Wedding Anniversary – think it through boys!
There have been a number of big wedding anniversaries celebrated in my family recently. My parents celebrated their Golden Wedding in November last year, and they choose to celebrate it quietly with their children (one of whom was me obviously) and their grandchildren, at a local italian restaurant. We booked the table for 1 o’clock so we could toast the very happy couple exactly 50 years to the day and minute of their wedding ceremony beginning. We saw their wedding album for the first time in years, and marveled how young they looked. They really were just babies. My dad told the story of his Stag Night, and my mum told me of how Dad was late for the ceremony – a tradition he has stuck to for the past half a century. It was lovely to realise that everyone sitting at that table was there because of a direct result of them getting married. When we returned home, my Mum showed us her wedding dress, which has been kept locked away in a box for all this time. It was still in near perfect condition, and the style and quality have really stood the test of time. It is a three quarter length ballerina style dress, with lovely layers, and a silver lace. I now have it on display with my wedding dresses, and people always comment on it. Shortly after my parents anniversary my mum’s brother and his wife celebrated their 50th. Theirs was a much bigger affair, as they were more procreative than my parents, and their children have been very active in carrying on the family name. Again, it was so lovely knowing how many people were there as a direct result of them getting married. The same love and happiness was still there, as it is with my parents, and it was so lovely and encouraging to see such happy couples celebrating the very real commitment of marriage. I was very proud to be part of it all.
A friend is off on a cruise to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary very shortly, which has made me think of my own. Ours passed at the beginning of this month, with not much notice. It wasn’t a real biggie, although people have served less time in prison for armed robbery. But, we were busy with work, and other things so didn’t give it the attention it deserved. We have decided to make it a bigger occasion next year. There may have been another reason for my husbands lack of enthusiasm in organising a surprise. He is normally very good in arranging secret getaways and romantic nights away. But 10 years ago, he surpassed himself, and he knows that whatever he does now or in the future will never top the reaction he got from me that night. And as I have never let him forget it, I think he has given up trying.
You can picture the scene. I had only just had a baby, (delivered in my own very dramatic and traumatic way) and was feeling very tired and unattractive. I wasn’t feeling very confident with my looks or body, so when my husband told me we were off to a 5* restaurant in the New Forest (I honestly thought that was in Germany) and a luxury hotel near the sea for the weekend, I was completely overwhelmed. Kids were already packed off to my parents, and off we went for our ‘Romantic Anniversary Weekend.’ My husband was very pleased with himself, especially as he had managed to combine a ‘work thing’ with the weekend. This wasn’t as bad as it sounds, because the people we were meeting were a lovely couple, who although were work colleagues of his, were also becoming good friends of ours as well. They were two lovely women, who were funny and vibrant and totally in love, and I enjoyed being in their company, as did my husband. The hotel was nice, but the room we were given was not. The heating wasn’t working and it was a bit damp. The sea breeze was very vigorating, even with the window shut, so we spent the first hour in the room under the duvet, fully clothed trying to stave of hypothermia. We hurriedly got ready for our meal out, met the girls, and went off to the most perfect restaurant. The meal was incredible, and the company divine. I didn’t mind sharing my husband and our special evening with these wonderful ladies, because they were such good fun. After the meal, we headed off to a club. A Lap Dancing Club. Fantastic I thought, spending my wedding anniversary in a lap dancing club, how unusual – just what my failing confidence needed – a night surrounded by beautiful, young, sexy girls. Our friends and my husband wanted to make sure that I was ok with being there – once we were inside. Too late for me to get of it. So I put on my best ‘woman of the world face’, and tried to ignore what was going on at the tables around me. I have to say though that I was very impressed with the pole dancers who were dancing happily away at the poles on the other side of the room, wearing their lovely costumes and moving with such grace and speed. A lot of effort and hard work goes into becoming a good pole dancer, and you do have to be super fit. I commented on the fact that I would have made a great pole dancer because of my gymnastic training, and joked with my husband that it wasn’t too late to start. He smiled weakly, and said that I had ‘probably missed the boat’. That was his first major mistake of the evening. When a fabulous looking girl came to our table to dance, he politely declined, which put him back on the road to recovery with me, but the girls we were with enthusiastically accepted. So we sat through 2 minutes of dancing, watching our friends enjoy the dance wholeheartedly. My eyes never left my husbands, watching him intently to see how wholeheartedly he was enjoying himself. He again was trying to salvage the evening, by trying to look disinterested. The lap dancer went off, and we continued our conversation. I looked around, still with my ‘worldly’ face on. I should mention at this point, that I am a dedicated teetotaler for no other reason than I have never found a drink that I like or can hold (first drink and I am asleep), so I could neither get into the spirit of the evening nor drown my sorrows. I watched as a woman old enough to be my Nana, dressed in a leather swimsuit and tights offered her services to a table of lads on a stag night. Good for her, I thought, it will supplement her pension, and it gets her out of the house. Then came the highlight of our evening. The couple we were with decided to give us our wedding anniversary gift. Not knowing what you traditionally give for a 4th anniversary, they came up with the unusual idea of buying us a naked lap dance for us both, from an 18 year old stunner. The words ‘no, really you shouldn’t have’ were never meant more sincerely. But it was a thoughtful gift, and it would be rude not to accept, pointed out my potentially ex-husband. I can honestly say that watching a beautiful young girl dancing naked in front of your husband does absolutely nothing for your confidence, and my post-natal body was sagging even further south as I sat there. I was very brave, and didn’t cry. I chatted with the girl afterwards, and she told me she was at Uni and this was an excellent way to pay her way. She was very good at it, and was making £1000 a week, dancing for sado’s (I think she included me in that generalisation.) The evening continued for a few more excruciating hours. When we eventually left, and returned to our hotel room, the temperature had plummeted even further, with no sign of it warming up for a few weeks to come. The rest of the night passed off very quietly. Deadly quiet and icy cold. The journey home the next day was the longest 6 hours of my husbands life, trapped in a car with a suicidal, hormonal and post natal wife, and no visible means of escape. I think I cried for most of it. I continued to cry for a further week. Here we are, 10 years 21 days on, and I am over it now. (Well nearly).
24th March. Suex