I planned on posting this after my wedding since I really enjoyed reading things like this during my wedding planning… so I’ll do it now 🙂
1. The big, big horrible misunderstanding that I would love to forget about. I posted the story here: http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/so-guess-what-happened-less-than-48-hours-before-my-wedding%E2%80%A6#axzz2TUL0brC5 But if you don’t feel like reading that, essentially what happened was my uncle went the entire year leading up to our wedding thinking he was our officiant. (We had a friend who we asked to perform the ceremony right after we got engaged.) He planned everything out, bought a suit, and came to town a few days early. I didn’t know any of this until less than 48 hours before the wedding. It was so awful.
2. We had our photobooth in the bridal dressing room. I thought it would be neat to just make that a fun, photo-themed room so we filled the room with balloons that had pictures attached to the end of the ribbon. I guess balloons weren’t made to hold pictures because they all sunk 🙁 The ones that stayed up were up because the pictures fell off. That room looked like such a mess.
3. I FORGOT TO TAKE OFF MY RING! We get to the ring exchange when I look down and uhh, my ring is still on! I tried to quickly take it off so I could hand it to DH but it absolutely wouldn’t budge. We had to fake it but we ended up with some hilarious pictures of me trying to get it off and whispering to DH “OH SHIT IT’S STUCK!” haha
4. The best man was DH’s 21 year old brother. He got super drunk and oh my god he was a liiiittle too friendly. He kept putting his arm around me and telling me how pretty I was haha. I still remember the looks my dad and I exchanged when he went over and started drunk talking my dad’s ear off.
5. I had a red and black wedding and the petals on my cake were more like a pinkish, coral-y color. It wouldn’t have been too noticeable but I had the cake table decorated with red tealight candleholders so you could clearly see the huge color difference.
6. I didn’t find this out until the next day but our friend who was officiating assumed we would have his script so he didn’t bring it with him. This wasn’t discovered until about 5 minutes before the ceremony began! Our venue coordinator sprung into action and ran to the hotel next door with him so they could find it and get it printed out. (Luckily, I had sent him the attachment in a Facebook message so they were able to get it.) I am so freaking glad I was in the dark about this!
7. This is minor but it kind of irked me. Before the ceremony, they had me hidden away in a random room so I could just sit and chill alone for a few minutes (and so no one would see me.) The door opens, I figure it’s my dad.. but no. My step-mom’s mom pops her head in (She didn’t know I was in there, no clue why she’s opening random doors…) Instead of “oops sorry” and leaving. She comes right in, leaving the door wide open so everyone can see in, and tries to start talking to me. Luckily, my awesome photographer swooped in and got rid of her!
8. The plan for the ceremony was: the groomsmen each walk their mothers down the aisle (they were my brother, and DH’s brother, so they walked my step-mom and MIL) then the bridesmaids, then me & dad. No grandparents. They will just go to their seats like the other guests. While I’m hidden away in that room I hear my step-mom helping get everyone lined up and she says “okay, now the grandparents go here…” WHAT?! You were at the rehearsal last night and this is NOT what we rehearsed!!! My dad walks in the room and I’m immediately freaking out ‘WHAT IS SHE DOING?!?!” Ugh. I almost went bridezilla 2 minutes before walking down the aisle. **Brightside to this: one of my grandfathers passed away 3 years ago. DH saw my grandma standing there alone while they were lined up so he walked over to her, took her by the arm, and said I’m not letting you walk alone. And he walked her down the aisle with him. TEAR. Oh goodness. I love him.
9. Our officiant friend was super duper nervous and forgot to say “You may be seated.” So when we started reading our vows we hear all the guests suddenly sit down all at once. Super, mega AWKWARD!
10. I didn’t notice this until we got our pics back but DH’s dad looked like he had just rolled out of bed. He didn’t try to straighten out the jacket of his suit or anything for family pictures and through our entire ceremony he sat slumped over and you can see it in our ceremony pictures :/
11. DH and I had a period of time in college where we were broken up. It wasn’t a pretty breakup. Now that we’re married we don’t really mention to people “yeah we were broken up for a couple years!” Well, one of DH’s college buddies gave a speech. He got up there and during the speech he said something about “when all that stuff went down…” Oh goodness, I was mortified!
I had been told over and over that some things would inevitably go wrong on my wedding day. And they did. All of this being said, I had an amazing, perfect wedding. It was the most relaxed day leading up to our beautiful candlelit ceremony at sunset. It was an incredible night and I wouldn’t change a thing. Bride-to-be’s: honestly, you will be on cloud 9 that day. Things will go wrong but they will seem like such small, insignificant things and they won’t faze you one bit.
The only thing I wish I would have done was to really stop and take in everything I had done. Absolutely every last bit of that wedding came from my head (okay, pinterest helped a little 😀 ) It was my vision that I worked so hard to bring to life. I know everything turned out beautifully but I really wish I would have taken the time to really look around and really appreciate all I had accomplished.