My husband and I stuck to traditional vows on our wedding day. 3 years later, I still regret that decision.

• My husband and I opted for a small, intimate wedding in 2022.

• I had always wanted to write my own vows, but family advised against it, and I didn’t push the issue.

• Three years later, I still wish I had stood up for what I wanted.

My husband and I said our “I dos” during the pandemic. For us, it was a great excuse to keep the event on the smaller side, though our families wanted us to invite every extended family member. We would have wanted our wedding to be intimate, regardless of the safety concerns at the time.

My husband proposed in July 2021, and we were married six months later. As the planning process progressed, I found that we were making more and more concessions — mostly to our families — instead of sticking to what we wanted for our big day. Looking back, I wish I had stuck to my guns on some of them.

I wasn’t a picky bride, but there were certain things I had envisioned

I didn’t have a strict blueprint for my wedding. I had a handful of things I wanted, such as my son walking me down the aisle since I was a single mom when I met my husband. But most of all, I wanted the wedding to be as much my husband’s as it was mine. Basically, I wanted everything to be agreed upon by both of us.

It seemed the more relaxed we were about the wedding, the more our respective parents worried about some other aspect we hadn’t even thought of. But it wasn’t just our family. Nearly everyone who learned we were getting married asked whether we had done this or that “yet.” We just wanted to have a simple party with our closest friends and family, but everyone we talked to pointed out something else that we had been blissfully unaware of.

I wanted my soon-to-be husband to be happy, so I compromised

I had always wanted to write my own vows, but as the wedding loomed closer, my husband seemed stressed out about writing his. His father, who was a minister and was going to be the one to marry us, wanted us to stick to the usual script. I was tired of battling everyone’s expectations and wanted to ease my soon-to-be husband’s stress, so I gave in and simply said, “Fine.”

My husband seemed relieved, and at the end of the day, I thought what really mattered was that we would be married. Looking back, I can see how stressed out I was during the planning process all the way through our wedding, which was far more stressful than I had thought it would be. I know now that my judgment was clouded.

My heart was in the right place, but it wasn’t the right choice

There were a lot of things I didn’t love about how our wedding played out, but my biggest regret is not committing to writing our own vows. I’ve even asked my husband whether he’d consider remarrying just to recite vows that we’ve each written, but the moment has come and gone.

Part of why my husband was having trouble with his vows was that they would be said in front of everyone we knew, not just the two of us. But if I could go back in time, I would have talked it out with him.

Mostly, I know my husband would have stuck to our vows if I had let him know how important it was to me. Compromising is an important part of a relationship, but for our marriage to be successful, I think it’s important that neither of us makes too many concessions, especially when it’s something that really matters.

I use my wedding regret to make my marriage stronger

I worried so much about everyone else, including my husband, that I let go of one of the few things that mattered to me. I think worrying more about everyone else, in different ways, was a mistake we both made.

The upside is that we can learn from worrying overly about everyone else but ourselves and work at taking care of each other within our marriage.

I catch myself thinking about what I would have said at the altar so much that it’s become a fantasy. It’s usually when I realize how much I love him or how lucky I feel to be with him. While I can’t go back in time, I can write and share my fantasy vows with my husband for the rest of our lives. When I think of it that way, it’s a lot more romantic than just telling him once on our big day.

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