Wedding regrets

You are not alone! I've been married nearly 3 years and I still have a tendency to dwell on what went wrong instead of what went right. I've learned that with every wedding, as friends had warned me, something won't go according to plan. I assumed it would be a perfect day and everything would be exactly as I envisioned. I was wrong. But, that doesn't mean it wasn't a beautiful day. One of my bridesmaids had said to me right before the ceremony, this is just a moment. There will be other important moments so don't stress too much. That has stuck with me., There will be other moments in life that will be just as big. It's so easy to dwell on what didn't go right instead of all that did. I struggle with this. Try to think about the day and all the special moments and all the things that went exactly right! People won't notice the little things you did. How did it feel to walk down the aisle? How did it feel to see your Groom waiting for you at the altar? How did you feel when you put your dress on? All those things, and the fact that you're married now are very exciting and what you should choose to focus on!

Some of your reaction may well be exhaustion and the adrenaline-crash, especially since you planned the entire thing in 6-weeks. Try to turn your brain off for a couple days, and focus on yourself & your husband, and together talk very specifically about each of the wonderful things about the day. I think some of your reaction is pretty typical for nearly every bride, so part of feeling better may be doing your best to focus on the good and give yourself time to recuperate and quiet your mind. I'm guessing you'll be happier with many of the photos than you think you will, so, hopefully, that will help too.

If you stay on this forum for awhile now that the wedding is over, maybe share your perspective, especially when future bride's ask for feedback regarding first look, having a DOC, timelines, etc. It might make you feel better to offer helpful feedback to others (not this week, though! Take a break a much deserved break!). Congrats on your wonderful wedding!

My mom and Aunt gave me a good piece of advice: there is always going to be something that goes wrong on a wedding day, whether it was something that got forgotten, directions that weren't followed, etc. It's important to focus on the good and not the stuff bothering you. I felt better after I wrote a review about the things my venue specifically did wrong and so did my mom. I felt it was important to review to let other brides know the careful decisions they make/what could happen. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend my venue to anyone. But my day was wonderful nonetheless. I think it's also important to note (a coworker brought this up to me today) as long as the mistakes were really only something you and maybe your parents might've noticed it's okay. If something bad happened that all guests were noticing, then it gets a bit dicey.

I'm like you...I don't like really being the center of attention, but it was nice for a day.

There were a lot of things I expected to go wrong b/c there was so much drama/stress/anxiety leading up to our big day...I had even decided that I would make a YouTube series of wedding advice for future brides/grooms to help during their planning process...but at this point I'm just like "meh". I do look back on the day & think about how we could've made things easier on ourselves & better in other ways, but at this point I'm just glad it's over. Whenever I start to stress about what we could've done differently, I try to remind myself that you can't change the past and I also try to look forward to what we can start planning now that the wedding is over...getting a new apartment, new pets, etc etc.

Also, if you really can't get the details that you missed out of your head, maybe plan a small holiday party...after you relax & destress.