.4 years ago today.

Four years ago Portland's record high temperature was broken, the sun felt like it had landed directly onto the surface of the city and our rarely humid metropolis felt as damp and muggy as the South.
Over 14 months went planning the perfect day but of course on the day in question a million things seemed to go "wrong". The weather for one, having an outdoor ceremony & reception was just what I had always wanted but I failed to think of what the climb up and down the hills to the garden would do to my grandparents battling knee & hip issues, the flower girls were without petals to throw because they were left in a cooler {we improvised by plucking a few from the gardens grounds}, the ring blessing that I was so pleased with incorporating ended up taking too long because an overzealous friend required 5 solid minutes with our wedding rings to say a million hail mary's, the hand-fasting cords that I had made were left on my coffee table though we didn't realize that until mid-way through the ceremony {my best friend and maid of honor scurried away from her spot by my side and pulled a miracle with some extra ribbon from the party favors}, since we hadn't planned on it being so hot we didn't have enough bottles of water and had to send a guest out at the last minute to get a couple of pallets, and this is to say nothing of the fact that the car carrying my entire clan of in-laws {including mother of the groom} got lost on the way to the ceremony and we started almost an hour late.
All of that being said it was the happiest day of my life. It was the day that lead to the best years of my life and allowed us to build a family that is the source of all of our pride, love, and happiness.
And although so many little things didn't go as planned, today I went down to our basement to look through the storage box of wedding related stuff that I've kept and as pear-flavored jelly beans fell on my feet and cream colored flower petals were swept aside so that I could get to one of our leftover wedding programs I was flooded with only happy memories. The excitement of the day and blissful happiness are really what I think of first, as for the things that went wrong...we laugh about them almost daily now.

.link for the youtube version.

I leave you with the quote that we had printed inside of our wedding programs:

"The goal of life should not be to find joy in marriage,

but to bring more love & truth into the world.

We marry each other to assist in this task"

~Leo Tolstoy~