‘I Do’

It all started perfectly: a wedding on the beach, gentle breezes, rolling waves, friends and family. . . . Everything was lovely.

“Then the jaws of hell opened up.”

So begins one of dozens of weddings-from-Hades stories we solicited from readers. This disaster, as recounted by sister-of-the-bride Debbie Womack of San Diego, involves a stray dog lifting its leg on the bride’s gown, a sea gull adding insult to injury and a large wave crashing over the snickering guests.

Still, it could have been worse.

Judging from the pile of letters and faxes to our marital misfortunes department, Murphy’s Law is alive and well and lurking at a wedding ceremony near you.

From flatulent ministers to mothers-in-law seducing grooms, the list of calamities is frightening and unending. In a few cases, walking down the aisle even proved fatal.

Among the more memorable moments:

* The doctor who tried to calm his daughter’s wedding party by giving everyone Valium. The result was an altar full of zombies, says wedding director Shirley Moore. And the photos looked like “Nuptials of the Living Dead.”

* The no-show musicians who were replaced by an alternative orchestra after a quick-thinking but possibly demon-possessed groomsman rushed out and bought kazoos for the guests. “Have you ever tried to keep a straight face while 100 people play ‘Here Comes the Bride’ on kazoos?” asks wedding veteran Sandra Tepper of Long Beach. Hey, at least it wasn’t 100 accordions.

* The minister who tried to grab a fainting maid of honor but came up instead with her prosthetic arm. A graceful ad-lib saved the day, says the Rev. Kimber Lee Wilkes, who presided at the ceremony. The maid of honor dusted herself off and urged the congregation to “give our new couple a big hand, as I already have given them mine.”

(As it turns out, detachable body parts are a recurring motif in nuptial nightmare tales. Wedding coordinator Jennifer Loftfield of Beverly Hills recalls a laughing maitre d’ whose dentures flew into a cake, and Margaret Ayers of Pacoima describes a cousin whose glass eye made an inadvertent exit during the vows.)

Other wedding-bell bloopers are more verbal in nature. Consider this altar exchange between a slightly hard of hearing preacher and an unlucky couple, as recounted by a former church organist:

Reverend: Now, repeat after me. I, Herbert, take thee. . . .

Groom: It’s Hubert.

Reverend: What?

Groom: Hubert.

Reverend: Oh. Yes. I, Rupert. . . .

Groom: Please, it’s Hubert.

Reverend: I thought you said your name was Herbert.

Groom: HUBERT!

Reverend: Well, let’s start again. I . . . uh, what did you say your name was?

Groom: H-u-b-e-r-t.

Reverend: Right. I, Hubert, take thee, Jane. . . .

Bride: Joan.

Reverend: What?

Bride: It’s Joan.

Reverend: I thought you said your name was June.

Bride: Trust me, it’s Joan.

Reverend: Right. Here we go: I, Robert, take thee. . . .

Groom: It’s Hubert!

Reverend: Then why did you tell me your name was Rupert? You’ve got to take these vows seriously, you know.

Children, too, are reliable sources of embarrassing oratory. When the minister at one ceremony asked if anyone knew a reason the couple should not wed, a 6-year-old boy happily announced that his mom and dad opposed the union. As the panicked parents tried to silence their offspring, he piped up again:

“But Mom, remember yesterday in the car? You said, ‘They’re so different’ and you don’t think the marriage will last?”

Yes, she remembered, all right. And would you please pass the duct tape?

Other tyke-related tales involve rings disappearing down toilets, peeing contests off hotel balconies during receptions, and a little girl watching the groom kiss the bride and asking loudly: “Mommy, is he putting the pollen on her now?”

Not every wedding horror story is true, however.

One making the rounds on the East Coast has the groom announcing at a posh reception that he and his new wife will be taking separate honeymoons and that when they return, the marriage will be annulled.

“If you want to know why,” he tells the befuddled guests, “look under your plates.” When they do, they find a photo of the bride and the best man in a “compromising position.”

According to the Washington Post, the story is an urban legend: “Many people swear [it’s] true. They’ve heard it on the radio. They know someone who knows someone who was there. [Or] they were actually there themselves.

“But it didn’t happen.”

The Post tried to trace the rumor to its source but came up empty-handed. “Something so delicious just had to be true,” the reporter concluded. “And Paul is dead.”

True or not, such stories hold some interesting lessons.

Rule No. 1, for example: Avoid shooting the groom.

John Crawford of Inglewood’s Ivy House Chapel says he catered a wedding in the 1960s in which a highly intoxicated groom shoved a piece of cake “really hard” into the face of an equally blotto bride.

The result: “She went out to the car, got her gun and came back in and shot him dead.”

Aside from that, it was a lovely ceremony.

Even when marriage isn’t fatal, it still can be hazardous. In Orange County, a champagne cork knocked a groom out cold. In Pacific Palisades, a bride was so allergic to her wedding dress that she developed hives and welts.

And at a Jewish ceremony in Atlantic City, N.J., a shot glass placed under a handkerchief for Norman Berney to stomp on rocketed into his nearby mother-in-law, rendering her unable to walk for two weeks.

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Bridal brawls are another threat. In New Hampshire, a newlywed wife punched the best man and the groom threw furniture in protest when the bar was closed at their reception. When police arrived, they had trouble apprehending the groom because he was slathered in the shaving cream that guests had used to write wedding wishes on the couple’s truck.

“We couldn’t get a good grip on him because the shaving cream made him so slippery,” one officer told the Associated Press.

Which brings us to Rule No. 2: Honeymoon nights are generally more enjoyable when spent somewhere other than the local jail.

Another tip: Steer clear of wedding cake recipes that call for flour, sugar, eggs, milk and a “small, dead rodent.” The latter turned up at an Ohio wedding attended years ago by Milton L. Zell, but the embarrassed baker redeemed himself by offering a then-sizable $500 check to the bride and groom if the guests agreed not to sue.

Finally, as several weddings-from-hell submissions noted, it’s wise to keep marriage-day catastrophes in proper perspective.

Linda Holtkamp, who had to sneak past police roadblocks to get to her Anaheim Hills wedding reception because of brush fires in the area, says she can’t muster much sympathy for brides being traumatized by imperfect manicures or closed eyes in wedding photos.

“I’ll never forget how they told me it was the most important day of my life, but every time we looked up the hill, we saw people who were having a really important day as their homes and neighborhoods were disappearing in the path of the fire.”

Reader Russ Hawkes adds: “No matter how many plans go astray in the mere festivities, the magic still works for a man and woman who mean what they say at the altar.”

* Detail from bridal gown courtesy of Bridal City, Los Angeles; (213) 628-8366