It sounds like a simple formula: months of planning plus a lot of cash and a hefty dose of true love equals the perfect wedding day.

Make the most of all those wedding food tastings because overwhelming evidence suggests that you won’t be eating anything on your big day

If only it worked like that. The reality is that no matter how wonderful your spouse-to-be is and how intricate your plans are, unexpected hitches do occur. You get an attack of wedding-itis and end up with a complicated mega-do when all you really wanted was a simple ceremony on the beach.

We took a straw poll of married couples to see what they would have done differently on their wedding day, with some surprising results.

Stay small

Keeping a wedding budget small is like trying to stop a toddler from losing a helium balloon – take your eyes off it for an instant and there it goes, sky high. Keeping relatives happy and making sure that friends aren’t left out means that your intimate beach wedding for 30 rapidly becomes a sit-down dinner for 500 that costs a fortune.

But the single biggest response that former brides came back with, when we asked what they would change (aside from ‘don’t do it’ from the people who find themselves single once more) was to keep it small. One respondent summed it up; “Elope,” she said, “and spend the money on a great holiday.” Most people who caught wedding fever and went all out, regretted the expense later on.

Those who ran away to wed, on the other hand, were happy with their choice. “I would elope again,” said a bride, adding, “Best idea ever. We got the whole wedding for around €650, excluding flights.”

Own it

It’s your wedding, but owning it is a different matter. A rueful bride lamented, “I let my wedding turn into a series of favours for other people. I’d let it be about what we want and about us.”

Don’t sweat it

One bride remembered being a ball of anxiety the week before the wedding, panicking about matching napkins. On the day of the wedding, she describes herself as ‘snappy’, yelling at family members to get in the photos and worrying about seating plans. “I would chill out,” she says in retrospect.

Another remembers her father sprinting her down the aisle (“we’re fast walkers and just weren’t paying attention to what we were doing”). If she could go back, she’d skip the bridesmaids and groomsmen and have friends hand her flowers instead. And she heartily recommends premarital counselling.

Skip the dinner

Wedding meals didn’t do well when couples thought about what they would like to change. One bride said, “I would have had something less formal for the wedding breakfast,” with another woman adding, “I would not do a fancy dinner again. It was boring.” (It should, however, be noted that the rest of her wedding was perfect, with a deserted beach, a random surfer as a witness, champagne glasses filled with expensive bubbles and a rainbow appearing right on cue, so perhaps it’s the circumstances that make the dinner superfluous).

Save the food

Make the most of all those wedding food tastings because overwhelming evidence suggests that you won’t be eating anything on your big day. One bride lamented, “I would eat at least some of the food I so carefully selected for my guests! I never even got to taste anything on the day, it just went by so fast.” Another said, “I would make sure that someone put food away in the limo or hotel room for us to eat as a late-night snack.”

Another bride (me) remembers being so thirsty before the ceremony, that her mouth went dry – a hip flask of water would have been just the ticket.

Stay in the shade

It’s oh-so-tempting for the fair skinned or those on holiday to sit out in the sun before the big day, but save yourself some pain with this bride’s story. Her biggest wedding regret is getting sunburnt. “The day before, I wore a scoop neck top. The sun caught my neck and the top of my chest on one side. My dress of course had a V-neck, so I had a bright red curve on one side of my chest. My response? Tears for starters, then I tried to cover it with make-up. Eventually, I gave up and thought that worse things can happen, so I didn’t let it spoil my day. It looked fainter in the daylight so doesn’t really show in most of photos.”

Ease off on the booze

Over-indulgence was a commonly revisited theme. One daughter said, “I would make sure my dad enjoyed his rum and cokes after his speech at the reception and notbefore. He ended up toasting my brotherinstead of the groom. A laugh was had by all!”

A husband commented, “My wife might have gone a bit easier on the wine, but then it would have been a normal wedding and we don’t do normal.” By that, he means that his wife drank so much, she fell asleep under the wedding present table half way through the occasion. The blushing bride added, “Yes, I agree, that would be the only thing I would change; and maybe not getting my dress so dirty by shovelling food down my neck as fast it was being dished out.” That wedding has gone down in the annals of family history as the most lively on record – the happy couple had a blast and none of the guests were complaining. And really, what else can you ask for?

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.