One of my best friends got married this past weekend, and it was so sad that I couldn’t make it. Life really just happens you know. Four of us met in University about 12 years ago, and lived together for 2 years during our penultimate & final years of our LL.B degree.

We’d shop together, sometimes wear each other’s clothes and often shoes. 3 out of 4 of us could roughy squeeze into a size 6 (UK) pair of shoes – although just one person (me) was an actual 6. The other taller than me was a 7 and the other shorter than me was a 5.5. But as young broke students, we made it work. The last person? no luck… she was a UK size 9 and often had shoe issues. Even at my wedding, her shoes were a struggle to find and didn’t quite fit. (All my girls wore the same shoes which I loved! – Photo here).

We’re planning a girl’s trip soon and we hope it works because the last time we were together was at my wedding. We naturally thought it’ll happen that way for all the other three weddings. But when the size 9 friend got married 2 years ago, life had happened and only one of us could make it. Me the size 6, was already married, adjusting to my new UK lifestyle and couldn’t make it for the wedding. The size 7 was somewhere in the land of the free trying to bag a masters degree and see if there was really anything such as the American dream.

Anyway, it was the shortest of us all – the size 5.5 that got married this past weekend. For her bridal shower, I had to send in a pre-recorded whatsapp video. We did try to have a live WhatsApp video, but the connection was sort of poor and it didn’t happen.

Obviously, with so much talk and prep about the wedding, my mind naturally tilted towards weddings. Size 9 did a great job of sending us live updates and photos – but it couldn’t be the same. Even if we could live stream every second, since technology has refused to find a way to send food online – and I therefore couldn’t have small chops, then it couldn’t be the same.

So while my friends and sisters had been able to ask me questions like “are you okay?”, “are you nervous”?. I wasn’t there to ask my dear size 5.5. Even though I suspect she’d have laughed it off loudly.

So we’ve come to the crux of this post. I generally started thinking what runs through the mind of the couples during the wedding and as always, I’m sharing my thoughts with you:

1. What if one person doesn’t turn up?

This one was slightly too real for us. It’s not something I was proud of in the least. But I’ve already shared how I was late for my own wedding. Everyone was seated, the service had started. And I still wasn’t there.

So naturally Tee must have been slightly worried. I’m pretty sure it crossed his mind very quickly. Like, what if she doesn’t show up!? And all the very many other questions that’ll flow from it. After 6 years (at that time) of being together?  How are we going to explain to all of these people? And all that money gone down the drain? What did I do wrong? How am I going  to survive without her? Well thankfully I spared him all of these thoughts and eventually showed up!

Related: Wedding Tales: Our Untold & Hilarious behind-the-scene Moments!

But I’m really curious to know what goes through the mind of people who either don’t show up at the wedding or have been stood up. Can’t be the best situation to be in.

2. What if someone objects?

We’ve seen these in the movies! That point where the entire church goes quiet, because these words have been uttered “if you have any objection why these two people should not be married, speak now or forever hold your peace!” I imagine the thoughts running through the minds of the bride and groom as they wonder whose side of the family the objection will come from. They do a quick run through of their crazy exes who said they couldn’t live without them and wonder if anyone will be that crazy to really show up and prove this point!

I don’t think I actually hear this call for objection being made anymore and I wonder if it still happens. I think it can be so traumatic that it’s been substituted for a notice period prior to the actual wedding day. To allow any objections to be brought forward. Thank goodness.

3. Is this Photographer capturing my “good side”?

What’s a wedding without great photos? We all agreed that it was probably more important than videos and essential for capturing lifetime wedding memories.

But what if after all of the money spent to get the best photographer – he still doesn’t get your good side. This thought is probably one that runs through the bride’s mind more. And I’ll be lying if I say I didn’t think of it. To be honest, I had the conversation with my photographer before the wedding. I let him know that my eyes could sometimes look funny in photos (at least to me) so he should be aware of that while shooting. Occasionally while getting dressed, to satisfy my curiosity – I asked to see the actual image on his camera, and to be sure that I was smiling properly! Thankfully all of the photos came out lovely.

Even much more than that is the question – what if all my photos get lost? I had this question on my mind just a little bit. Especially after my mum told me I had no first birthday photos because the photographer said they got lost! Thankfully I had three different people taking photos – so except the odds were really against us, it was very unlikely to happen.

Related: Celebrating Your Child's First Year Birthday - Large Party or Not?

4. What If I want to Pee? (Bride)

Well I don’t think the groom will have any thoughts about wanting to pee. But the bride. Oh the bride. I wonder if this has affected anyone’s choice of wedding gown? Maybe someone who goes to the loo really often, and wouldn’t be bothered to have 5 bridesmaids holding up her layers and layers of wedding gown, just to answer nature’s call!

I’ll admit I don’t recall having to pee during the wedding. At least not until I changed to my second dress which was a lot more manageable. But I know of people who definitely needed so much help to do this simple act on their wedding.

Don’t say women don’t go through a lot in life. They really do! Much worse is probably someone getting married during that time of the month. Oh no!! You’d have those constant thoughts of “what if an unwanted patch suddenly appears”?

4. What to do with the Wedding Dress?

This wedding dress. You spent forever trying to find the perfect one. It was the first thing you were concerned about for the wedding. You and your friends probably fought because they didn’t agree with your choice. You went through great lengths just to find the perfect dress. And you did.But now, it’s the cause of your worry? Now the wedding is over, what am you going to do with the dress!

I’m not sure how popular this still is but at the time I was getting married, a lot of brides would change half way to a second dress. So the actual wedding dress wasn’t even worn for the whole day! And if your wedding dress was as elaborate, then you have double the trouble of what to do with both dresses.

My dress is still tucked up somewhere in my parents house. But I had these thoughts through the wedding and really need to come to a decision quick. Here are some options:

• Give it out for cheap and help someone who wouldn’t have been able to afford it
• Sell or rent it – if it was such a splurge, you may recoup some money back
• Keep it for your daughter – you know as a family heirloom
• Amend it; maybe to a wearable dress or mini dresses for your kids
• Ruin it. No kidding – It’s an actual practice called “Thrash the dress”

Asides the dress, I had major thoughts of what to do with my shoe! It was kinda silver, open-toe and low(ish) heel. Not really the kind of shoes I’d wear everyday. But it was perfect for the wedding.

Approximately 940 days later, I’ve never worn it again. For special events, I’ll clearly choose shoes that I can easily wear again, and if you’re not yet married, bear that in mind too.

5. What gifts have people brought for me? (Not 3 rice cookers I hope!)

Let’s not pretend that this isn’t true. Okay it’s probably not that important, but curiousity does get the better of us. Especially when you can see the huge gifts nicely wrapped and sitting pretty right next to the guests.

So while you and your husband are swaying nicely and listening to each other’s heartbeat during your first dance, there’s a slight wonder as to what’s exactly in those packages – especially if you’ve seen cases where some gifts are so nicely wrapped but have somewhat disappointing contents.

I’ll admit I was slightly curious about this, more so because right after our gifts were presented to us, I spotted one which looked like a desktop computer! Didn’t dwell on this too much though, because we had already decided to give these off to charity.

For cases (as in a number of African weddings) where guests spray or gift the couple with physical cash, I’m pretty sure many couples think “just how much did we receive”. I heard of couples who spent the wedding night, counting this money. You can’t blame them. Anything to offset the huge wedding expense is often welcome!

6. Hope everyone’s eaten & happy?

I know! Most of the above thoughts have been centred personally on the couple. But they’re really not that selfish. This one thought is one that truly does cross the mind of many couples –  wondering if the guests who came to celebrate with them have had a great day of fun, without any bad reports and eating and drinking to their heart’s content.

It doesn’t matter if they’re thinking this not out of genuine concern, but because we know how tales of a horrible wedding can spread like wild fire and potentially damage ones reputation – particularly when the food ran out!

7. Wait. Am I really getting married?

Yes this. That moment of realisation that you haven’t attended someone else’s wedding – you’ve actually had yours!  Whether we like it or not, weddings and marriages are a big deal. And it comes to that moment where no one has objected, your guests are satisfied and begin to leave… in trickles, then in batches.

And then you have to leave too. To a whole new life with this one person, with the intention of forever. So many questions flow from this one. What sort of marriage will I have? Will my parents and siblings miss me or are they happy to see me go? Can I really not just go back home? Do I really want to do this? It’s not 24 hours yet – can we get an annulment?

Haha. I hope no one thinks of that final question.

Finally, this may not apply to everyone, but I’m so bad at dancing that I kept thinking and wondering if my body movements were aligned and I wasn’t making a fool of myself. Apparently I wasn’t – as the audience had it that I danced better than my husband who is a self-acclaimed dancer!

Related: 8 Interesting Kinds of Dancers You'll find at Weddings!

Well, that’s it. I really enjoyed writing this piece! And literally burst out laughing halfway at different points. I hope you enjoyed this and please don’t forget to share using the buttons below.

If you’re married what sort of thoughts were you thinking? And if you’re not what do you think you’ll be thinking? I’ll love to hear!

Love,

Kachee… xx

pS: Don’t ask. I have no idea why I have described my friends using their shoe sizes!

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• How We Personalised our Wedding (+ Ideas, Tips & Lessons)
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