Anyone else disappointed with their wedding day?

[Sunflower234]

It’s been over 2 years! I know it’s silly and I’ve mostly got over it but I keep seeing others get married and it reminds me!

I know it’s a very trivial problem to have, but, I always dreamed about how my wedding would be. How I would look in my wedding dress, the flowers, the photos.

I got the perfect dress but on the day my makeup looked awful. Instead of trusting myself to do it I got it done professionally and I didn’t look like me. My hair was awful! I wore it down and after a few hours it looked all straggly. I was quite stressed on the day and didn’t enjoy it. Our original venue went into administration a few months before so the venue we ended up having didn’t give a particularly nice background for photos.

My photographer was so rude. We’d only spoken over the phone and not met in person. She did a pretty bad job. I don’t have ONE photo of just me with my 4 bridesmaids. One of which, my best friend, has since passed away after a terminal illness- this is obviously what upsets me the most. As the day wasn’t just about me getting married it was the fact she was there as my maid of honour.

All in all. I got to get married and that’s the best part but I can’t help feel a bit sad about it.

Can anyone else relate?

I feel a bit 'meh' about my day.

Mil said she would watch DD2 during the ceremony. She was 1, and teething with that almost acidic poop that accompanied it, so in nappies. Pooped, mil didn't want to change her, so she was passed around and had terrible nappy rash buy the time I noticed. She was sore and miserable for the rest of the day and glued to me.

I wish I'd managed to sleep more than 2 hours the night before and I wish I'd drunk a bit less champagne as I don't remember much past 8pm.

Aside from that no regrets, a few things didn't go as smoothly as I'd hope but the day was full of love and happiness and I married that love of my life which is all that matters really.

Yes I totally relate - although nothing as awful as you losing your friend, I’m so sorry

I loved getting married - baby screaming in the ceremony aside - but I just found the reception so stressful because I was panicking about if people were having a good time and if they liked the food etc. I couldn’t just relax and enjoy it. Nothing went wrong it was just an afternoon and evening of mega hosting. I didn’t hate it but I was stressed.

Honestly i think I had read too many Mumsnet threads and spent the day worrying everyone thinks I’m an entitled bridezilla for making them come to my wedding.

A bit, but for different reasons. I loved seeing friends and family. And the party was fun. But tbh looking back, I’d have been just as happy with DH, me and two random witnesses. No dress, no flowers, no party. Its so commercialised and OTT. It’s the marriage that counts, not the wedding, and we could have done a lot with that £5k.

Yes. My wedding dress wasn’t what it should have been. My lovely great Aunt was a professional tailor and was looking forward to making mine and my sister’s wedding dresses all through childhood as she only had boys. She got I’ll with cancer and died a few months before the wedding.
I’d sorted out a breastfeeding room for the best mans wife and he moaned it was too far away from everything. He then didn’t instruct the photographer to take the photo combos we’d asked for, I forgot to book disco lights so we danced in the dark, the caterers food was far below the standard of food he gave us to entice us to book him....
It was a nice day, but I was highly stressed. 17 years later, the marriage is ace and the honeymoon was bloody brilliant.
I don’t care about the wedding now and I will never get married again.
Have a nice time with your husband, OP.

So sorry to hear about your best friends passing, that’s really sad & without a doubt would cast a cloud over your feeling about it all! But I’m sure it was still a magical day & there would have also been aspects that were amazing!
Your not alone, I felt really stressed on my wedding day too as my makeup artist cancelled on the day & my sister ended up doing it (she did a good job but it wasn’t quite how I envisioned it to be!) I also was quite disappointed with how the hairdresser did my hair & didn’t secure my hair extensions properly, we had an outdoor wedding on a golf course & by the evening my hair was a total mess & I literally just wanted to leave, I felt it was just too long a day & I got so fed up of all the smiling (my face was really starting to ache - made me realise just how pan faced I must usually be lol) & all the small talk with guests well there’s only so much of that one person can cope with on their wedding day! All I can say is that I was so glad we booked into a country mansion with a lovely large spa with scented candles in our honeymoon suite - to de-stress afterwards!!! It was an amazing day but...If I ever got married again - I’d just elope!!

I can kind of relate.

Our ceremony was perfect, and I could not be happier with the actually marriage bit.

But I find hosting stressful, and can find family dynamics tricky. So really, hosting 120 people is not my idea of a comfortable thing! I hated the receiving line and I really didn’t enjoy being the centre of attention.

My hair was a bit of a disaster and the photos were not what we were promised.

But, and it’s a big but, I have enough lovely memories of the day to make me think back fondly.
I think you just have to hold onto the good bits and ignore all the ‘this should be the best day of your life’ nonsense.

Oh & I forgot to say..one of my bridesmaids turned into the most HORRIBLE bridesmaidzilla! We’d been friends since I was a baby & had always got on so well...until I asked her to be one of my bridesmaids that is, then her personality took a complete 360*, she complained about EVERYTHING..nothing was good enough for her, I ordered her 3 pairs of shoes I her size..none were comfortable enough for her even though she only had to slip them on for the wedding photos (& said she could bring her own shoes to wear the rest of the time) she then took my bridesmaid dress to a tailors to ask the. To completely re-design the whole dress & make hers a short version to which she planned on wearing bright red heels with 🤬 (without my permission) & she would have completely stuck out like a sore thumb alongside my other 7 bridesmaids who all loved their rides maid dress (it was a lovely light mauve full length A line flattering dress that hid a multiple of sins so that everyone no matter their weight/height looked stunning in) well of course she hated it & wanted me to completely overhaul everything & take her& the rest of the bridesmaids up to Debenhams to ‘choose their own dresses’ at additional cost to myself!?!’ ( her dad has been unwell at this point so hence I was being extra understanding towards her & jumping through hoops to accommodate her) but by this point I was working f/t coming home cooking cleaning/organising a weeding etc..felt mentally/physically/emotionally exhausted..enough was enough! Simply because I didn’t have the budget to go all out on another 8 full bridesmaid outfits - so I just kindly said to her that I think it would be best if she just came as a guest instead that way she could wear whatever she was comfortable in - well she totally took the huff & didn’t speak to me & refused to come to my wedding! The sad thing is our friendship pretty much died after that, I just felt she put a black bitter cloud over ‘what should have been the happiest day of my life’ & we’ve never met up since..7 years later! I still feel pained whenever I think about it! Weddings really show up peoples true colours..sometimes you think you know someone & you realise you actually never really knew them at all 😶

Yes, nothing went wrong but it was a lot of compromising to keep various people happy - we both have enormous families and I really wanted a small wedding. I felt as though the day went by on auto-pilot in the end, by the time I'd spent a year organising it I was a bit meh. Christmas gets me like that a bit too, the lead up is great but the actual day sometimes feels like an anti-climax to me.

Mine wasn't what I'd hoped, DD was 8 months old at the time and I ended up missing chunks of the reception as she was unsettled.

It was a nice day and I'm grateful, but there were things I would have done differently if we'd waited until DD was older.

I can relate... Got married last summer. Our venue (a beautiful, historic church) was lovely. However, our reception venue was a bit of a cost-compromise, and so wasn't very pretty at all, and I heard afterwards that a few guests commented about it.

Our photographer (who was otherwise wonderful) somehow managed to get absolutely no shots of me with my mum.

I shouldn't complain though. My parents helped us a lot with the costs, we had zero debt from the wedding, an amazing honeymoon (largely paid for by wedding gifts), and so far an amazing marriage. I'm expecting DC1 in January.

Best not linger on the little things, I think!

I am sorry to hear about your friend op

I do understand, everyone builds it up but I was a bit "meh" on the day. I found it very tiring.
My mil (whom I love) was in hospital so missed it.
The photo booth didn't work
I was so worried I'd get drunk I hardly drank until 11.30pm missing all the champagne.
The pub forgot to leave out the wine, Prosecco and beers out for the evening guests so we had loads left over
My sister looked after my kids so she missed lots of it so I was gutted as she us my best friend
There was a fight in the toilets between two friends

On the plus side
My dress was amazing
The weather was stunning especially for October
Everyone had a great time
The dj was the absolute bomb
The ceremony was hilarious as when it comes to my dh name he said I....(his name is similar to a Swedish furniture shop and same as a politician named stammer) the whole place burst out in fits
I did end up drunk at the end as I got on the shoots after 11.30 😂.

I had a completely no frills wedding, with a registry office ceremony and a pub meal afterwards - didn't even have a cake! I was heavily pregnant and we wanted to save all we could for the baby etc.
I now sometimes feel disappointed that I didn't have a "special" day wearing a lovely dress & having my hair & make-up done and have everybody make a fuss of me & DH....but I also hate being the centre of attention so maybe it was for the best!

@FireUnderpants
Your poor baby x

So many interesting stories . Helping planning a wedding at the moment . Something is bound not to go according to plan but from the sound of most stories the marriage itself is the main event not the wedding day .

sorry about your friend. Hopefully you have other photos and many happy memories. That one day really doesn't matter although a paid photographer should have done a better job. Still, everyone in the wedding industry knows they can rip you off as you aren't going to repeat the day.

this 'best day of your life' idea is actually really, really shit - if it was it would be all downhill from there! Brides can be hosting a big stressful event, wearing an uncomfortable and often rather silly dress, and as you note often plastered in way too much slap. Although it will with luck have worn off fairly rapidly, and no-one will notice anyway. Same as with your hair.
I hope you did manage to enjoy some of it.

in short and meant kindly - move on. Who looks at their wedding photos after the first check anyway?

Yes. Mine was a bit of a damp squib. No one seemed to enjoy it much at all and lots of things went a bit wrong in terms of organisation. I wish we hadn’t bothered. I’m most annoyed that hardly anyone seemed to be the party mood. I’ve seen coffee mornings at my granny’s retirement home have more atmosphere. Don’t know what went wrong as our friends and family are all party people and big drinkers.

I had all these regrets after when photos came through.. Make up was awful as mua wouldn't listen when I repeatedly asked for a lighter foundation, my dress started falling down at the top as she had to cut it down to fit me rather than taken in and my flowers came through yellow instead of white..
After photos I was sad I look so orange and didn't have certain shots and should have got coloured flowers like I wanted but... Its my marriage that counts and matters and it was still a perfect day marrying him

I think regrets are normal and often through comparisons to others weddings

I look back at my wedding and think:
I wish I had spent more time and money on my dress
I wish I'd picked a much better hair and makeup artist
I wish I'd invited a lot less people.

BUT I'm still married to my wonderful husband, I look back and laugh at the photos and good memories and remind myself it was literally one day.

I wish I hadn't stressed so much about matching certain colours - nobody cared.

I felt a wee bit as though nobody spoke to me at the reception. Sounds odd I know, but I felt as though everyone was standing chatting with folk and I was kind of hovering not sure who to speak to first! I thought everyone would kind of 'fawn over' me and it didn't really happen! 😆

Nothing compared to yours OP, but I was sick on my wedding day - I woke up with practically no voice (I couldn't speak above a Whisper) and after a day of trying to chat to people I hadn't seen for a while (some of them), I brought on coughing fits that I found hard to stop. At one point I had to retreat to the bridal suite to throw up. I was so happy to be getting married and yet probably looked miserable to everyone else

My DH stayed at the bar into the wee hours to carry on the party with our friends and I was so jealous as I knew I had to get to bed to have any chance of making it through the next day.

I can see how unwell I look in our photos but I still have a beaming smile.

I've always said to DH that once our kids are a little older I'd like to do a little vow renewal with just us, so that this time I can speak them nicely and not sound like the girl from The Exorcist. And be able to have a drink to celebrate!

I know you must be disappointed but please don't let it upset you too much. The marriage is what really counts, not the wedding.

*some of them YEARS, that should have read

The problem comes from trying to plan perfection. My dd is already thinking about her wedding in 4 years time (assuming they are still together!) it can never live up to dreaming for years. The "good" news is half of you including me might get a second chance. There's a saying in church circles, the bigger and fancier the wedding the shorter the marriage...

i've been married 22 years next month, my DH is the love of my life and i don't regret a moment of my marriage (well maybe a couple ) but i still look back on that day and shudder. i allowed family politics to interfere with the planning and guest list, my cake was a horrible mess, my mils partner is the chief suspect in the theft of one of my wedding gifts and the best man had a massive fight with his ex-wife in the garden. so yeah, I can relate

on a side note, one of my friends had the wedding of her dreams, the whole day went off without a hitch and her marriage was over within a year, so....maybe it's a case of shitty wedding, great marriage rather than putting all your hopes and dreams into one, short day