THE Rev Paul Rimmer described stag nights as a menace and urged prospective bridegrooms to avoid them.

He saw numerous men with bleary eyes, hangovers and much more at their weddings during his 31 years as vicar at St Nicholas Church at Old Marston, Oxford.

He wrote in his parish magazine in 1986: “I have had bridegrooms appearing at weddings in dark glasses because they have got black eyes, at least one with a broken nose, and another who could not kneel because of a stabbing.

“Very often it is not the groom’s fault. Sometimes, it is the result of others at the party who have either laced his drink, or gone over the top in giving him a send-off.

“It is sad for the bride when she arrives at church, radiant in her wedding dress, knowing that the man she is marrying looks anything but his best.”

Mr Rimmer, who died in July aged 93, once said he could fill a book about gaffes and giggles as couples made their way to the altar.

There was the bride who fainted three times during the ceremony, and the bridegroom whose bow tie flew off at the crucial time.

Then there was the bride who arrived in tears because she had forgotten to remove the tissue paper from under her dress.

Mr Rimmer said: “I dried her tears, whipped off the tissue paper, and stacked it in the choir stalls, all unknown to the congregation who couldn’t see past the ample veil.”

He also laid down rules for photographers not to disrupt proceedings in church.

Don’t hold up the bride and her father on the way into the church – “nothing is worse than listening to the Wedding March three times” – no flash pictures during the service, and let the congregation leave before taking pictures at the church door.

Mr Rimmer said: “I have attended some weddings that have been more like the Battle of Jutland than a church service.”

One wedding at St Nicholas Church that did go without a hitch was that of his son Julian to Imogen Rigden in 1978.

Julian insisted that the whole parish should be invited. So many turned up that the congregation spilled out into the churchyard.

A tea party was later held at the vicarage, popularly known as Fort Rimmer.