Withdrawal

mlynn1223

It has been 66 days since our wedding.  It went perfect!!  We had an amazing time, loved every super quick second about it and still cannot believe I am married.  After the wedding we spent a little more time with family, went on a "minimoon" and then on our month long honeymoon (we are both teachers).  I have stayed away from almost everything wedding related.  We got our pictures back and although they were beautiful we missed some.  I spoke to my sister who said they also missed some, it happens.  In the last few weeks though I feel almost depressed and in a state of withdrawal.  Everyone says this is normal but I guess I was hoping for some reassurance from other brides.  I planned the wedding for 18 months and still cannot believe it is over.  It was just so much fun and an amazing feeling to be a bride.  Now I get to be a wife which is also a neat experience!  I have not been able to bring myself to pick out pictures for our album because I am so bummed about the pictures we did not get, even though we have over 600 to pick from!  Is this really normal or am I overreacting?  If it is normal, how long does it last because it sucks!!  I almost want to cry just typing this and I am a fun loving, easy going, NON crying person!  It is so against my normal personality, which I think makes it even worse!  

Marrin713

I think every huge event in our lives has a post-event let-down period.  I don't think you're overreacting; you just need to get on with life in general.  If this feeling persists or intensifies, then see someone about it.  Otherwise I think it's just the blah some of us get after all the excitement of the months of planning and the wedding itself.

ETA- fix spelling mistakes and to add that I had that blah feeling BEFORE during the planning.  As the date got closer I was able to muster up some enthusiasm as my anti-d kicked in.

Cortney1982

I'm glad I only planned for 6 months.  I was obsessed.  Couldn't imagine spending 18 months doing that.  Anyways, perhaps you can distract yourself by picking up a hobby?

ngresia

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_wedding-recap-withdrawal_withdrawal-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:12Discussion:f101aa34-0839-4259-a784-5abbe7f63ea4Post:39bd4844-3bae-41ee-8eae-70e1cc584abe">Withdrawal</a>:<div>I am a teacher also!! I had a similiar experience and you can't let it ruin you! Send out a facebook message or call all your friends and request pictures! Once you get everyone pics, load all your pictures to a instagram sight and have fun with it and make a book! Hopefully some of the pics missed you will get back from friends. And by the way, all you really need is 2 really good frameable pics!! </div><div>ps i'm still obsessing too! My husband said I was acting like somebody died!!
[QUOTE]It has been 66 days since our wedding.  It went perfect!!  We had an amazing time, loved every super quick second about it and still cannot believe I am married.  After the wedding we spent a little more time with family, went on a "minimoon" and then on our month long honeymoon (we are both teachers).  I have stayed away from almost everything wedding related.  We got our pictures back and although they were beautiful we missed some.  I spoke to my sister who said they also missed some, it happens.  In the last few weeks though I feel almost depressed and in a state of withdrawal.  Everyone says this is normal but I guess I was hoping for some reassurance from other brides.  I planned the wedding for 18 months and still cannot believe it is over.  It was just so much fun and an amazing feeling to be a bride.  Now I get to be a wife which is also a neat experience!  I have not been able to bring myself to pick out pictures for our album because I am so bummed about the pictures we did not get, even though we have over 600 to pick from!  Is this really normal or am I overreacting?  If it is normal, how long does it last because it sucks!!  I almost want to cry just typing this and I am a fun loving, easy going, NON crying person!  It is so against my normal personality, which I think makes it even worse!  
Posted by mlynn1223[/QUOTE]

</div>

Eyejewel

yeah im stressing over some photos we didnt get as the rain kinda threw us for a turn and i ran out of time making the full photo list. FI keeps telling me there is nothing I can do. Im hoping the photographer caught some moments I didnt get to see with those people in them.

risti97

I actually had to take a long break from the knot to get over not being in "wedding planning" mode. Tonight is probably the first time in 5 months that I am on..   It helped a lot  GL.

amg8

I just got a Brides Magazine in the mail (I got a subscription for Christmas last year, so I'll keep getting them for the next few months until the year runs out, even though my wedding was July 28th)--I think my husband was a little dismayed to see that the magazines are still coming and I'm still watching Say Yes to the Dress. Haha!  Anyway, one of the articles in the magazine was about the first year of marriage, and it noted that many brides suffer what they called "Post Party Depression" after the wedding and honeymoon were over.  So I think it's pretty common!  I talked to a few of my married friends about this and they all agreed.  One of them told me that she cried hysterically the night before she had to go back to work once after all the festivities were over.  

I think it's about just having things coming up that you're looking forward to doing with your husband, even if they're small.  Think about making a bucket list of fun weekend activites, places to go, restaurants to try, even take a quick weekend or overnight trip to somewhere nearby.  I think just anticipating all the great stuff to come in married life is helpful.  My husband and I have a summer bucket list we're working on now, and we plan to make a fall one too.  One of the benefits of having the wedding over is that we have the time, energy (and money we're not spending on wedding things) to do some of the fun things we'd neglected for the year we were planning.  

Anyway, hope this helpsl!

aloisk57

I'm sorry you missed some pictures!  Do you mind sharing which ones you didn't get for us future brides?

And FWIW (I'm not married yet) I think the post-wedding blues are totally normal and to be expected.  A agree with PP that you should get a hobby and maybe work on your album in a few months.  I'm sure not everyone gets every. single. picture. that they wanted, and I'm certain you got some amazing ones

lorenhackney

Wow! this helped me a lot! I was feeling embarrassed about having wedding withdraw, because I thought it meant that I NEEDED to be a queen (like I felt on my wedding day) to be happy.  I'm trying to "throw" myself into hobbies (I started a scrapbooking club!) and I LOVE the bucket list with the new hubby idea! Actually, I've found a place where he and I can go dancing. I don't feel as stupid as i did before reading this. 
About the picture problem: I think we missed some shots too.

Thanks again guys!

Valeriecruz82

I am having this problem now. We got married last weekend and I'm having a hard time accepting the first act that It's all over. I planned it for the past 14 months and my life revolved around it since I don't work. Now I can't even look it our pics without want to cry or missing that day. Hopefully it passes soon! I'm so happy to be married I don't like feeling so blue.

vt&dt

I can empathize - a wedding is such a huge event, and planning can be so consuming and fun... but I hope everyone can thoughtfully turn the way they look at it around.  Our attitude is a choice - I'm choosing to be joyful that it happened and was great instead of being sad that it's over.

Our wedding was absolutely the best day of my life so far.... but we have SO MUCH to look forward to as husband and wife, and we are so thankful that so many of our family and friends took the time and came to spend the day with us.  Looking at my pictures (we missed a couple of groupings of family members - SIL was with my nephew the whole day and didn't get in any family pictures) - I just feel pure JOY remembering the day.  Sure, we don't have anything nearly as big or life-changing coming up, but it's so fun to refer to my husband and just enjoy being married and with each other.

When I feel withdrawal, I work on our album, and narrowing down which pictures to get prints of for people and to display in our home.

Bubblegum5586

I feel the same way about pictures, I feel like we missed a lot and that really bums me out. What saves it from being too bad is my wedding video came out so great that it captures what I feel the pictures are missing.

I also had an 18 month engagement and I was ready for that let down feeling, but I surprisingly didn't get it as bad as I thought. I honestly think I was so relieved to STOP spending so much money!!! Now we are saving for a house and just started looking at houses with a Realtor, that has really kept me busy and has created a whole new bunch of excitement!

Teresa2328

I was definitely feeling the same way after our wedding, we got married on June 14 this year. I put so much time and effort into all of the little details that I started to over analyze what could have gone slightly better, even though the whole day was great. I'd say my biggest regret is when they asked us at 10:00 if we wanted to extend the wedding until midnight instead of ending at 11. I wanted to more than anything and so did my mom, and I had already told my husband that, yet he disagreed. Instead of risking an argument I just walked away and was upset when it ended. Instead I should have told him how much it really meant to me so he would understand. I didn't want to stop dancing or leave my friends and family, and I didn't want to take my dress off. We did have an after party that a lot of people came to which was nice but it still wasn't the same as extending the wedding for an hour - we were having the time of our lives! But other than that the day was amazing so I'm trying to focus on the fun we had, how nice everyone looked and all the compliments we are still receiving about our wedding.

Luckily I do get to wear my dress again because one of the places we had originally booked to do pictures was closed by the city, so our photographer said she would do those with us when it opened back up. I think that will be a fun and carefree day and we'll get lots of great pictures, even if they weren't on the actual wedding day. And I am looking forward to seeing our video and pictures. So far we only have a sneak peek - here are a few!

quirkybride15

There were some pictures that we didn't get and we are totally going back to our wedding venue and getting all dressed up again so that we can capture some of the shots we didn't get. We can't recreate the entire day, of course, but there were just a few shots that I'd been hoping for and didn't happen. Don't keep regretting it, just do it! You won't be able to 10 years from now.