SIX years!  My husband Trent and I have been married for SIX years!  I don’t know where all the time went!  It feels like we’ve been married forever, yet in some senses six years feels like it’s just beginning!  We’ve had so many adventures together, traveled the world, and shared lots of love and laughter.

A few weeks before our anniversary, I was feeling my annual “spring cleaning” bug coming on.  I began purging our closets, organizing, rearranging, and cleaning things out. One of the things that I came across that was taking up a lot of unnecessary space was my wedding dress!  That beautiful dress I wore on the most amazing day of my life that made me feel like a princess, finally getting to marry my prince.  That dress that I paid $200 dollars for David’s Bridal to clean and preserve in a pretty box for me to keep for all eternity… or not.  As I was in my “get rid of everything” state, the wedding dress that I have only looked at a number of times in the past 6 years fell pretty high on the list of things to go.

Lucky for me my anniversary was coming up!  I began to devise a plan.  My sister and brother-in-law were going to be in town and would be here with us on our anniversary day, so we hadn’t made any major plans to celebrate.  We wanted to spend the day with them!  Combine that with the fact that we are on a very tight budget and voila!  A plan was hatched!

We live in the same area where we got married.  The BBQ joint down the road catered our wedding, the ceremony took place in a church next door, we took photos on the nearby train tracks, etc… so fast forward to our anniversary.  I had already run this plan by my sister to see if they would be on board, and, graciously, she was more than willing to help.

The morning came and I actually had time to curl my hair and do my makeup (which is a rarity these days).  The baby was awake WAYYYYY early, so I got up with him and let my hubby sleep.  Then when Jedidiah went down for a nap, I had some time to get myself ready.

We all went to church together that morning and then after that, we decided to go to Harmon’s BBQ for lunch (cue: stroll down memory lane, item #1).  Then we went out for ice cream afterwards at a new local venue… because, well, who doesn’t want to eat ice cream on a special day?!?

Who wants more BBQ?!?  Me, me!!!

After that we came home and put the babies down for their naps.  While they were napping, my husband and brother-in-law were working outside.  My curls had already fallen, so I desperately tried to save my hair (to be honest, I don’t really know what I’m doing when it comes to these kinds of things).  It was pretty much a flop (both literally and figuratively), so I ended up putting it up after all.  Afterwards, my sister helped me get into my dress.  Despite being a *bit* wrinkly, it still fit!!!  (Thank you Beachbody!!!!!)  Then she ran outside to tell Trent that I had a “surprise” for him (her words, not mine).  Honestly, I felt kind of silly, being in my wedding dress again and I wasn’t at all sure what my husband would think, but we were at the point of no return- it was too late to go back!

Trent opened up the bedroom door and looked at me, at first with confusion, and then with awe in his face and tears in his eyes.  It was so much like our “first look” so many years ago.

Of course, this time, the plan needed some explaining.  So I told him to put on his suit so that we could go out and recreate some of our wedding photos.

While he was getting dressed, my sister took me outside for a few solo pics.

And one of us together before we left.

We hopped in the car and drove down the road to our destinations.  We knew that we’d have to be pretty quick to get the photos done before the babies woke back up!  In hindsight, I should have pulled up the original photos so that we could have tried to do the exact same poses, but we were going solely from memory, so some of them aren’t quite the same.  It was fun anyways!  Here are some of the comparisons- our actual wedding day is on the left, and the recreations are on the right:

As we were shooting, a train was in the far distance.  We had taken some pretty awesome photos with the train on our actual wedding day, so we attempted (in our very amateur photographer way) to recreate those.

We moved from the train tracks to the church…

Anyways, not 15 minutes into our mini photo shoot, my brother-in-law texted to let us know that Jedidiah (our baby) was awake.  So we wrapped it up and headed back home.

We also wanted to take a few photos WITH our little guy.  So when we got home, we dressed him in his little suit as well.  This… THIS is what 6 years looks like for us.  We went from a giddy, romantic, deeply in love couple to a giddy, romantic, deeply in love couple WITH our son!  What a wonderful blessing he is!  *of course, he wouldn’t smile in any of the photos we had of us all together… so… we had to work with what we got*

Anyways, we ended up taking a few more shots at Trent’s parents house, where we went to pass the rest of the evening eating pizza and enjoying the hot tub!  Here are some of my absolute faves!

And thankfully, we were able to get some good family shots!

Last, but not least, we added some fun “flair” to the occasion.  I wore my cowgirl boots and Trent rocked his Darth Vader socks.  🙂

What a fun and memorable way to celebrate our anniversary!!!  Six years and counting…

***A special thanks to my sister for helping out so much with this “plan” and for being our impromptu photographer!  We love you!!!***