Dum dum di DUUMM!

It's 12.30am and today I'm getting married!! So bizarre, we envisioned the whole thing as an ironic paper-signing event conducted in the most un-romantic fashion possible: 10.30am in the Gibraltar registry office. If you haven't been to Gibraltar, let me tell you - there are few more unromantic places in the world. We have been telling ourselves, and everyone else, that it's just a formality, nothing important, just a legalisation of the life we have been living for the past six and a bit years.
That said, I have no idea why I should be here, typing, with snakes slithering in my stomach. I have also spent the better part of the past three days traipsing round shopping centres and boutiques in Marbella (air conditioning, anyone?? No, fine, I'll be the one sweating like a stuck pig then) trying to find shoes and a dress and earrings and etc etc... For a five minute service in a lime green registry office with rising damp and plastic flowers.
I think logically that it isn't a big deal and it isn't, not really. Nothing changes, we just have rings on our fingers and all the legal bells and whistles that go with that. But I am actually excited! I am looking forward to all the usual things that brides look forward to - when he sees me in my dress (Barbarella-style shift, white of course, ha!), when we say the words (what they will be, I have no idea, but I know there aren't many of them cos the service itself actually lasts about 5 minutes) and the throwing of the bouquet (Claudia, get ready, luv!). I need to sleep as we have to get up at the crack of dawn to get there but I find that I am too agitated. Playing it down so much, I have come to believe my own hype. You can't fool your heart though. I am marrying a lovely man who is a fantastic father to our children. He takes over when I need him to, looks after me so well in so many ways (a particular episode of gastro-entiritis when I was pregnant comes to mind. I know I couldn't have cleaned that bathroom...) and who makes an effort to make me laugh - although I could have done without the image of him in my bikini bottoms he gave me today, thanks all the same. We have had some rotten times but we both believe in the same things: being there for the children and working hard at what you've got. I am enough of a realist, and a divorcée, to realise that things can always change, but I hope to goodness they don't. And I hope that we both continue to work hard to make sure that we are as happy now in the future. Things aren't always perfect but sometimes they go your way and we are lucky to have each other. Unusually soppy for me, but in this case, I feel the occasion justifies the sentiment! Wish us luck!!