Wedding question: if you could do it over
I’ve been loving the comments from people telling what they enjoyed most about their wedding planning. I wonder if you’d also tell me what you wish you’d done differently?
One thing that I wish I’d thought to do was say goodbye to my bridesmaids, specifically my friend who flew across the country to be in my wedding. I ended up calling her from a pay phone an hour or two later, to tell her thanks for coming. But I wish I’d thought to hug her goodbye in person, even in the hurry-scurry of leaving.
I also wish I’d asked my two youngest sisters to be flower girls. They were perfect ages, and I’m not sure why I didn’t ask them to participate. All in all, it was a wonderful wedding, but those are two small things I’d do differently if I could. And both are people-related items….hmmmm……
How about you? Have anything you’d have done differently?
I went to a wedding last weekend, and this is the one thing that stuck out to me. I don’t know if the bride and groom hired someone or had acquaintances take pictures, but the photographers were really intrusive during the ceremony–often up onstage with the pastor and couple, and sometimes directly between them and the audience, like during the ring exchange. Their camera shutters were loud and the flashes were annoying. Seriously, it was like having two woodpeckers at work though the whole service. Strobing woodpeckers.
Afterwards, I heard the parents of the bride were unhappy about how it had gone, so I’m thinking they just didn’t sit down and have a conversation with their photographers about a good balance between “the perfect picture” and an enjoyable ceremony. So, that would be my advice.
I would have spent more time with the people, especially extended family, who traveled to attend the wedding. It would have been much more fun to have a large picnic or cookout with everyone the day before.
One thing I really enjoyed was having my bridesmaids help me decorate the reception. We had a small budget so we had very simple decor. I really enjoyed spending time with them decorating the tables and just being ourselves.
This is really silly, but I still get a twinge when I think about the dress I chose. I didn’t get a dress that I absolutely loved — I got one that I could afford and that my parents approved of. It was sensible and prudent and all that good stuff, but I never had one of those “this is THE dress” moments. I would have worn my mom’s dress, which would have had some real meaning, or spent more time looking and thinking about what I actually liked, myself, not what other people liked. Turns out my taste is more simple and the weddings I’ve enjoyed the most since were ones where the bride really let her personality show in the dresses, colors, decor, etc. I spent too much time worrying about what you were “supposed” to do (and that’s mostly because my mom was worrying about that!).
Oh! I forgot one thing! People have mentioned receiving lines. We opted to dismiss our guests by rows, so they could wait to talk to us in their seats. We got to say hello, give/receive hugs and congratulations, and at least greet each person this way.
I’d have checked for wasp nests.
We were married in a chapel that was very rustic, as in 4 walls with lots of windows, and french doors at the front and back of the building. There was no insulation, or air conditioning, so it was sort of like a glorified pavillion. We married in March when the weather was pretty cool, but when our 40 guests sat in the chapel it warmed up which brought the wasps out of their nest. I had one land on the back of my veil during the ceremony. If I had known, I surely would have freaked. 
But my dad just reached down and squished it in his hand without me ever knowing, and without getting it on my dress. 
Two things:
#1 – spent the money and hired a professional photographer (all my memories of our wedding day are captured in photgraphs taken by my f-i-l’s friend, who was NOT trained at all!);
#2 – keep group pics till after the ceremony (we did all of our pics beforehand, and b/c of seeing each other, the whole anticipation of walking down the aisle was lessened).
simple…not stress out so much during the preparations…
#1 Tell our photographer to chill out so we could actually enjoy our day. We were on the other end of the spectrum and invested in a really good photographer and paid top $$ to have him there alllll day. The wedding was at 3, we had to be there dressed and ready by noon so they could do all the photos of me with my parents, grandparents, sibs, bridesmaids, etc etc; then DH with his parents, sibs, groomsmen, etc etc. Portraits, standing in the church blah blah blah. By the time the wedding started at 3 we were tired. After the ceremonyDH and I and the wedding party snuck around to the side and skipped a recieving line because our photographer convinced us that we needed to clear the church so we could get more pics and still get to the reception on time. So we missed that (see #2), then had another 2 hours of photos with DH & I and parents, parents & sibs, godparents, grandparents… then off to a park for some outdoor ones… then he came to the reception and followed us around for hours…the photos are beautiful, but we spent 5 hours on photos that day! Stupid!
#2 Focus on our guests more: receiving line, circulate through tables, make a point to celebrate with all the people who drove 9+ hours to celebrate with us.
#3 Leaving early Sunday morning for our honeymoon. I wish we would have waited to leave until Monday and enjoyed a breakfast or lunch with out of town guests; opened gifts; gotten some sleep, etc.
Things I loved: My cousin is a pro DJ and did our reception which was fantastic. He knew about 1/3 of the guests by name and knew my husband and I. Saturday morning all the out-of-towners were invited to help decorate the hall and then we served a nice lunch to get some time with them. I wore isotoner white satin bedroom slippers all day. (DH is 1/4″ shorter than me, so heels were out anyhow) We stayed at the reception until almost 2 AM, dancing and celebrating (but no alcohol so we really enjoyed the details) but stupidly had a 6AM flight out of the closest airport which was an hour away, so we had to be up by 3:30 to leave… I wish we wouldn’t have spent so much on the fancy hotel room that night, but it was memorable.
Oh, and I did ask a dear friend to be my “sanity helper” and everytime I started to think “oh, are the flowers here..?” she’d say “I’m on it!” and I’d let it go. It was 2 years before she told me all the crazy stuff she hid from me all day.
Had our parents at our table at the wedding lunch – we had friends instead, I don’t remember all the reasoning but just that my parents were miffed and every time I think about it I feel terrible!
Oh GREAT question. I have been married for 5 years and we didn’t use a professional videographer. We had a friend use my parent’s vid. camera that was “top technology” at the time and our video is terrible. The quality is awful and we don’t have it on DVD. Spend the money to get something you will cherish forever!
wow, this list is long! ok, so mine is that I would’ve spent more money on the photographer and/or more time selecting a photographer. We had to get our pictures retaken. :/
I had originally wanted to go with the tradition of not seeing my groom on our wedding day until I met him at the altar at the beginning of the ceremony. However, our photographer was a “my way or the highway” type of guy who insisted that we do almost all the pictures before the ceremony and so I gave in to pressure and said “OK, we’ll do it your way and do them all ahead.” I still wish we had done it my way and I could have had that treasured, never to be repeated moment of the look on my groom’s face when he saw me in my gown as I walked down the aisle toward him.
I don’t know you but I follow you on Twitter…
I got married four years ago. I paid for the entire thing myself and spent $1500.
LOVED:
My dress (sister made it, it is now reincarnated as my sons’ christening gown).
The ceremony. Short and sweet. Especially loved having traditional vows and no silly made-up stuff.
Photos. By a non-professional but very talented friend.
Having a “wedding nazi” (a friend in charge of details). She worried about everything and no one bothered me with questions.
REGRET
Nothing. Seriously, it was just a party. A fun party that could have been better, could have been worse. I’m throwing my sister’s wedding this year and going to try the best I can to give her a good party but worrying, planning and stressing about the perfect day is just silly. It’s just one day and all the meaning and importance is in the union and not the trappings. Aim for a fun party and encourage everyone to just let it go if plans don’t go according to plan.
Saved more money.
Less “posed” pictures; more “candid” ones. I wish we had captured the “feel” of the event in pictures.
I would have my mom and I practice how to put up the train from my dress. (It had little hooks so you could kind of lift it up so it wouldn’t be dragging everywhere at the reception.) We spent way too much time fussing with that, and it ended up causing a delay in me getting to the reception.
Nearly 27 years later, all I remember was that it was a fun, low low budget gathering, I was treated as special by all the people who counted (not including a step mother-in-law, who was the epitomy of rude and self centered), and that I am so glad to have my husband. The details of the ceremony, reception, and honeymoon length or location just don’t matter in the long run. The day was about making a public pledge, then moving on with living it out.
I would have been more forceful about what I wanted. My soon to be mother in law, my family, the pastor, everyone had more say than I did. I was run over by people and my wants were not taken seriously and even changed without my notice.
Having been a pastor’s wife for about 30 years I realized more and more the wedding is the brides day. Too many family members try to change that making her day anything but. This is what happened to me and after a few years my husband deeply apologized to me for not standing up against family, and pastor for my wants.
I wanted simple flowers, changed to big elaborate bouquets by family. I asked for helpers to dress one way, family told them to dress another (one even came in a white gown, thanks to sister in law and mother in law. I found out when I came to the wedding in my gown!
In 30 years of a pastor’s wife I have found that well meaning family, family that are control freaks and pastor’s that want things his way change things from what the bride really wants.
My husband died and I have since remarried. Funny thing, this wedding was planned without me, by my kids and I found out I was getting married about the day before. This was a small kids only wedding as we could not get things together with family in Texas (his) and mine in ME.
When we do have our vows repeated for all it will be my way!!
I love that we didn’t let our photographer stage the entire wedding around the pictures he wanted to take. We told him to set up any poses before the wedding and anything after that was going to be up to him just being in the right place at the right time. It allowed us to really enjoy the wedding and the people who came to be with us.
The thing I would change is we would have planned for more people. There must not have been anything going on in the entire state! The church was packed and the party extended out the doors of the reception hall (into the rain) most of the night because there just wasn’t enough space for everyone. We were really unprepared for the masses!
Despite the heat and the rain and the overcrowding, people managed to have a great time and I’ll always appreciate all the people who made our day so special.
I thought of one more thing I would have done differntly! I would have insisted that we do pictures with my husband’s extended family. My father-in-law’s family couldn’t come, but a large part of my mother-in-law’s LARGE family was there, but she said she didn’t want any group pictures done with them. I let it go at that, but I should have said it was something that was important to me that would really like to have. I had framed pictures of both sides of my family displayed, but none of my husband’s family for a year, until his brother got married. When it came time for family pictures, my mother-in-law was again, rather wishy-washy about having photos done, but my sister-in-law both said we would really like family pictures. Now Hubby’s family has joined mine, framed, on our mantle. I’m happy with that, but I do wish we had better pictures of his family at our wedding too.
I don’t think I’d do much differently, but I think part of the reason is that I was (compared to other brides you read about) very laid back about all of it. Once the day came, my philosophy was, ‘plan on at least one thing going wrong’ and then letting someone else deal with it (if it needed to be dealt with at all). And stuff did go wrong – my cake was ugly (but tasted good!) so I called the next day and made them refund my decorating fee. There were a few other small things that went awry, but in the scheme of things, like one of your early comments said, the wedding is just one day. If you are prepared to let something go wrong, it makes it much easier to handle when (and I don’t mean if, I mean *when*) it does!!
I have another one. My mom (and I) did most of the planning of my wedding…and to keep costs down, she ended up doing or organizing all of the food, hall set up, church decore, etc. Because of this, I BARELY saw her on my wedding day. I am alwyas so sad that she was not with me when I Was getting ready, getting my dress on, seeing Bill for the first time. Then, to top it all off, she was totally beat by the time the day was in full swing…..
She decided to have my sisters wedding catered to avoid this again and it turned out to be not that much mor expensive!
I would hate for you to miss out on this amazing day!
I have coordinated a whole bunch of weddings and here are some things that I do
-I give a speech at the rehearsal expressing my expectations of everyone…about how all of the us (everyone at the rehearsal) are a team. our team goal is to help facilitate the bride/groom’s goal of reflecting the love of Christ to the watching guests. There are many ways to do that and our primary way is to be ‘on-call’ from beginning to end…work hard/fun together. I also emphasize that after the rehearsal dinner, there’s no more addressing the b/g with any problems. Bring everything to me/maid of honor or best man. It’s our all our jobs to insulate the b/g from drama so that they can enjoy the day, their guests, their new covenant.
-I also include the directive that if anyone is giving speeches/toasts to keep it short/sweet and NOT awkward (I make a joke about a real life experience and everyone can relate and then I bring it back to the wedding at hand). I emphasize the ‘NO AWKWARD’ ness SO much that it kind of gets awkward…but it always prompts the toasters to work harder on their toasts
-I also give the b/g a private speech after the rehearsal that from here on out they have to pass the baton to me and let me do my job and in turn they do their job…enjoy the people, the event, the love, the joy. All the details are up to me and I’ve got it handled. I try to emphasize that worrying about anything is probably unnecessary…and will rob them of the blessings that God has for them. It’s about having done all their months of preparation and now to just let it go and trust me (and God) and enjoy…
-A bride gave this piece of advice and I’ve given it to every b/g. Every 20 minutes or so, mentally stop and just take ‘snapshots’ of the scene. Many b/g don’t remember their wedding day and this is an exercise to stop along the way…and smell the roses…. take mental snapshots of the scene. I’ve been recommending it for years now and EVERY couple says it was the best advice.
-Before I send the b/g out for their send off, I have organized a private location where they can say goodbye to the loved ones (usually mom/dad). I ask the b/g in advance if there is anyone special that they want to give a special goodbye to… that’s also turned out to be a very cool sign of honor and marks the rite of passage for many
-always have duct tape and safety pins on hand
there’s more, but gotta go…
The woman who sold me my wedding dress gave me the best advice. She told me to make eye contact with my husband-to-be as soon as I started walking down the aisle and to keep my eyes locked with his. I still get goose bumps from remembering the look on his face 22 years later.
About the photography and the getting-pictures-of-guests thing, I solved it this way. I found two people I trusted who had digital cameras and I asked them to go directly from the wedding to the reception and take a photograph of every family/couple/individual who came in. I asked them to remind people to sign our guestbook (we actually had them write little tidbits of congratulations or advice on heart-cut stationery and then we made a scrapbook guestbook of all the pictures and all the hearts after the fact). So that way, I made sure that we had pictures of everybody. Every single person.
I should clarify that the reason we didn’t put instant cameras on the table was because the quality wasn’t that great and we weren’t too crazy about having a bunch of flashes going off all the time and having that interfere with the main photographers.
As far as the professional photographers went, I live in Orange County and most of the wedding photographers around here cost around $5,000 for a day. We weren’t really able to spend that much, so we found a couple photography students in their senior year and asked them to photograph the wedding for us. We paid $250 each and six months later, when they graduated, we found out that they both began charging $4,000 – $6,000 per wedding. So it was a good deal and we got a TON of pictures and free edits because they wanted to use our wedding for their portfolios.
So that’s always something to consider, if you can’t afford a professional photographer and you’re worried about not getting pictures of your guests.
TELL THE NEWLYWEDS TO EAT! We had a dinner with immediate family before our 6p ceremony, and then the reception was finger foods/hors d’oeuvres/desserts (I had a dinner dress and then put on my gown). I was too nervous to eat at dinner, and then too excited and busy talking to eat at the reception. When we finally left the reception around 10p, the charming little town where we got married was completely closed for the night. We ate the saltine crackers I had stashed in my handbag and drank the wine the inn had put in our room as a gift.
My only other regret is that when one of our friends did an unexpected fire dance, I didn’t make a point of finding my parents, and my father missed the whole thing.
Re: photographers: ours used digital cameras, and we agreed that they would give us all the raw photos on CD. Then it was up to us to convert them into .jpgs (we found a free converter online), resize, and print what we wanted. It worked out perfectly; we had the CDs within a week, and now we have every single photo, even the ones that may never make it into an album! (We also made backups of that original CD.)
Depending on what you’re doing for other things like cake, decorations, etc., try ordering things without using the word “wedding”. We had five different round cakes, instead of one big one (all different flavors). We ordered them from a local bakery we both like, and the quoted prices were radically different for “four cakes” instead of “four cakes for a wedding”. We just had a friend pick up the cakes that morning and put a fresh blossom in the middle of each one. Very simple, very pretty.
We kept our ceremony very short, and people still comment on how nice that was.
I got very lucky with my wedding, in that pretty much everyone involved had a personal connection: the caterer was one I worked for in college; the photographers were former co-workers; the makeup artist is a friend of my mother’s; etc. That made the day very nice, in that I never had strangers popping up in front of me.
I’ve been lurking around your site for a while, and I’m so happy for you and your family! Congratulations to everyone!
Hubby and I both agree that we wish we would have done a smaller ceremony and a bigger/longer reception with more time to visit with our guests.
The one thing we did do was that we opened our gifts with our families so they could see our gifts. Much easier than trying to tell everyone what we got.
When brides or brides-to-be ask me for advice, I always say the same thing: If I had it to do over again, I would’ve been MUCH LESS STRESSED. I ruined the time before my wedding, which should have been precious, by stressing over stupid things- I remember arguing about the decorating, and even the kind of tablecloths my parents were getting for the reception. My relationship with my family & the start of my marriage should have been more important than my decorations.
I would have spent more time with the guests (I wanted a smaller wedding, but DH wanted a larger one)
I would have had more tables/seating. Since it was a dessert reception/dance, we thought more people would be up mingling and dancing. That didn’t happen, at least not at first, and some people were grumpy about that.
I would have hired a better DJ. We went pretty much on price and it SHOWED. He screwed up half of the wedding party’s names, including our last name (and we went over all of this beforehand). He played inappropriate music (a rap song where the F bomb was dropped, when we told him we wanted PG music and no rap- again this was discussed w/ him BEFOREHAND). We can laugh about it now though, but at the time, I was very upset.
I would have eaten more. We had a dessert reception and DH barely ate a thing and I ate very little myself.
I am glad that we hired a professional, but not someone w/ a studio, but someone who has a day job and has also been doing wedding photography as a hobby for 15+ years. He memorized family members/wedding party names so he could address everyone by name.
I’m glad we did pictures beforehand. We had the photographer capture “the moment” when DH saw me for the first time in my dress. I don’t think it took anything away from our aisle moment. It was a private and intimate moment for us, even though some family members were milling around and I’m glad I have that memory. It also put DH more at ease since he was more nervous about the ceremony than I was.
i wish someone had video taped it. we had a great photographer and i didn’t want to do both b/c of $$$ – but even to have just had a friend hold a video camera to catch the speeches and tape the actual vows would have been nice. also – we had a beautiful cake and hardly anyone saw it. the cake was to the side of the band and wasn’t presented or shown off in any way for all the guests to see. we have pictures of it sure, but i think people would have gotten a kick out of seeing it. i wish we still had the stands because i’d send them to you. i have no idea what happened to them. happy planning!
I wouldn’t have taken as long to plan. We planned the wedding for 1.5 years – 6 months would have been plenty of time. I wouldn’t have as many people in the wedding party. I think I’d just go with a best man and maid of honor. I also wish that we had opted for a small ceremony on the beach.
The biggest though is that I wouldn’t invite a certain couple of family members that found it necessary to drop news of a possible major health problem for one of them, at my rehearsal dinner. It turned the mood for that night, and the entire day of my wedding, to a somber one. I remember sitting at the reception wondering what the non-family members there thought of everyone being so down and blah. And the health scare ended up not being anything at all. I’m still bitter towards them for not waiting until AFTER my wedding to tell everyone about the potential problem.
I speak about my daughter’s wedding – which we all LOVED. Outoors at grandpa’s farm, thousands of little white lights in the trees, dancing (grandpa built a wooden dance floor just for the occasion), bbq chicken kabobs, pasta salad, spinach salad with glazed walnuts, feta, and cranberries, dinner rolls with butter pats (at the tables), white china (mismatched from Goodwill, borrowed from a friend), silverware (borrowed), votives candles EVERYWHERE (cheap craft store purchase), the holders wrapped in velum, monogramed sugar cookies we made and wrapped in baggies and ribbon (should have paid someone to make these), hanging wooden door with glass panes, each pane containing black and white pics of bride and groom, boquets of sunflowers and pink roses, metal tubs of ice and water bottles, sewing repair kit.
Different: Have a friend be the DJ (we were rushed and it ended too soon).
Best: Dancing (even great grandma got in on it), daddy-daughter dance, great food, an uncle serving wine (but no drunks, I lectured the groomsmen beforehand), table runners (to match theme, we cut them with pinking shears)over white linen, tiki torches to light path to cars, lot attendants (nephews), canning jars with votives hanging from trees with wire wrapped around them, river rocks the bride and groom collected and wrote “lovey sayings” on at each place setting and a tented work area with some paid teenage helpers (who I should have handed typed instructions to, but they did great anyway).
The worst part of our wedding was the groom’s horribly ill-fitting rented tux. It was bad, but ultimately not a big deal.
I wish I’d been able to spend more time with certain guests and less time with others (my parents’ coworkers and other people i barely knew). I’m not sure how to control that (maybe you can’t), but you could maybe get a few friends/siblings to keep a lookout so Amanda and Ben don’t get trapped chatting with strangers when they’d rather be eating or spending precious time with guests they rarely see.
Also, for us, and it’s a small thing, cutting the cake was super awkward. Neither of us cared to smush it in each other’s faces, so we each had a bite and everyone stood there watching and waiting to see what was next. Finally I had to be like “….that’s it. we’re not going to get messy, so…” Pretty uncomfortable. If they’re not the cake-smashing sort either, maybe try to move things along after they’re done eating the cake by going over to the table and starting to cut/serve the cake rather quickly. I know that’s a tiny thing, but I remember thinking it was so awkward, so I thought I’d mention it. : )
Oh – one other regret at my daughter’s wedding. My sister (the creative one who did most of the planning) and my best girlfriend and her mom (who were lifesavers running around serving and helping) were not in any of the photographs! How I wish I would have asked a close friend or family member to be sure and take snap shots of all of those special people that were not in the “posed” pictures.
Be sure you have scotch tape on hand and have the gift attendants tape the cards to the corresponding gifts also! We had a few mystery gifts with no cards.
PS What I meant about the DJ is that the one we hired stuck to his own schedule and rushed the bride and groom. Many of my male relatives could have done the honors and flowed with what the bride and groom wanted much better. I have seen this problem repeatedly at receptions. Still, we feel the music, lights and dancing gave a great party atmosphere much like Jewish weddings in Jesus’s day were great celebrations and not the sterile, mints and nuts blah boring receptions that are all too common (as hubby as remarked) with Christians today.
I had another thought of something I’d seen that was really neat in a wedding. One of my friends got married and her mom and grandmother made her a quilt. They cut a bunch of quilt squares, then sent them to the bride and groom’s friends and family – to decorate. Many put a bible verse, memory, or picture on them to wish the newlyweds many blessings. Some people drew pictures with fabric markers, others embroidered, or you could just write in pencil and Erin’s mom and grandma would embroider whatever it was on the square. This was displayed at the reception and is sure to be something that is treasured for a long time in their family.
I forgot to mention before that we also had the congregation sing “The Servant Song” during the ceremony. That was cool. But make sure that the wedding party has the words somewhere if possible.
In retrospect:
We told some of my side of the family they could come in jeans and a T-shirt, and they were thrilled. But a friend ended up not coming because his dress pants didn’t fit. So I wish we had let everyone know that formal dress wasn’t a necessity.
The wedding reception ended up going a bit late, but I’m not sure what could have been different. It made a lot of time to visit and we did all the wedding reception things but not too rushed–so unless the wedding had been earlier…. but it was a great reception.
The bride should not move out without her hairbrush. Especially if she needs a certain kind of Avon hairbrush that is no longer made. Trust me on this.
Do splurge on a hotel for at least the first couple nights. And dinners out. Even if you aren’t going far. You don’t want to be worrying about dishes and such right at the beginning. I think things would have been a little more honeymoony if I were doing it over.
I wish I had been more involved with the details. I let my mom handle everything and didn’t do much. I should have been more involved with the ahead-of-time cooking and the cake.
Oh, and people have mentioned the no-cake-smashing we did years afterward. So I don’t think it was awkward. But we did just move on after the first bite–it wasn’t like we fed each other the whole piece while everyone stared.
And if the bride is going to eat, and she’s going to have messy food, some sort of bib-thing might be a good idea. Work it out ahead of time so it looks somewhat elegant, the bride won’t miss out on her wedding lasagne, and the gown won’t be stained with pasta sauce.
I, like so many other commenters, wish I had delegated stuff more….especially on the date of our wedding. I had people coming up to me before the reception asking where to set things up and what to do. It was really distracting.
The other thing I wish I’d done: given a small memorable gift to my husband. I focused so much on the wedding party, and not enough on creating a lasting (concrete) memory for him of romance and gratitude. I think that is why photos are so important. You’re bound to forget some detail. And that is okay. The important thing is how you treat people and make them feel.
My husband, a hopeless romantic, gave me a card thanking me for marrying him right after we got in the car after the ceremony. After the reception, he presented me with a very thoughtful gift. I felt terrible that I hadn’t thought of doing the same for him. Thank God I married someone who doesn’t keep score. I will always look back on our wedding day with feelings of love and gratitude because of the little gestures my husband made on that day to make me feel special.
Oooh that’s an easy one for me because I give this advice to everyone. Don’t go on your honeymoon for a few days AND spend the money on a nice hotel room. We reserved a cheap hotel at the airport because we were flying out early the next morning and we didn’t get to the hotel until around 1 a.m. and they gave our room away. All of the airport hotels were booked so we had to go to some dumpy motel that I am pretty sure could have been rented by the hour. I had to shower becuase I had to get the hairspray from the “up-do” out of my hair and I swowered in socks and threw them away. All in all it’s a funny story to tell but I wish we would have splurged. I also wish we would have spent Sunday with our family and friends. I didn’t want my wedding time to be over and wanted to have some down time just hanging out with family, the bridal party and the people who came into town. We could have had a brunch and then opened some presents and just spend some time together after the stress / busyness of the wedding was over. Plus when we got to our destination (my first time to Disneyland) I was so tired I needed a day or so to rest up. That’s my thought!!
I sadly have several things I would have done differently..Since we got married so fast (engaged 3 months after met, married 3 months after engagement) I failed in a few areas.
1. I had 7 bridesmaids, but failed to ask my life long BF from 1st grade through Soph yr of college to be a bridesmaid.. I felt horrible after the fact…especially when she flew all the way from PA to IA for my wedding anyway. I only chose people I was close to at that very moment. My bad.
2. We had an evening wedding and reception… after the dinner and dancing we didn’t get to our room until midnight.. we were wiped. out. Probably me more so than him. For 2 virgins this was no good.
3. We went on our honeymoon the very next morning .. flew out at 5am… exhaustion. we were totally exhausted and emotionally drained for a few days. I wish we would have waited a few days to go anywhere.. Or even have waited like 6 months or a year to go on a nice honeymoon.
4. I would have NOT chosen light purple bridesmaid dresses.. wish I would have done a classic color like black or brown.
Fun question.
We married during Navy days, during Viet Nam days…so my hubby was not only gone the 6 months prior to our wedding, he was at sea the last 3 months and so ALL of the preparation fell on me. I did not have much help from family, other than monetary (which I appreciated, but still, it was mostly a stressful time, without the benefit of his company either). Then the reasons I had the big church wedding (though done modestly and as economically as possible), somehow never made much difference…and now, 36 years later, NONE of my bridesmaids are close to me at all, either. I do wish we had just taken the money my folks gave me and I had gone to Hawaii where he was stationed and married him there. For the money, the time it took, and the lack of a decent honeymoon, etc. etc…I wish to this day we had chosen to be married quietly in Hawaii and used the money for a better honeymoon and start in our apartment. I just remember the prep time and day itself, as one big stressful time. My parents did not care which choice we made, by the way. We were of age, after all. And HIS family, for whom I had the big church wedding mostly, certainly NEVER EVER rewarded me for that choice!!! NEVER!!!
We had a nice photographer who did all sorts of good formal shots…but he didn’t take lots of candid ones around before the ceremony and during the reception. Wish I had remembered to ask him to.
We had my cousin-in-law marry us which was great, but the pastor of the church and my cousin-in-law both thought the other was counseling us. Therefore, we never received any counceling. It was needed in our relationship! I think the first 8 years would have gone smoother if we’d had a clue as to what marriage was about!
I would have had the dance I wanted to have rather than worrying about what the church members would have thought. But other than that, I wouldn’t change a thing. I married my best friend in the end and that’s all that really mattered!
Haha I just wrote a post on this, sort of at Wedded Bliss. But I like the things that went wrong at our wedding now, they make for good stories.
I would have planned a getaway outfit. I ended up driving away with the tank top and ripped jeans that I wore the day before when we were decorating.
I’d have tried to find someone else to help with more details to take the burden off of my mom. I had a few aunts who volunteered but I didn’t realize at the time that they were willing to take on a whole lot more responsibility than I asked of them. And then maybe there would have actually been communion elements on the table during the ceremony.
We faked it. I thought the groomsmen were going to take care of it.
I would have gotten someone to make a video. I can’t even remember how the song I wrote for the procession went now, and my friend who sang had a beautiful voice. I wish I had a record of that.
We didn’t plan to do a receiving line, but at the last minute as we walked out of the church we turned, looked at each other, and lined up on the grass to greet all our guests. It just felt wrong to walk away with out doing so. So yeah, the reception started late because that takes a while with 400 guests and we still had to fit in a photo session and some people were sun burnt, but I’m glad we did it. If I did it over I would have planned a spot where there was shade, and started the reception later on purpose.
That’s all I can think of.
I really enjoyed our wedding.
Hired a better photographer. Our pictures are just plain lousy. It’s the day I looked best in all my life and I wish it was better captured!