Even if you haven’t planned a destination wedding in Costa Rica or atop a mountain, your wedding day can still be an adventure like no other.

There is much to be said about rolling with the punches, so to speak. Will everything go according to plan on your wedding day? Certainly not. Will everything completely fall apart? Probably not. Could minor inconveniences totally ruin your day if you let them? Absolutely.

One way to go into your wedding day is with the mindset of detachment, or not expecting a specific outcome. That’s not to say you won’t get excited or hope that it is a beautiful day, because it will be beautiful regardless, but let your satisfaction and enjoyment of the day be because of things going exactly as they will, rather than going as planned.

Throughout the wedding planning process, I heard from a few wise women who had been married, “If at the end of the day you and your partner are married, then everything went perfectly”. I kept this in mind as our champagne bottles arrived completely shattered, as I had to cancel my nail appointment, as my beautiful flower crown I stayed up late making the night before the wedding wilted in the Summer heat, as I realized that my fiancé hadn’t communicated with the caterer about us needing her to do appetizers until I asked him about it the morning of the wedding, as I couldn’t find the lipgloss I purchased for the wedding day, and so on and so forth. If it sounds like everything completely fell apart on our wedding day, it did not. But if I focused on all of these little mishaps and almosts, I probably wouldn’t have been able to enjoy all of the precious moments surrounding them very much.

Our ceremony was hands-down the most beautiful, memorable part of the whole day. It was a perfectly clear Summer day, we were surrounded by our dearest friends and family members from all over the country, and there was a clarity that swept over me as I approached my fiancé at the altar and all of my nerves and stress melted away. When it came time to do the ring ceremony, we called over our corgi Zephyr who had the rings tied on his tie, and as my fiancé Ashley bent down to grab them, his eyes got huge and I knew that they were missing. He stood up and very nonchalantly said, “Well they’re not there”. My response was to laugh and get on with the ceremony, but our guests had other ideas. Without asking or saying a word, everyone broke into a spontaneous scavenger hunt in a search for the rings. People were looking high and low, through tall grass and in flower fields. All I could think was what a beautiful show of support it was that without being asked, everyone wanted to help and find the rings for us. Eventually we called the circle back together to resume the ceremony. Our friend picked 2 Lupines (my favorite wildflower) and we tied them around each other’s fingers in place of rings. It was perfect, romantic, whimsical, and couldn’t have gone better than if we had written it. Lupines happen to be my favorite flower.

After the ceremony, while we were taking photos, we heard applause, shouts and laughter. Everyone had stayed to help find the rings! We had no idea! Of course, it was a friend who is a retired detective who found them in some tall grass where our puppy had been playing.
It was the most beautiful and instantaneous show of support and love that we couldn’t have imagined happening.

Now, weeks later, people are still talking about it and even people we don’t know have come up to us, “Hey, are you two the ones whose dog lost the rings?”. We now refer to him as the Ring Buryer.

Roll with the punches of the day and allow yourself and the person you love to be taken for the wild ride that your wedding day will be.