OMs - what are your wedding regrets?

I'll get involved with this.

I wish I had made it clear to my tog exactly why my posed shot list was long, and how important it was to me that we got them all. We only missed a couple, but it's a shame. There are no pics of my mum with the bridesmaids, for example.

I wish I had stood my ground when the dress shop gave me a different underskirt to the one I'd been wearing when my dress was adjusted. She swore it was the same and that it would just fit me better, but it didn't and it wasn't, and I tripped over my dress a fair bit over the course of the day!

Other than those minor things, we had an incredible day and I reckon we did it about right.

I don't know if this makes me a bit sad that a) I'm not having a big dress and such so I won't look like a typical 'bride' and b) that my dad is another one who doesn't show emotion. Unless I was a new Jaguar or a particularly flashy bit of hi-fi equipment, there is absolutely no chance of him being excited by the sight of me in my wedding dress.

Glad to see this thread pop up again! I'll be eagerly going back through taking notes!

Same! ?

Love this post, what brilliant tips from all you lovely ladies

This is a fantastic post, thanks for bumping it. I am keenly taking notes!

I've just ordered a spare pair of tights after seeing it mentioned in one post!

This is really useful, thanks everyone!

I just have one question which may seem a bit strange...does anyone regret not having a church wedding instead of a civil ceremony or vice versa?

I'm still a little close to mine to have any major regrets so these are tiny niggly things:

Cake design: I wish I'd been in touch more with our designer toward the end - we agreed a concept but she ended up just copying the original design (from our first (poorly) cake lady's website). Whilst it looked fine, it wasn't quite the new vision she'd inspired us with and so instead of being thrilled, it was just a bit "oh, she's gone back to the original"

Time off: I wish I'd been able to have an extra day off before the wedding, so that I hadn't been running around doing chores on the Friday. It's probably mainly a me thing, and the fact that because our house was being done up I didn't have space/ time to do chores in the evening other than clearing up after workmen, but if I could have done everything on the Thursday, on Friday I could have concentrated on wedding run up. But it couldn't be helped - I'd changed jobs and didn't have enough holiday to allow it - so as it was I didn't really start feeling bridal until the salon was doing my nails at 2pm on the Friday and insisted that I have a "prosecco chaser" for my water since I was getting married the next day.

There were a few people missing who I wish could have been there, but that's the way of the world. And we were so blessed with the weather, our venue, and all the people that helped to make the day happen that I really can't complain!

I'm can't tell if I've got the quote bit included (hope so or this won't make sense).

It's not a major thing - it's mainly my chin (especially in profile) that I hate in the photos. In retrospect I should have warned the photographer not to do so many side on shots! It does remind me that I regret eating so much on the wedding day morning - people kept telling me to eat something so I did! I just felt a bit over full all day. Don't not eat anything though - that would be worse!

Edit - I failed on the quote thing! Was in response to the comment about it being sad that people don't love their wedding photos because of not being as slim as wanted.

I regret choosing the wrong cake maker who was awful at communication and left me choosing a new cake maker with very little time. As a result I didn't get the cake toppers I wanted. But the cake was beautiful in itself and tasted amazing!

i also regret forgetting to cut the cake as we ended up bringing the whole thing home and hardly anyone got to taste it! So make sure you schedule it and let the DJ/band/toastmaster etc... Know so they announce it

otherwise, no regrets at all and, to be honest, my cake worries were minor niggles that we have laughed about so no major regrets at all!!

This thread is brilliant, I've been reading it in between (doing very little) work. Got some great tips, have been making notes. Thanks for bumping it!

I've already posted on this thread over a year ago but there is one thing that I've come to regret more and more since the day, and that is not having the speeches videoed, even if it had been by a relative. I remember every detail about the ceremony but I simply can't remember the speeches, which made me both laugh and cry - I would love to be able to hear them again :-(

Pispsandel have you got written copies? If not, ask for then. I included them in our photo book we made. Stupidly I didn't think to include the readings too. It's a printed book so I can't just slot them in but I might clip them in at the back or something. Not the same as video though, but better than nothing.

This is a brilliant thread. Thanks so much for the tips!

Thank you for all your tips
I've made loads of notes!

xx

This thread has made me change my mind about wanting a videographer!

I don't have any regrets particularly, except maybe not sitting in the front of the minibus taxi on the way there: but I think that was because the driver was a bit of an idiot rather than a mistake I could have foreseen.

Things I don't regret:

spending the money on what was important to us and really skimping on the rest (I realise that our list is the wrong way round for most people):

ignored: professional MUA, wedding cars (used taxis and buses), chair covers, table plan/placemarkers,
skimped/DIYd: dress and bridesmaids and cake and décor and stationery and flowers and snacks,
cut back: lots of but not fancy food, photographer (we were lucky as she was amazing and just what we wanted but not a full time wedding tog), suits (got nice suits which they would wear again but nothing too formal).

Then had money to spend on rings, entertainment, free bar all day, bussing in our guests, everyone there for the whole day, hotels for travelling family. music, gifts (we didn't do flip flops because we had a ceilidh but we did do bathroom baskets, table games, activity books, cakes, a pashmina basket, hampers of crisps, boxes and boxes of cakes garden games all for people to help themselves as wanted).

making our children so much a part of the day. Youngest even made my loomband hairband.

Being cheeky and asking professional musicians we liked if they'd play our wedding even though they didn't usually do weddings.

One thing I regret (I thought of one!):

Not sitting down and doing the thank you letters straight away. Ridiculous but it took me ages in the end and from being a simple task became a gargantuan chore. I wish I'd done it while I still had the post-wedding buzz.

Reading back from last year, and jumping into the debate about the father seeing the bride being such a great shot. Yes, it really is, but it may be that for some people having someone else there would make a difference to the reaction. I first married in 1991 and I can still see my Dad's face at that moment. No tog there, it's burned in my memory. I hate having my picture taken and I suspect it would have been a very different and more posed moment if there had been a tog.

Super helpful!!

I'm not sure if I've commented in here yet, so feel that I need to make sure - this is amazing so thank you to everyone who has posted so far! I fully intend to come back with any tips I can think of post-wedding as I now have a million post-it reminders on my wedding board in my front room full of advice from this thread alone. Huge thank you

So far I think my only one is that I wish I'd spread my budget better. I wanted to buy things earlier but people kept saying it was too early, then the last couple of months have been really tight financially. I got paid the day before my wedding and used that money to pay for our hotel, and I'm now broke for the next two weeks! So I wish I'd put money aside to spread the costs out more. Oh and I wish I hadn't only had my nails done a few days before the wedding at a salon I'd never been to before - I felt uncomfortable there and didn't speak up when the technician was making them too long and pointy. But that's more of a life tip than a wedding tip.

*bump*

Well found ID, I was thinking of this thread when the other one popped up.

That killed a couple of hours when I should've been doing what I'm paid to do!

Great advice everyone.

Now I have had a bit more time to reflect I think mine are:

I wish I'd had a pro hair and MUA. I didn't forego them to save money, but cos I was getting married 200+miles from home so wouldn't have been able to have trials, and cos I have anxieties and don't like being touched by strangers. But I managed to get over that to have my eyelashes done, so I could have done on the day. I dunno how I would have gotten around the trials and distance thing, but there we are. My makeup looked fine in the end, but my hair wasn't quite how I wanted. I was also panicking and stressed trying to get my hair and makeup done, so was on the last minute.

Related - I wish I had grown my hair more, but again I had had to have a few trims in the year leading up to the wedding, to remove my old colour. Really I guess I wish I'd started growing out the old colour faster - but I started as soon as we got engaged!

I wish I'd been able to wear my original dress - but I love the dress I did wear, so that's not a huge one.

I wish I hadn't worried so much about my appearance in the months leading up to the wedding that I caused myself to break out in rashes - but that's just who I am. I'm not sure there would have been any avoiding that.

Have you got a videographer booked yet Calella? ?

Sorry, I know this is an old post, but I'm getting married next year and I couldn't agree more with these two points! Have you sorted out a videographer / photographer yet Alisha? I mainly do videos (in the music video style, set to any music genre you could throw at me ?) but also do reportage photography too. I assume since you have togs in the family one of them will be in charge?

I'm stuck for who to have as my videographer because I can't do it and no one else will do it quite right for me!

Just seen this! Yes we did!

My biggest regret I am thinking about at the moment - is not enjoying the process enough, not taking my time picking stuff like interiors etc and really thinking things through before I knew it it was all planned/had happened without really steeping back to enjoy it.

This makes me feel a lot happier with my dress choice. It is over budget and not practical for wearing again (its a 'proper' dress!) but I love it.

Seems it will be worth the beans on toast meals! :-)

Agree with flip flop basket, especially as a guest lost their shoes as they had been too tight and her a little too tipsy, so if at start of night she had flip flops more chance she would have put them more carefully away and also myself, I had a bruised toe nail due to sacrificing comfort for the exact match of my dress.

I wish that I had been on Pinterest before my wedding as there are a lot of homemade favours that I wish I had thought of, that would have been prettier, cheaper and more personal.