GTKY - Change your wedding!

[Deleted User]

Please hop in my handy dandy time machine - let's go back to the day after you got engaged.


You get to plan your ENTIRE wedding and honeymoon all over again.

Would you change some things?  
Everything?  
Nothing?  


Tell us what you did IRL and then tell us how you would do things differently.

MJDsquared

On our side, I would be prepared with payment for everything ahead of time. We seriously were writing checks for our photographer and wedding coordinator during our reception lol. Yes, I know, that's so irresponsible and immature and it makes me cringe to admit it. (FFFC? ha)

On the other side, we had DH's cousin's daughter as flower girl. She was only a year old, so we told DH's cousin she could walk down with her. At the last effing minute (literally right before the ceremony), she decides she doesn't want to and pawns her off on DH's sisters, who were bridesmaids and walking down together. SO, the organist didn't know about the change and was waiting for them to walk down before he switched songs so I didn't get to walk down the aisle to the "here comes the bride" song. (Background: We got married in a Catholic church because DH's dad is a deacon and that's the only place he could perform a wedding, though I'm not religious at all. They're strict about the music you use so I thought I wouldn't be able to walk down to that song and was so excited when I found out I could...and then, womp womp.)

tamalahoops

Love this thread @antoto

Okay so as previously mentioned the husband and I got married at the courthouse. The second half of that story is that we had planned on eloping in the Dominican Republic. We planned a really beautiful ceremony, hired a photographer, I had a big pretty dress, and we got our marriage license the week before in a rushed, albeit sweet, courthouse exchange of vows. The whole thing was about 10 minutes. So we got down the Dominican and on the morning of our ceremony I got an email that my dad was in the hospital and in critical condition back in the states. So we left on the next flight out, never having the Dominican wedding we had planned. 

So if I could do it over, I would have done a private ceremony at the beach, stateside, worn my dress and had nice pictures taken and then just enjoyed our honeymoon in the DR. 

doula-mama

Hmm... I'm not sure that I would change anything about the wedding itself. We got married in the mountains, at a place on a lake, on the west coast. Most of our family hadn't been here before, so it was a great trip to show them our life here as well as celebrate the day, and we were really lucky that all of the important family and friends were able to make it. 

Our honeymoon was a bit scattered... we had just bought land and decided that we didn't want to go away, but to go up and spend the two weeks camping there and starting to plan and develop it. We were delayed getting away though, and then had a few things come up we didn't plan for, so didn't have as much time there as we'd hoped.

(This reminds me... I wanted to resurrect the wedding GTKY, because I finally have some pictures handy... I hope that's okay!)

JennyColada

I absolutely loved everything about our wedding. The scenery was beautiful, the food was amazing, and it was super intimate (just our parents as guests). It was definitely very "us". I suppose if I could change SOMETHING I would just change the weather to be a few degrees cooler. We were in the middle of a freak heat wave. I also kind of wish that I would have told my work "dgaf" and taken the time off that I wanted for the honeymoon, rather than trying to squeeze in my honeymoon between work projects (although our honeymoon was fabulous, which we wouldn't have done otherwise, so I'm torn on that).

eggplantface

I'd hire a professional photographer instead of using H's cousin, who I thought was at least a trained photographer. Turns out when everyone told me he got a degree in photography from the Art Institute, they meant videography. BIG difference. We do have a few nice photos, but in all of the ones of us and our bridal party outside we look constipated because we're squinting, staring into the sun, and he didn't think to tell us to move.

Aurora1973

We just got married on 2/24.  We eloped, just the two of us, at a local county clerk's office on a Friday morning at 10:30 am.  The ceremony was like 7 minutes long.  Then we went for brunch at a greasy spoon type place I've been wanting to try.  After that was home for lots of consummation and a nap.  Finally we went to have a lovely Italian dinner (my favorite!!).  It was the perfect, low-key day.

The only thing I might change is that maybe I'd wear the dress I really wanted to get married in.  I love what I wore, and also that it was a dress that I paid $65 on Modcloth for.  But I always wanted a tea length dress with lots of crinoline, 40s style.  But I'm not super disappointed about it, to tell the truth. 

laurad75

I wouldn't change much.  My wedding was too big and too fancy and too expensive but I loved it so much and had the best time of my life.  I do wish it didn't rain so I could have had my ceremony outside like we planned  and I wish we hired a videographer.  My photographer said he would take video but he took very little and I still haven't received a final video (it will be a year next month).  I didn't think it was important but I do wish we had something.  

magnolia131

This may sound harsh and bitter (even though I'm really not that bitter about it at all) but being honest? If I had my wedding to do over again, I wouldn't. Marrying my husband was without one shadow of doubt one of the best and happiest things I've ever done. My wedding, however, was not. It was stressful. The family drama surrounding it was constant and everyone wanted a part in the planning. I hate being the center of attention and did a lot of "traditional" things that I deemed to be silly or offensive because it was expected. I remember, as an example, getting grief from my mother for two weeks over not wanting to do a bouquet toss (I eventually did but passive aggressively made No Doubt's "Just a Girl" the background song bit). I just remember constantly defending petty and frivolous decisions to so many vocal people in our lives. A lot of our wedding plans wound up being there to appease guests and we spent about $30k on the whole thing because weddings where we lived were not cheap. 

At the end of the day I don't want to say I regret our wedding because I am so happy it made certain family members so happy. How often do you get to have all of your loved ones under one roof like that?  But in hindsight I wish we would have used that money to travel. We've been planning a trip abroad for years and even after five years of marriage, it never happens. We had a trip to London and Eastern Europe even booked but cancelled it for a full refund last summer when we began IF treatments. I definitely would have rather done this and gotten married privately in a court than a big party. 

kiwi2628

The only thing I would do differently is get a different DJ. Ours did not really listen to us and our vision and while for the dance-floor part he was fine and everyone had fun, he tried to play 'Lets Get it On' during dinner before my mother went over theere and told him, in a very kind manner, that she would 'kill any chance of [him] ever having grandchildren if [he] didn't fucking stop right the fuck now'. He stopped. Still, wish it didn't happen. Other than that it was a big, beautiful, fun wedding and I loved every minute of it.

doula-mama

@magnolia131 I can sort of understand that.
When we first started planning, we thought about planning it back in the city where most of our family was, as we knew that some people would think having it here (where 90% of the guests would have to travel), would be selfish. We are both pretty vocal about our dislike of destination weddings (one of DH's friends is still distant because we didn't go to Tuscany for their wedding - like, if we had and extra 5 or 6K, we'd go on a vacation of our choosing). However, we agreed this was different - this is where we live, and should have to travel for our own wedding and try to plan from across the country. We were open that we didn't expect people to come, and if they did, we didn't expect gifts. I think if we had done it back home, we would have regretted it, as it wouldn't have been a reflection of us, and would only have been because we felt like we 'ought' to do it

magnolia131

@Sailing_Mama Yeah, I definitely understand. Parts of our wedding were still definitely a reflection of us, as you put it, but I also just think that we were very young (I got engaged at 22, married at 24) and had a little more trouble standing our ground than we might if we were planning a wedding today. I also think me being an only child made my mom more adamant about her opinions lol and who knows if that would be any different today or not. It sounds like you guys were able to compromise with your families in a way that still gave you what you wanted, which is how it should be. 

Avrilmai

first, loving all of these Dr. Who GIFs. 
Like @kiwi2628 I would change my DJ. he was the. worst. - he came with the venue, I should've given him more direction. In hindsight I think he was a teenager with no experience.
I always go back and forth on this one: our cake was way too big, we had the entire bottom layer as well some of the top layer left, but it froze very well and we had cake for a long time and it was delicious. I also wish i would've had a list of photos I wanted. We missed some pics I would've liked. In all we had fun and everyone enjoyed  the food.

kmalls

I'd elope if I could do it all over again. Our wedding was small and intimate and beautiful and personal and no expense was spared, but I *know* my husband went along with all of it just to make me happy.

His backstory is too long to go into here, but both of his parents and his sister passed away prior to our wedding and he had absolutely no family present. That was a huge point of pain for him, though he kept that to himself and went along with what my family wanted to do. It makes me sad to think that our wedding was something that took a lot of emotional strength for him to get through, and I truly do wish we had done a private ceremony at a courthouse to make things easier for him. 

That being said, it really was a great day and we have amazing memories. I love him a lot for doing that for me. 

purplg8r

I absolutely loved my wedding. It was fancy and princessy and fairy tale-ish.  I'm very lucky that it truly was my dream come true.  The only thing I'd changed is I'd verify a million times that the florist got my flowers correct. Even though they turned gorgeous, they were the wrong color do we wasted time trying to come up with solutions so my first look with H was shorter & not as private.  

vflux33

All your weddings look and sound beautiful and I'm glad for those of you who wouldn't change a thing, or anything significant!

I'm on @magnolia131's page. I felt so pressured to have a wedding and it really wasn't me, and there was some drama at our wedding and too many divorced people that we had to seat on opposite sides of the room. Marrying MH was the best decision I ever made, but the wedding, not so much. If I were to do it all over again, I'd elope. Short of that, if I for some reason did decide to do it again, I'd change a bunch of stuff: It would be in the forest instead of a hotel, which means it would be in a different part of the country (we put it in a place that was convenient for family but not in our dream place). I would get a different photographer--ours took a bunch of pictures of the coffee and Tazo brand tea for her portfolio and we weren't in love with her style of photography. I'd wear less make-up--like way less--I felt like a doll and it was not my style. Most importantly, I wouldn't invite my former evil stepmother, who literally walked out of the reception in a huff (after I asked the DJ to stop taking bad 70s disco requests and go back to the playlist) and drunkenly screamed "that bitch" (meaning me) "is always ruining our parties" (meaning my wedding) in front of my best friend/bridesmaid. Yeah, that happened. 

I did like my flowers though. And we did mini pies instead of a cake, which was cool. 

zwink1

So, I was not one of those girls who had every detail of her wedding planned before she even had a boyfriend (no judgment to those who were, it just wasn't me).  I think if I'm actually being fair, I wouldn't change much about our wedding.  I would've axed one of the bridesmaids, but that's about it.  Our wedding was in H's childhood church and our reception was held in a botanical garden on the first day of summer.  It was absolutely beautiful. 

That said, I would've been thrilled with a small gathering of ~20-30 of our closest friends and family in the botanical garden's gazebo (rather than the massive ballroom).  It wasn't in the cards for us.  H's family is huge, and for me, as much as everyone says it's "your big day," really, it's about sharing that day with friends and family.  To have them all there, it had to be big and I just had to deal.  Overall though, everything went great.  My only real regret - other than the bridesmaid - is that I said no when the very nice and thoughtful server asked if I wanted a piece of our cake boxed for our honeymoon.  I was tired and crabby by that point in the night, but that was the wrong answer.  If someone asks if you want cake, the answer is always yes.

I did, however, take a bunch of our liqueur infused strawberries and that was fantastic!    

jenotontx

@vflux33 Your formal evil stepmother reminds me of my current evil stepmother who decided to tell me at my wedding rehearsal dinner that she has cancer but really I later learned she just just has gerd. 

I wouldn't have changed much about my wedding with the exception of our officiant and DJ. We had never met our officiant before our rehearsal but he was recommended by our venue so we thought he was a safe call. Even though we were married in the end, I felt like he kind of rushed through our ceremony and sounded a bit robotic. Like he was obviously just reading what we gave off a piece of paper, like someone giving a presentation reading off the slides. Unfortunately the DJ we initally booked backed out on us 5 months before our wedding. We were getting married in a very popular wedding destination area for the state so it was very difficult to find a replacement. We ended up paying a lot more for the replacement DJ and he was really disappointing. I provided several playlists for the dinner and reception after which he said he never got. I also had to ask him to play more upbeat music after the dinner because people were clearly getting bored! Luckily things picked up though and it ended up being an amazing night. 

vflux33

@JJMNO1616 Wow, that's bad. Who lies about cancer??? I'm sorry to hear you have a current evil stepmother. The day my dad finalized his divorce was a good day (I don't normally celebrate other peoples' divorces, but this was an exception). I forgot to mention she also wore white to my wedding. My dad said it was cream. But it was white. In fact it may have even been her own wedding dress. 

Glad your night turned out amazing in the end!

jenotontx

@vflux33 She told me she had the "early stages of cancer" which immediately set off my BS meter. I confronted my dad about it a few weeks after the wedding to get to the bottom of the situation and that's when he told me she has gerd. Apparently gerd can lead to cancer if it goes untreated but it's still not cancer. I had someone wear white to my wedding too! Who does that!? 

vflux33

@JJMNO1616 Uh, no "early stages of cancer" means actual cancer--not something that *could* maybe possibly lead to cancer. Wow, what a TW. 

If you ever need to vent about your stepmother, I'm all ears. I went through absolute hell with mine. I know there are good stepmoms out there but if you get a bad one it is such a shit situation and it infects every little family dinner, every event, every relationship.