All The Wrongs in A Right: Our Wedding Day

Titles can be a bit misleading at times, but in reality, our “perfect” day was filled with mishaps that either we didn’t notice then or simply didn’t care enough about to stress over. I did spend an entire month deciding on invite fonts, but it was pretty stress free after that. I ended up with the one thing I looked forward to the most. Being his wife, though it wasn’t that way just a few months before.

Let me start by saying, it was never the plan. He had asked 5-6 times before and each time I’d giggle and say yes, not really taking it seriously. And then one night he woke me up and asked again.

“Shhhh, yes. Go back to sleep.” Thinking that was it because WHO WAKES PEOPLE UP LIKE THAT. Obviously, that time he really meant it and we were officially engaged for 4 1/2 months shortly thereafter. Not that I didn’t want the happily ever after, but I felt I already had it. We already had planned on forever, it just looked different.

I never wanted a traditional wedding, let me start by saying I pushed to head to the courthouse so hard that I purchased an ivory dress from the Signed, Blake Amazon collection in anticipation of my $50 nuptials. But at Mr. A’s insistence, we did the traditional wedding, not so traditionally and without any of the fluff.

At the end of the day, we got what we wanted, to be merry and married. The focus was on simple and fun and being with people who have been there from that start, who we broke bread with on a regular basis, 35 friends we consider family and family we consider friends, most of their little ones and ours. While I wished I could have invited many, many more especially having such a large family and I struggled to narrow down the list, often through tears, it was really important to us to keep it very small and intimate. The happiest compromise was gathering family for a second reception at home with the dress I bought originally. It was the perfect compromise to get everything I wanted.

When our guests RSVP’d, they each picked a song that I added to our playlists, our cocktail/dinner hour and our reception playlist. It was the most eclectic music mix and everyone got to hear ‘their song’ whether it was a momentary favorite or their own wedding/love songs and all the kids got to pick quite a few. We served my husband’s favorite, pizza! Yes, our wedding was a total pizza party. We had individual artisan pizza made onsite with a mobile brick oven we booked from Gia Mia Pizza Bar and had small plates of my favorite appetizers and salads. My cousins made charcuterie cups that were had with a sugar free prosecco after the ceremony while we took photos. I DIY all the decor and by DIY, I mean we used picture frames and sheer curtains we already had, vases we bought for $5 and many others I had on hand from the many times he has ordered flowers for me and filled them with white rose bouquets we got from the grocery store and a mix of white flowers picked up the morning of, white prayer candles from Dollar Tree, invites made on Canva from a $10 template that was later edited to make all the signage and black envelopes I ordered on Amazon to match the black table cloths and napkins. Oh, and my son’s favorite, clipboards with wedding themed coloring pages. There is elegance and beauty in simplicity that makes even the most inexpensive items look higher end.

The venue was an art gallery attached to a salon that although advertised weddings, not only could they not fit a sit-down dinner, but we were also in fact the first wedding. But there was something about the space and vibe, so we booked the gallery for the ceremony and then transformed the whole salon for the reception with rented tables, chairs, lighting, and beautiful dividers I saw on Etsy. The dividers, however, were $300 each and I needed three, so my wonderful husband made them for half the price of one because he saw how much I loved them. I had received beautiful champagne glasses from Tiffany & Co. from a lender partner of mine during the holidays that I planned on using as our toast glasses until I found these mugs, brand new, still in the box, Mr. & Mrs. Mugs for $3 and I thought they’d be more fun. Also, if my Tiffany stems broke, I’d probably be heartbroken.

My cake was a small and simple vanilla and strawberry naked cake on top of rows of vanilla, dulce de leche, & cookie dough flavored French macarons. The cake (as well as all the other sweets) was made by my MIL and the macarons were made by a local one-woman business we met at the farmer’s market.

My dress was a $100 find my SIL found based on ideas I had sent and was supposed to be my back up dress. I had the dress altered to add a rhinestone belt and beautiful rose fabric I bought on sale at Joann to add a back. It added a bit to the price, but I got a semi-custom dress for less than a store-bought evening gown. I’d call that a win. The plan was for the boys to wear linen suits with sneakers but a few days beforehand, the suits did not fit, and the color didn’t really go with the new theme (the original plan was a casual wedding in our garden but pitching a tent on the slope back there would have been costly), they rented suits last minute and my bonus son insisted they wear ties. My husband bought a new shirt, refused a tie (I’ve never seen him wear one tbh), and wore a suit he already owned. My mini me ordered two dresses from Poshmark, an ivory and black mini dress that was labeled incorrectly and this beautiful J. Crew dress we scored for just $7 and just so happened to be in my favorite color. It all looked so beautiful that I was so happy for all the mistakes that lead to the perfect unintentional choices. I did spend the day squealing from joy despite having Aunt Flow show up uninvited and being so bloated you could see my slimmers (plural) through the dress in most pictures and how frizzy my hair got because of the humidity. And my makeup, well I didn’t do a trial and my MUA told me she would do whatever she wanted, and I’d shut up and like it. Let me tell you, there is a reason brides pay $250 for her services, so yeah, I loved all of it.

* Thank you, Gia, for putting on my lashes on my first date when I found myself suddenly single and the right lash would not stay on and for putting on my lashes when I married this man. Wispies really do bring women together. *

We wrote our own vows, so we didn’t feel the need to do the formal speeches Mr. A dislikes so much, instead he raised a glass, thanked everyone and got the party started. A small guest list meant we hung out with everyone and enjoyed ourselves. We enjoyed a cup of coffee with our sweets thanks to Mr. A surprising me with a coffee bar. And all in all, had a wonderful time.

There were a lot of little things that went wrong on our wedding day, much as in life, things don’t always go as planned. Our life is not perfect, but man, is it beautiful and with all of the wrong things that happened in our lives before, I’m happy we finally got it right.