I had our wedding planned out approximately four years before we were actually married. Pinterest had just come onto the social media scene and I was in girl heaven. The colors, the dress, the cake, the music, it was all decided. Once the day came, it was everything I had ever dreamed and more, simple and elegant and absolutely perfect in every way. However, looking back now, it honestly isn’t the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
My husband and I met when we were sophomores in high school. He thought I was careless and irresponsible. I thought he was nerdy and a try-hard. We both saw other people and never looked twice at one another. Then, for some reason, I clearly remember telling my girlfriends the summer prior to our junior year, “See that Andrew Butler? I’m going to make him my boyfriend.” He was pretty cute, I guess. He wore glasses and had bangs, but he was sweet and kind and I felt like something about him just seemed like it would be good for me.
We saw each other every single day. We were both in the marching band, he was a drummer (swoon) and I was in the color guard. And we just happened to be in the same English class. I had a big personality and an even bigger mouth, he was quiet and studious, and the more time we spent in close proximity to one another, the harder I fell for him. And the less he seemed to be interested in me. Fall and winter passed and Andrew Butler was still not my boyfriend. I needed to make a move. I knew he was in one of the advanced math classes, that guy is a smarty-pants through and through, and while I understood my math just fine, I called him one night asking for his help. He gave me his old notebooks the next morning at school (guys, he saved his math notebooks…) and that night he asked me to the movies! The next month he was taking me to Prom. I didn’t tell him for a few years after that I already had an A in geometry.
Fast-forward seven years and that sweet high school boy with bangs and a quiet voice is now a Godly man with a soft demeanor, a brave and strong leader, very handsome, and a loving husband. And we couldn’t be any more interested in one another! I’ve just returned home from a blissful weekend visiting him in Texas where he is currently going through specialized military training. It was the first time I had touched his face, held his hand, and hugged him tight in three and a half months. The weekend was just perfect and, while we didn’t do anything spectacular, we both agreed that those three days were the happiest we had ever been together, wedding day and tropical honeymoon included.
Now, when I say that our wedding wasn’t the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen I don’t mean that it wasn’t wonderful, and perfect, and everything that I wanted. It was. It just wasn’t as beautiful and wonderful and perfect as our life together as husband and wife. And that’s saying something considering we are a married couple who has spent only 2/3 of their first year actually together. In the months leading up to our wedding my mom would always say, “The goal is to have a marriage more beautiful than your wedding day,” and I never really understood what that looked like until now. Andrew and I are celebrating our first anniversary in just two more weeks, and while it is certainly disappointing that we can’t be together on that day, I look back at where we were a year ago, thinking that was the happiest we would ever be, and I smile, knowing we are a million times happier with the beautiful life we have now.
Next year I am sure I will say the same thing.
Happy First Anniversary, Sweet Pea! I love you more and more each day. Here’s to having a marriage more beautiful than our wedding.