our wedding day recaptured a year later - part one

and on to the altar...

photography by leah muse of the life you love photography

1, 2, 3, 4

Today we've been married for four months. It feels like four days and four lifetimes all at once. Here are four prominent memories and pertinent thoughts on our first four months as husband and wife:

• We slept on a full mattress that was about 15 years old for our first two months of marriage. It's now in our guest bedroom. The other night, when our shower wouldn't turn off in our bedroom, I couldn't sleep. We had gotten into a pretty mean argument the night before, and Aaron was sleeping in the guest bedroom, so I had to choose between being stubborn and staying in the waterfall room or putting aside some of my pride, going to the guest bedroom, waking Aaron up and asking him if I could sleep with him in the old bed. He's pretty quick to forgive, fortunately, so we spent the next half hour talking about the first few weeks of being married and remembering uncomfortably sleeping on that bed in our old apartment. It's nice to revisit memories like that, especially when you know you can sleep in your nice, new mattress again soon.

{honeymoon- january 2010}

• We still have a lot of issues that we haven't completely worked out. We read a few books before our marriage ceremony that helped us identify the things we thought might be sticking points, and we did sort through some things. But "preventative maintenance" hasn't worked on everything, and contrary to what any book says, hashing out those disagreements and not solving anything instead of trying to pretend has been an honest and good part of our relationship. We've fought over washing dishes, family issues, Aaron's awful schedule, money and paint colors, and guess what? It's OK. We're OK.

{disney world- february 2010}

• Listen to advice, but don't believe that everything everyone tells you is what is necessarily what's best for you. We love and appreciate what we've learned from our friends and family who have healthy, thriving relationships, and at the same time, we have also learned that we have a somewhat unique situation, and we are content to learn what is best for us through experience.

{easter sunday}

• Moving away from our families has really forced us to rely on each other. I say "our" and "us," but I really mean me. Aaron was essentially isolated from everyone for a few months before we got married, and also immersed in film school culture and activities. When I moved here, I didn't have the luxury/exhaustion of graduate school activity 18 out of 24 hours a day. Certainly my job and the multiple moves have given me things to do, but not having my best friends 3 feet away from me essentially all the time was and is hard to adjust to. I don't have any friends here who are my age and in my situation but Aaron. There's an incredible amount of respect I've gained for him as I've been here and seen what he does - he is truly humble and would never honestly tell me or anyone how tough it can be - and yet he continues to be the guy I cry to, yell at, and laugh with. He makes it all look easy.

{st. george island- april 2010}

A Christmas Honeymoon

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For our honeymoon, we have decided that we will take advantage of the couple (literally) of weeks Aaron has off and go somewhere. We debated not doing anything for the sake of time. This "debate" lasted about 15 minutes...

We both wanted to go, but I was unsure of the timing. With a December 20th wedding, we're leaving Christmas with both of our families. YIKES. I've never celebrated a Christmas outside of my sweet home (unless we were with either set of grandparents) with our routine of Christmas Eve candlelight service, Sloppy Joes and hors d'oeuvres and chili for me (because I hate Sloppy Joes), and Dad forcing Jillian and I to clean our ENTIRE house before we can begin to open gifts. We're Christmas Eve openers, for the most part; in the past few years, because my dad and I hate when the pretty gifts are unwrapped, we've opened some of our gifts from each other the night before and waited until Christmas day to open the rest. We always watch "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "A Christmas Story," and "Christmas Vacation" while we're opening gifts.

And I know Aaron has similar traditions, and it will be weird for us to postpone them... but, in the inspired lyrics of my beloved fiance and his former roommate...

"Christmas time/ is my favorite time/my favorite time of the year..."

{Aaron if you post the rest of the words I'll kill you}

So, we're going to immediately celebrate our first Christmas together. I am thrilled about the guarantee of snow and the quaint village, (0h, yeah, and the fact that it's our honeymoon) but I'm a little sad to miss what we've always done. That's the tradeoff for starting a new branch, huh?

I hope in the next couple of months before the wedding to find out about churches near where we're staying. I can't imagine spending that holy time away from a community celebrating it. So that's on my to-do list.Also, I think we've decided to forego gifts this year. BUT we're going to find a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree and put it up and decorate it :)

And in the stead of love and marriage, happy three year anniversary to Aaron's sis and brother-in-law! Aaron's always been inspired by their story, and when we talk about our relationship, he continually shares that his hopes for our marriage are that we can show the love of Christ for each other in the way that Tiff and Rob do. So here's to many, many more years to you two!

We've dated for two years.

Happy two years of dating to my favorite fiance. I can't wait for our new anniversary. I owe you a go-cart race, too... we're 1-1 in all-time Champions Fun-Center races. I love you, Crunch. Love, Zilla Cat
our last few hours at the beach this summer.
in the days before bumpits...when aaron had long hair.
purty fleurs i got yesterday.

The best thing a father can do for his children...

Happy 27th wedding anniversary to my wonderful Momma & Daddy.

Here's a little conversation (e-mail, I'll be honest) I copied and pasted because it made me transparently happy. I am blessed to have two parents who love each other. I remember being little and asking Mom who she loved the most, me or Jillian, and her responding "Daddy." I was kind of shocked, honestly... who DOESN'T put their kids first? But, five or so years later, as I plan my own wedding and pray over my own marriage, it makes complete sense. With the help of some wiser than myself:

*side note: Neither me nor my mom throw around the word "blessed." So the fact that I used it above and she will use it below are proof that this is important stuff. We are, after all, stoic protestants of German descent. Wouldn't want to get too involved in any sort of emotion :)

The best thing a father can do for his children is love their mother

And that's what my parents have done.

Mom: Oh boy, now daddy doesn't have an excuse to not take me out for our 27th anniversary...... :)
Em: :) that's right! congrats. did you think that after you were married 27 years you'd have a daughter who would be getting married?
Mom: You know, I never really thought that through. In 1982 I stopped planning ahead after Year 2000.
E: Haha. I'll take that into consideration. Don't plan past the first 18 years. What did you want to do in your first 18 years of marriage?
Mom: Be married, have two wonderful children, have a career, and a nice home. I have that in writing from 1978. That's what I got, and I am blessed. The only thing is that one of the 2 was to be a boy, but hopefully after December 20, I have that, if Aaron can stomach it ;).

[side note dos: Jillian Rea was supposed to be Jack, but SURPRISE, I got a sister instead. Oh well, she's better than any brother could have been. Mom and Dad agree.]

See? Can't you tell that she's wonderful? And so is my dad. They were meant for each other. I wish I could add an e-mail conversation my dad sent along the same lines, but my dad is limited to "Hey Pal Hows ur day love u"-type e-mails. So trust me :)