Since the list format was working so well for me during the last few posts, let’s just continue that trend, shall we?
Things I forgot to do:
- Take off a few pounds. Yes, I know I’m not supposed to care about that, but I secretly did, at least at first. Then I pretty much forgot about trying to trim down until it was go time, and at that point there was just nothing else to do but cross my fingers and hope everything fit okay.
- Brighten my smile. Months ago, I bought a pack of teeth-whitening strips in a righteous fit of let’s do this thang. Guess what? I didn’t even open the box until the week of the wedding, and even then I only made a few lousy, halfhearted attempts at using the strips. Oh well! Let’s down another cup of coffee and get right back not caring!
- Even out my skin color. A couple of weeks before the wedding, I went running and ended up with a strange strappy sports shirt tan. Not quite the desired effect for the wedding dress, but that’s what I get for being careless.
- Write a speech welcoming everyone and thanking my family, which I’d been so excited about. Over the past year I’d already halfway composed the damn thing in my head during various brainstorming sessions in the shower, but I never actually sat down and made a concentrated effort to finish it. I’m a little sad about that one.
- Get a facial. Or any kind of spa treatment, actually. I’d always had this impression that brides were supposed to pamper themselves for their wedding, but apparently I was DOIN IT RONG because I just didn’t have the time. NO TIME! Which leads us nicely into…
Things I didn’t have time for:
- A delicious, well-deserved massage.
- Sleeping. THE STORIES WERE TRUE.
- Practicing reading my vows. Thinking about my vows. Reflecting on my vows. Vows. What was I talking about again? I don’t even know. I ended up gripping a dog-eared, rolled-up printout of my vows during the entire ceremony, unfurling it, and reading from it when the time came. Not the prettiest, most special way to recite them, but… I made it work, you know?
- Making myself pretty. No special exfoliators, masks, or moisturizers. I already had some old ones on hand, too – but the sad thing was that I didn’t have 20 extra minutes each morning in the week before my wedding to actually put them on my face. Beauty fail.
- Practicing my makeup. I was supposed to do trials and test things and try out my false eyelashes. I never ended up wearing them. I just slapped my makeup on that morning before the wedding and hoped for the best.
Things I would change:
- Hosting a welcome picnic instead of a regular rehearsal dinner on Friday night. We had no idea that 75 people would be able to show up at the damn thing. Holy shit, man. We had people chip in where they could, but the reality of the situation was that most of our guests were staying in motels and had no way of helping us make food. It ended up being a major stressor, not to mention a major time and money suck.
- I’d totally hire a makeup artist to do my makeup instead of trying to do it myself. Not because I did a shitty job, but because I didn’t realize it would cost so much freaking money. I am not shitting you when I say that all told, I probably ended up spending over $350 during various trips to Sephora. And I could have hired someone to do my makeup for much less than half of that. My problem was that I had to purchase a bunch of essentials all at once, because apparently until the wedding came I’d never taken the time in my adult life to acquire foundation, bronzer, blush, a brow pencil, an eyelash curler, and so on. Seriously. If you don’t already have the basics, just hire someone to do it for you. Now I’ve got a serious credit card bill and a bunch of makeup that I’ll very rarely use. Sweet! Just what I needed!
- I wouldn’t bother getting a manicure and pedicure. The last time I’d gotten one was probably sometime in the early 2000s, and I was quickly reminded that people who have manicured hands and feet are not supposed to do anything with them, or touch anything, or move around, or even think, really. I believe that the only thing you are allowed to do when you have a manicure and a pedicure is to lie helplessly on a sunchair all day and moan for the hired help to fetch you another mint julep, which you will delicately sip from a straw. Seriously. My nail polish was scuffed within hours, and by the time I was done washing the dishes after the welcome picnic, it was ruined. Total waste of money.
What were your things?
Exactly the same story with the tooth whitening strips (anyone need a mostly-full box of white strips?), the vows (reading from a dog-eared piece of paper is not that bad is it?), the speech, and definitely the lack of pampering/facials/massages. And from the regret list, we have:
1. Not spending enough time with my closest friends at the wedding. Outside of the official photos, we don’t have any pictures of us together, you know, really having fun.
2. Forgetting my something borrowed, not because I’m a stickler for superstitions but this one was important – a handkerchief from John’s family that has been carried by several generations of women. Marriage doesn’t have the best track record in my family, so this bit of borrowed luck from their family would have been a nice touch.
3. Being a total nutcase.
4. A few more things… but I’ve forgiven myself for most, so they don’t go into the regrets category anymore. They’ve now been filed under “Life Lessons Learned” and “Weddings, why not to have one”
It’s weird, but I find these types of lists to be SO satisfying. Glad you are back and can’t wait to hear more details!
I’m glad to hear your thoughts on the makeup artist thing because I’ve been getting advice that I should just buy my own products and practice on my own but that would require a lot of time I probably won’t spend on the project and then I’ll be left with all this makeup that I won’t use again until it’s time to throw them out.
my things:
– glad I didn’t spend more time making decorations
– glad we had an open bar (and glad our families didn’t drink so much)
– glad I didn’t make a hair appointment and had my sister do it
– glad it didn’t matter I didn’t do the ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’
– glad we only invited 130ish not 200
Thank you for posting this. I have enjoyed reading your blog and actually had my wedding the day after yours. I bet this list was a good release for you. I actually started compiling a list of my own in my diary.
Here is my list (so far).
Things I forgot to do:
– Get a professional photo of just my side of the family (and my husband’s). I had relatives come all the way from Singapore and for them, it was a reunion of sorts, so I wish I had remembered to get that photo of just them.
Things I wish I did:
– Given a thank you speech to all of my family and friends. I don’t know if everyone knew that my mom had made my wedding cake or that she and my aunt had done all the flowers. Also, it would have been nice for me to thank my uncles and my husband’s mom for officiating the ceremony. I want them to know how grateful I am.
-Paced the schedule of the reception. I just really wanted to let loose and dance so I rushed through the cake-cutting and bouquet toss, however, nobody else really wanted to dance since we had a morning wedding with a breakfast reception. I guess I’m one of the few people that enjoys dancing without dim lights and liquid encouragement. I guess I wanted to stop thinking about the schedule.
-Had my photographer take a photo of me and my husband with all our guests. One of my friends actually suggested that since we were having such a small wedding, but I didn’t think there would be enough time. Turns out there was plenty and I think having a designated time for people to get their photo taken with the bride and groom can keep the day going more smoothly.
On my list of things I regretted:
-not having time to paint my nails (though your words certainly help this unreasonable regret of mine!)
-forgetting my garter and pretty wedding undies (HOW did I do that????!!!)
-my husband and I not saying some sort of mini speech or something at the wedding (or welcome dinner) to thank everyone for coming. Sigh.
-Not taking a little longer on our mini-moon. (We had two nights in a very nice local hotel and will take the “real” honeymoon later.)
Getting married on Saturday – throw some more tips out there! These lists are making me feel like less of a disaster!
– My vows suck. Seriously. I, too, enjoy a good brainstorming session in the shower. I always think up awesome vows in there. Then I get out, get out the ol’ lap top and then *blank*. Derr.
– My teeth are white! I bought strips and used them!
– And used all my face products, too! If anyone is getting married in the next 2+ months get your ass on a good skin care regime. My BIGGEST RECOMMENDATION is a gentle retinol (like Skinceuticals .05 or 1% retinol). Start early b/c it might make you peel at first. This shit does it all: evens out skin tone, smooths you out, clears out black heads and since it works by making your skin cells turn over more quickly you will glow. It’s like no effort to use. Just make sure you wear a strong SPF in the day b/c it makes you a bit photo sensitive.
– I didn’t lose weight. I cut back on food and increased the exercise – yet I’m like fatter. I chalk it up to insane cortisol levels cause me to hold on to belly fat? Maybe it’ll go away after the wedding…?
– We have no ceremonial music. I’m walking out to silence on the beach. We couldn’t get an affordable harpist or violinist. This could be okay or it could be bad. I am nervous.
It might not be too late to get a musician. Check out the site http://www.gigmasters.com
That’s where I found my harpist and she was a few hundred less than what I budgeted for!
um, you looked slammin wedding day. the pic in the previous post is awesome.
even with things you forgot, didn’t go, or would change – slammin.
dying to hear more.
I was planning on doing my own, very minimal, makeup and hair, but some of my friends I think didn’t trust my abilities so ended up doing both for me. Somehow they travel (to other peoples weddings out of state carrying stuff in their suitcases?!?) with 100x more beauty supplies than I have ever owned in my life and did my hair and makeup 100x better than I would have managed on my own.
My wedding regrets:
Not renting the reception location for the night before the wedding so I could spend more time on my wedding day relaxing and less time running around like a crazy woman setting stuff up.
Not putting someone in charge of dealing with vendors while my husband, myself and both of our families were getting ready have having pictures taken. The bartenders and caterers both arrived while no one who knew what was going on was there and promptly set everything up in exactly the opposite way I had envisioned.
Not projecting my vows louder so that people could hear them over the sound of the ocean. The ocean was definitely louder than I anticipated.
Those are my main regrets. There are lots of little things that I forgot to do or bring, but nothing any one else noticed.
At first I felt bad that I had so many of both of our family members working so hard on the wedding day setting stuff up, decorating, arranging flowers, building our huppah, etc. But afterwards everyone said how much they loved really participating in making the wedding happen and that it felt so much more special than just showing up to a wedding you had no part in.
Hello!
I started reading your blog about 2 months before my own wedding, which was September 4th (only 26 days ago!!). It’s funny to sit down and read something and not really have any ideas or notions about the person who’s writing (especially because w google reader you don’t really get to see any graphics or layout or anything) except for the fact that they, like you, are in the midst of crazy-time wedding planning misery/joy. I’ve never really felt compelled to comment on any of the blogs I read, I don’t know if that makes me a weird lurker or something, but I usually just like to see what other people have to say and compare/contrast in my head rather than in a public-y sort of comment forum. This posting of yours changed that! I laughed out loud (in my office, which was probably odd for my co-workers) and marveled at the similarity of my own thoughts post-wedding.
People have these expectations of brides and brides have these expectations of the people around them and it’s taken planning a wedding and reading blogs, like yours, to really wrap my head around how these things work. To my parents/relatives/older friends I was a “non-traditional” bride. That meant things like…
I spent hours cutting out napkins from vintage fabric rather than renting them from a rental house.
I wanted the bridesmaids in non-matching not gross dresses.
I thought it would be fun to make boutonnieres instead of getting them done.
People kept listening to my ideas and shrugging and saying these like… “oh you’re sooo different!” Which basically just translated to a pat on the head.
To me, what they called being “non-traditional” just felt like being normal and trying to have some ownership over this wedding insanity. Those months leading up to the wedding were spent with this sort of “the most important thing is we’re getting married, we want it to really speak to ‘us’, we just want it to feel homey and cozy and like a huge fun party” attitude. And I’ll admit, that attitude built up into a disdain for the hotel/wedding hall/bridezilla brides. But you know what, the day of the wedding when I was screaming at the wedding planner that the BOUTONNIERE I HAD MADE ESPECIALLY FOR MY DAD WAS SOMEHOW ON THE BEST MAN. FIX IT!!!! 5 minutes before we were supposed to walk down the aisle (40 mins late) was an interesting moment. It took me, and everyone in the room with me, by surprise. I had spent so many months being the cool easy-going bride that when faced with being a “bridezilla” it sort of took my breath away. No matter how hard any of us work on having ownership over our feelings and our wedding and what it all means at some point it might just all come crashing down.
Was I was starting to feel like what my mom referred to as “a real bride”? Was I, in fact, a “bridezilla”!? This “non-traditional” bride that I spent so long and expended so much energy being devolved into a bridezilla for about 30 seconds… in public! So, in the end, I fulfilled everyone’s visions of what it meant to be a bride. Including my own. The last 24 hours included vow-writing mania, organizing mania, and refusal of all alcoholic beverages because I didn’t want to be hungover. It would have been hard to drink, anyway, with the hours I spent before and after the rehearsal dinner with whitening strips attached to my “non-traditional bride” teeth. But I am sure, when I was screaming at my wedding planner about the boutonniere mishap, my teeth looked beautiful.