The day was supposed to go off without a hitch, or that is what my Type A personality had helped me plan for. The goal for my wedding in one word: perfection. In all seriousness I had been planning my wedding since before I was even engaged. I had every last detail checked off of my list and I was sure that absolutely nothing would go wrong on our wedding day. Dear Type A Personality, You forgot something.
One or more of these events below didn’t belong in my perfect wedding day equation, nor were they planned for:
- An awful storm that stripped the beautiful blossoming Crab Apple trees down to their skinny little bare branches. I have to add that those lovely blossoms were the only reason I wanted our wedding moved from our original date in October to May.
- Extreme wind ALL DAY LONG! This made photographs with my veil very hard to come by.
- A wedding guest going into labor the morning of our wedding, which meant that about fifteen other guests couldn’t attend. Anyone who is planning or has planned a wedding knows why this was upsetting: the meals aren’t cheap.
- Being informed that our DJ had not arrived about two minutes before we were supposed to be walking into our reception with a Michael Jackson song blasting throughout the room. After a brief, but intense conversation between my personal attendant and the DJ, she was there setting up after all of the guests had been seated, definitely not ideal.
- Spending our first night together in our honeymoon suite with me in the bathroom and on the toilet and my new husband in our whirlpool, naked and alone.
Looking back I am surprised I didn’t lose my cool. It isn’t like me to “go with the flow,” but there was something magical about that slightly flaw-filled day. I knew I was marrying the love of my life and I guess nothing else mattered. Scratch that. Nothing else mattered as much as marrying the love of my life.
My “Something Borrowed” on that day was a sense of humor. Without that I would have never made it through all the things that I found to be epic on my special day. My “Something Old” was the love from my parents; 27 years old to be exact. I knew that no matter what I was blessed with two wonderful people who loved me and were there for me despite the problems we were running into. My “Something New” was a little cousin-in-law who shares a birthday with our anniversary. I find that pretty special once I was able to step back and realize it. Unfortunately for my husband and I the “Something Blue” was more a shade of green which was coming from my face. I had somehow gotten the stomach flu.
You may plan for perfection, but we all know that more often than not this isn’t an attainable goal. What really matters on that day is that you’re marrying your best friend. The best thing to plan for on your wedding day is for things not to go exactly as planned. Remember to smile and realize that eventually it will be a distant memory and hopefully something to laugh about in the future. As I am sitting here writing this I have to stop and ask myself, “Was that really my wedding day?” Yes, it was, and looking back now I wouldn’t change a thing. Well, except for my husband being alone and naked in our whirlpool without me on our wedding night.
Simple lesson: Life goes on. My husband and I will be celebrating two lovely years together on May 1st, 2012 and I am laughing just thinking about how that day went nothing like I had planned; I knew I would get to that point eventually. If you find yourself in a similar situation on your wedding day, remember, you will eventually get to that point, too.
