What happens after the ‘happy ever after’?

The realisation that I was married hit me at 3am on my wedding night.  As my head swam with the memories from our most special of days, not only was I ravenous from the fact that all the mingling that goes with being the bride meant that I didn’t get to eat any of our gorgeous evening buffet (at least our guests tell me it was gorgeous!), but I suddenly realised, in startling Monica from Friends fashion, that I was no longer the bride. Forget the 18 months spent planning the wedding; this is where the real work would begin!

Never did I think that the two days between our wedding day and the honeymoon would be more stressful than the week leading up to the big day itself.  Boy, was I wrong!  Saturday morning and we awoke as Mr and Mrs for the first time: after breakfast with all of our lovely family and friends who had stayed over at our wedding venue (which I highly recommend!  It felt like an extension of the wedding day to relive the happy memories the day before!), I should have known that this leisurely start was lulling us into a false sense of security; by 11am the long-suffering venue staff were about ready to escort us from the premises, as we were still carting all of our bits and pieces away from the function suite, and they were valiantly trying to set up for their next wedding!

Cars loaded, off we went to set about our day’s chores.  This meant first rounding up the hired suits and returning them, my hired dress hoop and the cake stand, and then a little detour on the way to see friends who had recently become parents and were therefore unable to attend the wedding. 

Sunday dawned bright and early and while my hubby, in that blissfully ignorant way that our men-folk quite often have, was happy sipping champagne, eating wedding cake and opening the presents from our very generous family and friends I came down to earth with a bump!  It suddenly dawned on me that we were due to jet off to swanky New York and sunny Cancun for 10 nights the following day – and we hadn’t packed a stitch!!  After a bit of cajoling, I managed to persuade hubby that perhaps it would be wise to think about getting the suitcases out, and we sensibly packed for our impending honeymoon!   We maybe not so sensibly then decided to design and order our thank you cards and apply for Olympic tickets! Finally, at the end of the day we both collapsed with a slice of wedding cake, a glass of champers and the remainder of our wedding gifts to open.  Don’t bet on the days following your wedding being the calm after the storm; for us at this point, our honeymoon couldn’t come soon enough!

Enjoying the delights of New York on our well-earned honeymoon!