Friday, April 29, 2011

16 years


Today D and I celebrate 16 years of marriage.

WOW!

(Kate and Will picked a good date :))

It feels like 14 years still because the last two have been a blur.............

With my wedding posts the last two days, and all of your comments (thank you, as always), I got to thinking about our wedding.

D and I knew we were IT for each other about two weeks after we started going out.

I know it's hard to believe but I was a very stroppy person when I was younger.

If I didn't like something about a guy, that was it - off with him.

Terrible now that I think about it.

You all know the story about how we met.

Well, at the time I was going out with my one other serious boyfriend at the time. We'd started going out when I was 15, through the last two years of school and then a bit of university.

After we broke up, I had a 3-month fling with V which is another story altogether (can you believe we're FB friends now?!) and after that I said, "no more boys! I'm done until I turn 30".

I don't know where 30 came from - sounded like a good number and I was going to be a high-powered career woman with no time for boys.

You know how that goes though... when you say "no more _________" that's exactly what you get.

And D and I got together and serious FAST, but such bad timing - 6 weeks before exams.

Anyway, back to the wedding.

We wanted to get married a lot sooner but my mother didn't think it a good idea to just marry as I was young.

Eventually after a year, I wore her down, she signed the consent forms (I was under 21) and a month later we were married.

I was planning to buy a white suit from Edgars to get married in which nearly sent my mother over the edge and so I "allowed" my gran to make me a very plain and simple white dress.

I seriously didn't give two hoots about anything but who was marrying us and that we were getting married!

We did pray very seriously about who should marry us and our pastor's wife did the honours. It was a beautiful but very simple ceremony.

No entourage as I wanted all the attention to be on us.

My Dad walked me down the aisle, handed me to D and it was just the two of us before God and some family and friends (less than 50).

Perfect.

My hairdresser told me that I was the calmest bride she'd ever seen and I said something like, "what is there to be nervous about? I have absolutely no doubts about doing this"

We didn't have a professional photographer, formal reception (went to D's mom's house afterwards), formal flowers, cake, nothing.

My granny did me a bouquet, D's sister's boyfriend at the time (she had about 6 in the last 13 years) made our cake and my gran and the mothers made all the food.

Very casual.

The only thing I would do differently if I had to do it all again is have a photographer.

The rest was PERFECT for us.

Actually, I'm lying a bit. I would get married on the beach in a white flowing dress with a photographer but other than that, I would not change a thing.

D and I fit each other so well - I can think of a million things I love about him and since we've had the babies, I love him more.

I always knew he'd be a good father but I didn't know he'd be THIS good :) (I told him that today and he agrees with me!!!)

He gets me like no-one else on earth, can give me one look and I know what he's thinking and we really are very good together.

I think what makes our marriage good is that we truly are best friends and talk about everything. When he's down, I'm up; when I'm down, he's up. We have each other's back, and say it's us against the world!

Happy 16-year anniversary, D.

I love you so very much!

What would you change about your wedding day?


I obviously got married in the olden days of no digital camera so I don't have any pics to show you but picture a verrrrrrrrry young D & M :)

P.S. I had 332 posts in my Google Reader. I'm so tempted to just click "mark all as read" but I don't want to miss out.

17 comments:

  1. Happy Anniversary! :)

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  2. Wow. Congrats on your 16 years. That is really good going.
    I love your wedding and if I could change mine it would be small and intimate just like that. No drama, no entourages, no big deal. Just a small ceremony with us stating our intentions in front of God, our closest family and friends.
    xx

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  3. Congrats and happy anniversary! Nothing that I would change about my wedding. I love that I have no regrets whatsoever! 16 years...wow!!!
    xxxx

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  4. Happy anniversary!!!

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  5. That's beautiful! I got married young too, and I love it. We have only been married for almost 5 years, but I can't wait until I can say "We've been married 16 years!" Very exciting.
    I'm so happy for you!

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  6. Sounds wonderful! It's so nice to hear about a happy ending.

    Congrats on 16 years!

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  7. Love love love your wedding story right back... I am so with you. You know what you want, why on earth stress about it, just get it already!!! Well done on sixteen years and I wish you tons and tons more years together...

    And delete all those post in your feeds already - it is called a holiday for a reason, hit delete... look away, look back... sigh all empty and fresh and good to start over!!! If someone wrote something they really want you to see they will send you the link... never happens!!!

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  8. Happy Anniversary and congrats on 16 years! Awesome!

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  9. I love this...you can't scan a picture? I'm so curious/nosy!

    Just hit the button...you'll feel better (especially b/c there's no "undo").

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  10. I love reading about your wedding story! I have been to some amazing larger weddings...ones with all the bells and whistles...but I love the simplicity of focus that you describe, too.

    We didn't have any attendants, either. I love that it was just J and me standing in front of our close friends and family. I definitely wouldn't change that. :)

    I do love that I splurged a little bit (although NOTHING compared to what most people spend...about $500 was all) on a wedding dress. I originally thought I'd just get a white dress of some sort, but I'm really thankful I made that decision. I do wish I'd taken my best friend with me shopping. In hindsight, I went by myself, and it seems kinda lonely...

    I could go on and on...but I should save that for a post on my blog, I guess! HA!

    Again, Happy Anniversary to you and D!!!

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  11. I wish we'd had a photographer as well. And maybe guests, since it was just the two of us at the courthouse...

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  12. 16 Years? Wow! You two are such an inspiration. More and more people divorce after a short while, which is sad.
    What would I change to my wedding day? Get a proper wedding for starters :)

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  13. Happy Anniversary to you too! Love to hear about your simple wedding. And I - I would have added a flower girl or two. Now that I have kids I realize how important it would have been for the little girls in our family to be part of the day.

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  14. Happy Anniversary!!!! Our 16th anniversary was last October, so we can add how long we've been married to our list of things we have in common. Very cool. We got married at 23 and we didn't feel young. Now we realize how young we were. We still love each other more and more every day.

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  15. Happy anniversary!

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  16. Happy Anniversary!
    Loved reading all about the wedding.
    Ya'll look all kinds of awesome in the pictures!

    I'm not sure I remember 16 years - as the last 10 have kind of ran together - we're almost to 21!
    See how young we were! 22 and 26.
    https://picasaweb.google.com/MountainLamb/InMemoryOfMyMom#5335362727304472514

    What would I do different? Oh, lots and lots of things. Tim and I got engaged summer of 1989, and planned to marry as soon as I was out of college the following summer. We had known each other for 3 years. My sister (2 years younger) met a guy in September, he proposed in January, and then they wanted to get married that summer the week after college let out .. almost 2 months before my wedding was being planned.

    First she insisted that we move the wedding closer to her chosen date, so people didn't have to travel twice. My dad said she had to plan hers after mine was done - but she beg, pleaded, threatened, and berated me every day on our way to and from school (she drove - I don't) until I gave in just to have some peace (I held out for 2 months!)

    What I ended up with was a repeat of her wedding, so to not waste money. Her entire wedding cost about $700, mine about $300. Though my mother considered it split because I used everything identical to hers. At some point, I just stopped fighting it and let it happen. Basically, they planned her wedding for 4 months, took a big breath and celebrated, then threw mine together in 2 weeks. I wore my MIL's wedding dress - it's gorgeous and I totally loved it, though I would have liked to have gotten it fitted, and I got the color fabric and flowers that I wanted.

    Looking back. I would have just cancelled my wedding entirely and went back to school to get a teaching certificate, and let Tim and I work on paying off his debt and getting a better foundation financially. I do not know if we would have still gotten married. I love him - I really do - and our personalities mesh very well ... but his work ethic nor his financial frugalness is not anywhere close to what I was looking for in a mate, although his parents both are hard workers and very frugal. I couldn't ask for more awesome in-laws.

    Well, you found one of my "sore spots" with life. LOL

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  17. Lesley10:36 am

    Your marriage sounds a lot like ours. Ours was very low key as well, we actually had our ceremony in Ireland while we were living in England, in my husbands dads church. Everyone organized things on our behalf - food, cake, flowers. I brought the first dress i tried on,lol. We also didn't have a professional photographer - and i DO regret that ( pictures are terrible).
    Your photos at the top are beautiful. x

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