Keeping It In Perspective

Keeping It In Perspective

May 9th, 2008 @ 3:48 pm by Mrs. Hummingbird
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Last night, Mr. Hum and I went to meet with our wedding officiant for the first time. I will blog about the details later, but as we talked, we got on to the topic of things that can go wrong at a wedding. Having conducted almost 60 weddings since she was ordained three years ago and having been married herself, she’d experienced a number of crazy things at weddings. She herself was the victim of a goof when during her own New Zealand based wedding, one of her fake nails flew off during the ceremony.

However, the worst situation she’d ever encountered was a couple of years ago with a couple in the Halton Hills area. The bride and groom were accountants, a very orderly pair, and had planned the wedding down to the last detail. The day before, they set up their reception hall and it was perfect. Beautiful fresh orchids, little gifts for everyone, the whole shebang.

Unfortunately, no matter how orderly the couple was, fate intervened and the reception hall they had so painstakingly set up burned to the ground the night before the wedding. All the things they had set up and all the hard work they had done planning their wedding was for nothing and at 2 AM the day they were to get married, they had to suddenly start over.

And you know what? They did it and they got married.

As sad as it is and as disappointed I would be if something like that happened to me, I find this story kind of awesome because it reminded me, as frantic as I am with 50 days (50 days?!?) left to go, that a lot of the stuff that we brides freak out about is just gravy. Lots of things in life don’t turn out exactly as we plan, but we still get through them and many times, we end up stronger and better because of it.

God knows it’s hard to be zen during the craziness of a wedding, but for the next month and a half, I’m going to try and keep this story in the back of my head to remind myself as long as Mr. Hum and I are together, we can get through anything.

Anyway, since it’s Friday and a day that totally requires happy thoughts, I want to know - Married ladies, did anything go wrong at your weddings and how did you deal with it?

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16 Responses to “Keeping It In Perspective”

Guest

Polly

What an amazing story! I accidentally picked a day in the Jewish calendar that’s a day of mourning and no rabbi would marry us. It’s a holiday called Tisha B’Av. We’re getting married in August and found a VERY secular rabbi!

5/9/08 @ 3:56 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Gingerbread (message) 644 posts, Busy bee

That’s a great story that really put it all into perspective. A dream wedding should be icing on the cake to the fact that you are marrying the love of your life.

5/9/08 @ 4:05 pm (reply)

Guest

Gaby

Just as I was walking into the church to get ready, my mom slipped at the bottom of the freshly waxed church steps and broke her wrist. She was crying in pain and for “ruining my day,” and I was trying to assure her she hadn’t ruined my day, that everything would be fine. Truly, I was standing there in my veil, wondering what I was supposed to do.

Luckily, my father-in-law drove my mom & step-dad to the ER, and the doctors & nurses there were awesome–they gave my mom a splint and some painkillers(I can’t imagine what the wedding must’ve been like under those conditions!), told her to go to a doctor after the wedding, and she made it back to my wedding only 30 minutes after the original starting time!

5/9/08 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

Guest

Becky

That is so true. At the end of the day (in only 29 of them!), I’ll be married to my honey, and that’s what is important. Thanks for putting things in perspective.

5/9/08 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

Bee

frenchbulldog (message) 7,730 posts, Bee Keeper

I’m not married yet, so I don’t have a what went wrong story, I just wanted to say - that was a GREAT story and Thank You for sharing

5/9/08 @ 4:12 pm (reply)

Member

mlindsey (message) 348 posts, Helper bee

Ha! Funny you should ask:
1. The wedding started an hour and a half late because we didn’t get to the church on time and I SWORE mine was going to be ON TIME! 2. My church was hot as hell (I don’t know why because I got married on March 15th, and it was slightly overcast that day)
3. The florist messed up our order and when my FH went to pick up the corsages/boutannieres they were 8 short.
4. My husbands waistband of his tux did something weird and snapped so his pants were coming down during our first dance. It wasn’t really a dance as much as me propping him up while he tried to fix his pants on the low….

There were some other things that happened that were altogether frustrating, but by that time I just wanted to be happy and married so I didn’t even care any more.

5/9/08 @ 4:15 pm (reply)

Member

MissBlueBear (message) 405 posts, Helper bee

My side of the family were supposed to arrive earlier for pictures with my husband and I. Unfortunately they ran late because they decided they had “errands” they needed to run before hand, so 1.5 hours AFTER they were supposed to have shown up for pictures they finally showed up. I think it was a blessing in disguise because all members of my crazy family broke out with their own cameras and it was full fledged paparazzi chaos that ensued. So really I think it was a blessing in disguise that they were late. My in-laws were able to get all of their pictures in and my family got all the pictures they wanted without interrupting my in-laws. =)

5/9/08 @ 4:19 pm (reply)

Guest

fatafelice

I can tell you from experience that this is true: when it comes down to it, nothing can diminish the joy that you feel at the moment marry the person you love.

My husband’s mother passed away unexpectedly a week and a half before we were supposed to get married. We cancelled the big wedding we had spent a year planning, and were going to wait a few months before trying again. But as our original date loomed, we realized that we simply didn’t want to wait. With the amazing and generous help of friends and family, we threw together an impromptu cermony and reception in two days. And despite everthing, including having his mother’s funeral only five days before, it was the most beautiful, joyous day of our lives. Was I sad I didn’t have the wedding I planned? Sure. But in the end, I was just happy to realize that I still had Mike, and I was his wife. Nothing else could matter after that.

5/9/08 @ 4:45 pm (reply)

Member

mrsbic (message) 96 posts, Worker bee

@fatafelice: you’re story just made me cry in my tiny cubicle–thank you for sharing your story. It is inspiring.

Yes, things went wrong, Miss Hum, but the story you told and the one I just read put it all in perspective–nothing material about a wedding truly matters. If, when you walk down the aisle, Mr. Hum is standing there waiting for you, consider yourself to be the most blessed person in the world.

5/9/08 @ 5:07 pm (reply)

10.

Member

mrsbic (message) 96 posts, Worker bee

oops–didn’t mean to say “you’re”–i meant *your*–don’t tell my mother, she’d cry, considering i majored in journalism! sigh. . .

5/9/08 @ 5:08 pm (reply)

11.

Guest

lou

My sister’s venue burned down a year before she was due to get married. Luckily, it was rebuilt in time - unluckily, her of a fiance left her 3 weeks before the wedding.

So yes, it is important to keep things in perspective

5/9/08 @ 5:57 pm (reply)

12.

Guest

Best Lady

My aunt’s wedding is definitely the best example of things that can go wrong. It started when the Rolls Royce they’d ordered became a Chevy Malibu without any warning. My aunt gamely attempted to climb into the back of the two door in a hoop skirt and made it to the church. My grandfather stepped on her veil on the way down the aisle so that the hair band her veil was attached to was pulled backwards and shifted so that it lodged behind her ears. The result is many photos of a somewhat simian-esque bride. They left the box with all of the gift money on the front seat of the Malibu while they were getting married. The car was stolen during the ceremony. Their wedding song was “Que sera sera”, how apropos! I’d like to say they lived happily ever after, but it would be a lie.

5/9/08 @ 7:20 pm (reply)

13.

Member

glittergrl (message) 356 posts, Helper bee

I’m getting married in August, but I work in the industry and have seen and experienced a lot, and the one piece of advice that I always share with my clients as well as tell MYSELF is this:

You never remember a wedding for how perfect it was. You remember it for the quirks and unexpected moments that happened.

embrace the chaos! no matter how ridiculous, it will make a great story years to come.

5/9/08 @ 10:13 pm (reply)

14.

Guest

Mrs Popcorn

heh, I am totally the opposite of detailed and orderly, so the “just gravy” reminds me of how my first act of wedding planning was booking the priest and date at our church, because if I got nothing else done, we’d at least be married.

5/11/08 @ 1:13 pm (reply)

15.

Member

NearlyMsSubrosa (message) 288 posts, Helper bee

Thanks for sharing that story. I’ll be thinking about it too!

5/11/08 @ 1:49 pm (reply)

16.

Member

baderin (message) 29 posts, Newbee

My friend’s venue’s roof caved in 5 days before their wedding - luckily the venue was totally organized and found them another place so the only thing that they had to do was inform the guests about the change in location. Nothing disastrous happened at my own wedding other than my husband’s (17 year old, in AA) sister getting drunk and making several scenes - in retrospect I still haven’t really forgiven her for it but at the time it didn’t touch me at all.

5/13/08 @ 11:58 am (reply)