'I'd always been a party girl. Two weeks before my wedding, drinking became a necessity.'

The first time I got married, I was hungover, grieving, and four champagnes deep before I even walked down the aisle. The second time, I was completely sober and had never felt more present in my life.

Two weddings. Two very different versions of me.

One was a day I barely remember. The other, a moment etched into my soul.

This isn't a story of regret, but a moment of remembering. A woman doing her best in two different seasons of life. One in survival mode, hiding behind a smile. The other, finally at home in her skin. I couldn't have manifested this dream wedding without the pain and lessons I learned from the first. But I know which one I'd relive a thousand times over.

It was 2018. I was in the thick of my addiction to alcohol. I was emotionally raw, still reeling from the sudden death of my fiancé's brother just two weeks earlier. I'd always thought of myself as a party girl, but in those last couple of weeks my drinking had transitioned from a choice to a necessity.

I'd always thought of myself as a party girl, but at some point, my drinking was no longer a choice. Image: Supplied.

We almost didn't go ahead. Our family and friends reassured us that people would understand if we wanted to postpone. But all I could think of was the dress, the stress, the people who'd booked flights to be there. I thought to myself "the show must go on" and did what I did best, painted on a smile.

I was one of those little girls who dreamed of her wedding day. But when the day finally arrived, I wasn't there. Physically, I was present, but emotionally I was distant. The moment he saw me walking down the aisle, the vows, the dance floor hugs, the whispered congratulations, the joy of the night. I missed most of it.

I was deep in grief and even deeper in denial. I told myself I was drinking in celebration. But truthfully, I was escaping.

It was a beautiful day. But I wasn't really there. Not fully. Not as me.

What I never could've predicted in that moment, was that seven years later, I'd be marrying someone else.

When my fiancé and I eloped in Italy last month, it was completely different from my first wedding and not just because we did it in secret.

Between my first wedding in 2018 and now, my entire life changed.

After two years of daily drinking, wretched hangovers and deep self-loathing, I finally hit rock bottom. I remember thinking that I couldn't live another day stuck on the hamster wheel of guilt, shame and remorse. On the 24th of February 2020, I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital for treatment of alcohol addiction and anxiety. That one decision would end up changing the entire trajectory of my life.

After two years of daily drinking, wretched hangovers and deep self-loathing, I finally hit rock bottom. Image: Supplied.

When I went to rehab, all I wanted was to have my old life back. Before alcohol and grief had cast a dark shadow over my life. What I got instead wasn't my old life back, but an entirely new one.

But before that transformation, came some of the hardest decisions of my life and more pain than I expected. As I learned to do life sober, I started to discover who I really was and for the first time, I met the real me. The woman buried beneath years of people pleasing and the desperate need to be liked.

Through this process, I had the rude awakening that most of my life was out of alignment. My marriage, my "dream" career, even the city I was living in. None of it felt right. It was no wonder I'd been drinking to numb for so long.

When I reached my one-year sobriety milestone, I ended my marriage, moved back to my home city of Melbourne and learned how to do life without numbing. Slowly and painfully, I rebuilt myself from the inside out.

A couple of years into my recovery journey, and by complete surprise, I met the man who would become my forever person. At first, I almost talked myself out of this relationship because it felt so different to anything I'd experienced in my 20-year dating and drinking history. Rather than the highs and lows of an unhealthy and deregulated nervous system, this felt, safe, calm and pure.

After three years together, my fiancé and I wed in a quiet civil ceremony in Melbourne to make things official, before flying to Italy the following day. We exchanged our vows in Lake Garda, just the two of us and my life-long friend Georgia.

After three years together, my fiancé and I wed in a quiet civil ceremony in Melbourne to make things official, before flying to Italy the following day. Image: Supplied.

There was no dress code, no guest list, no bottomless champagne. There was calm. There was clarity. There was breath.

I woke up beside my fiancé that morning, nervous, excited, but grounded. We exchanged vows on the island of Isola del Garda, overlooking the sea. I cried through every word, not because I was overwhelmed, but because I was there. Present. Soft. Sober.

There was no hangover, no performance, no pretending. Just me, him, and a love I could actually feel with my whole heart. I remember the sunlight. The laughter. The exact moment my breath caught in my chest because I couldn't believe this was my life now.

After our civil ceremony, we flew to Italy and exchanged vows on the island of Isola del Garda, overlooking the sea. Image: Supplied.

And I remember all of it.

Those two weddings were both mine. But they were lived by two very different women.

The first was surviving. Smiling. Pouring wine over her fear and hoping no one would notice the cracks. The second? She was clear-eyed. Authentic. Whole.

Sobriety gave me access to the parts of life I used to numb. It returned my ability to feel joy while it's happening, instead of watching it later on someone else's Instagram story.

It gave me inner calm instead of chaos. Deep connection instead of disconnection. The ability to choose what's right for me, instead of people pleasing for everyone else.

I remember years ago, when I'd be lying in bed hungover on a Sunday morning and contemplating sobriety, thinking I could never do my wedding day without alcohol. I'm here to tell you, yes you can. And it will mean more than you ever thought possible.

Both weddings shaped me. Both held love. But only one felt like a homecoming.

I used to drink to feel more alive, more confident, more in control. But nothing compares to the feeling of looking into my partner's eyes, stone-cold sober, and knowing I was fully there, mind, body and soul.

This version of me? She remembers, she feels, she chooses presence. And finally, she feels at home.

And she wouldn't trade that for anything.

Feature image: Supplied.