We drove away from our reception venue in excitement. I was thinking “Wow! So that was our wedding day!” It was almost unreal. I looked at my new husband as we drove to our hotel, and I was thinking to myself over and over again. “We are now married, no really, we are married!” We talked excitedly about how the day had gone. We were really glad everything had gone well and all our months of planning paid off in the end. I thought about the task ahead of us, thanking everybody who had helped to make our day a success, but I pushed that to the back of my mind. I wanted to enjoy this moment, and we were looking forward to more exciting things.
Soon we arrived at our hotel and checked in with all our stuff. I’m sure the receptionist was quite amused when she saw us arriving in our native wear with a wedding cake and lots of presents! When we got to our room though, I started to get a bit nervous and I told hubby. He didn’t want to put any pressure on me. But in my mind, I wanted to experience “my wedding night” the way I had been dreaming about it since I was a teenager. I won’t go into details, but I’ll say it went very well! Just before I fell asleep, my husband (in every sense of the word now *wink*) held me and said “”Thank you for keeping yourself for me…” and I will always treasure those words. That appreciation made all the waiting and abstaining worthwhile.
The next morning, we woke up too late to have breakfast at the hotel so we drove to the mall not too far away and had breakfast in a nice café there. Over breakfast, I marvelled at how much things would change between us. I was trying to decide whether things had changed between us as a couple apart from the wedding rings we were now wearing. Something did feel a bit different though, but I couldn’t really place a finger on it. After breakfast we strolled hand in hand through the mall before we went back to the hotel. And then I don’t know what happened, but I think all the mixed emotions I had been going through in the past week just welled up in me and I burst into tears! Hubby didn’t understand it and I really didn’t as well, but I wasn’t sad so they were tears of joy. After I had a good cry and hubby consoled me well, we spent the rest of the day lounging in our room. In the evening we went out for dinner and a movie. That was nice, and at the end of the day, I remember thinking this was a good way to start married life!
We spent our first married week together this way, apart from the day we went to say goodbye to my parents when they were leaving. We didn’t have a proper honeymoon as such because I had to go back to Nottingham to complete my dissertation. During that time though, we still had stuff to do. We contacted our gift registry and arranged for delivery of our stuff, we started designing our ‘Thank You’ cards, we sorted through all the cards and envelopes that we were given on our wedding day, we contacted our photographer and videographer to finalise our pick-up date, we made a list of people to thank and a list of people we were going to visit, etc.
After our week at the hotel, we drove down to hubby’s place (where I finished consuming the top tier of our wedding cake – so much for saving it for one year- lol!). We had to move his stuff out of his old place and into our new place together. Some days later, we had a thank you party/get-together for our hostesses, groomsmen, bridesmaids and friends. It was fun to catch up with everyone and we got great feedback from them. We were hearing stories of the people who hooked up, people who met old friends, made new ones and so on, at our wedding!
A few days later, hubby and I headed up to Nottingham for me to continue my work. Fortunately, my housemate had gone on holiday so hubby and I had the house to ourselves. I started working (or trying to work) on my dissertation while he kept me company at the library. He even helped me to do some research and organise my work. It was a very cosy arrangement, I worked during the day and we hung out for the rest of the time. Eventually he had to go back home, so a month into our marriage, we spent some time apart. I stayed in Nottingham frantically trying to complete my work because the deadline was drawing near, but I made sure I went home every weekend.
I spent the rest of my time there, practically part of the furniture in the library; working, typing, researching and doing everything to finish it, and do a good job. It was a big relief when I finally finished my 20-000 word dissertation, got it bound and submitted it! The very next day, I packed my stuff, said goodbye to Nottingham and ran home to… live happily ever after. LOL.
