Vanishing Brides

Wonderfully, it's our 31st wedding anniversary today. I've been having a few bridal thoughts this week, especially as we've been talking about our wedding day & marveling together at the passing of the years & how we have managed to journey all this way & still end up steadfast friends & deeply in love.

 The Proposal by Margaret Tarrant..on our bedroom wall.

The thing that has got me wondering, however, is where are all the brides? Where ever do they all vanish to?  It seems to me that there is more fuss & carry-on & swathes of money spent on weddings than ever before these days ( sometimes obscene amounts!). The extraordinary lengths that some brides go to make themselves sensational for the BIG day, well quite frankly, breaks me out in a sweat & makes me want to have a lie down. I wonder how many of us still feel like brides a year later or 5 years down the track?

 Pondering bridaliness required wearing my angel halo from time to time..it helped me consider such romantic notions.

 After awhile I found myself picking fragrant white bouquets from the garden..

 and sighing at their beauty. I don't recall anyone saying "ooh she was such an ugly bride". Brides are always beautiful. But what if we stayed being brides & treasured our marriages every day of every year? What if we spent even a fraction of the resource spent on the actual wedding day & instead began to exercise our romantic imagination even just a little bit? (it's not so hard really, you just have to practice a little). Wouldn't it be lovely to reach the other end of life still feeling sweet & graceful & knowing we had been cherished a lifetime & valued ourselves? That's my plan!

 It was easy to get married..actually anyone at all can do it.

 But it's no good just gritting your teeth & hoping that you'll make it. I don't remember a year when things weren't hard, but I am who I am because of Rob & he because of me & we're really quite nice people nowadays. Our only regret, is all the wasted pain & trouble of being swamped with other peoples baggage..families!!
So, for nearly every year of our marriage we have taken small romantic interludes away from the hustle of life...just overnight & not usually traveling far. It all began when we bravely booked ourselves into the County Hotel in Napier, when our kids were little & we were shy & timid & poor but also, somehow brave & determined to love with all our hearts.
This year we set off to Napier again.

 I just had to buy this little doillie from the Antique Centre..look at all the perfectly fashioned hearts!

 And the pretty velvet flowers.

 Our dear friends Rod & Gaye had so generously offered us a night away in their darling "Violet Annie's Cottage" the sweetest little holiday home on their Poraiti property.

 There were flowers in every room

 & gorgeousness around every corner. I wanted to sleep in this bed too!

 We felt so at home,

so welcome 

 & so very blessed.

 The hollyhocks stood sentinel.

 The evening light so lovely.

 Before the 1931 earthquake that completely realigned the landscape of the area, the sea came almost right to the door & was a favourite local picnic spot. Now there are vast estuaries

 & lots of open spaces & walks.

 It's quite hilly around Poraiti way & seems to be well suited to growing stone fruit & olives, avocados & things..

 and building tree houses. I think they may be a tad over supplied with building materials! I actually quite fancied taking home the wee door in the middle..shh don't tell.

 Walking back up the road & home to our cottage..Napier really wasn't far away at all.

 We took simple yummy things to have for our tea.

 Bless her heart, dear Gaye had left this card & the giant love hearts in the cottage for us. I loved the colours in this extravagant pasta that I came across at Bellatinos, we'll save it for another dinner together soon. When I woke next morning I had an overwhelming sense of being wrapped in giant loving arms & being held to a large soft bosom (covered in an apron of course!)..it surely made me cry.

I know that we do not all find a great love in this lifetime & for some it is a brief experience & others it just doesn't work out, but we can still treasure ourselves as the beautiful woman we are, no matter what. 

With much love to you my lovely friends, have a wonderful week.

 ♥♥♥♥♥