The answers certainly did not disappoint, y'all! Here are 15 of the very best ones:
1. Not hiring a good photographer:
"Every single image was overexposed so that everyone looks shiny against a nearly black background. Images taken by guests' phones were 1,000 times better. It's an awful feeling to not want to look at your own wedding photos because of how bad they turned out."
2. Having matching bridesmaid dresses:
"I got married in 2009 and had bridesmaids all over the country, so picking a style at David's Bridal seemed like the thing to do. But in hindsight, I wish I had just picked a color and let them each pick their own style. I realize now that some of them must have been kind of uncomfortable in a strapless style, and I regret that."
3. Letting your in-laws be involved in planning:
"My mother-in-law ruined the food."
"My mother-in-law wanted to make us a huge, extravagant cake with layers and tiers. She started the night before, only ended up getting three layers baked, and made us a naked cake. I was embarrassed and fucking regret it, to say the least."
— u/Yoznil
4. Not eating your catered meal:
"I took two bites and it was delicious, but then I was caught up socializing. I was starving by the time we got to the hotel around midnight."
5. Not using a cut-down version of the first dance song:
"It was nearly seven minutes of two people dancing to a song that was effectively meaningless to everyone else. We should have made a two- or three-minute version."
6. Having your wedding on a beach:
"Beaches always look romantic...until the seagulls show up."
7. Wearing uncomfortable shoes:
"My stepmother purchased them for me because they were PERFECT for my dress. I tried them on and they fit OK, but the next time I had them on was at the actual wedding. My god, those bitches pinched! I'm standing on one foot or the other in almost all the casual pictures, trying to ease the pain."
8. Not being assertive enough about what you want and don't want:
"In hindsight, I’d be a lot more forceful with what I wanted. I was so afraid of being a bridezilla that I didn’t stand up for myself. We eloped, and the hotel booked a photographer for us. I’m sure she was very good at her job, but we just didn’t click. I wanted candid photos almost like holiday snapshots, but she kept insisting we pose to make it 'perfect.' In all our photos, we both look really uncomfortable, and after looking through the disc once, I put it away and I’ve never looked at it again."
9. The entire wedding thing, honestly:
"My wife wanted to elope and just get married at a courthouse, but I insisted on the big ceremony. I should have listened to her."
10. "Not having some help for after the party to help tie up the loose ends and tidy up late messes."
11. Not telling the photographer to back off:
"Every 10 minutes, they were pulling us out of the reception to take additional pictures. We missed like 1/3 of our wedding because of it."
12. Asking a family member to do something out of obligation:
"I regret asking my brother to make a toast. He had to be my best man because he's my only brother and the hassle that would have ensued if I asked one of my friends to be best man wasn't worth it. He talked about whatever football game he was missing to be at my wedding and barely mentioned anything about me or my now-wife."
13. Prioritizing small things over your guests' experience:
"My wife and I had a very simple strategy. We cut costs on most of the 'visual' aspects of a wedding. Instead, we allocated most of the budget on good food and plenty of booze for the reception. We also cut the boring parts out — like speeches from a dozen strangers the guests don't really care about — and went straight to games and dancing.
After the wedding, many of our guests told us this was the most fun wedding they'd been to. I hear a lot of wedding horror stories where the bride or the groom have a meltdown over the wrong color of flowers on the table or something and honestly, I think nobody actually really cares about those. Most of the time the bad weddings you hear about are when attendees are kept waiting for long periods of time or if they are made uncomfortable during the event."
14. Hiring a cheap DJ:
"My DJ was fucking horrible. I chose the cheapest one I could find and, my god. He showed up so late, my aunt had to go and buy a big speaker so we could do it ourselves. It was even worse when he got there. He fought with our guests and played none of the music I asked for until my cousin went up and asked him to stick to what I had picked. I’m not even overly picky, but he was only playing songs in other languages and really obscure stuff. He then tried to perv on my cousin the entire wedding, even after she told him she was married."