Glad, sad or mad?

I know my mom said she regrets not having a dance floor and my sister said she had two minor regrets 1) she had a friend do her hair and her friend didn’t do something that was really her style and 2) she didn’t wear any lipstick due to her husband not loving it. She said looking back she would’ve worn a lip stain that was very neutral

Welcome to the community Melissa! This is such a great question!

I was thinking about your discussion and came across this article in the ideas section that you might be interested in - "3 Things I'd Change About My Wedding Planning Experience".

What is next on your to-do list?

Things I am glad I did: I was not super picky and let my mom and mother in law make some of the decisions. It made my life easier. No one likes a bridezilla either. I am glad we had a large wedding. It was so fun and having everyone we cared about there was so special.
What did I wish I did: I wish we took more family photos with the photographer. Due to the weather we kind of rushed everything and missed some people.
What I regret: carrying on the week of the wedding, making myself miserable, about how we should have eloped, blah blah blah. I was so worried and being so down about the whole thing. I have no regrets about my big day other than that and am so glad I went through with the planning!

I was glad we had a sweetheart table. It gave us some quiet time alone.
I regret not putting my foot down and making my family/bridal party stay in the cars during our first look. It was more awkward than anything bc this intimate moment was kind of ruined by everybody gawking.
And I wish I had spent the night before alone. I shared the bridal suite with my MOH and she was being pissy and making me mad. I was already only going to get 4 hours of sleep and going to sleep mad didnt give me the best sleep.

Love this! I feel like when I'm planning I get so caught up in little things that I forget the big picture! Never would have thought about the first look thing! Following!

I was glad that I stuck to what we wanted and learned to say "no" very quickly, as we paid for our wedding ourselves. Setting those boundaries early really allowed us to have OUR day.

Sometimes I wish we kept our wedding low-key and did a much more smaller, intimate wedding. We had 125 people and it was a great night, but I think I allowed the stress to really ruin my wedding planning over the 2 years we were engaged.

I regret asking my bridal party to be a part of the wedding so early. It was about a year and a half out, and I wish I waited until about 10 months out. In hindsight, I probably would have excluded 2 of the 5 that I asked.

Also, we had quite a few family members/friends getting married around the same time as us and one in particular made everything a competition and would constantly upset me with her constant jabs and one-ups. I regret being so emotional about so many of those times and wish I could have just been happy and content with our wedding planning and kept all the information to myself and DH about what we were planning.

I regret not inviting more people. We left a few of my extended cousins off the guest list because I haven't seen them in a long time and I ended up seeing them shortly after the wedding and they were so much fun. I wish I invited them. So I definitely don't recommend following the "if you haven't seen them in X amount of time don't invite" rule when I comes to family. I also regret our choice for DJ.

Other than those two things I'm happy about EVERYTHING else. My husband and I made all the decisions ourselves and everything turned out great. I'm really glad that we splurged on food because the guests LOVED it. I'm glad we chose a hotel venue that had staff to do everything for us and they always made sure my husband and I got everything we needed and that we ate. I'm glad we chose such good friends to be in our bridal party. I'm glad we got all the photos we wanted. And I'm glad my husband and I had such a good time and made so many memories with the people we love.

I wish I would’ve booked my venue for the full day. We were a little rushed when we arrived. And I wish I could’ve afforded a videographer for the whole day. And I wish I would’ve written my vows down more & put in my bouquet. Other than that... I loved our wedding day.

View Quoted Comment This is really helpful, thanks! I talked to a photographer about first look pictures and his number 1 suggestion was to not tell anyone where you were doing it so no one was gawking. He also suggested having something to do (exchange gifts or letters) or say to each other preplanned otherwise it turns into an awkward “you look great” “so do you” and then you both have other things on your mind to get done preceremony and don’t focus on the moment.

View Quoted Comment Ooh. Good to know. I've definitely been thinking that I want to spend the night before alone, this makes me feel more confident in that choice.