I'm not exactly sure what I had envisioned for this celebration, but whatever I wanted was exactly what happened. It was the perfect day. When Andrew and I got married six years ago, I was convinced that our wedding day would be the best day of our lives, and it probably was up until that point. But I'm really happy to think, now, that that wonderful day was just the beginning of several "best days" to come. The day that Piper was born was a "best day", and this sixth anniversary celebration was another one.
There were many times in the last couple of years when I didn't think that we would make it to our fifth anniversary, much less to our sixth. Though six years isn't necessarily one of the "big" or "special" anniversaries, it is the biggest and most special one to us. This July 11th, we got to celebrate, not just the fact that we made it to year six, but that we made it to year six more in love and more grateful than we've ever been before- not in spite of the hard times, but because of them.
I complain a lot (at least in my head) about how huge and unattractive I feel because I'm nine months pregnant, but I think that when I look back at the pictures from our vow renewal ceremony years from now, I will realize that I was glowing and possibly more beautiful than I've ever been before. There is something so precious about another life growing inside of a human being, and this life in particular is a marker or healing for us. Our entire little family of four got to be a part of us recommitting our lives to each other and to God.
If I had to do our wedding over again, I'd most likely do a lot of things differently. I was all about having a grand, fancy wedding at the time, but now I tend to think that the most important thing can easily get lost in the pursuit of perfect flowers, an expensive dress, and the most exquisite food. My dress for this past weekend cost less than a tenth of my wedding dress, we had no flowers, and everyone ate sandwiches from Wal-Mart afterward (which were pretty tasty and economical, by the way). We had no obligation to invite my mom's Great-Uncle Charlie (who doesn't actually exist, but you get my point), but we got to be with the people who have walked through our lives and our marriage with us, which happened to be about 60 people instead of 225. We chose a lovely church for our wedding, but for renewing our vows, we got to be at this church, City Pres, that has loved us and become our home over the past four years. And everything about all of that was perfect. In the words of the song that we all sang together at our ceremony, truly, "He has done great things."
"We will feast in the house of Zion,
We will sing with our hearts restored,
'He has done great things,' we will say together
We will feast and weep no more!"
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| My greatest love on this earth |
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| Our sweet Piper |
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| Family. Missed you, brother. |
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| Two families are one. |
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| My people. |
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| Before "walking down the aisle" as a family |
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| Forever, again. |
Probably more pictures to come...
