Hints for avoiding nuptial regret
By Never teh Bride
Because weddings happen but once in a lifetime (if we’re lucky), they are often associated with regret. What a couple would have done differently can sometimes overshadow what they did right. With a large traditional wedding, there are so many things that can go wrong. But if you’re the type of gal or guy who has been dreaming of the perfect wedding since you were small, setting your expectations low will only bum you out.
Confetti Weddings has a fabulous list of recommendations from real brides that can help future brides avoid post-wedding regret. Check out some highlights:
- Make sure you choose a relaxing honeymoon! By the time we started ours, I was so exhausted from the wedding that we ended up cancelling most of our pre-booked trips to various sites and instead spent time just chilling out by the pool. Don’t underestimate how tired you will feel
- “If you’re planning to have a DJ, compile a play list before the wedding. That way, you avoid the horror of having to listen to trendy techno tunes all night or alternatively teeny bands such as ‘Steps.’
- Wear your shoes around the house before the big day to wear them in. I didn’t and discovered that wearing agonising new shoes and trying to look serene and beautiful at the same time is hard work!
- If I had the chance to do it again, I would be more inventive. I’d invite people I liked rather than those out of duty.
- Loosen up, relax and do it how YOU want it - not how your parents or his parents tell you. It’s your day, so indulge your wishes and wants. If you want to bore them rigid as you recite your first love letters - that’s your prerogative.
And here are mine…which I’ve scientifically extrapolated, as I’ve not had a chance to be married myself:
- Don’t let one foul up or foible ruin the entire day.
- Bring safety pins and bobby pins and tissues and extra backs for earrings.
- Remember to keep your sense of humor at the ready at the ceremony and reception.
- Don’t be upset if your attendants don’t know what’s expected of them throughout the wedding planning process.
- If something goes wrong, don’t see it as your having failed.
- And, above all, be nice!
January 11th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
“Don’t be upset if your attendants don’t know what’s expected of them throughout the wedding planning process. ”
Hear, hear. I was involved in a huge traditional wedding this past summer as a matron of honor to the bride. I had a small informal wedding myself, and had never been involved in a formal wedding before. I had no idea what was expected of me.
I read everything I could about the matron of honor duties. I went wedding dress shopping with the bride, threw her a bridal shower (out of my own money, no one else was around to help), made sure she looked good during pictures, and toasted her at the reception. I still feel as though I let the bride was let down, though, which left me feeling depressed and inadequate.
If she just would have spelled out what was expected of me from the beginning, I think disappointment could have been avoided. She was obviously expecting something different.
(It also didn’t help that she didn’t outright ask me to be her matron of honor per se, she just told me where I’d be standing during the ceremony and I deduced it myself, but that’s a story for another time…)
January 11th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
That was truly kind of you, Sheas, to go through so much trouble and expense to give your friend the best pre-wedding experience you could. She should have been more open as to what was expected of you if she was expecting anything in particular at all. Maids (and matrons!) of honor, bridesmaids, best men, and groomsmen should not be expected to read minds! Being chosen as an attendant should feel like an honor…not like a sentence.
January 11th, 2006 at 8:38 pm
I think the item about doing what *you* want is…incredibly selfish. In retrospect I’m glad we planned a ceremony and reception that our families were also able to enjoy. Not only because my husband’s family is from the other coast, and this was their first (and probably only) chance to spend time with my family, but because my mother is dead now, and the fact that I included my mother’s guest list and let her “help” me plan the wedding meant a lot to her, so I’m glad I did it.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:20 pm
I’m sure that the women adding their thoughts to Confetti Weddings were suggesting you do anything that will be harmful or hurtful to others, Kai, or that you don’t provide your guests with an enjoyable and memorable time. Nor that you don’t let others help or offer suggestions.
What I believe they were trying to convey was that if a bride and groom really, really wants a pink dress or coaster favors or a heavy metal band at the reception, they shouldn’t let anyone talk them out of it. Because it would be terribly sad to look back at your wedding and think only of what you wish you had done.
In your case, it’s wonderful that you were so accomodating. But I also imagine that your family wasn’t asking you to do anything unreasonable. Some families do try to control every aspect of their daughter’s or son’s wedding, by turning it into a spectacle or the wedding *they* wish they had had, and it can be terribly stressful for those future brides and grooms. I’m glad that you had such a wonderful and special wedding and that your family’s were able to enjoy each other!
January 12th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Let me just re-emphasize the shoes thing. Break them in. You will be on your feet in those shoes ALL DAY LONG. I actually took some old socks and cut the bottom off to make something “spats” like so that my shoes didn’t get dirty around the house while I was breaking them in.
Also, I would say, expect some things to go wrong and expect somethings to go right in ways you never expected. Your day will not go exactly by the script and that’s OK. It will be lovely anyway.
January 12th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
That’s a wonderful sentiment, jj. And also good advice about the shoes. Especially if you’re wearing heels!
January 12th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
For the girls with the wide feets, a wooden shoe stretcher is great. They even come with metal nodes you can attach to various places on the stretcher to stretch the shoe a little more wherever you may have a bunion or hammer toe.
January 12th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
JJ, that was the same advice I gave my sister-in-law, and she really appreciated it. I figured it was enough that MY feet hurt on my wedding day.
And I know I posted it elsewhere, but I’ll post it again: if you are wearing foundation garments of any kind which differ radically from your usual, practice wearing them, too, for numerous weekends before the big event. This includes strapless bras, strange uplift bras, corsets, garter belts - whatever is not part of your day-to-day underwear. It also includes big poufy or big hoopy crinolines, and if you’re going to be swamping about in a train, wear something that will approximate it so that you can be comfortable and move gracefully on your wedding day.
January 13th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
If you are wearing complicated underwear, an Immodium before you get dressed is your friend.
January 13th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
I’m a big fan of the two-dress wedding (finances and time permitting, of course). One spectacular (and very likely spectacularly uncomfortable) dress for photographs and the ceremony; another dress, someone expendable and appropriate with low-heels, for the reception. In these days when the bride mostly plans and pays for the wedding itself, she ought to be able to enjoy the party parts of the whole ordeal along with her guests.