mishaps and memories

Some friends and I were talking about my wedding last night at MK’s party (which was fantastic, by the way!), and they asked me if there were any major things that went wrong or I would do differently if I could do it again.

To answer the second question – NO, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. There were several times throughout the planning process that I wondered if I would regret rushing things and “running away” to the beach for my wedding rather than have a big blow-out wedding here in Huntsville like originally planned. I can CONFIDENTLY say that I do not have ONE regret and truly feel blessed that my eyes were opened in time to what was best for Jamie and me. My beach wedding was the DREAM wedding that I never dreamed of.  I get CHILLS just thinking about what an incredible and wonderful night it was! One of the neatest parts about the wedding is that I only had to introduce myself to ONE person at my wedding. I knew and loved the other 100 people. Awesome! My mom really humbled me on the way home from the wedding. I had just dropped Jamie off at the airport in Fort Walton and mom was riding with me home just in case I was “a mess” from leaving Jamie. Right around Montgomery I started complaining about being ready to get home already. She remarked “You know, it’s really cool to think about how many people did this exact same drive just for you and Jamie this weekend.” Humbling. J

To answer the first question – YES! There were several things that went wrong with the wedding, but they were all very minor and humorous. Everyone always told me “No matter how much you plan, things will go wrong!”, and they did, but I couldn’t care less! It adds to the story and they were things that were completely out of our hands! To humor you, I’ll share. J

#1 – the groomsmen ties that we ordered never showed up! I blogged about this a week ago! My mom, aunt, and me all were on our cell phones for an hour Thursday night calling every formal and department store in town asking “Do you have seven teal ties? Okay, I figured not. Thanks. Bye.” Thank goodness for a kick-butt MOH and sister who saved the day!

#2  – My cake had several significant mistakes. The middle layer was supposed to be square-shaped, and the bottom and middle tiers were the wrong type of cake and filling. Though the cake looked great and tasted good, it simply wasn’t what we ordered. We paid waaaayyyy too much for our cake because we were running out of time to find a baker, so we definitely felt we should have gotten what we ordered. Though it didn’t ruin my wedding AT ALL, I felt we deserved some money back since the cake had several big mistakes. I sent her a VERY nice email, and she basically responded with the most hateful email I have ever received IN MY LIFE! She had lost an uncle a few days before and lost her focus for my cake. I COMPLETELY understand being distracted by the recent loss of a loved one, but you are the professional! You should have had help. The words “immature”, “unexpereienced age”, “young”, “inconsiderate” were all words she used to personally attack me. I mean, how DARE I ask for an amount of money back when my cake was signifanctly different from what Jamie and I ordered?! I responded kindly and gave her my address to send the check. I refused to stoop to her level to deal with this minor issue. Sheesh!

#3 – Jamie and I only have two small pieces of wedding cake left to eat on our anniversary, rather than the traditional top tier! The cake cutter asked Jamie and I if we wanted to keep our cake topper, and we thought that meant the letters on top, which we didn’t want to keep so we said “no”. Two minutes later my sister violently grabs my arm yelling “You want your top cake tier, right?!?! THEY’RE CUTTING IT!” I ran over but it was too later. By “cake topper”, she meant “top tier”. I really don’t care though! The cake will be nasty and we don’t need a whole tier anyway! A bite will do to say we continued a one-year anniversary tradition!

#4 – We had some really, really AWESOME food. My dad did great with arranging a great menu with the catering company. They ASSURED us that they prided themselves in never running out of food at an event. Well, I found out later that we ran out of mashed potatoes! Apparently two middle school-aged boys took two ENTIRE plates of nothing but a mountain of mashed potatoes, which probably was equivalent to 15 servings. I found this hysterical!! Screw chicken and filet… they wanted potatoes!!!!

#5 – My dress got caught on the stairs walking down to the beach FOUR TIMES! There was a total of sixty stairs (thanks to my aunt for counting!), and I wondered exactly how my dress would work out on those stairs! It’s not like I could practice beforehand. Well, sure enough, it got caught between boards four times. Each time I just had to lean back and HANK it out. By the third time I was laughing out loud and so was everyone else. Jamie was worried that I’d be upset, but I didn’t care at all! It really was pretty funny and it definitely lightened the mood and made me less nervous! Everyone said my reaction was typical me –  just laugh and brush it off!

#6 – While the bridal party was lined up outside waiting to be introduced, the fire alarm started going off SO LOUD. After five minutes of trying to figure out how to turn it off, the owner gave them permission over the phone to cut the wires! It was pretty funny. Apparently there were problems with the pipes over in the carriage house, which set off alarms in OUR house. I was so glad my parents were laughing about it!

I think all involved with the wedding would agree that if those were my biggest problems I AM ONE LUCKY GIRL! I want to do another post about the highlights of the reception, so stay tuned!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!