What do you wish you had/hadn't done at your wedding?

[awkwardusername]

Right down to the tiny details!

Touched up my make up after the meal. I look quite shiny in the evening photos.

I didn’t do it because I was so caught up having fun and dancing and couldn’t drag myself away, so no great harm.

I wish I hadn't got my hair cut two days before the wedding. I just wanted a tidy up but the hairdresser over layered my hair and it was bushy on the day. We eloped to Fiji, everything else was brilliant:-)

The only thing that went wrong was the florists flowers. DM insisted on using the same florist who did her wedding bouquets 30 odd years before. I was mega unsure she understood what I wanted and as it turned out, she didn’t.
I was embarrassed carrying them. Hideous.

Also my dress has embroidery and bling sewn in, didn’t show up in any photos. Looks like I’m wearing a plain dress.

I wish I hadn't spent so much on what was effectively a showy party. I hate being centre of attention.

Things I'd do now:
Kept the numbers to people I truly care about.
Not had any bridesmaids
Had afternoon tea instead of a formal three course meal
Not had a wedding list

1st wedding everything I hated it, my outfit the flowers, should never have married him.
2nd loved everything, it was everything my first wedding wasn’t.
Church
Princess dress
Huge bouquet .
Small buffet reception 10 family the rest friends.

Ordered more canapés. Spent so long having photos done that everyone had gobbled the lot and we never got any 😕

SO many things to change first time round, absolutely nothing second time round... the difference (apart from choice of husband 🙈)? Second time we did exactly what we wanted, didn't follow any traditions at all, didn't do anything we didn't want, and it was the most marvellous, perfect day. All the niggles from my first wedding were things that were imposed or ex and I felt we should etc etc.

Bit of an odd one but for some reason I didn’t want my dress to drag on the ground and get dirty/ruined so in loads of my photos I am clutching at the bottom of it in one hand, which looks stupid
Ridiculous as it’s sat in the loft ever since

Gone for a really crappy photographer. It would have been better to spend more money or not have one at all.

Wish I’d not worried about accommodating my very demanding friends around what they thought was right or cool at the time. Like who to invite and who shoukd do the flowers / cake / music / catering / venue.

Same for my parents.

Allowed my friends who had a newborn baby to bring her instead of thinking all children were the same and enforcing a no children rule on the party

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Gone for a really crappy photographer. It would have been better to spend more money or not have one at all.

Same here! Mate of my late sil , hopeless!

I wish I did a speech

I loved our wedding. It was a fabulous day. I forgot to take the wedding guest book I had been given though. The idea was that it would be passed round the tables during the speeches for people to write or draw in. We've been married 18 years and sadly a lot of the older generation have now passed away. We do have lots of photos from the day but I do wish I'd remembered the guest book for people to write in too.

Our wedding genuinely was perfect for us, so I wouldn't change a thing but ours was very small and that's how we wanted it (10 Inc us)

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Honestly let’s just agree to disagree about the champagne. No one died

I'm getting married this year - when I was discussing wines with the venue and said I preferred the most expensive, they suggested I have that for us and serve everyone else the house wine I'm not...but I got the impression it happens a lot!

Got a better photographer!

The pics he did take are great but he missed so much including the speeches (he was outside smoking) and some of the reception shots (when he came back in he sat down and started helping himself to the food!). He also missed a LOT of shots. Our reception was in a castle but you wouldn’t know as he failed to get any with the castle as a backdrop. He also spook a bunch of suggestive shots of my niece. His portfolio was amazing and we had multiple conversations about what we wanted and what he could provide, we had a contract etc, so unfortunately it wasn’t something we could foretell. My oh fired him halfway through the reception and my sister and I ended up taking pics of the rest of the day (my pics are better than his too).

I wish we'd saved more somehow, so that we could have sprung for an open bar. The restaurant we hired out for our reception added red and white wine into the fee we paid for everyone's meals (which was lovely), but then wildly marked up bar prices. Like charging £5 for a G&T in Scotland, in 2011. Quite a few of our guests responded by heading to nearby bars across the road from the restaurant for a while during the party, which were cheaper.

I also wish we had managed to save more so that I could have bought nicer presents for the friends who helped me with flowers and getting the wedding together. To this day, I'm rubbish with planning events and get easily overwhelmed by it. My pals stepped in and helped us have a really great ceremony and party.

We got married within 8 months of getting engaged, so did nearly everything on a shoestring budget. And I don't regret the timing per se, but I also completely understand the couples who want to hold off a year or so, so they can have a bigger bash.

Banned children.

Not one of my friends or family who bought their kids, looked after them or paid any attention to what their sometimes very small children were doing. It was SO stressful!

I had 7 small girls constantly following me around (couldn’t even go to the loo on my own), couldn’t have a dance or talk to friends because they were there playing with my bloody dress the whole time. The 11 - 15 boys were stealing beer and breaking into any open cars they could find to drink it.

All the disposable cameras were taken by the kids so I have approx 200 shit photos of our wedding, because the adults gave them to the kids to shut them up. Despite me laying on loads of stuff for the kids to do.

I may still be really pissed off about it 20 years later!

I cant think of anything I would change.

We substituted cava for champagne. If anybody minded it didn’t stop them drinking it. Out of a hundred bottles, there were two left at the end.

Went to a wedding recently where they cut and served the cake immediately after the ceremony to enjoy during the period where photos were being taken etc, instead of doing it after the meal when everyone is stuffed from dinner. Genius - wish I’d done that!

@LadyEuphemia

I'm sorry the parents ruined your day for you by not watching their kids.
One can't emphasise the importance of "your kids, your responsibility" enough.

Our wedding reception was on a boat going up & down the River Danube.
At some point there was a bit of panic, one of the girls went "missing" and the mum thought she may have fallen into the water.
Thankfully she was found sleeping under a chair, blissful unaware of half the people shouting her name.

I think we had about 20 kids out of 110 guests and they were no nuisance at all, most of them were used to going to church so knew how to behave.
We have some amazing photos of all of them, the one of my 2 nephews & niece as tiny pageboys & bridesmaid are amongst my favourites.

Hmm I didn't particularly care for my wedding, I was going through failed ivf and didn't actually want to do a party. DM insisted. I literally wanted to have a registry office wedding then be done with it, so I put on a dress and showed up. DH loved the day, it was nice to see him so happy. I just didn't want a wedding really, just wanted to go off with DH and have a private wedding and leave it at that

I wish I'd recorded the ceremony, picked a different dress, had my teeth fixed pre wedding, had a smaller wedding with half the guests, asked my sister to be maid of honour instead of my (useless) friend.

Had more staff on so I didn't have to think about as much on the day. Buy it all went well so all good.

@slavetoawhippet

Married him

This