Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Chat

Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Flip

1 2 3 4

Original poster

Only one to think my wedding day wasn’t the best day ever?

83 replies

cookieoclock · 30/07/2019 09:34

Am I the only one to think that my wedding day wasn’t the best day ever?

Don’t get me wrong, it was a lovely day and I was over the moon to be finally marrying the man I had been with for 8 years.

All I see (admittedly, mainly on social media) is people describing it as the best day ever and saying they loved every single second of it.

I have no issue with what others post, but sometimes feel weird for not feeling like this.

OP posts:

Sn0tnose · 30/07/2019 13:57

I had such high expectations that they could never have been met therefore leaving me feeling like this. we had smallish wedding with minimal fuss. Can’t imagine the disappointment if we’d have had a bigger day.

Mine really was the best day of my life and I think it was because I didn’t have any expectations of it at all. Planning was really enjoyable, we had around 180 guests (we lost track in the end) and it was just incredibly relaxed and fun. I’d do it every year if I could.

mogtheexcellent · 30/07/2019 14:10

Hated mine and the honeymoon after.

Marriage is the thing that matters and we are still together 9 years later. Glad we didnt spend more on it (about 8k including my dress). I only have one wedding picture up. The rest are of my DD. Now she is the best day every day.

IthinkIsawahairbrushbackthere · 30/07/2019 14:14

I have been married for over thirty years. Two of our "children" have got married in the past couple of years and their weddings, while very different from ours and each others were far and away more enjoyable for us.

We have a strong and happy marriage but our wedding was about meeting the expectations of parents and others, not us. Wouldn't change a thing about my husband and marriage but our wedding would be completely different.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Weddings

happystory · 30/07/2019 14:25

Agree with ithink. I was thrilled to be marrying dh, but 30 years ago weddings were much more directed by parents, and I felt stressed having to invite people I didn't want there, like parents neighbours, friends. I also think many of us hate being the centre of attention. The nicest memories I have are of both my grandmas being there, they are no longer around and I know it was a happy day for them.

Best day was the first day of the honeymoon!

DCIRozHuntley · 30/07/2019 14:36

Mine was fine, I enjoyed well enough and didn't find it stressful.

My best day ever was probably last July, when we were on holiday - we stayed in a beautiful yurt, went to Peppa Pig land, had 3 whippies with flakes, McDonald's for tea. England were through to the World Cup semi finals, there was a manageable heatwave, a text came through to say an event I'd worked hard on had raised 3 times what we'd hoped for charity and I was secretly pregnant.

elliejjtiny · 30/07/2019 14:52

Yanbu. My wedding day was lovely but not the best day of my life. I really love being married to dh though. Honeymoon was amazing. Not sure what the best day of my life was. The day Dc3 was born was definitely in the top 5. I also loved the days when dh and I were students and we would go off places on the bus or train and just explore. I know it's a cliche but my favourite moments these days are when I do something with the dc's and they really enjoy it.

anothernotherone · 30/07/2019 14:55

I didn't feel disappointed, because I've never been a fan of weddings generally, whoever's they are. Throughout long-term relationships before meeting now DH and before that as a fiercely independent teen I had always said I'd never get married, and didn't have some rose tinted childhood dream of a wedding, nor do I take any pleasure in being looked at by a roomful of people - I had no particular interest in being "a bride".

The whole thing was a compromise to please our mothers though - we wanted a quick registry office wedding and just to be married, but we waited until after my sister's already 2 years in the planning wedding so as not to "steal" her attention, then had to constantly undo things my mother kept doing - like verbally inviting scores of her friends whom I'd never met/ supposedly met but had no memory of, and similar relations I had no actual relationship with. Yet we had the ceremony in her beloved church with her smarmy, smug vicar but sticking to our guns over wanting a small wedding (I think she took the guest number limit as her limit and decided all the guests would be hers if we stuck to our chosen limit of 30 guests, forgetting DH has a family too and we'd each said from the start we were inviting our two best friends plus their families) meant in the end it was a compromise for everyone and everyone felt like a martyr, nobody felt they'd got what they wanted.

The informal outdoor party afterwards was nice though. The hotel we booked that night turned out to be a more run down, less funny faulty towers, which was a bit shit...

If I could redo it is just do it our way and not try to please my mother, as only doing everything her way would have pleased her, and that would have made me feel like a miserable, awkward actor playing a part in her production, and DH like an uncomfortable bit part in his own wedding!

It certainly wasn't the best day of my life - I've had hundreds if not thousands of nicer days, generally I prefer informal days involving fewer people!

mbosnz · 30/07/2019 15:01

I had camphylabacter(sp) and shingles. I couldn't eat a bite. I was high as a kite on kick arse painkillers. We still joke that our marriage is invalid because of a lack of capacity to enter into a binding contract.

My mother got me up at 5am to make her and Dad breakfast in bed.

Then my mother had a tanty because she hated how my hairdresser had done her hair, and she didn't get to ride in the roller with Dad and Me.

I had to go and collect my sister's (white) dress from the drycleaner for her.

My flower girl and her brother came down with a D&V bug.

My sister's got toasted.

My husband's family up and left en masse at 10pm. (Only the immediate family had come because my sil got engaged after we did but arranged her wedding for 3 months before ours, so none of the family friends and extended family could afford to come to both).

My cousin got toasted and got into a fight with the DJ, who was bloody awful anyway, but threatened to pack up and go.

The best man and a male friend of ours ended up in a passionate clinch rolling around on the floor in front of everyone (including some very conservative older guests!)

We ended up having a fight, bursting into tears, making up and going to sleep.

I got rung up by my mother at 8.30am to tell me to get back home to prep the aftermatch bbq.

Best day of my life. NOT!

Babdoc · 30/07/2019 15:02

I detest weddings. Only attended my own with great reluctance, as we needed the married tax rebate!
I got the day off work, DH and I went to a registrars with 2 witnesses, hid the certificate in a drawer and pretended it had never happened.
I was back on a 56 hour continuous shift as a junior hospital doc the next morning. So nah, certainly not the best day of my life. Not even in the top thousand!

CMOTDibbler · 30/07/2019 15:06

I had a nice day, but it was stressful and I'd have liked to have spend more time with people.
And for the record, the birth of my son was not the best day of my life either. Taking him home was pretty good, but bleeding everywhere, having him whisked straight off to SCBU and not holding him while he had tubes everywhere, that was pretty sucky actually.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/07/2019 15:11

Travelling will always be more special to me. The highlights of my life will be travelling variously with my mum, my DH, my DD (first solo girls' trip was last year), then family holidays with everyone.

My dad getting to take my DD (and the rest of us) to the restaurant he and my mother used to go to as poor 20-somethings in Europe was one of the best nights of my life. The food was terrible, the toilets were repulsive, no a/c and it was stinking hot, the waiting staff were rude and you couldn't get a drink for love nor money. But my dad's face... and my mum was so happy for him. His health wasn't great and I know it will be one of the most important memories of his life.

You can't manufacture that at a wedding. People want to squeeze the joy out of it drop by drop because they spent so much money and there's so much invested in it. True joy can't be manufactured or paid for. Sometimes weddings are incredibly joyful, but like NYE the weight of expectation is terrible.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/07/2019 15:13

Sorry @mbosnz your wedding sounds EPIC. I mean not for you but I would LOVE to have attended as a guest.

mbosnz · 30/07/2019 15:19

Sorry @mbosnz your wedding sounds EPIC. I mean not for you but I would LOVE to have attended as a guest.

LOL, I've never listed it out before. I just read it out to my 14 year old daughter, and she's sitting there with her mouth wide open and her eyes bugging out her head.

I've promised her I won't make her get up and make her parents breakfast in bed on the morning of her wedding, if she's ever to be married. She's promised to elope!

Still, 25 years and we can laugh about it now!

mbosnz · 30/07/2019 15:21

Oh, I forgot to include that DH's father did a speech so lewd and crude that some wedding guests had apparently thought of walking out in disgust, and my mother refused to speak to him ever again.

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/07/2019 15:23

Short story?

MrsTerryPratchett · 30/07/2019 15:24

Or novel, it sounds like you have the material.

mbosnz · 30/07/2019 15:27

Heh heh, I wish I had the knack of writing, I've definitely got the material, between our two families, lol.

mollyblack · 30/07/2019 15:37

Yes hated mine and wish i'd not bothered!

FraggleRocking · 30/07/2019 15:39

Mine certainly wasn’t. It was good day. I loved getting married. We had a nice day. But I don’t think anyone can ever truly state any day is the best day of their life can they? We have thousands of moments and they all contribute to wonderful (or not so) memories. It’s why I try and take more photos of ‘ordinary’ days now, because you never know what triggers those happy memories.

isabellerossignol · 30/07/2019 15:41

I enjoyed my wedding day but it was just a day. Best day of my life was the one where I sat a really difficult exam and thought I'd failed only to discover I'd passed. I nearly floated up the street, I've never felt such sheer elation

mindutopia · 30/07/2019 15:44

It was a nice day. We had a lovely wedding and have a happy marriage. But no, I definitely wouldn’t rank it up there in my top 5 or so best days ever. I’ve had lots of good and exciting things happen in my life, but no I wouldn’t rank my wedding day at the top of them.

moanyhole · 30/07/2019 16:28

It was a grand day. I dont gwt anyway sentimental over it though. If I had my time back though Id just elope or have one or two friends. The cost of an average sized wedding isnt worth it imo and of course the hassle of thenplanning olus having to invite friends of parents and relatives I hadnt seen in years just added to a day id have much more enjoyed if it was a select few.

cornstarch · 30/07/2019 16:29

I didn't enjoy my wedding and don't particularly enjoy weddings that I've attended either. Especially when they are great long marathon days that start early afternoon and end at midnight.

EdtheBear · 30/07/2019 23:53

Mine was ok, much of it goes in a blur. If I could turn the clock back there are things that I'd like to change.
Guest list being one of them. Couple of people I really regret not inviting. And I have people who were invited that i never see, inc ILs friends.

Cosentyx · 30/07/2019 23:56

It was nice, but we agree the days our children arrived were the best days of both our lives.

Flip

1 2 3 4