Feeling sad about my wedding

[thismotherhoodthing]

Our wedding was last week. It was postponed four times due to covid so as you can imagine it's taken up a lot of headspace in the past three years! We had a baby last year so we even thought about cancelling it at one point.

I had a nice day but some things are spoiling how I feel about the day.

I was really relaxed beforehand until my little girl came into the room as planned. She got completely distressed by the whole thing and then didn't really calm down for the whole of the rest of the day. People took it in turns to help us out and calm her but she was just really upset so I found it hard to relax at all. Once she went to sleep in the evening she was ok and didn't wake and a family member watched over her. This meant the final hour before our ceremony was very fraught and I couldn't really focus on getting myself ready.

Now when I look at the pictures I notice that my dress doesn't fit properly. I was losing weight beforehand (not intentionally just pregnancy weight) and in the past two weeks lost more than I realised. My final fitting was cancelled as the seamstress was sick so she sent me to a different seamstress. In hindsight she wasn't great and all I can see in the pictures is how loose my dress is around my ribs. No one noticed on the day but I will always know how it should have looked.

I know this is probably very shallow and I need to get a sense of perspective but after three years of waiting it's really upsetting me that all I can see in our photos is that I don't look very relaxed and my dress doesn't look as good as it should have. I feel like I spent a lot of money on a day that could have been amazing if I had planned differently.

Has anyone had a similar experience? I feel like it should have been the best day of my life so I feel a bit guilty that's not how I feel about it

@sleepymum50 thanks! I agree there is a lot more pressure about how things look etc. to be honest I'm happy with everything about the wedding other than my dress and feeling on edge. Wish I could have just relaxed into it more but oh well!

@RedRec that's good advice thank you

@Blossomandbee it definitely is what comes after that matters!

@Mischance suppose it could be a lot worse, we didn't end up in A&E!

@GoodThinkingMax I think you have misunderstood what I've said. I didn't assume it would be amazing because we'd spent a lot of money (also, a lot of money is always relative - we didn't have a really OTT wedding). What I meant by that was, it was an amazing day - everyone had a great time, the weather was good, food was great etc - however I feel those few things scuppered my personal enjoyment of the day as I really struggled to relax into it. I feel like I threw a really great party for everyone else though

@DottyLittleRainbow thanks! That's really helpful to know you felt the same! My social media feeds are full of people having the best day of their lives and I just didn't feel that way to be honest

@maxelly thanks so much that's great advice and so true

Sounds like a lot of people feel similarly! I was a very relaxed bride to be (didn't have much time to stress about wedding cause of baby) and felt super chilled right up until just before the ceremony when DD was hysterical and then I got stressed and felt like I couldn't relax again. I think this is probably making me stress more about how I looked etc as I was just generally feeling not very relaxed. It's definitely a shame as I was so on track to have a calm, happy day but that's life I suppose! Thanks all for the advice

I didn't mean anything was amiss in the marriage or relationship. I meant that obsessing about completely unimportant details that no one will have noticed isn't healthy psychologically.

Social media is bollocks, and is to blame for a lot of this needless angst.

Do you really think that what people post on social media is an accurate reflection of their lives or inner emotions? It's highly curated. Same way as Hollywood films are escapist fantasies not documentaries.

Your social media feeds are full of people who want it to look as though theyre having the best day of their lives. Not the same.

Have you spent as much time re-reading the vows you made to each other, and looking at your ring and thinking about what it means, and looking your new spouse in the eyes and thinking of your life together, as you have looking at the photos?

Spending 30/40/50k on one day can’t make that day perfect. No day is perfect.
the money doesn’t change that, if anything it makes it less likely because there’s so much pressure in it, that you notice minor things that wouldn’t bother you on another day, and I think that’s what many couples forget.
that said, no judgement because I would totally do the same!
Every time you catch yourself thinking of a negative, push yourself to think of a new positive from that day, until eventually you’re filled with more positives than negatives

Congratulations op!

Before social media people did really obsess about weddings! Maybe not quite as much as nowadays but people were still comparing themselves and others. It's relative.

I feel very sad for people who have had to postpone their weddings through the uncertainty of Covid. Weddings can be stressful enough anyway. But delays that are hard to predict add to that.

I think you will deal with it op and hope your post here helps with that.

@Whataretheodds wow a lot of attitude on this thread. I have actually. We wrote the vies ourselves and I wrote the ceremony. We also made the rings ourselves. It's more my emotions on the day and my memory on that that I'm sad about rather than the photos.

@Prunel thanks. We didn't spend that and if we did I wouldn't assume that would make it perfect. Lots of other things went "wrong" that don't bother me at all, it's just these two things that I felt prevented me from relaxing on the day and I felt it was a shame that I couldn't enjoy it on the day after spending money and planning etc

@Prunel good advice though thank you

@tobee thank you x

Those things are just things, what matters is the love and meaning behind the day. We got married in May 2021 and in February 2022 I became a widow, what matters is that we got married. It's not about what we wore or how we looked, it was about the love and happiness we brought each other. Our photographer let us down on the day by not showing up so we had a local artist take some friends snaps and do us a beautiful pencil sketch of the day, he was able to meld several photos together to give us a beautiful picture, maybe someone could do something similar for you and tweak how you perceive how your dress looked?

I can fix this for you OP. And before I type - I mean this nicely.

My wedding:

Venue: ICU at local hospital
Outfit: Sweaty maternity leggings and top (33 weeks pregnant)
Groom wore: Hospital gown and oxygen mask
Guests: PIL and my mum
Time to organise: 90 mins
Music: The beeping of hospital machines
Food: Hospital grub
Length of marriage: 16 days, before he died

I'd give everything I have for a wedding like yours with a happy ending . Now and go and hug your happy and healthy DH and best wishes for your marriage

@Meltingsocks I'm so sorry that this happened to you. It's unimaginable. I'm not sure when that was but I hope you have a strong family and friends who have offered support and love. Thank you for taking the time to post and I appreciate that you meant it nicely.

As I said on my original post I do know there's a sense of perspective to be had - I am a fairly measured person so I do have this. I'm not equating my feelings with disaster and I don't think my wedding was ruined. I also know I have a great relationship and am lucky we have our health and happiness. I was just sharing that I felt a bit sad about how the day went as I so wanted to enjoy it - I do think it's possible to share those feelings and recognise they are valid without wallowing in them.

I suppose I just wanted to share and have a bit of a chat with anyone who felt similar

@bloodywhitecat I'm so
Sorry this happened to you. That's a lovely idea

"I suppose I just wanted to share and have a bit of a chat with anyone who felt similar"

Chatting about it is a good idea as it helps you rationalise your feelings and hopefully will give you the chance to move forward. I hope you have a long and happy marriage.

@thismotherhoodthing

Your feelings are valid although I wonder if you need to unpick what's really bothering you? Are you projecting something else onto the wedding?

If not, then perhaps spend 10 mins writing a list of all the things you're grateful for to do with your DH and DC. You'll feel better, I promise. It's honestly a waste of precious energy to care about a wedding photo, they are just images, they are not real.

DH and I didn't enjoy our wedding day that much - lots of pressure from my family and indifference from his.

I'm NC with mine now and he barely sees his (see above).

We celebrate the month we got together rather than our wedding day.

We celebrated 20 years together in May and are still as happy together as when we first met.

We have experienced lots of pretty hard stuff but always pulled together and got through it. He makes me laugh every day and I know no one has ever or will ever love me like he does (and vice versa).

It is the marriage not the wedding which matters.

Agreed
It's your marriage that's important, not the wedding.