"Homeymoon"

HEY everyone. 

          We told you all about our wedding and the tortuous and uncertain path we took, but now that we are married and wake up every morning to each other, we promise the blog will take a happier note. The happiest note is of course the wedding, and for many couples the honeymoon takes a great importance in the commencement of their lives together. It’s the trip that couples always remember as that one trip where it is always about love and starting your marriage off with just a relaxation period after a hectic stint of wedding planning.

           As you can tell from the trend in this blog, our honeymoon was cancelled due to (stupid) COVID 19.
          We are wanderlusters even before we met each other. We travelled to quite a few places on our own and this just solidified the inherent need to explore and learn about new cultures.

                                   

On a Eurotrip and of course stopping at the famous Eiffel Tower. 

 Camps Bay, South Africa

Reynisfjara, black sand beach just outside the town of Vik, Iceland.

Skógafoss waterfall ,Iceland.

Our wanderlusting (and budget restrictions) led us to plan a trip to Cancun, Mexico. I would always picture white sand, blazing sun, mojitos and of course my hubby and I just lounging by the beach eating all the food. lol

           I was determined to not let the dream and the spirit of our honeymoon be diminished!! We had a week before work restarted, it was gonna be AWESOME!

Enter the HOMEYMOON experience!!!

We did a variety of activities that were very much like the actual honeymoon and resort experience:

• .       We ate and drank our bellies full of exotic food and drinks, with quite a ‘crowd’ of people. They were just immediate family members and we had curry duck and paratha for lunch! We drank a mix of white oak rum and Malibu which was surprisingly not bad. 

          (Interesting tidbit: White Oak rum is a smooth Caribbean white rum produced locally here in              Trinidad and Tobago by an internationally renowned rum company, Angostura.)

• .       We spent the night (well at least part of it..cough cough) looking at stars and we actually saw two shooting stars! We both made wishes about the future of our family and what we would want our love to look like in the years to come.

• .       We did a couples cooking class, Even though we have the combined culinary talent of a five year old with a plastic knife, we found some simple recipes online (will link them to the blog) and made a chicken parmesan pasta that wasn’t half bad. (Please note there were no visits to the hospital and no cuts and bruises during this exercise.)

• .       Couple’s massage….. (lets keep this pg.. wink wink)

Underscoring all of these activities we talked about our future our plans for our family and how we were going to live this ‘new normal’, aka covid and married life.

Look out for our future posts about our double whammied ‘new normal’.

Having a Hindu Wedding During a World Health Emergency- Oh the nerve! (Part 3)

      At the very least to maintain our sanity we kept our wedding date this time. Thank God for small mercies. The Pundit agreed to perform a home ceremony at the Dulahin's residence, once we kept the numbers down to the stipulated five. Photography  was present under 'Social Distancing' conditions. Our encouraging and loving families made preparations and decorations to make 25th April 2020 a very memorable one for us given the conditions.

     
            Looking at my wife walk toward me in her traditional red wedding outfit for the first time made everything that happened before worth it.  Worth the wait of our delayed dates. Worth the sacrifices of the events. She looked absolutely stunning!! It was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen and gave us all memories we will cherish forever. Performing the ceremony and walking around that fire is one of the greatest blessings for Hindus. There were no regrets and if this Pandemic were to last one year longer our advice to couples to be would be to follow their hearts and get married!

Having a Hindu Wedding During a World Health Emergency- Oh the nerve! (Part 2)

          Our wedding was cancelled for the second time in one year. Was it not meant to be? Was God trying to send us a message? The mind unfolds like a reel of film let loose on the floor.
We cried. We prayed. We visited our Pundit looking for divine inspiration. Popular Hindu Wedding songs heard instantly made the place one of gloom and despair. We were given the option of a Table Wedding. In Hinduism, a "Table Wedding"  reduces the rituals and ceremonies involved in a traditional Hindu wedding celebration to a much shorter, condensed and simplified form done with the parties and priest all sitting at a table.Needless to say, this left a sour taste in our mouths.
          This process started with the cancellations: the Temple, Wedding Planner, Reception Venue, Designer, Photographer, Videographer, Makeup Artists, Entertainment, Caterers, etc. With each phone call our enthusiasm thawed away. Honeymoon plans had to be postponed indefinitely. For two persons with a great Wanderlust for travel, this came as another blow. There was no emotional reserve left to complete one's obligatory tasks with work, school and to adequately consider the ramifications of the causative Covid-19 as a Global Pandemic. This was to come whether prepared for it or not, and is still significantly affecting populations worldwide today.