It was Michael Swerdloff's first wedding as a DJ. He was nervous but felt he had prepared sufficiently for his first wedding ... or so he thought.

"The groom was the older brother of my DJ partner, and the bride was a good friend who previously dated the younger brother," remembered Swerdloff, now the owner of DJ Mystical Michael. "I knew the bride, whose parents were divorced, and knew that she spelled and pronounced her last name in a Polish cultural accent."

According to Swerdloff, the wedding went smoothly and the reception was a large one, with around 450 people all dressed to the nines. "I had never performed to such a large crowd, and I was given the list of names for the bridal party introductions about 10 minutes before I needed to announce them," said Swerdloff.

After announcing the first groomsman and bridesmaid, a very large man in a three-piece, dark pinstriped suit approached his DJ booth and placed his hand over the microphone. Then, he slid back his jacket with his other hand to reveal a holstered .357 handgun. "He stared straight into my eyes with his scarred face and said, 'Mr. _____ does not like his name mispronounced. If you do it again, it will be the last time you turn on a microphone. His name is pronounced _____,'" recalled Swerdloff.

As the man departed, the room fell silent as 450 people stared at the horrified DJ. "I gathered myself as much as possible and meekly introduced the rest of the bridal party using this new Italian pronunciation of the bride's last name," said Swerdloff. "To say I we shaking would be a gross understatement, but I survived and it was a great party."

Later on, Swerdloff discovered that the bride's father was a local mob boss and that was why the mother-of-the-bride divorced him as well as spelled and pronounced their last name with a Polish accent.

And what lesson is to be learned here? "Make sure you practice the pronunciation of all wedding party members in advance of the wedding with the bride or groom and ten minutes before their entrance," replied Swerdloff. "It's been 30 years since that happened, and I have not made the same mistake since."

File this one under "you always get what you pay for ... and then some." A recent East Coast bride was on a very tight budget (as many brides are these days) and, while browsing for vendors on Craig's List, found a great price on a wedding cake that she just couldn't pass up.

Her wedding planner, Andria Medeiros with Infinite Events, had warned her against booking any vendors from Craig's List, but the bride insisted on using this particular vendor, feeling that they could handle her simple request of creating a cake with an "outdoorsy" theme.

She was expecting a cake that was very elegant and pastoral, one that captured the lush ambience of their outdoor wedding. Instead, what she got was a flat cake with neon green icing, a blue river running down the middle of it and small wolf figurines scattered on the surface, presumably howling in laughter at being part of this atrocity.

To add insult (or accident, as it would be) to injury, when delivering the cake, the baker's vehicle was rear-ended and the cake itself smashed into the dashboard of the vehicle, leading to the demise of a few wolf figurines. "In my opinion, it was the best thing that could have happened," said Medeiros. "This saved the bride the embarrassment from having to display the horrific cake to her guests." Instead of letting her guests view this literal car wreck of a cake, the bride had it cut up into slices in the kitchen and served buffet style.

The moral of this story is to make sure that the vendors you hire for your wedding are true professionals and not unproven part-timers who don't really have the skill to pull off what you envision. "Don't book people who do this for fun or as a hobby," reminded Medeiros. "Use a legitimate business whose reputation is on the line. And if you must use Craig's List or even a friend of a friend, request three references and multiple examples of their work."

And, if you do hire an amateur, be specific about what you want ... and don't want (say, for example, wolves).

Have a wedisaster story of your own or know of one that is worth sharing ... tell us about it.