Second time down the aisle!

So let’s talk about the elephant in the registry office shall we… no, it’s not that my groom was still in nappies when I started secondary school or that we were only together for 6 months before I fell pregnant. I’m talking about the fact that this ain’t my first rodeo… I know I know, I look SO young, you’re thinking, how could I POSSIBLY be on my second time around? Well, truth be told, I’m just as shocked as you. I only divorced 3.5 years ago and I said then that I wouldn’t walk down the aisle again, yet here I am knee deep in chair covers and flower arches. I never thought that I’d be sat here in my mid 30’s planning my SECOND wedding because let’s be honest…. The idea of multiple marriages at a young age is taboo. So, let’s get over it shall we? Life’s too short to worry about what others think.  

We should probably start with ‘why have I decided to do it all again’? Well to answer that I need to explain what getting married means to me in the first place. It's more than just a wedding; it’s more than just a party; more than just a dress. There is a commitment to that person that you want to spend the rest of your life with them and when I said I do the first time round I absolutely meant every word of those vows. Well, what  I didn't realise is that you can mean those vows in different ways- I did love the man that I was marrying but not in the way that I needed to. I didn't go into my first marriage thinking it would end, I went into it believing I would do everything I could to make it work and that I would never give up on it but you go through life events that can change that thinking. For me that life event was losing my mum suddenly and I decided that I didn't want to live a half life. I learnt that tomorrow isn’t promised so I decided I was going to do what made me happy and didn’t want to look back in years to come with regrets.  

Fast forward to today…. I have a beautiful 2.5 year old son with my amazing fiance and I want us to be a proper family. That’s not to say that you need to have a mum and a dad and a child to be a proper family, of course not. Families come in all wonderful colours, shapes and sizes but to me a strong family unit is 2 parents united by marriage that love each other which is not something that I always had growing up, nor did my fiance so it’s really important to us both to provide that solid foundation for him. I'm also very aware that my fiance hasn't been married before and he deserves to have that moment if that’s what he wants, so here we are again…. 

So how is it different this time? Firstly I am acutely aware of what people might think… ‘oh here we go again’! So I've made a very conscious decision that I want us to do everything differently and my number one rule is that we are doing nothing because we feel we have to, because tradition says so. I’m sure we’ll raise some eyebrows along the way. For example, anyone that knows me knows I'm a fiercely independent woman so this time no-one's going to walk me down the aisle; I don't need anybody to give me away because nobody owns me in the first place. My dad only did a father of the bride speech a few years ago, in fact he's probably still got it sitting on the recycling pile at home and I don't want to put him under the pressure of thinking; does he mention the elephant in the room? Does he he recycle some bits? Does he know how to make it unique while still keeping it authentic? I didn't want to put him under that pressure. 

 Then we come on to perhaps one of the most challenging aspects: THE DRESS.  Let’s be real… I had my dream wedding and my dream dress last time so how do I get married a second time round and still feel amazing? Having everything completely different starts with the venue. The first wedding was a Church of England, white wedding in a little church so we thought what is as different as can be? let's go abroad! So we're getting married in Cyprus and that therefore kind of sets the tone for everything else. So, I won't say too much about the dress because obviously we don't know whose eyes are on this but safe to say it's very different to what you would expect to see in an English village church this time!

 

So what’s my top tip for second time round? Face into it, don’t be embarrassed. And to hell with tradition! We can dance to the pop punk music that we want, eat the BBQ food that we enjoy, invite the people we want to be surrounded by & who love us.

That big fat elephant is just going have to pack up its suitcase and find a spot of shade in the Cypriot heat because I’m proud to be doing it all again and it's going be the best day of my life.