I HATED my wedding

[Mrshaller]

Although I like the idea of marriage I never fancied the idea of a big wedding. However my husband insisted on one and I agreed to go along with it for him. Big mistake. Even though he did his share of the planning; for a year and a half I put up with all sorts of drama whilst we were planning and it took a toll on my mental health. I was extremely stressed and anxious about the wedding day itself but a part of me was hoping that I might actually enjoy the day when it arrived.

As I barely slept the night before I was exhausted so the day seemed to drag on and on. When we went into the hall to have our meal several of my husband's friends made a beeline for the activity packs I'd bought as favours for the children (these friends are all over 30 and don't have kids) before the children even had a chance and started loudly messing about with them. I wasn't happy about this but I was told to let it go.

I went to the bridal suite to have a lie down, then put on my evening outfit determined to at least enjoy the reception. Just as I was starting to relax and enjoy myself my husband was sick from drinking too much and the reception pretty much ended two hours early as most people left after that (his so called "best men" scurried off as soon as he was sick without even saying bye to anyone - leaving my BIL to sort him out) . My husband had thrown up all over the bridal suite and himself so the venue staff had to clean up after him (which came to £700 as they ended up having to replace stuff that couldn't be cleaned) and BIL bath him. I spent the wedding night in tears.

Just as I was starting to feel better about it our wedding photos arrived. Even though the photos themselves were well taken the majority of them were of his friends (mostly candids but there were quite a few posed ones too; there were actually more couple photos of his mates and their partners than there was of us!) and hardly any of the other guests. There was even an individual posed portrait photo of one of his friend's girlfriend (who wasn't in the wedding party or related to either of us). My mum, who'd paid for the photographer as a wedding gift to us, wasn't happy and we had to ask guests for photos to make an album.

Whenever I think of the wedding I get angry thinking of all the hassle I went through, what it did to my mental health, all the money which was wasted, how I didn't even get to enjoy it and don't have any positive memories of the day. AIBU feeling like this?

Thanks everyone. The photographer was given guidance; he was introduced to my family and inlaws the morning of the wedding. I haven't bought it up with him yet as I'm not sure how to go about it but my mum isn't happy at all. PhillipeFellope that was bad what your photographer did, did you complain? I'm not sure what he puked on as the staff had cleaned up most of it by the time I went to the bridal suite.

However my husband insisted on one and I agreed to go along with it

That alone would have had me nowhere near a marriage ceremony. I couldn’t be married to a man that insisted he got his own way regardless of my feelings. Marriage needs compromise.

I get angry about mine too OP. Hated every second of it. HATED IT.

I havent listened to my wedding song since the day of it because it makes me panic.

I wouldn’t still be married to him after that! Sounds like an immature arsehole!

Me too.
Weddings are often more stress than they are worth but its just a Day.
If the marriage is good, stick with it.
If not, ship out.

The wedding wasn’t the problem

The people. The people.

Sounds awful

Oh I’d be so pissed off too!
DH and I got married a year ago and we have fallen out about it many times
My df paid for the photographer and dj and admittedly they were both crap so dh often blames df for ruining the wedding , df also made an impromptu speech after I told dh I didn’t want speeches so he is still fuming about that
Dh is more upset about our wedding than I am. However I’m still a bit upset about the make up artist who turned up before 8am for a 2pm wedding even though when questioned by maid of honour she had nothing else on that day. So as you can imagine my curls had fallen out and make up coming off by 2pm!
Then on our wedding night back at the hotel , dh for the first and only time so far told me he hated me!

Yanbu. My wedding wasn't what I wanted at all, i only wanted a small private do, and whilst it was small I was railroaded into things by DH and family. The day itself was a miserable disaster and I cried afterwards. The weather was awful, guests and family were rude, the food went wrong, my dress and shoes got ruined. Our photos when the proofs came back were awful and like you we had no decent ones of me and DH. The photographer got the huff and we never got our photos at all, we had to get what guests had taken.
I'm thinking of possibly renewing our vows one day, and do it my way, get a decent photographer and do it all better. I know it's not the same but maybe an idea? I try not to dwell on my wedding day and try to think that it's what comes after that counts.

My husband invited 3 ex housemates. I dumped three cousins I rarely see but wished to see so that they could have the places. It was only a small wedding.
They bitched and moaned in a corner and got pissed.
Didn't spoil my day but it went a good way to messing up the evening do.

Yanbu

My wedding was horrible. So many things ruined by family on both sides.

I actually cannot even celebrate the anniversary anymore and it was many years before I would have wedding photos up in the house.

I hear this a lot from other people leaving me to suppose weddings are mostly utterly disappointing days.

I hated my first wedding day - I was mid-20s, and we did it very much on a budget (I had just bought a flat the year before, first husband was up to his eyeballs in debt, although not expected - my parents didn’t believe in helping, and neither did my extremely wealthy mother-in-law ), but we figured the marriage was more important than a big fancy wedding.

I was having a dress made - had turned up for a final fitting, and the dress maker had gone off piste and the dress looked horrendous - had to run out and get another dress the week of the wedding.

There was a whole heap of other things that went wrong - probably too many to remember - the caterer booked the wrong room at the venue - the room he had booked the heating had broken down. We were supposed to have exclusive use of the venue....the wedding party turned up half way through a kids 6th birthday party. The caterer used untrained staff whose skirts barely covered their backsides and who were awful...had forgot to chill the wine...served the wine wrapped in paper napkins.

The band who were a fab local band chose that night to develop a massive ego and played whatever they felt like and not what we had asked them to play...and my mother/ brother in laws spent the whole day going in about how cheap and nasty the wedding was (and frequently telling my husband what they thought) - for some reason what sent me over the edge was my mother-in-law sitting her hat on top the beautiful bunch of flowers we got her...also my sister found my husband outside having a cry in his best friends arms (female), and then he punched a wall and damaged his ring.

Finally - we booked in to a nice local hotel for the night who then called us to say they were booked out for a wedding and could we find somewhere else (and recommended one of the local shitholes).

To top it all of the in-laws left early and went back to the posh hotel they were staying at and gatecrashed a wedding that was happening there (as that was more in keeping with what they had expected!).

The second time around the two of us pissed off to the Caribbean on our own - fabulous day!!

Weddings are generally awful, both For the bride and groom and the guests. They go on for far too long, there’s too much money spent, too much planning and organising too high expectations on everyone. I I did it again it would be a registry office and a meal at the local Italian fo close family and friends only. No cake, no flowers, no silly cars, no hairdressers, make up artists, castles...I would not waste three days of my life planning centre piece or favours. God, the waste of time, brainspace, energy and money.

Yanbu, that sounds awful - your husband was such a selfish arsehole, to insist upon that kind of wedding and then ruin it. Has he ever apologised or taken responsibility?

Your husband caused all of this.

He insisted on having a big party for his mates, who acted like 5 years olds, got totally blitzed, cost you a fortune abdcsaud 5 year olds fucked off and left you to deal with it.

He should be grovelling from now until your 10th anniversary - if you stay with him.

I have never until now got the point of stag nights but surely this was the time for the bunch of Neanderthals to whoop it up like idiots and not at an important legal event surrounded by family.

For what it’s worth I hated my wedding too (overbearing mother) but my dh made it okay and worth getting through. Not this.

I didnt enjoy my wedding day either. We rushed the planning and lots went wrong. DF was drunk walking me down the aisle so by the time the father of the bride speech came - well, he was barely coherent. I had a bow on the front of my cress and it was tied really messily.
I hated my hair, I should have paid someone to do it.

It's a day I look back on with regret. 10 years down the line that hasn't really changed.

I wanted small and simple. Ex family had other ideas. Ex mil made rude comments before during and after service. Our wedding was less than £1000 in total for everything. Ex in laws were total and utter horrors. I’m just glad as I don’t see them anymore ever! If I have a next time - it’s Sandles on own with children and no one else invited 😂

Sounds horrendous. But some of this could have been prevented, looking back with hindsight now? You have learnt the hard way!

I never understand why people put themselves through weddings. It's all a big expensive fuss about nothing. Most people don't care that you love each other, fine if you, but the world doesn't need to know. I hate going to other people's weddings, expensive, boring and will probably end in divorce anyway.

My favourite part of my whole wedding experience was the ceremony, the hen do and the next day when we went out for a family meal with our kids. In retrospect I wish we’d done a registry office and small family meal. I probably would have done that but my husband wanted all his friends there and our families would have been disappointed. I think that’s quite normal to look back and wish you’d done it differently. The main thing is that getting married is not about the wedding but the marriage.

I didn't like my dress and we had no music at all at the reception but for the most part it was good. mine was only a small wedding though

YANBU!
I was the same in that I didn't want a wedding. I wanted a marriage. DH wanted to more of a wedding where I was just happy to go away just the two of us. We came to a compromise that we'd have a small wedding in the UK. He left all of the planning to me even though I didn't want the bloody wedding. I tried to get him to organise things but he wouldn't get around to it so again he got his own way and I would do it. I held a lot of resentment for it and the slightest thing he did on the day annoyed me. E.g. He gave just his side the confetti which really p*$$ed me off! (I was being so petty I should have just let it go). Another petty thing was when he was at the bar ordering drinks, I dragged my stupid dress over and asked him to order me one too. I asked him where mine was and all I got was 'oh I forgot' as he carried on walking away. Luckily we didn't have anything go wrong or anything major. It was all petty little things that just built up.

I don't look back at our wedding day as anything special at all. All I remember is crying the night before and just wanting it to all be over.
What made it worse was for our 1st anniversary he couldn't even be bothered to get me a card. He turned up with one later that day. He said he had bought it but hadn't written in it yet. I've told him I don't ever was to acknowledge that day ever again. I still feel bitter about it. It doesn't help that 18 months later my MIL still brings up that x, y and z should have been there. (People I've never met and DH had never mentioned). The damn thing cost us a lot of money and we're still paying for it. Another source of resentment!

It's good that he has apologised and I hope you can find a way to move past it. I would definitely try and make your anniversary something special then at least you'll be able to look back on a happy memory.

I didn't hate my wedding day, but there are things I feel sad about.
My mum moaned about my sister's wedding as my sister lived too far away for her to feel 'a part' of the planning. So I tried to include her in mine and most of her responses were "Why are you bothering with that?" and "Oh I don't have the time/energy to help." which irritated me a lot as she'd offered to give me lots of help in the first place.
In fact a lot of attitudes I got from people were CBA. It really stung as previous weddings at my church had had people practically falling over themselves to help out.
I discovered later that at a wedding six months previous to ours at our church the b&g had been incredibly cf's about everything and had left a sour taste in a lot of mouths.
Then there was DH's family who all turned up in black with long faces. DH's dad had passed away almost a year before and understandably we were all sad he wasn't there, but he'd have been the first to tell them to get over themselves and to stop being miserable at his youngest child's wedding.
They all buggered off early too.
Having said that, there were still plenty of things that went well and 14 years later we're still happy. We do at least have some nice pictures!

Thanks for your replies everyone. He had a weekend long stag party a few weeks before the wedding. If I could go back I'd insist that we'd do it my way (I wanted to elope or just go to the registry office with our immediate families then a meal after) or not at all. He insisted on a big wedding as he wanted his friends there; most of his friends are fine it's just these few who still act like silly kids (although this is probably an unfair comparison as the children, the oldest of which is eight, who attended the wedding were far more well behaved than they were!). The wedding is the only issue I've had with him during our six years together.

Another one here who looked at it as one long endurance test. I’m also an introvert, don’t like attention, so the thought of lots of people looking at me made me nervous for ages beforehand. Like you I went along with a big wedding because that’s what my fiancé wanted. I think if you don’t want it in the first place, it’s always just going to feel like pressure.

It’s so nice that people have the tact to abstain from coming on to tell you how fabulous their wedding was. Apart from the odd one.