8 things I learned from wedding Nr. 1

Photographer: Andres Palacios

Since this is still fresh in my mind, I´m listing things I don´t want to forget. And maybe it will help some of you who are awaiting wedding Nr. 1 in your family.


1. Wear comfortable shoes!!
- Oh how my feet hurt at the wedding. I had ordered my shoes online and they fit very nicely on my feet. But they were not leather and did not "give". So after about an hour (it was HOT) my feet swelled and they started hurting so bad it almost spoiled everything for me. I did have the hindsight to get some other fancy, white slippers, so in the evening I wore those.

2. Get/ask for help.
- You can not ask too many people for help. We had the wedding in our home church, but one of the rules is, that if you rent the church for Saturday night, you have to clean up ALL of your decorations the same night, because there are Sunday morning services. So after the meal of the wedding (and before we went to the restaurant for the private reception), we had to clean everything away. We had asked some people for help, but it could have been more.

3. Once the wedding day is there, all the little "details" are not important anymore.
- I had prepared some games for the restaurant. But since we had to clean up first, we arrived late and all the guests were there already. We only found parking far away and when we got to our table, my "things" that I needed for the games where all mixed up and I realized I had left some "important" details in our car. So I improvised and it did not matter at that moment.

4. A wedding cake is not really necessary to make a perfect day.
- During the meal, I noticed that the wedding cake was missing. I asked some people and no one knew about it. So I called the lady that had made it and promised to bring it to the church. She was out of town and was not answering her phone. My friend offered to go to her house after the meal and pick it up and bring it to the restaurant. While we were cleaning up, she called and said the lady´s kids had said the cake was not there and should be at the church.
So while we were driving to the restaurant I finally called the woman who was doing the catering at the church and she was soooo embarrassed. The cake was in the church kitchen fridge the whole time! She had just forgotten to carry it out. She apologized so many times, I felt bad for her. They brought the cake to the restaurant and everyone had some there.

5. If you are invited to a wedding, GO!
- Once you have your own kids getting married, it´s so important to see that the guests follow your invitation and come to celebrate with you. I know men hate going to weddings (I have one of those), but from now on I am going to be more adamant about going to other peoples weddings. It helps so much to see your friends and family there and knowing they came to celebrate and support you. If you want people to come to your kids weddings, go to the invitations you receive NOW.

6. Try to finish most of the organizing  by Friday (if the wedding is on Saturday).
- Our "to be" married couple had almost everything done and we enjoyed a relaxed Saturday morning with them. They even had time to wash their wedding vehicle.

7. Have an empty freezer and fridge for the big day.
- There were many left overs and it was up to me to store them, till the next day at least, when I distributed many sheet cakes. For now I only have the left over rolls in the freezer, but had I been better prepared I could have saved more cake for us.

8. Try to enjoy the moment
- I was sooo uptight, I didn´t let any emotion in. I know everyone keeps saying, "Enjoy the day", but it is really hard when you feel responsible to see that everything runs smoothly. The next morning when hubby and I were drinking Mate, I just sat and cried. All my pent up emotions came pouring out. He really didn´t know what was the matter with me and I didn´t either, but now in hindsight, I see what it was.
For the next wedding I will try to delegate more, so that I will be freer to enjoy the day.