More wedding talk-what are your favorite/least fave memories of your commitment day

[Tap]

My wedding was a disaster. I wanted simple at a JP and dinner at a nice restaurant. My family wasn't footing the bill, and we didn't have the money ourselves for a big shebang. Everyone heard of my simple plans and said "That won't do....I want to give you xyz for your present"....how do you say 'no, thanks' when they say it is your present?

 

BAD:

My sister insisted on providing a dress I didn't like. She brought it to me with not enough time to buy something else (small town). Very, very not me. She had me wear gloves and veil also...not me.

 

My rings were second hand and bought because my sister once again, really wanted me to like them.

 

A lady I babysat for made my bouquet.

 

My mother bought me a sheet cake and added silver leaves to make it 'wedding like'. She also provided a cake topper, a dark/black haired couple. Dh and I are very light complected and light haired. She said she would provide food. She is a good cook and makes huge holiday dinners so I didn't worry. For my wedding, she rolled luncheon meat and cheese with buns for dinner, and was late because she was still rolling them.

 

My mil wanted us to have the reception at her house and she said she would decorate. She used recycled flowers from a recent funeral to decorate. Mums with RIP sticks in them...classy. She and her family left my family in the living room while they stayed in the private areas of the house. No mingling allowed, I guess.

 

We picked out our vows in the hour before our wedding and just chose the first ones we came to that weren't too flowery. I have no idea what they were.

 

My hair was done in a style that I hated, but by that point nothing else was in my style so I just told the hairdresser to do what she wanted for x amount of money. Nicely done, just not me.

 

Someone threw an ill fitting sport coat and tie on my dh moments before the wedding. We had planned on him just wearing a nice white shirt. I didn't have a say in it.

 

I was kidnapped by family from the reception (they wanted an excuse to leave the 'divided home') and passed my shoe around a pizza restaurant for a ransom "to release the bride to the groom". Everyone was finally laughing after a boring, boring reception and having a good time, so I really didn't want to say 'no'. I am NOT a public display person and almost hyperventilate at doing CPR in front of a certifier. I didn't go back to those businesses for a long time.

 

They rented me a hotel room at a cheap hotel with the money they raised (they didn't ask us), when we had only planned to go home. We were leaving the next day to go on a drive up the coast for a 1 day honeymoon. We didn't have anything with us to stay the night.

 

 

 

I have no fond memories of my wedding.

 

 

 

GOOD:

Dh and I are still together 15yrs later and I know to 'ask' and not just expect someone to 'love' my gift of service. I am no longer a push over!

Edited July 2, 2010 by Tap, tap, tap

[LauraGB]

Easy!

 

The Bad: I was 5 months pregnant. With twins (which equals 10 months pregnant by visual terms). :lol: The truth is that the wedding and rockin' sheath dress had already been purchased by the time I found out I was pregnant. Then, the dress looked positively ridiculous and I had to go with a rack A line with a ton of lace which I absolutely hated.

 

Our parents did the guest list. Of the 250 people, we were only allowed to invite 12 of our own friends :confused::glare:.

 

The DJ was instructed to play a lot of jazz and swing, but instead ended up playing a ton of metal and classic rock. I personally told him "No Chicken Dance" and we ended with not only the Chicken Dance but a whole slew of other wedding favs. Ugh.

 

We had to have fried chicken. No choice at all. A wedding's not a wedding with fried chicken and mashed potatoes, you know. :glare:

 

There was open bar for an hour before the reception. My family has a lot of drunks who thought that was fabulous. Dh's does not. Dh's parents paid for the open bar. :glare:

 

The photographer hit on me all night. He even tried to kiss me. :blink::ack2::ack2:

 

Dh had set up a lovely bed and breakfast about an hour away. I drove, he fell asleep, and had never gotten the right directions. So, about three hours of driving later, we ended up back at home.

 

The Good: It was only one day and eventually ended.

[runmiarun]

What an interesting thread. Let's see. Mine was absolutely lovely after reading of your day, tap tap tap, but it was not without controversy, from my point of view. We had a very small wedding party and wedding. It was immediate family only-all 8 of us.

 

Bad:

My husband ran over my cat on his way out of my driveway, in my car. Our honeymoon consisted of moving me to Baltimore to live with him so he took my car to finish his errands in and meet me at the church later, crammed with almost everything I owned but the furniture. My mom was driving me around all day for all the up-do/make-up/etc. We tried to find a vet who was open and would see the cat but it died before we could find one. My brother officiated the funeral in the backyard so that my mother would stop crying.

 

The stylist with whom I had an appointment to do my hair forgot she had an appointment, well, several appointments, so she closed her shop and went to Biloxi for the weekend.

 

I am make-up challenged so a good friend of mine offered to do the "full Mary Kay" wedding look for me for free. She forgot and went to Lake Burton in north GA for the weekend for a booze cruise on a pontoon boat.

 

The church organist fell and broke her arm on the way to the wedding so we had to stop at Tower Records (in wedding garb) and pick up a CD of wedding music and a boombox so we could have a wedding processional.

 

The restaurant where we had our very small reception had us down for 2 hours after our original reservation time so we had to wait while they rearranged the outdoor seating area we had reserved. This is after calling that morning to confirm. Their response-"nobody has weddings at that time of day so we couldn't have written that time down."

 

GREAT:

We're still married after 14 years.

 

We got a police escort to our reception since we were the last wedding allowed at the church due to closing the side streets for the Atlanta Olympics.

 

Not quite that day but 3 days later: we arrived in Baltimore, happy to get out of a car loaded with stuff and us. That night, the Olympic torch came through our neighborhood and we got to run with it along the sidewalks for 3 miles in the pouring rain in our pajamas.

 

I discovered that the wedding day is pure chaos and elopement is highly under-rated.

[jenL]

Bad: I wanted to have a small wedding somewhere like the beach, then have a huge BBQ to celebrate later. Since I was the first grandchild on both sides of the family, and there were "expectations of me", we had wedding with a reception, a cheesy DJ, and everything felt rushed and "formal".... so not us.

 

My mom and grandparents were upset with us because we chose a buffet instead of a formal sit-down meal which is all we could afford since we paid for it all ourselves.

 

Half of the people we had to invite, I did not know or it had been since childhood that I saw them.

 

Dh's dad refused to come because after being estranged for a couple of years, we were told that we did not ask "in time"... we asked 4 months in advance. They had no plans, of course (we learned this later).

 

Dh's groomsmen kept him out really late the night before and Dh doesn't do well with little sleep. So, he wasn't feeling that great.

 

Good: I loved my dress even though my mom thought is was too simple.

 

It was an absolutely gorgeous September day with nothing but sun, blue skies, and mid-70s, so we were able to have the outside wedding we wanted.

 

Friends of ours flew in from all over the country to celebrate with us. I'm still grateful for them taking the time and money to do this for us.

 

Dh and I are still happily married almost 13 years later, and I would marry him again in a heartbeat.

Edited July 2, 2010 by jenL

[Mynyel]

Hmmm my family wasn't there. That is pretty much it :) I had a "wedding" at the Justice of the Peace (wasn't even the courthouse) and my dh family were the only ones present.

 

I don't regret the small ceremony...I am glad I didn't have a "traditional" wedding. Bleh.

 

I do wish my mom, dad and sisters (at least) could have been there. But 5 plane tickets from Cali to FL was way more than could be afforded at the time!

[Corraleno]

LOL, these stories are precisely why DH and I eloped! We ran off to Vegas for 4 days without telling anyone, we wore exactly what we wanted, spent most of our wedding day playing on the water slide at Treasure Island, got married in the chapel there at 8 PM, then went back to our room and hopped in the jacuzzi together with a bottle of champaign. Best wedding ever. :D

 

MIL (who lives in England) got her nose out of joint (read: sobbed hysterically for about a week) so we told her she could plan a "blessing service" for us in a beautiful old chapel in the UK, with a small reception in a garden afterward. She arranged the service with the pastor, and chose Ruth & Naomi for the reading. Since all the guests were MIL's friends, and they all knew exactly what she was like, there was universal giggling when the pastor said said what the reading would be and that it was "a bit of an unusual choice for a wedding." Then she proceeded to get absolutely smashed at the reception, danced like a fool to loud rock music (she was in her 60s at the time) and ended the night by falling face first into a flower bed with her skirt up around her ears. It was memorable. :lol:

 

Jackie

[Carrie12345]

Bad: Many strangers at my wedding. It was *supposed* to be our closest family and 2 or 3 friends - about 20-ish people. A tiny "reception" at my aunt's house. MIL decided to invite another 20+ people to the church. I found out just as I started to walk down the isle.

 

Bad: My mother gave us beautiful champagne glasses for our wedding toast. At the end of the night, she smashed one in the sink. I do laugh about it, because she's notorious for breaking glasses. Since she lives out of state, my aunt volunteered to shop for a replacement. 10 years later, I still don't have a replacement OR the original.

 

Bad: My aunt gave my sisters and cousins bird seed to throw, and boy did they throw it. At the hotel that night, bird seed came pouring out of my hair and dress. We tipped the housekeeper very well.

 

Bad: My mil threw us a "real" reception a month later (which I didn't want). Then she complained that we didn't get enough in gifts to "make up" for the money she spent.

 

Good: I never wanted a "wedding" to begin with, so none of it is that big a deal. At the end of the night, I got to look at dh and say "You're my husband!" and he got to say "You're my wife!" That was very, very good! :D

[LauraGB]

I discovered that the wedding day is pure chaos and elopement is highly under-rated.

 

 

100% Agreed. I am encouraging my kids to skip the broo-ha-ha and just let it be simple. I've also come to the determination that the wedding reception is purely for the party goers and not the wedding couple. My father explained that since they were bringing gifts, we needed to provide the sort of party the guests would enjoy, not us.

 

I'm growing a massive garden of flowers in my back yard. If my kids decide to marry, I've got the perfect place, and I'm not a bad cook and I can accept assistance. An intimate gathering of a few favorite people and some great food and wine - couldn't beat that with a stick. (Here's hoping they feel the same when the time comes!)

[Heather in Neverland]

My wedding was beautiful, like a fairytale.

 

But then someone stole my purse. At my wedding.

 

Who steals the bride's purse?

[smrtmama]

I loved everything about my wedding, except the rental place didn't crank the a/c up enough for a late June wedding!

[Lara in Colo]

Over all it was a good day. We got married in the Mtns in shorts and T-shirts. DH's said "groom" with a chain on the back Mine said "bride" with picture of a ball on the back My mother said MOB with a shotgun on the back,

We "registered" at an unfinished pottery place (you know, where you paint your own stuff and they fire it later--The store was happy but I was clearly the first bride to order all the dishes and have them painted) Anyway after the wedding all the guests painted our dishes.

My mother was worried no one would want to paint-it ended up we ran out of stuff to paint and Dh never got to paint anything.

 

Dh was in charge ONE thing, the ice-he ordered a palett (sp?) of ice that never showed, so BIL ran to the nearest town and pratically bought the entire town's supply of ice and it still wasn't enough. The 2 kegs of beer were NOT cold and the snow cone machine was a waste of money.

 

My mother hated the idea of the wedding and was snarky for the entire month before the wedding, but as soon as everyone was having a good time and they approved, she turned into a diva and became the hostess of the year-(once again taking the glory).

 

the honeymoon was only two days at a B&B (it was a new b&b and they were still kind of "over friendly" constantly asking were we went, what we did, knocking on the door all the time)-I was afraid to have tea because I KNEW they were listening.

 

I think the best part is that whenever we run into a wedding guest they still (13yrs later) say what a great time they had.

 

Lara

[bbsweetpea]

Bad- I was sick and we had no clue what with. I was tired all the time, gaining weight and could hardly move or think. A week before my wedding my doctor actually advised me to NOT get married. Since this wedding was 6 years coming (we met at 15 and got married at 21) there was no way I could not get married. We later figured out I had a severe thyroid issue that took me 2 years to level out.

 

SO ... I was in no mood to get married or be in front of people or deal with people.

 

My grandfather planned on video taping the wedding and the camera ran out of juice 10 minutes into it.

 

My bio dad decided during our reception to talk to my husband about how to treat me on the wedding night ... in front of all of our friends that we had known since high school and middle school. NIGHTMARE

 

Good- It was cheap. We paid for it and picked everything out. My dress was off the rack but beautiful. My grandmother did the flowers and decorations, my great grandmother did the cake, my dad did the photos ... we had a quick cake and punch reception.

 

We got out of there quick and drove to the bed and breakfast place a couple hours away. Since my hubby and I are best friends there was no pressure and I got to rest before the real action happened.

 

My husband and I are still married today 11 years later and can joke about it. We actually miss my grandfather, his mother and my great grandmother who are no longer with us.

[Mejane]

Fave/least fave: my soon-to-be husband passing out on the altar. Yup, he did. :001_smile:

[Crissy]

I was only disappointed in the photography. A friend of my husband wanted to do him 'a favor'. Our portraits and group photos are terrible. I have no pictures of Jeffrey (3yo) and me, nor of my parents and me.

 

I had a friend who made candid photos of the ceremony and reception, though, and his images are wonderful. He gave them to me as a gift a couple of months after the wedding.

[Amy loves Bud]

Easy!

 

The Bad: I was 5 months pregnant. With twins (which equals 10 months pregnant by visual terms). :lol: The truth is that the wedding and rockin' sheath dress had already been purchased by the time I found out I was pregnant. Then, the dress looked positively ridiculous and I had to go with a rack A line with a ton of lace which I absolutely hated.

 

.

 

Hey! I bought my sheath style wedding dress from a resale shop. It was there because the bride who originally bought it had ended up pregnant and bought a different style dress. I might have been wearing your dress! Did you get married in 1993 in Dallas?

 

Seriously, I"m sorry your day didn't go as planned. I hope the marriage has made it all worth it!

[Mejane]

Easy!

 

The Bad: I was 5 months pregnant. With twins (which equals 10 months pregnant by visual terms). :lol: The truth is that the wedding and rockin' sheath dress had already been purchased by the time I found out I was pregnant. Then, the dress looked positively ridiculous and I had to go with a rack A line with a ton of lace which I absolutely hated.

 

 

Laura, I was two months pg. It was the only day in my first trimester that I wasn't totally nauseated. :001_smile:

[LauraGB]

Hey! I bought my sheath style wedding dress from a resale shop. It was there because the bride who originally bought it had ended up pregnant and bought a different style dress. I might have been wearing your dress! Did you get married in 1993 in Dallas?

 

Seriously, I"m sorry your day didn't go as planned. I hope the marriage has made it all worth it!

:lol: Nope, '98, Green Bay. It does make me feel a little better that I'm not the only one, though! And yeah, it was all worth it :).

[Carol in Cal.]

I had a great wedding. I don't remember any bad moments. (A bad thing or two happened, but thankfully I didn't realize it until long afterwards.)

 

This is largely due to a conversation that I had with, of all people, a work colleague. He was asking about our wedding plans, and I was talking about economizing on the honeymoon being so sensible, and about having it in town so everyone would come even though I really wanted it up in my hometown (which was only an hour away), and economizing on the reception because that's so sensible, and finally he leaned forward and said, "Carol, you should have the wedding you want to have, not this one."

 

This had never really occurred to me. So I started to think about what I really wanted, which thankfully was before the bridezilla period so there was nothing tacky or over the top in that little dream, and discussing it with my intended, and, long story short, we ended up having a great wedding that was just perfect for us, and having a really nice time doing it.

[TxMama]

Bad: Tropical storm and flooding. BIL spent the weekend stranded at the airport and all my stuff was flooded in our garage. Instead of a lovely beach wedding, we got married in the tacky wedding chapel.

 

Good: Our best of friends braved the weather and the floods to come see us get married!

[gingersmom]

I wish I had eloped. There is just too much stress in planning a wedding when you have no money to spend.

 

My parents generously offered to pay for the catering and flowers. Then every time I bought up the budget my mother complained it was too expensive. So I kept cutting out food from the menu. I'm surprised we did not eat crackers and cheese whiz.

 

I had beautiful flowers picked out till my mother decided once again they were too expensive. According to her my bouquet could be baby's breath and so could all the arrangements.

 

I had the ugliest invitations because my mother in law picked them out and bullied me till I agreed to use them. I just finally gave up and agreed.

 

My mother in law sewed this drawstring bag for me to collect cards (aka checks) in. I thought it was so ugly and was so embarrassed to be seen with it.

 

I had to invite my parents friends and thus could not invite some of my friends. To this day I regret not inviting some people.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Good: We had friends and family come celebrate with us. One friend came all the way from Japan.

 

Most of it came off without a hitch.

 

Bad: I have really bad "stagefright". I got a facial tic as I walked down the aisle. I finally calmed down as I stared at dh waiting for me at the end. Afterward, no one would mention my tic. I was so happy when my uncle finally said at the reception, "Boy! Your face sure was hopping there!":D (It was a relief to me to have it mentioned, I figured it must have been awful since no one would talk about it.)

[Amy loves Bud]

All was good.

 

My favorite memory is of my Uncle Warren. We had an outdoor wedding, and in TX in May, it was a bit warm. So the waiters served the guests ice water before the ceremony began. Uncle Warren dipped his handkerchief in the water and put it on top of his bald head. Then on the video, his wife had to whisper our names to him because he couldn't remember! It was very sweet and I was so happy that he lived long enough to be there that day.

 

The only thing bad was a friend who put his whole darn face into the groom's cake later on in the evening when things got a little nutty. Fortunately everyone had been served, but I really would have liked to have those leftovers - It was good cake!

 

Overall it was a great day. Everyone I loved was there and everyone was happy with us.

[Hannah C.]

I got married in January of this year, so I'm still a newlywed! :)

 

The Bad: It was *cold* and my shoes and the bridesmaids' dresses were not designed for cold! Yes, it was January, but we're also in TX, and it was below freezing, which is very rare.

 

DH's and my decision to get married (we were engaged in May, planned to get married the next May, but in October moved the wedding up to January) was greeted with almost universal disapproval..and led to some intense family drama, to say the least, which was miserable.

 

The Semi-Bad: Our wedding ended up being way bigger than we expected. DH's parents wanted to invite a lot of people, most of whom DH and I didn't know.

 

The Good: The family drama was all worked out by the time the wedding happened.

 

We had many, many people volunteer to help out with various aspects of the wedding. The reception food was provided by various people from our church/my in-laws' church. Volunteers set up everything.

 

Both my in-laws and my parents contributed to paying for things. My parents paid for our cakes, which were absolutely wonderful. Also, the entire wedding was not expensive at all!

 

We had great photography, both the person we hired (someone we had gone to high school with - but she could actually take pictures!!) and a guest who took many pictures and gave them to us afterwards.

 

My dress was beautiful. I loved it. It was from David's Bridal, an as-is dress, and it was perfect.

 

My bouquet and all the other flowers were done by someone who attended our church, and his daughter. I really didn't care much about what they looked like. My bouquet was *PERFECT*.

 

The wedding and reception was actually very, very wonderful. In fact, all of it was wonderful. The honeymoon was short, but very nice and peaceful. And then we were married!!

 

So yeah, I really enjoyed my wedding! :D

[Parrothead]

The bad: the lady doing the video did not charge her battery so we have half a wedding on tape.

 

The Good: Dh and I got married.

 

The rest was an absolute blur. I really have very few memories of that day.

[Oak Knoll Mom]

Bad:

I woke up at 5:30 the morning of the wedding puking my guts out. A horrible stomach virus was going around and I got it the morning of the wedding. DH got it on the honeymoon. It was bad...the worst stomach virus I've ever had. Thankfully one of my bridesmaids was a nurse and met me at Burger King to give me a phenergan suppository. I was in all my wedding clothes except the dress. Fun times.

 

The girl delivering the flowers got lost and showed up about 10 minutes before the wedding. Thankfully they were only the bouquets and corsages/boutonnieres NOT decorations. Oh, and my bouquet was not what I had ordered. The florist didn't know how to make the type of bouquet I had ordered despite the fact that it was all the rage and pictured in every single brides magazine at the time. If she didn't know how to make it, she should have told me!

 

The pastor delivering the homily didn't realize how sick I was. We had an outdoor wedding and I was sick, feverish, and standing in the sun. My dad, who is the one who actually married, us elbowed him to get him to get on with it.

 

 

Good:

My mom made my dress. It was my design and just what I wanted.

 

My aunt was dying of cancer, but played the piano anyway. My wedding was the last time she played in public. It's a very special memory for me.

 

The reception food was (apparently) very good. My caterer still managed to pull it off despite her husband being admitted to the hospital during the night before.

 

My photographer was amazing. I don't look sick at all.

 

15 years later I still have people tell me what a beautiful wedding we had.

 

Still, I was puking my guts out the whole day.:D

[sheryl]

LOL! ;) Read to the bottom!

 

GOOD

 

We were married pretty much according to plans. Late October wedding...it's a beautiful time of year with the fall foliage at peak in Ohio.

 

We had a church wedding, guests, chocolate cake with peach colored icing, 2 female singers, reception, pictures, flowers, etc. The aisles in the church were decorated with candelabras on both sides. Our cake was also decorated with little candels leading to the cake topper...bride and groom! :D

 

I tried to stay on budget and feel as though I did. My parents did not have an excess amount of money to spend on my wedding. I choose the 2nd to the least expensive dress and orchestrated a wedding on a budget.

 

Family and friends were in attendance and in the wedding party.

 

MEMORIES!!

 

BAD

 

During the rehearsal the night before there is a picture of my sister....so typical of the one who was and still is to this day rather bossy.

 

The singers were OK, but not great at all. I forgot the titles to our songs they were to sing! :glare:

 

My cousin's dh and 2 of their kids couldn't come b/c they were sick.

 

Here is the clencher....I'm using red font. It is symbolic of the fire that destroyed our unit and all of our possessions except the clothes on our back and our car. We honeymooned in the Poconos! We went to the rec building and when we came back to retire for the evening, the unit was ablaze...all up in smoke. They upgraded us to a more expensive unit for the duration of our stay at no additional charge. My dh's dad was in insurance so he was able to secure an advance of money to be wired to us...whereupon we immediately proceeded to K-Mart and shopped their blue light specials. :lol:

 

We were thankful we were not asleep in the cabin and that we and everyone else exited safely.

 

As a result of the fire, more bad....we lost personal things. I had my Mom's necklace I wore in the wedding...gone! My college ID with all the quarterly stickers which I kept in my wallet in my purse...minimal compared to everything else.

We will celebrate 30 years of marriage this October. The wedding was on a Sat and the fire on a Mon or Tuesday. We knew it could only get better and improve from the start we incurred on day 2 or 3 of our marriage.

[yellowperch]

We were sent to a tropical island to work on a project and got married by a local official there. Spur of the moment, but not.

 

Before the wedding we went fishing and after the wedding we went swimming in the green-blue sea.

 

My parents were so relieved we had gotten married they had no complaints. His parents had gone through three weddings in the previous years and were equally cool about it.

 

Perfect wedding for us.

[Julie in AZ]

Our wedding was simple with a dessert reception at the church. It was wonderful as the focus was on the ceremony.

 

We thought about getting married in Las Vegas but decided to honeymoon there instead. A friend in a college class who was a travel agent (remember those? :lol: ) booked our honeymoon. She got us the most fantastic room with a jacuzzi tub in the middle of a step up tile lounging area. I didn't know her very well and it was the sweetest gift.

[rwjx2khsmj]

I loved, loved, loved my dress. Given the chance I'd wear it again. But, really, where does one wear a slightly used wedding dress?!

 

I loved my ceremony and reception. My dad wrote the ceremony and married us. It took him an hour to say all he needed to say and I'm so glad we let him have his chance. We had chocolate chip cookies on our buffet. YUM!

 

I loved the wedding music. Two pianos at the wedding. Children's choir and my sister sang. Sometimes I put it the wedding video just to listen to the music.

 

I wasn't so happy with my cake. I wanted chocolate. Mom said NO! And since the parents paid for the cake....

 

I also was mortified when no one caught the bouquet. It sounds like a stupid thing but I had visions of that moment and all my bridesmaids and friends ran away. The woman who picked it up off the floor was one of my parents friends that didn't get the "run" memo.

 

Since the reception was in the church, we didn't have a toast or a first dance. I wish we'd thought more and done both those things. I've made up for it. Periodically, I have dh give me a wedding toast or I pick a new song for our first dance. DH is a good sport and plays along.

[Colleen]

We didn't have a wedding. We went to a Swiss ski resort for a few days and were married at noon, at the bottom of the hill, while skiing. My favorite memory is hearing the various church bells peal at midday while we came down the slope to go into the city clerk's office. That, and going back up the mountain, skiing for a bit, and settling down in the snow with a bottle of champagne that our witnesses (a couple of male friends) brought along. Ringed as we were by the Alps, it was very much a movie moment.

 

Later, we went to dinner at the restaurant where one of the witnesses was a chef. Had a fabulous dinner, then went soaked in the thermal pools for which this particular resort is known. I was 5 months pregnant, and that long day, accompanied by a good bit of wine (yep, I always drank wine while pregnant) did me in. So I went back and crashed in the hotel room while Hans went out with his friends. In the middle of the night, he came back, fairly drunk,. and literally JUMPED on to the bed. Annoyed the h-e-double hockey sticks out me! I lay there thinking, "This was my wedding night?":tongue_smilie:

[dirty ethel rackham]

Good:

Our wedding day was actually a great day. 75 degrees and sunny on a late July day rather than the 90 degrees high humidity day.

 

Not so good: The wedding was bigger than I wanted but I was the last person in my family to get married and my parents wanted a big hurrah. Wasn't too stressful, though.

 

Good: I loved my dress and bridesmaids dresses.

 

Bad: I forgot to plan for some details on the wedding night and sent BIL to get me some stuff. I lived to regret it (more to come.)

 

Good: My cousin flew in for the wedding.

Bad: Said cousin and I did a shot of ouzo at the reception - big mistake.

 

Good: Dh's cousin (who does not get along with other family members) offered to do the video for us. It gave him something to do.

Not so good: Said cousin set up a table and showed off his "handwriting analysis" skills. He told one cousin's wife that, based upon the handwriting sample, her husband must be terrible in bed. This led to more dischord in dh's family.

 

Good: Almost everyone was on their best behavior at the wedding and reception, at least as far as I could tell.

Bad: Sister got way too drunk after we left and got into a fight with her husband of 2 months.

 

Good: We left the reception when we wanted.

Not so good: Wedding party sneaked out and pimped our car. They stuffed it with newspapers and "balloons." I mean STUFFED to the rooftop and those really weren't balloons.

 

Good: Cousin had finished the video for us in a timely manner.

Bad: We didn't prescreen it before showing it to family. Videotaping cousin recorded the "car pimping", including BIL (who went to the store for me) opening up my overnight bag and showing the camera all my unmentionables, including the items purchased by BIL. I was mortified that dh's elderly relatives saw this.

 

ETA: It will be 19 years later this month! I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Edited July 2, 2010 by dirty ethel rackham

[justamouse]

I hated all of it. Except the getting married part. I wish we went to city hall and had a bash weeks later. I AM doing it all over again one day.

[SailorMom]

You know... I wasn't happy with the dress (wore my sister's hand-me-down), my mom kinda tried to control everything, and a lot of it wasn't what I probably would have picked - I did LOVE my cake, though :) I was 18, and a lot of the planning I did as I was graduating from high school - it was a bit difficult, and odd!

 

But all that aside - I was surrounded by friends and family, and walking down the aisle - looking at my soon to be hubby with the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen - well - really, after that - everything else didn't matter anymore. I could have been wearing a burlap sap and had hot dogs for dinner! That look of pure love in his eyes - really - it was a moment where everyone else in the room just disappears - that stays with you. That look of palpable love was THE best part of the wedding.

We've been married almost 18 years, and have had a lot of hard times, but I still feel that love.

[chiguirre]

The only hitch I had at our wedding (couldn't resist the pun, sorry) was arriving early. We got married in a parish that was like the Mickey D's of nuptials, we were #2 of 3 for the evening. Well, bride 1 ran a half an hour late, but no one told us. My dad was so afraid to be late with the Caracas traffic that we ended up getting there way, way too early. Since we were in a hotel towncar, the dude just took off and dumped us on the curb where we cooled our heels in full wedding attire for 30 minutes. I got to wave at all the guests arriving, they got to giggle at the uber punctual gringa. I have lots of goofy snapshots of my parents, sister and I waiting around outside the church next to a phone booth. They're some of the best pictures of our wedding day.

[lllll]

..

[m0mmaBuck]

My Aunt had a stroke during our reception and was hauled off in an ambulance.

 

Otherwise the day was grand!

[KidsHappen]

It was my hubby and I in front of a JP. The entire guest list consisted of his mother and my daughter. It was exactly what I wanted. We celebrate 20 years in Dec. ;)

[Kirch]

The wedding was fine, other than the limo (dh's parents treat!) showing up late. But after a night in a local hotel, we flew to Colorado Springs and the airline lost one of our bags. The one with the birth control pills. Thankfully, it was there at the hotel when we woke up the next day!

[littlebug42]

I feel horrible that so many people had such horrible weddings. We had an entire weekend of festivities and it was all wonderful. We were married in November in Ohio and were even blessed with beautiful 70 degree weather. We had friends and family from all over the country travel to be with us. Despite our extremely rocky past, my Dad and my brother (father figure in my life) walked me down the aisle and I got to share that dance with my Dad. One of my most treasured possessions now is a photo from that dance. It captured him smiling at me like he loved me more than anything in the world. My Dad died last year and that moment means even more to me now. It was a great weekend filled with those we love and I wouldn't trade a second of it.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

 

The DJ was instructed to play a lot of jazz and swing, but instead ended up playing a ton of metal and classic rock. I personally told him "No Chicken Dance" and we ended with not only the Chicken Dance but a whole slew of other wedding favs. Ugh.

 

.

 

Holy Cow! We must have had the same DJ! My dh and I started dating by my asking him to take swing dance lessons with me, so I wanted swing and some oldies type music. I specifically requested no Chicken Dance and no Who Let the Dogs Out- and both were played by the DJ! He did NOT get a tip!

 

But, that wasn't my actual wedding day. It was at the reception we were guilted into having two months after we ran off to Vegas and eloped. Our wedding day was awesome! Dh and I took our bffs with us (both male), got hitched in jeans and tennis shoes in the morning, then spent the day sightseeing at Red Rock Canyon and Hoover Dam. No one knew we were getting married except the two who came with us. We had just become engaged a month earlier and hadn't set a date, so no one suspected a thing!

[scrappyhappymama]

The Not-so-Good:

 

I was only 18 at my wedding, so I was pretty naive about a lot, and didn't stand up for myself and what I wanted as much as I would have wished to.

 

~Everything felt SO rushed to me, particularly at the reception. My mom is really big on all the traditional stuff at weddings, so we had to fit in all the toasts and cake cutting and bouquet tossing, and I never really felt like I got to relax and enjoy my wedding day. We sat for the food just long enough for pictures, and then cut the cake for pictures but never ate more than the pieces we fed each other and then took with us to the B&B. We spent a lot of time outside on pictures while friends who had come a long way for our wedding hung out without us. Many of those folks I never even got to speak with at the reception, much less get to really visit with, and that really bugged me. We even had to hurry to leave- to get the going away birdseed toss and driving off pictures. I wasn't ready to go at all! If I had it to do over again, I'd much rather go with a big Italian style wedding reception, where it lasts all day and into the night. I'd focus more on experiencing the day than on commemorating it on film.

 

~We were very blessed with generous showers, but it wasn't until several years later that I even knew that people registered for wedding gifts! I wouldn't have minded having some input there. :lol: I still can't believe I didn't even know!

 

~We asked a family friend to sing at our wedding. He agreed and we gave him the songs we chose. A few weeks before the wedding, he decided he didn't want to sing those songs and said he knew some good wedding songs to sing instead. They were fine, but I have no idea today what they even were.

 

~We wrote our own wedding ceremony and vows. I really wanted it to be meaningful to us and a little non-traditional. We gave this information to the sweet elderly preacher who married us, he pleasantly agreed... and then he did his own thing on our wedding day. It was touching, but not what we were expecting at all.

 

~We were scheduled to stay in a B&B for a few days after our wedding. When we arrived the first evening, the proprietor chewed us out for getting there so late. From our wedding! And it was only about 8pm! She also mentioned that we were free to explore the grounds and make use of anything we found. The next day, we walked along the river and found a canoe and oars. So we went out on the river and were having a pleasant ride, until the owner came running along the shore screaming at us to come back and that the canoe was NOT for guest use. :confused: So we left and my folks booked us a night at the "best hotel in town" - the new Best Western. :001_huh: This was a small town. After those two days, we headed home, along with DH's family, back to our studio apartment. Since his family had driven across the country for the wedding, they stayed a week to visit with us- and stayed with us in our studio apartment. For our first week of married life.

 

The Good:

 

~I designed my own wedding cake and I knew I did not want tiers. I envisioned a square cake, with layers that sat directly on the one below, but turned at an angle so that the cake twisted upwards. I also wanted it to look like a lace handkerchief was lying over each layer. My cake decorator took my design and made it reality. It was so beautiful, even better than I hoped for. She used the pictures of my cake in her sample book for years afterwards.

 

~For some reason, I wanted my little flower girl to wear a pantsuit jumper instead of a dress. So we designed and made her a velvet jumper with a satin blouse, and she looked adorable. I was glad my mom caved in, even though she thought that it was weird to have a flower girl in a pantsuit.

 

~My mom's wedding dress was a vintage 70's all lace dress. She let me alter it to update it, and I loved it. The satin and sequins dresses that were all the rage then were not at all my style. My dress made me happy.

[Violet Crown]

Dh-to-be and I were grad students with absolutely no money, living far from the city where we grew up together (& all our family and most of our friends still lived). We only had a short break from classes, and needed to make the arrangements from across the country. I needed a dispensation (don't ask) to marry dh, which involved two bishops worth of red tape (the diocese where we were living & where we were marrying) plus an interview with the priest in my home parish whom I had never met (he had just arrived) and who needed to give a thumbs-up to dh before I could get the dispensation ball rolling.

 

And what happened:

 

-Fr. Hensy was magical, okayed dh (they discussed Thomas Aquinas and got along famously; I wasn't sure by the end of the interview that I was going to be found fit to marry him), and promised to handle all the bureaucracy, even (wink, wink) go forward with the ceremony if the paperwork hadn't quite come through entirely, so long as he got verbal confirmation from the diocese. Whew!

 

-Being broke, there was no being a bridezilla, and I left all liturgical decisions to Fr. Hensy: in retrospect, the wisest thing I could have done. It was a simple and beautiful ceremony. I found out later he undercharged us on the usual rental fee for weddings.

 

-Since it was just past Christmas, the church was already decorated with poinsettias and a gorgeous ornamented tree; Fr. Hensy said he'd leave up all the flowers and the tree if our friends could pitch in with taking it all down afterwards.

 

-My only choice for dress was my mother's, from the early '60's. It was exactly what I had imagined wearing, and my grandmother, who had made it originally, altered it as necessary.

 

-A friend made all the food except the cake, as her wedding gift to us, and it was simple and beautiful and tasty, in keeping with the tone of the wedding. She worked at a local hotel and got us the honeymoon suite so we could rest before heading back.

 

-We had only just started grad school in a part of the country where people went for honeymoons anyway, so our 'honeymoon' consisted of seeing all the fun touristy things we had been living near but hadn't had the time to visit, in the week before classes resumed. It was fun without being exhausting, as we returned each evening to our own apartment.

 

We had a lovely, merry wedding day without going into debt, surrounded by friends and family. Nothing but warm memories.

Edited July 2, 2010 by Sharon in Austin