Groom has no regrets over rude, argumentative wedding vows

Kristine Solomon
A man in South Africa is being dubbed the “rude groom” for his disrespectful behavior while saying his vows. (Photo: Getty Images)
A man in South Africa is being dubbed the “rude groom” for his disrespectful behavior while saying his vows. (Photo: Getty Images)

You’ve heard about bridezillas, but a man is South Africa is being reviled as a groomzilla on social media after a video of him being disrespectful and combative while saying his wedding vows surfaced on the internet. But Linda Mthethwa doesn’t see anything wrong with the way he conducted himself at his weekend nuptials, and he’s not sorry, according to Independent Online.

The exchange between the pastor and Mthethwa — spoken in the groom’s native tongue — has been translated by Independent Online as follows:

Pastor: Through the good times and the bad times.
Mthethwa: “We’ve been through that.”
Pastor: You can’t leave her in bad times.
Mthethwa: What if she leaves me?
Pastor: She will also take the vows.
Mthethwa: If she will make an oath it is fine, no problem.

As the groom argues with the pastor, the crowd is heard jeering. The bride, whose name is Tiny, stands quietly by with her expression obscured by a veil. The pastor asks the groom to repeat the vows, saying, “For richer or poorer,” to which the groom responds, “We are poor anyway.” The pastor responds, “Stop ruining your wedding.”

Mthethwa told Independent Online in an interview after the wedding, “It is the truth, I am in a lot of debt because I wanted our wedding day to be respectable. The amount of debt I am in, it is clear that I will never be rich again, because it will be a long time until I am done paying for them.”

In the middle of the video, a guest is seen getting up and urging Mthethwa to just repeat what the pastor is saying, but he gets combative with her too. The pastor then asks the groom to repeat, “In sickness and in health,” to which he responds indignantly, “We are sick already.”

When Mthethwa — who already has three children with Tiny — was asked by the pastor to repeat, “To love and behold,” he responded, “We do that already.”

Later in the video, the groom seems to take a swipe at his own bride when the pastor says, “Till death do us part” and the groom brazenly responds, “Only her cheating ways can break us apart.” (A Twitter user translated the line as, “No, till her adultery do us part.”) As the crowd boos, Mthethwa explains, “I don’t want to lie and say till death do us part. When she cheats what will I say?”

Despite being difficult, Mthethwa is offended that the video of his vows was leaked online — he suspects by the photographer, he told a reporter. He says the social media backlash has been extremely distressing to his wife. Tiny refused to speak with Independent Online because, she said, “the damage had already been done.”

In his interview, Mthethwa claimed he resented the pastor’s vows. He said, “I have been with my wife for a very long time. I was not going to allow some pastor to tell me that only death will do us part. Why must we involve death in our vows like one of us has to kill the other?” according to Pulse.

On Twitter, people called Mthethwa everything from “embarrassing” to “disgusting.” One user called the groom “vile,” and wrote, “This is not okay.” Despite the groom being perceived this way by strangers, though, his bride seemed totally fine with his outrageous behavior. In a follow-up video, the newlyweds are seen happily dancing at their reception.

Some on Twitter came down even harder on the bride for condoning her groom’s behavior. One commenter wrote, “I’m angry and confused by her, more than by the guy,” and another said, “I was a little pissed on her behalf. Women go through a lot.”

A third person tweeted, “She knows how arrogant he is yet she went ahead. Some women like men like this,” calling the bride and groom a “match made in literal hell.”

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