One Year

(It was April 10th, but I've been a busy little bee)

I can't believe we already hit our ONE YEAR Anniversary! The time really does fly after you get married and we've had a wonderful first year continuing to build on our relationship, taking on new home improvement projects, learning the ins and outs of marriage... etc To celebrate US, we went to play mini golf and went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse.. We had a lot of fun and dinner was delicious!

When we first got married, I really did feel like something in our relationshp changed. I've felt so much closer to my husband (even after being together almost 10 years), I feel like we confide in each other more and we're learning to be ONE. We still have our independence but are more ONE than we are TWO. I was watching our wedding video of the ceremony and our pastor said that our relationship is no longer 50/50.... it should be 100/100. Meaning we both give as much of ourselves as the other does and we never give less than 100%. I feel like sometimes I can do better with that, and sometimes I feel that we BOTH can do better than we are. Further confirming that marriage will always take work and we'll have to make the effort to keep it strong and ALIVE. I think our Faith really helps with our relationship too - maybe more than anything else we can share. We both have strong convictions in our religion and much of them are the same. It really helps us to build on the lessons we take away from it. We try to live by the ideals that we've learned.

Our Wedding Day:

I can honestly say that our wedding day went off without a hitch. I wasn't nervous at all - up to the point we arrived at the church. Of course, I swore off the tears and did well until the doors opened and I started walking down the aisle. We got up early in the morning ( the girls and I) and we headed to our hair/makeup appointments. Arrived at home in time to get the flowers delivered and checked out, we finally got me in my gown and the girls in theirs. The photographer arrived, we did all of our shots at the house and headed to the church when the limo arrived. The stretch, Hummer limo! That was a total surprise- When it came down the street, I thought it was someone else's... It never hit me until he pulled in front of my house. Evidently, it was my sister's surprise gift to Jeff and me. I loved it! I had mentioned that it would be awesome to have for our wedding but knew it was way out of my budget, and I was fine with that. But wow - it was really NICE. Awesome sister, I have. When we arrived at the church, time really started to pass. We were a little out of sorts while there. I really didn't stay out of plain view like most brides do.. so I was seen by a few guests coming in the front door, but that was ok. I couldn't hide forever! : ) Our wedding party was super small; 2 girls, 2 guys and a flower girl, so that meant we would whip through the processional. And we did! We did a full mass with our ceremony so I know everyone was probably cringing, thinking it would take forever but it didn't. We got through it all in about 45 minutes and were off to the photos at our reception site. We had a cocktail hour so that guests could have some appetizers & beverages while we did our photos on the grounds. Lucky for us, it was all right there at the reception site, so we were spared the task of driving to another place for photos and missing out on any of the reception.

Reception:

We were able to save time by the photos being taken at the reception so the wedding party, Jeff and I all spent some time relaxing and taking the edge off in our bridal suite downstairs... It was so nicely arranged and chock full of yummy fruits, cheeses, beverages, etc. We then were called upstairs for the grand entrance as husband and wife. It was so much fun! We all waited in the hallway to be announced. My niece was so cute!! My sister and I often told her that we all had to dance our way into the ballroom when it came time to be announced and she really did boogie down when she was announced - It was priceless. I don't have video of that part but I sure wish I did.

We had our wedding party, including parents, walk out to Get the Party Started by Pink, and Jeff and I walked out to Down with the Sickness by Disturbed. (that may shock some of you who don't know me, but we HAD to have it). It was more the beat than anything and we knew a long time ago, that would be our entrance song. Kind of funny when you think that our actual wedding song we danced to was "My Baby You" by Marc Anthony. It was either that or a song by The Stylistics but we settled on our original song that was "ours". The rest of the reception was so wonderful. Lots of dancing, mingling, laughing. The food was excellent as was the cake that we waited months for! : ) Just like I remembered it at our tasting. By the end of the night I had such a bad headache and my legs were near falling off.. I guess I was tired but also hadn't really eaten anything except for dinner and sure could've used some coffee at some point. It was a wonderful day though - it went so quickly but I remember it so vividly. It does go so fast, as every new bride claims. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Ok, maybe I would realize that my gown still had straight pins in the bottom BEFORE the ceremony. Yes, they weren't realized until we were getting our photos at the reception. How funny! Oooops. No wonder my gown seemed to be a little "short". HA! I feel like I remember practically all of our wedding day but there are parts that I don't recall. I often worry that I didn't get to spend equal time with all our guests, but we tried. We kept our guest list to just under 80 people - so it was fairly small but perfect.
Our life together has just begun; it feels like each day is a new beginning. I love our life. It's not always sunshine and lollipops but we move forward. Marriage is a big deal and it's not about a beautiful gown, a big reception, or one day to shine. A lot of young girls are so engrossed in that lately and it's sad because it should be so much more than a material thing. It's a committment. A promise. A journey. I'm really enjoying it with my soul mate.