The Post-Wedding Hurricane

I've now been married for exactly three months, 21 days, 12 hours and 29 minutes and, thankfully, we haven't killed each other yet, despite the fact that we both work from home and breathe in the same air almost 24/7.

I'm blissfully happy, especially as hubby and I are now 'official', but in truth I haven't had much time to fully appreciate our married life. This is because I've been completely inundated with what I can only describe as the post-wedding hurricane – basically a tonne of stuff that needs to be done NOW – and the worst is, it's all necessary! How come nobody warned me of this beforehand? There's so much to do after the event and you can't really escape any of it!

For those brides who haven't yet considered the post-wedding hurricane, here's an abridged version of the list of 'fun' tasks:

• Make the obligatory engaged-to-married status change on Facebook, before friends bombard you with wall posts;
• Source a cleaner for your wedding dress (can be pricey so you should shop around); 
• Dry clean your never-to-be-worn-again dress (an urgent job as stains may set in, if left)
• Arrange delivery and user-test zillions of gifts (note: immediate user-testing is essential due to the likelihood of the odd damaged item); 
• Write and post thank-you cards (takes forever, particularly if your cards are homemade);
• Send thank-you emails to suppliers; 
• Write testimonials for suppliers (only if they ask nicely);
• Inflict photo viewings on everyone that dares to knock on your front door post-wedding (including strangers);  
• Video viewings as above;
• And finally, don't forget the arduous administrative task of the 'name change', if that's your bag. (I'm still in a strange interchangeable-surname limbo.)

Believe it or not, it's taken a whole three months to do all this stuff, and there's been little time (except during our honeymoon) for much newly-wed yumminess! But I'm relieved to say the storm has nearly passed, and our lives are almost back to normal, with the added bonus of being Mr and Mrs. 

If the thought of the post-wedding hurricane fills you with dread, just do a little preparation to limber up before the wedding. If I'd done this I wouldn't have been so stunned by the unyielding post-wedding workload and I may have planned our honeymoon for later in the year rather than two days after we were married. 

This is all with hindsight of course and, in fact, there were many elements of the hurricane that I enjoyed being caught up in. So don't fret. You'll get through it. Just remember it's coming and pace yourself when it arrives!