Rob Kearney is right. My wedding was a real joy, but not my ‘happiest day ever’

Pressure to create the ‘perfect day’ can lead to much disappointment and stress, writes Chrissie Russell

When I walked down the aisle to get married 12 years ago, I was aware of pews filled with smiling faces. Everything went smoothly and there are plenty of lovely photos of us beaming at each other that genuinely reflect the joy of the day.

I can say whole-heartedly that it was a wonderful and very happy day – but it wasn’t the happiest day of my life.

Having spent the best part of a year planning for – and no small amount of money investing in – our “perfect day”, it was almost inevitable it would not be perfect.

I know objectively that the food was delicious, but I’ve no memory of really enjoying the meal because I was focused on circulating to make sure everyone was having fun. I was thinking about the speeches coming up and wondering what had happened to the background music I’d lovingly selected but couldn’t hear.

Nothing happened to detract from it as an incredibly special landmark moment in my life. I just know I’ve had less intense moments that I’d class as happier.

I’m certain my husband could similarly list several occasions – probably when he didn’t have to wear a suit and most likely involving watching Celtic’s Henrik Larsson play – that brought him greater joy too.

Yet rugby player Rob Kearney raised eyebrows this week for daring to admit his wedding day wasn’t the happiest day of his life.

Speaking on the podcast Insights with Sean O’Rourke, the former Ireland international said he and Jess Redden’s wedding “doesn’t even come into the top 10 days of my life”, with events such as Ireland beating the All Blacks in 2022 coming near the top instead.

Kearney did add that the birth last year of the couple’s son, Bobby Brian, dwarfed every other occasion. But here too I have to disagree.

The births of my two sons were the most momentous occasions I’ve experienced. I was happy, I was relieved, I was awed. Nothing has made me happier than being a mum. But on those birthing days, there is no way I was at my happiest.

Bleeding and vomiting after having pushed a 10-pound baby out of me, I mostly wanted to sleep. I’ve undoubtedly had happier moments on the sofa with a boxset and a glass of wine.

The pressure to ascribe superlatives to landmark moments in life is one of my most hated things – “it was the best day ever”, “I was the happiest I’ve ever been”, “it was the most perfect, magical moment of my life” – particularly when it comes to weddings. Voices like Kearney’s that dare to challenge the “happiest day of my life” narrative are few and far between.

Actress Jennifer Lawrence is one, telling E! News at this year’s Golden Globes about how she found parts of her 2019 wedding day to Cooke Maroney “awful” and “so stressful” because she was worried her guests (specifically Robert De Niro, who she spotted wandering about on his own) weren’t having fun and were too cold.

Fretting about screen legends not mingling might not top most couple’s wedding day concerns, but the pressure is real and is fuelled by the pursuit of not just “happiness” but “happiest”, creating unrealistic expectations.

Psychologist and author of The Seven-Day Soul Susannah Healy says: “On any given day we’ll have a bandwidth of emotions – reality always has the good and bad bits – and hopefully these ‘special’ days are mostly happy, but it’s the pressure for them to be perfect that can make them less so.”

Interestingly, she suspects an event where you feel that happiness should come guaranteed isn’t necessarily the best place to find it.

“Happiness often happens when we forget ourselves, not at our most conscious times, when we’re trying to drive the day,” says Healy.

“It’s when our attention is outward, with a loss of self-consciousness, that’s where a lot of our happiness and most contentment happens.”

The notion that one’s wedding day should deliver on the “happiest day front” is one we learn young.

Psychologist and psychotherapist Sally O’Reilly says: “We are reared on literal fairy tales, especially women, and sold the idea that a wedding day is almost a destination.

“There’s this idea that it’s going to be the happiest day of your life and you’ll live happily ever after when of course the reality is that it can be extremely stressful.”

O’Reilly’s concern is that if a particular day is signposted with expectations of “the happiest”, it can actually end up robbing you of joy rather than delivering.

“When we build things up and they don’t go perfectly, the higher our expectations of perfection, the harder the fall,” she says.

“If the myth is there that this is going to be your happiest day and it turns out not to be, that can really worry people. They can start wondering does this mean something? Am I with the wrong person? Why isn’t it the happiest day of my life? And we start searching for problems.”

It’s something O’Reilly finds particularly detrimental when the “happiest day” assumption is attributed to the birth of a child.

“It’s terrible, because you’re very vulnerable then to feeling like you’re faulty if you’re not on cloud nine having just given birth,” she says.

The reason neither my wedding nor the births of my sons were my happiest days is simply because I don’t have a happiest day.

Just like I don’t have a favourite book or album, a best meal or a most-loved holiday, I find it impossible to single out one when I’ve enjoyed so many.

I’d rather have a load of happy days than one happiest.

O’Reilly agrees, saying: “I think something we’re terrible for in our current society is ‘the best’, ‘the happiest’, ‘the worst’. We’re very dramatic in the language we use, but actually for most people there are days that are just really good, full of joy, surprises and relief.

“I like the idea of not being able to pinpoint a ‘happiest day’ because maybe you have a few days that were really, really happy for a few different reasons.”

The day my husband and I walked the length of Rathlin Island in unseasonably hot weather, then fell asleep post-picnic and wept with laughter as we ran, sunburned, to make the last boat home, was a happier day for me than our wedding.

The snow-day when we whizzed down slopes with the kids on sleds. Climbing Slieve Donard for the first time with my mum, dad and brother for my dad’s 40th birthday, soggy under a tent at the summit, supping tomato soup from a flask.

Sitting before the kids came along, reading a book for a full day, the patio doors open and the sun streaming in. The afternoon when my best friend and I sat on an Italian island talking about our favourite types of potatoes.

Building sandcastles and searching for sea-glass with my elder son on a beach in the south of France before tucking into plates of crispy calamari.

The list could go on and on. Why play favourites?

And besides, why would you want to give any day “happiest” status and acknowledge it’s behind you when there could be even happier days ahead?

“I like the idea of not being able to pinpoint a ‘happiest day’ because maybe you have a few days”