I Didn’t Expect to Feel This Way After My Second Wedding
My thoughts after my second wedding and the unexpected realization I had about the people who helped carry me through grief, motherhood, and back to love.
I was lying in the hotel bed after the wedding that night, completely exhausted but unable to fall asleep. I was almost too happy to sleep. I just kept replaying the day over and over in my head, smiling in the dark. The boys walking me down the aisle. Grant standing there waiting for me. My parents’ speeches. The ceremony. The people who had filled the room. My phone kept lighting up with messages from friends and family telling me how beautiful the day had been and, more than anything, how much love they had felt being there.
And that was exactly what I felt too. Love.
So much of it that I found myself lying there crying because suddenly I wasn’t just thinking about our wedding day. I was thinking about everything it had taken to get me there.
As I looked around the room that day, I realized I wasn’t just looking at wedding guests. I was looking at different chapters of my life. I was looking at the people who had carried me through some of the hardest years of my life and helped me become the person who was able to stand there and get married again.
I saw my close group of friends who had been there through every surgery, every cancer diagnosis, and every devastating update with Justin. They were there when I gave birth to the boys, and they were there holding my hand as I watched my husband’s casket being lowered into the ground. They kept reaching out when I stopped reaching out. They stayed close when grief changed me and I wasn’t really myself anymore. They loved me through a version of myself that was simply trying to survive.
I saw my cousins, aunts, and uncles who stepped in when the boys were babies. The people who helped with night feedings, held babies, and took care of us when I could barely figure out how I was supposed to do any of it without Justin. I thought about my cousin who moved in with me after Justin died and helped me raise the boys during that first impossible season.
I thought about another cousin who welcomed me into his world of friends when I was living alone as a single mom. At a time when it would have been so easy for me to stay inside my house and simply coast through life, they invited me places. They included me. They gave me reasons to get dressed, leave the house, laugh, and slowly start living again instead of just surviving.
I saw my nanny, who became so much more than someone who watched my children. She was someone I trusted with the most important pieces of my life. She watched my boys and gave me the space to go on dates with Grant and begin exploring this completely unfamiliar version of my life.
I saw my widow friends, the ones who received updates after practically every date with Grant. The ones who listened as I spiraled over what it meant to date again, love again, and let someone new into a life that had already held such a big love. There were so many complicated emotions that came with dating after losing Justin, and having people who understood that grief and new love could exist in the same heart helped me process it all.
I saw my sisters, who have stood beside me through every version of my life. Through cancer, motherhood, widowhood, grief, single parenting, dating, and now marriage again. They have been there through the highs and the lows and all of the messy moments in between.
I could keep going because almost every person in that room had played some kind of role in helping me get to that day.
And I don’t think I fully understood that until I was lying in that hotel bed afterward.
There were so many moments over the years when I could have given up on the idea of living a full life again. There were times when surviving the day in front of me felt like enough. But the people around me never stopped pulling me forward. They were patient with me. They gave me space to grieve while also reminding me that there was still life waiting for me. They helped me through cancer, new motherhood, losing my husband, raising two little boys, figuring out who I was on my own, dating again, and eventually allowing myself to love someone enough to get married again.
I know how incredibly lucky I am to have had that kind of support. I know not every widow has it. Having people willing to carry me when I couldn’t carry myself gave me the time and space I needed to truly grieve. There was never a deadline for when I needed to “move on.” They simply stayed beside me long enough for me to eventually realize I was ready to move forward.
And I think that is part of why this wedding meant so much more to me than I ever expected it to.
When Justin died, I couldn’t even imagine wearing another wedding ring. I loved the ring Justin and I created together. I loved our wedding. I loved my dress. I loved being his wife. Those memories were so precious to me that the idea of having another wedding someday almost felt impossible. I couldn’t imagine loving another ring or another dress or another wedding day because, for a long time, I couldn’t imagine loving another person that way either.
When Grant and I started talking about marriage, part of me didn’t even want another “real” wedding. I thought maybe we should just go to the courthouse and make it official. I had already had my wedding. I had already experienced that chapter of life.
But Grant had never been married before.
He deserved to experience a wedding too. He deserved to stand in front of the people he loved and make those promises. And as we planned, I also kept thinking about the boys. I wanted them to see us get married. I wanted them to be part of it. I wanted them to walk me down the aisle and know that this wasn’t just about Grant and me it was about the family we were creating together.
What I didn’t realize until after the wedding was how healing the ceremony would be not just for me, but for our families and especially for the boys.
There was something powerful about standing there surrounded by the people who had witnessed so much of my story. They had watched me become a wife and a mother, lose Justin, walk through grief, and slowly build a life again. Now they were there to watch me choose love again and to celebrate the new family we were creating.
I think we all needed that moment more than I realized. It didn’t erase the life that came before or replace anything we had lost. Instead, it felt like our families were able to acknowledge everything we had been through while also celebrating that something beautiful could still come after it.
Looking back, I’m so grateful we had a real ceremony. It felt like a healing moment for all of us a chance to stand together and say, this is our family now, and there is still so much life and love ahead of us.
This is also why I continue to share so much of my story. I know there may be another widow reading this, or someone who has had their life completely change and is facing the overwhelming thought of starting over. I remember when I couldn’t imagine another wedding, another love, or even what my future would look like. I hope sharing where I am now can be a small reminder that you don’t have to know what your next chapter looks like yet. Give yourself time. Life can still surprise you, and beautiful things can exist alongside everything you’ve lost.