We all have moments in life where we kick ourselves. Had we known what we know now we would’ve done some things differently. Well I have that but with my wedding. Just to clarify this is only for our beach wedding. Our private catholic ceremony had some hiccups but I wasn’t so hung up on them I guess. Here is what I would change from my wedding, looking back on it after 2 years.

Packing

I wish I would have packed less. Way less. Not only did I have to slug my wedding dress through the airport (it’s ok I considered it a last-minute workout) and find a seat for it on the plane, but I packed two very large suitcases just for myself and one large suitcase full of wedding supplies. Guys, it was only two weeks! I overdid it. I could’ve survive with one large suitcase for myself and one for wedding supplies but I got caught up in “what if’s” and ended up bringing enough clothes for the entire resort to wear. If it wasn’t for my mother offering to take two bags home with her I would’ve been stuck with all these bags on my honeymoon. Such a bad call on my end.

Diet

I had lost about 10-15 pounds before my wedding. Mainly from stress. There was some drama going on and I would skip meals or have popcorn for dinner; it wasn’t the healthy thing to do. In terms of fitness I just sort of made sure I hit my 10,000 steps each day and I was good. My husband knows what I look like so I wasn’t really worried about that part of it. It just sort of happened on its own. Now fast forward to wedding week. We get to the resort 5 days before the actual wedding, no stress, unlimited drinks, all my friends and family and barely walking 2,000 steps a day. The bloat was so real! My dress before I left fit me loose and by the time the wedding came I was so bloated it was hard to breathe. I wish I would have slowed down on the drinking and kept a better eye on my food and salt intake just for that week. It was a bit of a blow to my ego to feel so uncomfortable the day of the wedding.

Nails

This is a pretty minor one but I hated my nail color. After about 2 days my nails became translucent and it just wasn’t flattering. Looking back I should’ve just done all my nails gold. Welp!

Hair

Ugh. I’m actually pretty upset about this one. Since I was doing my own hair for the wedding I had constructed this cute braided up-do that would keep the frizz in check in case it was super humid out. Enter my husband and alllll of his opinions. He really had his heart set on my hair being down. I think he had an image of what he wanted our wedding to look like and I wanted to make him happy. This began a month’s long search into the best option; wigs, weave, extensions, etc. I finally settled on getting keratin extensions. These extensions go on one by one so you can still style your hair in multiple ways and put your hair up. You’re not as limited as you would be with a weave or a wig. Well after a pretty ridiculous experience to get these things in and a lot of money later, I was off to my wedding. It rained day of and my real hair started to get frizzy while the extensions pretty much stayed straight. I didn’t like the way my hair came out (I did it myself so whatever) and if given the chance again I would have probably stuck with my first option.

Make up

Not trying to make myself sound prettier than I am but I think I look alright without so much make up. But when it comes to weddings the pressure is on to look fucking flawless. My step-mother in law even gave me a gift card to go get a trail at Mac before the wedding. So of course here I come with a duffel bag full of make up. I must have applied ten coats of this shit. I swear I was a different person. The sucky part was that my tan from the 5 days before the wedding was darker than my foundation. It rained the whole morning the day of the wedding and then again after the ceremony. So I ended up looking kind of soupy in the face. My eyebrows melted off in the car ride from the hotel to the beach. I think that’s what I’m most upset about. RIP my eyebrows.

Pictures

So there is this awesome picture of my grandparents on their wedding night. Making silly faces, shoes in hand on a staircase. I always wanted to recreate that picture on my wedding day but when it came time to discuss pictures I just didn’t bring it up. Taking pictures the day of the wedding is also really annoying. You don’t want to take pictures, its muggy, you’re bloated in your dress, nervous, and the last thing you want to do is be away from the party. We had a package with the pictures so we got about 70 pictures in our package. We really had to narrow down what we wanted and what was most important to keep. Honestly I wish I would’ve stood my ground and just begged my husband to spend the extra $500 (I think it was that much, I don’t really remember) to get all the picture of our wedding instead of what was included in the package. Then sprinkle in some shots that I really wanted. Don’t even get me started about how we don’t have a video of our first dance or the hora.

Jewelry

This is a really big regret of mine. The day of the wedding Matt gifted me his late mothers heart-shaped necklace. And being the cold-hearted shrew that I am did not wear it. To be honest I was worried about if it would match. All of my jewelry was gold and the necklace was white gold. That’s it, nothing crazy. Looking back I really wish I had the necklace on when he saw me for the first time. Not having a mother-in-law kind of sucks and it would’ve been nice to have a piece of her with me that day.

Cake

Dominican’s (and other culture do this too) have a tradition of saving the top-tier of your wedding cake, freezing it and then eating a piece for good luck on your one year anniversary. Well our wedding planner was kind of a ditz and after we cut our cake for pictures she didn’t actually serve it to our guest. It turned into a sort of fend for yourself moment and next thing we know our top tier is already eaten. My grandmother had a fit! To keep with tradition we ask the wedding planner to wrap up a piece so we can take it home. GURRRLLLL! When we met with her the next day she had boxed up the entire bottom tier! I have to give my mother all the credit in the world here, she took that cake home and put it straight in the freezer. The problem was a year later it was too big to cut into to defrost a piece so we never actually ate it. A lot of hard work for nothing really.

Mom

Speaking of my mom, I honestly regret not taking a second to just spend with my mother on my wedding day. There was a bit of drama when my uncle, her brother, missed his flight the day before the wedding. My mother took it upon herself to wait for him and make sure he knew where to go for the wedding. He arrived about an hour before the ceremony and once my mother got dressed she was off with the groomsmen to the beach. By the time I saw her again she was heckling me at the ceremony and then after that we were all pretty drunk. I didn’t even get to give her her gift until the next day.

Officiant

Last but not least I wish we would have asked a friend to officiate our wedding. Technically we were already married the week before in Jersey so we didn’t really need an ordained priest or anything. Unfortunately we couldn’t find a local Rabbi in St. Lucia. (They didn’t even know what a Rabbi was when we asked.) So we settled for the packaged officiant. We specifically asked for a non-denominational wedding, for no specific prayers to be said and no specific faith to be highlighted. This was an inter-faith marriage and we didn’t want to offend anyone. In comes holy Jesus lover #1, an evangelical priest who not only forgot my name but called me Renee three times. He tsked at Matt when he mentioned that we lived together before marriage. It just felt very impersonal for such a personal milestones.

Don’t let this article fool you, I loved every bit of my wedding and I had a damn good time partying the night away. Shit, we had fire dancers!

What wedding mishaps have you witnessed?

Besos! xoxo