Did anyone have post wedding regrets and obsess about them?

[kittykat]

I ask this question becuase I just got back from my destination wedding in Belize and it was really beautiful, but I was severely dissapointed by the flower situation. I had a whole vision and had made all these meticulous plans with the hotel and florist about which flowers I would get, candles etc, and I did not get any of it. Even though I can say that my wedding was pretty amazing, I''m obsesseing about it to the point where I want to throw another party just to reverse that dissapointment (neurotic huh!?). I''ve spoken to some girls and they say they had dissapointments that they obsess over even a year later! Anyone else out there?

 

[Odilia]

Hi Kittykat,
I don''t really have much time to write just now, but the answer to your question, if it helps any, is a resounding YES! Just one example of many things I had "post wedding regrets and obsessed about" was when I got my pictures, and I looked so horribly pale in them, thanks to my makeup lady (and me being too distracted that day to do anything about it), I was just sickened, and wanted to do the whole thing over if only to get good pictures. But it seemed there were dozens of things that I regretted and stressed over - photographer kept me an hour late for wedding, flowers wrong color, etc.. etc..., too numerous to write.... Fortunately at this point (almost 3 years later) I don''t worry about it, but every now and then someone or something reminds me of one of those and it bugs me again. And I don''t like to look at most of my wedding pictures...

The main thing is, I don''t regret or stress over the man I married, which is the important thing!!!!!

I know it may be easier said than done, but do try to just remember and focus on all the good and wonderful things about the day etc...

Hope it helps.

 

[ame]

Only thing I really "regret" is that we didn''t elope

 

[kittykat]

I second that!

 

[glaucomflecken]

Hi KK

I wouldnt say I have any wedding regrets, but I had some wedding disappointments. Namely, a few close friends I thought for sure would come did not, people were so tranced by the bagpipes they FORGOT to stand up for me as I walked down the aisle, I didnt give my baker a swatch of my wedding colors so my cake ribbon was TOTALLY the wrong color, the DJ did not play most of my requested songs (I was overall disappointed with him), and I should have given my photographer more shots I wanted. My makeup was not up to par, the salon botched our appointments so we ran late and my mom wasnt there to help me get dressed, the deacon forgot to say my dad''s name in his intentions, there was a typo in my programs, the centerpieces were off, they forgot to add my amaretto which i paid extra for to the bar list...the list goes on!

After the wedding, everyone kept raving about how our wedding was the BEST they had ever been to, the most fun, and it was beautiful. I had people tell me they had more fun at our wedding than they did their own! But of course, all I could obesess about was the problems. I think its because we girls plan for SO long and have a vision of how we want things to go in our mind, and want everything to be perfect, but its probably impossible for it ever to be exactly like how we dream. I SO wanted to have a "do over" wedding!!!

But then I started thinking about everything that DID go right. my bouquet was exactly how I pictured it. I had my table in the reception hall''s foyer with framed family wedding pics for all to see, something I always wanted to do and got lots of compliments on. The food ROCKED. Everything that I wanted to do (down to the scottish kilt cake topper), I did. I started to think, WHY did people have fun? Because they were surrounded by people they loved. They had good food. They even got to watch me pull a garter off my dear hubby from under his kilt, participate in a breakdancing contest, and watch my sister and I make fools of ourselves performing a New Kids on the Block song in front of our 110 wedding guests. Where else would they get to do that? Only our wedding. So everything that went wrong and right was part of our unique wedding that will never be replicated, and that makes it special in a way. No one but me cared that my cake ribbon was the wrong color. Now its funny when I think, OK, I said HUNTER green, Not CAMOUFLAGE green that HUNTERS wear when the hunt! I mean, for real! what was she thinking????

when I still get mad about what went wrong, I put on my wedding soundtrack CD and I listen to track 1, our first dance song. And then I dont feel so mad, because I remember that moment at our wedding, and what the day was truly about--us getting married. Suddenly then, I dont feel so bad. until I start thinking about that damn cake ribbon again

And think, HOW many people get married in BELIZE! I bet your pics are awesome and you even said you had an amazing time. You''re married! ALways think of that when you get down, sneak a look at your hubby and how you have just married an amazing man and have so many wonderful times ahead, and then your disappointments wont seem to matter as much.

hope that helps

 

[kittykat]

PunchNPie,

Thanks for sharing you stroy. I just looked at your wedding photo and you looked beautiful and your wedding must have been beautiful as well. I''m sad that you had dissapointments like I did, but I feel relieved that my wedding wasn''t the only one with some dissapointments. Mostly I feel better that I''m not alone. Hearing what other brides have to say about this makes me feel less like a crazy person that can''t get over these small details that keep me from fully embracing how wonderful our wedding was. I spoke to someone at work who says she still feels dissapointed sometimes when she thinks about things in her wedding that weren''t perfect (a year later). No one really talks about the fact that this happens (at least not to me). I really don''t want to in a year still think about the fact that flowers weren''t what I asked for and that there were no candles on the dinner table. It seems so stupid. I think this thread should become an opportunity to vent about this stuff and maybe to figure out how we brides can become so obsessed. It''s like some form of bridezilla disease. Any one else have comments on this?

 

[Mara]

Hmmm no I didn't really have any disappointments other than the day didn't last long enough!!

Everything turned out nicely and anything that didn't work out was not really a huge deal, we had a fabulous time and that was what was most important and what people remember! I think there always are going to be things that don't work out perfectly and then those that surprise you and work out even better than you expected, take the good with the bad. I also think most people tend to remember more of the good than the bad the more time passes...so just focus on that and maybe you will eventually forget the disappointments, hehee.

Time to move on girl...and for your next party you throw in general, go all out on the flowers and the candles and it will be almost as good.

 

[LAJennifer]

Date: 1/26/2006 3:09:52 AM
Author: Mara
Hmmm no I didn''t really have any disappointments other than the day didn''t last long enough!!

Mara, what time of the day was your wedding (in hawaii, right?) I''m getting married in Hawaii too, and am thinking of doing it in the morning so that we can enjoy the whole day celebrating. We aren''t having any attendants, so what do you think the eariliest time would be possible to have the ceremony - keeping in mind the whole "getting ready" factor. Do you wish you would have started earlier?

 

[monarch64]

Hmm, I forgot to bring my cake topper, our champagne flutes, and we had to make a last minute change in the entree we served (from salmon to pasta, BOO), but I don''t think anyone even noticed. We received nothing but compliments, and the fact that we had a gorgeous day for an outside ceremony/reception helped quite a bit. I could obsess about things that didn''t go as planned, but then again, I was a pretty laid-back planner. My DH was more stressed out than I was over everything. I did what I could to organize and plan the whole thing, but in the end you can''t control everything, and human error always leads to something going wrong. The worst thing that happened was that my mother almost didn''t make it to our wedding. She was in the ER the night before due to some freaky panic attack or something. Who knows...they ran a bunch of tests and she was pretty much ok in the morning, but they weren''t going to let her come at all. She actually showed up with no makeup and two different color sandals on (same style, one navy, one black) poor thing. She was obsessing more about what to wear than I was, and when my uncle grabbed her clothes from her hotel room for her he got the shoes mixed up. Jeez! You can''t see the color difference in pictures, you can just tell she looks tired and in some you can see the bandage with guaze under it from her IV. Her obsessiveness could maybe explain why I''m a pretty laid-back gal under pressure. LOL

 

[decodelighted]

I was wondering ... maybe as help for us now planning Brides ... do you feel like your expectations were realistic? Or were they very, very high expectations that ended in dissapointment?

As a sometime perfectionist with years of therapy under my belt, I''ve learned that sorrow mostly comes from unmet expectations rather than the overall actual situation as a whole. Luckily the guests & other folk mostly look at the "overall situation" to "judge".

I''ve also heard of "post-wedding depression" (like baby blues) ... did this happen for anyone? (Or is obsession part of that?)

 

[Caribou]

Date: 1/26/2006 2:14:46 PM
Author: decodelighted
I was wondering ... maybe as help for us now planning Brides ... do you feel like your expectations were realistic? Or were they very, very high expectations that ended in dissapointment?

As a sometime perfectionist with years of therapy under my belt, I''ve learned that sorrow mostly comes from unmet expectations rather than the overall actual situation as a whole. Luckily the guests & other folk mostly look at the ''overall situation'' to ''judge''.

I''ve also heard of ''post-wedding depression'' (like baby blues) ... did this happen for anyone? (Or is obsession part of that?)

Ohhhh good questions Deco!

I''ve wondered about the ''post wedding blues'' too? I''m so excited to marry by FI sometimes I wonder if after the wedding and all the excitement is worn off that I''ll be overwhelmed with sadness and disapointment.

Has it happened to anyone here?

 

[pebbles]

I TOTALLY had post-wedding depression! I also had post partum depression too so I wonder if there is any correlation?

The one thing I totally hated from my wedding and completly obsessed about for months, almost a year after was my wedding dress! I HATED HATED HATED it!

Here''s the quick story -- I had 14 months to plan the wedding, more than enough time. I was completely laid back about everything but my dress. I seriously must have tried on a few hundred dresses. I hated everything that I tried on. Then I saw a Jim Hjelm gown in one of the bridal magazines that I just drooled over. Of course, no one had it -- and I looked into a few close states to find it! I could only order it from Jim Hjelm itself and it would be non refundable. I wasn''t willing to take that chance so I decided *gulp* to have a dress custom made. I had also loved Rebecca Romijin''s dress that she wore when she married John Stamos and had tried on something similar (for $5,000!). My FMIL knew a seamstress and she said she could make the dress no problem. Well, it took a lot longer to make than she anticipated, then she also came down with pneumonia so that set her back a few weeks. I picked it up one week before the wedding -- mind you, this was the first time I had tried the real dress on --up until that point it was the muslin one that the seamstresses make to do all the little changes on it. Well, I was ready to cry. It was nothing like I imagined it, not to mention it was too big. She was so proud of it and I just couldn''t say anything. I went home and called my mom at work ready to postpone the wedding. I was seriously distraught. We went to a couple of stores just looking for anything to buy off the rack. Nothing worked. So my mom (who knew how to sew) spend the next few nights trying to make this dress look better. It did look better than when I had picked it up but nothing how I wanted it to look. In all my pictures I positioned my hands so you could see as little of the dress as possible. I hated it and the way I looked. I asked my husband if we could renew our vows for an anniversary just so I could buy another dress! He thought I was a little nuts, but we are planning on renewing our vows for our 10th, but I am not going to buy a new bridal gown.

 

[kittykat]

Date: 1/26/2006 2:14:46 PM
Author: decodelighted
I was wondering ... maybe as help for us now planning Brides ... do you feel like your expectations were realistic? Or were they very, very high expectations that ended in dissapointment?


As a sometime perfectionist with years of therapy under my belt, I''ve learned that sorrow mostly comes from unmet expectations rather than the overall actual situation as a whole. Luckily the guests & other folk mostly look at the ''overall situation'' to ''judge''.


I''ve also heard of ''post-wedding depression'' (like baby blues) ... did this happen for anyone? (Or is obsession part of that?)

Hi deco,
In my case I kept my expectaions low because I was aware that we had chosen a country like Belize and a wedding in a small town with no atms. However, I did have expectations and made plans to have certain things and II had a vision of what I wanted as far as flowers went. I am really beating myself up (an resenting DH a little for not allowing it) about not bringing down a florist from LA (which would not hav cost that much) who had these great visions on how she would find great flowers and enhance the flowers that were sent. Had she come my wedding day would have been less stressful and I would not be obsessing about these flowers.

I completely agree with you about unmet expectaions-that;s a very goood point. That is certainly what I am sad about. Especially because I feel that mine weren''t all that high.
I do think that post-wedding depression happens becuase we spend so much time planning so it''s kind of depressing when it''s finally over. Also, the social expectations and implications of weddings play such a big role in weddings women (I consider myself one of these) who didn''t even fantasize about a wedding and don''t intialy care that muchabout it get sucked into this whole wedding bit. It''s really quite an interesting social phenomenon.

 

[amyi]

I just got married on Jan.7. I don''t have any regrets per se, but I realized how unimportant all of the little details are after my wedding because I got sick throwing up right before the reception. We finished taking pictures and my stomach was not feeling right and on the way to the reception in the parking lot I had to jump out of the limo and then spent the rest of the night in the bathroom and ER! It was a very unfortunate situation but one that I could not have prevented as I had a bacterial infection. So I get sad thinking about how I missed seeing everybody who came. That is the one thing I regret the most because never again will all of those people who care about us be in the same room together. But I''m just glad I was able to make it through the ceremony and pictures without a problem. So just be glad that you were able to experience everything!

 

[Mara]

Jennifer, we got married at 4pm and partied until 10pm...it would have been great to have a bit more time as the curfew was 9pm and we snuck through til 10pm..hehee....

But we also did not want it to be super hot if we did it earlier, and that day turned out to be VERY warm, even until nighttime, we were all sweating puddles and then the next day a huge storm blew in and a tree fell over on the property too, so we were SO glad we didn''t get married on that day!! haha.

So for us it worked out great re: timing, it would have been nicer to have one more hour aka til 11pm but sometimes you can''t have it all!

Also I will say that our day FLEW BY....you figure oh 4pm it''s no big deal, we were up at 8am, and it just went by so fast....the morning flew by as I did a few last minute things to the programs and the fans and stuff and then I went to a quickie lunch with some of my maids and after that it''s a BLUR!! I was literally hopping into my dress 10 minutes before the ceremony started and throwing on my veil, it was hilarious. The hair and makeup took way longer than anyone thought and we were all just SO laid back about stuff.

So making it earlier may make it more stressful on you re: timeline, just keep that in mind!!

Oh and deco I had a little bit of post-partum wedding but just a tiny bit, it was more like oh it''s over and now I am bored because I had left my job about a month before the wedding. So we got our puppy and that kept me occupied!!

As for expectations, I was very realistic in that when you have a destination wedding, alot of it is out of your hands. That is part of why I wanted to do a destination. When we were getting married locally I was turning into a stress planning case. But once I knew it was destination, it was like a big load was off me. The locale was so pretty I didn''t need to overdo it with flowers or similar...it just worked out. So I think having a DW just made things easier mentally. Only had a few options for things rather than 1000 options like you do when it''s local. So my expectations were pretty realistic and our vendors were wonderful, it all just worked out.

 

[fountainfairfax]

Kittykat, I''m sorry to hear about the flower let-down. It''s especially upsetting when it''s a detail that you put so much thought into and the vendor doesn''t come through. I would compensate by signing myself up for flowers-by-the-month or by splurging every month for special flowers on your anniversary until you don''t feel so disappointed.

For me it was the wedding cake. Wedding cakes are a slight obsession of mine and when I got married the first time the country club wouldn''t let us bring in an outside cake, not even for a serving fee

I ended up with a plain-jane, kinda stale cake...to this day I obsess about my b-day cakes every year- my mother found a real cake "artiste" who made me the cake of my dreams for my 30th b-day and that helped ease my prior disappointment. But I still think about great looking and tasting cakes every year

God help my FI as I approach my 40th in a couple of years....

 

[flutterby]

Interesting to hear ladies. I am having a DW at the four seasons in Vegas. Right now I am stressing about the flowers and it isnt even they day yet. Mara is right, you wont remember the flowers being off, or even really miss your cake topper a few years later, there will be so many good memories. Here is to having a hair and makeup trial done, because i am pasty white and the last think I need is to look porcelain.

 

[kittykat]

Date: 1/26/2006 7:53:21 PM
Author: fountainfairfax
Kittykat, I''m sorry to hear about the flower let-down. It''s especially upsetting when it''s a detail that you put so much thought into and the vendor doesn''t come through. I would compensate by signing myself up for flowers-by-the-month or by splurging every month for special flowers on your anniversary until you don''t feel so disappointed.


For me it was the wedding cake. Wedding cakes are a slight obsession of mine and when I got married the first time the country club wouldn''t let us bring in an outside cake, not even for a serving fee

I ended up with a plain-jane, kinda stale cake...to this day I obsess about my b-day cakes every year- my mother found a real cake ''artiste'' who made me the cake of my dreams for my 30th b-day and that helped ease my prior disappointment. But I still think about great looking and tasting cakes every year

God help my FI as I approach my 40th in a couple of years....

fountain.

You are going to have to have the most extravagant wedding cake ever! it''s so strange to me that we get obsessed. It''s kind of funny. I think what I''m going to do is throw a fabulous party and go crazy with flowers. It sort of make sense because only 14 people wnet to Belize DH''s parents weren''t able to make it to Belize (due to a family death in Ukraine) and his father hasn''t even met my dad. This would be a great opportunity to clebrate with everyone and to get my mind off of this ridiculous thing I''m obsessing over.