So, I decided to go out on a limb this year for our wedding anniversary this weekend. We did a photoshoot in our wedding clothes.

I’m serious.

Most of us can’t even wear the blouse from this time last time last year. I can’t.  ( But kudos to everyone that kept there new years resolutions of weight loss .)   Miraculously my idea panned out.

This year the “newlwed” cloud landed in a rough season for my husband and I and I clearly had a vision for how to commemorate and treasure a year of loss and joy and triumph.  Reminding each other of the eternal promises we made “for better or worse… in sickness and in health.”

Life is a growing process.

Life takes it time.

Time heals all things.

Not just fortune cookie wisdom.

This photoshoot meant so much more than just reminiscing from “I do” three years ago,  this still is an emotional renewal of the faith and promise of loving deeper; especially when it doesn’t always feel loving.

I was super fortunate to cross paths with amazing knit queen and local photographer Lea Thompson of Velvet Paper Photography who just happened to be working with me on a future IG giveaway (shhh… more about that later) and offered an open photo session that we miraculously fit into.

And thus this idea of SAME CLOTHES. BETTER PEOPLE was born.

Because… its true.
I’m better because he loves me when I’m physically at my worst.
He’s better because I love him at his darkest and lowest moments.
We’re better because we keep running back to God in the midst of pain and sorrow and confusion.
We’re better because God keeps loving us to love each other deeper, especially when the answer is no.

Our wedding day symbolized all that and more. What better way to remember eternal promise than with the love of your life?

This whole experience was surreal. In seeing the photos, seeing the joy and the love that endures past the pain of optimistic failure, low self esteem, multiple miscarriages and a crazy amount of personal soul searching. The greatest of these is love. We stuck to it. And we’re better for it.

—

So I began my FB post:

In our nearly 7 years of life together this year was really a rough patch.

“For better or for worse…In sickness and in health…. and the greatest of these is love.” These words have such deeper meaning now than the first time we said it to each other.

This season has given us deeper purpose. It’s taken us through winding narrow paths. Roads less traveled.

It’s easier to scoot it under the rug and not wield the bad times as times of promise. But it was a promise. A promise from our Maker. A promise to a man filled with the characteristics of God. A promise to myself.

Inch by inch in weaving Gods love into the fabric of our lives, we’re certainly not the same ‘Danielle + Kevin” from three years ago. We’re better.

We see it in lives present. We feel it in lives lost.

In our clothes
In our skin
Between souls

We still ‘do’.

“Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good…” – Genesis 1:31

#InTheBeginning #MSfamily #WeddingAnniversary