Wedding

Honey,

So, with Jennifer and Bryan's wedding that I went to this past weekend, it naturally made me think a lot about our own. I loved their wedding this weekend. It was perfect. It was tasteful and elegant and had their personalities written all over it. It was great. But, I guess I'm biased, because I still think that our wedding was perfect too. I have been thinking about that a lot today.

I was thinking about our vows today. I remember sitting with you on the cliff at La Jolla cove writing them together. It was the perfect moment. The sun was setting, and we just sat next to each other and talked about what we wanted to promise each other for the rest of our lives together. It was beautiful and I'll always treasure that memory. This is what we came up with:

Let this ring that I give to you now
Stand to all who see it
As a symbol of my love for you.
Let it be a constant reminder to you
Of the promises that I make to you today.

I promise to be faithful,
To care for you unconditionally,
To show you love in everything I do,
And to put your needs before mine.
I promise to always serve you as Christ served.

I promise to always encourage you,
Support you,
And love you
Whenever times are good or hard,
Through all ailments and struggles,
And to be your best friend,
Until death parts us.

I promise to honor you,
And to never take you for granted,
To include you in all aspects of my life,
And to always keep you close to me.

I promise to never forget what brought us together,
And to love the things that will strengthen us in the future.
I promise to show God's love to you,
And to others through my relationship with you.

These are my promises, my oaths, and my vows,
To you,
And to God.

* * * * * * * *

I read over these again just now, and I could easily think of an example for each promise of how you kept these vows and how you honored our marriage. I love that these were the promises you made to me to be fulfilled for the rest of our lives together, and no matter how long or short that time frame turned out to be, each promise was definitely fulfilled by you, and I hope I did as good of a job at keeping these promises to you as you were at keeping them to me.

Then, there were the little things like, having the big screen and xbox at the reception center where we got married. We got there about 2 hours before the wedding started and although I had a lot to do to pass that time with, I knew that you'd be looking for something to keep you and your boys occupied, so I'm glad that they had that available to keep you entertained. I think it worked out really well, even though you did end up stealing (alright, accidentally) their copy of Halo and we had to mail it back. Also, the raccoon prints that were all over the car the next morning when we were leaving the bed and breakfast. They had come in the middle of the night and had eaten off every last bit of oreo and cream that was on the car from when the groomsmen trashed it. It was hilarious, and we laughed about it all the time.

I remember preparing for our first dance together. Neither of us are that big on dancing, but we both shared a mutual desire to make that moment memorable, so we took that dancing class together at the U, and even got credits for it, so it worked out really well in the end. And our song was absolutely perfect. I remember we chose it when we were driving in the car one day and you had asked what song should be "our song", and we thought about all kinds of things from songs by Aerosmith and Band of Horses to Ben Folds and Queen. I don't know how we came up with the song we chose, but it ended up being absolutely perfect for us. It was "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys. The whole gist of the song was that God only knows what I'd be without you, and now that I'm without you, I realize how appropriate of a song it was for us to choose as ours. I really am lost without you, and truly only God knows what I am now that I've lost you. I'll never forget it, and it will always be our song.

Remember when we had the rehearsal dinner at my parents house and my dad's mom had just flown in from LA that afternoon? She and your grandma met and they hit it off so well. It was so cute to see them sitting together on the couch in the living room just chatting all night. They were like little kids almost, we had to break them up so that we could all make it out to the patio to eat. I remember talking with you about this many times after the wedding, you thought it was just as sweet, and slightly comical, as I did.

Remember the colors we had? Dark red and black? You always said it was our "Utes" wedding. You looked amazing in the red vest that I had you wear, and I remember how excited was that Evan got to wear the same color as you. He thought it was so cool that his was the only tuxedo that was just like Sean's, and he looked adorable. I'll always remember on our wedding day when he was upstairs with me and he was changing into his tux, he didn't have any underpants on! He had dressed himself that morning and apparently didn't include that specific article of clothing. Emily and I had a huge laugh about that, and I'm sure that it will be a story that she'll embarrass him with in front of his future girlfriends someday.

And my ring, honey, what else can I say about it except that it was absolutely perfect. I know we had gone ring shopping together, but there were several different styles that we had looked at and both liked, and I secretly had chosen this as my favorite but I truly don't believe I had ever told you that. I think that you and I were just on the same page as to what we thought looked tasteful and elegant and it ended up being the same setting. I mean, I have to brag here....the diamond is truly huge. And the setting only amplifies it. I really do love my "pagoda" ring. I'm so glad you understood what I always meant when I said that, and that you appreciated it in the same way that I did. I'm still shocked at the value that it was appraised at for the insurance coverage, but it makes me appreciate you more, because you always believed I was worth every penny.

I remember driving off from the reception and having a feeling of complete relief wash over me. Just the feeling of it all being over finally and us officially starting our lives together was amazing. That's all I really ever wanted. It wasn't about the wedding, it was about my life with you, and while I wouldn't have changed much about the wedding or the way it went down, there is truly nothing I would change about the way our marriage was. We had a perfect life together in the sense that we were perfect for each other. We complimented every aspect of each other, and supplemented each other in a lot of cases too. We worked hard every day, and harder on some days, at our marriage and making things work for us, but mostly things just came easy because we always had a mutual understanding of and respect for each other, and we always made the effort to translate those things into our interactions with each other. We had extremely open lines of communication, but what I really loved was the comments we could make about something, that would sound totally random or strange to someone else, but we always understood each other. We were always ourselves with each other (which of course was how our dating relationship was as well) and there was never any judgment. If I had to pick one word to describe our relationship/marriage, I would choose "love". The meaning of that word truly encompasses everything that we had together and created together, and it was perfect.

So, in retrospect, our wedding was pretty perfect. We had a great ceremony, a great reception (complete with dancing, and the catching of my garter by my 10 year old cousin...), and a great wedding night (woot!). But, really it was our marriage that I loved and thought was the most perfect thing of all. We were best friends, lovers, companions, and partners in crime. I truly think that you are the only person on this earth who will ever fit me so perfectly, and anyone else in this world that I could have chosen would have been settling. With you, it was never settling, it was hitting the jackpot. Even with you being sick, I always felt like I was the luckiest woman alive to have met you and won you over. I somehow got you to fall in love with me, and I never forgot that for even a day of our marriage. I'm so lucky that you chose me, and that you picked me to be your wife for the rest of your life and to be the mother of your children. You were definitely a hot commodity when we met, and I always told you that I couldn't believe you married me. I still feel that way--I can't believe it was me that you chose. You could have had anyone that you wanted, and out of everyone, you wanted me. I love you so much, and I'm so glad that you picked me.

I love you so much sweetheart. Thanks for marrying me and making me the luckiest, happiest, and most loved woman on earth.