Expectations vs Reality

It was 32 degrees on my wedding day. I look great in the pictures, but I was starting to go numb.

Past that, I never really put too many expectations on my day. Less I had the better it was for me. I'm glad that's how I went with it. Things went wrong, but they were all fixable.

Just got home from my DW that took place on 1.8.19. My brother / groomsman lost his pants and suspenders for our DW the morning of the wedding at 6am for our 10am wedding. 😂🤷🏼‍♀️ Luckily a guest brought Grey pants with him and my stepdad planned on wearing black suspenders that my brother wound up wearing so you can’t tell in the pictures but It makes for a funny story! Guest services did not have them at 6am but managed to have them by 6pm after the wedding already took place. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Lol....For me, that first picture of your flower girl is perfect and is even much better than if she had posed nicely in the pic below. That is the wedding as it happened, in the moment with all the quirks and sweetness.

Mine is not until next year and luckily I am a really laid back person.

Not been married but FG is adorable.

Even if no one chose to come I would be compleatly okay because I am marrying the love of my life and that is the most important thing to me.

We were 30 minutes late to dinner, but it was to get this photo (and many others like it). Our amazing vendors got us back on schedule and none of the guests cared because the appetizers were so good. A lot of our guests left early because of early rehearsal the next day (musicians), but our wedding party had a BLAST until the end, we had the most amazing moment of our wedding party and parents singing “Closing Time” around us in a big circle for our last song while he and I slow danced, it was totally spontaneous and beautiful and intimate.

I expected to have my belt that I loved on and the perfume I bought specifically for the wedding...forgot both in the rush to get into the limo before DH got back to the hotel room to finish getting ready himself.

Thankfully the limos took us back to the hotel before we partied on the strip so I got to put on my belt and perfume. I look back and love my dress without it but was so sad about it in the moment.

with belt

reality

Let's see...the rental company sent the wrong color linens. They were clearly red and not burgundy. Some brides would have blown a gasket. Meh, whatever.

As I got to the top of the stairs, ready to walk down the aisle, I noticed that everyone was standing on the wrong sides (groom & groomsman on left, bm's on right) so I had to signal them to switch. I mean, my hairpiece was on the right. I had to have that side showing. Lol

Oh and the biggest expectation that I had that day was that my ex-husband would never interfere with our wedding. But alas, reality set in when he talked our 3 boys out of coming to our wedding and even rewarded them with a new computer set up for racing that they had been wanting for years. We are working through it with them now, but it's been hard. I know that this was his last ditch effort to hurt me and he took a gut shot. Well played. Much to his dismay, I have a partner, friends and family who love me, talked me off the ledge, and helped to make our day the best it could be.

There were a few other minor things, but one thing I can say is that none of that mattered. When we got our pictures back, the joy, peace and love I was feeling that day is evident in every single one. I am so happy to finally be married to my soulmate.

In the end, that is all that mattered.

Quite a few things went wrong on our wedding day lol I made a post about it, but in short....

- We hit horrible traffic on the way to the venue due to a 4 car pile-up, so we were 40 minutes late to have hair & makeup done in the bridal suite (luckily my hair & mua worked quickly to make up that time, and still managed to make us all gorgeous)

- The in-laws showed up in HORRIBLE moods, due to a personal conflict they had at home that morning, which kinda soured our moods a bit during family photos

- After dinner, myself & husband along with our wedding party were going to the photo booth to take fun/silly photos together while guests were escorted to the dance floor. Our DOC never escorted our guests like she was supposed to, so EVERYONE ended up at the photo booth, which put cake-cutting and first dances a bit behind schedule

- The DJ was just horrible. From not playing the song we wanted during cake cutting, to completely forgetting mine and my husband's first dance (we did get it after we yelled at him), to blowing a speaker and leaving us without music for 30 minutes... and it just continues

- Our grand exit had to be done inside as it started storming at the end of the evening. Luckily we were all inside at the time, so the storm had no real affect on the wedding, but it did kind of soil our original grand exit plans; it also made leaving the venue not so fun as it was pouring rain and lightning lol

Despite all of this though, I mostly only remember all of the great things that happened! And now my husband and I have some ridiculous stories to share forever haha

Well, I am remarrying and that wedding hasn’t happened yet lol. But oh man the things that went wrong on my first wedding. Can we say “washing dishes in my wedding gown”? 😂
but I remember the good times so much more. And I learned a lot about the expectations vs reality of a wedding that day. So I’m much more relaxed this time around, without crazy expectations. Im expecting chaos 😂
i also learned that when possible, don’t cut too many corners on important vendors or you will probably regret it.
And the most important thing I learned....was to try not to let bridal party drama ruin a friendship. Nothing is worth that unless they aren’t a true friend in the first place. But we get so wrapped up into things that it seems reasonable at the time. Even if it is, is the last stand of your friendship worth being over a dress or an arbitrary title? No it isn’t.

This is a great thread!

As a bride to be a learn SO MUCH from posts like this! Helps to ease the nerves a little and now what to TRY to make sure is done on that day!

We didn’t really have anything go wrong necessarily, but there were a few slight disappointments. The weather wasn’t on our side so instead of the outdoor ceremony I’d been envisioning we used the backup room. Let’s just say, we didn’t pick the venue for it’s stunning indoor ceremony space lol. We basically got married in a conference room. It didn’t look terrible, and the day of I got over the disappointment pretty quick, but I occasionally still feel a tiny bit of disappointment when I see other peoples’ gorgeous outdoor ceremonies.

My 2 year old niece had a flower girl meltdown too! Started screaming like a banshee when she saw all the people sitting out there. I kept telling my brother (who walked me down the aisle) not to make her do it if she was going to be miserable but he had her brother carry her down. It got some chuckles, but the poor kid hated it. I felt bad.

Only other thing that didn’t quite turn out as planned was our photos. I like them and I love a few. But we went with a budget friendly photographer and I feel like it shows. I also didn’t put a lot of thought into our photos and I wish I had, because in retrospect there’s a lot of shots I wish I’d asked for. The day goes by so fast and I was having so much fun that I just didn’t stop to think about which shots we weren’t getting. The weather being a jerk didn’t help, it was so cold we only managed a few outdoor shots.

So yeah, a few things didn’t go as planned but it was still the happiest day I’ve ever had! I smile like a fool every time I think about our wedding. 😊

Hubby and I ended up eloping fast after too much planning stress 10 years ago. Still everything went wrong. Stayed at a gorgeous lodge for the night before up in a mountain in TN. Mother ended up meeting us but just had boyfriend troubles so ended up causing problems at the lodge room by screaming and swearing so loudly the night before that they threatened to kick us out.

Next morning, she took up the bathroom crying and swearing intermittently about her boyfriend. I couldn't use the bathroom to even put make-up on. Threw on a dress (not a gown, just a simple dress to get it over with) and went to the car after getting another earful from the lodge owner about my mother bothering them. Fiance was silent the entire time but when I started crying at the car as my mother kept texting her boyfriend and throwing fits stating that she shouldn't have left him to come to our little elopement, he stated firmly to her to sit down and be silent or stay behind.

As we were climbing the mountain, our car started smoking; barely made it to the elopement chapel. Stopped just at the end of the driveway entering but I had already stopped to help look at the car and my simple dress was a dress with grease on it. We were behind in the schedule but the minister was super nice while my fiance was calming my tears and keeping my mother away. Don't remember the ceremony but it was fast and simple. Had to get the car to the nearest mechanic just after and it stalled and smoked the whole way there. One point, just threw my shoes off as the car was a manual and got behind to drive in the middle of a busy strip in Gatlinburg with the car really smoking. Turned out we had the oil changed before the trip to TN (4 hours) but they forgot to add a filter while changing it and almost blew up the engine. Got it fixed but little grocery cake was completely melted by the time we got to the state forest for our little picnic. Was greasy, sweaty and icky before even leaving the chapel but worse after and just wanted to drive back.

Well, to cinch the day, found out my mother had stolen our money to go back to her boyfriend by the time we finished fixing our car. She left a message on phone stating that we should have went around our schedule that morning to get her back to her boyfriend. Luckily, my husband had his other bank card and we were good. We traveled all evening and got home at 11 pm. By that time, I was horrified that my mother had robbed us of several hundred dollars and had to explain all this to my new husband; to which he replied that his favorite episode of the flintstones was the sweet old woman whom turned out to be a head thief and that it was just another day. It had me laughing instead of crying :-). Although, by midnight my body had started breaking out in hives lol. For real.

We are renewing our vows with our children on our tenth anniversary at Niagara Falls as it is a special place for my grandmother (she raised me) and my husband as well; it's where I grew up with her and a place my husband and I hold special as well from before we married. I plan to have a simple gown and veil with full wedding photos, video and horse and buggy but still considered an elopement with a little company helping us. Nothing fancy or big and planning is almost zero with this company. We would like a honeymoon this time and making that for the week with a little cake and romantic restaurant-all planned by hubby. I think we are prepared for everything but the worst aspect is no longer part of it :-).

One thing I always regretted is that we had no choice on having any wedding actually as we have no family between us and very few friends; as is the case now also. I would have loved for the most special element of our first wedding to be the dear family and friends sharing our happiness.

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I feel that! My hands definitely felt frozen after photos!

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We had TONS of issues with groomsmen attire as well! All turned out fine but it was definitely stressful!

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Oh I definitely agree! My photographers are documentary photographers so all of our photos aside from portraits were the wedding as it happened and how I remembered it. I cherish these photos so much!

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Aw no! Yes, the dress is gorgeous both with and without the belt but I would totally feel the same way if that happened to me!

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I love those last two sentences. Really puts everything in perspective, even when it feels like everything is going wrong! Thanks for sharing.

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Ugh I think I remember this thread! So sorry again. I am glad you remember all the good things that happened!