In typical gender reversal fashion, dh remembered today was our anniversary, and I didn't remember at all.

Figures!

We talked about it last week, but I just hadn't looked at the calendar I guess. Lord knows when I would have noticed.

Anyway, 8 years for the hubby and I. Last year everyone teased us about the 7-year itch.

I figured we probably passed that milestone ages ago. We have been together over 13 years. We dated five years before marriage. (Dh wanted to do thing like finish college and buy a home, before we married. Whatever, I waited forever...)

It was actually pretty funny since we waited 5 years from engagement (we were only 18/19 at the time so I think a decent amount of the waiting was warranted), and we moved in together about 9 months before our wedding, when we bought the condo together.

I felt like I had been ready and waited a very long time. I had been completely on my own a long while, while dh lived at home. I think a second income, any point through college would have been nice and helpful. But to dh, living at home was easier, and I respected that.

So we moved in together December 1999 (6-7 months out of college) and dh's family started pressuring us. When IS the wedding?

Being practical, we had no interest in graduating college, buying a home, and marrying all at once. We kind of spaced it out. ONE thing at a time please. & primarily why we chose the home purchase before the wedding.

So I remember moving in December and being pounced on by dh's family. WHEN IS THE WEDDING????

I was probably working 80-hour weeks (literally) and studying for the CPA exam. So I said, "We'll start planning after the exam in May."

As such there was much drama in that 5 months since I was such a wedding staller.

Puh-leez.

We actually had a relatively simple wedding which I started planning in June, as promised. Since we decided to marry on a Sunday it was much cheaper and we didn't have to plan as far ahead. (None of our vendors were booked many Sundays).

So it just worked out really nice. & we married September.

Anyway, I chuckle to myself when I think about all the drama.

It was at a time when it was popular for people to move in with their fiances and hide it from their parents, or often just hide it from extended family.

That was the other drama. We were kind of sick of all the bullcrap. We moved in together; take it or leave it. Everyone else is doing it. Hello. At the time I had a roommate who moved in with her fiance. It was nice having a roommate in name but not in actuality. But I couldn't imagine wasting all that money for appearances. YEOUCH! They probably had a huge house payment with a $500 monthly rent to boot.

YEah, those were the days. I imagine not much has changed...

Anyway, We married at a public golf course (it was GORGEOUS - for both the outdoor wedding and the inside reception) and had many friends in the wedding industry, so most of our vendors were free or deeply discounted. To reserve the place would have been an extra $1k on a Saturday. So we just lucked out. We spent all of our money on the dress, dinner, and the flowers. IT was a $7500 wedding at most. The same wedding would have been $10k easy on a Saturday. Maybe the guests hated the Sunday wedding, but we got compliments many years after on how nice (& more importantly, relaxed) it was. My parents paid for the reception and we paid for most of the rest.

One thing we like to do is watch our wedding video every year on our anniversary.

It was free and it wasn't very good. I am okay with that. It's enough to relive the day. BUT dh is not okay with it. Now that he does professional videos. So I have to hear him gripe. LOL. I think he re-edited it a lot of it at some point too.

I can honestly say that is his only wedding regret. I have none!