Mrs. Bee here.
Miss Lollipop linked to a metafilter thread earlier today that asked, “Do you regret having spent all of that money and energy on your big, splash-out wedding?
Commenter aoedorothee wanted to hear weddingbee readers’ responses, so I’ll start!
I don’t regret any of the time that I put into planning our wedding (approx 6 months), because going through the process helped me a great deal in launching weddingbee. Being one of the first of my friends to get married, I really had no idea what I was doing back then… but now I live, eat, breathe, drink weddings. 
If I could do it again, sure there are things I would have done differently, spent less on, etc. But overall, I don’t really have regrets about our wedding.
For those of you that are already married - do you regret the time and money you invested into your wedding?
i’m getting married in three months and i’m already starting to question in the back of my mind if maybe i should have just taken a down payment for a house. i’m excited for the party and all, but a house is much more *real*.
So far, not at all. Of course, my wedding was all of 5 weeks ago, so I may harbor some regrets later. I know there were some decisions I made early on in the planning, that come wedding time seemed silly (looking back, I don’t know why it seemed important to me to have the attendants in matching shoes), and it’s possible that I’ll look back on other things with that kind of attitude. But for now, I’m glad we did it how we did it.
Wedding was earlier this year and I’m already starting to regret taking too long to put together the photo album & scrapbook. Wedding burnout struck.
From the flip side… We decided to skip the big wedding and get married on a tiny island near our home city with all of 9 people in attendance (including us and the officiant!). It was a really great day…
Logistically, financially, and because I wasn’t sure I had the fortitude for wedding planning (!), it didn’t make sense to have a bigger wedding at the time. BUT! I love weddings, and every time I go to one I wonder what a bigger one would have been like, Tarlonda-style :
So I definitely have “feelings’ about this, but I don’t think they are regrets, exactly 
No, I don’t regret anything. I spent seven months planning, which I’m happy about–if it had been a year or more, I might have regretted the length! As Mrs Bee said, we might have done some things differently, knowing the things we learned during the planning process, but I don’t regret our choices, they were the best ones we knew to make at the time. I really loved my wedding, and I can’t think of anything I truly regret. Budget-wise, we kept our wedding close to our original budget of $10K, and I don’t regret spending that money at all. It was our once-in-a-lifetime wedding, it was worth it. And although it wasn’t cheap, I’m very glad we chose to honeymoon at the Sandals Grande on St Lucia, we had a near-perfect honeymoon. (It would have been perfect if my husband had succeeded in waterskiing. But, hey, we have many more vacations as a married couple coming up!)
We recently decided to delay our wedding a year because it was becoming entirely too stressful. Part of me is excited that I can take my time and enjoy wedding planning, I hated feeling so rushed. Another part of me wants to care about other things and be done with it already.
I wish there was a thread about what was a hit and what was a flop at your wedding.
Oh, what I would give for a house. I just had a tiff with my DH and we realize that between school loans, still paying for the wedding after all the gitft s have been received, and trying to move…it ain’t gonna happen. I would totally have paid more attention to how i was spending money and probably not have had a planner for the full engagement. I would have paid for her the month of…but who knows these things unless someone tells you AND you’re not too stubborn to listen.
It WAS a beautiful wedding, but we could have done with a lot less and it still would have been beautiful. Either way, it’s all done and we are just making it work like a married couple should. Hope this helps!
We had a smaller guest list (about 60) which allowed us to do more extras for ourselves and our guests (OOT bags, 5 course meal, next day brunch etc). We took over a year to plan, sticking to a budget and breaking up he expenses over the course of the planning, leaving us without any debt. The end result was that we got the elegant wedding we wanted, without any debt hanging over our heads. (The small guest list being key.) I would do it again in a heartbeat. Months later we are still getting comments on the details.
We didn’t spend a lot of money on our wedding…. but I did put in a lot of time with all those DIY projects. I don’t regret any of it, and there are some detaily things I might do differently if I had a chance (and seeing everyone’s cute ideas on weddingbee sure isn’t helping! )
There are some things I regret but suprisingly the money and time spent are not regrettable. $30K for 65 people was extravagant but we live in New York so there’s not much you can do for less. My dress was only $400. All the money went to the food and the beautiful venue. It was beautiful. I totally overplanned so that when a few things went wrong there were a bunch of things going right. I regret having bridesmaids and spending so much time worrying about how hammered my brother was getting. Just relax and enjoy it.
nope - it was worth every penny and worth the wait! there were some things i would’ve done differently, but the money on those was negligible.
I would not have purchased a second wedding gown or a third for that matter and i wouldve UNDERestimated the final guest count for the caterer - so many ppl didnt show up!
regrets…
1. not having professional videographers…
2. having a sign-in frame instead of stoopid useless guestbook…
3. not doing more diy projects…
4. planning a borabora honeymoon 
5. should have invited 5 people that i didn’t…
1. Letting my mother in law plan everything, to the point where she overtook the whole thing, all the while making snide comments.
2. Not having a reception
3. Not having a DJ
4. Not having more attendants
Basically, I would change everything about my day. I was in college when I got married, so I really don’t think it was right for me to get married at that time. Had I been out of school and working and had more money of my own to put forth into the wedding, I would have had the wedding of my dreams. I probably wouldn’t have married my husband though, because my MIL and I would have tried to get in the way. The only reason why I let her is because she had the checkbook.
My advice to you: If you have ANY regrets….don’t do it. And….they don’t change once you say ‘I do’. Even if your relatives and closest friends say they will.
Good luck girls!
1. Letting my mother in law plan everything, to the point where she overtook the whole thing, all the while making snide comments.
2. Not having a reception
3. Not having a DJ
4. Not having more attendants
Basically, I would change everything about my day. I was in college when I got married, so I really don’t think it was right for me to get married at that time. Had I been out of school and working and had more money of my own to put forth into the wedding, I would have had the wedding of my dreams. The only reason why I let her is because she had the checkbook.
My advice to you: If you have ANY regrets….don’t do it. And….they don’t change once you say ‘I do’. Even if your relatives and closest friends say they will.
Good luck girls!
I’m so happy, yet envious that none of you have so many regrets as I do about my wedding. I came here looking for solidarity. But I suppose that it’s good that I didn’t find it.
The greatest part of my wedding day was that my DH and I got married. I love him and I love that we’re married. Our decision to get married was the best that we ever made, even three years later.
But I did not have the wedding of my dreams. I was a grad student in an intensive one year program the same year that we were planning our wedding. I made enough money to contribute to the bills; he was the primary earner and we barely made ends meet. We made the majority of our wedding decisions based on our limited budget, which meant compromising a lot of what I had always envisioned for my “dream wedding”, including venue, my dress, and our photographer.
We “honeymooned” with friends, but it was nothing near what we needed: a trip to paradise, just the two of us.
My in-laws made my life a living hell. I regret not having enough time so as to not trust them with any part of the responsibility of the planning.
My hair was awful, my husband and I were stressed out on our own wedding day, but everyone else had a good time. Our guests try to tell me that they had a great time and that we looked like we were having fun, but I see the majority of the photos and I cringe at the stressful expressions on our faces.
In the end, I’m happily married, and my husband and I, because we didn’t blow our savings account on our wedding, were able to buy a nice house less than a year after our wedding. To be honest, it astounds me when I read here about how much money y’all spend on your weddings.
In my opinion, I feel that the majority of the posts here are too focused on the details and not focused enough on the meaning of the event. Then again, I’ve been here in this fury of wedding planning and detail orientedness. It sure woulda’ been nice to know about this site when I was planning my wedding in 2004/2005.
In the end, we got married. Our marriage is great. We didn’t blow our life savings, but we did compromise a lot of what we wanted for a once in a lifetime rite of passage. My unofficial maid of honor, who is a blogger here, was the best maid of honor there ever has been (and I get to return the favor for her, eeee!)
My one piece of advice for brides-to-be: do not attempt to be the guest of honor and the event planner all in one day. It’s stressful and nearly impossible for you and your husband to enjoy yourself. If you don’t have the money to delegate to a wedding planner, delegate to a family friend or someone else trustworthy. It’s a difficult task to hand your wedding over to others, but it’s worth it to be able to enjoy yourself on our and your husband’s special day.
Happy nuptials!
Reader Buzz
About: Let us know what you think by leaving a comment...
I sometimes regret spending a year with wedding planning as my only hobby because after we got married, we had to fix up our house to sell it and we were tight for time. I wish I had started house projects earlier.
But honestly, the wedding was so perfect. It’s worth anything to have one perfect day. My friends still say it was the best wedding and ask for advice. Whenever I’m down, all I have to do is look at our wedding pictures and I’m instantly so happy.