Posted by Laurie | October 30th, 2009

A decade ago I married the wonderful love of my life, my handsome husband. We were both 24 years old, and it was a cold crisp autumn day. So cold that it snowed the next day and a couple of our poor little flower girls were just freezing during the outdoor photos, so they wore sweaters over their pretty little dresses. Thankfully I was no bridezilla, and I didn’t worry about that!

Our ceremony was perfect. I put the whole thing together myself, as we had a marriage commissioner perform the ceremony. Actually, the marriage commissioner was one of the best parts of the whole ceremony – my mom got a special one day license and performed it for us!

We actually had thought about eloping in Vegas or Mexico. A beach wedding was my idea of heaven, but circumstances dictated that might not be the wisest path (aka MIL drama). I am so glad actually though that we had a more traditional event, as sharing the day with our family and friends was wonderful.

And now, ten years have passed. We’ve gone from being a young couple in love with 3 dogs to being a slightly older couple still very much in love with 3 kids. And apparently we now suck at getting good family shots, because this is the best I could find laying around, from a family reunion this summer. We so need to get some proper ones done soon!

How do you reflect on ten years of marriage exactly? And there were four years of dating before the wedding, so together I’ve spent close to half my life with my husband (okay, I’m 34, not 28 – close enough!)  There have been amazing times and some pretty awful times.  Marriage is definitely like a roller coaster in my opinion – ups and downs, twists and turns. In the time we’ve been married we’ve seen friends meet people, get married and divorced. We’ve had our three boys and lived through a miscarriage. We’ve taken trips and buried our dogs. Ups and downs for sure.

You know what I can say with certainty after all these years? Marriage is work. It’s a lifelong commitment and you have to really work at appreciating one another, understanding one another and telling each other what you need. I wonder what new lessons I’ll learn when another ten years have gone by?!

And handsome, if you read this, Happy Anniversary!!

Tags: anniversary, family, marriage, wedding