It's been two weeks since our wedding and I'm still doing the mental debriefing. John and I are very satisfied with how everything came together and have no regrets. But there is always that part of me that wonders what should we have done? What could we have done? Knowing what we know now, what would we have done? So, here's my list:
I would have contacted Claudine before going wedding dress shopping just to get an idea of what it would take to create a dress similar to the one I saw in a Martha Stewart Weddings magazine a few years ago. I was so timid about sitting down and meeting with a couture designer to see what sort of things could be done with the budget I had allotted myself.
I should have had my hair and makeup done at the church. I was so concerned about not letting my hair wilt and scheduled my appointments a little too late in the afternoon. If I had done my hair and makeup at the church, I wouldn't have had to worry about the Friday evening rush hour traffic and I wouldn't have been a 1/2 hour late showing up to the church. Luckily, Claudine had trained Karen how to get me into the dress and the pre-wedding shots I had imagined taking were scrapped, so we gained a good chunk of time. This was the one time that my nerves of steel turned into complete mush. I think I called John like 4 times while I drove to the church just to let him know that I didn't have cold feet.
To make the reception more meaningful, I wish I had asked each of the guests and absent family members to give me their favorite love songs so that we could play them during the evening. I was able to get a few suggestions on the play list and each time I heard one of those songs, I felt like the evening was really ours.
Similarly, it would have been nice to have some way to include several family members who couldn't attend the wedding. During the planning stages, I came across this arrangement that was made of painted birch twigs and had jewels hanging from it. I think it would have been cool to hang photos and little bits of advice from stems. This, of course, would have been a major undertaking. And since the theme of the wedding was "No stress" I had to scrap the idea. But I could have asked someone to take that on.
I should have asked the DJ to let the guests know that we had intentionally put two extra chairs at our sweetheart table so that people could come up to us and chit chat a bit while we ate. It took two little girls to break the ice for the adults. I also wish I had let guests know that the cola drink station was available the entire night and that they could continue fueling up throughout the night.
As for the line up of events, I think if we had the cake cutting before the toast, then people would have been able to enjoy it and get seconds. There was a significant amount of cake left over at the end of the evening and mainly because people were having so much fun at the different Monte Carlo tables that they forgot about cake. How that's possible, I don't know.
I would have worn waterproof mascara. I didn't have a Tammy Faye moment, but I was so worried about having one that it was distracting at times.
Had I asked my dad to lift my veil when he handed me off to John, I wouldn't have had that scary moment with the unity candle. For those of you celebrated by 20th birthday with me in the dorms in Ithaca, you remember that I've already had a burnt hair moment in my life and I definitely don't need another one. It came pretty close and all I could think was "my pretty veil!"
As for the things we kept and didn't change, we're happy that we did the following:
* Hiring Karen. Best money spent.
* Kept it small (small guest list, no bridal party). Keeping things small made the whole event more meaningful and gave us the ability to talk to everyone who attended at some point during the evening.
* Let the vendors choose their meals and give them place cards and favors. Every single vendor approached me at some part of the evening and thanked me for our hospitality. Karen said that most people don't offer meal choices or even serve the same food to their vendors as their guests. I know it can get expensive, but honestly, a well-fed vendor is a happy vendor. There were no hiccups during the evening and I don't think that's a coincidence.
* Chose a non-traditional first dance song. John and I aren't sappy lovey-dovey people, so going with one of those songs seemed off to us. When we saw our song, Adam Sandler's Grow Old With You from the movie "The Wedding Singer" as an optional background song for the cake cutting, we thought we should use it for our first dance. We first joked about it because we still felt obligated to go with a more traditional starry-eyed love fest of a song, but then we found the lyrics and really felt it captured us. Plus, there's a line that says something about holding the remote control and we had an engagement TV, so it just seemed perfect.
* Took time to enjoy the engagement period. I'm so glad that we had a few weeks in our engagement that wasn't focused on the wedding day. I think it helped us get a sense of what our marriage would be like. During that time, John and I both felt a lot closer to each other and that was needed when we got to the nuts and bolts of decision making.
* Got premarital counseling. Although required at our church, I'm still glad we went through it. The books we used really affirmed our decision to get married.
Well, that's about it. I'm sure that through the years, I'll have other items to add to the two lists. As always, I'll keep you posted....
