When All Hell Breaks Loose

I will say that i have, in my career planned and executed more than one flawless wedding. No hiccups, no disasters; everything actually went as planned. Having said that it's not the norm. There will be, more than often, something that goes awry. If you or your planner has a plan, let the plan do the work.

Brides: Find a cushion. Someone that keeps all the insanity away from you. Guests and even vendors feel that they have a personal relationship with you and it's ok for "them" to broach subjects that they deem to be important directly with you. Wrong Answer: seating problems, transportation issues, lost items etc. these can all be handled by a point person that has The Plan. And not to be mean, but don't choose an idiot as your point person. If they don't handle stress well, wrong answer, also if they are a hot head that will make a small issue even worse again, wrong answer.

Some Suggestions from Twistie over at Manalo

Whatever the disaster that strikes you, there are ways to minimize the damage.

1: Don’t panic. If you lose your head, everyone will remember your panic attack and forget how you solved the problem. Before you scream, cry, throw something, or decide to get drunk, take a deep breath and try to put things in perspective.

2: Have a disaster pack and a couple plans up your sleeve beforehand. Will you need it all? Probably not. But it does no good to only have antacid tablets when what you require is duct tape, and vice versa. Have you invited two people who have been feuding for the last six years? Detail someone to keep an eye on the situation and defuse any potential battles. Put someone you know is good in a crisis on standby to be in charge if something goes wrong with a vendor.

3: Remain flexible. One friend of mine wound up with the wrong cake delivered to her wedding reception. While it didn’t look anything like the cake she’d ordered and she had no idea what flavor it was, she decided to just go with the flow and serve it. It was roughly the same size as the cake she’d ordered, the white and gold frosting worked with her color scheme, and she decided to take it as a positive sign for her marriage that it was originally intended for a fiftieth anniversary party. Nobody noticed a thing wrong. Sometimes a disaster isn’t a disaster as long as nobody knows about it.

On the other hand, I once attended a wedding where the bride managed to leave her throwing bouquet in the church dressing room and the door was locked when she went to get it for the reception. She held up the reception for an hour over the bouquet rather than either throw something else or just get the party started and quietly send someone to get the key. In this case, inflexibility created a much bigger problem than actually existed.

4: Keep your sense of humor handy. So the ring bearer got stage fright and ran screaming back up the aisle to where his mother was sitting. Or perhaps the DJ mixed up the tracks and you find yourself dancing with your new groom to Your Cheating Heart. Or maybe (and this one happened at my wedding!) the groom has failed to familiarize himself with the wedding ceremony as written and breaks in to say ‘I do’ four times before his cue. Laughter is the only possible reasonable response in these cases. The more you laugh, the better time you have, too.

5: Be Zen. Remember in the end the only thing that can truly ruin your wedding is if something manages to prevent it happening. If you get through the ceremony, it’s amazing what you can survive.

6: Whatever goes wrong at your wedding, there’s someone out there with a much, much worse wedding war story to tell. Chances are your story can help another lady out there feel better about her wedding, too.