Have you ever had regrets about the type of wedding you had?

[ppandj]

Just that really. If you have, what are they? Do you plan on acting on them in any way?

DP and I are engaged with 11mo DS. We want to be married, already have a mortgage together and a child but (I particularly) feel that marriage would sort of unite us. I also want the same name as my DS and any future DCs really.
BUT we can't agree on the size or type of wedding we would like and, even if we could agree, we can't afford it in the near future really as we have lots of more "practical" things we need to spend money on.
We often talk about just going to the registry office and getting married on the quiet, not really making a big deal of it, but then I think "will I regret not having X, Y, Z?"

So tell me, is the wedding worth the wait? Or is it over in such a flash it doesn't matter? Just interested in experiences.

DH regrets waiting so long to get married as I refused to have kids until we were. In hindsight he wonders why he didn't ask a lot sooner and then his Dad would have been there and met our kids. That's about it really.

Figure out if its more important for you to be married for the reasons you have outlined, or to have all the trimmings you thought you would have when you daydreamed about your wedding day.

Personally I think the ship has sailed. You will always find better things to do with the money now that you have a family and a mortgage. I'd suggest finding a budget acceptable to the two of you eg: this years family holiday budget and sacrificing it in favour of whatever can be afforded for that amount. Then have a lovely day and don't stress about it. The best weddings are the ones with the chilled out bride and groom no matter what they are spending on the day.

You can always have a huge party for your 10 yr wedding anniversary instead, throw in a blessing and you have a bona fide wedding day.

Our wedding was paid for and pretty much organised by my parents and was totally not my thing. I don't have any regrets but we made up for it for our son's barmitzvah 16 years later, now that was a proper party and totally us.

Yes, lots of things. We had the big white wedding to please my parents. They paid. I would have been much happier with something smaller. DH wanted something much smaller. We had a great day but I wouldn't do it again. I'm not a party goer and I remember being very apprehensive and stressed about it.

I would have bought my bridesmaid dresses off the peg had I known that the dressmaker wouldn't deliver them until 2 am on the morning of the wedding and even then we had to rope in my mum's friend to come and finish them off properly.

I really wish we'd not have had the big white wedding thing. I wish we had run off somewhere abroad. I'd still have done the big dress though!

I don't know where to start, lovely expensive wedding we had, but both the ex and I swore, on the next morning, that if we were to get married again, we would elope.

I had a great time, lovely memories, but if I had to do everything again, I would like to go to register with two strangers as witnesses. I would love to be fully involved in the significance of the moment rather than in all the folklore around it.

DH and I decided to get married, and were married three months later. Had a small church wedding (less than 20 people) then took them for a meal then had an evening reception. We spent about £3k so not mega cheap but not mega dear either and we splurged on fancy hotel for reception. I sometimes wish I'd had more time to faff with little things like wedding favours or browse more places for the reception or make decisions but at the end of the day I'd much rather be married than not! It's not really the wedding that's important, you could go to the register office just the two of you or have a big over the top expensive day, but you end up with the same thing out of it - a marriage.

No regrets, when we finally decided to get married (10+ years) we did so within 3 months, small scale registry office wedding with parents and siblings, no white dress, restaurant meal after (12 ppl) and 'reception' at home (40 ppl). Long standing friends still travelled half way across the country to be with us.

Minor regret that has nothing to do with the day itself is that we waited so long that my gran was too ill to join us, but at least she was alive to know about it, and to meet her first grandchild 9 months later ( yes really), but only just

I had a small wedding, about 40 guests, and my only regret is that I didn't have an even smaller one.

I had a lovely wedding, but by god it was a lot of planning, expense and stress for something that was over in a day.

The only thing I'd change if I was doing it agian would be to not have it on a Sunday.. we couldn't have afforded the venue on a Saturday but it did mean things tailed off quite early, and loads of people couldn't stay the night if they had school age kids and weren't local, which I hadn't factored in when we booked. In hindsight we should have spent a bit extra to get the venue on a Saturday.

The whole thing turned into a bit of a moneypit at one point, I got fed up with everything 'wedding' related being really expensive although our parents helped out a bit.

Looking back it was a great day and I'm glad we did it despite the stress expense and politics!