Weddingbee Blog

To say that nothing went “wrong” at our wedding would be an understatement.

We ran out of appetizers 15 minutes into our cocktail hour. Storm clouds swelled throughout the day forcing our ceremony from an expansive meadow into a cozy barn. The photo booth backdrop didn’t end up being quite enough fabric to encompass a large group of guests. Our band played for longer than planned (score!) but that meant we had to skip our end-of-the-night dance party playlist which I’d been looking forward to. The bluegrass songs I picked for our band breaks brought the dancing to a halt every time the band took a break; I could never figure out which songs would keep the energy high between live sets. You can’t go from fiddle and washboard to Jay-Z, right?

But calling everything above a “wedding failure” depends on your perspective and mindset. According to me? Nothing went wrong at our wedding. And that’s because I didn’t have a strong definition of the word “right”. Here’s a teaser of our wedding video, made by my brother, to give you an idea of how it all played out (note: you can make it full-screen):

I knew that our wedding was going to be what it was going to be no matter what.

There was no controlling it, which is something I tried to keep in mind while planning it. I put my best foot forward, I planned decor that spoke to me, I infused the whole thing with details that were reflective of us, but stressing over hiccups was never worth it. Especially not on the day of.

Remember how we didn’t have a rehearsal? By not practicing the way something was “supposed to be”, we had no expectations. Nothing could be a mistake because there was no “right” way of doing it. Sure, I forgot to hand over my bouquet to my MOH for a few minutes and we needed a shove to get us moving down the aisle for our recessional, but who cares?

One of the things my aunt said during her rehearsal dinner speech was that ceremony is sacred. That you do ceremony. You don’t practice ceremony. And for us, this worked. We wanted it to be organic and that’s what it became.

I’m not trying to tell you not to rehearse. And I’m not saying don’t have high standards for your wedding—it should be as special as you want it to be. What I’m saying is: find the balance that works for you. Find a way to have a wedding that doesn’t make your stress level skyrocket and then, walk down that aisle with your head high regardless of everything. Love your wedding for the way it unravels—as planned or otherwise—because that is the best gift you can give yourself. It will let you live on cloud nine for just a little bit longer.