Your Invited

I just want to start this post off with an apology. I know, not well written of me is it. I was far too lazy to scan these photos so they are photos of photos. Sorry!

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is called SmallWorld. The author & her hubby are celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary all month & having a neat contest. Go check it out...

********************

This July, the 17th to be exact, my hubby & I will celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary. Sixteen years with this man. Sometimes I just stop & think on that for a bit & wonder at the amazement of living my life with one man for so long. And the fact that we are still best friends. That we still have lots to talk about. And that we still enjoy spending lots of time together. It really does get better over the years.

When hubby & I decided to get married it was quick. I mean really quick. We left college for the summer in May. We were dating. Seriously. But still just dating. We hadn't talked about marriage. And while I hesitate to post something like this here, I'm going to come out all honest to everyone. We were living together. Just dating. Not married. My hubby was a new Christian & I was making my way back to the faith of my youth. But we were living together & that didn't sit right with us. God nudged us though.

We went to church with a childhood friend of my hubby's while we were here. Hubby ran in to an old friend there & she asked if I was his wife. Um, nope, this is my girlfriend. When he told me about that conversation later I told him that we should just get married. We loved each other. We were living together. We needed to make it right. So we did. Two months later.

We did the ultimate budget-friendly wedding. My MIL made my dress for only about $100. Hubby rented his tux. We were going to forgo a church wedding & having something outside at my in-law's house. We decided in the end to go for a church wedding. We did a lovely wedding at a church where my childhood pastor preached. We had our reception at the local YMCA rec room which we were able to use for free since both of my parents worked there at the time. We had friends & family cook food for the reception. My MIL knew a lady who made cakes & did that for us. My mom worked a different job near a local florist & made a deal with them for flowers. It was all in who you knew in our small town & what kind of deal you could get.

On occasion I would go to work "in the big city" with my hubby & spend the day at the mall scoping out stuff for our wedding. I wasn't sure what I was going to do for invitations until I was checking out the local Hallmark store there one day. That's when I found these....

a photo of my actual scrapbook page

The outside has silver lettering that says "With this ring I thee wed..." And inside it's a fill-in-the-blank invitation. So I found some calligraphy pens & hand wrote each & every one. I think I sent out about 100 invitations. Since it's been 16 years, I can't really recall how much I spent, but I know it was only about $20-30 total.

But I really did like these invitations. I liked everything about my wedding. It was small. It was personal. And it was wonderful to be married to the man I love.

And since that time not only has our marriage grown stronger over the years, but so has our relationship with God. For He is the real reason our marriage has grown stronger.