We got Married!

It's been a fairly traumatic month here in the Armon and Smith household.  After going backwards and forwards to specialists here in Australia, they finally decided two things, firstly that they could do nothing to fix the screw that is pushing on a nerve after the botched SIJ fusion and secondly the only solution they could offer for my debilitating back pain was a further fusion, leaving me for want of a better word, disabled for the rest of my life.

At first, we didn't know what to do, the thought of having to live with this pain forever was simply not an option.  But we didn't seem to have any other options.  Until it was suggested we approach an amazing Doctor in Zurich, a Professor Dr Rishcke.  So, without any expectations we wrote off to him.  We spent the next two weeks emailing, skyping, sending reports, we even took a day trip to Melbourne to get a standing MRI, something you can't get here in Queensland yet.

We finally heard from Dr Rischke that not only could he do a three-level disc replacement saving me from further aggressive fusion surgery but he believes he can also revise the SIJ fusion and restore my lost movement.  Hopefully leaving me pretty much pain free into the process and mobile once more, effectively giving me back my life.

What happened next, well you might describe it as a bit of a whirlwind, and it's happened so quickly my feet have barely touched the floor.  Lying in bed two weeks ago just falling asleep, Craig whispers to me "I want us to get married before you have the operation" at which point we both of course get far too over emotional!  We turn the light back on, sit up and talk until the early hours of the morning.  He is right of course, he is right about most things actually but I try not to tell him that, he might get a big head.

Traveling for such a big operation as husband and wife, well it makes more sense.  If Craig has to make consent decisions, well it has all sorts of ramifications, it simply makes more sense. We start talking about the plans we had for a big wedding next year, with all of our friends and family present. And in that moment, we made a choice, as much as we wanted everyone there to help us celebrate, we wanted to be married before we go even more.

My Hen's night with my two girls

We decided to hold a very small ceremony at home in our living room for just us and our close family.  But could we pull off anything with just two weeks to plan and no money to do it?

Have you ever noticed that when something is completely the right decision everything just happens as it's supposed to?  That's exactly what this has been like, everything just fell into place.  

We rang Mum and Dad and they were amazing, loving, supportive and completely understood where we were coming from and immediately asked "How can we help?".  

Next, we phoned Amy because we always knew we wanted her to take the ceremony, I think she thought we were joking but soon stopped laughing and started writing  when she realised we weren't and cancelled any plans she had. Next, we needed an actual celebrant so we phoned my celebrant friend Matthew who I did my course to become a celebrant with and who had already done our NOIM for us some months before, he kindly to do the official paperwork for us on the night. Our next door neighbour on one side made us a beautiful cake as a gift and our next door neighbour the other side who is a beautiful photographer offered us photographs and decorations for the house. My only sadness is that we were not able to invite all our wonderful friends and family to join us.


To cut a long story short on Saturday night in a very small, low key but beautiful, romantic ceremony I married the love of my life and apart from having missing many friends and family it was perfect.  At 5.15pm we turned on the twinkly lights and candles and under a simple arch in our living room our best friend married us. I came down the 'aisle' to Ben Fold's 'Luckiest' the words seemed so appropriate, do you know it?

I don't get many things right the first time,

In fact, I am told that a lot

Now I know all the wrong turns the stumbles,

And falls brought me here

And where was I before the day

That I first saw your lovely face,

Now I see it every day

And I know

That I am, I am, I am, the luckiest

Craig's vows were absolutely beautiful, and really all I wanted to say when he had finished was "What he said, only more" (which of course I did!) He took my breath away, no one in my life has ever said anything so beautiful or heartfelt to me as he did. But then that’s Craig, I don’t think a day goes by that he doesn’t make me feel like the most loved and special woman on the planet. When it was my turn to speak, I suddenly felt like there was nothing I could say that would even come close to either how I felt about this man or that would come close to what he had just said to me. I proceeded to trip over my words and get far too emotional as I tried, not so eloquently to tell him he was my one, my soulmate, the absolute love of my life.

Now, as I sit here on a Sunday afternoon next to sleeping husband, I can’t believe we are so lucky to have found each other.  It’s not often in life you get a second or even third chance at happiness and that’s exactly what life has given us. I get another chance at happiness with a man whom I absolutely adore. He is a wonderful Dad to not only his boys but to Charlotte and Rosie and they love him just as much as I do, but more than that he is the love of my life and I feel incredibly privileged to spend forever with him by my side.

I hope that our friends will understand why we did this quickly, quietly and without a fuss and I hope they will all join us on when we get back from our overseas trip and I am recovered. Because we are going to throw a big party, because we have saved our first dance for that day and we hope all our wonderful friends and family who I know would like to have been there with us to celebrate such an important occasion will join us then instead. 

As many of you will know we are crowdfunding to make my trip to Switzerland possible. We leave on October 5th and probably won't be back until the middle of November. We have been completely overwhelmed by the response from our family, friends and by complete strangers.  Thank you to all those have given so generously and for sharing our post far and wide, I simply can't thank you enough.  Thank you to all those who have offered to support and look after the girls whilst we are away.  They are mostly staying with Mum and Dad but it is wonderful to know they will have such support whilst we are gone.

 VISIT OUR GO FUND ME PAGE HERE

Signing off Mrs Smith. x