding dress into the back of her Ford Focus and drove as fast as she could to make it there in time. But it wasn't enough.
"I knew I didn’t have a hope in hell unless I drove like Lewis Hamilton. I had a wave of panic and, exhausted, I just lay down defeated," she said.
"My heart sank when I realised I’d missed my own wedding. I had jilted my groom without meaning to."
The groom, who'd waited for ages in front of his guests, pleading with the vicar to wait for his bride, was understandably angry when he saw her walk into the reception. So much so, he walked out on the reception. They spent the night in their honeymoon suite - he, quiet and distant, she, crying herself to sleep.
Sadly, there was no coming back from the wedding day from hell, and the couple decided to end their relationship.
"In the end, there was no big showdown — we just drifted further apart and split up. I knew it was because of the wedding and so did he. I just hope that one day he can forgive me."
Wow.