I know I still have millions of things to learn about marriage (and about life in general, really), but after three years of marriage and almost seven years together (six living together!!) I think I’m finally getting closer to understanding what it’s really about. The thing is, with my job (our jobs!) as wedding photographers, we routinely see the highest highs for a lot of couples. As society in general we are lead to believe that getting married is your happy ending, when in reality, marriage is a beginning! Our wedding day three years ago wasn’t even really the true beginning…the beginning was first day we met. It was a year later when we shared our first kiss. It was when John’s apartment was broken into Super Bowl Sunday of 2008 and I sent him a text saying he could stay with me for a while since his apartment wasn’t safe (spoiler alert: he never left 😉 ). We have had a lot of beginnings and a lot of happy moments, but there’s really no happy ending. I think of our wedding day as a day when we finally made what had already been something real and something special, OFFICIAL.

The truth is, marriage is work. People don’t tell you that. Or they do, but you really don’t get it until you’re inside of a marriage and you have to learn to work on it. Marriage is work, and is making sacrifices for the person you love. It’s doing things you might not want to do, because it’s important to the other person. It’s working through your struggles together and coming up with ways to make a life together. It’s choosing to love the good parts of the person you married more than you dislike the bad or annoying. Love is something you actively do, not just something that you feel. Love is choices you make every day. It’s also being able to grow together, and not apart. It’s having an identity of who you are outside of your marriage. Because you can’t love someone else until you can love yourself. These are all lessons that I’m finding are truer and truer for me with each year that passes!

I feel so lucky to have married someone who is my best friend. There’s no way to say it that’s less of a cliche. He’s the person I want to do everything with! I can’t wait for him to get home every day so we can hang out. And my favorite part of every day is that last couple of minutes before we both fall asleep and we’re just talking about random things, like what we ate that day or something the cat did. I love that we have inside jokes and that we are way more weird than we would ever share with anyone else when it’s just the two of us. I love the boring, mundane things we do together (like grocery shopping at three different stores once a week) and the fun adventures we have. I love that we are different but alike. I love that he likes fitness and I’m a couch potato at heart. I love that I’m more into hipster music, and he likes Taylor Swift, so we listen to the Aziz Ansari pandora channel in the car. I love that I’m more of an introvert and he’s an extrovert. I’m detail oriented (a nice way of saying light OCD haha) and he’s really laid back. I love that we both put food above almost everything else. I love watching him grow, and learn, and mature as a person. I feel like over the last seven years of knowing him, I’ve had the privilege and joy of watching him grow into a strong, kind, resourceful, man. We were just kids when we first met! I was 19 and he was 21. We are so lucky to have grown up together instead of growing apart, or having to find each other late in life.

I love John because I know he has the best heart (better than mine, that’s for sure!) and he’s going to make a great dad one day. Is our marriage perfect? Hell no. Of course it isn’t. Every marriage has it’s issues. Heck, every relationship does! That’s just the nature of being imperfect human beings. Shit happens. But the thing is, despite the things that we need to work on, there is so much that’s right about our life together, it outweighs any problems we might face. So, on our three year anniversary, I’m counting my blessings and spending the day being grateful for this life I get to live with this awesome dude by my side.

Photo by Jodi Miller Photography