The Morning After

Our first conflict as a married couple was the day after our wedding. I was definitely thinking in my head at the time, "Wow, I can't believe we're starting off our marriage like this."

We missed our honeymoon flight the morning after our wedding. Yup, we were the the couple who ended up at the counter trying to negotiate with the ticket agent to do whatever we could to get on a flight to go to our honeymoon saying, "But we're on our honeymoon!" Seriously, that's the only time you can ever possibly need to use that excuse, and we were one of the "lucky" few who did.

It was a series of unfortunate events really. Being an international flight they closed check-in an hour before the flight departed. We probably could have left our apartment a little earlier. We ended up sitting in an idle shuttle bus at the remote parking lot for about 15 minutes waiting for who knows what to go to the terminal. And we did not check in to our flight before arriving at the airport - if we had, that would have solved everything! Sigh. (Alas, we did not have internet at our apartment and walking downstairs to use the spotty wifi in the amenities wing was too much trouble at 5 am. Also, I did not have data on my phone at the time so it wasn't even convenient to get a boarding pass on my phone. Yes...I know, it was the year 2014 and I had no data. I was behind.) The ticket agent said we shouldn't have stayed up so late partying the night before. Guess what? We didn't. We left our wedding at 9 pm and were sleeping before midnight!

The irony is, although a three-hour, albeit international flight, they do not give you free checked bags. BUT they close the check-in an hour before departure. Double standard? 😑

So what caused the argument? The fact that going on our honeymoon, which was already completely paid for, was going to cost us an extra $800. Now if you know me at all, you'll know I spend money wisely and carefully, and an unforeseen extra cost of $800 would infuriate me. It wasn't even that we didn't have the money. It's truly a blessing to have extra money in the bank account and not go paycheck to paycheck, but it didn't make spending it any easier.

For a while I was just really irritated and running the what if game in my head. What if we'd checked in earlier and printed our boarding passes. What if we'd left the apartment earlier. What if the shuttle hadn't sat idle in the parking lot waiting for who knows what for 15-20 minutes. What if the lady had just been nicer and didn't charge us anything extra. Well, of course, if you've ever played the what if game, which I'm sure you have, it's all just wishful thinking because we can't change the past. It happened, it happened the way it did, and we paid an extra $800 to go on our honeymoon.

We got on the next flight to Cancun, arrived at our resort, and had a great honeymoon. The added expense was not discussed and everything was fine. Ultimately, it came down to our priorities at that moment. What was more important: going on our honeymoon or saving $800? 

The resort was really pretty. We were definitely spoiled,
and we haven't gone anywhere as luxurious since. ha. 

I've had to remind myself of this more than once in the last eight years. If your problem can be solved by paying some money, it's not really that big of a problem. Inconvenient? Yes. Frustrating? Yes. Easily fixed? Yes, relatively speaking in the grand scheme of things. Don't fall for the scams though! Stay sharp.

We're still married. 😁