Everyone wants their wedding day to be perfect. You have dreamed about it, planned for it, paid for it, so it should be exactly what you want right? Well, unfortunately life can sometimes get in the way!
As the saying goes, “Even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” So, if the unthinkable happens and you have a wedding day emergency, here is how to handle it.
Stay calm.
I know I know, easy for me to say. But seriously, no matter what happens and how bad it seems, staying calm and peaceful will serve you better than just indulging in a freak out session. When you are calm and composed you will be able to find solutions that you might not otherwise be able to come up with if you were totally losing your cool. And, if it is really bad and you absolutely need to, take five minutes, freak out, scream, cry, rant and rave, and then reign it on in and get to thinking up solutions. If you need to, appoint a trusted friend to set five minutes on a timer and help you calm back down once it is done. In fact, this leads us to our next tip…
Call in your most trusted friend.
Enlist the help of your most trusted, most supportive, best problem-solving friend and ask them to help you figure out what to do. Sometimes you may just need someone to bounce ideas off of, or someone to lend a sympathetic ear, or someone to help you calm down. Whatever you need, a fantastic supportive friend will help you get there.
Troubleshoot.
Troubleshoot the situation. How can you turn it around? Are there any backups plans that you can put into place, resources that you can fall back on, friends or family that you can call in to help? If your flower vendor falls through have someone run to the local grocery and buy it out. Cake doesn’t show up? Buy a bunch of cupcakes from your local baker to serve to your guests. Rain on your wedding day? Rainy wedding day photos are actually really amazing, rain on your wedding day is considered good luck, and you can do some super fun and super cute things with umbrellas! (See our rainy-day wedding article for more ideas!)
One of my closest friends had a wedding way out of town and her groom’s tux never made it. There was no store open where he could buy a suit in time, so all of the groomsmen shed their jackets and ties and it became an impromptu informal wedding. And you know what? Everyone had a blast and the pictures are still fantastic!
Do NOT take it as a sign.
The fact that your dress maker declared bankruptcy two weeks before your wedding and never delivered the dress you paid for is NOT a sign that you are not meant to marry your beloved. That your venue got hit by a hurricane a month before your nuptials is not a warning to cancel your big day. On my own wedding I had so many bizarre wedding day emergencies crop up that it almost could have been declared a disaster, but I still got married to the love of my life and fifteen years later we are blissfully happy, have two little daughters, and are still very much in love. So — do not let anything get in the way of your happiness, and do not read anything into life being life. Because stuff will come up—and that is just life!
Keep it in perspective.
The truth is in a lot of cases no one will even notice that anything is wrong if you don’t tell them there is something wrong. These little details that you have spent time and money and so much love planning are really important, don’t get me wrong — but they aren’t the most important thing. The most important thing is that you are getting to marry the love of your life and start your life together. So your wedding day is going to be beautiful and meaningful no matter what falls through or what the weather is like or what the centerpieces look like. Because you will be married and that is cause for rejoicing!
