What do you regret at your wedding

[lumothesumo]

Wedding tips urgently needed.
What do you regret?
What do you wish you did/didn't do
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I need urgent help

Spending £500 on a dress. It was £450 too much thinking about it afterwards.

Free loaders.

A woman I had known in my youth got in touch after many years and invited herself and her sister to my wedding. She had form for sponging off people.

The two women turned up with two uninvited guests!

They filled their boots with food and drink and stole a bottle of champagne to take home with them.

Be tough about your invitees!

Having a bad disco should have had some live music

It's our anniversary today.

Biggest regret is the nerves, my voice was soooo shaky.

Also, family argument beforehand that meant we just got married with my best friend and her partner as witnesses.

the groom 😂

We cancelled our big do and went for a much smaller, spontaneous registry office thing. We loved it, felt far more relaxed and happy than we would have done in a more formal setting. 16 years on and we're pleased with our choices.

Not saying you should do the same, just that you should please yourself and not worry too much about pacifying others.

I don't think it is done as much now (It was 18 years ago) but having set meals- meat for men and chicken for women then chocolate gataeu for men and fruit for women. Dear GOD I have no idea why i got sucked into that. (The venue said it was normal and I am not from the UK so went with it).

I have never hear of this, and I got married a lot longer ago than 18 years, and have been attending all sorts of wedding over 5+ decades.
Wow. Just wow.

I’ve never heard of different set menus for men and women even 30 yrs ago .We had a set menu , had run it past my very picky in-laws who said it was fine and when it came to it neither of them had the starter , she couldn’t eat the meat in the main and he apparently was allergic to the dessert - bloody typical .

I knew I had read a MN thread about gendered meals at weddings but I cannot find the thread now. It might have been in chat in the days when chat vanished after 90 days (not sure). I did find some references to it though- and it was about 2019. I had only been in the UK for a few months at that stage and had never been to a wedding in the UK but very much remember being told that it was the 'usual practice' for women to be served something lighter. Maybe just for the place where we held our reception though and not the norm (thank fuck!!) for more sensible places! I certainly cannot recall what we did for vegetarians. So bits of our wedding stood out in my mind for the wrong reasons!! It was a good day though and we are still going strong. :)

metro.co.uk/2019/06/28/please-i-beg-of-you-do-not-serve-a-gendered-menu-at-your-wedding-10085398/

I mean the MN thread was in 2019. I was married 18 years ago and had only been in the UK a few months when I got married. (to clarify).

My hair. Wish I’d just word it down and looked like myself instead off being talked into an up do.

Nothing. Yes, the DJ played the list of songs I didn't want, one of my bridesmaids got too drunk, a guest got too drunk and had to leave early, the vicar got my name wrong at the very beginning, and so on. Lots of little things.
BUT it was a great day surrounded by friends and family and the beginning of a marriage. We had good food, good drink and a good time.

This has just reminded me that my 18yo cousin passed out drunk before we’d even sat down to dinner. It was a marquee wedding so we’d bought all the booze on a booze cruise. We asked the serving staff just to keep topping people’s glasses up, which was fine for our friends (seasoned wedding goers who could pace themselves) but my poor cousin was completely trashed.

Nothing really, because we had been to loads of weddings previously and knew what we didn't want.

We had the wedding and lunch in the same lovely building and then that was that. I didn't fancy the evening do bit as that always dragged for me.

It also meant that London friends could do it as a day trip and not have to pay for expensive accommodation. Only a few had DC and they were invited too to make things easier.

Actually, the hen do. I didn't really want one. Fortunately it was just a night out to a place in London which did cocktails and dinner then had a dance floor so wasn't too bad.

Inviting too many people 120.
plus relatives that I have never seen before (his side) and never seen since ~ 18 years a total waste of time. As he wanted a 50:50 split on numbers …..
plus evening buffet - it wasn’t touched
plus a mega expensive cake - wasteful
If I was to repeat id have a very small wedding with an m and s cake

I regret spending 10k ! If I could do it again I would spend that on a amazing tour of America ending in a wedding in Vagas

However my wedding was beautiful and it really was 'the best day of my life' how ever I could have had the best month of my life if we'd have spent it on a holiday

Going through with it 🤣🤣🤣

Too long photo's. Should have had a few casual ones and then the key family groups. I also regret that there are no lovely casual ones where we are caught relaxed. I love those now modern photographers who do the ones getting ready and then just snap away reportage.
Most everything else was lovely though especially the ceilidh with all ages dancing and having a laugh getting bits wrong.
Stick to your guns on what really matters to you and then don't sweat the small bits you give way on to appease family or tradition if you have a loving family/good friends then whatever happens will be good memories.

I regret letting my mother take over. She didn’t invite some of our friends; she invited all of hers from their social club, including people I’d never met, plus my entire extended family. She wanted everything traditional and then complained about the seating plan and that DFIL spent his time talking to the bridesmaid and not her. She ended by telling my DMIL that she was common, had no manners and that she didn’t want to see her again. I am sure my DMIL felt the same way. Apparently they were rude because they left a bit early - MIL had just come out of hospital after major surgery and wasn’t feeling great.

The photos didn’t come out, the vintage car to take us to the reception broke down…

We impulse-ordered a photo booth. I know it's tacky but people loved it and some of those pictures are better than the official shots!

I regret having a conversation with DH about what he needed to do on the day - he decided his main job was to chill with his best man so the ushers had no clue what was going on and didn't even get their buttonholes! It all worked out in the end, but could have been a bit smoother.

Having too many people that we didn’t want there, I wish I had stood up to parents & in laws wanting to invite family/friends that weren’t part of our day to day lives.

My Main regret is stressing too much and not enjoying myself. Wish |I could go back and change that.

Having a paying bar for our evening guests. But we paid for the entire wedding ourselves, no financial help from parents whatsoever, and we just couldn't afford to buy everyone's drinks all evening.

I would definitely do that differently now if I married again - would save up for it or take out a loan if I had to (and have a lot fewer guests tbh!).

Mostly the groom.

but also the photos. We went with a photographer who has a very set style. They said they would do whatever we wanted and I gave a list of groups of people, and some informal shots I wanted but they changed it up on the day. I had to practically beg them to put my SIL and DN in the photo of my family.

So I’ve got loads of formal photos and super cheesy ones of me and ex and none of the informal ones I wanted.

the only one I had framed was one a friend took.

In case you have any questions about the ceremony part, I'm a wedding registrar and happy to answer any questions. I have a thread over on AMA if that's helpful