You’ve made it. The wedding day comes and is all you could dream of. The stress and planning have paid off and now you get to go on the most relaxing and romantic trip of your life: the honeymoon. It does always go perfectly doesn’t it? No travel glitches, perfect weather, no other people around…. okay we all know that rarely happens. In fact, I think there might be more honeymoon stories than wedding stories – and by stories I mean tales of adventure and things gone wrong.
Today I have a tale of epic proportion. I just heard this story over the phone and I asked to share it since it was so unbelievable. Hopefully you can commiserate and if you have ever had a honeymoon misadventure perhaps it wasn’t as bad. You’ve seen their engagement photos, the celebration of their wedding, and now I bring you Joy and Andrew’s honeymoon, as written by Joy:
We set out on our honeymoon to Italy the day after the wedding, crazy excited and ready to have a great time. I am sure you heard about the volcanic ash in Europe that was causing such a fuss for the airlines and yep it caused a fuss for us too. We almost didn’t make it out of our lay over in Philadelphia but luckily we were only delayed a couple hours and then they said we were ok to fly. Once we got to Rome we were so excited to finally be there… until we realized my luggage was somehow left behind in London. The airline assured us each day that my luggage was on the way and there was no need for concern, however it continued to be a step behind us with each move we made to a new city. After wearing Andrew’s clothes for the first few days the airline reimbursed me for clothing and I was able to wear something that fit, with my luggage finally making it us the day before we left. Not only that but I had a small personal laptop inside which of course was not in it when it was returned to me. But I got to do plenty of shopping so I wasn’t too upset = ) So..now headed home, we have my luggage, and the trip was otherwise amazing so everything should be great right? Wrong. We made it out of Italy and landed in London where we were told that because the cabin crew for our airline was on strike our flight home had been canceled. Yes…volcanic ash and now a strike.. Now, mind you we were on a pretty strict time table to get home because we were moving into out new house and we had landscapers planned to come out the day we returned. So we ended up spending a night in London and flying out a day late.
We finally landed back in the U.S. in the Chicago airport so everything was alright then right? Wrong again. As soon as I had cell service and was able to receive emails, I read a message from our landscapers which read ” Joy, I don’t want to alarm you but there is water pouring out your front door and your front yard is soaked”. Oh yea….that’s what every newly married couple wants to hear about their house after returning from their honeymoon and of course while they are still 1500 miles away. On our way back to Virginia (at 11pm), we were flying down the highway to get to the house and….we hit a rock. I know, I know, I was thinking the same thing, what the heck is a rock this size doing in the middle of the highway??!! Well it was apparently looking for us. So obviously we took a quick detour for Andrew to change the flat and put on the doughnut. When we finally got to the house and opened the front door we were standing in about an inch of water. Feeling completely helpless we left and went back to our apartment which we had not officially moved out of.
Ok, so let’s fast forward three weeks. There was so much that happened in between that time (including no hot water for 7 days and being dropped by our insurance) but you would be reading for hours if I tried to write it all. Last weekend we were at home which is almost completely repaired from the damage (floors replaced, drywall, electrical etc) when Andrew flushed one toilets and the toilet in the other bathroom started to bubble. In an attempt to figure out the problem we flushed them a couple more times and one of the toilets began to pour water out of the bottom, which by the way was not the source of the original flooding. So we called roto rooter, they came out and told us that the tree in our front yard had its roots growing into the pipes and they would need to dig up our front yard and replace the pipes! I’m sure you could imagine the emotions that we felt at this point!
Now here we are at the end of this tale of drama, we still have our house which is completed except for the painting, we have a new dog : ), and most importantly we still have each other. I would like to say that we were completley cool, calm and collected through out all of this but I would be lying. It has been a bit of a struggle. But at the end of the day we know that God works good in ALL things for those who love him (Romans 8:28)…. We had a great time in a beautiful country, I have a wonderful husband and a beautifully renovated home and for all this I can only be thankful. – Joy
I’m not sure about you, but I can’t believe everything they have been through and if you are a person of faith I’m sure they would appreciate prayers to make it through the end of this. I’m pretty impressed by their attitude through it all and if you have a similar story, let us know!
by Mary Dougherty
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