From the part one of the subject my Nigerian wedding planning advice, you can tell now that not everything went as I had planned it on my wedding day. In fact I made a few big mistakes and hence had major fails.
We’ve been dreaming about our wedding day since we were still children. A lot of us had planned out our weddings in our heads years before even meeting our grooms 😊 So the desire for perfection on that day is understandable. But try as you may, not everything will go as planned on your big day. No, I didn’t write this to add to your worries but rather to prepare you, and to let you know that it is okay if some things don’t go as planned.
By sharing my wedding planning mistakes I’m hoping it alerts you to certain areas of wedding planning that you need to pay more attention to. However there are some things that will happen that either because you forgot and your team also forgot to plan for it or just something that will happen that no one anticipated.
Wedding Planning – Are you forgetting something?
To avoid forgetting to plan for some things go through every step of your wedding plans in your head repeatedly, are you forgetting something? Forgetting to plan for any aspect of the day can take away from the experience you and your guests could have had.
When we planned our wedding, one of the items on the reception program was a serenade by my husband for his dear bride. You see, my dear husband his good with some musical instruments with the Guitar being his favorite. And he has ear for good music too. The way he’d prepared the songs he wanted to play for me, if everything had gone as planned, that would have been the highlight of the wedding reception. It would have been an unforgettable moment for me and the guests.
We had wanted to have a sit-down meeting with our planner a day to the event to go through everything about the day and make sure it had all been planned to run just as we wanted, but a day to our wedding we were dealing with a lot including booking hotels and settling people in that we never found the time to have that sit-down.
While we’re on this, let me quickly say this. If your fiance wants to change accommodation, probably move from a smaller apartment to a bigger apartment ahead of the wedding, make sure to get that out of the way 2 months or 6 weeks to the wedding. So the new place is all set up and you both have recovered from the stress of the move before the wedding day.
The way I had planned my wedding, I actually expected to be all done with planning two weeks to the wedding and just be relaxing until the wedding. But things didn’t go as planned. Hubby had rented a new apartment months before our wedding. The place for us to start our new life after the wedding. But a few things needed to be fixed in the apartment before he could move in. The Landlord said he would fix it but kept procrastinating until it was a month to our wedding and hubby had still not moved in. So last minute we decided to look for another apartment. 🤦 And honestly that became the major reason for our stress a week to the wedding.
Hubby moved into the apartment I think just a week to the wedding. The move was so stressful. We could have just moved his things in and leave it at that to worry about setting things up after the wedding. But because we were going to be hosting a lot of relatives in his place coming from afar, we were running up and down to make sure the place was fixed up enough to receive guests. I actually had a moment when I was afraid that my husband would collapse just from the stress. He had to do a lot of running around for the house. Then add the wedding planning to it, it was hard on us those last weeks to the wedding. I actually thought I was going to come out on my big day looking horrible from the stress, but thank God that wasn’t the case! 😄
Back to the matter of forgetting to plan for some things. The morning of the wedding was hectic for my husband. I say my husband because all I did the morning of my wedding was wake up and take a bath and sit down for the hair and makeup crew to work on me. While my husband and planner were doing the running around. With everything else to worry about, hubby forgot to confirm that the DJ had the right cord to plug his guitar to the speakers to amplify the sound from the guitar when he would serenade me. He said he assumed he would have it since DJs usually have it. But ours didn’t. And we found that out when it was too late. And he had to make do without it which took away from the moment. Imagine playing a music from your phone to a large gathering without connecting it to a speaker. Most people in the audience wouldn’t be able to appreciate the song. That was the case when my husband serenaded me. He still doesn’t like to think about it or watch the video of him serenading me because he knew it was supposed to be a lot better. But I enjoyed the moment and I really commend him for going ahead to play regardless. But also I feel bad that it wasn’t everything we both wanted it to be.
When things go wrong due to unforeseen occurrences
What’s an unforeseen occurrence? Something that happens that wasn’t anticipated or couldn’t have been predicted. It’s like when someone goes out in the morning not expecting to have an accident on their way but they do. Accidents happen and we don’t usually see them coming.
Look at the cakes below. The big cake is the wedding cake I ordered and was delivered and set up at the reception venue. But I never saw that cake. What I saw when it was time to cut the cake is the smaller cake. What happened? ðŸ¤
What I ordered and was delivered
What I saw when it was time to cut the cake
Before I walked into the wedding hall (we used same hall for the wedding and reception), my maid of honor had come to whisper in my ear that something bad had happened. She said “I don’t want you to panic, but something happened”. She repeated, “I don’t want you to panic, but something happened”. I got agitated and was like tell me already what happened! It was then she said the cake fell after the baker had set it up and left. 🤦 She said they had managed to arrange what was left in a way that is manageable to use. To be honest at this point a cake falling down was the least of my worries because at this time we were really late for the wedding. Like about two hours past scheduled time. That was what was on my mind. Some of our guests must have been waiting for awhile! I just wanted the day to start already and be over with. So I said to her “is that all?” She said yes. I said no problem. 🤷 And that was the cake we used. Other than not having the beautiful cake I ordered in my wedding pictures it wasn’t a problem.
Everything Won’t go as planned on your Wedding day but that’s okay!
Whether it is due to your own mistakes and or the planner’s mistakes during planning, or you both forgot to plan for it, disappointment from a vendor and a Landlord like it was in our case, or an accident, there is the chance that something will not go as planned on your wedding day. I want you to prepare yourself for that and say to yourself it’s okay. Just do your best with planning and pray nothing goes wrong. And don’t worry so much about perfection. What really has to be perfect has nothing to do with the wedding. It has everything to do with the man you have chosen to spend the rest of your life with. Is he perfect for you? If he is not, then making your wedding perfect is like deceiving yourself. You may succeed to impressing others but you know your reality. The wedding only lasts for a few hours and everyone you’ve worked hard to impress will return to their homes and leave you to either enjoy or endure your marriage.
Even with everything that went wrong with our wedding, and the fact that we had to skip some items on the reception program due to starting so late that could have really added to the fun of the reception, it still would pass for one of the most beautiful weddings there’s been. The groom and I looked our best. And our love shined through. It may seem like most Nigerians attend weddings for the food, but really they care more to celebrate you and your love than anything else. The atmosphere on my day was filled with love. When I lip-synced to a song that perfectly expressed my emotions for my husband and when we danced to the songs we picked, everyone felt our love.
So what really matters on your wedding day is that your groom be present and you be present and take your vows with full conviction that this is the person you should be with and know they feel the same way. The other things are by the side. People eventually forget and move on no matter how badly planned a wedding seemed. So relax, breathe! Everything will be okay. 😊