LIFE IMITATES SUDS WHEN IT COMES TO SOME WEDDINGS

Soap-opera weddings rarely come off without a hitch, but are there times when truth is stranger than fiction? Just about every actor we asked had a wedding horror story to relate.

“It was just like in the movies,” says Thom Christopher, who played Dante Partou on “Loving” and Carlo Hesser/Mortimer Bern on “One Life to Live.” “I never thought I’d ever actually hear anything in response to, ‘If there is anyone who can show just cause,’ but I was at a friend’s wedding, and someone came forward with a quite unprintable objection. It was an utter disaster, but ultimately the ceremony did continue.”

The happily married Hillary B. Smith (Nora Gannon on “One Life to Live”) luckily does not believe in omens.

“A guy stood up at our rehearsal dinner to toast us,” says Smith. “And then he proceeded to wish us more luck than the couple at the last rehearsal dinner he’d attended. At that one the bride-to-be stood up, thanked everyone for coming, and announced their gifts would be returned because her fiance was out back with the maid of honor.”

Alice Barrett (Frankie Winthrop on “Another World”) just celebrated her 11th anniversary.

“I had a glorious wedding,” says Barrett. But they could have played “Get Me To The Church On Time” in place of “The Wedding March” at her nuptials.

“My uncle served as my chauffeur, and he decided to stop at a bar for a pre-wedding toast,” explains Barrett, adding with a laugh, “We were over an hour and a half late.”

Vincent Irizarry (Nick McHenry Spaulding on “Guiding Light”) says, “My sister’s wedding was a near-disaster. The limo broke down on the way to the reception. We’re on a highway--no phones--so there’s five guys in tuxes hitching a ride. The guy who stopped went 20 miles out of his way to get us to the reception, but he had a Pinto, so it was like being in a clown car.”

Anna Holbrook (Kate Baker on “Another World”) and her husband, Bruce, who was her childhood sweetheart, can hardly stop laughing as she tells her story.

“We were at my husband’s friend’s wedding reception,” says Holbrook. “It was a military wedding with just about everybody in uniform. I graciously wished the couple a marriage as happy as mine. When I asked where they were going on their honeymoon, I was greeted with silence. Still, I understood their desire for secrecy and continued to blather on until Bruce whisked me away, while muttering apologies. I was congratulating the wrong people.”

Susan Keith (Shana Burnell on “Loving”) met her husband, James Kiberd (Trevor Dillon on “All My Children”), while both were on “Loving.” It was hate at first sight, but, just as in soaps, it turned to love.

“On the morning of our wedding, it was 80 degrees and sunny,” Keith explains. Kiberd continues, “By 1 p.m. it was 45 degrees with 4 inches of rain. The thunder was so loud the guests couldn’t hear the vows. We won’t even talk about the mud. We got anniversary gifts with thunderbolts on them.”

When we asked Marj Dusay (Alexandra Spaulding on Guiding Light), she says with a hearty laugh, “Wedding horror stories? Two.” Two divorces.

She says jokingly, “I believe in weddings--for other people. Right now, I’m much more into grandchildren.”