Post Wedding Emotions

Just before getting married, I wrote an entry about life after the wedding. I wasn't sure where I would be emotionally after the wedding was over. The idea is that you spend weeks, months, sometimes even years preparing for an event that is over in a single day. Emotionally, it places a lot of pressure on the bride and groom. I felt that I was highly susceptible to experiencing post-wedding depression for a number of reasons, but namely because the wedding was a distraction from my stressful job, an excuse to stay in touch with long-distance friends and family, and a great creative motivator. As of May 26th, all of the crafting, socializing, and planning has come to a screeching halt.

I won't lie, the day after our wedding was pretty rough. Not only did we watch as all of our out-of-town family and friends left, but we also returned to our apartment to find the sad remnants of our special day. After the wedding my family was tasked with clearing all of our belongings out of the venue. Everything was loaded up and dropped off at our apartment while Mr. C and I were at a hotel in downtown Athens. There were boxes of milk glass, a trash bag full of our beautiful centerpiece flowers, unopened wedding gifts and cards, a bag of uneaten macarons. There was barely any space to move around our living room! So we sat down and started to clear it out. We broke down boxes, we tossed out the flowers, we boxed up the milk glass that I spent over a year collecting. It was hard and there were definitely tears from both of us. The worst part is when we opened our photo guestbook for the first time. There were so many great photos and sweet messages. Seeing the photos of guests who only hours earlier had been in our presence totally opened the floodgates. We were both a total mess for most of the day. You see, the major bulk of both of our families lives hours away from us. It was such a treat to have our family all together for the weekend, to watch our family interact with our coworkers and friends. It was hard to see them go and watch life return to normalcy.

Photography by Christopher Helm

This is where I am so very glad that we decided to leave for our honeymoon the day after the wedding. I definitely recommend this if you think you might suffer from post-wedding depression. We had enough time the day after the wedding to see some of our family off, to clean up our apartment, pack a few last minute items, and then make it to the airport just in time for our flight to Paris. But I cried the entire car ride to the airport. In fact, Mr. C had to stop for gas and I had to go into the gas station to buy tissues. I was a hot mess! My head was reeling with so many emotions: the vows, spending time with my dad, seeing my mom and dad chatting together for the first time in 15 years, the total outpouring of love we experienced. But as soon as we were on the plane, it all melted away. We were about to go on a great adventure and see Paris and Malta!

Instagram photo by my stepsister.

By the time we returned home from the honeymoon, the post-wedding letdown had run its course. I felt just fine, no post-wedding depression in sight. Even so, there was definitely a feeling of "loss" -- I kept thinking that there was something I should be doing, some wedding task waiting to be completed. Nearly a month later I still feel the same sense of loss, as if something is missing. But that might also come from the fact I'm a teacher on summer vacation and usually I do have a million things (lessons to plan, copies to make, essays to grade, grades to enter, etc) that I should be doing. But you know what? I'm glad it's over. I'm glad the wedding stress is gone. I'm glad I don't have to check The Knot's wedding checklist anymore (and subsequently freak out over the dozens of tasks waiting to be completed). I'm glad the wedding nightmares have ended. I'm glad a portion of my paycheck is no longer being signed away to wedding day details. The wedding was fun, it was amazing, but it's done and I'm ready to move on. Honestly, this response has really surprised me as I thought I would be an emotional wreck. If we hadn't left straight for the honeymoon after the wedding, I think things would have been much different.

Some post-wedding emotions have surprised me though. I've felt some strange pangs of guilt. Guilt about some family and friends I barely spoke to at the reception. Guilt about all the trouble and expense my brother went through to DJ at the wedding reception (even though people tell me he had the time of his life). Guilt about barely being by Mr. C's side during the rehearsal dinner. Guilt about the time and money some of my friends spent to be a part of our wedding. I realize that people do these things because they want to, but I can't help feeling a little guilty. I even felt guilty opening wedding gifts -- what did we do to deserve them? I also feel bummed out by some things that did not go as planned, which I realize is normal. We didn't get to have a sparkler exit (because I was stupid and misplaced the sparklers). I wish our reception had been even one hour longer or we had started the ceremony earlier. There are some photos we just didn't have time to take. But c'est la vie. What can you do but take the good with the bad in stride and keep moving forward?

Some people have asked me if I feel different now that I am married, or if my relationship with Mr. C has changed. Not so much. But there is that feeling of, "Wow, this person has chosen to stick by me for this rest of his life?" That's a powerful and humbling notion. I can't believe someone loves enough to make that commitment, someone who has seen me at my absolute best and my rock-bottom worst. It's empowering, comforting, and strange all at the same time. But I'm so happy and so lucky to call Mr. C my husband.

Overall, I'm very content with life right now. I can finally rest, relax, and recharge. I'm so glad to be married to Mr. C and we are still enjoying our newlywedded bliss. Plus we now we have our professional photos (as you may have noticed above) and we absolutely love them. I can't wait to start my wedding recaps!

What about you? How did you feel when your wedding was over? Were you distressed or relieved? A mix of the two? Did your relationship with your partner change after your marriage?

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?