Last Minute Mishaps

tigerlily6

Some of you have shared a few of these before, and they're always great. FI and I had our first comical "thing gone wrong" last night around 11pm -- when we let our dog out to potty before bedtime last night, he got full on sprayed by a skunk in the yard. I had read online the best time to tackle a sprayed dog is as soon as possible so the stuff doesn't dry onto their fur. So FI and I suited up in old rain gear and yellow kitchen gloves (essentially our homemade hazmat suits!) and scrubbed pooch down at midnight with the garden hose. A bunch of peroxide, baking soda, and Dawn dish soap later, and I think we might be okay. 

The wedding is in 3 days. I'm having several bridesmaids who are staying at the house starting tonight through Friday, and a BBQ in our backyard the day after the wedding with some friends . Hopefully any lingering skunk smell in the yard will have mostly dissipated by then!

At this point, though, even midnight skunk adventures aren't really phasing us. We're both just super excited for the weekend.

Any good blunder stories others have to share?

kvruns

omg the skunk thing sounds terrible! I hope you got all of the stench out....and burned your rain clothes after lol

WinstonsGirl

My MOH stepped on my dress as we were headset out for pre-photos and ripped it.  Luckily, it was easily hid with a safety pin under another section, so it worked.  

We also left all of the bouquets in the hotel fridge, and MOH ran back for them. Only 2 blocks away, but it was hot in Hawaii and she was in heels.  

Good for you for just rolling with it, cos shit is going to happen

bleve0821

The zipper broke on one of the BM's dresses. We had to sew her in. 

OliveOilsMom

We had a very similar skunk mishap last summer with our dog.  Granted we weren't getting married 3 days later, but still!  That mix you did was the best one to work on our dog.  She will probably need a few more baths with that concoction too.  It seemed like the smell would return to Olive after a week or so, probably because the oils were coming out of her pores again.  She also got it right in the face, so her breath was horrendous!  We ended up feeding her tomato sauce soaked bread and that did clear it up!  As for your house, leave out some open bowls of white vinegar and get a spray bottle and do half water/half white vinegar and spray it on your couches and other fabrics you can't easily wash.  It will pull out any lingering odor from your house.  It's also possible you can't smell the lingering odor, so spray just in case!

As for actual wedding related mishaps, I've been involved in two.  The first was my wedding.  I realized on the morning of my wedding that my detachable straps were not in the garment bag.  They were still at the bridal salon.  I called them, pretty chill and when the lady asked when I was getting married and said "today" she laughed! She quickly put me on hold to go look for the straps.  My mom went to pick them up and she was very vocally unhappy about having to go pick up a part of my dress on the day of the wedding.  There was a bride & her mom there getting ready to dress shop too.  But I got the straps and all was well, we were not backed up on time since I built a lot into our day anyway.

The other was almost 2 years ago now, their anniversary is coming up on July 5th.  Bride had a gorgeous raw silk gown.  Hair & make up came to the room early.  Once bride is dressed, the photographer comes and takes some pictures with all of us.  He takes a chair from the table and moves it to the window to have bride sit in the natural light.  Once all done, she ended up with a blob of liquid makeup pretty much on her ass.  So I go digging in my emergency kit and start scrubbing at the stain.  It's lightening but not going away.  MOB is a mess and starts talking about suing the MUA - because its totally all her fault.  MOG comes in and is very flippant about the stain.  MOH tries to call the DOC to get a tide stick. 

Bride is trying to stay calm and eventually says that she has to get out of the dress to see the stain.  She does and freaks!  I'm still trying everything I can think of to get the stain out.  Eventually we come to realize it won't come out.  Thankfully her dress was pleated, so I literally get the iron out and iron in a new pleat to help cover up the stain!  I also secured the new pleat with a safety pin.  We finally take off for the first look, about 30-45 minutes late.  We walk over to a GM who is going to take us to the spot.  He is smoking and he asks how everyone is doing and I say (being the giant anti-smoking proponent I am) "She needs a drag of that." 

So the first look goes well, we get the rest of BP pictures and go to walk back to the hotel.  And this whole time the MOH is useless (I could literally go on for days about her and how horribly she treated bride) so I have been carrying her train the entire way there and back to avoid her sweeping the streets of Philly.  We get back to the hotel and we all stop to have the door opened and I didn't realize, but I had stepped on part of her gown that had fallen.  Bride takes a step and rip.  Thankfully it was only a lace hem around the bottom of her tulle underskirt that stays hidden.  I got my trusty seam rippers out and remove the dangling piece. 

That gorgeous gown was doomed from the start, I think.  She also had red wine spilled on her during cocktail hour!

MissKittyDanger

Our mishap that we were hoping would change - and did - was actually weather. The entire freaking week was hot and humid, and we really didn't want to have to move the ceremony inside if we could avoid it. 2 nights before, we had a bit of rain and it cooled things down enough it wasn't broiling.

Day of wedding we got to be outside and it started to heat up. Not only did we worry about older people - even though they weren't needing to be outside for very long and in shade - but the guys were in black with jackets. During ceremony it drizzled enough to drop the humidity and make it comfortable.

After pictures, and during dinner, it ended up just down pouring! We worried over nothing haha!

scrunchythief

About 15 minutes before our ceremony started, I realized that I'd forgotten DH's boutonniere at my mom's house, about 5-10 minutes away, depending on traffic.  I'd made it to include celery leaves as a nod to Doctor Who.  DH and I were going to shrug it off and not go back for it.  But my mom finds out and says "No!  He has to have his celery!!!" And she drove back for it herself since she knew the way best.  I have no idea how, but I think we only started about 2 minutes late. 

My aunt's wedding was worse.  She put her dress on that morning and I don't know how but something went awry alterations wise, and it was so long that she couldn't walk in it.  We tried everything, safety pins, duct tape, but it kept flipping up.  So my grandma (who made my mom's prom dresses) and the photographer (who used to be a seamstress) hemmed the whole dress that morning.  So yeah, try your dress on with shoes before the morning of.  

londinium215

We ended up completely fine, but some of the last minute issues (seriously, this wasn't everything) we had included:

• Two days before the wedding all four groomsmen were running around different neighbourhoods in our city looking for shirts to wear and texting their group chat when they found one the right colour to see if anyone could fit into that size. Guys, you had like 9 months to find ivory shirts and we offered to buy them for you if you gave us your size but, noooo, you insisted on doing it yourself. 
• Speaking of the groomsmen, my husband asked the guys to be at the venue at 1pm to get ready with him (though he would optionally treat anyone who got there earlier to lunch beforehand) to ensure at 2pm we could do pictures. Most of the guys met up at noon to grab a bite to eat, but let's just say I have a lovely picture of one of the groomsmen calling the best man trying to track him down.. taken at 1:40pm. 
• One of my bridesmaids was meant to arrive by 11:15 for her hair appointment at 11:30. At 11:20 she hadn't arrived and the hairdresser had finished with my grandmother-in-law so was sitting around waiting. I called her to confirm she was on her way and she was on her way back to her hotel to shower after going for a run, convinced she didn't need to be there until 12:30 (the time her appointment was meant to end and my MOH's was meant to start). 
  
• My MOH was meant to arrive in my city a week before the wedding so I set my final fitting for the day she was supposed to arrive, so she could come with me. Nope, she had something wrong and found out a day before her flight that she wasn't arriving until the following day. 
• My seamstress insisted the length of my dress was going to be fine, it just seemed a bit long because of her carpeting. The minute I put the dress on at the venue, I could tell it was a touch too long... then when we figured out how to bustle it (difficult, considering no one had been able to come with me to the appointment) it was too long and I couldn't dance at all after the first dance, which was hard enough. I could barely walk in it without being at risk of tripping (at once point I almost did trip, thankfully my friend was next to me to grab on to!) and spent a good chunk of time safety pinning, tying, and finally scooping it from the bottom and tucking it into my belt. The pictures look ridiculous. It was five weeks ago and yes I'm still salty about that. 
  
• Oh! And during the wedding, we signed the license, a part of the legal ceremony in the UK. Our witnesses signed it without a problem, but I (the only left-handed person) couldn't make the pen work. The registrar had to stand there teaching me how to use the pen. How embarrassing! 

At the end of the day, whatever. The only thing that genuinely upset me was the dress length thing because, not only do the reception pictures with me look really sloppy, I didn't feel very safe walking around and kept expecting to fall. Other than that - we got married! Yay!

lyndausvi

Tropical Storm Hannah and her 65+ mph wind driven rains showed up for our beach wedding.      The tent collapsed the morning of the wedding.  2 tent guys from over an hour away had to give up their Saturday night and stay to make sure it wasn't going to collapse again (it was rated for 65 mph).     Although it wasn't too bad for them.  Between us and our friends they got a lot of tip money, plus they ate very well.

The sweetest thing was DH knew I wanted to be barefoot in the sand to get married.  Due to the storm it had to be moved under the tent.   After the coordinator setup the ceremony DH noticed a tiny sliver of sand (most of the tent was sitting on a concrete slab with a dance floor on top).  So he made the coordinator rearrange the entire setup so we could get married in the sand.  He's a keeper.

charlotte989875

That's sweet @lyndausvi. 

We we didn't have major mishaps (that is if you don't count my MOH throwing a fit because no one was excited/wanted took BM dress shopping for her September wedding the week of my wedding..) 

But my SIL was married this weekend and the buttons on her dress that held up the bustle broke whenever we tried to bustle the train. It clearly wasn't done right because it couldn't hold the weight of the dress. Thankfully I bring hair ties everywhere and looped a hair tie through the bustle loop and through the button loops to hold up the dress so she can dance. 

Jen4948

My SIL's hairdresser was very late - showed up at the last minute. (She stopped using him after that.)

And at the wedding itself, the venue was not ready to begin the reception on time (right after the ceremony). I don't know whose fault that was (I've heard that the venue messed this one up), but right after the ceremony, the guests were kept waiting in a small, tight area with no chairs or refreshments while the families and WP were taking photos and had to keep doing so even for some fifteen to twenty minutes after the photo session was over.

jh715

My hairdresser no-showed.  She was supposed to be at my parent's house at 10am to do hair for my bridesmaids and myself, and I messaged her at 10:15 to find out that she'd made an assumption that I didn't need her, and was unavailable.

A few frantic phone calls by my SIL got us all in chairs at various salons around the city.  I loved my hair, and all my BM's looked great as well, but it was a stressful couple of hours.

vikinganna87

@tigerlily6  You certainly handled the skunking incident with good grace and humor -- it bodes very well for you and your soon-to-be H's future  And congratulations on your upcoming wedding!!

Not sure if this qualifies as a mishap, but H didn't show up for the "first look" photographs.  I slept at the reception hotel the night before and he slept at another hotel.  H was supposed to meet photographer A in the reception hotel lobby while photographer B was with  MOH and me in the hotel room so they could get pictures of him watching me walk down the stairs.  After photographer A waited 30 minutes for him in the lobby and had made several calls to photographer B upstairs, I called H and it turned out he was at the church across the street with the rest of the wedding party --- he'd misunderstood the location.  I was surprisingly calm even though I could tell both photographers thought he was standing me up!

vikinganna87

jvanderschaaf said:

My hairdresser no-showed.  She was supposed to be at my parent's house at 10am to do hair for my bridesmaids and myself, and I messaged her at 10:15 to find out that she'd made an assumption that I didn't need her, and was unavailable.

A few frantic phone calls by my SIL got us all in chairs at various salons around the city.  I loved my hair, and all my BM's looked great as well, but it was a stressful couple of hours.

Oh my gosh - terrifying!  Glad it worked out well in the end

AddieCake

I ordered the wrong size SoleMates for my shoes and didn't test them until morning of. I feared walking in the grass in my heels, so I got married barefoot.

It was one of the best things that could have happened. My nerves for walking down the aisle were gone as my dad and I laughed the whole way down about it, and then two of my former students washed my feet in the bathroom at the reception.

ei34

@tigerlily6 great job handling the skunk...hoping the next few days go smoothly!
I had a limo glitch that led to my ceremony starting late...it's a joke among family and friends to this day because I'm known to be early to everything.  For me, on time is late.  So although we had a wonderful wedding, it still irks me that the ceremony didn't start on time.
Our ceremony was supposed to start at 4, and the limo dropped my H and his groomsmen at the church at 3:35, and was supposed to come get my sisters and me from our parents' house (where we'd gotten ready)...it's a 5-minute, straight shot down one road drive from the church to my parents' house.  To this day we don't know what the limo driver did or where he was, but he didn't arrive at the house until 4:20.  My sister started calling the dispatcher/receptionist at 3:50 asking where he was, because we didn't want to be late, and she was totally blowing us off "he's outside" when he wasn't...then "he's only one mile away" when the house is less than a mile from the church.  Then she said "don't worry weddings start late all the time".  Really annoying.  She repeated the church and house addresses and they were correct, so it was just really weird.  At 4:05 we called my mom, who sent my dad to come get us, and the ceremony started at 4:20.  I just hate that I kept guests waiting. I gave the limo company a poor review on Yelp and some wedding sites.  The rest of the ceremony and reception were beautiful, but that was my mishap story.

holyguacamole79

Happy wedding week,  @tigerlily6

tigerlily6

Thanks, @holyguacamole79!

Mishap two: Aunt Flo RSVPed this afternoon (I usually spot a day or two before I actually start, so I'll likely start just in time for the wedding day, huzzah!). I knew it was a possibility since I'm near the end of my cycle, but still a womp womp moment.

Thankfully FI and I have been communicating close about this possibility, so no wedding night shockers at least. It's not the end of the world, and if my flow isn't too bad we still just might go for it, we'll see. 

But yeah . . . skunks and menstruation. Definitely the less glamorous underbelly of the wedding week, haha. 

AddieCake

I feel ya on AF. That bitch showed up at our rehearsal dinner.

Knottie1466815565

My uncle accidentally spilled a glass of red wine down the front of my dress during the reception- everyone around me freaked out.  I was in the kitchen for about 5 minutes with people fussing all over me before I realized it was a hopeless cause, and the wine was not coming out any time soon...As luck would have it, I was getting married in a venue that was underneath a dress shop so my wedding planner snuck me into the store and I put on a dress they had in the window, which surprisingly fit.  I finished the reception in a different gown.  Hilarious, wouldn't have it any other way.

100yroldblinddog

Knottie1466815565 said:

My uncle accidentally spilled a glass of red wine down the front of my dress during the reception- everyone around me freaked out.  I was in the kitchen for about 5 minutes with people fussing all over me before I realized it was a hopeless cause, and the wine was not coming out any time soon...As luck would have it, I was getting married in a venue that was underneath a dress shop so my wedding planner snuck me into the store and I put on a dress they had in the window, which surprisingly fit.  I finished the reception in a different gown.  Hilarious, wouldn't have it any other way.

What now?

OurWildKingdom

100yroldblinddog said:

Knottie1466815565 said:

My uncle accidentally spilled a glass of red wine down the front of my dress during the reception- everyone around me freaked out.  I was in the kitchen for about 5 minutes with people fussing all over me before I realized it was a hopeless cause, and the wine was not coming out any time soon...As luck would have it, I was getting married in a venue that was underneath a dress shop so my wedding planner snuck me into the store and I put on a dress they had in the window, which surprisingly fit.  I finished the reception in a different gown.  Hilarious, wouldn't have it any other way.

What now?

I'm curious too!

OurWildKingdom

AtomicBlonde said:

The zipper broke on one of the BM's dresses. We had to sew her in. 

I was being sewn into my BM dress two hours before my cousin's wedding.

Knottie1466815565

100yroldblinddog - we were married in a mini bridal district and the reception was in a beautiful ballroom in the basement of one of the buildings, the dress store being on the street level.  My planner worked for the venue, so she was familiar with the dress shop.  I'm can't say for sure but they all must be owned by the same company because she had the keys for the store...after my dress got spilled on (and it was all over the place) we snuck into the store and there was a dress in the window that was pretty similar to mine.  I was wearing a sweetheart neckline with a full skirt (all white silk) and this one was very similar but there were jewels on the top and the skirt was fuller.  I tried it on and it fit so I wore it for the rest of the night.  Surprisingly not a lot of people even noticed.  At the end of the night I switched back into my old dress and put the other dress back into the window.  I still can't believe it worked out the way it did.  If that dress hadn't been there half of my reception pictures would have been in a massively stained dress.  I've sent it out for cleaning twice now, I seriously doubt the stain will ever come out, which is a bummer- but hey, at least it makes for a good story!

redwoodoriginal

Knottie1466815565 said:

100yroldblinddog - we were married in a mini bridal district and the reception was in a beautiful ballroom in the basement of one of the buildings, the dress store being on the street level.  My planner worked for the venue, so she was familiar with the dress shop.  I'm can't say for sure but they all must be owned by the same company because she had the keys for the store...after my dress got spilled on (and it was all over the place) we snuck into the store and there was a dress in the window that was pretty similar to mine.  I was wearing a sweetheart neckline with a full skirt (all white silk) and this one was very similar but there were jewels on the top and the skirt was fuller.  I tried it on and it fit so I wore it for the rest of the night.  Surprisingly not a lot of people even noticed.  At the end of the night I switched back into my old dress and put the other dress back into the window.  I still can't believe it worked out the way it did.  If that dress hadn't been there half of my reception pictures would have been in a massively stained dress.  I've sent it out for cleaning twice now, I seriously doubt the stain will ever come out, which is a bummer- but hey, at least it makes for a good story!

So you essentially stole a dress bc yours had a stain, then didn't pay anything for wearing it and didn't even dry clean it after wearing it the whole night? And never let the actual owners of the dress know you wore that dress?

its not a good story. It's an embarrassing story of how you let the idea of *pretty pictures* get ahead of what was ACTUALLY important and you STOLE-BORROWED a dress! And didn't even clean it afterwards! Who cares if your dress had a stain?! Lots of people's dresses get stains on them!

do all the brides who got a stain on their dresses get a re-do bc they didn't get to steal another dress to change into?! 

Like are you kidding me right now??

Knottie1466815565

To give you a visual...

OurWildKingdom

You should have paid for the dress or at least paid to have it cleaned.

Knottie1466815565

We told the store (obviously), and had it cleaned.  The store people thought the story was funny.  Relax.

OliveOilsMom

Knottie1466815565 said:

We told the store (obviously), and had it cleaned.  The store people thought the story was funny.  Relax.

Sounds like there is a little bit of backpedaling going on now.

100yroldblinddog

@OliveOilsMom: OBVIOUSLY Knottie#s alerted the store about what had transpired and OBVIOUSLY it's hilarious and we just had to be there LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

@Knottie1466815565 - Stealing from a store, damaging their merchandise, and then saying that everyone had a laugh over it makes you neither believable nor a quality person. Womp womp.

rodigsorange

@Knottie1466815565, these wolves would've done the same but not have been just so `~tacky~` to post about it. "The club soda did wonders!" //streetwalker blush//

It does makes for a fantastic story and your event person was fairly ballsy to suggest it. That is a person who is hell-devoted to making sure your day is fantastic.