What you forgot!

love_love

I've started putting some dates in my calendar for the next number of months to make sure there's nothing we forget that puts us under unnecessary pressure (stress or budget-wise) at the last minute.

For anyone who has "been there, done that", what did you

a) remember at the last minute, and were stressed/fleeced trying to organise or
b) completely forget and only realise on the day?

I expect some people will have an experience of forgetting something expected/traditional and not missing it, but I'd be interested to hear things (big or small) that slipped your mind and felt like a noticeable absence on the day.

lazygal

We did our own table plan in a rush and messed up two tables. So if you need to do that, get it done!
I always advise everyone who will be getting ready in the house with you on the day of the wedding to do a trial run for their outfits the week before, everything down to socks, jewellery and underwear. Saved so much hassle.
Had the cheques for the band, celebrant and whoever else needed to be paid on the day in the groom's pocket in marked envelopes the day before.
I spent ages decorating the venue the day before. If I was doing it again I'd have paid someone to do this. It looked fine but not amazing and I wish the ceremony pics were a bit nicer.
Do a list of must have photos for the photographer. We did this on her advice and it meant we missed nothing and our family photos only took a very short time, plus we got the special pics we wanted out of the way early.
Double check if you're willing to save money and accept an inferior product. I regret cheaping out on our videographer, I would have paid a lot more for a better result with hindsight. Our DVD is only ok. I felt it was fine at the time but now I wish we had a better one.

kastasia

We were getting married in Spain and arranged buses to pick guests up from hotel and bring the tu the church at a certain time
However most people involved in wedding were going by car and we never organised for someone to give the go ahead to bus driver to actually leave, so they were all sitting there until my husband rang a friend whose wife spoke Spanish and told them to leave.

pooch90

We had a spiritualist ceremony and didn't do booklets. Forgot to give copies of the readings to the readers before the ceremony!

fizzlepurplefuz

pooch90 wrote: »

We had a spiritualist ceremony and didn't do booklets. Forgot to give copies of the readings to the readers before the ceremony!

Thanks, you just reminded me to print copies of our readings we're not doing booklets either :D

pooch90

The celebrant had the whole ceremony on his iPad but readers were more comfortable with cards

Atomic Pineapple

We had bubbles for people to blow when we were walking back down the aisle. However, we had a humanist ceremony, which is only about 20 minutes long. So, when it was over everyone, used to hour long Catholic services, was in disbelief it only took that long. Me and the wife went down the aisle at a steady pace and were gone before anyone realised they could blow the bubbles. We had meant to ask the celebrant to make it clear when the ceremony was over and to blow the bubbles but completely forgot.

Very context specific and not very helpful I know!

Peatys

About a month after the wedding, I found the box of party favours in the spare room.

We never thought of them once during the wedding or after

Gatica

Basically make a list so you don't forget important stuff coming up to the day or on the day.
The most important thing we forgot (or didn't think of) is some nice photos of us as a couple. We gave the photographer a list of family pics we wanted to get, we got all those, but there were no full-length photos of us in my nice dress and shoes. We got the photoshoot photos together by the lake, which were all pretty, but not the type my mum wanted to put in a frame. I really regretted not getting an "us" photos at same time as we got family photos done.
I also did the flower arrangements for the tables and place cards the night before, I ws up til 2/3am finishing them, because I didn't realise it would take so long but I was really intent on doing them. I wish I'd either planned for it ahead of time or done it the day before.
Any my hubby forgot his whole bag/overnight bag, he only had the clothes on his back arriving to the wedding location. He got so carried away with the morning activities, getting ready, the photos, that when it was time to go he just jumped in the car.

kastasia

Few other things...
I was walking to church with my sisters. They wore flats but were going to change at church. Except shoes weren't waiting for them. Message was passed to brother in law who raced to car to get them. I actually have a great photo of him running with the shoes so it worked out!
I didn't figure out who I would give my phone to and I have no idea who I gave it to in a panic, but it disappeared and I never got it back, so maybe think about that.

Also I was doing a reading at a wedding of a friend and another friend was doing communion reflection but it wasn't in the booklet and she hadn't been told what it was. We asked the priest and he gave us a booklet from another wedding and she just read the reflection from that.

love_love

It might sound mad, but it's really lovely to read everyone's responses! It's reassuring that everyone is human and we're all bound to forget little things, and even have some fun stories from them afterwards.

I'm especially glad to hear about the forgotten party favours that weren't missed - that'll save me a few bob!

lazygal

love_love wrote: »

It might sound mad, but it's really lovely to read everyone's responses! It's reassuring that everyone is human and we're all bound to forget little things, and even have some fun stories from them afterwards.

I'm especially glad to hear about the forgotten party favours that weren't missed - that'll save me a few bob!

I remember now I ordered little bottles of bubbles for people to blow bubbles too but no one realised what they were for, a total waste of time and money! Don't bother with favours at all.

Baybay

We remembered sometime during the first dance that it was all about us & whatever had gone right or wrong up til that point & afterwards would not alter that even a little bit. Enjoy the day!

Citygirl1

Don't forget the documents from the marriage registration office - otherwise you can't be legally married! (Seriously).

Night before my brother's wedding we were gathered in the church for the practice run, and the priest asked him for this document. My brother then remembered that he had stored it "safely" in the safe in his office. At this point the priest informed him that he could not be married the following day without it. Luckily all events were in Dublin, so he could hare back into the city centre, and manged to get into the office late on a Friday evening and retrieve the doc. It would have been a mess if the wedding was down the country...

Funny ending to this story: After getting hold of the document, he decided to drop it off at the church, rather than holding it overnight. On arriving back at the church he met an elderly priest, who convinced him that, it being the night before his wedding, he should now go to confession....meanwhile the best man was waiting for my brother in his apartment, in company the in-laws, who spoke not a word of English...

Redser87

Small thing, but if you're having a church wedding try to get ministers of the Eucharist organised in advance if you have any in the family.... Small thing but speeds things up for hungry guests!

Idle Passerby

If your delegating duties to anyone make sure they know exactly what's expected of them in advance or they'll be plagueing you with questions when your trying to get into a zen wedding morning vibe.

Fagashlil

Don't forget a list of photos you want, written down! I had it in my head, sure I'd remember, and it was only when we got our photos I realised so many I'd forgotten, and to this day wish I had.

appledrop

The one job I gave to my husband was the booklets which he decided to print day before wedding:rolleyes: So no we didn't forget anything but didn't need that hassle.

We stay in hotel night before so did a big list of literally everything we had to bring + this was invaluable. We ticked them all off when packing up. So id recommend this even if going from your house. It saves you worrying about it all.

LimeFruitGum

Well, my sister forgot her bouquet & the priest. ��

Organization was never her forté at the best of times, but she was under the impression that Mum had confirmed the priest to be there for a blessing.
(It was a civil ceremony in a house, and not a church service, as Sister was marrying a non-practising Protestant).

Other than sounding out our parish priest for his availability, and passing that on, Mum thought Sister would follow up and finalize things with him directly. Nope, didn’t happen. So it wasn’t until the morning of the wedding that Mum and Sister realized that the priest wasn’t booked �� Cue a sheepish call to see if there was any chance at all, but he was going to Tipperary for a funeral that day, and could not be there.
Luckily, Husband’s side didn’t notice anything, but my goodness, she spent more time worrying about booking her tan than booking the priest!

She just plain forgot about the bouquet. Luckily, the house owner was able to put together a little posy from the garden, but it was all completely lastminute.com.

Mollyb60

My mam always complains that our photographer didn't get a full length straight on photo of the 2 of us on our own. It didn't bother me as we didn't want a stiff photo like that but she constantly gripes about it anytime I'm home. :rolleyes:

texanman

lazygal wrote: »

Double check if you're willing to save money and accept an inferior product. I regret cheaping out on our videographer, I would have paid a lot more for a better result with hindsight. Our DVD is only ok. I felt it was fine at the time but now I wish we had a better one.

Its unfortunate you went cheap on the such an important occasion.

Scarinae

Citygirl1 wrote: »

Don't forget the documents from the marriage registration office - otherwise you can't be legally married! (Seriously).

I was bridesmaid at a wedding where this happened - the documentation got left behind at the house and we didn't realise until we actually got to the church. We didn't mention it to the bride or groom and the ceremony began as planned; it was a Catholic wedding with the full mass so there was time for the bride's brother-in-law to drive the 15 minutes back to the house to find the envelope and bring it back in time (although of course he missed a chunk of the ceremony)

La.m

A nice pen for signing the registry. Never even thought of it for my sister's wedding and the pen the church provided was one of those blocky multiple colour ones that children use! It looked so odd in the photos.

Col_30

La.m wrote: »

A nice pen for signing the registry. Never even thought of it for my sister's wedding and the pen the church provided was one of those blocky multiple colour ones that children use! It looked so odd in the photos.

Have seen people use feather pens. Now that looks odd.
Why does everything have to look so staged and fake?

jellybear

I actually got a lovely rose gold swarovski pen as a gift (not a wedding gift) a few weeks before the ceremony so we used that. It does look nicer in the photos than a normal one, in my opinion.