Y’all.
I love weddings.
I was married when I was only 18 years old and I LOVED my wedding. We were married in a country church and it was pretty simple. My colors were navy, silver and yellow. My flowers were daisies. I fell in love with the first dress I put on, and thankfully it was relatively affordable because nothing else compared! I could feel everyone’s whispers about how young I was, but I didn’t care. I was in love and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. Yes, we had a lot of growing up together, but we both wanted to do that growing together.
This is where many people then talk about divorce and how naive they were–but nope. We’ll be married 19 years on October 2nd and I can truly say, we’ve immensely enjoyed growing up together! We are definitely different than we were at 18 and 21– but we purposed early on to grow together, to put God as our center, and to honor our vows no matter what.
And while I love the modern weddings we attend– their fancy photography (ours was not) and fancy decorations (ours was pretty cheap) and fancy food (my mother-in-law made finger foods in the fellowship hall)– I wouldn’t trade our simple, love-filled wedding for the world.
That said, I LOVE to write about ALL THINGS WEDDINGS. In The Engagement Plot–there is a season where they go wedding dress shopping, and it makes me grin every time. Granted her experience is WAY different than mine ever was (PHEW!!) but there is something super special about trying on that very first wedding gown!
And in the novella I’m writing now, A (wildly) Wonderful Wedding– the final book in my 4-book Romance(ish) series–it is ALL ABOUT one very wild wedding, a very concerned maid-of-honor and best man who are determined to stop their friends from making the biggest mistake of their lives.
Since I write romantic comedy, you will be sure that this “wild” wedding will be full of some bloopers along the way.
I’m convinced that ALL weddings have SOME type of mishap. Mine? The preacher didn’t say, “You may kiss the bride.” He just tried to send us on our way back up the aisle. This is AFTER we had a rehearsal where he tried to do the same thing and I specifically asked when he was going to say it, and he noted that we would kiss then. What I didn’t realize in my bridal-glee was that he never said he would SAY it then. So on our wedding day, when the words didn’t come, I turned around for all to see and said, “But you didn’t say you may kiss the bride!” He replied, “You’re married. You don’t need my permission.” We were confused, but regardless, we kissed and walked back down the aisle. Turns out, he had something against telling a couple–even newly married–to kiss in church. SURE wish he would have relayed that to me ahead of time.
But it makes for a funny story to tell, and a pretty comical moment on the wedding video.
So since I’m all wedding minded, I thought we’d just chat about weddings today!
Did you have any “whoops” on your wedding day?
If you haven’t been married, any “whoops” happen at a wedding you attended?
OR feel free just to share about your wedding! I LOVE to hear wedding stories!!!
Krista Phillips writes inspirational romance with a dash of smiles. She believes a sprinkle of laughter (and a wee bit of chocolate) makes everything a little better! She blogs regularly about life as a wife, mother, follower of Jesus, and mother of a child with a rare congenital heart defect at www.kristaphillips.com. She is represented by Sarah Freese of WordServe Literary.
I loved my last wedding,we were married in a gazebo in a a Wild West Town.
It has been nearly7 years and now I have someone to be by my side until I meet the Lord.
Hi Krista, thanks for sharing about your wedding (and wedding stories). I was 21 and my husband 23 when we got married, the weekend after graduating from uni, so it was pretty hectic. So hectic, that we arrived at our reception (a simple affair under a marquee on the college grounds!) to be told that our wedding cake was not there- we had completely forgotten to ask someone to go pick it up!! The morning before our wedding, we realised we needed to make our final music selection… 15 years later, I feel blessed to have married the best man ever, even if our wedding wasn’t the big ‘detail driven’ event like so many often are!!
Blessings:)
My husband and I will celebrate our 45th anniversary this year, and I can’t remember any “whoops!” from our wedding day! It was back in the day when most of the weddings I went to just had simple receptions (no full meal, etc.). So we had a cake, make homemade fudge (it was just after Christmas), added mints and nuts, and that was it!
Hi Krista! Thanks for sharing your wedding story. I will be married 45 years in June and everything went as planned. My wedding was the second wedding in our new church building and for our new seminar graduated pastor. My girlfriend Rita was the first wedding in May and our friend Rosi was getting married in August. The church did not have an organ yet and renting one was extremely expensive. But we finally found one. Rita’s wedding had the whoop – the pastor had the congregation rise when the wedding march was played and the bride entered. Unfortunately he never told the congregation to sit after the opening remarks and prayer. Since nobody wanted to embarrass the pastor, the wedding guests stood for the entire 40 minute ceremony. With our German heritage we had full meals and a program. My wedding cake was special, because during high school I worked for a bakery and the baker added a water fountain as a surprise to my wedding cake. That was a new feature to wedding cakes in 1973. Best wishes.
What a fun post. I love that you were married so young and that you and your husband are still happily married!
My husband and I had a very simple wedding in my parents’ backyard, and I’d do that all over again.
The only “whoops” really was more of a frustration. My dad was walking me “down the aisle” when the photographer asked us to stop so he could get a picture. In the end, there were NO good pictures of me and my dad anyway. I wasn’t happy he stopped the ceremony like that, and then to have no good pictures. So I guess my only regret is not having a decent photographer there.
Otherwise, the ceremony was wonderful! <3
Your books sound good. I'll have to check them out!
I love your kissing story Krista, so cute! However I can’t imagine a pastor actually saying you didn’t need his permission, hope he eventually loosened up with his issues :)
I’ll be married 44 years this year, so I guess I’m in the 40 club with Margaret and Renate.
When we were married in 1974, you had to get a blood test to get a license and my husband got so queasy he almost passed out. The day of our wedding he was such a nervous wreck , I found out later, my mother-in-law had to give him a tranquilizer, lol. He’s never gotten any better with anything medical or being in the public eye either.
Your almost-no-kiss wedding story is comical! We didn’t have a comical oops on our wedding day. Our big wedding story was the wedding itself. We were in our 40’s when we got married (a first marriage for both of us) and I think almost everyone on the invite list showed up just because they thought they’d never see either of us get married!
This Saturday my youngest son will marry his wonderful lady love. In January my middle daughter married her long-time boyfriend and last August my middle son married his sweetheart. If you can keep up you see that means three of my eight children married within seven months!! That’s a lot of weddings!!! None of them has a big whoops! The August wedding the DJ cancelled last minute but a friend jumped in and did an amazing job.
My middle daughter is adopted and her biological dad canceled on her but we expected that.
Saturday it’s supposed to rain so that may be a big whoops for the pictures, but it will just add memories.
My wedding Whoops! was kind of funny. As I’m getting ready to walk down the aisle I turn to my brother who is my escort and tell him I can’t move. He pats my arm and assured me everything would be fine to just put one foot in front of the other. I shook my head and told him I wasn’t nervous. I was stuck! We both look back to find a 200- pound usher standing fully on my train! The embarrassed young man took a step back, leaned down and brushed off my dress.
The look on my groom’s face when I finally started down the aisle was quite comical. He thought I was having second thoughts. Our courtship and engagement combined was less than four months long. He was afraid I came to my senses
We had a simple wedding 38 years ago. My step father came and asked me if it was ok to start late. A large thunderstorm had come through pouring rain and people were stuck in their cars! My oldest daughters wedding cake fell apart on the way to the wedding. My youngest daughters long veil tore from someone standing on it shortly before the wedding. I quickly mended it and no one noticed.
We are coming up on 23 years in August. Wouldn’t trade marrying young for anything! (Although, we were ancient at 21 compared to you ;) )
We had three funny little things that still make me laugh:
First – my ring got stuck on the best man’s Pinky and when he finally got it off it went flying.
Then, my almost sister-in-law fell off the stairs she was standing in and crashed into the empty orchestra pit (my parents went to a huge fancy church, it was free since they were members, so we got married there in the world’s ugliest sanctuary)
And finally, while my uncle sang after we lit the unity candle, my hubby leans over and says “Mawwiage….is what bwings us…togevver today..” and I cracked up and couldn’t catch my breath I was laughing so hard.
congratulations for honoring each other and being willing to grow together. my parents married at 18 and 19. They grew up together also. They renewed their vows on their 50th anniversary. Mom died after their 52nd anniversary. So with God’s help and work on our parts is is so possible. You and your husband have this. As for me? My husband and I had a unity candle that we were going to light at our ceremony. We didn’t even think. We put the table with it on behind the pastor, so it was really sorta out of sight. LOL. We all forgot about it. My husband and I left for the reception. But the pastors wife saw it and they brought it to the reception and that is how we started the reception. It really turned out so cool, keeping the image of the binding of Christ in our lives starting our marriage. Then when my husband and i had our first dance, we did a Venetian Waltz, I kicked off my shoes and one of them hit a guy in the forehead. Arggghhh. Can you say embarrassed? LOL. though it turned out ok. The lady he was with was a good friend of my husband and Pam and Bob got married a year later. To this day we are still good friends. In fact this last Friday we went to their sons wedding. wonderful
I was also 18 when I married and my husband was not quite 21. We had a very small wedding at my home church on December 14th and snow was falling fast and furious when we left after the ceremony. Our honeymoon night was supposed to be in Lexington, KY but we ended up about 20 miles away because the roads were so slick. When we returned to our new home, that was actually a very old farmhouse, our water pipes were frozen! Many uos and downs but this December 14, “Good Lord willin'” we will celebrate our Golden Anniversary.. 50 Years! Just shows that age and the size of a wedding don’t always determine success OR failure!
Monday morning blessings!!
Thanks for sharing your wedding story. I got married at 18 too! There were so many “whoops” moments at my wedding. I didn’t want a wedding, my mom did, so I went with it. It started the night before when my aunt and uncle left their children, my twin flower girls and ring bearer at my house to spend the night, without their wedding clothes. They got into a fight and were late to the church with the kids’ dresses and tux. The first wedding whoops was the groom being locked outside the church! It was 90 degrees! He was told to come in the side door but no one unlocked it, finally, a guest got up and let him in. They played the music in the wrong place. A different uncle was taking pictures but forgot to put the film in the camera. My new husband set up his tripod and camera after the ceremony & set the timer for some group shots. The reception was a simple cake, punch, mints, and nuts in the church basement. Some of my younger cousins started opening the gifts while waiting for cake. The final whoops was us leaving the church, instead of putting the nice “Just Married” sign my groom made for me, his sister and cousin covered the entire truck, including windows, with ivory soap! They left a small square on the windshield for him to see to drive. We left the church and went straight to the carwash 2 blocks away. There we were in full wedding attire, scrubbing thick, caked on soap off the windows. After 34 years, I still wish I would have done it the way I wanted and eloped but mom was happy.
*These whoops moments are just a few of the actual things that went wrong that day, it would take a book to fill in the rest.
We will be married 42 years this summer.
I’ve been to weddings where thousands of dollars were spent and the marriage didn’t last.
We had cake, nuts, punch, and mints.
Oh, for the good ole days when life was a lot simpler.
Hi Krista. :) I love weddings, reading about weddings and all that go into them, from simple to complex. Our wedding was pretty near perfect, except for one thing. The person we had asked to video it wore glasses. I don’t remember what happened, but he couldn’t see to set the settings on the video so the whole thing was completely blurry. You could listen to it, but watching it would give you a headache. My husband went through videos around 6-7 years ago and I think that is one that he tossed….including some other things with the kids when they were real young. He had transferred video’s after they were born, but neglected the other stuff. Our 20 year anniversary is coming up in a couple months.
I was 19 and my husband was 21 when we married. We married in the church I grew up in and the reception was in the church basement. In those days receptions were still cake and punch affairs, but I had a mixed tape to play during the reception and no one, including me, remembered to play it. LOL my poor guests probably thought it was the most boring reception ever. We had more mishaps, but I won’t that’s all I’ll share. :)
I was 20 and my hubby was 25 when we got married. We will celebrate 21 years in September. I don’t remember any mishaps. We got married outside with a simple snacky food reception.
We’re celebrating our 17th anniversary this Saturday :)
My wedding mishap – my flowers were all wrong. Of course, the florist was some distant relative of my brother-in-law’s so I couldn’t complain….much. But I cried and my bridesmaids went into hysterics which caused all sorts of anguish for my groom….happy to say that our marriage is still going strong even with that hiccup at the very beginning of it ;)
No wedding of my own but as the wedding coordinator for my church, I was probably the cause of a few ooops moments. My favorite was trying to sneak up on to the platform to fill the communion tray/goblet. #GaveThemLotsOfStories
Like you, “we purposed early on to grow together, to put God as our center, and to honor our vows no matter what.” We were both 22 when we got married, will celebrate our 42nd anniversary at the end of this year, and our love for each other continues to grow. Our wedding was simple, and someone paid for my dress, paid for our wedding cake, and paid for our wedding pictures. God definitely provided for everything we needed!
We were the first wedding performed from our young preacher who had just graduated college. The preacher asked my husband if he would accept me as his loving husband!! LOL! I doubt he made that mistake again, but probably never forgot it.
Parts of our wedding was simple, my mother in law made my dress (Her daughter had picked it out and then eloped). I typed our wedding invitations. It was a big wedding, but we kept it as simple as possible. That will be 45 years ago on Dec 1st. Lot of growing up here.
My hubby and I have been married 42 years. No videos that many years ago, but we had planned to tape record the ceremony. The tape recorder messed up, and we didn’t get a recording. We were in our middle twenties when we married. Lots of our friends who had kids the same age as ours were married in their early twenties, so we were always the older parents. In fact, I’m two years older than my husband. Our younger daughter married at 27, and our older daughter married when she was 30. My parents were also older when they got married, 26 and 29. Guess it runs in the family.
What a lovely story of your wedding! I enjoyed reading it.
OHH! Please tell me it was wild west themed!! That sounds so fun!!
Oh my goodness!! Forgetting the cake — I’m sure it wasn’t funny THEN!! My mother-in-law made our cake so no forgetting it wasn’t an option! I WAS a little worried about it toppling over or something!!
I know a lot of weddings that do “dessert only” these days — a full meal gets SO EXPENSIVE!!! Congrats on 45 years!!!
Oh gosh! Poor pastor!! I wonder how long it took him to realize what he’d done!!!!
Our photographer was– interesting. It was before the days of digital so most of the photographers were like “You get 20 pictures of your wedding for $$$$$$” and I wanted LOTS AND LOTS of pictures. So I found a lady who was a lot cheaper but took TONS of pictures. Which was fine, but they are definitely not as nice as the professional photographers back then. We were on a huge budget though so it’s fine!
Oh he did not loosen up. At all. I’m not sure he did many or any weddings after us — he was a retired pastor who was filling in as interim pastor at my husband’s church, and I didn’t know him at all. He died not too many years later.
LOL about the tranquilizer — poor hubby!!!!
Aww!! I’m sure they were there to wish you well!! Half the people at our wedding were there probably to see the bride of the teen that never talked (my hubby was painfully quiet and still is pretty quiet, so everyone was SUPER shocked to see him get married at 21! I was his first girlfriend!!)
That IS a lot of weddings! You’re one busy momma!!!
And oh goodness, that is so funny! I’m sure that usher was so embarrassed!!
Well — at least you hadn’t planned an outdoor wedding!!!!!
Oh my goodness on the cake! That was my fear too, but thankfully it made it in one piece!
And yikes on the veil!! Glad you were able to fix it!!!
HAHAHA on all three!!!! Your hubby sounds like a fun guy :-) :-)
Ohhh maybe your shoe knocked some sense into him and he saw Pam in a new light?? :-) :-) And agreed, with God’s help, we’re looking forward to many more years together!!!!
I fully agree!!!! I definitely don’t advise on an early marriage (my oldest is 17… I tell her, don’t you dare, HAHAHA!!) but a successful marriage has no bearing on age or money spent on the wedding!!
Oh gosh!!! Now I will say, I WANTED the wedding. But I am a big believer that the whoops moments are just as fun and memorable as the GOOD moments, and they make it that much more special!!
You did make me think of another whoops moment! Actually 2! 1.) My parents flew in the day before the wedding,, just in time for the rehearsal. I got to the airport to pick them up and my mom was so upset because right before she was leaving, she ironed her dress and burnt a hole in it! So we had to make a mad-dash to a clothing store and buy the first half-way working dress we found. 2.) We had planned to “leave” in my hubby’s red sports car, and I was REALLY excited about it. But my brother-in-law decided to surprise us with a limo to take us around after, which was SUPEr sweet. Except when they guys when out to hang signs and stuff they had planned, the limo driver was the biggest meanie-butt I have ever met and would allow NOTHING. So they decorated the sports car… but we had to leave in the limo. It was awkward!! So we technically left TWICE as we rode around for alittle bit in the limo and was like, “This is lame” and had him take us back to the church to get the car so we could leave for real that time, LOL
Agreed! I’m a huge fan of simple (nothing wrong with a big affair too, as long more time and effort is put into the marriage than into the wedding!!)
AWW! That stinks that you don’t have that, but I remind myself that few who had weddings 40 years ago even had the option for a video!! (I am glad that we have our funny moment on video, makes me giggle every time!)
Yup, that was pretty much our wedding too!!! I honestly was floating on air during the reception so I couldn’t tell you if we played music down there or not!!!
How fun!! Congrats on 20+ years!!!
Oh gosh! That stinks, but I get it. It’s hard when you have family help and they get it wrong!!! I will say, my flowers were one of my favorite parts. I just said I wanted daisies and lots of them and very little greenery. Evidently, daisies are SUPER cheap so the florist WENT TO TOWN with daisies. It was everything I wanted!! Now, i did go and leave my bouquet at the hotel accidently that night and was SO BUMMED when we got to our honeymoon cabin in the mountains and realized it!!! I mean, they would have died anyway, but my poor husband had to put up with my tears over the matter!!
Oh my goodness, I bet you DO have a lot of fun stories!!!!!!
HAHAHAHA!! Now THAT is funny!!!!
We paid for most of ours ourself, although I’m not sure who paid for the flowers. We had put down a deposit and it didn’t dawn on me until like 3 months later that we were supposed to pay the final payment upon pickup — and I don’t even remember who picked them up for us that morning! But whoever did paid for it, and I felt stupid being that late asking who it was so we could pay them back!
That’s so fun! My mom made her own wedding dress!! I always thought that was pretty cool!
Yeah, we had our first baby 1 year later when I was 19 — needless to say we were the “younger” parents!!
Thanks Alexa!!!
We were 20 and 21 and that was 37 years ago, so we did a lot of growing up together as well. I don’t remember any real mishaps with our wedding.
I had to laugh at your “you may kiss your bride” story. At my son’s wedding, the young pastor who married them (it was his first wedding, too…) stuck his Bible up between my son’s face and his bride’s face… and offered them both breath mints. That got a good laugh out of everyone.