(If you want to skip ahead to find out who won the Igigi contest, feel free. But this is really kind of a pretty and sappy entry)
Five years is not very long, really, not in the grand scheme of a lifetime. But at the same time, it’s kind of a really long time because so much can happen in 5 years. It’s long enough for a baby to become a kindergartner. Long enough for a president to be elected and replaced. Long enough for a car to be purchased and paid off.
For us it’s been long enough to be robbed, to be on disability, to switch jobs (voluntarily and not), to have weight loss surgery, to find out kidney stones are horrible, to move, to double the amount of pets in our house, to sit in hospital waiting rooms with our parents, to drive over 60,000 miles together, to cry and laugh and yell and figure out that we fall asleep best if we are touching each other but not actually cuddling.
Five years ago today, we stood in front of our family and friends, our community of people that we loved and that loved us back. Unlike today, that April 8th was sunny and bright and the mountain breeze was just enough to catch my veil as we took our vows. We did not promise anything to each, no mention of honoring or cherishing or til death do us part; instead, we simply stated that we took each other to our hearts and our souls, the whole package as is.
We had our hands bound together with a cord that is knotted to this day. I am superstitious about it and have locked the cord in a frame; I do not want to chance a knot coming loose.
I wore green shoes with my ridiculously princessy dress and a ring from my mother that was my borrowed, my blue, and my old.
He wore a kilt and a knife in his sock and a boutennaire that I made the night before our wedding.
It wasn’t a perfect day with no hitches. The iPod with all of our music on it froze up, the cake was nowhere to be seen half an hour before the wedding, the carriage was late picking Kevin up, and there were, of course, family issues. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop smiling and I didn’t care what music we had or what we ate for dessert or what time we started or what our families’ issues were because I was there, he was there and we were getting married.
We rode away in a carriage and ate amazing cake (two things that Kevin had Definite Opinions about us having). After everyone had left, we sat and read our guestbook together while I took roughly 532 bobby pins out of my hair and we ate leftover appetizers from our wedding reception. It was a perfect day.
Since then I have realized that in marriage, every day is a choice. Every day, with every decision we make about our home and our jobs and our families and our pets, I choose him again and luckily, he chooses me. And that is the biggest blessing I could ever have, because we don’t need each other. We WANT each other.
Happy Anniversary, Mr. Pogue. I love you.
(And thanks again to Nate & Jaclyn at The Image Is Found for the AMAZING wedding pictures!! I still get a thrill looking at them.)
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And now that the sappy is done…..
The winner of my Igigi certificate is Measi!!
As you can see from the picture above, she was randomly chosen using Random.org’s number generator. Mel-Check your email soon for details on how to redeem your gift certificate!
