A Rosy View of the Past.

I just finished scanning about 200 photos that we took on our honeymoon in 1977.  I removed the photos from the cheap albums I put them in several years ago and they have been in a drawer since then. They were in bad shape, almost totally red from the notorious magenta shift. I treated each photo in Photoshop and brought the color back as best I could. Now they are in my Forever account and safe for posterity! I may even get around to making a book of our wedding and honeymoon in time for our 50th anniversary next year!

We spent our honeymoon on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England where I spent most of my childhood vacations visiting my maternal grandparents.  Since it enjoys some of the sunniest weather in England, it is a popular spot for retirement and family holidays. It is a place of quaint thatched cottages and narrow, winding roads, sandy beaches and bracing seaside walks. In fact, it is the quintessential English vacation spot.  In spite of my coming down with a 24 hour stomach flu at the beginning of our stay, our honeymoon pictures show that we did a lot, even taking a day trip back to the mainland so Rick could ride on a Hovercraft.  We went back to the Isle of Wight in 2014 and I was disappointed by how short the ferry trip was. I remember it as an epic adventure during my childhood, an ocean voyage even!

Why did we chose the Isle of Wight for our honeymoon? It was a place that meant a lot to me which I wanted to share with my new husband. I would soon be leaving my homeland forever, and I didn't know if or when I would be back on the Island. But maybe the most important reason was that my Nana was too frail to come to our wedding, and the trip allowed us to visit her in the nursing home and take her my wedding bouquet.

It's obvious from the photos that the weather was far from balmy. Early May at the seaside in Britain can be a test of character. But we were young and very much in love so the weather was a minor concern. It's hard to believe that it has been almost 50 years! But that's the thing about photographs: they are time capsules!  They have the ability to bring back memories and make connections across the years. I'm glad I was able to preserve them before they were completely gone and, by storing them with Forever, I hope my children and grandchildren will enjoy them too!