Wedding day

Good morning Luckygirl. Your wedding day story set me thinking about my 1960's wedding day.
Nothing dramatic happened, but a few minor things come to mind. Firstly, as my husband and I walked up the isle we were met by a very flustered Aunt and Uncle who had travelled a long distance, arriving as the service ended.
After the reception, the usual, for those days, sit down meal, I changed into my 'going away' outfit.
My husband and I went out to the car, plus guests. I handed my toiletries bag to my mother whilst we said our goodbyes to family and friends. It was only on arrival at the hotel that I realised mum still had the bag. I had collected Elizabeth Arden toiletries specially for my honeymoon! I didn't even have a tooth brush!
Our first night was in Chester. On the Monday morning we drove to the cathedral and shopped in Boots for toiletries. On returning to the car we had a parking ticket.... which we could ill afford!
A few days into the honeymoon my period started and like you I was doubled up in pain.
Thinking about your 'unexpected visitor' on the morning of your wedding.... thank goodness it arrived when it did. A few hours later and it would have been very embarrassing and upsetting for you.

The joys of womanhood!

My wedding day ( to now ex husband) went off without a hitch but the night before my MIL to be asked me if I was really sure I wanted to get married😲
She wouldn’t elaborate so I guessed that she just didn’t want her son to become the property of another woman, and so it proved to be.

I recognise that - my Mum told me on the morning of the wedding that I did not have to go through with it just because it was all organised!

It absolutely poured with rain most of the day, the only day it rained during the whole summer in 1976!

On honeymoon at the seaside Orlin, definitely not a fisherman, suggested that we hire a boat and some rods. Winding in his line at the end of a non productive two hours at sea there were two tiny crabs clinging to the end.
Yes, he has of course recounted the fact that we caught crabs on our honeymoon so many times it’s worn very thin.

We went to London by train at the start of our honeymoon. Lots of people came to the station to wave us off (2d platform tickets!)

One of my brothers got on the train to send us on our way and only just managed to get off at the last minute as the train was pulling away. The guard was not amused. The rest of us were!

Love your story Laura.

I spent a great deal of time designing and making dresses for adult and child bridesmaids. The little ones had capes (which matched the adults’ dresses) to wear over their white dresses. They certainly left for church in them, but some well meaning person decided that they should be removed before we went into church and left in the church porch.

Believe or not and sometimes I really can’t believe this part, when I arrived at the church and after the ceremony I just didn’t notice that they were not wearing them.

After all the sewing they do not appear on any official photographs, and all I have is two blurred snaps where they are half out of the picture anyway.

The capes were never found, and had only extremely vague description from the littles about who told them to take the capes off. The capes were never seen again.

at the capes, that would have really upset me. Why on earth would they take them off?

I was also warned I didn't have to go through with it if I didn't want to! We had a very small and unfussy wedding.

LauraNorderr 🤣🤣

The weather had been very cold but was reasonably sunny on the day, but by no means hot. No-one noticed, myself included. It only came to light after the reception when the little ones complained to their mothers about not having their capes which they were thrilled with before the wedding. The culprit was just described by them as ‘just a lady’ !!!

My cake wasn't delivered to the reception venue , as had been arranged, the manager of the venue came to my house, a five minute drive, as we didn't have a phone and asked me if I had paid for the cake, I had and had the receipt to prove it, he then went to the bakery to collect it as all their delivery drivers had apparently left!, it was about 10.00 am on Saturday. When I complained on return from my honeymoon, I was told they didn't charge delivery so they could not refund me anything!. Even a loaf of bread or 2 small cakes would have been a nice gesture. I know I had an argument the night before with my sister but can't for the life of me remember what it was over.

I was being picked up by my future in-laws to be taken to the registry office, but they were late, so I was 20 minutes late for my wedding. After the "ceremony", the registrar leaned over his desk to shake hands with us, and said, "Congratulations, that will be 7/6 please"! Very romantic, NOT.

I married into an Italian family and my husband's uncle drove my dad and I to the church in his big white car. He drove like a lunatic, blaring on the horn which apparently is a tradition in Italy. We were flung from one side to the other. We were not amused! Still never forgot it.

Ours was chaotic! My parents came down to London by train on the day and thanks to my dad wanting to have “a wander round” they nearly didn’t make it to the ceremony! The best man came down with flu, so DH’s brother in law stepped in instead. We got to the register office and there was the old joke “I hope you’ve got the ring!” No, he hadn’t got the ring. He thought DH had the ring. My new mother in law was the only one whose ring could be parted from her finger so I got married with her ring! Then to cap it all off halfway through the afternoon, I ended up with the same inconvenience as Luckygirl. I was devastated. We had decided to get married in a tearing hurry but at least all the guests knew it wasn’t a shotgun wedding! For all we got off to a shaky start, we had a long and happy marriage!

We married in Aberdeen on a windy day in August 1971. My veil blowing one way and dress in the other in all the photos. My dad and husband looked great thoughout, though. I'd arrived at the hairdresser at 9.30 but she kept asking me to 'let others go ahead' so my long hair wasn't cut and styled till 11.30 with wedding at 2pm with a half hour bus journey home and then out again to factor in. I had told the hairdresser that I had a Juliet cap for my headdress but she had back combed my hair and it kept popping off my head so you can clearly see the large brown kirbies my mum found to secure it. Both she and one of my chief bridesmaid had been 'calming their nerves'. as they waited for me and my bridesmaid looks tipsy in all the pics. Her hat is also on squint....Before we left for the church, my dad said it would be OK if I didn't want to go through with the marriage and my father in law hissed at me to 'SMILE' as I solemnly walked down the aisle towards my fate. My grandma kept following me around the dance floor at the reception ensuring I lifted the hem of my floor length dress as she wanted me to sell it 'as new' afterwards as it was her gift to me- I bought a fabulous cream leather fur trimmed ballerina length coat with the cash later... I insisted we stopped at a local cafe on the way back to our flat to get milk for our cocoa!! The taxi driver laughed his head off... Our land lord had put a pine tree branch in our bed.... The bed collapsed in the caravan in Ullapool where we honeymooned - clearly a set up by the land lord when we went to report the damage...... He came round on the 4th day with 2 enormous turkey legs as I had borrowed the cheese greater a second time to make Mac and cheese and he felt sorry for my new DH... miraculously our marriage is still going strong....

Crikey Seadragon a very eventful day.
Rounded off with cup of cocoa!! Are you sure?

Married in the heatwave of July ‘76. I made and iced my own cake and due to the heat it started to tilt due to the icing beginning to melt.
We were flying to Minorca the following day and we did not have an evening reception. We booked a hotel overnight intending to have a quiet evening meal there but never thought to book it.
We ended up at a Chinese restaurant in the middle of Hemel Hempstead along with a large office party .

Oh I loved reading these stories about wedding days. Some of you had very eventful days.
On my wedding day it rained all day, none stop. It ruined the pictures because my beautiful floppy hat became very damp and just flopped down over my face, so I took it off. The photographer, obviously wanting to get away quickly, shut the church doors and locked everyone in the church while he took the wedding party photos. It finally stopped raining when we arrive at the reception venue, so the only picture with the sun shining was at the reception venue. The photographer then made us go and cut the cake before anyone even sat down to eat, so he could get away quickly. Needless to say, when I saw the photos I was disappointed, they were so poor.
We went camping for our honeymoon. We couldn’t afford anything else. We went to Devon and Cornwall and needless to say, it rained, and rained, and rained. We decided to move across country to Kent because we heard on our transistor radio (remember those) that the cricket was playing over there and we deduced that it must be fine in Kent. We packed everything up and drove in our very old A40 across the country and set up camp in Kent. I have no idea where, but it must have been somewhere near Canterbury because we bumped into my parents there! They were on holiday in Kent too.
We’re still together though and about to celebrate our Golden Wedding in August.

We were struggling to buy a flat at the time house prices were rocketing week by week, so as we would not have been allowed to 'Live in sin' the wedding was a huge rush. I made my dress for £5 and the two bridesmaids for £11. We went to a florist and chose flowers, then when the cost was revealed we just said 'what is the cheapest you can do?'. We ended up with bits of carnations wired together. The only extravagance was a car, my father insisted 'I am not taking my daughter to the church in a taxi' and paid for a silver Rolls Royce!

The only mishap on the day was on the way to the registry office, Dad and I passed DH and his family, going in the oppposite direction in the oncoming lane of a dual carriageway, as his BinL was lost and wouldn’t listen to instructions!
However, prior to that we’d been let down by a local hotel in Durham City, where we were supposed to be the first wedding reception there after a major refurbishment. They didn’t inform us, so I only found out when I booked to see the manager about the menu - he was very dismissive and unhelpful. In hindsight, had I been more assertive/aggressive, I’d have kicked up a stink! We rescued the day by booking at a much smaller, less expensive hotel.
The wedding cars also fell flat, due to a ‘mix-up in the book’.
Luckily, I found cars (black Rolls Royces) from a funeral director in Hartlepool! Unfortunately, my Mum ended up leaving her hat in hers and never saw it again!
That was 1972 and DH died in 2021, so we didn’t quite make it to 50years.

I got married in 1982 and my dear husband died one week short of our 40th Anniversary.
I remember our wedding day with fondness but it didn’t all go to plan. It was a very hot August day.
I am not sure why but my father did all the organisation, the reception venue, the food, drinks, cars, cake and flowers.
My best friend who was to be bridesmaid told me 6 months before that she couldn’t be bridesmaid as on the wedding day she would be almost 9 months pregnant. So another good friend agreed to be bridesmaid but on the day of the wedding her father died. Bless her she went through with the day and insisted she wouldn’t let me down.
My husband was a catholic so we married in a Catholic Church, a few months before the wedding the priest was sacked for being an IRA sympathiser. Then we had a very young priest who couldn’t cope with the anti Irish/IRA backlash and was moved somewhere else. A week before the wedding we had no one to marry us but a Monsignor from a nearby city came to marry us.
We had a coach to take everyone from the church to the reception but it didn’t turn up so everybody had to try and get home to get cars and give people lifts.
The men in my husbands family left the church and went to a local pub so are not in any photographs.
People didn’t usually have evening parties so we left the reception about 6pm to go to our house, we sat on the floor as we didn’t have any chairs and had champagne and cheese and crackers and danced to records on our new HiFi system.
Unbeknown to us all the guests went back to my parents house and everyone said what a great evening it was.
But that all being said we had a very happy marriage and I wouldn’t have changed the day and how we felt for each other.
Good memories

Our wedding was very hastily organised - and not for the reason most people in my family thought! We married 5 months after we met, Registry Office with a little "do" afterwards at Mum and Dad's all on the cheap.

The "hiccup" was that my future husband had forgotten that we had to pay the licence fee at the time of the wedding, and he mistakenly thought that he had to have the exact right amount of money and that they did not give "change" (before the days of online banking, it was cash only or a cheque and he did not have his cheque book with him.) He had to come back out to our waiting guests and ask if anyone had any spare coins with them, and a quick whip-round was taken so that he could pay the exact amount. I think we still owe my Uncle 50p, and he died about 20 years ago!

Splendid stories!