Elephants
A love story, on our second wedding anniversary
It’s 6:45am on Sunday, May 17th, 2026. I finished brushing my teeth while my daughter threatened to put my skincare routine in the toilet.
“We knew your name the day after our wedding day, baby girl,” I kneel down and say.
“We just didn’t know how soon we’d get to give it to you,” my husband says from the other room.
He’s currently stripping down the bed for routine Sunday laundry. But this Sunday already feels like a celebration, even if it’s a mix of our ordinary and less ordinary. We watched our shortened wedding video with our daughter and I remember that day feeling so important, and it is. That wonderful day brought us to this one.
I joke that when I see a woman trying on wedding dresses in a boutique window, I want to knock on the glass and say, “You’ll regret sweating over any of this when you’re a parent! But enjoy, sis!” Not to rain on anyone’s parade or anything. Our wedding day was the best day of my life, until we became parents.
To celebrate our anniversary, we went to Brooklyn’s Lilia. This is the place where we had our first date, it was our last date night before we got married, our last date night before we became parents, our first date night after becoming parents and now, here we are. Our daughter sat in a high chair, enjoying ramp focaccia bread and spaghetti, waving at the staff and strangers around us. We enjoyed negronis and white asparagus, and summer snap peas while we waited for our pasta mains. Some old friends and neighbors passed by as we dined outside. “She’s getting so big already!”
I loved our wedding day so much. Black tie at the Bowery Hotel, clouds of baby’s breath hanging from the chandeliers, sage table accents, a bridal bouquet of white roses and peonies, our dog escorting me down the aisle. I loved watching my parents get all dressed up in gown and tux. I wore my late mother-in-law’s pearls. My Stuart Weitzman heels are forever ruined from all the dancing, I’ve been meaning to get those dyed black to give them a second life. Our friends and family partied in our hotel room until 2:30 a.m. when we kicked everyone out, otherwise, I was falling asleep in my dress.
The morning after, everyone heroically rolled into brunch, some still drunk from the night before. We ordered too much nice food and not enough greasy food for the half-alive crowd. I was impressed so many made it out. The day-after brunch is usually just for the travelers to grab a bite before catching their flights home. Our wedding weekend was the first time our parents met so many of our friends.
We didn’t allow kids at our wedding, aside from those in the wedding party. This is one of those wedding rules that separates those with kids from those without. Now that I’m a parent, I would’ve invited all the babies. The more the merrier! A screaming baby is not going to ruin my wedding day. A good bride has blinders on for these sorts of things.
Kiddos were welcome at the farewell brunch and we had at least eight little ones running around. My dad sat next to dear friends of ours while their girls ran in circles around the buffet spread. We got on the topic of baby names and we shared our favorites for a girl and boy. “I love that name!” It’s nice when friends approve of a less common name but we were married to it regardless.
With a confused but resolved expression, my dad said, “Well, it means elephant in our language.” The name grew on my parents over time. We tried to think of other options, they just didn’t feel the same when we said them out loud.
We’ll have a little elephant.
We delayed our honeymoon for a couple of months until late July/ early August. I don’t know how anyone jets off on their honeymoon right after their wedding. We were nearly brain dead after our big weekend; I would’ve slept through Italy if we left right away.
We kicked off our honeymoon at a friend’s wedding in Umbria. I had spectacular abs for the first time in my adult life. Ironically, I became disciplined in my workouts after our wedding and not before. The planning stress was my pre-wedding weight loss regimen. Our friends had a stunning Vogue wedding, followed by a retro pool party where I’d get to show off my hard work. Following their celebrations, we went on to our honeymoon in Porto Ercole, then Puglia and then the town of Amalfi.
Puglia is bright white all over. The limestone, the sandy beaches, the shell decor — it’s all bright white. I packed my collection of curated white outfits, just like Instagram tells brides to. The only problem was, I was terrified of bleeding through my white dresses and poplin pants all over the luxurious chaise lounge cushions. I couldn’t get up from sitting somewhere without checking behind me for blood. I had sniffles and some uncomfortable bloating. It couldn’t be, not yet. But I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself without some peace of mind.
We went into the town of Ostuni. MORE BRIGHT WHITE. It’s literally nicknamed The White City. Ostuni is the town centre, with vibrant energy, live music, painted doors and winding roads. We stopped at a farmacia and used Google Translate to ask for a pregnancy test, so I could enjoy my Negronis with less guilt.
“Do you have a test di gravidanza?”
”Ahhh GRAVIDANZA!!” The woman whisper- shouted with excitement for us.
She grabbed a pregnancy test from behind the counter and discreetly slipped it into a paper bag, smiling as if we were teenagers in love in her eyes. I shoved it down into the bottom of my woven tote, like that would make me forget about it completely. We enjoyed a nice sunset meal at Osteria Del Tempo, I ordered a negroni to start and enjoyed wine with dinner, because ignorance is bliss.
The next day:
You’re supposed to pee on the stick first thing in the morning, when the hormones are at their highest concentration. My bladder woke me up at 8:57am and I grabbed the pregnancy test that felt like it was made of cardboard. This little stick would change everything in a matter of minutes, in 3-5 minutes to be exact.
I opened the blackout curtains on my way to the bathroom to wake the space. The sun was flooding the room while I waited impatiently. I only had to wait two minutes, the test lit up like I just won a prize. I stood in the bathroom for a second, letting the two little lines knock me down to my knees while my brain tried to explain to the rest of my body that we should be crying tears by now. Let’s go tears, you’re up! We’re crying and waking up Dad! He’s going to be a dad! We’re going to be mom and dad!
DAVID! DAVID! IT’S POSITIVE! IT’S POSITIVE!
I was in too much shock to bawl. It was the same cry I had when David proposed in Florence. It’s this happy cry that sounds like I’m laughing and crying at the same time, it feels like being joy-drunk. The only other time I’ve had that cry was the moment our girl was born.
We arrived in Amalfi at the Monastero Santa Rosa, an old monastery turned luxury hotel. I braved the “sidewalks” to hunt down some acido folico. I couldn’t enjoy cocktails anymore. I have friends who learned they were pregnant weeks after dropping acid at Burning Man and their babies were totally fine, as far as one could tell. But once you know, you can’t un-know. Pregnancy turned every activity and every meal into a moral debate overnight — to drink or not to drink, will the hot tub really cook our babe, can I still color my hair once we’re back home, etc. I enjoyed roughly ten sips of wine with dinners, the European mothers do it so that feels less prohibitive. Until I started the obsessive Googling: Early pregnancy- eye twitch, early pregnancy- runny nose, Early pregnancy, wine. No more this, no more that.
Leave it to the internet to scare a first time mother into following baseless rules that someone wrote in a book as fact decades ago.
I started telling strangers at the resorts I was pregnant. We befriended a couple from New Jersey. The woman was a good vacation-friend but not really someone I’d be friends with if we met back at home.
“Do you not drink because you’re an alcoholic?”, she had the audacity to ask. I respect it, honestly.
“No, I’m actually pregnant.” I was so caught off guard by the question that I just blurted out the truth. What did I care? I’d never see these people again.
The hotel staff took it upon themselves to omit the soft cheeses from my salads and thoroughly cook my eggs. I was able to dip my feet into the spa’s hot tub. The day before we left Italy, I developed an intense aversion to fish and I’ve yet to enjoy baked salmon again.
Our hotel bed had the softest cobalt-blue throw on it. We bought it before we left, for the nursery, not knowing if we were having a boy or girl yet.
We got our wedding photos and videos back later that year in October. I was waiting for my bump to really pop so I could announce our news to everyone we know and watch that social media love pour in. I tried to style myself like a pregnant Sienna Miller but I was also devastated to learn Sienna Miller and I look very different pregnant. David and I took a nice photo on our roof and posted it to Instagram. 492 likes. Sienna Miller’s recent bump announcement collected 11.4K likes. Same, same. Baby announcements are a funny thing to me because when you become pregnant, you become a bit of a hermit and badly want to tell the world! You’re growing a little person in a womb-cave and you also hide yourself until it’s safe to tell people. It’s the loneliest feeling to keep it to yourself and as soon as you can tell everyone, stylishly or not, you feel the collective of hands on your belly, rooting for your parenthood.
I looked through our wedding photos, all 1,276 of them. I looked beautiful and felt even more beautiful now with my growing belly. I was schlepping to the Upper Eastside for my scans every few weeks. I’d walk by a bridal shop on my waddle from the subway to the hospital and every time I passed it, I’d think to myself — I wish I knew how little my dress mattered or how much this life would change so quickly, what would I have done differently for our wedding day.
I would have invited all the babies and made our wedding day one big celebration of things that make you cry a very specific cry, one reserved for the completely joy-drunk.
Just before our daughter was born, I found myself grieving my old self, as many new mothers do. I shared a wedding portrait, probably my favorite photo of myself ever, and I wrote, “I promise to remember this version of me and this day when we’re celebrating our first wedding anniversary, adjusting to life with our baby girl.”
Silly me, if only I knew then what I know now. I remember every important detail of our wedding day. I don’t remember exactly what the centerpieces looked like and I don’t remember anything we ate. I remember the phenomenal band and how we felt facing each other down the aisle.
But I don’t remember that version of me well at all, she was very concerned with the linen colors, the dinner menu, and the baby’s breath clouds and none of those hold the same importance as our baby’s sweet milky breath. It doesn’t hang from any extravagant chandeliers but it’s the first thing I smell in the mornings. And then I get up and look in the mirror at a mother who is still glamorous, with the face of an exhausted but happy woman who doesn’t have spectacular abs or bright white anything anymore.
Our daughter arrived in April, not even a year after our wedding day. We decorated her room with elephants. Twenty four elephants for our little elephant.
Our wedding day was the beginning of husband and wife, then mom and dad and many many elephants. And just look at what we made!
Happy anniversary to us. Our incredible love made an elephant.
Easy Buttons
Five things that made my life easier and more enjoyable this week.
What I watched: My husband is from Montreal so we’ve been watching a lot of hockey playoffs. Go Habs, Go! While I don’t totally care about hockey, I want my husband to have his special fatherhood moments, therefore, our daughter has her Canadiens t-shirt to match Dad and is getting very good at her Habs cheer.
What I read: I’ve been so excited to get Botox again, as soon as I’m done breastfeeding, although the more I weigh this decision and whether or not it would actually make me happy, I’m leaning towards embracing my wrinkles proudly. This post gave me a lot to think about: surgical enhancements may be a choice but so is choosing to ignore their implications. I loved every line. Thank you for your brilliant words, Rebecca Woolf.
What I ate: I’ve been working on hacking my gut health while also tending my breastmilk supply. I’ve been making myself a lovely overnight oats parfait that seems to be doing the job!
½ cup of oats (for milk supply)
1T flax seeds (for gut health)
1T brewers yeast (for milk supply)
¾ cup kefir (for gut health)
Dash of cinnamon or maple syrup (so it doesn’t taste like wet sand)
Top with berries or whatever fruit your toddler doesn’t eat
New York Moment of the week: We took our daughter to the Domino Park splash pad and it felt like peak-summer. Kids and dogs running through the fountain, people jet-skiing on the river, shaved ice for sale. When they make movies or TV shows about Brooklyn in the summer, this is what it looks and feels like.
What I listened to: This old video of John Mayer singing with Alicia Keys took my breath away and left tears in my eyes. We listened to it with our daughter and even she was locked in. Absolute chills!
I love that you have a place that you’ve made “yours” for all your special moments. A tradition your daughter can be part of is so wonderful. Joyeux Anniversaire x
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