Post # 1
Member
2 posts
Wannabee
I had a really rocky road for my wedding. At the last minute, I realized that I wasn’t going to be comfortable in the dress I had made to wear and found a new one in one day, four days before leaving for my out of town wedding. I had hoped that that was going to be the only crisis, and I was really at peace and happy that I had made the decision I did. I was much more comfortable in my last minute dress than I ever could have been in the original one, and was able to dance and party all night without worries.
The thing is, the dress crisis wasn’t the end of it. The florist completely screwed up the flower order for my bouquet. The flowers I wanted weren’t available apparently, and she substituted something completely inappropriate without calling or e-mailing me to consult me. I found this out the day before the wedding. We frantically called and visited other florists to see if they had anything in stock, but never found anything really good.
The nice thing was that friends all gathered around me, trying to find something. I’m very grateful for having experienced that. But it’s SO HARD for me to let go of the fact that I had a cobbled together bouquet that fell apart right after the wedding (It was hard to even hold it together for the photos and I finally just left it somewhere, because it was too stressful worrying about it and trying to make it look nice). I love flowers so much, and put so much thought into what I was going to have in my bouquet. I keep thinking about it, and even had dreams about it last night.
All the stress surrounding this crisis made the time before the wedding really hard. Luckily, I was able to be present for the ceremony, and though consequently completely strung out and exhausted, had a good time at the reception.
I know something always goes wrong at weddings, but this one was such a big deal for me. I’m having a hard time letting go of the feelings of regret and wishing I could go back in tme and fix it. I was so stressed and upset at the time that it was really hard to make a decision to go in in another direction. Has anyone else had a similar experience? My family (especially my mom) doesn’t understand at all, and I don’t want to make my friends and husband (wow, haven’t gotten used to that word yet) feel bad knowing I’m still sad about it. The wedding was Saturday, so I guess it hasn’t been that long yet. I’m sure I just need to give it time.
My advice from my experience: Get a wedding coordinator if you’re doing an out of town wedding. It’s challenging in ways you’d NEVER expect. And be VERY careful of just ordering flowers from a florist and arranging them yourself. I think the florist just blew off my order, because she was busy with full service jobs that were bringing in more money to her.
Post # 3
Member
388 posts
Helper bee
It’s definitely normal to be upset over details that you planned so carefully, but turned out differently than what you envisioned. However, did the bouquet really overshadow the magic of the day and the fact that you were marrying the man of your dreams?
People handle things in different ways, so I’m not going to criticize you for not being able to let it go so easily. Some people roll with the punches better than others. If there’s any advice I can give, try to let it go and focus on all the great things.
It seems you are trying to do that by realizing you made a good decision with the dress change and the fact that your girls rallied around and helped as much as you can. How great is that? Many of the brides in the Hive have crummy friends who flake out from the start!
I can relate to your situation because my bouquet was not was I ordered either. But unlike you who figured out that you should just put it down, I kept carrying it and realized afterwards that I don’t have one good picture of me and my husband after the ceremony without that ugly bouquet blocking my beautiful dress in all the shots!
So I always give that advice now…even if you have the bouquet of your dreams, have someone remind you to put it down half-way through the pics so that your dress stands out, too. Good luck…take a deep breath…
Post # 4
Member
88 posts
Worker bee
maybe you could also have the flowers that you love around your new home with your new husband? just try to focus on the present and the future 🙂
you guys could even treat yourself to a pro photo session on your 1 year anniversary and you could make flowers a part of that too!
Post # 5
Member
2029 posts
Buzzing bee
I would probably feel the same way as you, especially since you said you had put such effort into designing a beautiful bouquet. My only advice is to tro to somehow associate a different, happier memory with your wedding. My mom really hated a lot of the things at her wedding, including her dress and ring. She has been married 50 years now and is still very bitter about it. I believe it has slowly poinsoned her marriage because she associates these negative things with her marriage. I don’t blame her, but I feel bad that she doesn’t have any happy memories to anchor her marriage to. So maybe take some time to meditate on the things you really loved on your wedding day and make that the focus.
Post # 6
Member
2292 posts
Buzzing bee
You know that you can always order a new bouquet and bout from a local florist, get your DH all dressed up, and have some more photos of the two of you. My photographer specifically let us know that if we wanted photos either before or after the big day, he would include that in the package, and we should just let the florist know what day to provide duplicate flowers for us. It’s apparently quite usual – the photographer says that not only are you way more relaxed a few days later, but people have so much fun playing dress-up again (I suppose you can even play trash-the-dress a little if you like). And that would give you some fun photos with a bouquet you like, as well as some more fun memories.
Other than that, the only advice that I have is that really the wedding is just one day. You can re-engineer the pictures, but the day is however it turns out to be. If it’s perfect and magical, that is great. My mother (who was driven to the church by her Future Mother-In-Law, in her FBIL’s car) ran out of gas on the way there, had to walk part of the way, and was late to her own wedding. I’m sure she was furious, but we all love the story of how she and Grammy were walking along the side of the road, in all their finery, and dad was panicking at the church. Really its the stories of what didn’t go according to plan that you enjoy telling over and over in the years afterwards – although first you have to get over it! What matters is that you’re married to a man you love, your family and friends are supportive and wonderful, and you have the rest of your life to enjoy all that! Unless, of course, you spend days or weeks in a funk over a bunch of vegetation.
Post # 7
Member
88 posts
Worker bee
you know i think a lot of people have "post wedding depression" too which you may also be experiencing? it’s such a load of pressure for one day.. 🙁
Post # 8
Member
33 posts
Newbee
I understand having regrets about the way certain things went about the wedding. It is so much easier to focus on the negative things than the things that went well just after the wedding. It sounds like you did have a couple big issues that may take you a little bit to get over. It’s completely natural to thing of the things you wished were different after spending alot of time trying to make things exactly right. The only advice I can give (and what I tried to do myself) was to focus on the good things about the day and give yourself some time to let go of the things that didn’t go well. I found when I got my pictures and video that I was pleasantly surprised by the things I had forgotten about that were great about the day.
Post # 9
Member
2 posts
Wannabee
Thank you guys so much! I can’t believe how quickly so many of you responded. It just helped to tell this to people who would understand how I’m feeling. I’m sure once I’m well rested and a little time has passed, I’ll feel much better. I’m frankly exhausted, and feel like I’ve pulled off a huge feat by doing this wedding. I think I was getting sick the whole time and just held it off for a couple of days by sheer will power.
There were so many beautiful things about the wedding and I did feel so loved by our friends and family. I’ll do my best to focus on those things. And THANK YOU for describing the flowers as a "bit of vegetation". It really helps to put things in perspective.