The wedding day – was it the fairytale I imagined?

The big day has finally arrived! After all the days, weeks, months spent having discussion on discussion about the dress, debating with the caterer and going back and forth with the guestlist – your wedding day is finally here!

When I look back on my day I remember waking up and not quite believing the day had actually arrived. It’s such a strange feeling, like obviously this is what you’ve been working up to but on that day, it felt like I was having a complete outer body experience. Everyone kept asking how I felt and being honest each time I replied “I don’t know, feel like it’s just happening around me”.

All in all, I had a beautiful wedding day and it was truly worth all the hard work leading up to it. And probably better that any fairytale that I could have imagined myself.

But I definitely did learn a few things that in my planning mode, I could not have anticipated.

• Make sure you have a team

Ultimately, in the entire planning process you don’t realise how much you are the connecting dots for a lot of the things that will happen on your day. I’ve said this before in my ‘Advice for Brides’ – make sure you have a team to help you throughout the planning process but importantly on the big day. As someone who did a lot of the wedding planning on my own, I sourced my own vendors which meant I had a lot of conversations with them around what I wanted, expected and what they could deliver. If I hadn’t had a team of people working with me the day itself would have been chaotic trying to manage those relationships because no one else would have known what was supposed to happen, what time such such was arriving and anything in between. So, for my wedding day I realised how blessed I was to have a team of people who had everything handled. I mean everything! – even when things weren’t going according to plan they made me feel at complete ease.

• Things will go wrong

So, here’s the thing folks, all the planning beforehand is useful and paramount to the success of your day. BUT on the day… Something will go wrong. That is just a fact. The sooner you accept it, the better.

And it might not be something that goes so wrong that it’s the end of the world, but little things will. For example, I didn’t get all the pictures I would have liked. I literally had a list of all the pictures I wanted, grouping individuals, family members etc but on the day it was near on impossible to achieve any of that because there’s 300+ people around who have a mind of their own! And that’s the thing with the planning process vs the day itself, you can’t quite predict how people will behave and the people management is real. And that’s not just from a logistics point of view but emotional too (I’ll explain later).

Another thing, my MC was very late. I mean VERY late. And that had a knock-on effort on the rest of the program. Again, I bring up the team. Have people in your circle who are confident and well-spoken who can run the show if it comes to it. Had I known I would have happily paid my brother in law the fee that MC charged me, and we would have had a great time, alas it’s all in the past! Do you have any back up friends/family who could step in should you need it?

That’s not all. So the zip broke on my second outfit, which was a beautiful burgundy lace top and skirt, made in Nigeria… I mean, seriously? I had tried this outfit on so many times before and only on my wedding day does the zip decide to break! Luckily, my wedding coordinator had a little sewing kit and literally sewed me into the top, which I only wear for about 20mins! TIP : make sure you have a mini sewing kit handy. Whether for yourself as the bride or for the bridesmaids.

• You realise how loved you are

You realise how much people just genuinely love you. As you might have guessed already, I am very big on knowing who is in my circle and who is really there for me. And from my wedding day I truly felt loved. We had guests who travelled from all over the world Zimbabwe, South Africa, Nigeria, Canada, America etc. And it’s such a humbling thing that all of these people who have watched you grow, been your friends, loved you enough as a single being to attend your day to see you be joined with another person. People have chosen to just be there and it’s such a beautiful thing to see.

• It’s such an emotional day 

Back to my earlier point about the emotions. Your wedding day is an emotional overflow of love. You can’t plan for that. Its emotional for so many reasons and to more people than you realise.  You have emotions coming out of every part of you, but you are also so caught up you don’t get to process them. Like there is snapshot to snapshot of such monumental moments taking place. From the morning getting ready with the makeup artist, it was calm and peaceful, I’ll never forget that morning I just had some gospel music on, some nice breakfast and champaz – perfect. Then before I knew it my mother was walking me down the aisle and I was worrying about tripping over my dress and then realising there are 100s of eyes only on you. Then all of a sudden you forget everyone is around and you catch a glimpse of your future husband who is at the end of the aisle waiting for you. Like there he is, waiting for YOU. And you realise that a WHOLE YOU is worth waiting for. In that exact moment you think of every past pain, trauma, hurt or anyone who has ever told you that you are not deserving of being waited for. But there you walking down the aisle. Then the rest of the day unfolds, honestly the day flies by!  

I had plenty of tear worthy moments and in my planning process I definitely thought I’m sure I will cry when this happens or when this happens. But nope! I was very surprised. Do you think you will cry on your wedding day? Or what moments made you cry on the day for all the past brides out there?

• Just because you paid, doesn’t mean you eat.

Even with all the discussions with the caterer, all the saving and all the menu picking. My husband and I ordered a takeaway the night of our wedding!

My advice is to make sure you have a hearty breakfast, you won’t regret it! It’s just such a busy day, and you’re going from picture to picture to dancing to pictures to speeches to pictures, to broken zips to pictures. You get the drift by now!

• The wedding night is a myth.

Sorry to be the one to break it to you. You are just tired.com and everything else happening takes priority. I mean you have the rest of forever to get on with all that, right? So, rest on your wedding night, you’ll need that energy for your honeymoon.

Lots of love from a 2019 Bride.