On September 5, 2003, my parents’ house was riddled with hot pink roses, pearlescent papers inscribed with my favorite quotes, trays upon trays of food–not to mention countless giggling out of town guests.

On the day before our wedding, as various finite details were attended to, I sat on our desktop computer, perched upon a tv tray, finishing our wedding programs in my grandmother’s old room.  As if wedding planning didn’t consume my life already, we planned our wedding from 350 miles away, laden with a lot of mounting pressure.

I wanted nothing more but a picture-perfect wedding day, just like any bride.
After almost 2 years of planning, not everything came together the way I had envisioned:  Red plastic cups for beer, margarita glasses instead of martini glasses, roses inexplicably displaced from centerpieces, electrical outages in the art center’s kitchen.

Perhaps a foreshadowing of our journey ahead, our day was imperfect and turbulent at times, but it was still a gorgeous day.

Absolutely gorgeous.

For 5 long minutes, in front of 250 of our closest friends and relatives, Jeff serenaded me as we danced our unchoreographed first dance.  (Ok, so he mouthed the words and we might have swayed around in circles. “Serenaded” sounds much more romantic!)  Our surroundings were muted and time stood still.  I cried for joy and like he does today, he wiped my tears.  I still remember so much of our wedding day, but our dance was byfar my favorite moment.

Like I’d known all along, with idyllic moments like that as proof, I made the best decision of my life to marry this man.

The  pork loin that was never served or the frat party-like cups. or the blurred career trajectories or any meaningless fodder…none of that matters.

Our gorgeous son and long Sunday family afternoons are my stand-still moments.  They’re the moments that make us 5 years strong.

Happy Anniversary, babe!

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Even though our anniversary is on Saturday, I was feeling nostalgic today.  Surely, I’ll be doing glamorous activities like scrubbing the tub and doing laundry–in my wedding tiara, of course!