I'm not sure even where to begin (or if this is the correct forum to be posting on), but I will start by saying that I am so happy to be married to my best friend and love of my life. That was never the issue. But the things that happened before and during my wedding left me with such disappointment and sadness, I literally start to tear up any time someone asks me about it. I'm posting this not only as a way to get it all out, but to ask if anyone has tips on a good response to questions about the wedding, or if there is a way I can shift my mindset about it.
We had been together over 5 years when he proposed, and wanted a relatively short engagement (originally planning for 9 months). Then his sister got pregnant, and we ran through scenarios of her and his parents, etc. not being able to make the wedding the month before she was due, our original date. So we decided to move it up 3 months, leaving me only 4 months to plan EVERYTHING.
Trying on dresses was kind of a disaster. The store attendants took pity on me trying on dresses by myself (I'd moved out of state, no friends or family nearby.) My mom said she'd pay for my dress, but wanted to see me in it in person, so I waited to try more on until I went back to my hometown. I found the PERFECT dress, that made my mom and sister cry, and I felt like a princess. But then we went to another shop, found a cheaper style that I kind of liked, and my mom paid for it basically before I could say anything. My dress was ordered in the incorrect size, based off of incorrect measurements the attendant took. After $360 of alterations, the sleeves were still falling off of me, and the cups were so oversized, you can see half of my breast in the gap in a lot of our pictures. I felt so uncomfortable in it.
My bachelorette party was supposed to be a scavenger hunt in Palm Springs, which everyone sounded in to when I mentioned it, but then they all started cheating, and rushing to the next bar, ignoring the game and saying they were over it. OK, fine, lets just drink. But then by dinner, everyone was sleepy and one of my bridesmaids ran in to friends and decided to hang out with them instead. I was just over it so we went back to the hotel. The next day by the pool was lovely, can't say anything about that! And one of my bridesmaids put a lot of thought in to decorating the rooms, which I so appreciate.
The story of the DJ is long, but let me summarize. My mom paid him up front, and for the next month, he was unreachable. His website didn't work to put in song requests and order, when sent to him directly (1 week before the wedding), he stated that too many of my songs were vulgar and despicable (Cardi B and Nicki Minaj and the like), and that I should just listen to him and his years of experience instead of embarrassing myself. After much back and forth, he agreed to play what we asked.
Moving forward a bit to our rehearsal, everything went fine.
The morning of our wedding, I went for my beauty appointments and these people acted like they'd never done services for a wedding party before. I brought in pics of both hair and makeup, and while I didn't expect them to be exact, the hair was horrible and like nothing I wanted, and the makeup was so bad, the artist actual told me she wanted to step back and let someone else finish because she wasn't sure how to fix what she'd done! I saw her crying in the back room! I literally think it was her first time applying makeup. I had black circles around my eyes and my face was so cakey.. I should have done my own, truly. I was basically in tears in their bathroom before we left.
At the venue, I did my best to fix my makeup. The hair had been sprayed to the point of being crisp, so no fixing it. I still think to this day, I looked awful. My mom, who was assisting with the flowers and cake setup, was in the bridal suite for about 10 minutes when we arrived. She was unable to be located after that, and I didn't talk to her again until the reception. I took pics with my mother in law instead, putting my jewelry on me. Pretty sad my mom missed out on those moments.
Even though I didn't want to see many people before the ceremony, they just kept coming in to the suite, even after I was in my dress, drinking our champagne, and sitting on the couches. We took pictures, (more on those later), and then everyone got seated and lined up.
Here's where it started going downhill. The DJ played my processional song instead of the bridal party song when the girls started walking, and when he realized this when I got to the start of the aisle, he abruptly stopped and started it again. Even though I'd asked several family members to record the ceremony, only one did and the file won't open now. I felt almost numb walking down the aisle, kind of out-of-body, and I truly can't remember so much of the ceremony or even what happened after. I hate to say that I was fake smiling while walking down the aisle, but I kind of was.
When the wedding party walked in to the dining area, it was to no music (I requested music, obviously), and our first dance was super awkward (obviously on us for not taking dance lessons), but I also asked the DJ not to play the whole song, which of course he did, so we ended up just stopping in the middle and asking him to cut. Our main courses were horrible, and nothing like I'd been served at the tasting dinner. I didn't have more than a couple bites, and I was starving. The DJ repeated 2 songs in the first 20 minutes of dinner, because he kept hopping in to the photo booth to take pics, even though he brought along 2 assistants that we had to pay for meals for.
I also kinda blame my bridesmaids a little for not telling me that my strapless bra after I changed into my reception dress was so unflattering that I can't even look at any of those pictures because I look just horrible, back rolls and all. I'm not skinny, but don't usually have back rolls, and it look like my back had been sectioned off 🤦♀️I would have just gone braless, had I known! The cake cutting was a nightmare, again because of the DJ who kept yelling at the crowd to encourage my husband to push the cake into my face. Several people told me "you don't need to hit every table, let them come to you" and I highly regret listening to this because I didn't get to talk to nearly as many people as I wanted to, take pics, etc. I feel like some people didn't even want to talk to me, which hurts of course, but that they were there for the open bar and to catch up with other old friends.
The photo booth broke down 30 minutes before it was supposed to due to a technical issue, the DJ messed up a "money dance" that I was supposed to have with my bridal party and instead asked that ALL ladies join us in the corner of the room, therefore ruining what we had planned out. I was so upset that I started drinking heavily (red wine). Flash forward to going to a bar, a karaoke spot, and then home to puke on my wedding night. The next morning, I was so ill and hadn't packed a separate makeup bag or hair brush, so I showed up to the day-after brunch looking like a wreck and not talking to anyone, trying to hide how upset I was.
Then my mother in law said something a bit insulting about my mom, so my mom left brunch before ordering food and later confessed she was crying on her way back home. Flash forward to 6 weeks post-wedding and I receive the pictures.. They're so heavily edited that the foliage all looks dead, people look fake, the colors are so totally off, and I don't even want to share the pictures. I thought at least I would have those to look back at fondly. I spoke with the photographer and she stated "that's what my work looks like, I won't change it, you probably shouldn't have hired me if you expected it to be different."
So yeah, it's been almost two months since and I still cry thinking about my wedding. I just want to hear that the feeling goes away. I feel guilty knowing that our families (and of course ourselves), put so much money in to this, and my feelings of this day are predominantly negative. I do have great takeaways like the speeches, seeing the look on my husbands face as I walked down the aisle, and of course, actually being married to such an amazing man, but that's literally it. I'm starting to think a deflective answer like "Oh, well, it was kind of a disaster, but we're married now, so that's all that matters!" but I feel like this is going to piss some people off. I need to talk about this to be able to move on, but not sure who! A therapist maybe? If you made it this far, thanks for reading.
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