As told by J. Fischer...
I am a professional event videographer. Several years ago, a professional photographer I was working with told me the following story:
He was at a wedding two weeks earlier and during the ceremony, the clergy stated the familiar, "If anyone knows any reason why this couple should NOT be joined, let him speak now or forever hold his peace."
There was a moment of silence when the bride spoke. "I have a reason", she said. "I learned this morning that my fiancé spent last night with my maid of honor."
There was a collective gasp from the congregants. The bride's father got up to confer with his daughter and turned to the audience with, "Well, folks, the wedding is off, but the reception is paid for. Let's go party."
And, the story goes, everyone except the groom, his family and the maid of honor went to the reception.
Analysis: "The Bothered Bride" dates from the mid-1980s, when it circulated via word of mouth, appeared in a newspaper column or two, then got the full tabloid treatment in a December 1985 story in the Weekly World News titled "Bride's Wedding Shocker."
Another variant of the story reverses the roles, with the groom stopping the wedding ceremony to inform guests that the bride had been sleeping with the best man. In 1995 an Internet version appeared claiming the incident took place at Clemson University.
The urban legend was discussed at length in Jan Harold Brunvand's 1986 book The Mexican Pet, and again in Too Good to Be True, published in 1999.
Also known as: "The Bride's Revenge" or "Wedding Revenge."
