Small Strokes Big Oaks

This past weekend, Tim and I attended one of my friends’ weddings and it was absolutely beautiful.  The bride teaches across the hall from me, so we spent a lot of time talking about weddings this year – as you can probably imagine – and different ways of doing things.  I was really impressed with her attention to detail and her grace and beauty throughout the night.  I felt like a bumbling idiot in my dress a lot of the time, and I remember thinking I’d really like to change into a hoodie and sweatpants about an hour into the reception.  (That feeling faded, though, when I started to loosen up a bit and, consequently, started to feel pretty.)  My friend, however, just looked like she was born in that dress – so comfortable and perfect.

One of the things we had talked about while standing in the hall, between yelling at kids to get to class on time, was her excitement for her honeymoon.  She’s in Jamaica this week (and I hope she brings back some of that warmth with her!) and left right after her wedding.  My best friend, Christina, also took a honeymoon right away after her December wedding to a warm, relaxing location.

Tim and I… well, we didn’t take a honeymoon right away, and when we did, we went to Napa Valley and San Fransisco, CA in December – two and a half months after the wedding.  While it was warmer than it was in Chicago at that time, it was absolutely not the tropical beach destination you think of when you think “honeymoon.”  And it was far from relaxing.  We did what Tim and I do best: stayed hella busy the entire time, drank lots of wine, and came home needing a vacation from our vacation.

Everyone is different when it comes to honeymoons, though we’re the only couple I know (in real life.  I’ve talked about this with many online friends) who waited to take a honeymoon.  Part of our decision was practical: after that hectic planning period, the thought of creating a week’s worth of lesson plans for both of our classes on top of it was torture.  Frankly, the week before the wedding, I was absolutely, 100% ready to just get back to normal.  I wanted to go back to school, teach, have time to hang out with Tim and my family, write, and read books.  We also hadn’t quite gotten our budgeting under control, so we weren’t sure how much money we’d have to spend on a honeymoon.  And, in traditional Ashley and Tim fashion, we wanted to do something huge during the summer and go to Europe for a few weeks rather than take a short vacation, which we are now no longer doing because we got impatient and went to Napa two months after the wedding and spent too much money there.

Waiting for a honeymoon, to us, seemed like the right thing to do at the time.  And, in all honesty, I was super happy to get back to work and get some sense of normalcy back in my life.  Though, I will say, I was in a total daze for at least a week.  I felt like a zombie with nothing to do, and I had so much fun at the wedding and was surrounded by so much love that not going somewhere and doing something big afterwords seemed, well, weird.  Not to mention that any time anyone brought up anything about the wedding or showed me the pictures they took or I had to throw away my bouquet, I cried!  Like, for real.  Which could have been avoided, I think, if I had just taken some downtime away from it all.

So, that week, we decided to go to Napa Valley for our honeymoon in December and not wait until summer to go to Europe.  And I’m glad we did.  Looking back on it, I might actually do it differently if I had it to do again. (Which, as much fun as it was, thank goodness I don’t have to do it again.  I know, it’s hypocritical, but if you’ve ever had a big wedding, you probably know what I’m talking about.)  The honeymoon is the time you get to spend rediscovering each other after months of wedding obsession and, though Tim and I had that, we had it at home, which is very different.

It’s up to you what you decide to do, of course, but if you’re looking for some to-honeymoon or not-to-honeymoon advice, I’d urge you to take some kind of a break after the wedding, no matter what that looks like.  Maybe it’s a few days off of work where you just turn your phones off and relax.  Maybe it’s a stay-cation in a local B&B.  Maybe it’s a week in an exotic location.  But do give yourselves that time to relax and recuperate.  You won’t regret it!

If you had a wedding, what did you do afterwards?  Do you have any advice for brides to be on the topic?