Weddings are complex and involved affairs.
And like any other complicated human gathering, weddings are subject to the unexpected, the unpredictable, and the unplanned.
There is no way for you to realistically foresee every possible thing that could go wrong or cause some kind of delay or disturbance.
However, what you can do is prepare for the most significant and common mishaps with a wedding day emergency kit.
And when putting that kit together, there are certain essentials you should definitely include.
To keep things as simple as we can, we’ll group these by category.
Cosmetics
Basically, these are things that are related to your face, hair, nails, and scent.
In other words, it’s related to things that are purely cosmetic (appearance-related).
This category includes things like nail polish remover, makeup remover, and perfume.
However, it also includes non-chemical items such as lip balm, nail clippers, tweezers, hairbrushes, and hair ties.
For good measure, you might also want to throw some non-toxic alternatives to all the aforementioned items into your wedding day emergency kit.
While most people are anxious about how they’ll look in their wedding photos, it’s better to wear your own natural face than to risk an unexpected skin rash or breakout caused by some mystery chemical.
Besides, you can always have your photos edited digitally after the fact to erase any such skin reactions if they really bother you.
You probably do that with your social media photos, so why not do it with your wedding photos, too?
You only get one skin.
Be kind to it.
Toiletries
On a similar note, the category of “toiletries” covers all those items that are related to the rest of your body.
This means stuff like bandages, contact lenses, soaps, eye drops, deodorant, sunscreen, hand lotion, and so on.
As with cosmetics, we recommend being careful about the products you use, checking the ingredient labels thoroughly, and discarding any products with ingredients that you can neither pronounce nor clearly identify.
For example, if the ingredient list includes something vague like “fragrance” with no elaboration as to what said “fragrance” is made of, it’s usually best to ditch that item.
Whenever possible, it’s always a good idea to reduce your toxic load by switching to less chemically-laden products.
Unfortunately, in this modern world, it’s almost impossible to have no daily exposure to harmful synthetic chemicals.
However, you can take certain steps to mitigate the risks to a large degree, and you should care enough about yourself to try to do so.
Clothing-Related
Wardrobe malfunctions happen, especially at events like weddings.
Almost everyone at a wedding is wearing a complicated outfit that is very different from the sorts of clothing they’d normally wear every day.
A woman wouldn’t normally go to her job wearing a snow white wedding dress, and a man would not usually go to a restaurant or the DMV wearing a 3-piece suit or tuxedo.
In any other context, most of us would consider that sort of attire to be very strange and inappropriate.
At a wedding, that’s not the case.
However, the fact that these types of clothing are expected at weddings doesn’t mean that anyone is necessarily accustomed to wearing them or knowledgeable about how to prevent them from being damaged.
So, be sure that your wedding day emergency kit contains things like a lint roller, a steamer, stain remover, and a needle and thread.
You never know what might happen, but you can be reasonably sure that something will probably happen to someone’s clothes at some point in the day.
Very rarely does a wedding ever go off entirely without a hitch.
This is especially true if any part of your wedding is outdoors, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying nature and the scenery. 😉
Those Extra Little Things
Now we get to the final category, which might as well be called “Miscellaneous” because it just contains everything else that hasn’t been included in the previous three categories.
Don’t be fooled, though.
Just because this category is very general and comes last on this list doesn’t mean that it’s unimportant.
In fact, depending on your situation and who will be at your wedding, this could easily end up being the most important group of items by far.
That’s because it will include things like allergy medications, EpiPens, bandages, floss, toothpaste, and menstrual products.
These are the sorts of things that you probably won’t be thinking much about unless/until you or someone else at your wedding needs them.
And as with personal protection items and fire insurance, it’s always better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
You don’t want to find yourself needing to floss something out of your teeth at the last minute, only to find that neither you nor anyone else thought to bring any floss.
Likewise, you don’t want yourself or one of your guests to start having a sudden allergic reaction to something and then discover that this was the day when they forgot to bring an EpiPen or left it in their car.
Weddings Are Complicated, But You’ll Be Fine
We know we might have scared you a little here, but you really don’t need to worry.
Even if you did have something to worry about, the act of worrying wouldn’t actually resolve the problem itself; it would only stress you out.
So, approach this list calmly and accept that something is probably going to go wrong or at least not according to plan at your wedding.
You can’t predict or control completely for every possible variable.
But what you can do is prepare as much as possible within the bounds of reason and sanity with a well-stocked wedding day emergency kit.
Don’t overload yourself with anxiety, but do bring an EpiPen.
You probably won’t need it, but you’ll have it on hand if you do.
