“I regret…him” — Brides reveal their biggest Wedding Day regrets

Growing up in the 90s and early noughties, the pinnacle of adulthood looked like a frothy white dress and a ‘happily ever after’. Weddings were the climax of so many of my favourite films and TV shows, Gossip Girl—which enraptured me so much that I took to calling my friends by their initials only—literally ends with (spoiler alert!) Dan and Serena’s long-awaited nuptials. The fact that weddings were so often the closing act for my favourite stars got me wondering what happened to these women after they were married. If this, as I was led to believe, was the happiest day of their lives, did everything go downhill after? That seemed like a grim fate to befall my favourite 20-something heroines even if they were fictional.

I began getting suspicious about weddings. While friends would while away sleepovers wistfully planning their Big Day, I became increasingly baffled by the whole thing (though I still harboured fantasies of being a flower girl and later a bridesmaid). And so it has been all too easy for me to report on the rise in divorce parties, hen party horror stories and bridal store secrets (“The bride brought six friends and a ring light. They filmed everything.”). I took smug comfort in the fact I would never be that bride because I’d never be a bride at all, ha!