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Published: March 11th 2012
For those of you who have read any of our blogs before you may be thinking "I thought they were already married?".
We are!!!
It’s a long story.....and this is it.
Most traditions are accidental, they are practices or customs that happen every year, that people enjoy and after time people continue and insist on these practices every year as that is what makes the occasion special.
I started a tradition this year and fully intended to do it.
Now I know this idea is not completely original but currently I have only heard of three other couples that have done this & I only found out about two of those couples in the last month.
When I told friends what I was planning some didn’t believe me, some thought it took the specialness away from a wedding, some even thought it was silly but most thought it was romantic and that is exactly what it is, romantic.
Years ago I read an article about a couple who, every year, would celebrate their wedding anniversary
in a different country by renewing their vows. I remember thinking how sweet and romantic it was and always thought about doing it when I got married but never really thought I’d actually do it.
When doing some research for our holiday to celebrate our anniversary I was looking at various tour operators on the internet and was quite interested in a less touristy part of Mexico than Cancun. I found a hotel in Tulum and whilst reading about the hotel I saw a little asterisk at the bottom of the page saying “Free wedding”.
Intrigued, I phoned up to ask some details, all I had to do was upgrade my room to an ocean view.
Upgrade to an ocean view and get a free wedding, sign me up!!!
When I told Nikki what I had planned she laughed but agreed.
I think Nikki’s first response was “I can get a different dress every year too”.
This could be a very expensive tradition.
Luckily for me Nikki went to the same bridal
shop where she got her last dress, found a dress by the same designer that cost £1500 and then sent her measurements to an internet company in China who made an exact replica for £150 lol.
When we arrived at the hotel we regularly saw weddings on the beach, I’m assuming because of the ‘free wedding’ deal. The first wedding we fully watched was a few days before our wedding, the first time we got married I was worried about crying as I said my vows and that is exactly what I did. I wasn’t worried about that at all this time......until I saw this wedding.
As the bride and groom walked down the aisle together as a married couple they smiled and kissed each other as their families walked behind them, it was such a touching moment seeing them both so happy after making a lifelong promise to each other.
Guess what I did?
I began to well up.
Fighting back the tears of watching SOMEONE ELSE’S WEDDING, I was now seriously worried that I would, yet again, cry
during our wedding.
Why am I such a girl!
On the morning of the wedding Nikki and I exchanged anniversary cards, I had tried to confirm if the first anniversary was known as ‘paper’ or ‘cotton’ as I had been told both by various people. I asked my friends if they knew and guess what, 50% said cotton & 50% said paper, not very helpful at all. According to Wikipedia it’s cotton in the UK and paper in the US, I decided to get both, well sort of. The anniversary card was her ‘paper’ gift and for cotton I got her an embroidered hanky with ‘first anniversary 21/02/2012’ on it. In my opinion this was an awesome gift as Nikki is always asking me for a tissue even though I have never carried tissues on me in my life.
I had to go down to wait for Nikki 10 minutes before her. When we got married the first time I had to go ahead but I was the only person there and I only waited for a matter of seconds. This time I was standing on the beach
with all of the people staying at out hotel sunbathing not far from where we were getting married, everyone began to look over at me, standing by myself, this was not cool.
The photographer took some pictures and shortly after Nikki came down.
We decided to walk down the aisle together, the last time Nikki walked down the aisle she was so nervous she pretty much power walked all the way but this time I was there to slow her down. When we got to the minister he began the ceremony, he said a prayer and spoke about the sanctity of marriage.
This was actually really funny because we have been decorating our home for nearly a year now and he mentioned something along the lines of ‘love each other in times of hard work on the house’ lol.
Then came the vows, I looked at Nikki and her eyes we had welled up. She looked at me and the same had happened, this was not because we are crazy in love or because we are ridiculously soppy, it is because we got married
in the sun, on a white sand beach, with no sunglasses on.
Luckily for both of us we held it together despite the fact that we both thought the other was crying because of our special day.
We then went with the photographer to take pictures which we both really enjoyed, a note to anyone planning a beach wedding like us. I decided to go barefoot as the sand was not hot. However when it came time to take pictures we were walking around the resort to various locations and were no longer walking on the cool sand but on extremely hot tiles, we had to get a few bottles of water to pour on the floor before we could take pictures in certain places.
When the photo session finished it was lunch time, as we didn’t have to entertain our guests, as we had none, we decided to get changed, go for lunch and sunbathe all day before our special wedding dinner that night.
When I chose the location of our first wedding I picked it for several reasons. Our first date was
in the snow on a Monday the 21
st February so it seemed fitting to have our wedding in the snow on Monday the 21
st February.
No matter where you are in the world, no matter what time of year it is, if you are in a hot place there is no guarantee it will be a sunny day with a clear sky and no rain, in Sweden we had guaranteed weather, it was at least minus 30 the whole time we were there, we were guaranteed snow.
Also in a hot country, if like me you are irresistible to mosquito’s, there is the chance that you may get a bite on your face (which I had whilst in Mexico), which will look like a huge spot on your face for your wedding pictures, but luckily for me it had gone by the time it was the wedding.
And lastly, there is that chance that no matter what you seem to eat to avoid it, no matter how careful you are with making sure everything is cooked properly, there is always going to be a chance that, how shall
I put this nicely, you may get a bad belly.
Guess what?
During lunch I felt that stir in my stomach that people dread, before I had finished my lunch I had to run to the toilet......several times.
On our wedding day I got the shits!!!
I now had to think about what I was going to do as we had our special wedding dinner that night and I had to run to the toilet every time I had a mouthful of water. This was a nightmare. When we were getting ready for our wedding dinner I decided I was going to enjoy the food at the restaurant (and the cake included in our wedding package) so I dosed up on Imodium and ate what I wanted.
As it was a Mexican themed night at the resort our restaurant was dead, for a long time we were the only people in the restaurant, which was great. The food was phenomenal and when it was time for our cake the waiter bought out the cake included in our wedding package, which
feeds 10 people, Nikki decided to cut the cake in to slices and gave a slice to all of the waiters in the restaurant and of course we got a picture of us with all of them and their cake.
I had an amazing day but the little things that would have made our day a nightmare were not as bad as it was not our actual wedding. I’m not playing down the importance of our renewal of vows just seeing the positive side of a bad situation plus, we always knew our wedding was the best day ever but our second wedding made us appreciate how special our first wedding was all over again.
If getting married every year means having an amazing day that we enjoy, that reconfirms our love for each other and that makes us appreciate the most amazing day ever even more I can’t wait for next year.
If I had the time I’d propose to Nikki every year too but that would get way too expensive and would be very difficult to make it as romantic as the first time I proposed
(read my London eye blog).
I can’t tell you what we have planned for next year yet but we are already in the process of organising the next wedding.
I hope you have enjoyed reading about our special day.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
How romantic...
and those tears were not from the sunlight! We are looking forward to seeing where you are married next year. From now on you won't forget your anniversary.