Shit Happens

Today I read the most tremendous post on the brilliant Any Other Wedding.

It says it much more politely than me (I am a BAD Penny after all) but it batters home the point that on our wedding day, at some point, we need to let ourselves off. Because shit happens every day, and it will happen on this day too.

WHY DID I NOT REALISE THIS BEFORE!

This post?

That was me beating myself up about our wedding day not being perfect. Little did I know, some or ...possibly all?.... brides go through this to a degree. This post-match analysis. Whether it's a tiny niggle, a minor regret or a mahoosive perfectionist wig-out like mine. We imagine this day SO many times over the course of our engagement that it could never possibly play out that way. How can you know how you will feel, or what it will all look like on the day? How can you predict what will go wrong and what will go brilliantly right?

And so much went brilliantly right. But I need to allow myself the other stuff too.

So I'm going to borrow Aisling's glorious format and exorcise my own demons.

It's OK if....

-You spend three hours worth of Mac tutorials realising you CAN wear lipstick and not look like a clown... and then forget to put any on before you walk out the door.

-To be oblivious to what is actually happening all morning (normal day, tum-ti-tum) until you actually have to walk up the aisle, and then your legs turn to cooked spaghetti and you want to throw your bouquet in the registrar's face and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction (with your wobbly spaghetti legs) screaming "THE PRESSURE! THE PRESSURE!"

-Your husband's immediate family are so numerous, boisterous and rowdy that your poor mother does that tight, strained "I'M COPING" tooth-baring smile all day and then spends the rest of the next week being ill from the stress of what her daughter has married into.

-Your beautiful, beautiful blue suede 6 inch heels CRIPPLE you before the reception even starts...

-....so you end up wearing Converse for the whole evening, which make your legs look stumpy in all the photos

-For some reason you thought playing a gig at your WEDDING would not make you sweaty, even though every other time you play a gig, you get VERY SWEATY. But of course it does. And this time, your hair frizzes, your nose goes shiny and your veil falls off.

- You didn't get a chance to say more than hello to your husband's Aunt and Uncle who have travelled all the way from Spain to be there. In fact, you don't get much of a chance to say more than hello to anyone all night, because you are now the HELLOHOWAREYOUTHANKSOMUCHFORCOMING robot

-Apart from with small children, who are now the only people you can communicate with effectively in your brain-addled state, so you spend a good hour chasing your friend's 8 year old daughter round and throwing glitter at each other

-You go a bit wild on the gin and then think it will be really funny to make your new husband wear your veil during the first dance (luckily most of the traditionalists had gone home by the time we actually got round to having it, as we were running so ridiculously behind schedule) which is a shame, because it was the only thing hiding your gig-frazzled hair and hideously "glowing" complexion

-There is so, so, so much cake left at the end that you turn into some Doggy Bag Nazi and stand by the door proffering foil containers and screaming at everyone "TAKE IT! TAKE IT! TAKE IT!" (they all thanked me the next day when they were hungover)



-You are so completely exhausted at the end of the night that you shut the disco down early and your Maid of Honour and her boyfriend have to take you away in a taxi and force feed you cocktails in the hotel bar in order to get you to construct a sentence of more than one syllable

-Your other friends got married on the same day and had a PROPER wedding with a car and a stately home and an actual dress from a wedding dress shop. And you know, you did things a little bit differently, and that's OK too.

It's all OK.

In fact, now I see it written down, it sounds sort of fun, and lovely.

And now we have the photos, and I look at how happy everyone is, and how awesome everyone looks, and I can genuinely say, for the first time in over a month

I WOULD NOT HAVE DONE IT DIFFERENTLY.

Fuck it.

Our wedding really was ridiculous, chaotic and perfect.

And now I get to be married ....

....to my ridiculous, chaotic and perfect man.