3 Years Down!

Today Luke and I get to celebrate our THIRD wedding anniversary! We've had a fabulous day so far... treating ourselves to lunch in the big city at our favorite noodle joint, Pei Wei. We've both been really under the weather now for almost a week. This morning when I woke up I was able to take a deep breath through my once-stopped-up nose and I was so excited that we could spend our anniversary less sick! :) It's the little things, people. :) :)

So I was just thinking that about 3 years ago at this time I was just getting into my wedding dress and getting ready to do our first sight. We had an amazing wedding photographer, Lauren Clark Photography, and she told us that since we were getting married in December at 7:00 PM we needed to do a first sight so that we could have daylight portraits of us. As a photographer now, I understand exactly what she's talking about. But at that point, I just knew, "Well if Lauren says that's what we need to do, we're going to do it." So Luke and I did a first sight and it worked best for us. And check out Luke's face! Priceless!

That day seems like forever ago, in some ways. I look at these pictures and think about the people we were back then - I thought that we knew exactly where we were headed. Luke thought that he was marrying a graphic designer, and I thought I was marrying a cattleman. I figured by now we'd probably have a kid or two. Here we are, 3 years later, living out a dream we didn't even know we had at the time - owning our own business together and getting to do one of the best jobs in the world - photograph people on THEIR days like ours above. Goes to show you that God has even better things in store for you than you might imagine!

The other day one of Luke and I's best couple-friends (is that a phrase? I just made it one) was telling us how sad they were that they missed our wedding. For one reason or another, they were out of town that day or something. Without even thinking, I said, "Hey, it's no big deal. You might have missed the wedding, but you've been here for the marriage." And that's the honest truth. It's easy to get caught up in weddings - things like the flowers, the dress, the fact that (in the picture above) I keep thinking I might should have had my roots touched up one more time before the wedding.... whatever... BUT three years in I can tell you if you do things like you're supposed to, a wedding is just a tiny, gone-in-a-blink-of-the-eye opening act to a marriage. Marriage is a whole different deal than a wedding... that's for sure. And I'm thankful for that.

I'm thankful for all the moments that make up the past 3 years of our life. Highs and lows, laughter and tears, laundry pile-ups and dirty-house meltdowns, saying hello to new friends and goodbye to old ones, adding 2 bulldogs, 1 stray dog, and 2 porch cats, surviving 1 round of home renovations, sharing countless summer-cold's, Luke letting me buy new Nike Free's all the time, me letting Luke buy new Yankee Candle's all the time, door slams, front porch sitting, McDonald's ice cream trips, late night oreos and milk... It's all ours.

Happy anniversary to my best friend! Life is perfect with you!