My 2020 wedding

Oh boy, so I decided to have a wedding in the year of 2020 and let me tell you I was stressed and my patience was being tested to the max. I definitely learned a lot in the process and grew from it. Let's start with mistake number one, I was planning the majority of it by myself. My fiance was M.I.A when it came down to planning the wedding and my mom... my mom was a total bridezilla. Remember how I mentioned that I had a whole engagement party planned for March, well I wasn't the one who came up with the idea, it was my lovely mother, who was also planning it at my aunt's house without her even asking first. Thankfully, COVID deviated the plan because I didn't want family that I didn't care for to be there. From the day of my proposal, I already knew who I wanted to be apart of my wedding party but due to lockdown, there was a whole bunch of waiting around. Things started to open back up, including my job, so I went back to work, which was thankfully right next to David's Bridal. I threw a friend's engagement party in June, inviting all of my close friends and had a ball. After the party, I started to buy and look for decorations for my wedding at party city, at the time I didn't know what color I wanted for my wedding, but for the party I had chose Rose Gold and White. Mind you, at this time I still had no date for my wedding and it was feeling as though Covid would never end. I wanted to get it over with and call it a day so we set a date of August 22, 2020 to have a small ceremony. The problems that came afterward were troublesome and in my opinion, ruined my wedding. So, I had all of my bridal party picked out, with one of them being iffy only because of where she lived. We had to schedule a day where everyone was free, so they could come wedding dress shopping with me. I set up a dress appointment as soon as we found the perfect day and went inside of David's Bridal to look for a nice jumper or a short white dress. I did find myself a nice jumper and then my mom spotted a dress, that I liked and we pulled that one as well. In total, I had two dresses and the jumper (It had POCKETS) that I tried on in the dressing room. I was having a hard time deciding between the dress my mom had picked out and the jumper, but I eventually narrowed it down and chose the dress. I brought the veil, the dress, and the shoes but I didn't buy any jewelry to go along with the dress. Then it was really time to start planning for my wedding, my cousin found the Oriental Trading website, where I brought a lot of items for my wedding and we also used Etsy to order some things too. I customized my wedding invitations on Oriental Trading and ordered some party favors. Then it was time to decide what color I wanted my bridesmaids to wear and whether or not I wanted them to wear the same thing. In the beginning, my bridesmaid T, who lived in a different state started talking about how she wouldn't be able to be a bridesmaid because she didn't have enough money to come up, which was fine for me and I understood. She said that she would hopefully make it to the wedding so I said okay that sounds great. After I decided on the color of the bridesmaid dresses my cousin showed me a site for the dresses and I sent them to all of the bridesmaids and let them pick their dresses. This took some time because I was waiting for two of my bridesmaids to choose a dress that they liked, meanwhile my mom wanted the shortest dress possible, even though everybody else's dress were long. I finally was able to get all of the bridesmaid's measurements and placed the orders (the estimated date of delivery was 21-23, so I was worried they wouldn't show up in time), the flower girls already had their dresses and shoes picked out. Then it came time to make a list of the people that I wanted at my SMALL wedding, my mom started writing the invitations based on the list. She started sending the invitations off, which had an R.S.V.P date on them so I could know how many chairs, tables, party favors, and food I would need. My mom thought it would be a smart idea to send out invitations to people that weren't on the list and then she let my aunt Yvonne take the blame, so my anger was placed on her instead. When I confronted her she laughed and said well I didn't invite everybody (if I could've fired my mom I really would've). No one called on the R.S.V.P date that I put on the card and I was already stressed out from my mom just doing things her way and not listening to me. I had booked a photo booth company to come and set up at my wedding so everyone could take pictures and send them to their phones, and then my Fiance and I went to go look for venues. We eventually found a place that we liked and we put a downpayment on it and then I had to find the perfect bartender to serve drinks at my wedding, which took quite some time, but I finally found the perfect one who worked with me on what I wanted for my wedding. I also had to look for someone to marry us and the most important thing was finding a photographer to capture the moments. These last two things were so hard and stressful and I just wanted to find the perfect match for my wedding, thankfully I found both in time. Fast forward to the bachelorette party, that my maid of honors threw for me, they decorated my best friend's house so nicely and even had wooden letters to spell out my name. They went and brought me a pretty gold dress and a bride to be veil which I paired with my black heels. My mom was upset that she wasn't invited to the party (she wasn't supposed to be lol) so she had a little attitude with me, I still had fun though. In total, I had 5 bridesmaids that were supposed to attend the party and only 4 of them showed up, it wasn't a surprise that the 5th one didn't show up because the party was in Newark and she was very stuck up. I wasn't completely bummed but I just felt as though she could've said that she wasn't going to make it due to "work". So now we fast forward to the week of the wedding, we have a wedding rehearsal at my house (the guy from the venue was trying to make us pay more than what was on the contract and then tried to say well the contract is old and it needs to be updated AFTER it was already signed by us), thankfully the bridesmaid's dresses came and they could be altered in time, so all that was left was to get everybody on the same page about what they would be doing on the wedding day. Here's the funniest thing yet, the bridesmaid that didn't show up to the party, let's call her J, texted me that same day, 4 DAYS before my wedding, to tell me that she couldn't be apart of it because she had to "work". Mind you, she knew exactly when my wedding was, she knew that she was my bridesmaid, and she had came by to get her dress (she complained that it wasn't the dress she had ordered and there was nothing that I could do about it so I told her to just wear it for that day, never got a response back after I said that), she worked for her dad....she could have easily told him I can't work because I have a previous engagement to attend. Of course, I was upset about it and my cousin calmed me down because I was one bridesmaid short. I basically said fuck it and asked my fiance's best man's girlfriend if she wanted to be a bridesmaid and thankfully she said yes. I texted my ex bridesmaid and told her that I needed the dress back and that she could drop it off at my house. She was supposed to drop it off that day but kept making excuses about getting out of work too late and not being able to drive over, even though she doesn't live that far. I eventually got the dress back and was able to give it to my new bridesmaid and she was able to get it tailored just in time for the wedding. The day of the wedding was chaotic, I went to get my hair done which took some time but came out really good, and then I had to head back to my house to make sure everything was together, then there was figuring out how all of the decorations were supposed to reach the airbnb that was rented and the venue. We were tight on space and had a little amount of car storage, so my fiance had to come pick things up and then the bridal party that couldn't fit in my cousin's car had to take an Uber. As I'm getting into the car to head to the airbnb (we were so late and running behind all because my aunt K was supposed to stop by the airbnb to take some decorations to the venue and take my oldest cousin to the venue so that he could decorate it, but said no because she didn't have enough gas in her truck) I receive a text, literally 2 hours before my wedding starts, from Joe the photo booth guy letting me know that they wouldn't be able to make it because 2 of the attendants from a different event tested positive for Covid. That made me even more upset because it was a text message, the day of my wedding, hours before the event started, I could've at least received a phone call. So all of the bridesmaids make it to the Airbnb and I hand them their robes so that we could start getting ready, meanwhile only one groomsman was in the house getting ready because the rest were helping decorate the venue, even my fiance was decorating the venue, which made my mood even worse because he wasn't supposed to be there decorating. My eldest cousin (the one that my aunt K was supposed to pick up), my aunt yvonne, and my aunt K were supposed to help with decorating and the planning sheet that I had telling where everything was supposed to go was at the Airbnb with me. My fiance eventually made it to the house with the groomsmen and they got ready. The photographer was taking pictures of us and making the whole party run even later than we were. Whenever I would say we have to go he would say oh one more, keep in mind that the wedding was supposed to start at 6 and I probably didn't get there until 7. Let me also add in that J, my ex bridesmaid, had posted an Instagram picture of her in New York. Sis wasn't at work she was in New York taking pictures and lied about it, that hurt me more than ever and I realized what kind of person she really was. As a changed person, I restrained from cursing her out and put my feelings aside until the day after my wedding. So we finally arrive to the venue and I'm in the car waiting for my fiance to go inside so that he wouldn't spot me and guess who is outside thinking that she knows everything.....my mother. My mom is trying to change the order of the bridal party, after I told her that that's the way I wanted it. So I'm ducking behind a car, screaming at my mom that it's not her wedding and that's the way I want it, trying to hide from my fiance, telling my dad to go tell my mom to cut it out, listening to my fiance's sister and my mom go back and forth on a wedding party order THAT I HAD ALREADY DECIDED ON... long story short, she changed the order. Now it's time for me to walk down the aisle and I spot my fiance (even though people were standing IN THE MIDDLE OF THE AISLE) and my dad gives me away, we say our vows, ya girl cries a lot, and then I realize that his wedding ring is still in the car *slaps face* but luckily the photographer let me borrow his ring for that one part of the ceremony. Yessss ,you probably thinking oh great all that stress and hard work paid off, not so much. The place wasn't decorated the way that I wanted it to be, there was people there that didn't R.S.V.P and they had a nerve to bring guests, all of my decorations weren't used, the kids were sitting on the floor, my mom didn't bring the garter belt to the venue, I couldn't sit down to eat my food because I had to take pictures, didn't twerk once (That's a big deal for me guys *crying face*), and I only got to enjoy the bar drinks twice. The photographer kept me waiting to take my group pictures, so by the end of the night I was over it, I didn't even get a picture with my side of the family, or my siblings and me. The venue lights went off and the guy who owned the place caught an attitude like we magically turned off the lights. At least my guests had a fun night because I surely didn't, the best part of that night was my dance with my husband. Heading back to the airbnb we hung out for a bit, I got tired and went to sleep lol and everyone else stayed up for a little bit, talked listened to music (keep this fresh in your mind). The next day my cousin knocks on the door and tells me that there's a lady at the door and it's probably the owner, so I get up and I go to the door. This lady has a Yorkie in her hands and holds him out to me saying "You like my dog? He's cute isn't he?" so I'm highly confused because I'm like this isn't the owner and I say yeah he's cute she looks at me and says "Well he almost died." I can't make this up, I was about to go off on her and say what that gotta do with me but I wasn't gonna waste my energy, so I just asked how and she points to the grass and says that we dropped a glass jar full of chocolate and my dog almost ate it (why she wasn't watching her dog was the question I wanted to know). I'm all nice so I tell her I'll go pick it up, she proceeds to say that she was up at three in the morning and heard our music and heard us drop the glass and the lady that owns the house is always renting it out to people ( In my head I'm like that has nothing to do with us we don't live here lol). The music that we played that night was 1 not loud and 2 was turned off after like 10 minutes of listening because everyone went to bed. I told her I wouldn't know about other people I just got married and came back to sleep, when I tell you her whole mood changed and she was like "Oh you're the Bride, you looked so pretty. You don't have to go pick it up let somebody else do it." After you caught an attitude lady? Nah I'm just gonna pick it up and go on about my day since you wanna be up at 3 in the morning watching people like you not black too. On our way back home from the airbnb, we get a call from the owner and she's upset because her table, that was a "family heirloom", had white marks on them, she asks us if we know what it is we're like it might be water damage, so she's freaking out and sending us more pictures of the towel hanger being out of the wall and saying that we wrecked her house. (All that needed to be done was popping the towel holder back into the wall because it wasn't installed right and putting wood paint over the table, or using a tablecloth to cover it) So I'm giving her solutions of what she can do and she hits us with well I'm in Florida and my housekeepers don't know how to do any of that, she obviously got over it because she didn't respond back and got upset that we rated her a 2 star because of her attitude, and for her to have "housekeepers" her place was dirty, but that's none of my business. I sent J a text letting her know how hurt I was that she would bail out on me like that and then post up a picture of her lying, she never responded so I deleted her number, blocked her on all of my socials (even her dad's little restaurant page that she was stalking me from), and went on my marry way. Even my other ex bridesmaid T never texted, never called, never hit me up on my socials to congratulate me on my wedding or even acknowledge that she wish she was there (but sis had money to do other things......). So she went right up there on the block train as well and it made me realize how much I was there for them and they really weren't there for me. Then there was the photographer who said we would get our pictures sent over in 4-6 weeks... he took 7 weeks to send it over to us and the pictures weren't that good. (He had a pregnant wife and knew that she was close to giving birth so the day he was supposed to send them he texts us and goes well my son was born so you'll have to wait another week for your pictures, he wasn't even editing the pictures, he did like 5 pictures with edits on them, so the excuse of needing another week was very stupid.) The icing on the cake was the video of my wedding being deleted by the videographer right after he sent them over to my husband, instead of waiting a certain amount of days, so my husband couldn't find the videos on his laptop and the guy had deleted his from the memory card. No one took good pictures of the events that happened at my wedding, luckily I was able to get my dance video from my mom's phone. (Good new though, the videographer was able to recover the videos and sent them over so I now have footage of my wedding, yay!) Overall I learned so much and for my next wedding, I'm getting a wedding planner and definitely not letting my mom decide things. I'm just glad that in the end I married my best friend and I get to grow with him. Sorry that this was a long read, but as you can see a lot went into my wedding and I'm glad it's over and I can finally breathe. There's still some small details that weren't put into this story but it's already long enough. Enjoy some pictures now and I'll see you next week!