Weddingbee boards

I was the Maid of Honour for my Best Friend, who is also my MOH, this past weekend and I just wanted to share my story and hopefully Bee's will be able to take something away from it whether it be as a MOH, BM or a Bride.

Let me preface this by saying, even if I sound like I am venting, I would do EVERYTHING over again in a second. She had an AMAZING wedding day and if what I did helped her to have such an amazing day I don't regret a second of it or the fact that I haven't had a voice for the past two days ;-).

Bride's ceremony was in her parents backyard overlooking a lake and the reception was being held in a tent in the backyard as well. Only the Bride's family was local to the area all the rest were coming in from out of town and out of province. Because of this, the Bride's family wanted to host all meals at their house, which is also the wedding venue, for all OOT guests. I spent the week before the wedding with the bride to help with last minute details. I soon found out that the music was not done even though it was an ipod wedding, the seating plan wasn't done, the escort card/favours were not put together, none of the food for the weekend was purchased, the alcohol had not been purchased, the guest accommodations had not been organized, the centerpieces had not been made, and the dress and accessories had not been picked up. And on top of all of that all of the rentals would need to be set up, music and lights installed and organized after they were delivered on Wednesday.

So throughout the week the list slowly dwindled, but the bride and the MOB began to get very flustered and lacked focus once the guests started to arrive on Wednesday. This resulted in me turning into the Wedding Planner, everyone came to me to get find out what needed to be done and they reported to me when things were done or to tell me where they were going. 

I did not sit down all week, I swear. I finished the seating plan while following the bride around asking her questions about where people were sitting. (Advice to brides - do this early! There was no reason this couldn't have been done right after the RSVPs came in.) I made the escort card/favours, with the help of random guests who were around on Wednesday evening. (Advice to brides - once the seating plan is done make the escort cards and then they are done!) On Thursday I spent 7 hours working on all of the playlists for ceremony, cocktail hour and dinner music. (Advice to brides - If you are doing an ipod playlist put A LOT of time and effort into the playlists I ran out of time and the reception music did not go so well because of the lack of effort. I posted about this on a different thread) I made all of the centerpieces myself. (These centerpieces did not include ANY flowers and could have been made months ahead of time.) As well as I helped cook and clean up after every meal which served between 20 and 60 people. Insanity I tell you.

And to add to my stress the Bride's family is a little.... unconventional if you will. The FOB made a beautiful arbor for the bride and groom to marry in front of. At one point the MOB asked me to come and see a surprise they had for the bride and groom. To my surprise they had a flag created that had two cartoony hearts with the bride and groom's names in each. The bottom had the date of the wedding and don't forget the nice arrow going through the hearts.

I was polite and I responded: "Awe that is cute! Are you going to put it up the flag pole?"

MOB: "No we are going to put it up on the arbor so that it is behind them when they get married and will be in all of the pictures!"

I was speechless and I just couldn't believe that she wanted to block the view of the beautiful lake with a cheesy flag. At this point I kept my mouth shut, the wedding was days away, but I could not get the flag off of my mind. Little did I know that wasn't the worst of it.

On the DAY of the wedding while we were getting ready I made a comment to the MOB about making sure she put on waterproof mascara because she had been talking all week about how she was going to be a crying mess. To this she responded:

MOB: "I don't need it! I have a solution! I won't cry!"

Me: "What is your solution?"

MOB: "I will show you if you promise not to tell Bride!"

MOB takes me and another BM into her bedroom and pulls out a stuffed pig. She turned the stuffed pig on by flicking a switch on it's belly and placed it on the floor. The stuffed pig then mechanically rolled on the floor laughing while BM and I stared at the pig and MOB MORTIFIED!

Me: How is this going to stop you from crying?

MOB: I am going to put it in the middle of the aisle while Bride is walking down the aisle

Me: You can't do this - it will take away from Bride and the ceremony. She will be heartbroken

MOB: No she won't! She will Love it!

And MOB walked away with no further discussion. BM and I looked at each other speechless not knowing what to do. BM offered to hide the pig so MOB couldn't find it LOL! But I decided I had to get the groom involved. The groom was going to be at the ceremony site when everything was going to be set up, whereas I would be with Bride. So I sent my amazing FI, who helped me out a LOT with getting things set up on the day of and the day before, to tell the groom about the flag and the pig. Luckily, Groom saw FOB putting up the flag and nixed it in the butt right away. He thought this was a good time to nix the pig as well and so he went up to the FOB and said "I hear there is something about a laughing pig - It's NOT going to happen, OK?" Crises averted and the Bride didn't know anything was wrong.

The ceremony started beautifully. The wedding party and the groom were standing at the alter waiting for the bride when the BM realizes he doesn't have the rings. This is when he turns to me and says "I don't have the rings" I believe a nice big F*** came out of my mouth at this point and the Groom says calmly "We need those!". God I love him! I spot one of my close friends, C, in the audience and whisper to my BM who was closest to her to tell her to get the rings and where they are. Luckily Bride had a VERY LONG walk down the aisle and they paused at the top of the stairs for pictures. C came running back with the rings just in time and handed it off to one of the GM. Funnily enough most of the guests knew what was going on but the Bride did not have a clue and she was in heaven. The rest of the ceremony was just PERFECT. When the officiant came to the part in the ceremony when they exchange rings he said "The Bride and Groom will know exchange rings, if we can?" The guests that knew what happened laughed, the groom said "yes" and grabbed the rings from the BM, and the bride did not notice a thing! (Advice to Brides - make your self a day of checklist and give out the things that need to be given out to people the night before. Time flies WAY too fast on the day of and you will have too much to think about)

Dinner was wonderful, there was a torrential downpour during dinner, but no one seemed to care or notice. Except the amazing guests and family who got soaked putting up the tent sides. There was not a dry eye in the tent during the speeches. And at that moment all I kept thinking was how much LOVE was in the room. So many people, wedding party, family, and random guests helped out to make sure that Bride and Groom had a perfect day. And to see them sooooo happy made everything worth while. So my advice to MOHs and BMs do everything in your power to make your bride happy. It is her day and she shouldn't be burdened with the things that go wrong. So many other things went "wrong" at this wedding on top of what I mentioned but on the day she only knew about a few of them and she has told me a million times that her day was PERFECT!!!! And that is all that matters to me!

If you have made it through this extremely long post - thank you and I hope you get something out of it! And if I can give Bride's one last piece of advice. Only invite the people you truly love to your wedding, the people that REALLY want to be there to share your day with you because the tangible love that you feel at a wedding like that is indescribable!

Awe thanks guys - I keep telling her paybacks a B**** but really I know she won't have to do a lot for my wedding!

I wish I could say I could laugh about the pig now but nope I am not there yet. Can you believe someone would want to do that?

I told my mom about the laughing pig today and her first response was "where can we buy one of those?"

LOL she thinks she's so funny! haha