KEY POINTS:
Leanne Bradley should be basking in post-wedding bliss.
Instead, the Hamilton 30-year-old can't bear to see her wedding photos and doesn't want to look at her dress.
Mrs Bradley's wedding to her partner of 10 years, Grant Bradley, ended in an abrupt evacuation after the Hamilton coolstore explosion a week ago which killed senior Hamilton firefighter Derek Lovell.
The explosion occurred as the newly-weds were being photographed in their Mercedes wedding car.
Guests rushed from the wedding reception to help drag horrifically burned firefighters from the exploding and burning building.
Mrs Bradley told the Herald the day after the explosion she was more concerned about the fire and the impact on firefighters and their families, than she was about her own wedding.
She said yesterday that was still the case, but now that it had time to sink in, she was growing more and more sad that her special day was cut short.
With that also came feelings of guilt and "selfishness" for thinking about herself in the face of such a tragedy.
"Someone's died, and here I am crying over my wedding sort of thing. There's been a death - that's more important," she said.
"I just feel so sorry for the families - and especially for the family of the firefighter that died - and just the fact that the wedding guests were involved with it.
"I don't want to look at the photos. I gave my wedding dress back to my mother because I don't want it anymore. It's meant to be a happy day for me, but every time I think of it, it makes me sad.
"I really feel bad for the firefighters and everyone that's seen it. I feel really, really sorry for them. It's a real big tragedy and every year now on our wedding day I'm just going to be thinking of those firemen.
"It's sad because of all the months of planning.
"It's just hard basically. I hope that one day I will want to look at the photos and I will want to look at my wedding dress again, but at the moment it just makes me sad. I feel empty."
Mrs Bradley said due to the speedy evacuation she had not been able to say goodbye to anyone in time to inform them the reception would continue in her parents' Hamilton garage, where she had the first dance, heard speeches and cut her wedding cake with just half of her 76 guests.
"I feel empty and lost and I don't know what to do.
"We only had half a wedding. I don't even feel married."
In the future she hopes to get everyone together again, but finances are limited and it was still too soon to decide how she could celebrate the day.
The Bradleys had not planned a honeymoon because of finances. They had spent money which they had saved for a deposit on a house on their wedding.
