What I Loved, What I’d Do Differently

I’m excited about today’s post because it gave me the chance to pick the brains (what a gross expression) of a few of the leading ladies in my life regarding their own wedding days and their experiences with the whole ordeal. I think that any person who has gotten married will tell you that there are things they loved about their big day and others that, if they had the chance to go back and do it all again, maybe they’d do a little bit differently. The fact of the matter is, no one tells you how to plan a wedding (well, I guess there are books on the subject, but we’re talking the nitty gritty things you can only learn from doing it). The best, and perhaps most ineffective learning tool is, in fact, hindsight. OR taking it from those who have gone before you and lived to tell the tale! 🙂

When I was knee-deep in planning ours, I LOVED reading blog posts about “I wish I had known…” or “If I could do it over…” because they really helped shed light on the aspects of weddings that no one talks about. The things that you can only learn by experiencing it firsthand (or reading about someone else that did). In fact, it was some of those very posts that helped shape how we crafted our wedding day and some of our favorite moments happened because I had read or heard advice from people who had “been there, done that, and here’s what worked”. So, without further ado, I bring you…

For this post, I had a few ideas of my own that pertained to our wedding specifically, but I thought… how cool would it be to interview some other close friends and family to hear about their own perspectives? Although I wasn’t really aiming for this, coincidentally, you’ll get to hear from ladies who have been married all the way from a month ago to six years back now. A pretty neat spectrum of experiences! Oh, and Mitch even gets a few soundbites in there too. 🙂

I asked two main questions of the girls and they came through with great insight and thought to both, so let’s dive right in!

Our favorite part of our wedding was definitely the live band (called Brass Attack)- they had everyone on the dance floor before dinner was even served! (Jess, married 5 years)

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I have a few favorite moments that are frozen in my mind from the day… the slow and relaxing process of getting ready in the morning, the personal and worship-filled ceremony, dancing with all of our friends and family at the ceremony, the list goes on. One of the best decisions we made was doing a “first look”, which I was originally opposed to. I’m so glad we did because we got to share the moment of seeing each other for the first time without the stress of everyone watching. It really helped to set the tone for the rest of the day and calm my nerves! Plus, it allowed us to take pictures before the ceremony, freeing up time later to spend with our guests. (Leslie, married 3 years)

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We loved our choice to use a state park area and its pavilion. Cost savings there let us enjoy not fighting about numbers and splurging on other fun touches like lanterns and a moon bounce. This helped to create the fun, casual feel that we ended up loving most about our day! (Christina, married 2 years)

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There’s so much that was SO amazing! But seeing my (soon-to-be) husband’s face as I walked down the aisle… I will forever treasure that moment and I’m glad I have pictures to re-live it!  (Kristin, married 6 years)

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Here are two that stick out in my mind: One was when my husband and I were first introduced as a married couple and ran out onto the dance floor and danced with our bridal party. The music was so loud and everyone was 100% in party mode- that was awesome and surreal feeling. The second was a quiet and private moment I shared with my dad. Everyone else had left to line up for the ceremony and it was just the two of us. He told me how beautiful I looked and how proud he was of me and started to cry. He’s not an emotional guy, so it really stuck out to me and meant so much. (Ally, married 1 month)

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I love that we did a Quaker wedding, choosing our own format, readings, and writing our own vows. Every part of our wedding ceremony truly reflected our values and the commitment that we were making to each other. We still read the transcript a few times a year and discuss how we have stayed true to our promises and grown since our wedding day. (Lindsey, married 4 years)

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BONUS MITCH ANSWER: My favorite part of our wedding was the food! We chose things that represented some of our favorite foods, like chicken wings and macaroni and cheese. Even though we didn’t get to eat very much of it the day of, it was delicious! (Mitch, married 3 years)

I would without a DOUBT hire a videographer. It was not super popular like it is now. Now you can get these amazing feature films of your day and I just wish I had that to re-live that day over and over again. I also would have loved having Pinterest when I got married. Unfortunately, it didn’t exist yet… believe it or not! (Kristin, 6 years)

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If we had to do it over again, we would have spoken up and made sure that our wedding day was exactly what we wanted. Sometimes when other people are helping you plan, it can feel uncomfortable asking for what you actually want. When we did speak up, we weren’t assertive and so weren’t always fully heard. Looking back, everyone would have been happier if we had stood our ground and been more confident in making the celebration part of our day as personal as the ceremony! (Lindsey, 4 years)

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If I could do it over again, I would have gotten some more photos with my close friends and family that were at the wedding and not taken photos during cocktail hour so that we could have spent time with everyone. (Jess, 5 years)

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I so wish we had thought to schedule ourselves a day or two of down time between the wedding and leaving for the honeymoon! We had to be at the airport at something like 5:00am the morning after our wedding and that transition was SO HARD. Your wedding is such an emotional roller coaster of an experience and we both really could have used a day or two to process everything, hang out with family that was still in town, and decompress from the high of the wedding before leaving for the honeymoon. I think it would have resulted in a far more relaxing vacation! (Leslie, 3 years)

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We tackled the food ourselves (with help from family)- again, great cost savings, but taking a $500 trip to Costco the morning before the wedding was probably a bit too much for the bride to be. If I could go back, I’d do the food “ourselves”, but have someone else (like a sister or my mother-in-law) take ownership of it the week of. (Christina, 2 years)

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If I could, I would change the way I scheduled things, time-wise. I had no idea what I was doing and how long things would take and I think the time crunch made things feel more rushed and less relaxed than they should have been- as if your wedding day doesn’t fly by by itself! I would have given myself more wiggle room so that when the unexpected happened, I had more space to deal with it. (Ally, 1 month)

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BONUS MITCH ANSWER: The way our ceremony venue was set up, I couldn’t really see my wife walking down the aisle until she was right up front. Even though we did a first look, I would have really loved getting to see her walk down the aisle. If we could do it again, I would make sure I was better positioned to have been able to experience that. (Mitch, 3 years)

So there you have it… some tried and true advice and thoughts from those who have traveled down the wedding road and want to pass along the things they learned. If you are about to embark on planning your own wedding, I hope this helps as you think about what your big day will look like! Also, a huge THANK YOU to the friends and family that chimed in with their perspectives… you made this a really fun post to write! 🙂