And I’m kinda freaking out. Not because I have any doubts about being married to my Beloved Butthead, but because of the wedding.
I’m going to be wearing a big white dress and contacts and carrying fresh flowers that haven’t even bloomed yet.
Last year, it was so far away, but now its less than 3 months away.
I’m a smart, crafty, self confident woman. I set up and run biker charity runs. I’m planning our next October ride to San Diego as I type.
There is no reason for me to be freaking out over the wedding. Can someone hold my hand and tell me that everything will be fine? Please be sure to tell me that I won’t trip over my dress and that I won’t break out or start my moon cycle early.
I want to be married to BB, I don’t want to get married.
Not only will it be fine, but when it’s over, you’ll be partnered for (hopefully) the rest of your life! Something will go awry, but it won’t be huge; even if it is huge (my aunt’s wedding cake fell over when the delivery van swerved, for example), the end result will still be your marriage and subsequent lifelong happiness.
Don’t freak out or your blood pressure will shoot up and that vein in the middle of your forehead will be the star of all your close-up wedding shots. I would have done well to have a half glass of wine or something beforehand, but alas. Forehead veins can be photoshopped out, luckily.
I’m still freaking out, but you are right that that when its over, my BB will be mine for the rest of his life.
Wow about the wedding cake falling over, makes a note on my list of things that could go wrong. Hurry for more worries.
Thank you for holding my hand. My MOH is taking a nap now, we did dress fittings and girl talk and she’s wonderful, but I can’t show my fear in front of her.
You will have a beautiful wedding and you will be the beautiful bride marrying your Beloved Butthead Bill. There will be flowers and cake and champagne at a beautiful reception where your friends and family will laugh and dance and gossip for hours. It will be over way too soon, but then you will look forward to a life together filled with love, happiness, and cats. I predict you will live happily ever after.
Just accept that something will have to be different than planned. It’s ok! It’s like the surprise you know is coming but you don’t yet know what it is. You don’t want everything to be perfect. How boring! You want stories to tell, funny photos, memories. In 10 years the mishaps will be the best part of your wedding day. You won’t even remember all the other stuff. So what if the icing is the wrong color, you forget your garter, or your aunt trips down the isle? Just make sure you and your guy show up and that’s all that matters.
Thank you all so much. I know that things will go wrong, I know that its just a fancy dress day.
I needed some hand holding, though. I’ve never done this before, and I’m such a silly bint that I’m scared of nothing.
PurpleClogs Thank you so much for the reminder. Its the snafu’s that are treasured and talked about, not how good my BB looked in his tux.
AU, thank you. It was really nice of you to notice this thread. I really do like you and I’m happy that you are growing up to be a thoughtful and smart man.
Now, my MOH is awake and wants to go to the Cheesecake Factory. So much for the dress fitting!
I’ve officiated a number of weddings, and there was one consistency throughout them all: not one of the participants, bride or groom, remembered ANY of the day itself. It was a complete blur. Even looking at the photos/videos later, they were inevitably all “Wow, that happened? Wait, when was that??” It always cracked me up.
So don’t worry! Even if something goes amiss, you probably won’t notice or remember.
Oh, and for the love of all that’s holy, don’t lock your knees. I had a bride go down in front of me when she didn’t listen to that piece of advice.
Hubby and I got married last month and it was a helluva ride! Every time I mentioned the wedding, he got that deer in the headlights look. So I started calling it “a party with dancing and cake.” That worked.
You are going to have a wonderful party with dancing and cake. Remember that everybody who is involved in the planning and execution is a professional. They have done this a hundred times before! In fact, the only people who have no idea what to expect are the two of you. Sit back, let the pros do their job, then dance and eat cake.
I do weddings for a living. I have seen hundreds and hundreds of weddings, and many hundreds of nervous brides and grooms.
Something will go wrong. Go on and internalize this so you won’t panic when it happens.
You will not remember very much of the day. Well, obviously you will remember the experience, but you are not going to remember every single little thing so don’t stress about planning them now.
None of your guests care as much as you. Internalize this too. Nobody gives two shits about the colours, the flowers, the favours, the cake decorations, etc. You are never going to please everyone, and nobody is going to remember anything the day afterwards.
You may well trip or start your period early. But you won’t be the first bride to do so, nor the last. There is nothing new under the sun.
It’s only one day. It will be 24 hours long, just the same as the day before and the day after. And frankly, it is the least important day of the marriage. It is a big party, and a fun one, but ultimately it is just one day.
There, there {pats flatlined’s hand}, it’s going to be fine. Something probably will go wrong*, but you’ll deal with it and carry on. The day WILL go by in a blur; for me, the only real nervous part was waiting to walk down the aisle; once you start walking, it will all go by in a big damned hurry, and you’ll wonder what you were so nervous about.
*We picked up our wedding cake, and it had a big yellow umbrella iced on it - we chose a pretty shower cake for our wedding, but they had two shower cakes, and one was not pretty - it had a big yellow umbrella on it. They scraped off the icing and re-did it in about two minutes flat, and it looked just fine.
The other thing was our vows - we wanted to say traditional vows, but I think we ended up with Alberta’s provincial generic vows instead. It’s been a running joke for over 10 years now - we both come up with outrageous things to claim that the other vowed to do, since neither of us are sure what our vows were.
You’re really already married in all but name. Especially since you worry about his underwear. You’ve done the “in sickness and in health” bit. What I’m saying is, you’ve done the hard bit, just enjoy the big party.
This. You will have so many days of marriage, and your wedding will blur into the background of the entirety of your life together. Focus on the years of happiness to come, which is the important part anyway. Congratulations and best wishes to you both!
I completely blanked on my other standard piece of advice, which is:
EAT SOMETHING
Charge one of your bridesmaids, or mom, or someone else, with making sure YOU EAT SOMETHING. I have seen many many happy couples who are too busy talking and circulating and enjoying the experience, and wind up not eating ANYTHING, and then drinking too much champagne and generally being sick and unhappy. Seriously. Eat something. You don’t have to sit down and eat an entire platter of food, but you seriously need to eat something. It will be a long, exciting day, with champagne and cake and stuff, but you NEED to eat something if you don’t want to be miserable, hungry, and drunk on two flutes of champagne.
I dreaded my wedding day. Dreaded. Not because I didn’t want to get married, but because I really don’t like big fancy celebrations, and I REALLY don’t like being the center of attention. But It was a A Day For Other People, and so I put a smile on my face and a laugh in my voice and got through it.
And I’m told it was a lovely wedding, I really don’t remember much of it.
That was 22 years ago (as of this coming June) and it was definitely the right thing to do
There isn’t much that can go wrong that would be worse than you being freaked out. Put your caring into your marriage and let the wedding take care of itself.
And don’t let the dress fitting push you around. The reason they call it a “dress fitting” is that the dress is supposed to fit you, not the other way around.
Surely the most important bit of the wedding is that you two have fun- let the details go hang, and just enjoy yourself as much as you can.
Weddings where everything goes exactly to plan are dull anyway- I suggest a feral kitty ringbearer, for a really fun time for all. Anything else that went wrong would be quickly forgotten in the chaos
I’m getting married pretty soon too. In all honesty, I don’t care that much about THE WEDDING even though I love the guy I’m marrying and anticipate we will be together for life.
Sometimes I really regret having a large, traditional wedding. Quite frankly, I think it’s a huge waste of money. Even though I am female, I have never really been that into the wedding/princess thing. Alas, I let my fiance and his family talk me into booking a large reception venue they all loved, and as a result it has turned into a whole big production.
At this point a lot of people would be pissed if I were to cancel the wedding, but I often fantasize about how awesome it would be to cancel it, save a bundle of money (even with the lost deposits), and just have a very small, casual destination wedding or something.
It annoys me how there is all this social pressure and expectations around wedding/marriage stuff. Before we were engaged, people kept asking when we would get married. Now that I’m getting married, the comments about having kids have started. A lot of the family just assumes that I am going to be changing my last name. Little do they know that not only am I keeping my name, but I have gotten my fiance to agree to hyphenate our kids’ last names. I never even entertained the idea of changing my name, since my mother kept her maiden name back in the days before that was a normal thing to do.
All this being said, I think if I hadn’t done the big party, I might have regretted not having “the experience”. It’ll be interesting to see how things go and I think I probably will end up enjoying it. It’s going to be a beautiful ceremony and we’re going to try to make the reception fun. A few people I am looking forward to seeing are definitely coming.
