7 Best Garden Wedding Decorations and Accessories
How Does it Feel to Have to Cancel Your Wedding?
Photos by Matt Somerville Photography
We are all for getting a little personal on this blog, but today I have something really personal to share with you. It is no secret that when I first started Bespoke Bride I was engaged and planning a wedding. Me and my then- fiance had planned on getting married in May 2013, I had chosen that month as both my parents and grandparents had married then. We had decided on our celebrant and we had asked my grandmother if we could use her garden. My grandmothers house has huge sentimental value to me, my grandfather was no longer with us and as he spent so much time in this lovely garden, it somehow felt that he would be there with us to celebrate the day. As the wedding was over a year away, my uncle set about working on the garden to make sure it would at its best a year from then. I had found the dress that I wanted which my mum and dad had kindly offered to buy for me. I had bought two of my bridesmaids dress and my third bridesmaid was in the process of looking for hers. I had picked my photographer, wedding songs and theme of which we were planning on DIY’ing a lot, so really all that was left to do were invites and food.
A few months later on our holiday to Zante my fiance called everything off. I was shocked, completely numbed and I felt like my world was crashing down around me. You might wonder why I am talking about such a crazy personal experience on a blog that is full of wonderful wedding pretty everyday? Well quite simply I have found more and more people have started to ask me how I coped with it and only now do I feel fully ready to talk about it? The point of our personal posts are to help others and I am hoping that is exactly what this achieves today…
I understand weddings are cancelled all the time, in fact I know of more than one person that has had to do it however, it doesn’t stop you from feeling like a huge failure. I was unfortunately faced with the sickening job of telling everyone. For some time I couldn’t quite bring myself to admit what had happened so I continued to act like everything was normal. I suppose I secretly wished he would come around and I wouldn’t have to do it all. The thought of telling everyone made me feel embarrassed and ashamed. I had started a blog for goodness sake and had announced it to the whole world, I couldn’t have felt any more stupid!
After some serious words with myself I realised that I wasn’t going to be getting married and I needed to set about telling everyone so that I could move on with my life. I have to admit I got my mum and dad to tell most of our friends and family. I couldn’t deal with the sympathetic looks and questions. I was extremely lucky that as we were a year away from the wedding, things that we had bought could be taken back and many of our other vendors were friends or family so they were very understanding.
My advice to anyone in this situation, would be to talk with your suppliers as soon as you know that you wedding has to be cancelled. You might find that the further you are away from the wedding the more lenient suppliers might be however you should really be prepared to lose your deposits. I know that is heart wrenching but don’t panic as wedding insurance comes in handy here, that is if you have covered yourself for cancellations. It is important to read exactly what your insurance covers as there are some eventualities that might not be included. I was stuck with lots of crockery and decor that I had bought from car boot sales and two of my bridesmaids dresses, all of which I have sold off over the last year. To be honest I would have happily chucked it all in the bin so that I wasn’t constantly reminded of it but I didn’t want to be out of pocket – I’m tight like that!
For me it wasn’t the money that was my main worry, more my pride. I needn’t really have worried about that though, everyone was really helpful and supportive. I actually made some unlikely friendships from it. I promise that old cliche, that as time goes by it does get easier to deal with and eventually the questions do stop coming. May 2013 came and went and I can honestly say I am now happier than I have ever been. For a little while I felt uneasy about ever planning a wedding again. As far as I was concerned I had already planned my dream wedding and I had included lots of sentimentality in it. There are lots of things I wouldn’t feel right doing now but I will find a way to make sure I involve my loved ones that cannot be there- to me this will be the most important part of my wedding. I don’t know what I would have done without my family in that awful year, it is so important to ask for help from the people closest to you at times like that.
You might ask why I continued to blog about weddings after such a dramatic end to my own wedding plans. Well in a way it was cathartic, I wanted to believe in love and happiness and seeing so many wonderful people celebrating just that, really helped. It was also a great way of keeping my mind off what was happening to me. I have since met so many wonderful people and had some of the most amazing experiences, so I almost feel like it was meant to be. It just goes to prove that something amazing can come out of something absolutely dreadful.
If you are going through a similar experience my advice to you would be to be strong, you will have down days where you feel like all you want to do is hide away under your bed covers but as long as you are honest with people about the situation and how you feel you will find that there will be lots of people ready to help you pick up the pieces and face the daunting task ahead.You will eventually come out on the other side and you will look back and realise it was for all the right reasons.
I would like to thank my amazing boyfriend for being so OK with me writing about such a personal experience, I know it can’t be easy knowing about stuff like this so thank you from the bottom of my heart 🙂
Much Bespoke Love
Emily ♥
A lovely post from a beautiful lady! Lots of love x x x x x (and to Mr T too of course!)
Thanks for sharing such a personal blog post. It just shows you the something positive can come from such a dreadful experience xxx
Kudos for sharing your personal story – I’m sure it will be helpful to those in a similar situation.
I know of people who have had to cancel their weddings too. But I feel that it’s better to call it off if things aren’t working out rather than to have a divorce later on, worse still when kids are involved. Don’t worry, you will meet the right man in future =)
I am getting married in September and there are times that I do think “What would I do if by some reason the wedding have to be cancelled?” I am getting married abroad and every time the guests tell me they already have their tickets and all that I get mixed emotions… Happy of course because all the bits and pieces are getting in place for the big day and then I imagine “Oh God!” I get such pressure. My fiancee and I love each other to bits and there are times that we wished that we could jump to September already but I always had this thing of thinking outside the box somethings. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us. You were very courageous!