Weddings are incredibly stressful, chances are you’ve spent months or even years organising the perfect day. But, things can go wrong and you can’t let it ruin your day. Here are our top three things that can go wrong on a wedding day (from personal experience) and how we’d suggest overcoming them.

1. Bad weather

Everyone probably wants a perfect, dry, sunny wedding day but unfortunately you can’t predict British weather. It would make things a lot easier if you could book your weather like you book everything else but you can’t. If you wake up to rain or wind or even snow then don’t let it dampen your spirits. It’s still the most important day of your life and you can’t let the weather dictate the rest of your day. Prepare in advance for the ‘just in case’. Have some wellies on hand to wear for your photographs, your dress will be long enough to cover them and there’s no point ruining your shoes if you don’t have to. A photograph with your dress held up and wellies showing can be a fun addition to your wedding album! Large umbrellas on hand are perfect for rainy weddings and can even match your colour theme so they don’t look unsightly. If it’s horribly windy and you’d planned on wearing your hair down then maybe have a contingency plan of having it pinned up so not to annoy you by blowing in your face. But don’t worry if you haven’t thought of any of these things in advance, your venue will have arrangements for your photographs to be taken inside and at some point in the day there is sure to be a break in the weather for you to go outside and get some shots.

2. Your dress won’t fasten properly

It is very likely that this is not due to you putting on vast amounts of weight since your final fitting, but is most likely due to the way in which the dress is being fastened. Strings, ribbons, poppers and zips look easy but can be difficult especially in an already stressful situation! Unless you have a professional fastening you into your dress, it can be difficult to remember what you were told at your fitting, especially when the nerves kick in and you’re excited. Ideally, the family member or friend who has the task of fastening your dress will have been to your fitting with you so will have watched how it’s done. If not, then ask someone else who is with you as you’re getting ready; such as your photographer, videographer or makeup artist if they can help. I’ve helped plenty of times when things have gone a bit wrong! If all else fails and you’re completely stuck as to what to do, give your bridal shop a ring. At the very least they will talk you through it over the phone and wherever possible they may arrange to send someone out to help you. Elegance Bridal Studio offers a dressing service to their brides when they collect their dress so this may be something to think about to ease wedding day stress.

3. Something is not what you selected

Your main things like dress, suits, photographer and venue can’t possibly go wrong as you have personally viewed, collected or selected them. But what about the things that you don’t actually see until the wedding day? Flowers may not be exactly the correct mix of roses, lilies and freesias or may be a different colour to what you were expecting. Your table decorations may be slightly different to what you viewed beforehand; instead of fishbowls you may have giant martini glasses. Your car may be an entirely different one due to engine trouble with the one you’d picked. And, a common surprise is the seating may not match your much thought about table plan. Don’t panic! Some things, like the seating can be changed as and when it is realised and some things, like the car cannot. But, at the end of the day you do have these things even if they’re not exactly what you wanted. I’ve heard horror stories of cars not turning up at all, flowers being delivered half dead and table decorations being non-existent. If there is something not as expected on the day then try not to let it bring you down, remember it’s your wedding day and enjoy it as if it was perfect. Afterwards you can have a word with your supplier and express to them how disappointed you were, more often than not there will be a reason why they had to make a substitution at the last minute and the substitution is certainly better than having nothing at all.

Hopefully this will not have worried you; these are the three most common things that I encounter at weddings. But 90% of weddings  I’ve attended are completely perfect so don’t worry about any of this happening to you. The 10% who have a mishap on the day come to me afterwards and say how much they enjoyed their day despite whatever’s happened. The most important thing to remember is that you and your partner are getting married; all your friends and family have come to celebrate with you and no matter what goes wrong you will always have your special day to look back on. No matter what goes wrong, it will always be the happiest day of your life and when you’re ninety looking back on it you’ll not care whether your flowers were the wrong shade of pink!