It’s been a whopping 18 months in the making. (Well, a good two years if you count the time I was impatiently waiting for Etienne to pop the question.) But now, in what seemed like a breathtaking whirlwind, I’m married. D-Day is done. There’s no getting out of this one.
And yes, it was incredible, amazing, unforgettable, awesome. It was all of those adjectives you expect a just-married person to use. But it was also – and here’s the truth people don’t always tell you – crazy, intense, terrifying, overwhelming and, in a way, weird. All that planning for a day. Yes, the most special day of your life but, still, a day.
And I’ll be honest: there are huge chunks of that day that I can barely remember. Your emotions get the better of you and there’s so much activity, so many people, that it’s near impossible to just be in the moment and absorb it all.
I still have absolutely no recollection of actually saying ‘I do’ (though my now-husband assures me I did). I barely remember my walk down the aisle, and I cannot recall any of the faces of loved ones staring back at me from the pews.
Suddenly all those details that cost you dearly in time, anxiety and money melt away. I don’t remember noticing the flowers or the colour the bridesmaids wore or the candles. I realised yesterday, after someone asked about the food, that I didn’t taste a single canapé, and I barely touched my meal.
All that money and I didn’t even eat? See, I told you: weird. Even weirder is that feeling of everyone watching you – all those eyes checking your every move, waiting for you to smile, or stand, or sit, or dance.
Feeling on show, like a spectacle, in that way is something I don’t think many of us have ever experienced before, or will ever experience again, and it’s something no amount of wedding planning can prep you for.
I found it incredibly intense and, at points, unnerving. When I stood outside the chapel with my arm linked through my father’s, ready to make my first entrance – that moment I’ve dreamt about since I was a little girl – the absurdity of it all struck me hard: all these people, coming to see you, waiting for you. The thought terrified me and, for the first time in my life, the panic raced through my body and up to my throat, and my poor father had to stop me and remind me to breathe.
I’m relieved to say the panic passed pretty quickly, switching to excitement and exhilaration (all good signs, I think, that I married the right guy… fingers crossed!) But the intensity of the whole day stayed with me.
Even now I find it a little laughable that Etienne and I obsessed over napkins and wine tastings and chair covers – I can promise you now no-one gave two hoots. Instead, what mattered was us (I promise I’m not being egotistical – hear me out on this one); whether we were happy and excited to be married.
That’s what our friends and family (and yes, OK, a few plus ones who I’ve never met before) had come to see. That’s what they were genuinely excited for. That was the big thing. The simplicity of it hadn’t hit home before that moment outside the chapel – that what really mattered was our relationship and celebrating it, not the menu or the service or the flowers.
Standing in front of a sea of faces that love you and have travelled far and wide to be with you is the most inexplicably blissful thing. Seeing them all having fun and celebrating with you is a close second. Am I glad that all that planning and stressing and spending paid off with a beautiful party that I’m just a little bit smug about? Yep.
But when it comes down to it, we could have gotten married in our garden in our pyjamas and that sea of faces would have still been there. I would have still had that flash of panic and sense of weirdness. I would have still forgotten everything that happened until after the ‘I dos’ and I would still have been overwhelmed by the intensity and the attention. But I would also have been a little richer, and a whole lot calmer.
Getting married is actually really simple (once you’ve found the life partner, of course, which can be notoriously tricky). But once you’ve found your person, all you need to do is share your love for that person with all your people. Easy. Everything else, all those trimmings like the music and the lighting and the menu, is optional, though they do make for one hell of a good party.
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