Heartbreak

5 Honest Brides Share Their Biggest Wedding Day Regrets

Photo: Sean Locke Photography / Shutterstock
bride sitting on couch in front of blue background looking worn out

With all the stress of planning a wedding, it should come as no surprise that most couples actually skip wedding night sex — but not for the reasons you'd think.

Turns out they're not not consummating the marriage because they're exhausted from the big day. Rather, the results of a poll published in The Daily Mail reveal that 24% of couples admit that they skip the lovemaking because the groom is too drunk, while 13% skip it because the bride is too wasted.

Take that, marriage vows!

But if you ask a bride what her biggest wedding day (and night) regrets are, the answer probably won't have anything to do with the marital bedroom.

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For the women we spoke with (all of whom were married within the last two years), sex was one of the last things on their minds both the night of and the morning after.

So, what were their biggest regrets?

Wedding day regrets from five honest brides

1. Spending too much time walking the room.

"One of the things that I wish I didn't do at my wedding," says Sarah, 28, "was waste the whole night walking around and talking to our guests. You read on all the wedding websites that once your guests sit down to eat, it's a good time to walk the room and thank people for coming — but when you actually start doing it, it's awful. I didn't even get to dance or drink champagne. It took forever to walk the room and thank people for coming."

2. Letting stress take over.

"Hindsight is 20/20, I know," says Christie, 33, "but I look back on all the time I wasted stressed out and I want to smack myself! It's just a wedding. Yes, it's an important day in your life — but it's going to be perfect no matter how much planning you put into it. So one thing I'd definitely change was how much anxiety I felt before my big day. My husband wasn't stressed — so why was I?"

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3. Having too much alcohol.

"Am I the only person to admit they were too drunk at their wedding?," laughs Jess, 25. "Before we said our 'I dos', I took a few shots with my bridesmaids to calm my nerves. After the ceremony, we took a few more shots while we were taking photos to celebrate our 'I dos' and then finally, at the reception, I made it a point to enjoy the fact that we had an open bar. When I look back on the night it's super fuzzy. So, while getting wasted at your own wedding sounds really awesome, I wish I'd dialed it back a little bit so I could actually remember what happened that day."

   

   

4. Not speaking up about photo preferences.

"I hate the way my wedding photos turned out," says Kelleigh, 29. "Even that day, I didn't like what our photographer was asking us to do or the poses he was instructing us into — but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to cause a scene or act like a bridezilla. Now, though, I wish like hell that I'd said something because I can’t believe how bad the photos turned out."

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5. Not eating.

"Do you know much it costs to eat at a wedding?," Cait, 27, asks. "Before the wedding, I kept telling myself 'Don't worry, I'm going to eat, I'll have a plate.' But then you're three-quarters of the way through the reception and you haven't even touched your appetizers yet because you're too busy smiling and pretending you're not, actually, starving to death. Whenever any of my friends comment on how good the food was, I can't even pretend like I know what they’re talking about — I never had a chance to eat anything!"

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Kylie M. is a freelance writer and managing editor at Elite Daily.