Your wedding day is the most incredible day of your life, right? Well, for some women it is. It’s everything every little girl dreams of — the perfect man, the perfect dress, the most beautiful ring. Everything is like a picture-perfect fairy tale and a dream come true.
However, that’s not always the case. There’s a reason that whole “bridezilla” joke came around, and it’s that being a bride is stressful AF.
A whole lot could go wrong, and does go wrong, and for many women, a wedding day is less like a fairy tale and more like a game of Survivor. You try to get through it with as little damage as possible, and possibly with a ring on your finger, and everyone still speaking at the end. Ideally.
And for some, it’s far, far worse. Live vicariously through these women with their wedding day stories that weren’t exactly out of a fairy tale.
1. I didn’t tell my husband I was still in love with my ex.
“I loathed the feeling of regret on my wedding day. Sad to say, but I was still in love with a guy from my past. I didn’t want to face those feelings, but if I had, I would have prevented a ton of hurt and deceit. I made the mistake of thinking those feelings for my ex would dissipate with time, but getting married only heightened them. I ended up cheating, then got divorced and never ended up with either of them.” —Kari Dimmick
2. I was pregnant and vomited the entire day.
“My dad didn’t show up, even though he was invited. Maybe that was for the best, though. Additionally, I was pregnant and barfed a lot, and couldn’t eat any of the food.”
3. My flower arrangements were all wrong.
“I wanted to get married in my home town because my father was ill and could not travel to California. So my fiancé and I decided to have a small wedding in their town in Washington so they could be present. My mother volunteered to make the local arrangements for me since I was working, and it was difficult to make arrangements three states away. I asked for a simple bouquet of one stem of small purple orchids. I wanted the napkins to be purple or lavender and the cake to have lavender flowers on it. My dress was ivory lace with a lavender lining and lavender flower veil trim. I wanted a hair appointment the morning of, plus nails and a pedicure.
My mother decided that I needed a ‘bigger’ bouquet so she ordered a half dozen stargazer lilies wrapped together with local northwest pine fronds and one small stem of white orchids. She also decided I should have blue napkins and accessories because she liked the color better. I arrived in the northwest to find she had only booked the hair appointment because she thought I could do my nails and pedicure myself, but she didn’t tell me! I arrived at the salon expecting nails, hair, and a pedicure, and they said they only had time for my hair.
When I arrived at the church that morning, I found a delivery from the florist with this godawful bouquet the size of a small car and proceeded to rip it apart so I could walk down the aisle with a single stargazer and my teeny orchids. (Who could carry such a bouquet meant for a casket, not a bride?) I did get to walk down the aisle with my father at my side, a year before he died, so that was the biggest reward. The rest, however, made for an unsettling day.”
4. I didn’t have time to enjoy the actual day.
“I just got married last month, so the memories of what I absolutely hated about my wedding day are still fresh in my mind. And there are quite a few! They include having to round up people for photos after I asked them to hang behind after the ceremony and cocktail hour. It only got worse as the day went and they downed a few drinks. I think it would have been easier to herd cats.
I also hated that I could never really relax because vendors kept asking me tons of questions: Where do you want the candles placed on the altar? Do you want to start the dinner earlier than discussed? When do you want to be announced? When do you want to do the first dance? I felt like I was still wedding planning on my own wedding day.
I didn’t have a huge wedding, but I remember feeling guilty that I just didn’t have enough time to say hi to everyone. Many people had traveled quite a ways to attend, and I remember I kept making mental notes the whole night to say hi to so-and-so. Finally, I hated the fact that I chose cute but super-tight shoes that literally killed my feet by the end of the night. Note to future brides: Wear comfortable shoes!” —Amanda Austin of Shop of Miniatures
5. I just hated the idea of weddings altogether.
“My husband and I ended up eloping last month after 6 years together to avoid all of the attention and awkwardness that we both felt comes with it so that we wouldn’t hate our wedding day! It was just the two of us and a photographer. We talked to our folks about it before so there weren’t too many hard feelings about it.” —McKinzie Pack
6. Everything ran behind schedule.
“There were a few things that stuck out to me: Everyone was late and missed the ceremony, the flowers came in wrong and didn’t look like anything I had told the florist to do, we were 30 minutes behind schedule due to the caterer not ordering napkins, we had to send people to get napkins from Sam’s Club which resulted in us not being able to do photos as a full group, so I have only one group photo with us and the bridal party.” —Melissa Hernandez, Event Producer & Consultant
7. Honestly, it was all a blur.
“My wedding was planned in 5 days. To me, I think weddings are like senior prom: Something you fantasize about your whole life… until it happens and then you forget about it shortly after it ends. I didn’t adore my dress because it was purchased last minute and not the one I actually picked, and I had a DJ instead of a band which I didn’t love either. My husband and I didn’t sit at our own table; we sat with my family instead. It was dumb. Overall, though, I’m glad I had the opportunity to celebrate our marriage. Mostly, though, I’m glad we still like each other enough to still be married.”
8. My husband lost his voice from partying the night before.
“Interestingly, I am Greek Orthodox so you don’t say anything during the wedding. There are no ‘I do’s or vows or anything. You just listen to the priest and you do everything he says three times. So, it wasn’t until after the 45-minute ceremony that my new husband and I walked out of the church amid 300 guests in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding’ when my husband leaned over in my ear and could barely utter the words, ‘I lost my voice.’
‘What?’ I replied. Apparently, he was so busy partying the night before the wedding with his friends from out of town that his voice disappeared and he couldn’t speak at our whole reception. Two kids and 7 years later, we are still happily married, and the silver lining is I’m still doing all the talking.” —Cynthia Demos of Cynthia Demos Communications
9. My mother-in-law was a nightmare.
“For my wedding day, I loathed seeing and dealing with my husband’s mother. It got so bad I tried to convince my hubby to head to Mexico early and just get married on the beach alone.”
10. I got sad that my day ended so quickly.
“Maybe it sounds a little counterintuitive, but the day after my wedding, I kept thinking about how mad I was at how fast it went by. You spend so long planning the day and it’s over so fast! My advice for a bride is to take a moment to stand there and take it all in; take a mental image for your memory bank.”
11. We ended up with a disastrous destination wedding.
“I’m a travel writer and content creator, so I thought I’d planned the perfect destination wedding on the gorgeous island of Koh Tao, Thailand. We scheduled the wedding for January 7, which was smack-dab in the dry season and sure to have great weather for our outdoor, beachfront wedding. WRONG. The worst storm of several decades hit a few days before our wedding, flooding the entire resort, which was where we were staying AND our wedding venue. We had to have our wedding in the covered restaurant, and most of our vendors (including our band) canceled as the road to the hotel had literally washed away.
What I hated? That our guests (and ourselves!) traveled thousands of miles and spent thousands of dollars to experience a beachy island vacation and participate in our beautiful beachfront wedding, when we really ended up hurtling through one obstacle after another, and huddling in whatever shelter was available and not rained-out.
What I loved? That everyone made the best of our ‘wedding apocalypse’ and ‘typhoon wedding,’ and that I learned that the most important part of a wedding isn’t all the fluff and beauty, but the people, the love, and definitely a lot of booze.” —Stephanie Kempker of JoyAndJourney.com
12. Nearly everything went wrong.
“On my wedding day, I had a few things I was not happy with! 1. My wedding pictures. I messed up and did not do a shot list. I thought candids would be the best way to go, but afterward I realized my husband and I only got like two pictures together in total and nothing really cool or with the Chicago skyline in them. And we forgot people in our family photos. It was a huge bummer and plagued me for months. I was so excited about our photographer, but in the end, it was disappointing what he captured and that he did not guide us in doing a shot list for the essentials.
2. The shuttles. We had trolleys and shuttles for our wedding guests (in Chicago) but they ended at 10 PM. So my husband and I had to grab a cab (in wedding gear) to get back to our hotel. Kind of dropped the ball on that one.
3. People knowing better than me. My wedding planner and the DJ and even my mother assumed they knew better than me when I wanted things differently than what they suggested. From the entrance to dancing to several other details, it left me feeling cold and upset.
4. We forgot to eat! While my husband and I took great care to prepare a family-style 5-course meal for our 280 guests, we forgot to eat as we were talking and meeting with people. We even forgot the late-night snack. Needless to say, we wanted to go back and be guests at our own wedding so that we could have enjoyed the amazing food and wine.”
13. We lost control.
“We did our best to hire just the right vendors for our wedding, but on the actual day, the schedule felt completely out of my control. It was difficult to rely on a team of strangers and trust that they were going to deliver. I knew that if the makeup artist decided to show up an hour late the entire schedule would be thrown off and there was nothing we could do about it.
The day also felt a bit like a hurricane because of all the scheduled events. There was hardly a moment to catch my breath and enjoy what I created after a year of planning. Events happened back to back and I kept wanting to pause time so I could truly savor the moments with my guests.” —Natasha Valik of Choco Studio
14. The entire ceremony and honeymoon got rained out!
“My husband and I eloped in Key West. We met in third grade, so the entire wedding process was… odd. We are the best of friends, never taking anything too seriously. Always joking. So all the seriousness of the ‘big day’ was something I hated. We arrived in Key West a few days before our wedding day to get set up and settled. Every day had the most beautiful, clear blue skies. Our wedding day was forecast to be perfect.
Well, our day arrived. Not thinking (or caring), I rode around on a moped all day and got red tan lines that, yes, you could see with the shape of my wedding gown. It was ceremony time and my husband was waiting on a windy beach for me to arrive. Our van pulled up and my mom helped me out.
Literally, the moment I put my barefoot in the sand, the strongest gust of wind blew sand and debris into my face. My lace wedding gown started getting snagged on the wooden boardwalk. I was ‘elegantly’ walking down this boardwalk to my husband-to-be, yanking the train of my dress every few steps, ripping it to shreds, trying to hide the fact that it was getting caught.
I got to my husband with flat hair and smudged makeup. We both had mouths full of sand. The wind only grew stronger and rain began to pelt us. We couldn’t hear a word our JOP was saying and totally skipped over our vows. Our friends and family were both cracking up at this hurricane-force wind but anxiously waiting to seek shelter.
Tropical Storm Andrea formed right over our wedding site that day — the first storm of the hurricane season! Not only did she blow our ceremony out of the water, but she dumped rain for our entire 5-day honeymoon in Key West. Our sunset cruise, dolphin tour, all of our planned activities were canceled. It steadily poured every single day, so we couldn’t even hang out at the beach or cruise around on our moped.
That’s okay though, right? Newlyweds can just stay cooped up and have sex. Nope! I blame it on the endless blueberry bagels and bottomless champagne, but I developed the WORST yeast infection of my life. I was so swollen and inflamed down there, I could not stand or walk. My new husband had to ride to a pharmacy, in the rain, on our moped, to buy me yeast infection kits and oversized granny panties from JC Penney on the island. How’s that for a story?” —Stephanie Powers, Holistic Health Coach at Evolve2Health
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Aly Walansky is a NY-based lifestyles writer. Her work appears in dozens of digital and print publications regularly. Visit her on Twitter.