My Ten Worst Wedding Lessons (Worst)

Member Name: 2Quizzy

Product:	Worst
Date:	05/01/04 (2317 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You can have a great party and get lots of useless gifts

Disadvantages: THings will go wrong that you least expect.

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Yesterday was our first Wedding anniversary. It was a great day and full of wonderful memories, but like most weddings it came with it's fair share of disasters.

So as a warning to all would-be brides and wedding planners I am going to list the ten worst events of our wedding. This is done in the hope that it will make them all realise the things they need to be careful about as well as the fact that you really need to keep a sense of perspective and a sense of humour! No matter how well you plan things will go wrong and if you don't keep your perspective you may find yourself screaming down a telephone because the baker has lost a teeny weeny white plastic dove - like I did!

But here's the whole story...

(Note: For the impatient, just skip to the bottom of each section to get the single sentence lesson learned)

On the 1st moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Outdoor wedding venues *~

How wonderful to get married out in nature. Maybe a beautiful beach at sunset, or a lovely park full of trees and flowers. Neither my husband nor I are Church-goers and marrying in court in Africa is a very dreary event since you more or l
ess have to queue to use the same court buildings as the muggers, drunk drivers and other assorted offenders of the law.

We had already started sorting out a very nice spot beneath a huge tree in the park/gardens around a country restaurant. Then we discovered that in South Africa no marriage was valid unless it was held in a place with doors. Yes, you heard me, not a roof, not a minister or someone legally entitled to marry you - just doors. Apparently, after I had made EIGHT phone calls from the department of marriages, deaths and births (who knew nothing and hadn't a clue what the legalities of marriage ceremonies were!) to the private office of a court solicitor, to be legally recognised we had to have doors.

The old law being that it had to be held in a place where any public person passing could enter to witness the event freely. In other words, if you married in a church with CLOSED doors - you're not legally wed either! If you marry on the beach/in a park under a tent it's only legal if the tent has three closed sides so that the fourth open one becomes the "doorway". If you want the grand sunset on the beach bit without a tent you have to first get married in a church or court and THEN basically "renew" your vows on the beach. This means extra money, extra time and extra headaches.

So after three days of phone calls going in circles, family all arguing different suggestions and general mayhem we decided to have the reception at the restaurant where the glorious tree was and go for the bog-standard church wedding. Thank goodness the Best Man was a church-goer and his minister was a fantastic "laid -back" sort who was even willing to do cross-religion marriages no-one else would touch. He was a total romantic that loved doing weddings. He did a good job, but my husband and I still wish we'd found an easy way to have got married simple and out in nature like we'd wanted.
r>Lesson 1 - If you want an outdoor wedding - double check your country's laws!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 2nd moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Wedding invites *~

We were on a pretty tight budget, but still wanted things as nice as possible. After looking around at several printers who did wedding invites I realised that at least two of them were offering me computer graphics on plain old standard paper. Computer graphics I could get from the most basic clip-art, I might add! So we checked around and figured that we could buy fancy paper from an art shop, print our own from the computer and still be saving a lot of money.

GREAT! I looked around and finally found the "perfect" artwork and font. After figuring out how to layout and print so that the writing ended up the right way round inside the cards it was a breeze. We printed out the invites and return cards and they looked smashing.

So what was the problem? Well.. I never thought about the ink. My printer was a basic sort, basic water-soluble ink. Not too much of a problem, provided no-one got their wedding invites wet... except we posted them the week we had the worst rains and flooding in 50 years. Friends phoned in to say they had received their invites, but the pretty pictures and writing were melted away. Thank goodness most arrived ok, but some poor people were left with an envelope holding cards full of mysterious blobs and watery blotches. I got back blobby smudged reply cards where people were asking "what date/day/place? We can't read."

The pros of making your own cards is great. If you have a decent art program you can run up cards to defy the fanciest bought ones, with your own personal pictures and messages and your exact choice of colours. No arguing with printers over colours or font choices.

Lesson 2 - PLEASE make sure your ink is going to sta
y on the paper!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 3rd moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Wedding attendants *~
How hard is it to get a bridesmaid or maid of honour? Maybe easy in the movies of the 1950s, but in real modern day life it's a lot less easy.

I have four close friends, no sisters and only one female cousin. The closest friend is Muslim, but a relaxed version. She was quite delighted to be my Matron-of-honour, until her husband was transferred to another city about four months before the wedding. With the expense of selling and moving house, getting her kids into new schools etc it was just too much stress and I let her off the hook. Friends two and three I took out to lunch. They both kept looking at each other, finally friend three said in a rush, "Look, we want to come to your wedding but please don't make us bridesmaids."

On to friend four.. who is actually a much better friend than two or three, but she's Jewish and her family are very strict. No ways would they be happy with her even entering the church, let alone being my Maid-of-honour. That left my cousin who I hadn't seen in years and was now living in another city a three day journey by car away from us. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to get through for the wedding at all. My husband half hoped his sister would make it out, but at the last moment family health problems on her side kept her in the UK. Another family member had their mother as their matron-of-honour. A lovely gesture, but as my mum is VERY shy I knew she'd die a thousand deaths having to be on display like that.

It seemed as if I was going to have no-one. Then, two months before the wedding my cousin moved back. I asked and she agreed with delight. At such short notice we dashed about trying to get her a dress. It was November and the shops were almost all sold out of fancy dresses for Chris
tmas parties. The left-overs were wrong sizes, wrong colours. We tried dressmakers, but they said they had too many orders for Christmas. So I had to make the dress. My cousin is a party/nightclub gal so we went for a very simple dress that could be used again.

My cousin is also the original blonde that all the jokes were ever written for. I love her, but she was the world's worst bridesmaid. She never helped one bit, spent the day before the wedding having her nails done, spent the morning of the wedding having her hair done. Basically her only use was to carry through the colour scheme and hold my bouquet, which she nearly dropped anyway! On the day of the wedding she spent more time in the bathroom than I did and kept getting in my way putting on her make-up, fussing over her hair etc. At the reception she stayed as long as the speeches then wandered off to the nearby night-club. I don't think I saw her more than once after that.

Considering I bought and made her dress, my parents bought her shoes and accesories, bought her a gift and paid for the hairdresser I'd say she really was the most expensive and least functional item of the entire wedding day.

Lesson 3 - If you can't get a useful attendant rather have no-one at all!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 4th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Wedding reception *~

Once we decided that we wanted the country restaurant as our reception venue my dad and I went straight out to book it. The place had a big hall for conferences looking out across farmland and gardens and a smaller restaurant on the side. We discussed it with the owners and decided to book the main hall. We put down a deposit for about 1/3 the full amount and went away happy that this was sorted so easily. It was 6 months before the wedding and we already knew where the reception would be and had put in our order of what food
choices we wanted served. We went back to the hall twice after that to check the layout. They were providing tables and cutlery, glasses etc. We would provide flowers, decorations and napkins.

We checked the menu about two months before the wedding and then we went on with other wedding plans safe in our knowledge that everything was taken care of. We bought the napkins, sorted out decorations and flower arrangements for the hall and tables. All was going smooth and perfectly to plan.

On the Saturday, about 10 days, before the wedding I took my husband-to-be to see the hall as he hadn't yet seen it. A friend who was coming to the wedding was at the hall that day, very luckily as it turned out! She and her partner run a small extra business on the side doing the decorating for wedding receptions. In the course of chatting she said, "I think you should check your booking here." She said someone had phoned her wanting her to decorate their wedding on the 4th of January. She'd told them she couldn't as she was going to be a guest at a wedding herself that Saturday. In the conversation the woman mentioned the SAME restaurant as being her wedding venue as well!

Since there was the small restaurant on the side we figured they may have booked two weddings for the same day. A bit disconcerting as there wasn't much parking. So that Monday my dad phoned the owners. To cut a long and very ghastly phone call short - They said they had no written proof we had booked and as they had TWO other weddings booked for that day we would have to either agree to a tent in the farm field behind the restaurant or get a new venue. To say we went mad isn't even close! Total family breakdown at this point. We went from being devastated and stunned to mad angry, but the owners were adamant that we had no rights and hadn't paid a booking fee.

It turned out they had booked THREE weddings for that day and "forgotten"
; we'd booked! As we'd booked 6 months ahead, someone had forgotten to put our name into the book for the new year bookings and they'd booked again. They finally admitted they were to blame and offered us the restaurant for free, but this was only in a phone call 3 days later! At this stage that means it was only 5 days to the wedding and we'd already had to find a new venue. Plus I wouldn't touch their restaurant with a bargepole after the stress they put us through! So we never got our lovely big tree either for the wedding or the reception. :(

We did find a venue within the day. I'm going to put a "plug" here for the manager of the Gonubie Hotel in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Robin was a total darling. He calmed us down, got us drinks and then sorted out a conference hall at the hotel, a full menu with extra food for my vegetarian/kosher friends and basically gave us a superb reception all sorted out within only 7 days. He gave us free snacks and big jugs of fresh fruit juice on every table at the reception (mid-summer there in January) and he gave my husband and I a bottle of champagne and the use of a free bridal suite at the hotel for the night if we wanted. He also arranged hotel rooms for all our out-of-town friends and family and spent the evening of the reception dashing about like a mother hen making sure everyone was happy. Robin was our angel and I send him all our love and best wishes for giving us the best reception we could have asked for.:)

Lesson 4 - Make sure you recheck all bookings closer to the date, even if you have rechecked them a hundred times earlier.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 5th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Tables *~

The only problem with the new reception was that it had oblong tables. The original venue had round tables and we'd arranged flowers and decorations to suite round tables
. Robin the angel found us the name of a wedding hire company and we dashed there to see if they had tables. They said it was very short notice at only 7 days, but that they did have round tables. We booked them and left instructions that they were to be delivered on the eve before the wedding. Also the room was much bigger than the country restaurant hall and our decorations now looked rather pathetic. In to the rescue came the decorator friend, Nicky, who offered to add extra decorations as her "wedding gift" to us.

That Friday afternoon we all met at the hotel and started setting up the bridal table and getting the decorations up. This room had a stunning view of the ocean through wall length windows running the full length of one side. but some of that side overlooked a bog block of holiday flats so whilst we wanted the view we weren't keen on being the holidaymakers source of entertaining viewing for the night! Nicky used clever draping and fairy lights to block out the "bad" areas. She wrapped fairy lights around everything! Pillars, wreathes, doorways. The effect was pure magic on the night.

We had just finished putting up the last balloons when the tables arrived. The right amount, but the wrong size! We'd ordered 10 seater tables and these were 4 seaters! We'd never fit everyone in! WE phoned the shop, but it was closed. We finally found the private number of the owner and phoned her. She was very annoyed and said we had no right to bother her at her private home number. When we told her we'd got the wrong tables she said that she had no written proof that we'd ordered the Large tables. All she offered was that she could get more small tables to us in the morning and they'd be free of charge!

Since we only had enough flower arrangements for the large tables, extra tables would have meant some tables with no flowers, plus the smaller tables were so small the flowers we did have would h
ave taken up too much space anyway.

Once again - Robin and Nicky to the rescue! They found us a place that had the right size tables, a golf course. They don't normally rent out tables, but as Nicky had done lots of work for them decorating parties etc they agreed to let us have the tables for the Saturday if we picked them up and took them back ourselves. My dad, hubby-to-be and best man spent most of the wedding morning hauling tables back and forth.

Lesson 6 - Make sure you double-check every detail of every order and booking.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 6th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Chair back covers *~

This sounds awfully trivial, but when you're in the middle of wedding insanity molehills become Vesuvius. The people who we booked the tables from also came and took measurements of the chairs at the hotel so we could have chair back covers to fit. The hotel chairs were upholstered in a dark burgundy that clashed violently with the mauve and gold colour-scheme we'd picked so plain white covers tying in pretty bows seemed the best bet.

It seems the woman who measured the chairs measured wrong. The covers were way too small and wouldn't fit! We did finally figure a weird origami where we folded the covers over the backs and pinned them in place. It took a trip to the supermarket to buy two packets of small safety pins and a lot of sweating and folding to get them in place.

Lesson 7 - As said before: double check all the details of anything you order!

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On the 7th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* Wedding Cake *~

Hmm.. this one is a whole comedy/tragedy in itself, but I'll keep it short. We hadn't a clue where to get a cake. The chief secretary at my dad's work recommended the bakery where they got all
their office party snacks. He came around with a big portfolio of cake photos and we worked out a design that suited us completely. A simple ivory-coloured cake with a very simple gold bauble design on the sides. We had a half-moon of flowers to put on each tier and a wedding couple under a little arch with bells and doves for the top of the cake. The flowers would be placed on the cake at the hotel, but the little archway had to go with the baker so it could be "cemented" onto the cake with the icing. The order was to be picked up on the Friday afternoon before the wedding. I was worried about the arch, it was very delicate, but the baker promised it would be kept safe.

As it turned out my husband-to-be was in town on the Friday morning so he popped in to check if the cake was ready to take then. The bakery went into shock. Apparently the head baker was on holiday and had left the wrong instructions. They'd been told that the cake only had to be ready for SATURDAY afternoon! It was baked, but not iced. They promised they'd have it done by Saturday morning after hubby-to-be threatened grievous bodily harm to all bakers.

On Saturday morning my dad went to pick up the cake. He phoned me from the baker to say that they didn't have the arch, did I still have it? AAARGH! They finally found it after frantic scrabbling - but one tiny dove was gone from the top. DOUBLE AAARGH!! I yelled at the baker via my dad, then I yelled at my dad, my dad yelled at me and a lot of yelling took place until both telephones were slammed down. Bridal nerves aren't good at the best of times and I was home alone with disaster 9 at this stage and in a FOUL mood. My husband and dad dashed about town and found a replacement dove which they glued to the arch. The cake was also not ivory, as ordered, but cream colour that clashed a bit with the flowers. We hid it in a corner surrounded by fairy lights and it looked ok on the evening. After I slammed th
e phone down I felt dreadful that I'd yelled at my dad. My dad and I apologised once he returned and everything was fine. Nerves were pretty frayed all round that morning! Ironic that that was about the first time I ever yelled at my dad as we've always got on well and rarely even argue.

At the reception there was so much food that no-one ate the cake. This was a good thing as discovered it didn't taste good at all. Dry and overcooked. I found myself looking at it when we returned from honeymoon and wondering why we bothered. No-one wanted to eat it. On the plus side a homeless woman came past (this is in Africa, remember?) looking through the bins with about ten raggedy kids for food. We called her over, gave her a slice of cake, and asked if she'd like more. She said YES YES! So she staggered off with two full tiers in boxes and a whole bunch of very happy little squatter kids who probably have never eaten any form of cake in their lives before that day.

Lesson 7 - Don't sweat the details. No-one's going to notice a tiny plastic dove. It's not worth fighting over. Don't get a cake just for tradition sake if no-one's going to eat it. It's a lot of money on a useless item!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 8th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* The dress *~

In a fit of insanity I'd decided to make my own dress since we lived in a small town that had no wedding shops and I was used to making my own clothes. This actually went ok. My warnings here would be - be careful! I was. I made two bodices in cheap cotton material first as the pattern didn't fit properly. I even made an entire dress out of the cotton fabric before I laid one pin on the silk I'd bought for my dress. This way I sorted out all the problems before I touched the expensive material. The negative to this was that it took me much longer to make the dress a
nd since I did beadwork on the skirt and bodice I only finished it about a week before the wedding day. I did cry a few tears of frustration at points, like the day I realised I'd cut the hem too short, but a bit of lace around the bottom hid a fake hem and looked lovely.

Lesson 8 - If you make your own dress - Pick a pattern you know will suite you and isn't too complex for your level of sewing. Simple can look very elegant in the right fabric! Make a test dress out of cheap fabric before you cut up your precious fabric. And most importantly - be willing to improvise and cheat! My petticoat was a disaster of bad sewing, but it held the dress out and no-one got to see it, so who cares?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 9th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to me..

~* The veil *~

My mom does craftwork and made me a gorgeous pearl bead tiara. WE found that most places only offered white veils and I wanted cream or ivory. We finally found some pale gold net in a shop that was perfect. I found a website with instructions how to attach a veil to a tiara, downloaded it and basically left it there. With all the other plans and Christmas smack-bang before the wedding I never had a chance to attach the veil on the tiara. I did try it bunched up around me at a dress-rehearsal and it seemed ok.

I had planned to attach it the week before the wedding, but as one problem after another took up my time I eventually ended up sitting at home on my wedding day morning sewing it on. No big deal, how hard is it to sew a bit of net onto a headband?

HA!

It is much harder than I would have ever guessed. I struggled for about three hours just to get the gathers even and the blasted thing centred properly. By then I was hot, sweaty and stressed as I hadn't even begun getting ready myself. My mom was out decorating the tables that had only arrived that morning thanks to disa
ster 5, my dad and husband were out dealing with disasters 5 and 6 and my bridesmaid was having her hair done. Family and friends kept phoning. It was lovely to hear them, but I really could have done without the long conversations to long-lost relatives at that stage!

Once the veil was finally on there was another shock. It hung down as limp as a hot lettuce leaf. The gold net was much softer than the normal veiling. It had no "body" to it at all. Fortunately my mom had phoned from the hotel to check how it was going. I told her the latest panic and she remembered an old wives hint. She went to the pharmacy and bought a tin of hairspray. We sprayed the net about five times and it stood up perfectly after that. We also used the spray to "secure" the veil in my hair once it was in place. Marvellous stuff! :)

Lesson 9 - Remember: wayward hair, limp net = hair spray!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
On the 10th moment of wedding disasters the fates gave to my husband..

~* Killing with kindness *~

Once my husband-to-be had collected the tables and helped with a few other odd jobs he had nowhere to go. He'd been staying with my parents up till the wedding night, but all that bad luck stuff about not seeing the bride had my mother in a total panic. The Best Man offered his home for the day. The groom could spend the day with him and his family and wash and change there. Since they had to go together to the church anyway it seemed a perfect plan.

What we hadn't taken into account was the kindness of the Best Man and his wife. When the groom arrived at their house they gave him a cup of tea. Then they made the groom a huge lunch with lots of coke and followed by coffee. During the hours before it was time to go to the church they gave him several extra cups of tea and coffee.

When I walked down the aisle I was greeted by my darling with tears in his eye
s. Not from overwhelming emotions at seeing me in my stunning bridal glory, but by the overwhelming pain of having to stand there with a seriously over-full bladder!

He told me afterwards that when they first waited in the church back room he realised he needed the loo. He asked where it was and the reverend told him it was at the back of the church. So he had to walk out into the church and go down the main aisle to the back past all the guests. They all eyed him oddly so he made a formal announcement that he wasn't running away and would return!

Then he and the groom went and sat in the front aisle as it was close to the time for me to arrive. It WAS close to the time on the invites, but the reverend had warned me to arrive at least 15 minutes late as he'd found there were always guests who arrived late and you'd rather not have bride and late guests jostling each other down the aisle as he'd witnessed at other weddings. Plus I was running late having just finished spraying a veil! I finally got to the church about 20 minutes late and by then my poor groom was starting to feel bladder pain once again. Only now he could hardly stop the wedding to nip off to the loo! He endured a long ceremony, signing the register AND the photos before sprinting to the hotel loo. How he managed to look so calm and happy in the wedding pictures is beyond me. I can only think he'd moved into that state runners and sportsmen reach when they push pain to the limits.

Lesson 10 - Remember not to drink too much of anything, even tea, before the church service!

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When all is said and written it was still a wonderful day and many things went wonderfully right. So I give my wedding day, even with it's ten worst moments, an almost full star rating! :)

I got to see good friends and family I hadn't seen in years, we had a great party and the food was smashing
..

.. and I got to leave with the cutest guy at the reception. ;)