That was the truth. We could only afford the trip in the first place because Mr. Burt’s parents took all the other Burt kids and Burt grandkids to Cancun that summer and gave us the money that would have been our portion of the family vacation. Due to our marrying right out of college (literally, a few weeks after Mr. Burt graduated and before he started his job) tight would be a generous word to describe our budget: Mr. Burt worked at Olive Garden all four years at Baylor to pay for room and board, textbooks, and student fees, and even with the IT job he took his senior year in addition to waiting tables, only managed to scrape by on his living expenses with a very little left over for dates (his entire savings up to that point had gone to buy my engagement ring–which was perfect for my tiny ring finger, but by no means a rock by anyone’s standards); I worked on and off at department stores but, to my chagrin, brought all of $70 into our marriage because I have no self-control when working around clothes.

When Mr. Burt and I arrived at Walt Disney World, we had X dollars in our budget with absolutely no wiggle room, because that was all there was in the bank. We didn’t even have a credit card, though if we had, Mr. Burt was smart enough to know that starting your marriage broke was less than desirable but not the end of the world when you had a good job lined up, but starting it in debt because of your honeymoon was not a good financial precedent to set.

So, we made like Oregon Trail and limited our rations to bare bones. We splurged on a character breakfast buffet our first morning at the Magic Kingdom, but the rest of the week our first stop was an Epcot cafe where we could get cheap (by Disney standards) pastries and breakfast burritos. And split an orange juice. We’d skip lunch, maybe share an ice cream early afternoon if we were desperate, and ate a late lunch/early dinner, frequently splitting that meal. Not exactly taking advantage of the many unique and delicious dining opportunities Walt Disney World affords honeymooners, but it was what we could afford that won the day, and anyway,we didn’t really care that much about eating because…it was our honeymoon.

Thus it was that when our hunger pangs subsided and faded, as did all but our very best memories from that wonderful first week of marriage, being too poor to eat on our honeymoon became a joke.

There’s nothing like old photos to give you a shocking dose reality.

Take, for example, one of the few pictures of one of our honeymoon meals (indeed, one of our few honeymoon pictures, period, as we were also too poor for a proper camera and made due with four 27-exposure disposable cameras, the developing of which also pinched):

Two drinks. One blob of mashed potatoes. One prime rib. Oh, and not pictured, a minuscule Caesar salad. For two adults who hadn’t eaten anything all day except a cheese Danish and a breakfast burrito and possibly an Lemon Chill because we were about to die of heatstroke standing in line for Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. And that was a splurge.

“Remember how excited we were?” Mr. Burt said as we boggled at the picture last night. “We sat there at that table and said, ‘All right, we’re gonna have prime rib tonight!’ A little bit of prime rib. Geez, I feel so bad for us!”

I didn’t feel bad for us. I was too busy laughing at our naïve, dazed-by-our-own-happiness newlywed selves till my stomach hurt and tears tracked mascara down my cheeks.

It’s little wonder when we returned to Walt Disney World five years later for our second honeymoon, our package including a Disney Dining Plan, that we reacted to our first meal like this:

While we may feel a little sorry that First Honeymoon Mr. and LR Burt didn’t get to fully enjoy all Disney has to offer, we thank them for having the good sense not to have made that honeymoon a financial burden, or else we might not have been able to go back five years later for seconds.

We definitely wouldn’t have appreciated what it means to have full bellies. (Too full; eighteen months later, we’re still trying to work off the pounds we put on during that trip! Luckily for me, I also had a baby during that time. Children: the eternal scapegoats–but that’s another post…)

Reflections on a Wedding and the Morning After

You wake up on the morning of your wedding, and your first thought is to wonder whether it’s really called waking up when you didn’t sleep at all. Your head hurts because it’s past the time you usually sit drinking coffee while reading email, and your eyes screw shut at the prospect of putting in contacts. Since caffeine is, most definitely in order, you decide that yes, it’s called waking up whether you slept or not.

And then you throw up.

“Little Lisa always throws up on the first day of school,” says your dad, too loudly, and with an uncomfortable chuckle. (It’s not till later, when he’s walking you down the aisle and he suddenly ducks his head to avoid crying on camera, that you realize you’re his little girl, and it’s not an easy thing to give you away no matter how much he likes your fiancé.)

Since you threw up your breakfast and were too afraid of what might happen to your wedding gown if you ate one of the sandwiches provided for the wedding party, your stomach starts growling mid-way through the wedding ceremony, loud enough for your groom to hear. As he holds your hands, his shoulders quake with silent laughter.

You tilt your head in toward him and whisper, “I’m starving!”

“We get cake soon,” your groom whispers, giving your hands a squeeze.

But you really don’t get any cake, except for the traditional bite you feed each other at the reception, because talking with your mouth full is bad manners (even if it did endear you to your now-husband the first night you met him and spat popcorn on his leg) and you never get a break in conversation with the wedding guests.

The same conversation. Over and over. “Have you graduated yet? What are you going to do with an English lit degree? Where are you going on your honeymoon? Where will you be living?” For hours. Or at least it feels like hours.

It’s really just one.

One hour is a really long time when you threw up all your breakfast and you’re squeezed into a corset, hoop skirt, and wedding dress, starving and wondering when you turned into Scarlett O’Hara. Would it be better if you swooned? The church gymnasium’s floor is hard, but all that tulle in your petticoat would make for a cushy landing. It would be just like you to faint at your wedding reception because you always throw up on the first day of school and your wedding day’s no exception.

A pro to being unconscious is that you won’t have to tell one more person that you have another semester of school left, and you won’t have to fight the urge to tell them, snarkily, that what you’re doing with that English lit degree is marrying a man with a real job, who will support you while you write short stories and novels about all the people you’ve ever known who have annoyed you — because you just can’t say that. They mean well, and they brought you such lovely presents. (Well, mostly they’re lovely presents. There was that one wealthy family who spent six whole dollars — you know because you returned them — on The Ugliest Fruit Bowls Ever Made, Even By Third Graders Making Pottery In Arts And Crafts. So maybe you can be snarky to those people.)

The con to swooning is that if you’re unconscious, you won’t remember your reception. (Not that you remember much anyway, you discover after your honeymoon when you watch the wedding video with your husband and do a double take: “There was a fruit and cheese table?!” And the only thing you remember about the ceremony is your stomach growling.)

By the time you’ve been pelted by birdseed on your way out of the church (because it’s apparently more moral to blind the bride and groom instead of toss rice which birds will eat and then explode) and are in your get-away vehicle, picking it out of your hair and pondering eating it, you’re not squealing in a pitch only dolphins can hear, “Ohmygoshwe’rereallymarried!” or saying in tremulous dulcet tones, “Let’s go make love,” but instead having your first marital spat: “You pick where we’re going to eat! No, you! No, you!”

(Daddy was so right to think of your first day of school. You’re still such a child. You both are.)

By the time you get to a restaurant, you’ve lost your appetite again. Because, well, you’re married and tonight you’re going to have sex.

And then you throw up.

“Birth control side effect,” you manage between dry heaves over the commode. (There was nothing but that one bite of wedding cake in your stomach, and that’s now floating, curd-like in the toilet water.) The pamphlet said you might experience some nausea.

When you’re finished throwing up, you turn to your white-faced husband, who is so not in the mood anymore, and looks unlikely ever to be again, after this first glimpse of you in the morning.

“And now we know how this particular birth control works,” you say, and turn on the shower petulantly.

You’d rather go back to bed, but the plane bound for your honeymoon leaves in a couple of hours, and you can’t miss the first day of school.

The End

I’m so glad I didn’t miss my first day in the school of marriage.  I never expected that we’d immediately be given a pop quiz on our commitment to each other “in sickness,” but it’s the unexpectedness of what’s come our way, and the way we’ve taken each other by the hand and met it, that makes marriage the best, and most fun, education I’ve ever received.  I can’t imagine a better classmate, or, at times, a better teacher, than Mr. Burt.  I’m excited to see what we’ll learn together and teach each other in the next five years, and the next five after that, and the next five after that…

Even though there is certain to be more throwing up along the way.