How and why did your wedding go wrong? And can you look back and laugh now?

[Sd183]

Just as the title says really! I'm intrigued to hear if you can look back and laugh/accept with begrudging realism if something "went wrong" at your wedding...and what is it that went wrong?

I'm just trying to settle my own wedding nerves and tell myself that things go wrong and there's nothing I can do about it!

Things that didn’t bother me:

It pouring with rain so we had to have the drinks reception and photos inside. The photos aren’t as good as they would have been in the lovely gardens but they’re still memories of the day.

The rain wrecking my hair on the walk between the car and the venue. I did use an umbrella but it was so windy it blew into my face!

Best man being smashed during his speech

A female guest wearing a white dress, and a male guest wearing cords and trainers.

Things which did bother me:

Baby crying in the ceremony

Someone moaning they didn’t have a vegan meal - I booked a venue with caterers that provided every single bloody dietary requirement someone could ask for. This woman (who was someone’s plus one who I barely knew) did not say she was vegan, or rather her boyfriend or whoever filled in the dietary requirements part of the rsvp, didn’t say she was vegan so how the bloody hell was I meant to know? They got her something together but rather than be grateful she moaned she had to wait!

First wedding - organist didn't turn up. Found a random friend of a friend to play keyboard at five minutes' notice. It was a bit Alan Partridge. I found it funny even at the time.

Second wedding - registrar, who knew me personally, got my name wrong. Bridesmaid poured a whole glass of Pimms down my dress. I spilled red wine on my dress. Someone else spilled red wine all over the table. Someone set a tablecloth on fire by accident and then put it out with the guestbook. I look at the guestbook now, all singed and stained with red wine and think what a good souvenir of the day it is!

The reception was very close to not happening at all. We had never been keen on venue manager as she never seemed to remember what we had discussed and was a bit useless. She walked out a week before the wedding and we discovered she hadn't booked or done anything except for order the wrong size tables for the room which quite literally wouldn't fit. The new manager was an absolute legend. He sorted everything in four days which included him actually going to buy all the food and drinks needed from Costco as there was no time to order anything. We had the most stressful week ever, but that was nothing compared to the week he had. We bought him a lot of drinks at the wedding.

On the day loads of people wanted the vegetarian meal but hadn't indicated that on their acceptances so there wasn't enough. The lift in the venue broke and we had disabled guests.

My hair looked beautiful but kept shedding pins everywhere so people kept chasing me with pins. My mother took so long getting ready the wedding cars left without her as she almost made me late to my own wedding and registrar had said we had to be there 15 minutes early. Oh and my nans 85 year old cousin drank too much and fell onto an antique chair and broke it in a listed building, though my nan insisted on sorting that out thankfully.

Oh and lastly a few members of my husband's family went to the wrong venue for some reason and burst into someone else's wedding and missed ours entirely.

Oh I forgot one of my friend's weddings. The caterers got really confused and cut up the wedding cake before they had cut it. Also someone stood on her veil.and dress just after ceremony. Veil ripped, her hair fell out and she had a big footprint on her dress

Not at the scale of some of these, but:

I spent my last single night in my house alone with all my family at my sisters, hadn't liked to make a fuss but it just felt lonely and compromised

Driving myself to my wedding I got a call from loathsome ex asking for a booty call (I did quite like telling him it was my wedding day)

Biblical downpour

Having specified no video, the first thing I saw as I got out of the car was one of DHs relatives with huge grin videoing me. MIL had arranged it. I still havent watched it as it'll replace my memories with someone else's view of the day.

DH didn't mention me or our wedding at all. It was toe-curling and I leapt to my feet to do an impromptu speech out of pure cringe. Still haven't forgiven him.

We had someone taking photos of guests arriving, printed them out on a photo printer and put them into an album there and then for all the guests to write a message in. Would have been lovely if the printer hadn't printed them all out orange.

Despite such things, it was a fantastic day! I think you just have to decide to enjoy it and not sweat the bits that don't go as intended, there will be some!

Our tiny reception was afternoon tea in a posh hotel. The lovely staff organised a huge beautiful fresh cream and raspberry heart shaped cake for us. Because none of them had English as a first language they didn’t know what words to pipe on it, so settled for ‘Happy Anniversary’. We took it as a good omen, and will celebrate our 20th Happy Anniversary this year 😍

I was really late, which everyone was expecting I think as I'm notoriously late for everything. Our cake was huge (we weren't sure how big it was going to be lol) it was 3 layers and took two of us to carry it to the car, the middle tier caved in and we sort of pieced it back together lol. That didn't bother us though as it was so big we had looooads left over and it was delicious.
My husbands cousin was going through some sort of breakdown, she was dancing on her own on the dance floor like she was wasted but apparently was sober!
I was 29 weeks pregnant so I couldn't drink or dance as I had swollen feet lol.
None of it really bothered me though. The worst part for me was that someone manage to tip a table full of drinks over my lovely dress, I was gutted I have to be honest

For the last hymn we had, the organist played a completely different tune. We aren't sure if it was an alternative tune to the hymn or he just played the wrong thing but we think the latter as we caught the vicar craning his neck round to the organist in a "what are you playing" manner. Amazingly we all managed to cobble together some sort of tune to go along with the words!

Our reception was in a stunning building and we went off for couple photos in another part of it with the photographer and member of staff. We went to leave after and someone else had locked the door! Thankfully the staff member had a walkie talkie with them and radioed to say he was locked in. 5 minutes later no one had come so he said "by the way I have the bride and groom here too", which was swiftly followed by the sound of someone pegging it up the hallway outside to open the door!

We also had the wrong dessert, the food was amazing and we mentioned to the waiter that we were really looking forward to the cheesecake and the poor guy went white as a sheet. They'd got us creme brulee, which we did nearly order anyway so we didn't mind.

The band were stuck on the motorway and were an hour late (that'll teach us for booking a band based up north and us in the midlands). However they more than made up for it in performance, but we had to kill time with something so ended up connecting my phone to the venues speakers for our first dance and then stuck on a general party playlist for dancing while the band finally arrived and set up around us.

All of the above we can laugh about though, though the band issue did stress me out at the time.

I fluffed my vows spectacularly. We both got the giggles.

My in-laws were late meaning soloist had to go through the hymn twice.
My husband got my name wrong.
The surprise horse and carriage was a cart and the horse wouldn’t move. The groom had to sit between us to drive it.
It was torrential rain and I had to sit in the cart in bin bags.

One of the bridesmaids had a dramatic panic attack bought on by drinking too much and someone called an ambulance thinking it was severe asthma.

I had norovirus. 5mo DD had norovirus. (Ex)DH did not have norovirus. Fucker.
I should’ve seen it as a sign.

We had the wedding function room on the first floor with an absolutely lovely outdoor patio area. Then eat man kept buying me jäger bombs and I ended up stepping out on the patio, totally misjudging the height of the step in the dark and took a right tumble! Never seen my DH move as fast as him and best man rushed over to help me back up.

5 years ago and still mortified.

BEST man not eat man. Must learn to proof read.

The vicar got my name wrong every time he said it in the ceremony ( in a hurry to get back to watch the rugby!).

Dh demands to know whether we are.legally married to this day. In jest of course.

I hired beautiful 1920s cars for me and my bridesmaids. I got married on a ridiculously hot summers day. Heat and vintage cars don't mix, mine broke down about half a mile from the venue. It wasn't a problem, as the other car dropped the bridesmaids and then came back for me and my dad but I felt a right tit sitting there in all my finery with smoke billowing out of the engine.

After the ceremony, our guests were all seated for the wedding breakfast. Member of venue staff went into the room and announced "Please be upstanding for your bride and groom, the brand new Mr and Mrs Smith!"
Our surname is not Smith. I was really pissed off.

I knocked myself out getting into the car after the photos on way to hotel.
It was only a second but next photo posing car window was looking dishevelled and slightly glazed and they used it in the newspaper announcement
Adrenaline kept me going but I had nice bump on my head next day

I got a bumble bee stuck in my veil just at I walked down the Isle.
A relative got taken off in an ambulance during the receiption.
Someone got v drunk and abusive. Then the police accused us of assault and came to visit post honeymoon. At least I didn't spend a fortune on the wedding. Bloody nightmare. But I'm married and that was the

my maid of honour spent an hour and a half with my make up artist before anyone sat down. She cried as she didn’t like the first look. I didn’t know this until I was upset that I didn’t like my make up after the wedding. Now this girl wanted to be the bride and spoiled a lot for me, including hen party. So she caused a lot of hurt and upsets for the months before and after. We haven’t spoken since the wedding. I’ve had her photoshopped out of photos as I’m so hurt by everything she did.

The food was poor quality even though we were in fancy hotel noted for good food. Found out since the chef didn’t show up to work until very late due to a bad hangover.

My friend made our cake buy the hotel mis handled it and the icing collapsed. She was really upset. I said I didn’t notice, but I did, but didn’t want to upset her anymore.

My Narscisstic brother told me he wasn’t going cause his car broke down. so I had to see when I got the church if he was there with his children. He came.

Most of my crises were before:

• Turned out there was a Jehovah's Witness convention in our town the same weekend - 40,000 of them booked up all the b+b

• The minister had a breakdown (not related to us) so had to find a replacement last minute.

• The venue double booked us, so had to move the wedding (turned out well in the end)

• My mother in law had multiple meltdowns, threatening to either not turn up or to stand up in the middle of the ceremony to denounce her ex boyfriend (who she bizarrely insisted still had to be invited!)

• on the day, it all went well though - other than being so busy looking after guests that neither of us ever tasted any of our own wedding cake!

I got the flu halfway through (made it through but was almost hallucinating by the end and spent the next two days in bed), DH and his best man both lost their voices (chest infections) and I forgot to wear my veil. Still have no idea how that happened! I was upset about being ill at the time and for a little while afterwards but now it's a funny memory and a good story.

My wedding cake was dropped in the morning of the wedding. Replaced with cupcakes

My engagement party my sister volunteered to make the cake. She had a newborn. She spent ages on it. Then dropped it

So when it came to my wedding cake I was totally chill. Had a nice kind of synchronicity

There was a traffic jam which made me twenty minutes late. This was the subject of much jokes about the bride being late but I was on time ready to go, the bloody car wasn’t there!

I went to a recommended dressmaker to have my wedding dress made from scratch. I bought patterns, fabrics, trimmings, etc & she was to concoct a 1980's Lady Di type dress for me.

Unfortunately she had a weird idea that however much of anything I provided, it all had to go into the dress, instead of following the pattern & giving me back the leftovers. And she didn't warn me in advance. So she used ALL the fabric & made the skirt so heavy that it wouldn't stand out properly; then when I provided stiffening to put it right, she used all of that, too, & suddenly I looked like a pantomime dame with a dress which stood out wildly & teetered from side to side & up & down.

By then it was a couple of days before the wedding & she gave up & charged me double the agreed price 'because you've had more fittings than we agreed on' - yes, because of HER errors! I then had to unpick all the stiffening & put some of it back into the dress. I was still sewing on the morning of the wedding.

Oh, & I had a ribbon round my waist & she'd fastened it with the flimsiest of poppers instead of a hook & eye, so it kept coming undone all day.

Bad, bad DJ: I still look back in anger about that!

Lots of things were difficult actually, and still can’t laugh about most of it . I regret having a big wedding.