Still have wedding regrets a year later

My biggest advice would be to continue therapy. A wedding doesn’t make a marriage. I’ve had friends have big, elegant weddings with all the right vendors and amazing photos stay married for 6 months. I’ve also had friends get married in their backyard with 5 people there and only cell phone photos and they’ve been married over 10 years. I know when others get married that it’s easy to rehash what happened at your wedding but you have to learn to put it all behind you.

I have read some of your posts before and I wonder if it's really the wedding day or the marriage that has you down. I'm glad to hear you are working on things in therapy and I hope that you find your joy. It is too easy to compare our lives and experiences to others. You can always do a vow renewal in a few years if that feels right for you. I hope whatever you choose to do you find peace and happiness.

Please don't take this as me saying that your posts are not welcome on this forum, but are you sure it's healthy for you to be on this forum considering how much weddings depress you? It just seems like it's unnecessary exposure to something that you know upsets you. It's great that you're in therapy and seeking help, but I don't think you're doing yourself any favors by continuing to dwell and for lack of a better word "indulge" in weddings. If you know it's something that causes you distress, I would think you would want to avoid it as much as possible, at least until you make progress in your counseling/coping with your wedding day.

The biggest issue I have is that I have family and friends bring up a lot of why I haven't sent them photos or shared the video. It's because I don't have anything to share. I am not saying I want to relive my wedding day because no matter what it'll never be the same. I also have frames and photo albums that say Mr. and Mrs. which contain nothing. I hope no one ever has to go through this, I was hoping for advice from someone who has experienced something similar and what they did that helped.

I would have rather dealt with a sucky DJ, cold food, or anything that I could laugh at after the fact, but when you don't have any Memories to share from your wedding. It sucks. We have had so many people tell me about things that happened, even things that we both did, neither one of us can remember doing those things.

Based on your prior posts, it sounds like you are letting your feelings about the wedding affect your marriage or your feelings about your marriage are affecting how you view your wedding day. I'm not sure which one it is, but either way it is really unhealthy. I tend to agree with Amber that if weddings are truly that bothersome to you then maybe you shouldn't be posting on a wedding forum as it continues to expose you to wedding related things. In my honest opinion, it sounds like you are unhappy in your marriage which is influencing how you feel about your wedding. The things you've said about your husband aren't things a happy newly married person would say about their spouse. If you are that unhappy and counseling doesn't seem to be working, maybe it is time to walk away.

View Quoted Comment You are putting so much emphasis on one day. Yes we dream about our wedding, but that's not what should be important. Your marriage is what should be important. You made a post before saying you didn't care what your husband does or where he is which tells me you don't really care about your marriage or him which isn't fair to him or you. Not to be mean, but it seems like you are focusing so much on what you feel was wrong with your wedding as a way to avoid dealing with your marriage. Even if your day was as horrible as you make it sound, in the end it shouldn't matter because you got married that day and that should make you so happy.

Yes, my husband and I had a horrible first year of marriage. We have gone through counseling together and have come back from the brink of divorce. We also lived in a house with black mold for over 6 months which has caused permanent damage health wise. Can't sue the landlord because he's got too much $ and pays off a lot of people. We couldn't communicate, in fact yes at one time we hated on another. Life happens! Marriage is ugly and I get totally get that. Sorry for wanting to have at least one thing that reminds me that we were happy when we got married, and have something to look at when times get hard.

Our first year of marriage was HELL! We hated each other for quite some time, but that's over now.

So instead of focusing on my previous posts where I was desperate to keep my husband and asking for advice because you know apparently I love him.

Basically I am wondering if there is anyway to recreate a moment or even a small glimpse of a moment that we had on our wedding day. Because we both HATE our wedding photos and basically everything about that day. Notice the phrase, "WE had a wedding, but not ours" too much family influence and drama happened which overcast our special day.

View Quoted Comment My other suggestion would be to to hire a a new photographer and take new photos with you and your husband. It won't be the same, but you could still create beautiful photos. If you want to you could wear your wedding dress and he could wear something similar to what he worn. If you want to include others you could do like a whole family shoot.

Or you could do a symbolic ceremony that is similar to a wedding.

Here is a couple that recreated their wedding photos after their original photographer failed to show.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/photographer-recreates-couples-wedding-day-after-their-original-photog-bailed_n_5637c79fe4b06317991351f9/amp

I would definitely rent your H's suit/tux again, pay for hair and makeup and put your dress back on and have a different photographer get some photos. Honestly your friends/family don't even need to know this is what you're doing.. I am terrified that our tight timeline due to another reception before ours will affect our pictures. FH has already said that if so, we will dress back up and pay the photographer for more time! Honestly, recreating the day slightly seems like the only way you will have the ability to get photos at this point.

Honestly we have tons of pictures and I love them, and I would be sad without them however I also love our engagement photos and many other photos of us enjoying life together. It sounds like you aren’t enjoying life, it sounds like you focus on the negative and always find the bad in any situation. I hope that you are able to spin your view on life because I cannot imagine seeing good or happiness in almost every situation. I agree with others try to create new photos even if it’s like an engagement shoot. If you aren’t happy with your husband than photos won’t fix that. Whatever you do make sure you don’t spend your life being unhappy. Sending positivity your way. Hope this helps.

Try and find the gold points of your wedding. There’s bound to be some. And focus on those.

keep talking to your therapist and they can help.

Also, if you have paid in full and have a written contract with videographer than I would suggest litigation. Look for small claims court and tell them if a proper video isn’t presented by “X-date” then you will be forced to seek legal action.

I am sorry that your day was not as you’d hoped and the pictures weren’t as you’d hoped. Maybe family members or friends have pictures that they can share to make up for the bad ones by photographer?

View Quoted Comment

Unfortunately, we had an unplugged wedding ceremony. I have asked friends and family and since the ceremony was unplugged they assumed the reception was too. No one has any photos except a few selfies they took while attending the wedding.

Weddings go by so fast, and with ours starting an hour later than scheduled we were super rushed. Honestly, I don't remember any parts of the day except all the anxiety, and stress of having to meet and greet guests. My husband and I had no intimate moment on our day, and honestly I think it just carried over into our first year of marriage. We were more focused on family and friends having a good time rather than what we actually wanted as a couple. I was pulled one way through our reception and he was pulled another. I wish we hadn't have had a big wedding.

I am going to request I get the money back from our videographer today, if she is not compliant I will explain that I will pursue other options since she did not keep her end of the agreement.

You are not alone in this!! although I agree with others that a wedding doesn't make a marriage, it's a big day and a big deal. I have some similar experiences in that I'm not happy with how the day went in it's entirety. We had a beautiful venue that fit us well, and for that I'm grateful. I did get my photos back, within about a month. But I'm so upset with how they turned out. I think they're awful there's so many pictures I specifically asked for or expected to get that I didn't get. It upsets me when I see other people's pictures and how perfect they are knowing I paid a lot for mine and they suck! There were other small details and things that didn't go the way I would have liked and I have a tendency to focus on how things could have been different. What helps me is I have the intention of renewing my vows in a few years (10 year anniversary). I'm choosing to believe that will happen and choosing to believe I'll be able to do some things differently. It's tough when you know things didn't go the way you envisioned. But, the marriage is what's really important and knowing you married someone that makes you happy.

Hope therapy helps! I don't have advice for post-wedding regrets since I haven't dealt with it yet, but I guess I'm going to take the lesson from yours and just lower my expectations to the floor. As long as he shows up and there aren't cops or an ambulance, I'll just consider anything extra as gravy.

I hope you're able to shift your focus soon - fixation and picking apart aren't great. What you typically want is to think back on a memory and all the small problems get fuzzy but the great pieces fill in the picture. To forget the fight you had on the way to the airport, but remember snuggling on the plane.