If you can go back and change something about your wedding

[NVDisMom]

Eloped to Disneyland! The two moms made everything far more stressful than they should have been. MIL added paper bells and silly head bands and goodness knows what else to the ceremony and reception and my mom worked far too hard with the food and the cake that she insisted she could handle.

 

[englishteacha]

I'd change a few things. We were poor, and paid for our wedding ourselves, so a lot was done very frugally. I wish we could have afforded to hire someone to manage things at the hall so that my family, who did all the food for us, could enjoy themselves a bit more. The ceremony was lovely, the reception was fun, but it definitely had a "home made" feel, if that makes sense. We got married in my church, and had the reception at the local American Legion, which was newly renovated and was actually pretty classy.

What irks me to this day was at the end of the reception, my mother handing me casual clothes and saying, "Get changed and help clean up." No riding off into the sunset in my wedding gown with my husband.

As another poster has mentioned, to this day, tons of people still comment on how nice our wedding was, how fun it was, and how yummy the food was. It was just kind of stressful trying to do everything myself, or with the help of family.

 

[Becky2005]

I would hire a REAL photographer. I asked my aunt to do it because she does it as a hobby (and to save money). I have a ton of pictures of my side of the family & almost none of DH's. The only pics we have of his family are the ones I specifically wrote down for her to do. I love her to death, but I was a little disappointed.

This is why we hired a videographer. My best friend had gotten married a few years before and had a friend of her family do the video. It's 90% her family and hardly any of the groom. It was very one-sided. After seeing that, I wanted a neutral party for both the photos & video.

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

What irks me to this day was at the end of the reception, my mother handing me casual clothes and saying, "Get changed and help clean up." No riding off into the sunset in my wedding gown with my husband.

Aw. Maybe she's the type that thinks of marriage as just a fact of life and not a big romantic event??

 

[scrapquitler]

what would it be?

I would have taken the money and eloped!

 

[KiminChicago]

The date.

I wanted to get married on Christmas Eve. The church we attended then was a little rustic, and every year it was decorated with loads of poinsettas and two HUGE trees filled with gold ornaments and white lights (and those decorations wouldn't have cost a penny). I loved that church at Christmas, and Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. I had a vision of bridesmaids in dark green velvet with white roses and holly, and I would've had red roses. I thought it'd be wonderful to wake up together as husband and wife on Christmas Day, and then we'd always have our anniversary off work. Really, Christmas Eve was everything I wanted.

DH and I got married on January 14th (which meant that our rehearsal was on a Friday the 13th -- he never lets me forget that). We were lucky that the church was still decorated for the holidays, the pictures are beautiful. My attendants all wore hunter green velvet and carried bouquets with red roses, my bouquet had both red and white roses. My flower girl (my niece) wore a dress made with the same green velvet -- my mom and I ordered the fabric from the same bridal store and made the dress ourselves. There were only two things I would have changed. First, I too wanted holly and evergreens in the bouquets, but somehow the florist didn't have the same vision. Second, DH really wanted a live polka band and we even found one we liked but the only day they weren't free that month was the exact date of our wedding (they were playing for a 50th wedding anniversary).

My sister saved the dress my niece wore as the flower girl and gave it to me when my daughter was born. It made a lovely Christmas dress when DD was big enough to wear it.

Of course, we took a huge chance that there wouldn't be a huge snowstorm in January in Chicago, but the day we got married it was 40 degrees.

 

[Took]

I'd change everything, except the groom.

This is me! Well, the cake was good....However, I agree with t the one poster who said, the whole thing wasn't worth the stress! I wish I had just relaxed and enjoyed it more.

 

[Mrs. Darcy]

Second, DH really wanted a live polka band .

That sounds like it would have been sooo much fun!

 

[KiminChicago]

That sounds like it would have been sooo much fun!

Yeah, we would have really enjoyed the band. They were really good, and knew a wide variety of music (not just polkas). Instead we had a DJ who didn't know a thing about polka music. We had to provide our own polka CDs for him to play. Since DH's family is of Polish descent, some of the polkas were even in Polish. The DJ got them all mixed up -- there was one that was supposed to be a "last dance" polka that he played in the middle of the evening. All the relatives on DH's side were very confused, my relatives just kept dancing. The DJ wasn't awful, he did manage to keep people out on the dance floor, but the live band would have been really great!

 

[usnuzuloose]

My first marriage well lets just say I should have seen the red flags! My
second marriage I wish we would have booked another hotel.