Weddings

Wedding day regrets

Why attention to detail counts!

They say your wedding day is one of the best days of your life – that brides are so blissfully happy they don’t notice the little things that don’t go to plan. But I did and spent much of the day feeling worried and guilty. Guilty for wanting to complain to the suppliers who hadn’t done as we’d requested. But mostly guilty for not seeming happy. It wasn’t that I wasn’t present on the day, I was probably too present.

Weeks before our big day I had started worrying about what might go wrong – and that the wedding wouldn’t be unique and creative enough to stand out from others.

I blame Pinterest. While I knew the emphasis should be on celebrating with your loved ones Pinterest blurred my vision. For all its helpful inspiration it offered so many overwhelming choices and showcased so many beautiful ceremonies that I began to question all of my decisions.

I also felt acutely aware of how much money we and our families were contributing towards the wedding.

My anxiety soared two days before the wedding when three people pulled out. One was a +1 so that was more of a seating-plan annoyance but the other two were friends that we had wanted to be there. They both had understandable reasons and we knew it wasn’t their fault, but I couldn’t help feeling sad and disappointed, emotions I hadn’t expected to feel before our big day.

I began panicking that more people would drop out and that our modest gathering would start to look embarrassingly small for the venue.

On the morning of the wedding, problems cropped up thick and fast. I awoke feeling groggy after being kept up by the noisy family in the hotel room upstairs. We were late getting to the salon for our hair and makeup – then the makeup bags went missing (to be eventually located in the groom’s car). The florist arrived to point out that we hadn’t ordered enough centrepieces for the tables.

The ceremony was a nervous blur but went well, as did the photographs in the sunny weather. In fact, that part of the day, with the sun-drenched drinks reception and lawn games in the walled garden, was one of my favourite moments.

But this glee was short-lived because when the food was served I noticed some of the dishes weren’t what we had ordered.

Our DJ kept repeating the same song and tripped the sound fuse box three times, sending the place into a power cut each time.

In retrospect, I think it was my expectations that screwed me over. I put too much pressure on myself to pull off the perfect day.

Really, we were lucky that it was never anything major that went wrong and looking back, there were so many happy moments that I wish I had enjoyed at the time. If I could do it all over again, I’d relax and ignore the little problems.

And perhaps swap the DJ for a Spotify playlist.

– Anonymous, via Grazia

When little things go wrong – stories from other brides

This story reminded us of the little things that went wrong on our wedding days – like thinking that a picnic-style early evening dinner would be a great idea, but then seeing that everyone looked uncomfortable trying to arrange themselves on the ground on their picnic rugs!

Another of us had trouble using the bathroom because her wedding gown was ‘fitting’ and her corset even more so.

A third couldn’t believe that the London cab the groom had booked for her to arrive at the wedding in had no air conditioning, and she and her bridesmaids almost melted completely away on the 30-minute drive to the ceremony.

We have a bride in the office who didn’t wear sunblock under her makeup because it would look too shiny in photos. She got burnt, and spent her wedding day pink.

And another whose best friend had promised to take care of the wedding cake then forgot to collect it, instead arriving with two sponges she’d picked up at the supermarket on the way.

We know a bride who forgot her wedding bouquet, as well as her bridesmaids’ flowers and her groom and groomsmen’s button-holes. The ceremony went ahead, sans flowers.

At the end of the day, they gave us some good wedding tales to tell, and we’re still happily married!

– The Now To Love team

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