It is that time of year again, women frantically searching through the stores for a suitable outfit, bells ringing merrily to congratulate the recent partnerships being formed as husband and wife and constant posting of wedding snaps overtaking my facebook newsfeed. It is once again, Wedding Season.

Weddings are something quite special. The feeling you get when the bride walks in and you see the glazed over eyes of the man that is giving her away, the brave new steps they are making into the unknown and most importantly, the trust they are placing in one another for the rest of their lives.

So far this year I have already been to two weddings.They had the whole lot. White dress, church ceremony, live band, speeches and food, lots of food – not to mention the free bar.

Both these weddings have been of particular significance in my life. The first was of my God Mother’s Son. I have known him since the day he was born. He is one of those people that is annoyingly good at everything. Not only was he getting married this Summer, he was marrying a Doctor, and becoming one himself. He is also one of the kindest and loveliest people I know.

At the wedding breakfast I was placed next to a lovely young fellow; the first thing he said to me was “I am very sceptical about the whole Wedding thing”. But I saw him when the Groom got up to do his speech; a sparkle in his eye as the Groom told his new Bride just how beautiful she was and said those three words every girl wants to hear. You have to be non-human to not feel something.

The second was of another lifelong friend, Holly and I went through Primary and Secondary School together and even shared our holy communion day. She too, is one of the kindest and loveliest people I know.

I realised about half way through that I was literally the only single person at the whole wedding.

I am at the age now where settling down is sort of expected. Even my friends that are not yet engaged spend hours thinking about proposals and planning each minute detail of their dream wedding. You get to a quarter of a Century and you start to feel like the clock is ticking. Everyone is switching nights out with the girls for nights in with the boy. We have got to the age where we stop meeting to talk about boys and start meeting to talk about books.

When I think of a wedding I tend to think of something old, something new, something burrowed, something blue. Before my brain injury this meant something completely different. Now I have my own versions of these.

Something blue. I still have nightmares of the blue nurses uniforms, the blue blanket that I spent every night with for my whole hospital stay and the blue tinged flickering lights that often kept me awake.

Something burrowed. I feel like I have burrowed life, when I read about the stories of other people that have had my illness and how lucky I am to have made such an incredible recovery.

Something new. I have had to learn new coping strategies; it is no longer applicable to remember where I am going and what has happened without some sort of visual aid.

Something old. I have lost my old self.

These are all aspects that become even more apparent in the Wedding Season. I find myself gazing at the happy couple, feeling pure joy for their happiness whilst at the same time pondering about my own happiness and whether I will ever be able to find that one person who gets up in front of everyone they adore and says “I love you”. Maybe just maybe this time next year I will be writing a blog post titled “my wedding” – a girl can always dream!