Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Wedding Wednesday: Blooper Edition

Our wedding was awesome, and not to sound cliche, but it was seriously the best day of our lives. But even a wonderful wedding that you planned for 17 months won't go off without a hiccup or two. So I thought I'd share some bloopers, disasters, blunders, debacles, hiccups, or whatever you want to call them, to show that even though some things will happen that are out of your control, you will still remember the day as perfect.


I'll start off small, with something I mentioned in my Getting Ready post. Notice how the groomsmen aren't wearing suspenders? Well they were supposed to be but they couldn't because their pants were all missing inside buttons to attach the suspenders, even though Mens Wearhouse was supposed to have done those alterations. I found this out about one hour before the wedding was supposed to start, but I was SO calm on the wedding day (Brian asked if they drugged me haha) because I was just so darn happy to be getting married, that I just shrugged and said "oh well!" My sister frantically tried to sew the buttons into everyone's pants, but 1 person times 6 buttons times 4 pairs of pants is just way too many buttons to sew in 1 hour, I will also mention that they gave a groomsmen the wrong pants which we luckily realized two days before the wedding, and if you look closely, one of our groomsmen (I won't tell you which one) even has a slightly different tie and I didn't even notice that until Brian mentioned it to me like a week later when I was looking at pictures online! Oh, and if you look, all the groomsmen and the groom must have thought it was appropriate to keep their wallets/phones bulging in their front pockets *face palm*

We specifically used Mens Wearhouse because they are supposed to be (key words- supposed to be) super organized with group numbers and making sure people all over the country receive the same clothes that we painstakingly picked out in the store (our groomsmen were from New York, New Jersey, and Colorado, so we didn't see their clothes until the wedding weekend). But honestly. the groomsmen looked great regardless and no one even knew that they were supposed to be wearing suspenders, so it all turned out fine.


Another hiccup that could have been wayyyy worse than it was the fact that my dress ripped. Yup, the seamstress I chose that had wonderful reviews moved the back panel on my dress over and only sewed it on with one row of stitches (!!), so when my mom and one of my bridesmaids tugged it gently, it tore! Luckily they finagled it so you couldn't even notice when it was all said and done and they didn't even tell me until the dress was all laced up so no one was any the wiser!


Let's talk about the weather that day (I know I've talked about it before but in a bloopers post it needs to be mentioned). Our ceremony was outside and it was COLD! We expected it to be in the 50s, but it was in the low 40s and with the wind whipping around like it does in south-central Pennsylvania, it felt like it was in the 30s. We provided blankets and most people knew it was going to be cold so they wore their winter coats, but man oh man my bridesmaids and I in sleeveless dresses were ice cubes. The wind whipped one of the two doors shut to the chapel where we were standing, so that's why it's shut in many of our pictures. One of our lovely photographers tried to re-open it, but the wind in PA is not to be messed with, it just immediately slammed back shut.


We also don't have as many posed/formal pictures as I would have liked, because it was that cold, and no one could stand out there any longer. My sisters ran away after just a few pics, and eventually even Brian and I had to throw in the towel and go inside, get warm, and have some appetizers. Again though, things could have been MUCH, much worse, as it actually snowed the next day, and it drizzled rain that morning and even 30 minutes before the ceremony started, so we were very fortunate to have dry skies. Our pictures are beautiful and honestly, how many posed pictures do we really need anyways?


Oh, and we definitely have our share of awkward photos. For example, look at my arm in that group photo. Why did I think that was appropriate? It's also hard to know what to do with your hands when all eyes and cameras are on you, so Brian and I have lots of pictures from friends and family like the one above where we are doing weird things with our hands. I love it though, because it's so us.

The beautiful front entrance to our ceremony/reception site- I don't have any pictures of our limo/shuttle

The biggest almost-disaster involved our transportation. You may want to skim past this paragraph if you are soon-to-be married because if I was about to get married soon I don't know if I'd want to know about this particular debacle. Background: a year, yes a year, before the wedding, we went to a local golf resort with Brian's parents to discuss having many of our events there/using many of their services. We blocked off almost all the rooms in the hotel for our guests for that weekend, we booked our rehearsal dinner, Sunday brunch, and Groom's golf outing at their resort, and we scheduled limo and shuttle services through them.

The transportation services were especially important to us, given that almost every single one of our guests was staying at the hotel and everyone needed safe, reliable transportation to, and especially from, the wedding. We mailed the shuttle schedule to everyone with our invitations, wrote it on our wedding website, and met with the event coordinator again three weeks before the wedding to make sure that everything was set up, and we reiterated how important transportation was to us.

The day of the wedding, the guests were all in the lobby at the appropriate times (yay guests), but apparently the shuttle had broken down the NIGHT BEFORE and NO ONE at the resort thought it was necessary to tell me, Brian, or our parents. Nope, Brian's mom found out when she was already at our wedding location and people rolled up in a 12 person VAN, yes a van (with the rude driver's "friend" hogging up 2 seats and eating chips the entire time), and she called to find out what the crap was going on. Why the hotel thought it was appropriate to send a van instead of a 36 person shuttle and not even tell us was beyond me, but they did. His mom was furious and told them they need to keep the limo running too because there was no way that everyone was going to end up getting to the wedding on time if only a van holding 10 guests was running, when we expected a 36 person shuttle.

This all happened unbeknownst to me until about 5 minutes before the ceremony was about the start, and the only reason they told me was because we ended up having to start the wedding 10-15 minutes late because of the whole debacle. It was so ridiculous and was not supposed to happen that way because we specifically planned for transportation.

But there's more. By the end of the night they still hadn't fixed their huge mistake, and it got so late after everyone left that Brian, his parents, and I (my parents took all of our gifts to their home in their car) ended up riding in some nasty, crumb-filled Uber back to the hotel. Our guests got to ride in limos (and that van) and the bride rode in some guys dirty Dodge Durango! Apparently I was super chill about it though and I was still on such a wedding high that I didn't even care, but Brian's parents definitely got their money back for the whole fiasco!!


All in all, our wedding turned out wonderfully and was so much fun (see Getting Ready, Ceremony, Reception Part 1, Reception Part 2), and no one even noticed any of these mostly minor things! I hope I didn't scare any brides-to-be, I was actually trying to make a point that even if bloopers happen, which they will no matter how organized you are, at the end of the day, you're still married and you will remember the day as the best day ever and want to do it all again, EXACTLY THE SAME, debacles and all, I promise!!
post signature

11 comments:

  1. No wedding goes off without any hiccups!! I too had a weather issue...I got married in March in Southerm NY, similar temps to you, and when we got to the venue they didn't shovel the snow off the patio so all our group shots are facing a wall not the beautiful water fall they advertised us. I was so angry b/c mid wedding they shoveled it. I can't believe they didn't tell you about the shuttle!! That happened to my cousin's wedding too. I'm so glad your dress was fixable and I think the guys still look handsome without the suspenders!! =)

    ReplyDelete
  2. There always seem to be little things that go wrong at weddings!! Thankfully everything worked out :)

    Glad the dress situation worked out. My mom actually burned a hole in my veil about 15 minutes before we were supposed to leave our house...she was trying to steam it with an iron and bumped into it. We were able to position it and no one even noticed- but was definitely a moment of panic. Especially for my poor mom who felt horrible!

    ReplyDelete
  3. You cant even tell that anything happened to your dress in the pictures. It sounds like you have had a good attitude about the snags. Something isn't going to go off just as planned and you just gotta roll with it. Your wedding was beautiful regardless!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a good idea! I thought my last post would be next week with the reception but I have some definite bloopers! But I do agree, it was still the best day ever and when you're on such a high you can't really be too upset by them!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh man, of course guys don't think about their phones being in their pockets, and even if they did they probably wouldn't care. You guys look great for it being so cold - that is super cold!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Laughing about the guys with the the wallets in their pockets-I wouldn't have noticed that! I was in a December wedding in a sleeveless dress, and I remember how cold it was! So crazy about the transportation-so glad your in laws got their money back after that madness!

    ReplyDelete
  7. that is absolutely insane about the transportation snafu! glad they got their money back, i would have been livid. my husband and his guys kept their stuff in their pockets too, hilarious! i'm glad it was still a perfect day, debacles and all, for you - thats what matters!

    ReplyDelete
  8. You scared the shit out of me with the transportation part... but luckily we aren't doing a hotel/shuttle! lol PHEW!

    ReplyDelete
  9. When you write them all down it sounds bad but at the time everything seemed to go as planned and your relaxed attitude helped you have all the wonderful memories of that magical day!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Sometimes the things that go wrong are the funny stories that you end up remembering later on down the road. One of our groomsmen had their pants rip before the wedding, so the wedding coordinator at the church had to sew them back together. Having those types of people around during the big day is always important! I'm sure you were freaking out about your dress ripping, but you can't even tell that it happened! Your mom and your bridesmaid did a great job fixing it!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Oh my goodness I love this post! I plan on doing a blooper post at the end of my recaps, and I'm so happy to see someone else that did one! There were so many things that went wrong during our wedding, but looking back it made it fun (at least some of the things- like the 7 tornado warnings and the state of emergency telling people to get in their basements....at my ALL outdoor wedding haha)

    ReplyDelete

I love reading your comments and I always respond, promise! Just make sure you're not a no-reply blogger :-)