bride

Good day dear readers and welcome back! Since we last met I have successfully become married (and maintained said marriage for a whole four weeks), been to the other side of the world for a honeymoon in Bali that was so good I WEPT when we left, and discovered that life as a married woman is very, very similar to life as every other type of woman I’ve ever been. (Should anything change, you’ll be the first to know).

For my first contribution to the world as Mrs B, here’s a run-down of what it’s like to have your wedding day, should any of you wish to give it a go. I strongly recommend it.

1. Throughout the morning, you will feel like you are about to do a bungee jump and that 120 of your family and friends have come to watch and photograph the occasion.

2. You will not eat. Sorry, eat? Food?! With your lips that are the only thing stopping you throwing up your intestines? Oh no. And as a result you’ll feel dangerously weak by 9pm, go in pursuit of something, anything to keep you going through the dancing and discover that your friends and family – who are apparently GANNETS – have eaten every last morsel.

3. You will spend very little time with your new wife/husband. Don’t panic though – you’ve got the honeymoon and the rest of your born days together so a little space won’t do you any harm.

4. As I’ve said before, getting married is like being a celebrity for a day.  But what I’d forgotten is that, in this scenario, it’s your friends and family who have come to see you, not some crazy strangers who’ve bought your album or stared at your airbrushed face in a magazine and convinced themselves you could be BFFs if only you could meet. And with that comes guilt that it’s mathematically impossible for you to give them all the attention they deserve. So the least you can do is make sure there’s enough booze available so they won’t remember the neglect.

5. You will never wear a better outfit in your life. Unless you have a few thousand pounds to spend on your attire every day in which case we are VERY different people.

6. You will say ‘Thank You’ more times than you will inhale. And you will mean it, too.

7. Going to the toilet is the only privacy you will get all day. And it’s marvellous. Two or three minutes of solitude without having to thank anybody or make your hilarious “I’ve not eaten since Thursday!” joke (that isn’t really a joke) for the 120th time. To any future brides, I strongly recommend purchasing a dress you can negotiate for bathroom purposes without assistance. Your bridesmaids will also be most grateful.

8. The first dance is a bizarre experience. This is best explained through the medium of pros and cons:

Pros

– It’s a chance to show your friends that you can be both wicked sick cool and profoundly romantic through the selection of just one song.

– You get to have what is basically a really big revolving hug with your new husband/wife which makes up for the total lack of time you’ll have spent together during the day.

– You can even have a little chat about how it’s all going if you’re feeling ambitious.

– It’s another opportunity for people to see just how well co-ordinated your outfits are by holding them really close together.

Cons

– You are not a dancer. And especially not one who is experienced in dancing in a full length dress and shoes you forgot to wear-in. You have nothing to offer to this dance floor.

– Your friends and family have no expectations of you – frankly, they find watching you rotate as bizarre as you do – but you can’t help but feel that you’re letting them down by failing to have a routine prepared.

– Having everybody watch you with their camera phones held up to their face is equivalent to each one of them saying: “You can’t dance; you know it and I know it. And now Facebook is going to know it too.”

9. The ceremony is the best bit. When you’re planning a wedding, the actual marriage part is just one of many, many logistics – even if it is, arguably, the most important one – and, as a result, you don’t take the time to look forward to the loveliness of saying so many super swell things to each other in such a simultaneously public yet private way. But, as it turns out, that part was positively dreamy, which is good seeing as that was the whole point of the day.

10. You do not have capacity in your brain to look forward to the day as much as you will wish you had when it’s over. It’s not possible. Your head would explode.