The coolest & hardest part about being married is spending day after day after day after day together.

There are two ways to deal with that:
1.  Grow bored with each other and start to look away.
2.  Keep looking towards each other and find new little things about your spouse you didn’t know were there before.

Danielle is a thousand times more interesting and wonderful to me than on the day we were married.  Those things were there all along, it’s just taken me years to discover them.

So, interestingly enough, this is the second time I’m doing a blog post about dinosaurs.  The first one was ok, this one is better. :)

A few days ago this photo popped up on the internet. Mad props to the photographer Quinn Miller. I loved his story about it and why he did it.

The photographer knew of the groom’s love for dinosaurs and thought it would be fun to try out the shot. That’s it. They were not following a trend on Pinterest, they were not working off a Style Me Pretty checklist. They had an idea and ran with it. (Get it… “ran with it.”)

It’s super easy to get caught in the wedding checklist mindset. There are 3.7 billions wedding sites on the web and most of them have a great list of helpful tips and ideas. The problem is the more lists you look at they feel less like suggestions and more like the 10 Commandments to a successful wedding.

I’ve had couples dress up their dogs, make a cake out of Lego blocks, and stick skulls next to the cake table.

AND even CRAZIER… my bride this past weekend had NO WEDDING CAKE!!!! (Oh the horror!)

Here is the photo I didn’t take of her not having a cake.

All of these things might be strange at your wedding. But they were totally in line with each couple and I loved them for it.

This is your wedding not Martha Stewart’s.
You are starting your marriage.
Do it your way.
Be creative.
Have fun.
Enjoy yourself.
It’s a celebration.

You were alone and someone wandered up to you and said I choose you. I pick you. I love you.
Take them by the hand and run. Run together for the rest of your life.

unless you have been living under a rock the past year you’ve heard of one direction.  just another in the seemingly endless line of boybands that pop up every other year.  their song “what makes you beautiful” is super catchy and my family may even have had a dance party to it from time to time.  but there is always something that seems shallow when 14 year old boys sing about true love & beauty.

the premise of the song though is spot on.  so many times it’s hard for women to see themselves as others do.  people look at you and see one thing but when you look into a mirror you ignore the good and focus on what you perceive to be a “fault”.  the songs speaks to that idea and hopes to remind ladies of their beauty.

dove is on a little campaign of their own to remind women of their beauty.  the past few years they have made commercials, websites, and print adds that back this idea.  their latest one is so great and totally captures the issue i see almost ever weekend.  i’ll take a gorgeous photo of a bride, show it to the bridesmaids and other ladies in the room and they will just go nuts over how great it is. then i’ll show it to the bride and she’ll say something about her nose, or her chin, or how her left ear ALWAYS looks taller than her right.  :)  take 3 minutes, watch the video and the next time you start to be overly critical of your looks, remember the boys from one direction and the lovely folks at dove may not agree with you.

Sometimes the more you want something the harder it is to get it.  The harder you try, the less it seems to work.  I’ve been super fortunate to have amazing brides.  Most of them understand that their wedding day is just one day.  They realize that it may not go as planned.  They understand that when viewed through the lens of their whole marriage it matters very little.

I know that many of you out there are planning weddings and some of you are really really planning hard.  Planning every single detail.  Planning what you will say, planning what people will say, maybe even trying to plan how others will react.  This is a little reminder that much of your day will be out of your control.  Let me say that again.

Much of your day will be out of your control.  (And it’s ok.)

You’ve already planned the most important part.  You’ve planned who you will spend your life with.  That’s really the only thing worth planning.  10 years ago I looked at my bride and said “I’m planning on being with you.”  We’ve stuck to that plan.  Things happened on our wedding day that we didn’t plan for.  Things happened in our marriage that we didn’t plan for, but the main thing we did plan for is what has kept us together.

Your wedding day is one day.  Plan it all you want.  Plan it to death.  But plan on little things surprising you along the way.  And sometimes… those surprises may end up being the best part of your day.

Lauren & Blaine were married at The Belgium House just outside of Longview exactly 1 year ago today.  Word.  Let’s check in on them and what the first 366 days of marriage was like for them.  BUT, before we do… how about a few of my favorites from their wedding.

What do you miss most about the single life?
-We honestly decided we don’t miss the single life – can you say cliche’? yet true!

Give us your best cheapo/fun married date idea.
-Four wheeling/back roading & star gazing in the piney woods of East Texas!

What have you liked most about your first year being married?
-A year of “firsts” in our first year of marriage!…first married christmas, our birthdays as husband and wife, etc..we try to commemorate them with a picture or a new tradition!

What’s been the hardest part about being married?
-Getting used to each others quirks and mannerisms, like leaving bobby pins in the shower or leaving the kitchen cabinets ALL open.

What surprised you the most? (Either good or bad.)
-In a good sense, what a great team we make! Whether its splitting up at the grocery store to get out quickly, or taking turns folding laundry. There’s never a “point” system with us.

What have you fought about most and why?
-Co-managing our finances, which we knew in advance. Women and men have such different buying patterns, so some advice: Sit down and talk over bill distribution, financial goals, and budget expectations. Save, save, save!