Our 13th Anniversary

photo credit shout-out to my favorite photographer: Ellen Jalosky!

Today, Derrick and I celebrate 13 years of marriage.
(That officially makes us “very old”, right?)

13 years is a long time, but it’s also so short.
13 years feels like forever, and yet it’s just the beginning.

Recently, I was updating some of my very old hard drives (moving files from old drives to a new one) and I found our wedding videos (I knew they were there, it wasn’t like they were “lost”, but I hadn’t looked at them in a long time). While those videos aren’t fancy or super high-quality, they do tell the precious story of our wedding day. We have the words our friends and family said, you can see the emotions that were running so high, and you can witness the happiness radiating from Derrick and I.

After we got married, I took those videos (which were taken by some close family and friends) and put them on my computer. I put them together to create four files – a highlight film, a blooper reel, and two “un-cut” films with every single video that was taken strung back-to-back.
I put the highlight film and blooper reel on YouTube – and since it’s so easily accessible, we have watched those films on (at least) an “annual” basis.
However, as I was moving files from those old hard drives around, I realized that those “un-cut” films were completely buried on my hard drives and had never seen the light of day.

I uploaded them to YouTube that day.
Will we ever sit down and watch those “raw” wedding films from beginning to end? Probably not (it would take about 2 hours). But we have watched specific portions of our day and having that footage available to watch and re-live has been amazing. (I even realized that there were a few glitches in the second part of our video after it rendered 13 years ago, and thankfully, I was able to go back and find those missing files and piece them in! WHEW, talk about a mini-heart attack!)

Watching those videos brings back so many memories of things we’d otherwise forgotten.
Watching those videos makes us all laugh at “how young we were”.
Watching those videos brings tears to our eyes in seeing people that are no longer with us (but they were there to celebrate 13 years ago!)

Words cannot express how thankful I am to have the photos and videos from our wedding day. The day flew by so fast, in such a flurry of emotion and joy, and here we are, 13 years later still enjoying the wonderful day.

If anything, they serve as a beautiful reminder:
The last 13 years haven’t been easy.
There have been good times and bad times – times of happiness and times of frustration.
We’ve fought and yelled at each other, we’ve disagreed and gone to bed angry.
We’ve had days of euphoria and absolute bliss, times of relaxation and incredible fun.
Ups and downs, highs and lows.
Watching our wedding video brings us back to our foundation – why we got into this “married relationship” in the first place.
And reminds us that we’re in it for the long-haul.

Happy anniversary, Derrick Abbey.
Thanks for putting up with me for the last 13 years – and you’re welcome for me putting up with you.
Cheers to the next year – and the next 13 years.
May they only serve to bring us closer to each other.
I love you more today than I did yesterday and will love you more tomorrow than I did today.

PS: If you’d like to re-live some of my past wedding anniversary posts, you can see them here:
Year 12
Year 11
Year 10
Year 6
Year 5
Year 4
Year 3