16 years ago today, I married my best friend. It is the best thing I have ever done. Jay and I met when we were 20 years old and in college at WVU (Let’s Go Mountaineers!!) I thought he had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen and he was a nice guy in a sea of dirtbags…so I gave him a shot. We weren’t dating long when I had a terrible accident and could no longer live in my house (it didn’t allow for my walker…seriously, folks, I said walker!!) Jay said I could move in with him and his buddies (until I could literally get on my feet again!)…and he took such good care of me, I knew he was a keeper!! When it was time for me to move home…we decided we didn’t want to live apart, and made the choice to sign a lease together…that was 23 years ago!
The rest of our story was a little backwards…we got engaged…about a year later we got pregnant with Morgan and decided to hold off on getting married. We knew we were committed to one another and didn’t want to give the impression that we got married because we were having a baby. So when Morgan was about 15 months old we decided to finally take the plunge! When planning our wedding, we were on a very tight budget! We did almost everything ourselves and cut every expense we could out…including wedding photography…which was SO expensive!! Though I was still working as a nurse at the time, I had always been a huge photography fan and was certain I could take care of it myself…EPIC FAIL!!! There are so few pictures from our wedding…and the ones we do have are not great!
My biggest regret about our wedding day wasn’t that our reception was at the Knights of Columbus in Ocean View (cause my Aunt made it look so pretty!!), it wasn’t that our DJ stunk and brought his wife and toddler to the reception without asking, it wasn’t that the food and cake were from Farm Fresh (cause that chicken was DELISH!)…it was that we have so few photos to commemorate that day for us.
So on our 16th wedding Anniversary (and our 23rd real Anniversary), I can tell you that marriage is hard work (because it is), I can tell you to marry your best friend because after 16 years, lust changes, but if you marry your best friend you can endure all the highs and lows that marriage brings. I can tell you that even after 23 years your Hubby will still not pick his socks up off the floor…but he will cook dinner most nights. I can tell you that after 23 years your best friend will still have the most beautiful eyes!!! And I can tell you that if you don’t spend some money on wedding photography you won’t have anything to help you keep those memories close to your heart. This is one of the reasons we work so hard at every wedding to capture as much as we can! So that you will not celebrate your 16th wedding anniversary with only a few photographs of your day to help take you back to how you felt.
And one last thing…Happy Anniversary to the love of my life, Jay Skaggs. You complete me. You make me a better person. It is you I want to see first when I wake up in the morning and last when I go to bed. Thank you for putting up with me all these years. I look forward to growing old (older) together and seeing what else life has in store for us! You are my lobster! XOXO!!!
