DIY Wedding Disasters: The Steam Iron Incident

A few weeks ago I began blogging about the key moments from my wedding that I wished I had caught on video. A lot of my missed moments involve DIY wedding disasters. Today, I have to tell you about the steam iron incident. Gah! I just wish I had this on video from my wedding!

It’s all my mother’s fault

I already shared about how I was crazy enough to sew my own wedding dress when I didn’t know how to sew. What I didn’t share is that I can now fully blame my mother. Don’t we all blame our mothers?

I had created this beautiful wedding dress and then showed up at the church all dressed up with my gloves, veil, handmade purse and shawl. I was gawgus, or so I thought. As I was about to walk down the aisle, my friend who had helped me sew the gown arrived.

“Um, what are you doing?”

“Busy here. About to walk down an aisle.”

“No. What are you doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t walk down the aisle like that!”

Uh oh. “Like WHAT?”

“Didn’t you steam your dress??? The wrinkles are going to show up in all the photos!”

Cue the mom-blame. She never taught me to iron. It’s all her fault. We never wore ironed clothes. I didn’t even know the difference!

“No worries, I have a steam iron in my car,” she says. Who the heck has a steam iron in their car??? But ok. So we sent my husband’s best friend out to set up the steam iron. Never mind that it takes a while for a steam iron to heat up. Never mind that the ceremony is supposed to start at noon and it’s now 11:59am.

The bridal music begins at noon-ish, the crowd turns around, and…instead of seeing a bridal party walking down the aisle they see a 6 foot tall dude frantically running around with a steam iron in his hands a the back of the church!

An accurate re-enactment of our wedding guests’ faces

Our priest did not find this amusing. This is the same Louisiana preacher who told us “If I smell a hint of alcohol on your breath the morning of your wedding, I’m not marrying you. If I call to schedule a meeting and hear both your voices on the answering machine, I’m not marrying you. We do this right. It’s forever.”

Fr. Brady came to the back of the church and informed me in no uncertain terms that if I wasn’t down that aisle in 5 minutes there would be no wedding. Wrinkles don’t matter. Marriage does.

And thus, me and my wrinkly dress married our forever man that day. And Fr. Brady almost received a standing ovation for one of the best homilies I’ve ever heard at a wedding.