i hated my wedding day!

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know this is hard but as you said you did marry your husband which in my opinion is the "whole purpose".

First of all, you have every right to feel this way since you poured your heart and soul into planning the wedding. Have you got your professional photos yet? Maybe that will help you feel better and show how beautiful you must have looked. Second, you should request some of your money back from the florist! Send him an email with pictures. He didn't provide the service you paid for and wasted so many flowers. I would be mad about that too. You just can't really control anybody else but yourself but yet you can't do it all yourself!
Tbh I'm really nervous that my people will not show up on time. I put on the wedding website for people to plan to get there 15-30 minutes ahead of time so they'll be there on time. My wedding is this Saturday so fingers crossed.

I'm so sorry your dream wedding day wasn't how you wanted or planned it. I know no matter how many times you hear sorry or even get a refund for the flowers or for your hair and make-up it would never make up for the day you worked so hard to plan. I hope your husband and your honeymoon can make you feel a bit better.

View Quoted Comment Thank you so much for your comment, that’s a really good perspective bc our honeymoon was amazing

View Quoted Comment Thank you very much for your comment. You help me feel heard! I haven’t gotten photos back hopefully it helps when I do!
There’s really so many things we can’t control like people showing up. Lots of love and blessings to you & I know you’ll have a Beautiful Wedding Day!

View Quoted Comment Yes absolutely true !!

So so sorry to hear this was your experience, it’s every brides worst nightmare. I know it feels like money lost, but from what you mentioned it was a lot of material kinda stuff that was messed up. I hope the experience with your guests and reception dancing could help make you feel better about the day. Try to think of the things you did enjoy and definitely get your money back from the florist. You are heard and your feelings are valid. I get married on April 3rd and I’m so afraid the day won’t live up to the hype. But you got married, had a honeymoon and now are a wife to the man of your dreams. Perspective is key, try to keep yours positive!

I’m so sorry you had to deal with that!

View Quoted Comment My biggest worry is people arriving late to the wedding!! I put a ton of reminders in lots of different sections of my wedding website .... mainly to warn our (out of state) guests about the TRAFFIC . We live in a high vacation destination and our venue is located on the road that goes to the beach. It can take up to a half hour to go a single mile. Eeek!

Nooooo wayyyy 15 of 100!!!! 😭😱😣

View Quoted Comment Thank you💕

100% with you, I hated my wedding too. We got legally married in Sept bc we were afraid COVID would shut down our Nov wedding, and I loved our private civil ceremony, but the big wedding sucked for me, and I really struggled with that for a while bc I planned for so long and had dreamed of my wedding my whole life, and a lot of details got totally screwed up bc I got really busy with work toward the end and then my husband got COVID 3 weeks before the big day so my focus just was not on those last-minute details when it needed to be. I still don't have our pro photos back except a few previews I got right before Christmas, but those did sort of help (I hated my hair too, but some of the photos are still pretty cool).

My experience was that everyone wants to ask how the wedding was and they're totally taken aback if you admit you weren't happy with it, and I hated feeling like I had to fake it for people when they asked. I found it helpful to just tell people "it was OK, just stressful given the whole COVID scare etc. so it was hard to actually enjoy it..." and then vent here to people who actually get it. Just don't let anyone tell you that you should "let it go" or "just be grateful to be married." You spent a lot of money to have an experience that meant a lot to you, and you didn't have the experience you wanted to have, and that sucks. It's OK to admit that it sucks and you don't need to force that feeling away with positive thoughts - you can be happy to be married and sad you didn't get the wedding you wanted, all at the same time. You're basically grieving the loss of the wedding you dreamed of - it's normal to need time to do that.

For me, I'm telling myself that when I'm ~45 and the "trying to have kids" chapter has officially closed for me, we'll do a vow renewal or an anniversary photo shoot in our wedding attire (if I can ever fit into that dress again, LOL) - or maybe I'll just have a big birthday party for myself to celebrate the fact that I can drink again, or maybe both. I need to have hope for some sort of "re-do" in order to move past my disappointment about the original event. I'm sure you'll figure out something that makes you feel better too, just don't rush it - it's OK to be sad / angry about this for a while.

This gave me so much anxiety! I am SO SORRY this happened to you! I just booked hair and makeup for my day, and I also do makeup so I was very reluctant to hire someone else because I do have that fear of hating my look and this just made me so nervous!
It completely sucks that your day didn’t turn out the way you wanted.

Thank you so much for sharing

I'm so sorry all of this happened to you ... there is all this pressure for this one day to be the best day ever, because you spend the money and take the time to plan, and yeah if there's a few hiccups it's probably best to shake it off and enjoy the day ...

But what you experienced, you have every right to feel sad - I'm sad for you

I'm so very sorry that this happened to you, your feelings are absolutely valid.

I'm part of a reddit forum for wedding planning and a lot of brides who unfortunately went through other disappointing weddings (due to whatever it may be) get really good support from there. One of the most common pieces of advice is that it's okay to seek out a therapist for this. I know it might sound a little silly initially but if you let this eat you up inside and you don't talk it out in a healthy manner, it'll eventually start to affect your mental health.

You already mentioned that your best friend is tired of hearing you talk about it which means that you're not done processing your "loss" but the people around you are so you need someone to talk to in order to help you manage these emotions in a healthy way and process them in order to move on.

We tend to put so much pressure on having a "perfect" day that when it doesn't happen, it really feels traumatic.

I'm so sorry you feel this way. I can relate in some small sense as there are aspects of my wedding that I hated... the biggest thing being I hate how my professional photos came out. I know it's hard to get past, but try to focus your energy on all the good!!! Think about what DID go right, and the fact that you married your love Maybe consider renewing your vows in a few years? That might help you because then you can do what you want as you want (maybe just the 2 of you on a beach or something small like that). I would definitely try to get some money back from the florist, especially if you have a written contract or shared pictures stating exactly what you want/paid for. I'm sorry your hair/makeup didn't turn out how you wanted and although I haven't seen your photos, from your thumbnail it appears as if you looked great! I hope you can find a way to move past the disappointment, although I know that's so hard.

You aren’t alone! I hated my wedding day too! I’m fact, almost the whole week leading up to it was bad! My dress didn’t fit, the tailor that was recommended to me by the store where I bought my dress wasn’t very good, she didn’t know how to properly alter my dress; my hairdressers were 45 min late, they said they got lost! (Going somewhere in the town they were located in!) and when they finally showed up, they proceeded to do the hair and makeup of my bridal party, telling me that mine should be last so that it’s fresh, but because of that, I was freaking out the whole time realizing how late it was getting. We had planned to do sunset photos with the photographer and just because the hairdresser is late, we couldn’t change the time of the sunset! So because of this, we had to skip all bridal party photos and go right to the wedding venue. The “event coordinator” showed up in our room just to tell us how late we were- she was no help in preparing earlier in the day or anything! I was over an hour late to my wedding. Everyone waited so long! Because I was in such a panicked rush, I forgot to put my jewelry on, and forgot to button my sleeves. I had bought these pretty dangling pearl earrings specifically for the wedding! I didn’t even like my hair by the way, but I had no time to redo it. My dress was too tight, my hair looked bad, I had no jewelry, and I think I looked fat in all the pictures. I can’t even describe how bad everything was. Because my dress was too tight, I got bad heartburn so I couldn’t even enjoy all the awesome food we had at our reception. I had to take the dress off halfway into the reception and change into something more comfortable.


Even the rehearsal dinner was a disaster. We had booked a private room in the back with its own bar, but the restaurant was extremely understaffed so they were unable to dedicate a server or a bartender to our room. So everyone had to wait so long for food and drinks!
When my family recalls the wedding, they all say it was so much fun, they loved it, which is great, but it was probably the worst day of my life! It’s so hard to get over something that is supposed to be this perfect day all about you. You don’t get another chance at it. I just wish I liked the way I looked and felt. I’m glad I found this post, though, because it makes me feel like I’m not alone.

Hi Angelique!


I am so sorry you feel this way!
I can relate on so many levels - you are not alone, I hated my wedding day too. Even two years later when I look at the wedding photos and videos I just feel sad, angry and disappointed.
The things that went wrong at my wedding:
1. The people I wanted to be there the most, did not or could not come due to Covid-19 restrictions, sickness or work. I was so hurt, I wanted to cancel the wedding, but at that time there was no turning back.
2. The florist mixed up the colour of our flowers. I ordered red and blush flowers and got pink, purple and yellow instead. They looked awful! My husband got the bridal bouquet from the florist before our ‘first look’ and the idea was that he is waiting for me with the bouquet... At our ‘first look’, when he turned around with the flowers in his hand I was shocked when I saw it, but tried to keep it together for the photos and the video - so I could not enjoy that moment at all. To make this worse, I have that dreadful bouquet in my hand on almost every photo. Why did I do that? No idea.
3. My hair looked awful. I wanted to save some money, so I thought I’ll do my hair myself. My hair looked nice for like an hour, but after that the curls didn’t hold and it looked undone like I just got out of bed.
4. We had guests leading up to our wedding day and I wanted to be a good host, I baked, I entertained, I picked up guests from the airport and by our wedding day, I was super exhausted.
5. I was so stressed out about all the above that I just wanted the whole wedding to be over as soon as possible. I was tired, disappointed, stressed and didn't feel beautiful at all - not the way a bride should feel on her wedding day, right?
So how do I cope?
We did a wonderful after-wedding shooting with the bouquet of my dreams at a wonderful location. During the shooting I felt like a princess, just like how a bride should feel. It is such a lovely memory. So I have beautiful wedding pictures of us where everything looks perfect, and I look at those and remember that day instead of our actual wedding day.
I also try to focus on the positive - but to be honest, it doesn’t always work. We had our wedding on a beautiful summer day, the weather was just perfect, the guests who came gave us amazing feedback, they loved everything and they say that they didn’t even notice that something went wrong with the flowers.
But I know all too well how it feels when the day you spend so much time and money on, that should be your day, when you should feel like the happiest person in the world, turned out to be dreadful.

I'm so glad I found this thread. Angelique - I'm so sorry your wedding day didn't go as planned, and I'm grateful that you posted about it on here. I got married on April 30, and I've been struggling with my feelings over how the day went. From the outside looking in, it was a beautiful wedding, but for me it was bordering on a nightmare. I haven't told anyone this (except my now-husband) and I've been writing in my journal trying to process my feelings. I was honestly feeling like maybe I had too high expectations for my wedding day, or maybe it was all in my head, but reading through these comments, I feel validated and not crazy. It's such a disappointment when the day that we've planned for so long, been dreaming about and saving money for turns out differently from what we hoped.

From the photos I've seen and from what I've heard from our guests, it was an epic wedding, several people said the best wedding they've ever attended - which is great. I'm glad they enjoyed the day. Maybe in time I'll see it differently.

Sending everyone hugs and positive vibes!

View Quoted Comment

I love the after-wedding photo shoot idea!! I had bridal portraits taken beforehand using a bouquet my mom made me out of silk flowers. I had a fresh flower bouquet for my wedding, which began falling apart as soon as I picked it up out of the box from the florist. I was horrified. Luckily no flowers fell out when I was walking down the aisle, but it was down to 3 flowers by the time the reception started. The florist had added a little charm with a picture of my grandma (who is deceased) and unfortunately we didn't get a good photo of the bouquet intact with that charm. In all the photos we have, the charm is turned around or blocked by a flower. But this gives me an idea - maybe I can attach it to the silk flower bouquet my mom made me and take photos of that. I think that would make me feel better. Thank you for the suggestion!