1 YEAR MARRIED
Yes, contrary to the headlines some people did manage to get married in 2020 and we were one of the lucky few who had their big day just before the restrictions. As covid started dominating the news we blissfully danced the weekend away with over 100 of our favourite people and really made the most of what was to be the last big celebration of the year.
We kicked off the decade in style with a tiny ceremony before they were all you could do and then a three day fiesta complete with pub quiz, epic playlist and a few days in Cornwall to top it off. It wasn’t the way we envisaged spending our first year of marriage and our tenth year together but we made it to our one year wedding anniversary without losing our heads (just about).
More time to spend together.
Now I don’t want to act like the pandemic has been all sunshine and roses but spending all our time together just after tying the knot wasn’t a negative. We lead really busy lives, me in particular working out of the house 5 days a week. shopping, spending time with friends, shooting off to see my family every weekend and whilst I have missed all of that in a way that makes my heart ache, spending time at home wasn’t so bad when we were together. We’ve eaten lunch together pretty much every day sat at the table, we’ve spent nearly every evening hanging out in front of the tv watching a boxset and we’ve chilled each and every weekend and it’s been nice to put us first when I’m so used to being here there and everywhere.
New routines.
Like the rest of the UK, our daily exercise became our salvation in lockdown after lockdown and it’s something we really ended up enjoying. In the summer we took long leisurely walks under the sunset of heatwave evenings, we took up couch to 5k again (and didn’t finish it again), we’ve been on long long walks when we’ve needed to clear our heads, in the winter we’ve bundled up warm and braved the rain and in the last few weeks we’ve crunched through the snow. Back in April we even got lost and walked 7 cold miles home. 100% one of the most boring adult best things to come out of this year.
Time for everything.
I mean it’s an over exaggeration because the house hasn’t had all the work we intended to do to it and the ironing pile is still mountainous but we’ve had a time for a lot more than we normally do. Back in lockdown 1 we binged a whole load of British boxsets from Car Share to Gavin & Stacey, from Detectorists to This Country and of course we enjoyed Tiger King. Since then we’ve also made Saturday nights movie night and we cook something special or collect a takeaway and watch a film and stay off our phones and it’s been absolutely lovely.
We haven’t murdered each other.
We have never been one of those couples who are sick of each other or bicker or need loads of time apart but we don’t live in each other’s pockets either but that being said, lockdown didn’t take much of an adjustment at all. We’ve continued to laugh, joke, talk about our days even when we’ve spent 100% of it together and we’ve enjoyed the company of one another all the way through.
Time apart has new meaning.
That being said, we’ve also continued to do our own things too and whilst I definitely am home more nights than I ever was, we still enjoy some space apart and oh am I thankful we both have separate offices. Jos has taken to gaming with his friends on a Friday night, I have been working from home 9am - 6pm or later most days since Christmas and we both have our own hobbies. Now we’re at home but we’re not together and we’ve both maintained a sense of self I think can be blurred in current times.
Still a team.
We’ve been together long enough that I think that’s been established but lockdowns and global pandemics can throw a lot of curveballs into one’s life and as the saying goes, if you can get through that you can get through anything. When I think back to the hardest points of the last year it’s not actually health and then pandemic that springs to mind. It’s family, job worries, support systems in tatters and financial stress but all the while whilst we’re fractured and been under pressure and sometimes I think I’m going mad, we’ve calmed each other down, dealt with the problem and are a support network of two to the end.
A global pandemic is a bad time to get wedding gifts.
We were spoiled rotten as everyone is after their wedding and whilst we ate all the chocolate (me) and drank all the booze (Jos), a lot of our wedding guests kindly gifted us things to do. Let me tell you a month before a lockdown was not the time to receive hundreds of pounds in cinema vouchers, restaurant loyalty cards and a National Trust membership.
I would do it all again.
Looking back I could not be more thankful that we got to have our wedding in 2020 with all the people we wanted there, no restrictions, no fear and just a whole load of fun but I wouldn’t have done it any different if I’d have known. I am so so pleased we decided to throw a three day event not one, book a venue with accommodation for 60% of the wedding guests and make a fuss of every little piece of it. I wouldn’t have had a bigger ceremony celebration, I would still have had the party the way we did, still celebrated my Mum’s birthday the next day and relished my nieces being there as much as I did. Looking back now there’s two things I’d alter and that is 1. Book the videographer and 2. Go away for longer afterward.
Nothing changed but everything changed.
After 10 years together I was certain nothing would change in our relationship once we got married and whilst I’m right in a way, everything changed too. We didn’t change but the world around us was thrown upside down and jumbled round and we’ve navigated our first year of marriage in a life that doesn’t resemble anything like the one we were in on this day one year ago.
I hope by this time next year that the world will look a bit more normal. I’d like to say we’d have been on our honeymoon but I suspect that might be a pipe dream so let’s hope for a weekend somewhere even if it’s just down the road. I hope we’re vaccinated, we’re not all as scared and we have a competent government. I hope I will have seen some of my friends, I hope I’ll have spent more of this year with our families, I hope we’re watching the 6 Nations in a packed stadium and I hope we’re settled at home and in work. More than anything I hope we’re all healthy and happy and celebrating our 2nd year wedding anniversary with a meal out and no masks.
We can hope.
