Worth It On The Day

Well, okay, so I'm a little depressed. Sad, at least (don't want to trivialize depression here). Not just because the wedding is over, but because for a fleeting week I had so many of my family and friends in London and I want to do it all over again – and spend more time with each and every one of them. I feel really homesick for them all.

The photographer sent me the photos on a DVD and it arrived today. As I looked through them again I had a flashback to when I was a child and would point at the pictures of books and exclaim to my mother, "Be in there? Be in there?" I consistently wanted to get out of everyday life and be part of the much more exciting story, whatever it was.

And so, I wanted to jump into the cocktail reception again. I could see groups of people talking and wanted to go back and wander up to them, maybe not in a white dress, but as a bride-double in a black cocktail dress and chat with them for ages. "So what do you really think about Taron's dress?" I'd say.

I suppose that this is a good thing – that in the end, despite all the work and the stress and the time I went to the ladies room at work one day at 11 a.m. and cried for no particular reason for a good 20 minutes, it was all worth it on the day. All the Saturdays spent running around London doing cupcake tastings and hair trials (and firing my first hair lady – this sounds more bridezilla-ish than it was), a never-ending e-mail inbox filled with questions from vendors and guests, hours of addressing envelopes and decision-making that ranged from the ridiculous (what proportion of chocolate cupcakes should we have) to the more serious (which vows should we say) – despite all this, I'd do it all over again.

And the Hub (at long last!!) actually summed up the reason why quite nicely. He said that he was a little surprised at how easy it all was. Not a performer like me, he had been worried about standing up in front of everyone so much – during the ceremony, while making a speech and the (very much dreaded) first dance. But in the end, he didn't find it nearly as hard as he thought. Why? Because everyone is rooting for you (I'm paraphrasing here). When you're getting married and everyone has come to see you, I think you could literally be speaking Pig Latin, wearing a garbage bag dress (as long as it's white) and everyone would still think you were the bees' knees. (Note: the Hub's speech was genuinely good and he said really nice things about me – he even mentioned Mind, Body & Scroll!)

There aren't many times in life when you can do no wrong. That's why, if you're not planning to get married, or if you just haven't yet, make sure you have a really big birthday party at some point in your life (see my post on More Parties, Please for more on this). Invite friends and family far and wide. There's no reason that everyone shouldn't have an opportunity to spend a lot of money to look good and then have a queue of people come up and hug them.

The Hub and I have been together for quite some time but it was great to finally say it out loud. And even better, to let everyone else celebrate it too. So I will say, for the record, the whole thing was pretty cool.

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