Honestly, Sandie

I love that this song isn’t really about a wedding. It’s about what comes after. The ordinary stuff. The years. The road trips, grocery runs, late-night conversations, raising kids, surviving hard seasons, laughing until you can’t breathe, and somehow still choosing each other. Home has always felt like the soundtrack to that kind of love. The kind that isn’t built on grand gestures, but on showing up over and over again. Every time I hear, “Home is wherever I’m with you,” I think, yep… that’s us. So if you’re reading this, go hit play first. It’ll make the whole story feel exactly the way it felt to live it.

I wasn’t gonna write anything today because, seriously, writing those 30 friendship posts over the last 30 days kinda made me feel like this wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.

But then I realized…

It’s my anniversary.

Well… one of them.

Alex and I got married on November 18, 2001.

Today isn’t that anniversary.

Today is the anniversary of the wedding everyone else thought was our wedding.

Yep.

We married the same person twice without ever getting divorced.

How many people get to say that?

We were 19 and 20. He had just turned 19 eighteen days before we got married. I had turned 20 twenty-seven days before. We had a one-month-old baby girl, no money, no honeymoon, and absolutely no clue what we were doing.

So we drove to Las Vegas.

My mom made my wedding dress by hand. No pattern. Just pure talent. She even added little snaps so I could nurse our daughter in the limo between photos and the ceremony.

Our limo driver’s name was Sunny.

I still remember that because it was also my grandma’s boyfriend’s name growing up, and for whatever reason my brain has held onto that tiny little detail for almost twenty-five years.

The chapel was The Hitching Post.

The minister surprised us with the news that we also needed to pay him. I think it was around two hundred dollars.

For two broke kids, that felt like approximately seven million dollars.

We got married anyway.

That should’ve been the end of the story.

Except it wasn’t.

A few months later we planned an actual wedding.

Not because we weren’t already married.

Because we wanted one.

Nobody knew.

Not our friends.

Not our family.

Everyone showed up thinking they were watching us get married for the first time.

We even had the pastor from the church I grew up in officiate the ceremony. He knew we were already married. We still met with him beforehand. We still did premarital counseling. We still paid him.

There wasn’t even a marriage license to sign afterward.

Looking back, it’s funny.

Especially after spending so many years inside church culture where marriage eventually became surrounded by so many rules and checkboxes.

I watched couples with children already living together be told they had to separate before they could get married.

Not because they weren’t committed.

Not because they weren’t raising great kids.

Not because they weren’t already functioning as a family.

Because they hadn’t checked the marriage box yet.

The moms stayed with the kids.

The dads had to go find somewhere else to sleep.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the last few years.

Not because I’m trying to argue theology.

Mostly because I wonder what people were actually trying to accomplish.

The pastor who married us never made our relationship into a power struggle.

We explained our situation.

He said okay.

Then he helped us celebrate.

There’s probably an entire book somewhere inside me about church.

Apparently even on my anniversary I end up talking about church.

Dammit.

Anyway…

Back to July 11.

We picked 7/11 because seven was Alex’s number and eleven was mine.

The ceremony started at 7:11 p.m.

It was a Thursday.

The place was packed.

We rented the Masonic Lodge in Covina, California, which I think is some sort of museum now.

My mom’s coworkers helped serve the food.

My grandma baked our wedding cake and cut it for everyone.

We had kegs of beer.

Neither of us was twenty-one.

I worked at a brewery.

It felt appropriate.

We lit the unity candle.

We tossed the bouquet.

We threw the garter.

Right before the ceremony my husband’s best friend handed him the wedding band and asked,

“Are you sure about this?”

He also wore black Converse with fiery red flames on them years before everyone else thought that was cool.

The rest of the guys wore shiny black dress shoes.

Looking back, I wish we’d let everybody wear Converse.

The photographer came together at the very last minute.

Everything was still shot on film because digital photography was barely becoming a thing.

He made Alex take portraits before fixing his hair.

Then he stood him in front of this giant green bush where his dark hair blended right into the leaves.

Alex wasn’t thrilled.

You can still see it on his face every time I look at those photos.

As a wedding photographer now, those pictures aren’t my favorite.

They missed moments.

They missed reactions.

They missed stories.

But they still caught enough.

Enough for me to remember hearing the DJ—one of my best friend’s younger brothers—playing the wrong song while the wedding party walked down the aisle.

Enough to remember glaring through the mirror from down the hallway.

Enough to remember laughing anyway.

It wasn’t Pinterest.

It wasn’t Instagram.

It wasn’t spending twelve months collecting ideas online.

You bought a bridal magazine at the grocery store.

You asked somebody who had gotten married before you.

Then you figured the rest out.

Somehow it all worked.

And honestly…

I think that’s beautiful.

I think it’s beautiful to get married young.

I think it’s beautiful to get married later.

I think it’s beautiful when people simply decide to build a life together.

Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved photographing weddings.

It isn’t the dresses.

It isn’t the flowers.

It’s watching every corner of two people’s lives show up in one room for one day.

When else does that happen?

Today marks twenty-four years since our fake real wedding.

In November we’ll celebrate twenty-five years since we actually became husband and wife.

And between those two dates we’re finally taking the honeymoon we never got. We literally had his sister sleeping in our apartment and our month old daughter as well and his sister had a 7 am train to catch on down town LA the very next morning!!!!

Honeymoon on the way… Only twenty-five years late.

I’d say that’s pretty on brand for us.

One thing I always think about is how many people filled that room.

Only five people came from Alex’s side of the family.

Five.

He’s one of eight kids.

Everyone else came because that’s just how my life always looked.

I’ve always collected people.

Birthday parties.

Baby showers.

Graduations.

Weddings.

If I love you, you’re probably getting invited.

I don’t think people realize how rare it is to gather sixty people in one place simply to celebrate love.

Maybe that’s why I still love photographing births and weddings.

Not because of the paycheck.

Because moments disappear.

Pictures don’t.

I want people to remember what it felt like to stand in that room.

Tonight my husband wanted to go out.

I wanted to stay home.

We’re leaving for a trip soon, and home felt exactly right tonight.

Twenty-nine years ago, on July 3, 1997, I kissed this ridiculously handsome guy for the first time.

I still get butterflies.

I still love holding his hand.

I still love grocery shopping with him, playing video games with him, sitting on the couch doing absolutely nothing with him, and watching our family grow.

People always act like high school sweethearts making it this far is some unbelievable miracle.

I don’t know.

I think it’s just two people deciding they still choose each other.

Over and over.

My best friend gave the toast at our wedding.

She had us stack our hands together.

Mine first.

Then Alex’s.

She smiled and said,

“Okay, Alex… this is the last time you’ll ever have the upper hand.”

Everyone laughed.

Twenty-four years later, she was right.

He may not have had the upper hand.

But he’s had the steady hand.

The one that’s built treehouses and fences and furniture.

The one that’s held mine through every version of life we’ve lived.

The one that’s guided our family with strength instead of control.

He’s solid.

He’s kind.

He’s generous.

He’s hilarious.

He’s my favorite place to be.

Happy anniversary to my fake real wedding.

I’d do it exactly the same all over again.