Life After the Wedding

The days have been flying by lately. I feel so consumed by work and wedding tasks that I look up and a week, two weeks, three weeks have flown by. Everything is moving so quickly and I feel that we are going to reach a critical mass soon! I'm starting to wonder why we decided to get married one week after the school year ends. But despite the mounting stress of work and the wedding, I'm glad that we will be getting married early in the summer so that we can enjoy the rest of our time off without worrying about wedding tasks. We can enjoy our much-earned break and enjoy being married to each other.

Even though I'm feeling burned out and overwhelmed by the wedding -- I'm still going to be sad when it's all over. I think that I am probably very susceptible to experiencing the dreaded post-wedding depression. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, I have a stressful job that isn't always easy. In fact, most of the time it is not easy. Mr. C and I work at a Title I high poverty high school and there are a lot of emotional issues that are attached to what we do each day. Not only due to the current state of education, but also with the daily issues that students come to us with each day. We both teach "high stakes" test subjects which puts a lot of pressure on us to bring in good test scores with students who, even as 12th graders, often struggle with basic reading comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking skills. Needless to say, the wedding has been a very happy, positive distraction this year.

It's been so nice having something fun and positive to talk about with coworkers. Everyone loves a wedding and of course ladies always want to hear about the details. It's provided a topic of conversation for coworkers I don't know as well as I should. I regularly have coworkers pop in my classroom to ask how the wedding planning is going. "Are you getting excited?" they ask, "It's getting so close!" I have students begging to be invited and oohing and aahing over pictures of my dress (well, the female students anyway). Because Mr. C and I work at the same school, everyone knows us and they have been so excited about our wedding. They were witnesses to our dating stage, us moving in together, the engagement in Paris, and now on our journey to the altar. Weddings are something that people smile about; a bright spot during rough times.

Of course outside of work the wedding has been something fun to bring friends and family together. I've had excuses to hang out with girlfriends that I rarely get to see. I receive calls from my fiesty grandma and I can tell how excited she is to be attending the wedding and picking out a new dress to wear. My mom has been buzzing with wedding preparations. My parents split when I was thirteen and for maybe the second time in the last decade I will be able to see them and spend time with them both on the same day in the same room. I will have pictures of myself taken together with my mom and dad for the first time in my adult life. For me, our wedding has been more than exchanging vows, it's also been seeing and spending time with my often distant family.

I've also really enjoyed crafting things and utilizing my creativity. I'm a terrible procrastinator and it's nice to have a purpose and deadline for projects. It has forced me to sit down, learn how to use Illustrator, utilize the skills, and create a final product in a defined time period. I've never felt so creatively productive! And I've loved blogging for Weddingbee. It's given me an excuse to sit down and write about my wedding. And honestly it feels good to have a reason to write. It's also provided an excuse to break out my camera which seems to be gathering a lot of dust these days.

I'm the type of person who needs some type of event to look forward to and I think that after fourteen months of planning, suddenly having this big event over and done with will be sad. I know myself too well. Yes, I will be relieved to finally have my free time back, time to rest, relax, and read books and prepare for the next school year. But putting so much energy and emotion into one day can only end in sorrow. But who knows. Maybe I will surprise myself and I will return from our honeymoon ready to move on with my life. And knowing me I will have some other trip or project to work on in no time. Or I might just spend the summer catching up on all the sleep I've lost in the last nine months.

I know that regardless, life will move on after our wedding, but I think I will be sad that the one excuse to see all of my nearest and dearest friends and family at once is gone. But the good news is that I will have a lifetime of love and happiness to look forward to with Mr. C -- and at the end of the day that is all that really matters. We have so much to look forward to as husband and wife: traveling the world, buying our first home, maybe starting a family (or adopting 50 cats?), and simply moving through life as a team.

Did you have (or do you think you will have) post wedding depression?