One year happier

A couple of weeks ago I celebrated my one year wedding anniversary.   My husband and I spent the weekend of our anniversary celebrating the marriage of a very special person in our lives…the person who introduced us.  While it was only a year ago that we were married, we spent the weekend reminiscing about what happened at the same moment of the very same day the previous year.  It kind of went like this, “Awww, remember Dad’s toast? What about CJ’s, too funny!” and “It was freezing cold but we didn’t even notice,” and “Why didn’t we have a groom’s cake?” 

We also talked about how happy we were that it was all behind us.  Anyone close to me knows that I hated planning my wedding. It was a giant pain in the butt.  I never had any grand dreams as a kid about what my wedding would be like, it didn’t have to be exactly the way it looked in my head and it didn’t even have to be perfect.  But, somehow in the midst of not really caring about all the details, I realized that other people had crazy opinions.  Believe it or not there were fights about if we should serve mashed potatoes or rice, who should be paired with whom, what day of the weekend the ceremony should take place on, what fabric the aisle runner should be made out of and if the bows on the chair covers would match the flooring in the ballroom.  So, to be at someone else’s wedding felt so refreshing. We were in great company and enjoying dancing, food music and champagne.   

As we danced the night away, it was great to finally feel like our wedding was behind us. Afterall, our album had just delivered (and it looks fabulous) and we just wrote the very last check to the photographer.  We learned a lot about each other and our families during the engagement but we’ve learned a whole lot more about each other and about life after the I-do’s.  I can’t say that I ever had crazy illusions of what marriage would be like, but I didn’t actually realize how challenging it could be.  Marriage is pretty darn tough. I can certainly see why people don’t do it, but I’m happy to say that now that I have one year of marriage under my belt, I’m one year happier than I’ve ever been.  Marriage has taught me to think about how decisions affect “us” and not just me.  It’s taught me that there’s no “i” in team. It’s taught me that in order to keep the peace sometimes I should just smile and nod my head. It’s taught me how to strategically negotiate, that family trumps all other things and that you get what you give.  There’s no other point to this blog post than to just say, I’m happy to be exactly where I am in my life with my husband and to be taking it one day at a time.  Cheers babe, thanks for an awesome year.