PS: Things Will Go Wrong

A. at AccordionsandLace wrote a great post yesterday on the things that went wrong at her wedding, and how she simply could not be bothered to give a shit. I was sincere when I signed off in my last post, but I couldn't resist the chance to spread the word: Things Will Go Wrong. There will be mistakes. But you can choose not to dwell on them. You can decide that today you just aren't going to give a shit. And your wedding will still be awesome.

I can honestly say that I've never seen anything go wrong at a wedding I've attended (with the exception of the one where the groom was incredibly hung over and looked like he was going to barf at the altar). I once assumed that I didn't see any snafus as a guest because everyone else ruled at wedding planning and orchestrated everything perfectly.

Now, I know better. I'm sure that at every single one of those weddings, something went wrong -- maybe lots of things. Maybe small things, maybe big things, but SOMETHING didn't go as planned. I also know that I, the guest, had no idea.

Snafus at our wedding included:
* My family broke venue rules and took beer from the bar before it was officially open -- a massive no-no according to our contract. Thankfully, I don't think the venue manager noticed!
* The ceremony programs we spent 2 days designing and printing didn't make it to the chairs because of the rain.
* The string quartet messed up the processional, after refusing to attend the rehearsal on the grounds that they were so awesome they didn't need to practice their timing with us.
* The outside cocktail hour got rained out, and the decorations we put up on the patio got soaked. (My mother took home a very soggy box of decorations!)
* No sparkling wine was poured for the toasts.
* Our menu cards were droopy and the candles kept going out.
* I didn't get to try both flavors of cake!

Did we notice all of these things? Obviously. Were we a bit sad about some of them? Yeah, mostly the programs.

Was our wedding "ruined"? No. Absolutely, positively, completely NO. Did we give a shit on the day of the wedding? Again, NO!

Because our ceremony was magical -- the rain parted just long enough for us to say our vows outside, and our officiant was warm and inspiring and uplifting. My friend brought her tiny newborn preemie, a little miracle in and of himself. Our friends promptly snatched the droopy menu cards out of the holders to read them, and to analyze the wines we'd selected. I waltzed with Econo Boy in front of everyone and didn't feel self-conscious even once. And then, our guests didn't leave the dance floor until the DJ announced the last dance.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a "tree" person rather than a "forest" person -- I tend to get caught up in the small stuff, wedding-related or non-wedding-related. But on the day of the wedding, for once in my life, I didn't care about the small stuff. Because I was married to a man who loved me more than anything else in the world, and I love him back just the same way, and we were surrounded by family and friends who loved and supported us and our new marriage.

Yeah, that's sappy. I don't care about that either.

x-posted to my new blog: PetiteChablis.wordpress.com.