10 years ago today I married my best friend. I know, I know that statement is more than cliche, but it’s the truth. Our story is a little unconventional, and I thought it would make the perfect subject for my first blog post, and on such a perfect day! So here it goes.
I’m not going to start at the beginning, because it would take too long. Not because our dating history was long and extensive, but because each of us has a separate back story that adds to our story. I’ll save those for another day, and another post. Since it’s our anniversary, I’ll just start with this day 10 years ago. Our “wedding” day.
Well I guess I have to give you a little back story. Austin was born and raised in south central Kentucky. I was born in Idaho, spent some time in Washington, and was back in Idaho, where we were lucky enough to meet. I was in college studying photography and graphic design, he was working in Wyoming in the oilfield. We had been exclusively dating since the 4th of July, and by August, the word marriage had be said more than few times. We frequently had casual conversations about how we could pull off having a wedding. With his family in Kentucky, and us having little money and not wanting to ask for help to pay for any of it, we felt overwhelmed with the logistics of it. Where do we have a wedding? Who’s family was more likely to travel? How would our families afford to come all the way to Idaho, or all the way to Kentucky? How did we feel about asking them too when we had only been dating for 3 months? It felt more hopeless with every conversation and we weren’t sure what to do.
Fast forward to a Saturday in October. I had the opportunity to second shoot a wedding. As I watched this wedding unfold through my lens I saw it from a whole different perspective. I got to see more behind the scenes than I ever had previously. I saw a stressed out bride, and a whole lot of doing thing to please other people. The moment that stood out to me the most was right before this bride walked down the aisle. The strap on her shoe broke. There were tears shed and words of anger and frustration let out. I sat there shocked. Not at her reaction, her reaction made sense, she had spent so much time and energy on all the small details, that a shoe strap would be devastating. I was shocked that all those little details mattered to her at all when she was minutes away from marrying the love of her life, and that’s when it hit me. I didn’t want any part of that. I couldn’t believe that she was about to walk down the aisle, and make the most important promise of her life, and she was upset about a shoe strap. She had set herself up to have a small detail overshadow the vows she was to make that day. I knew in that moment, I wanted something very different from that for the beginning of our marriage.
After photographing the wedding I met Austin at his apartment. I expressed to Austin my feelings and thoughts about the experience that I had just had. I told him that, while I didn’t judge the bride at all, I felt a little sad that she lost sight of the most important things of her wedding day…her vows and her new life partner. He agreed and quickly said, “Let’s just get married.” It took me back. I honestly didn’t know if he was serious or if he was just joking. I said, “Okay let’s do it!” completely expecting him to back pedal or talk his way out of what he had just said. But he didn’t. Even as we went to the court house to get our marriage license, I was skeptical that he was really being serious. I mean HOW did I get to be so lucky that we would be on the same page with this. Austin called his best friend to tell him the news, and of course like any good friend, he questioned Austin’s sanity and wondered if there was more to the story (a baby..lol).
We started to brainstorm all the ways that we could get married, and finally decided that maybe we would ask my sister’s bishop to marry us at her house, her and my brother in law being our witnesses. So I called my sister and started to get things lined up. Well, the first snag we ran into was we would have to wait until evening so her husband would be home from work. Okay, we could work with that. Then the bishop wanted to meet with us a couple times before he would marry us, so we would have to work around his schedule too. All the sudden it started to feel like there were too many people in our marriage before it had even began! So we quickly backed out of that idea and decided on plan B. This time we didn’t want to include anyone (I know it sounds mean, but bear with me). Involving other people had already added unnecessary scheduling issues and been met with resistance. So we decided to just do it. We had to wait until Friday due to the judge, but we didn’t wait on anyone else. Our witnesses were two girls that just happened to be working at the courthouse that day.
Our “wedding” day. After we got married we helped my dad move a couch, went to the Costco that had just opened in our town, and then went and had a celebratory dinner with my sister (the only one who knew we had a reason to celebrate). 
Obviously, I had not finished studying photography when I took on these photos…lol. But aren’t we cute?!
I remember everything about our little ceremony. There were no distractions, just us and the vows we were making to each other. I remember every word that was said. The fact that Austin said, “I will” instead of the usual “I do”. I remember the judge almost skipping the part where I gave Austin his ring. I remember looking in to Austin’s eyes and the smiles that we both wore the entire time. I remember the happiness. I remember the excitement. I mostly remember that it was our moment. Just us. No one else. It was the perfect way to start our marriage. Because at the end of the day, thats what it was OUR day, OUR marriage, OUR life together. We put each other first that day and have continued to do so for the last 10 years.
Now just because it was perfect for us doesn’t mean it was without consequences. I know we hurt some people. I know we confused a lot of people and I know that our marriage was faced with a lot of skepticism in the beginning. But those are all stories for a different day.
Until next time, may there be nothing worse than light chop ahead!
Jess
Light Chop Life 