The Square Life

Getting hitched?These three happy couples tell us what they wish they would have done on their big days.

Spencer and Tori Beesley

Wedding date: March 14, 2007

Wedding city: Salt Lake
City, UT

Reception location: Heritage Gardens
Reception Center

The Bridals: My biggest regret is not including Spencer in my bridal photos. I mean, I’m not going to hang up very many pictures of just me—and there would have been more variety in the photos if both of us were in them.

The Reception: As the marketing director of The Bridal Extravaganza, I’ve seen a lot of cute trends in the wedding industry and one of them I wish I would have done is given “party favors” to my reception guests, like a bag of candy that they can dish up themselves.

Ben and Mollie Openshaw

Wedding date: July 21, 2006
Wedding city: Salt Lake City, Utah
Reception location: The Hansen Residence (a backyard garden in Layton, UT)

The dress: I'd say this is my biggest regret. The dress I ended up buying was what I wanted at the time, but by the wedding date I already wished I'd chosen a different style. One reason I picked the dress I did was because it was the most affordable one I could find. But trust me ladies, your dress is not something you want to bargain hunt for! If I could do it over I'd choose a drop waist gown that didn't puff out as much as mine did.

The reception: The reception actually turned out beautifully, but I would change how things were done in the kitchen. My wonderful sister-in-law did the catering, which was absolutely amazing, but I didn't realize how much help she was going to need and I really
should have recruited more people to help her out so she wouldn't have been completely overwhelmed.

The honeymoon: We went to Southern California, which was great. But if we could do things over I would have made sure to help plan the agenda. I had originally told my husband that I wanted him to plan the whole thing so that’s what he did. But I didn’t realize that he would pack every day with as many activities as two people can possibly do in one day! It made me recognize that we were different types of vacationers, so it would have been good to have planned everything together.

The cake: Although I was completely in love with the cake we did, it was pretty impractical in
hindsight. We had a lot left over, and let’s face it: fondant icing isn’t that delicious anyway! If I could re-do that I would have done a fun cupcake buffet.

Jeff and Casey Jensen

Wedding date: July 14th, 2007

Wedding city: American Fork, UT

Reception location: Somewhere Inn Time (Lindon,
UT) and in Jeff’s parents’ backyard in Irvine,
CA

The reception: Marriage is such a special occasion because friends and family travel from near and far to be there with you. With that in mind, our two hour reception was not enough time to visit with everyone like we wanted to. An all-day casual event like a barbeque, where people could show up throughout the day, would have been better than having a time-crunched deluge of people.

The reception food: The reception at Jeff’s parents’ house in Irvine was catered by In-n-Out and we had Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. We didn’t realize until afterwards that the In-n-out truck that was parked in the driveway in Irvine could have easily made the drive up to Lindon for the first reception as well. Especially since gas was only $3 per gallon back then, we’re pretty much kicking ourselves now.

The reception departure: Jeff has his pilot's license and a plane. If only there was a wedding reception place at Provo or Spanish Fork airports, our friends and family could have bid us farewell as we flew off into the sunset, instead of the cliche drivinf away in a totally trashed car. I would definitely advise a creative getaway.