WITHDRAWALS

They say after a wedding it's typical for the bride to suffer from post wedding depression. During the engagement the bride is consumed with planning every little detail, dreaming of the day their wedding comes to life, thinking of their blissful honeymoon. Then in a moment it all happens, the guests go home, the honeymoon comes and goes, and then you just go home and go back to your normal life. 

Wham, bam, thank you mam. 

I feel the exact same way after spending the last six days celebrating my best friend's wedding in San Francisco.

Throughout her engagement I've been with her as she picked a date, venue, flowers, her dress, the bridal party dresses, rehearsal dinner locations, invitations, save the dates, wedding videos, DJ, money, cupcakes, honeymoon locations, you name it we talked about it. I designed her wedding website, voted on which photographer I liked best, made a video for her rehearsal dinner, designed her escort cards and her table number cards. A month before the wedding I threw a (if I do say so myself) kick ass bachelorette party for eight amazing ladies in South Lake Tahoe complete with a woman who arrived at our rental house, installed a stripper pole, and gave us a three hour lesson on how to work the pole. 

As the days ticked down for our departure to San Francisco I was giddy with anticipation. I even took a stack of post-it notes and wrote down the days to go, 16 days, 15 days, 14 days... each new day I sat down at my desk and pulled off another note. Only 6 days to go!!!!!

I got my dress altered, my shoes arrived, my bags were packed.  

Suddenly we were actually in San Francisco, finally here to celebrate the event she and I had been talking about since December of 2011. 

The day had come. I was finally actually there, watching her step into her dress, helping do up the back of her dress button by button. I stood with the other friends and family as we watched her walk up behind her future husband, tap him on the shoulder and then we all teared up as his eyes widened as he viewed his bride for the very first time in her flowing white dress. We all rode in a trolley car San Francisco style to the venue, all singing along at the top of our lungs as the song, "Going to the Chapel" blasted on the stereo. I walked down the aisle and stood and waited as her and her father met her groom at the end of the aisle. There were many tears, I finally delivered the toast I wrote the night she got engaged, there was dinner and there was dancing.

And then suddenly it was all over. 

 

Now we're back. Back in the cold. Back in Alaska and I don't know about the bride, but I'm already suffering from post wedding depression. Guess this means I need to get back to work planning my own...