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I don’t want to give anyone the wrong impression here, I had a wonderful wedding day! However, this is a blog about the reality of weddings and it is meant to help others in their planning. So just this once I am going to tell you about the things that went wrong for us that day, only in an effort to help you avoid the same trappings. And then every post after this will be sunshine and lollipops, rainbows and puppy dogs, I promise!
This is quite a long post but there are lots of pictures further down so keep reading!
Our day was planned out as follows:
9:30 - everyone who was helping to decorate the island and reception site was to meet at my parents’ house to pack everything up and drive it to the site
9:45 - 10:30 - Miss Pumpkin organizes decorating and delegates jobs to her team of helpful volunteers at the restaurant, so that she can move on to the island
10:30 - 11:30 - Miss Pumpkin organizes decorating and delegates jobs to her team of helpful volunteers on the island so that she can move on to getting her hair done, etc…
12:00 - Miss Pumpkin and MOH meet hair dresser at hotel to begin getting ready
2:30 - Miss Pumpkin, MOH, Mr. Pumpkin and BM meet photographer to start pictures
4:30 - Mommas, Papas, and Grandmommas meet wedding party to take some quick photos before ceremony.
5:00 - all of us are picked up by the ferry and taken over to the island to get married!
It was a pretty good plan assuming that everyone who said that they would do something actually did it, and followed the schedule. Unfortunately, that did not happen. Almost everyone who said that they would, showed up at my parents’ house to help pack the cars–so we were all good until my MOH and I got to the restaurant and nobody else was there! Ahhhh! So, wonderful, amazing MOH and I spent the next two hours trying to decorate as much of the reception area as possible before we had to go get our hair done. I don’t know why the help did not arrive on time, and I don’t know what to tell you to help you avoid this happening to you other than to make sure that you can truly count on those people who say that they will be there to help.
Our help finally arrived at around 12:00, just as I was leaving, and I was so flustered at that point that I broke down like an idiot in front of everyone. I really wish that I had been able to keep it together, but I was so frustrated and disappointed at that point that I couldn’t hold it in anymore. So, with a big, “Where have you been?” I started sobbing. Crap! I am still so embarrassed that I did that - what a cliche, hey? Oh well - it’s done and I can’t take it back, so I guess I just have to accept the fact that I am a crybaby and move on.
This delay meant that I had about five minutes to try to explain what I wanted the newly arrived team to finish. It also meant that I never made it over to the island to give directions there and that the poor (but extremely understanding!) hairdresser had to sit and wait in the lobby of our hotel for 45 minutes with all of his gear. I just had to hope that Mr. Pumpkin had been listening well enough over the last year to give proper instructions in the little time that he had left over there before he, too, had to leave to get ready.
I had packed everything in separate and well-marked boxes, so I was hoping that it would all go okay–and for the most part it did. But some things were either not done at all, or not done as I wanted, and that is disappointing to me. Not in the bridezilla “It has to be perfect or I’m not happy” kind of way but in the “I have spent the majority of the past year of my life and a considerable amount of money on these details, so it is disappointing to not have them look as planned or to not even be set out” kind of way. Some instructions I gave were just flat out ignored, which is also maddening. I am really trying to not let it bother me but as I am starting to see more and more photos of the day and the details, things just pop out at me and I think, “Oh, that wasn’t how that was supposed to look” - is that horrible of me? We put so much time, effort and money into it that it is just hard to say, “oh well”. I will get over it eventually, but at the moment it still stings a bit. I now fully appreciate the need for a DOC. If you can afford one I strongly urge you to get one, it would have fixed most, if not all, of these and similar mistakes to have someone else there who really knew what I wanted and who could give proper instructions.
A short list of decorating mistakes and some pictures:
- the aisle was not lined with rose petals; they just sort of sprinkled some down randomly and we ended up with about 5 bags of unused petals
- The vase on the table was supposed to have the sprig of flowers in it. I guess they forgot to do that, because when we got up there to sign the marriage license, the vase was on its side with nothing in it. There were also no chairs for us to sit on while we were signing.
- The refreshment table was way off to the side. I had rented those tables and linens so that the table would be more over where the guests were - otherwise I would have just used the tables that were already there.
- Only about one third of the paper lanterns were placed inside the tent. The rest were put up outside the tent on the outside of the restaurant. Why, I do not know…
- The pashmina basket was placed out all day rather than just after the sun went down. This meant that all of the pashminas were taken by the people who simply got there first, not by those who really needed them. I suppose I should be pleased that they were such a hit but some of the people who took one actually left before the sun went down so that was disappointing…
- The napkins were rolled up kind of funny and placed in the wine glasses on the table. Apparently this was done by the restaurant staff. It was fine, I just wouldn’t have done it like that and it totally takes away from our centerpieces.
- No rose petals or tealights were placed around the escort card display, wish tree, card box, or candy buffet, so the tables look pretty plain. The escort card displays were also supposed to be up on easels.
- No rose petals on the cake table, either. At least there were some tealights; however, they were the wrong colour of pink. Isn’t our cake wonderful though?! After all of the changes we made early on in the process I couldn’t have been happier with the outcome. Can you tell which layer is real and which ones are fake?
One of the most disappointing things was to find out that our ceremony programs were never handed out. The programs were so beautiful, and we had paid about $300 for them, so I am really disappointed about that oversight. I am considering including them in our thank you cards, but that would mean that I will need to buy different envelopes for the thank yous (so it will increase our postage). Any other suggestions on what I should do with them now? Here are some pictures so that at least you guys get to see them…
Also, on top of the decorating mishaps, our parents never showed up to take pictures with us before the ceremony. I still don’t know how that happened, but eventually we called Mr. Pumpkin’s dad and he said that everyone was already on the island waiting for us to arrive. That miscommunication means that neither Mr. Pumpkin nor I have any pictures of just us and our parents, besides the ones of us walking down the aisle. That’s something that I know I will miss down the road.
Not that I want to start a ranting session here but do any of you newly married brides out there have advice on how to avoid things that went wrong at your wedding?
*The 5th Dimension
Miss Pumpkin, I really feel for you, even though I know that those aren’t super huge disasters, just disappointments that they didn’t turn out the way you had envisioned them. I’m feeling nervous now! But I do have a DOC lined up already - thanks for the tip!
My cake was wrong, I gave a simple design of the cake I wanted and what we got was a bootleg version of it. I wish they would had called me to say say hey your design is too hard for the baker can you pick somthing else!
I’m so frustrated for you! I’m sorry!
But I bet only you knew those things were missing. The tables looked pretty still. But I understand how all the money down the drain is frustrating too!
Maybe have a Wedding Video/Picture watching party and hand out the programs then!?
I’m so sorry that happened! But I think by writing this, many of us will keep it in mind to hire a DOC, or ground it in people’s heads what their responsiblities are that day! HA!
Mrs. Pumpkin I appreciate your frankness and understand your frustrations. This was one of the more helpful posts in a while. Not that I don’t appreciate which of the “50 purses I love, oh which will I ever choose”, but this was seriously helpful. THANK YOU. I knew I needed to write out explicit directions with pictures but was avoiding it…No more!
My flowers were wrong. I had approved a test bouquet, but the girl mistakenly thought I had changed it. It wasn’t a huge deal, but I picked certain flowers to honor my mom and both grandmas. Thank goodness I didn’t put anything in the program about it!
Even though we said we weren’t doing parent dances, my MIL dragged my dad up to the dance floor at the end of our first dance, like right at the end of the song when we were dipping. So we have no decent pictures of the finale that we worked so hard on, thanks to her.
We had a DOC, but these things happen. I guess for the MIL issue, I would have been extra super clear!
Miss Pumpkin,
I can completely understand your being upset after all of those things didn’t go as planned. Everyone here knows the time, effort, love and money that go into planning a wedding. It’s such a huge piece of your life, but that said I want you to know that your wedding was still beautiful. If those photos had been up without the captions of what you would have liked I never would have noticed anything being incomplete or wrong. Your wedding looks unique and very nicely pulled together.
So don’t let yourself only remember the stressful parts and what might have been (easy for me to say, right?) Your wedding was beautiful and you’re married to the man that you love. That’s what’s most important. 
Miss Pumpkin, THANK YOU for writing such an honest and helpful post! My fiance and I decided to spend $500 of our wedding budget on a DOC, and this has just reinforced my belief that it will be the best wedding money we spend. Not that a DOC can avoid all issues, but it can help a lot.
Oh…what a bummer! I am sorry for you & don’t think you are being overly sensitive at all. You worked very hard & a vision is a very important part of the day. I hope you can find some way of using the programs.
Thanks for all of the information. You’ve helped me feel better about hiring a coordinator and keeping the details simple. This way there is less to be dissapointed about.
Ladies, whatever you do, SOMETHING will go wrong. So — prepare what you can, and day-of, just let go, put the “blinders” on so you can ignore the little details, and just keep looking at your new husband and smiling. So long as the guests feel welcomed and appreciated, the other stuff just falls by the wayside.
But I, too, would be annoyed the programs didn’t get handed out! Seems like a super-obvious thing (whereas napkin placement could understandably be more open to personal artistic variation, ha ha). Might as well mail them, though, like you are thinking.
I can’t afford a DOC, but my venue had a very reasonable rate to rent it out the day before the wedding. Therefore I can be on hand to supervise all decorating. I even scheduled my mani/pedi for two days before so I can spend the day before on decorating and the rehearsal alone. We are having an outdoor ceremony and we won’t be able to leave stuff outside overnight, but I’m hoping to do a trial set-up, so everyone who will be doing it will know how it should look.
Still, it’s good to recognize that nothing ever goes completely as planned. It makes it a little easier to get past things when they do happen.
I think everyone has some things go wrong. No matter how much you plan, how many notes you take or lists you make, things will get confused, forgotten, or just done wrong. My “issues”: everyone was late getting ready in the morning, so there were fewer formal photos than I wanted. My “here comes the bride” banner was left home. There was wine for the Jewish ceremony–I can’t have even a sip of wine for medical reasons so I requested juice or Sprite, but it was too late when I realized, so I had to pretend to drink. Almost no one saw the wish bowl or realized what it was for. And although the confetti cones were passed out, no one tossed it when we walked back down the aisle. Finally, although I spent a lot of time doing my seating plan, they put us at a sweetheart table, which I specifically didn’t want! I wanted us to sit with our guests. But, hey, at least my cake didn’t fall splat on the floor during the cake cutting, which happened to a bride I know on LIW.
My wedding day was still the best and happiest day of my life! These were really only minor issues.
maybe you could use the programs to decorate a room by lining them along the top edge of the walls? you spent so much money on making them perfect that for them to go unseen or unused would be such a waste.
Thank you for doing this.
Mrs. Pumpkin,
Thanks for posting this. I plan on making an itinerary for everyone but seeing this makes me realize that I just can’t expect things to be perfect. Something I am really relieved about is that I can hand all the little things over to my event manager that day. I just don’t want to be disappointed when ppl don’t follow through. The only thing I have for a guest to do is to bring the programs to the church. I think the church staff will pass them out. (I think) I am so sorry to hear your $300 programs didn’t get passed out! They are beautiful! I am intentionally printing less. I notice many ppl don’t pick up a program or share with their sig.other so I intentionally only had 50 made instead of 100. (also, 20 of the guests are my bridal party/immediate family who don’t need one anyway) If it’s any consolation Mrs. pumpkin, even without the flower petals and the funny folded napkins, your reception looks gorgeous with all the details that are there. The candy buffet, the lanterns, place cards look neat. The pew flowers and wreathe are gorgeous!!!
I’m so sorry miss pumpkin. but everything looked beautiful nonetheless.
To everyone who wants to save $500 by not hiring a DOC, this post was your warning.
It was hands down the BEST PURCHASE of my wedding.
Honestly, my wedding went off really well. I guess the only problem we had was with the photos. When we got to taking the photos we started editing our list on the fly because it was all taking a lot longer than we had planned. Everyone was a pretty good sport about it. I thought we did a pretty good job of pulling it together.
I have attended a number of wedding that relied on volunteers and have been expected to volunteer because I was an out of town guest. I really tried to avoid putting anyone in that situation.
I mean no offense to anyone who needs volunteers due to financial reasons. I did have a few volunteers help out but for very specific jobs (some musician friends who played for the ceremony for example) and limited time commitments.
Thank you for sharing so much with us. You seem to be handling it well and I am sorry things didn’t turn out exactly (or closer) to how you wanted.
great post. Sorry you had to experience that frustration! I can relate somewhat… for the most part I was really calm on my wedding day and most of the minor mishaps didn’t bother me at all. For me the most frustrating thing was the DJ at the reception. I had wanted to do the music on my own because music and dancing is really important to me. I went to the trouble of downloading songs and making up a bunch of playlists for various parts of the evening. My parents were worried about the hassel of DIY so we ended up hiring a friend of theirs who does DJing at weddings. I emailed him specific plans for the evening, and playlists of song requests for the different parts, figuring that if I was specific enough I wouldn’t have to deal with any cheesiness. We discussed things ahead of time but unfortunately day of he seemed to be clueless! He even had burned CDs with all our music selections but still kept playing things I didn’t want or like, and screwed up the order of events - constantly approaching me asking when I wanted to do the next thing. The photographers then started asking me when things were happening too, saying the DJ didn’t know. It was annoying and in the end a bunch of requests I had didn’t get played. He also left long pauses between songs which would clear the dance floor. Then, when he played “Shout!” to get people back out there, he chose a time when my husband and I were outside dealing with our luggage! He even announced “let’s have a round of applauce for the bride and groom!” when we were obviously missing from the room.
I was frustrated for awhile because I had put so much effort into buying and organizing the music. But after awhile that frustration has faded - especially because everyone had a great time anyway, and when I look back on the day now I just think of all the fun things and how happy I was. So I’m sure the blues will fade soon, Mrs Pumpkin! Advice from my experience: I also did not have a DOC which would have helped. If you don’t have one, designate troubleshooting issues to various people. If I had printed out my timeline and given it to a friend I could have made them deal with the DJ, instead of getting stressed out at the reception and taking time away from mingling with the guests.
I would have cried if my peeps had show up 2 hours late. they are lucky you did not beat them up.
The hotel that our wedding was at put me in a room where you needed a key to even get to the floor. Everyone was running around getting things ready, and if someone needed to bring me anything, I had to wait by the stairs to let them onto the floor. I had no way of knowing what was going on downstairs, if everything and everyone was ready. I spent a lot of time before the ceremony pacing the room alone wondering what was going on. We ended up starting rather late because of it. Then, the ceremony was supposed to be outside, but it was windy and the staff decided to set up inside without telling me. But once everything began, none of that mattered. It was a beautiful day.
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Mrs. Pumpkin, Saskatchewan, Canada Blogger Since: April 10, 2007 Age and Occupation: 28, Lawyer Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Farmer Engagement Date: July 14, 2006 Wedding Date: June, 2007 About Me: I love movies, music and I am addicted to TV. When I have some spare time I also love scrapbooking and making personalized greeting cards and above all playing Hide & Seek or Duck, Duck, Goose with my two adorable nieces!
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