Happy Anniversary to Us

      Today is our day, Jack's and mine.  Ten years ago we had our funny little wedding in my family's back yard and started on what has been a blessing.  Fun.  Adventure. Frustration.  Sadness.  Contentment.  Exhaustion.  Romance.  A Child.  All these things in turns,  but a blessing always.

Some of our friends know our back story and some don't.  I wish I could say that we were in love at first sight, but we simply were not.  I was told he was bad news and I think he said he thought I was stuck up.  Eventually we were friends and were that for a long time before we were anything more.  We spent the year before we got married not even in contact at all with each other because we couldn't figure out what we wanted or how to make it work or if we even wanted it to work.  But once we found each other again, we knew exactly what we wanted.  It was all or nothing.

I was adamant that I wanted something small and simple, a backyard affair with just close friends and family.  This morphed into the church coming and suddenly I needed chairs for more than 200 people instead of the 50 I had envisioned.   I spent the summer planting grass and pulling up sod from the nice green cow lot and moving it the bare spots in the back yard. Most people pick a venue that does not involve digging up the cow lot.  I know that now.  My mother spent the summer making my dress, refitting it what was surely dozens of times.  I was also adamant that I didn't want a veil, but my hair was too short for an up-do so I wanted a hat.  For some reason, there was not a white hat to be had anywhere that summer,  so I took my old garden hat and covered it with leftover dress material.  That is one of my few regrets - not buying a hat was a mistake.

Adding to the chaos, I was firm on not having a huge reception but having a picnic type luncheon for family afterward.  The two days before the wedding found Jack Dear and I renting some metal arbor thing from a place in Marlow and cooking with my mother and grandmother.  I just couldn't buy all that food.  So we made it.  We roasted meats and made salads and goodness knows how many little croissant rolls.  Cheesecakes.  Fruit.  Everything.  My mother made our cake, and Jack and I decorated it the day before the wedding.  That poor cake.  It was lopsided and we should have been sick from eating too much frosting.  But it was good.  Chocolate Town Special cake with cream cheese frosting  decorated with edible flowers.  I know.  Goofy.  Lots of other people helped too or we never would have managed.  Mary and Lou and Di.  My parents.  Lots of people had a hand in this.

It wasn't that we intended to have a strange, goofy wedding.  It was more that we wanted to do it ourselves, for ourselves, for each other.  That is also why I did not want an engagement ring and wedding band from a jewelry store.  When Jack asked me what I wanted, I asked him to make something for us. He did and they are perfect.  I never fail to think of it as his work when I put my ring on in the morning.  I like knowing that he made these rings and they were never intended for anyone but us.  Those jewelry store rings could have potentially been anyone's.  My ring was only ever for me.

We have so  many funny, funny memories of that day.   I am glad that some of our family had that day with us, family that is now gone.   I love that we have stories to tell Isabella.  Stories like "right there is where I married your Daddy."  We laughed so much that day and we cried some too. Perhaps my favorite funny of that day is how teary eyed people in the audience got when Jack reached up during our vows and brushed my cheek.  They all thought he was brushing away a tear.  It was really just an adventurous bug crawling up my face.

That is a lot of our life still - lots of DIY, lots of laughing, a few tears.  It has not always been easy.  I cannot say that we have never been mad.  I cannot even say that we have always been as careful with each other as we should have been.  But we learn and keep loving and learn more.  We are more patient and mellow.  We are kinder and gentler.  We are more romantic.  We love more and take for granted less.  I always think that every year has been better than the one before.  I think that is what we have to give each other now, the promise of continuing to get better at this every year, of loving more and deeper and stronger.