Ten Years Later: Happily Ever After, Then and Now

FORWARD:

Ten years ago today we entered into wedded bliss. 

The only regret I still have from our wedding was how the pictures turned out; though there were lots of great ones, the resolution of the digital files we received was so low it rendered most of them fuzzy, pixel-y, and unprintable. 

This week, we received our professional photos (<---thank you from my heart for these memories, Milana!!!) from the birthday shoot I scheduled in our wedding garb. I was beyond excited. I love beautiful pictures, and have always reveled in authentic beauty that points to the Divine.

This time, the photos were fantastic and usable, and I couldn’t wait to share them far and wide. {Wedding day on the left; 10 years later on the right}.

We re-created this picture during our recent trip to West Point for our
10-year reunion; it's our favorite bridge over the reservoir.

One of the main catalysts behind these 10-year anniversary pictures was a spontaneous picture I'd taken with the kids on our 5-year anniversary after unpacking my dress from our move. After I saw the picture, it reminded me of one the wedding photographer had taken and made a great side-by-side. Thus the idea was born to do another at ten years. We'll see how committed I am to the tradition at 15 years, and then 20-ha.

At the same time, my brother, who recently lost his home in Santa Rosa, also sent me another treasure trove: a digital storage link full of pictures from the week leading up to our wedding and our wedding day itself—many that I’d forgotten about and some I had never even seen.

It led me down memory lane, and in reminiscing I realized that I had never recorded the events since I started this blog a few years after we were married. What better time than to capture said memories in writing (and simultaneously resurrect ye old blog)?
So here are the events, as I remember them, of that wonderful week leading up to November 3rd, 2007.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER: THEN AND NOW

10 years (and 1 week) ago, I was traveling back from South Carolina after graduating from initial officer training in my Human Resources specialty branch. I made a pit stop at my parents’ in Pennsylvania to squeeze in one last dress fitting & a bridal shower, pack up my stuff, and drop it all off at the rental home my loving fiancé had found for us in Fort Drum, NY. Following the stop at our first home, I circled back down to our Alma Mater of West Point, NY for those long-awaited wedding bells. 

Some homecoming squeals with my mom and then-baby (now gorgeously grown-up)
sis--the cutest and best junior bridesmaid on the planet!

Decompressing after the shower...in
my crinoline?I have no recollection of this, ha!

That stop at Fort Drum, NY, was filled with some special firsts: I stepped foot into our first house and saw the surprise wedding gift my soon-to-be-husband has procured--our first piano, a gorgeous, well-loved upright that continues to sing its happy, slightly off-key songs today (and is still a beast to move!). But most special and overwhelming was my first meeting with our playful first pup—even though I’d been keeping tabs with pictures since Peter had adopted him a few months prior, opening the door to his greeting was still quite the shock. Just like everyone else who has ever met him, I was ill-prepared that first time for the incomprehensible enormity of my fluffy son, because no pictures could accurately convey his true size. 

But that night, as I tossed and turned with sleeplessness in our new First Bed with weird pillows, my exhausted mother-of-the-bride soundly asleep beside me and my husband-to-be slumbering in the spare room, I slid out of bed to journey to the kitchen and on the way met the enormous, ever-vigilant Samson on his nighttime patrol. So I hunkered down with him in the hallway and stroked his massive head and silky ears and we bonded; his big soulful eyes looking wisely up at me, ears perking up at threatening sounds known only to him and relaxing again, always with one watchful eye on me. That will forever be my favorite first in our first home. 

Miss you, pup.

Meandering back south to West Point the next day, we began the whirlwind of last minute preparations, hair test runs, program stuffing, rehearsal dinner-ing, and all the small little details that seemed colossal at the time but really didn’t matter in the end and I have since forgotten. One of the last things I remember as we approached midnight the night before the wedding was begging to go to sleep despite the numerous things that needed to be finished. Some things never change! 

At our reception venue, taking care of something hugely important (like linen colors or something equally enthralling). 

Rehearsal dinner

Our grandmothers at the rehearsal dinner.
They were instant besties. I love this picture. 

The morning of the wedding I rushed off to my hair appointment, eating a bagel with cream cheese and downing tea with honey and lemon since a small cold had randomly turned into my first (and only since) case of laryngitis. I had no voice to say my vows! I spent the rest of the morning trying not to talk too much and communicating in a low whisper.

There somewhere...under all that hair.

There was one joyous happy dance after another as several bridesmaids and my maid of honor—who had been told they weren’t allowed to leave restrictive army training and attend the wedding—miraculously arrived, having moved heaven and earth (with a little help from heaven, to be sure) to be present for our day.

Our priest and spiritual Father from our cadet days, Father Paul, stopped by to see Peter and then me, for one last spiritual cleansing in the Sacrament of Reconciliation before we entered into the greatest Sacramental vocation of our lives.

Peter and his brother.

And what a Sacramental celebration it was. The wedding itself was full of uncontainable joy and the tiny imperfections—windy cold weather, my voice that had come back in time for vows but was deep and throaty, and the little snafoos in the details—that make it both perfectly real and spark the realization of what truly matters on a day filled with such anticipation: God, Man, Wife, and the loving community that supports them. 

To this day, I have never had so much FUN at a wedding. I laugh to think of the plan I tried to hatch with Peter to slip out of the reception at least 15 minutes early, sure that we would be exhausted and ready to escape. But between catching up with all the beloved friends and family who had traveled far and wide, between the hilarious development of Peter’s friend who begrudgingly caught the garter and his grandmother who had caught my bouquet, between the dance-off to Thriller between a groomsman and a Colonel, we couldn’t tear ourselves away from the spirit of sheer joy and celebration. The reception hall staff essentially kicked us out of the reception hall a half an hour after the party was scheduled to end.

Grandma's got jumps!

The garter awkwardness slash hilarity.

Other regret: this is the only picture I have alone with my
wedding-planner-mother-of-the-bride-in-one, as she was hard at
work fixing mybustle that had come undone!

I procured Peter's nametag as a nod to the new
nametag I'd soon be wearing on my uniform; at our
professional pictures ten years later, he remembered
this and whipped out a nametag for me to wear again. :)

The next morning as we rushed to mass, then the airport for our flight to the surprise honeymoon destination Peter had planned (Costa Rica!) we ran out of time to stop for breakfast, so we treated ourselves to what I still consider the best breakfast of all time: leftover raspberry-crème wedding cake. I swoon just thinking about it.

Zip lining in Costa Rica

- - -

Ten years later, things look a little different. Life is nothing like I imagined and exactly what I hoped for. Today we are living that nebulous picture of the happily married couple with kids, plus all the details my mind ten years ago never would’ve been able to fill out.

We are still in the army, but settled in once place--a paradox to the me of ten years ago. There was a time when I imagined us as an active duty military family, moving every few years for the rest of our life. There was a later time when, burned out by the pace of active duty army life, I absolutely knew that once we had finally escaped our Army contracts we would leave the Army behind, put down roots, and sever all military ties. But here we are, happily settled continuing the hybrid of military service called the Reserves, which suits us perfectly right now.

We are still living our dream of a [not as] big [as I once imagined] happy family, but with children who are nothing like the limited one-dimensional figures I’d dreamt up, and everything to us in our daily reality. Their beautiful faces combined with their jaw-dropping little brains, talents, interests, and individual quirks help me realize how much I still lack, but also how much Peter and I have grown in love and straightup parenting smarts.

And this week leading up to our anniversary was comically unlike that of our wedding week. We still ran ourselves into the ground with late nights and early mornings—but the parallels stop there. We made dinner reservations for our anniversary, which ten years later is a much more agonizing process than it used to be. We squeezed in hockey and choir practice, appointments and late-night mass, homework and projects, all the while doing damage control from trick-or-treating sugar highs.

By Wednesday we decided to cancel our anniversary dinner in favor of a road trip to chilly Wyoming to honor Peter’s grandfather, whose funeral was the day prior.

The five of us piled into the car along with Peter’s brother and our niece, and spent the eve of our ten full years and anniversary itself with family--celebrating life, coming together in death, and trying to entertain kids on one daggone long drive. (And now as I sit writing this, the rest of our relaxing evening was just ambushed by a sick kid).

But I wouldn’t have it any other way. (I mean, of course I'd take a pass on the sickness part, but you get the gist).

This life is never devoid of suffering, but in the same light it is never devoid of joy.

I’ve come to realize that although I love seeing the spotlight rest on so many of these beautiful, inspiring, share-with-the-world-worthy moments of our union (see: incredible professional pictures), it’s really the private, unseen moments that I cherish most in the depth of my heart.

It’s the quiet things my love does that most of the world will never see--helping kids with math when my brain's about to explode, warming up my side of the bed with his body heat on a cold night so I don’t freeze, stopping two extra times during a road trip through the Wyoming “wilderness” to find a fork so I could eat a can of tuna—because traveling with a restrictive diet is hard. Just to name a few out of the 1,035,792,914 I can recall off the top of my head. 

It’s in these little moments of our vows that receiving love means the most, and also in these that I am learning to grow the most in my call to love. It’s about loving and honoring in good times and in bad—as in, the times where it would be easier to choose annoyance, sloth, or selfishness. Loving in sickness and in health means choosing love when there are fewer healthy days than ever, when part of the reason I still fit into this dress is because my body has turned against me and I am wasting away, and when loving and caring for me through a chronic illness {that makes me both unpredictable and limited} is just as hard on him as it is for me to love beyond myself through days and moments of pain.

We are a team. And it isn’t in the big flashy moments, but in the small daily sacrifices of loving beyond our own selves, the mutual commitment of being there for each other in the moments that matter most, that builds the immovable foundation of this heavenly sacrament.

I daresay Peter is leaps and bounds ahead of me in the selflessness part of our relationship. But his self-giving love both makes me better and makes me want to do better.

During our wedding ceremony, one of the readings we chose included Matthew 7:24-25. It reads:

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 

Many know that the name Peter literally means “rock,” which was especially meaningful when we chose those verses. But in the ten years that have surpassed, all the fluffy sentiments and niceties of this scripture passage have been tried in the furnace of real life, and we have emerged far stronger for it. I count myself both lucky and wise that to have built my house on such a firm, loving, selfless rock. And that has never been truer than today. 

I love you heart and soul, dear Peter - my sure and steady rock. Cheers to ten years, and God willing we will have much more wisdom to share as we celebrate the next forty or so!