Hey y’all! So today marks one year of marriage for Grant and I! Crazy how it seems to have flown by, but also how I really can’t remember what life was like without Grant in it. Maybe I just prefer to remember life more clearly since Grant joined in!

I could share tons of wedding photos and go on and on about how our wedding was the best and most perfect day of our lives. While the photos are breathtaking and our wedding was beyond anything I could have ever imagined, I must say that my focus (and our focus together) was on our marriage over the wedding day. To be honest, trying to make everything perfect, to get every single photograph, to say hello to every single person in attendance and to remember every single detail while also enjoying entering a new phase of life is just a lot of pressure on one day. So, I made our wedding day far less stressful on myself by making our upcoming marriage and life together what I wanted to be the “best days of my life” rather than one single day. I was the furthest thing from a “bridezilla” and you can verify that with any of my bridesmaids, family or planning team. There was just no need to set the bar so high for one day whenever I already felt so overjoyed to be obtaining such an incredible new husband to spend many more “best days” together with.

Since I didn’t launch this blog until a few months after our wedding, most of you aren’t used to following me in such depth during my single, dating or engaged life. I was very blessed to be able to build my own business and encounter some worldly success at a fairly young age. Looking back now, I am so thankful that God led me to moving my business online only and gave me the courage to say that I was taking a step back from my career life being the top priority to focus on my new upcoming married life. True love is truly a gift from God and something that is so much more powerful and real than any type of worldly success I could ever achieve. I am also thankful to have a husband who was supportive and excited for the change my life was about to undergo.

Marriage is hard. It takes a lot of work and even more communication. It exposes your flaws and weaknesses to the person that you love most. It makes you frustrated and overwhelmed all at the same time. However, marriage is the best thing that I have ever encountered in my life. Marriage is where I feel safest, truest, so very unconditionally loved, supported, comforted, and challenged in a good way. Marriage is where I can feel vulnerable, yet so much loyalty, and where I get to witness somebody willing to invest so much time, energy, work, and fight through our differences to make our union stronger and our love deeper. While our journey is not perfect or easy, it’s one that I want to walk alongside with Grant every single day for the rest of my life. You’ll read below in my vows, but the part where I wrote “of all of my goals, dreams and aspirations, you are and forever will be my greatest triumph” sums my feelings up perfectly. A long, healthy and happy life together with Grant would be the most successful life I could ever live.

There were so many beautiful, thoughtful and meaningful elements that we incorporated into our wedding day, however our custom vows to each other just may be my favorite of all. Since Grant and I chose to have a first look (you can read more about that here), we decided to surprise each other with custom vows that way we would still have a surprise to share with each other during the ceremony. I must say that I wrote mine late in bed one night (just about the same time that I’m writing this blog) and they took me only a few moments to write. All of the words just came to me, and then Grant and I decided to share each of ours with our preacher. I wanted to make sure that one of ours wouldn’t be super long and then the other’s super short. Preacher Blake only had a few revisions for each of us and told us that we each shared some similarities in our vows. I had to access these vows for a fun Anniversary project I’ve been working on (stay tuned for that!), so I wanted to share them with each of you. I have no problem sharing my vows on my public platform because I love pronouncing my love for Grant to the world. Plus you will hear a portion of them below in our wedding video that I am just now releasing for the first time ever! We had our vows scripted on our ceremony backdrop, so I told Grant to not peak at them since he would be at the alter before me!

Happy 1 year Anniversary to the Love of my Life! Thank you for making me happier than I could have ever imagined was possible. My life with you and our little Bucky is the best life I’ve ever lived! I really did get Every Wish GRANTed, and I will continue to make a conscious choice to think that way about you in the future. I’m also thankful that you allow me to share so much about our life with so many others, whether that be with retainer talk snap chats, funny instagram stories, or blog posts like this one! One year down, forever to go! Next stop is swimming together with Dolphins in Cabo!

If you would like for me to gather up some of my favorite photos from our wedding day to share on my blog, leave me a comment below letting me know! You can see more on my instagram through our official wedding hashtag #EveryWishGRANTed.

Our personalized vows to each other:

Randa, I never would have imagined that when I went to Rockies that Saturday night I would meet my future wife. I fell in love with your beauty, your kindness, your faith and your sense of humor. Together, we are better than we could be separately & I hope we never forget how we feel standing here today. As your husband, I vow to love you without reservation, to be the spiritual leader of our relationship, to support you in your goals, & to encourage & respect you in your success & to comfort you in your failures. I vow to stand by you, regardless of the obstacles we may face together & vow to work at our love & always make you the top priority in my life whether in sickness or in health. My love is yours completely today & always.

Grant, you are my soulmate, the love of my life and the one God created for me. Thank you for making me happier than I could have ever imagined & for always pushing & bettering me. Of all of my goals, dreams and aspirations you are and forever will be my greatest triumph. I vow to make my relationship with Christ & with you the top priorities of my life. I will faithfully be yours in sickness & in health, in both victories & failures as we grow and build our life together. I shall listen & learn from you, communicate open & honestly with you, strengthen through adversity with you, TRY to be on time for you & honor, follow, serve & respect you. I will love you unconditionally all the days of my life.

xo,

Photos by Luke and Cat Photography.

PS. You can read more wedding related blogs by me here.