On April 22, 2020, we were fortunate enough to celebrate TWENTY years of marriage! I had been planning our 20 year anniversary celebration for a long time with lots of events and sweet surprises. But of course, like pretty much everyone on the planet right now, life shut down all of those plans with one swift blow. I knew I was going to have to let go of everything I had originally had in mind and figured we’d just pick up some take out and maybe a bottle of champagne.

Yay.

I was admittedly disappointed, but I think we’ve all gotten used to that over the last few months. And truly, I am still grateful for the health and well-being of my family and I do not take our marriage for granted. A  romantic vacation or a big bash isn’t required to appreciate our relationship or the family we’ve created together.

But then, about 7 days out from our anniversary, I had the idea to move forward with a different, more intimate, and ultimately more meaningful ceremony in our own house…just the five of us (well, seven, including the dog and the cat). With just a week of planning and creating, I think we managed to pull off quite a magical little DIY 20 year celebration and it turned out to be *just* as special to me and all of us as our initial wedding day!

We had pretty much everything needed for a 20 year wedding celebration/vow renewal, including a happy couple, twinkling lights, rose petals from the yard, and even “professional” photography!

My bouquet, courtesy of Whole Foods.

Baby girl did my makeup 🙂

I had originally thought I would wear my wedding dress, but the Quarantine 15 (or more) had other ideas (ooof). Snagged this gorgeous number on sale from Joyfolie instead. It. Has. Pockets.

The morning of the “party,” I got up extra early to transform our dining room into a reception hall:

We may or may not have spray painted some plasticware to look extra fancy. Also, check out the hand- monogramed “fine linens” by my daughter!

A word on our dining room window: this was left from a project by my nieces a while back. We loved it so much, we decided to keep it up.  Honestly, I may never wash it off! (Check out how it looks at night outside at the bottom of this post).

The train from my original wedding dress was used as a table cloth.

The day before the celebration, the five of us made our own miniature wedding cakes. That was quite the task, let me tell you, as we let everyone decide on their own flavors and decorations for each individual cake. It will be a long time before I bake another cake again, but this was one of my most favorite parts of the whole event…I LOVE how they all turned out! After dinner that night, we each got to have a tiny taste of every little cake :-).

Since I never had professional pics from my own wedding, I thought I’d squeeze in a ring shot. Oh, and check out our super handsome ring bearer:

The kids each played integral roles in the ceremony. Our daughter was my Maid of Honor…

The eldest was our “Officiant.” He did a fantastic job! I dug up the original copy of our wedding vows and he read part of that for us at the ceremony.  Then Virgil and I wrote new vows to one another.

Our middle son was the Best Man AND videographer at the same time. His Best Man toast made me giggle and cry. Sigh…my handsome boys…

Oh yes! During quarantine, our daughter decided to learn how to play piano. She worked SO hard to learn the Wedding March and she absolutely nailed it as I walked down the aisle!

My hubby was in charge of “catering” and he did not disappoint. The take out from Gusto Italian Kitchen was absolutely incredible and we are very much looking forward to going back to dine in there very soon!

A little behind-the-scenes from cake making the night before.

That night, we showed the kids our wedding slideshow…on a VCR! The kids had never seen it before and the most common comments were, “You guys look like babies!” and “I can’t believe how much life you lived together before us!” The kids also made up their own version of The Newlywed Game and we laughed until we cried while playing.

I honestly could not stop smiling the whole evening, I swear you could probably see little hearts beaming out of my eyes. I told my husband in our vows that I am not only in love with him, but I am in love with our family. Quarantine has been trying for sure, but also a precious bonus gift of time together under one roof.  It made me appreciate not only the fact that we were even able to have a wedding all those years ago, but that we *still* have each other. We aren’t perfect people and we don’t have the perfect life or the perfect marriage, but we do have and we do love and we do keep choosing to move forward together and we will keep moving forward together as long as the universe allows.

I first met Erica last year (?) when she attended one of my lifestyle photography workshops in Austin. She is a VERY talented photographer in the Washington, D.C. area and I was very honored when she said that to celebrate their one year wedding anniversary, she and her new husband were planning a big trip to Texas and she wanted to do some portraits…in her wedding dress…in a creek. Um. Yes, please.

While we were hoping for some golden Texas sunshine that afternoon, it ended up being rather overcast. I actually liked the moodiness it added to the images as we sort of ended up telling the story of a Sleeping Beauty resting in a quiet creek, rescued by her Prince Charming…

[Is this one my fav? Can’t decide…]

 

 

A while back, someone mentioned to me that I never shared my sister’s bridal session that we did back in September. How could that possibly be???? I had to check and sure enough, I had not. I also did not realize that the other day was National Sibling Day. She’s been on my my mind a lot, for many reasons. I love my sister very much. We’ve been through a lot together and I feel very blessed that we now get to live right down the road from one another. She has the most wonderful sense of humor and is such a thoughtful, beautiful person. I am grateful to have her.

So here is my beautiful, beautiful sister just before she got married last year. I will never ever forget this day we had together. I loved throwing together her bouquet from a bunch of grocery store flowers while we listened to music and she got made up. I loved that we changed our location plans last minute just because we felt like it. I loved helping her get into her gown in the parking garage at UT ;-). I loved how it took me FOREVER to actually shoot the images because I kept breaking down into tears of happiness for her. I loved hearing all of the “Congratulations!” and “You look so beautiful!” and the other well wishes all of the people on campus sent to her while we were shooting. I loved seeing her look so radiant and confident and happy. I loved our dinner afterwards. I loved how much we laughed and laughed and laughed. It could not have been more perfect (well, I wish our mommy could have been there to share in it with us).

If you follow me on Instagram,  you may have seen that I recently put together an album just for myself from the FABULOUS wedding images by Tanya with Cozy Impressions Photography. Not having professional photos from my wedding and considering the timing of her wedding, these images mean the WORLD to me and I can’t help but to grin from ear to ear each time I flip through this album. Looking through images on a CD somehow just doesn’t have the same power and impact as they do when they have been put together to tell the story in something tangible. Tanya’s images are gorgeous. I can’t wait to take my album to my date with my sis tomorrow so she can enjoy her day all over again, too!

Wedding photography by Tanya with Cozy Impressions Photography (I’m sorry I can’t get my watermark off the gallery…please forgive me).

Hair and make up for the bridals AND for the wedding party by my friend Katie with Modern Muse Makeup