a life in progress: Paper

In the spirit of this anniversary traditionally being the paper anniversary, here's a peek at the cards we exchanged on Sunday. Bonus points if you get the one on the right!

This past Sunday marked the end of our first year as a married couple. Not being sticklers for celebrating events on their "correct" dates, we went out to Blackbird for a dinner celebration on Friday night (you might remember this restaurant because I wrote about our birthday dinner there last year). It was as amazing as we remembered it. We really enjoy getting all gussied up when we go out, so we did a little extra because we were celebrating something special. Mark got a fresh new haircut, picked up a spiffy new shirt and pants, and shined up his shoes. I let a professional deal with taming my curls and doing my make-up for the night (such a treat!), and relied on a dress that has become one of my favorites.

We spent a lot of time over the weekend thinking back not only on the wedding, but also on our relationship over the past sevenish years. When we first became friends, I saw myself becoming a lawyer, traveling the world, and eventually getting married in my late twenties or early thirties. Mark, on the other hand, envisioned himself as a programmer or game designer in Dallas with no plans on exactly when the appropriate time to marry would be. Yet here we are, a graduate student and a consultant working on human resource management software in Chicago, married pretty much right out of college. It's funny where life takes us, isn't it?

Clearly, we didn't get the memo that the rest of the world got that said something to the effect of don't forget to take pictures of you and your family looking all cute to go to Easter Mass. So instead, enjoy this photo of Mark looking all nice and camera ready while my eyes are closed.

We do look a little different than we did when we went to Blackbird last year. We thought about it and decided that we look more confident (i.e. we don't really care about what people think about us being a good ten years younger than most of the people in the restaurant) and a little older. I'm dressing a little bit edgier, Mark styles his hair differently, and as a result we are also looking a touch more like city folk (gasp!):

In the spirit of remembering, here are some of our favorite funny and serious photos from the wedding. We didn't want to tell the photographers which shots we wanted them to get, and trusted them to capture the kind of moments that you don't know will happen in advance and might not remember without a photograph to help you recall it. They did a wonderful job of doing exactly that.

What is going on here? I was in desperate need of some food and Mark's mom handed me some baby carrots--my snack of choice for the day because they wouldn't mess with my makeup, get my dress dirty if I spilled them, or make me feel too full.

When these two would be posed for family photos as children, they were often posed exactly like this. Naturally, the photographer had to get a shot of them in it.

That would be my veil being uncooperative. Before the ceremony, the veil just would not stay in my hair, no matter how many times my mom would try to fix it.

I was pleasantly surprised that the Catholic Church doesn't have the bride's father give her away--the assumption is that I am giving myself to my husband, just as he is giving himself to me as his wife. My mother and father processed with me into the atrium and shared the sign of peace with Mark before Mark and I walked onto the altar together.

And here we go, the two of us walking onto the altar together as our friends and family looked on and supported us.

The priest asked me who my best friend was. I was caught completely off guard, because Father Josef never mentioned that he would be asking me questions during his homily! In that moment of panic (because everyone knows that when a priest asks you a question, he already has an answer in mind and it will never be the one you give him), I answered that my sister was my best friend. Father Josef, it turned out, expected me to say Mark. We all had a good laugh about it.

This was after we shared Communion, and neither Mark nor I were sure if we could chat a little bit while everyone else was getting Communion. I erred on the side of trying to be on my best Mass behavior as Mark said some sweet words to me.

Part 1: sneaky Mark is up to something while Mom and Angie look away

Part 2: Mark's face says it all--who, me? Steal your daughter and sister while you look away? If I did that, would I look this calm?

The photographer caught my sister and me in surprisingly similar positions talking to our significant others.

Here, Mark and Brad just happen to be walking in lock step.

I love that Mark is being distracted by the fountain as we continue to make our rounds during the reception. If you were wondering why my sweet husband is holding my train in a lot of reception pictures it's because...