Was your wedding day not what you expected?

There were things that went wrong that i didn't expect. and also the day went SO FAST it made me a little flustered sometimes to think like wow ok where did the time go. for instance i thought i had plenty of time for photo taking but no, that went so fast i wish i gave more time to it

My wedding day was one of THE BEST days of my life!! It went so smoothly!! As far as I am aware only 2 things went "wrong".

1. putting on my earrings getting ready, I lost one of the clear earring backings on the carpet in the room - mom just bent the hook down so it wouldn't slide out by accident.

2. wedding ceremony started 5-10 minutes late because the GUESTS were standing in the lobby talking instead of finding their seats!! LOL... like ya'll can talk later I WANNA GET MARRIED NOW!! lol..

everyone LOVED the food and the cupcakes!! One of my husband's aunts called the raspberry filled vanilla cupcake with raspberry icing "life changing" LOL!! that they were so good!! several people on his side of the family have asked for the contact info for my friend who made them!!

they loved the music and the fun we had with it! (songs we walked down the isle too/into reception area/ during reception)

we had fun with the shoe game and the slideshow i put together of pictures of us being born/growing up/dating/to the wedding!

I thought I had enough time planned out for greeting everyone too, but we did not... several came up to us saying they had to leave before we got to their table (reception was officially over at 3pm but some (older couples) started leaving around 2ish (ceremony was 10am)

the weather was PERFECT!! It was drizzling on the way to the church at 7:30am but by 11:30ish it was perfect lighting for outside pictures and NO RAIN!!! had all dried up! It only started raining once we were well on our way on our 2.5 hr drive to Gettysburg for our honeymoon!!!

our families helped set up/tear down the church..and by the time we left for the honeymoon around 3:15/30pm everyone was starting to load their cars with stuff to take back home! It was just so smooth!!! We would have done it the same way all over again! we just had so much fun with everything!!! Some people even said it was the best wedding they have ever been to, (and these people had kids of their own already married!!) Just awesome complements all around!!

Hey, random question, but how did you fit the shoe game in with everything else? I don't think we want a bouquet or garter toss, and we prefer the idea of the shoe game but I can't figure out the logistics of where to put it during the reception.

Your day sounds like it was amazing! So glad everything turned out how you wanted.

The "venue" was my mother in law's church. ...they were VERY laid back and easy going!

They let us play whatever music we wanted (I had all the music saved onto a USB stick )(we had to use their sound guy, who was great!)

They were fine with the decor we used (minimal, church was already set up beautifully) we were not allowed to use real flame candles - (which was fine with me, we had a bunch of battery operated ones were were gonna use anyways)

The food was catered by a friend of my family's who has had her own catering company for over 30 years, local to my parents

and the cupcakes were made by a friend of mine who does them as a hobby (we keep telling her she needs to go into business with these they are SOO GOOD!)

they also said we had to put the church back the way we found it..setting up/tearing down/moving things around and vacuuming and such... both mine and his families have always had done it yourself weddings in churches like this, and prefer it this way, so no one had a problem with tearing down/cleaning up. the church would send in their own janitor for cleaning bathrooms and such afterwards.

So we didn't do any of the traditional wedding reception things... we skipped cake cutting/garter and bouquet toss/dancing/grand exit

during the family/bridal wedding pictures the guests could go to the reception room of the church and play board/card games and have chips/cookies/pretzels/water while they waited.

lunch was buffet style and Ryan and I were served first, then each table was dismissed to go get their food.

once we (the bride and groom) had eaten we started going around to each table and greeting everyone and chatting for a bit...while they were eating or getting seconds. (we skipped the cake cutting/cake feeding) so cupcakes were available right away to guests. though Ryan and I never got to eat a cupcake til we got to the cabin for our honeymoon!!)

A friend of the family was the coordinator for the day...so she was gauging how the crowd was and suggested we stop halfway through the tables to play the shoe game. so i don't remember the timing, but it seemed to work perfectly, while people were still eating

then we started greeting guests again, then once the coordinator started noticing people leaving around 2/2:30ish she suggested we play the powerpoint slideshow I had made...so the Pastor/MC announced the slideshow and soon after that everyone started to say goodbye/leave then.

I have trauma from my first wedding, lol, but I have let it go. My second one? AWESOME!!! Married in an arboretum at 11, lunch in the private room of our favorite restaurant and a friend who is a professional musician played background music! The food was AWESOME, the music was great and it was done by 3!!! One of the best days of my life. We skipped: Save The Dates, cake cutting, First Look, dancing, we had a quick ceremony and very small bridal party with no females, lol. (Hey let's be honest sometimes the ladies bring the drama!) No music at the ceremony, no readers......much less to coordinate.

I'm glad your day was mostly wonderful but it's totally okay to be disappointed in some aspects and surprised with how others went.

My day was pretty much exactly as we had planned it, and it was absolutely wonderful. There were a few things—flowers were late and not what I had designed, my mom and grandma were super late, the venue coordinator was terrible. But overall, I had an absolute blast eating and drinking and socializing. And I was still absolutely THRILLED to leave for our honeymoon the next morning at 5:30 am!

My wedding day turned out exactly like I expected, but that doesn't mean that I had a good time.

I can't really pinpoint exact reasons I didn't have a good time. Our vendors were all great. The music was perfect, the food was perfect, the venue was perfect, the weather was perfect. I had a small, intimate wedding, and my guests all had a great time. It was a picture-perfect wedding day.

But I didn't really care about having a wedding in the first place. I would have much preferred the two of us skipped off somewhere exciting and eloped. I wanted the white dress, an awesome dinner for two, and some majestic natural backdrop for gorgeous photos, and that's it. (In fact, we're still two years off from our vow renewal, and I'm already getting the itch to make it "just the two of us" like I really wanted back then...)

The only thing my wedding had that eloping wouldn't have was my parents. (And admittedly, after my dad died last year, I happened upon my legal marriage certificate, and found that he and my mom were our witnesses... and that does make me smile. It's a weird thing to find happiness in, probably, but there it is.)

That said, I can tell you that with time, you'll forget the disappointments.

I totally agree that the day went by SO FAST! Everything seemed like it was over in the blink of an eye. It was a perfect day, but I still wish we'd had more time to spend with our guests. We had a photobooth, and I wish I had gotten more photos with friends. We tried our best to make it around to talk to everyone (~150 guests) and I still think there were a few that I didn't get the chance to talk to. All in all, we heard nothing but great things from our guests and everyone had a great time!