Never Not Newlyweds
How to make your first wedding anniversary last a lifetime
By Shannan Rose Murray - June 10, 2024
D
earest Gentle Reader,
This writer is feeling extremely sentimental as of late because…my husband and I just celebrated our first wedding anniversary!
On June 10 of 2023, we entered into the sweetest and most important commitment of our lives - marriage. I won’t get into all the details in this blog post (that’s for a whole other series of posts I plan on writing!), but I will say that our wedding day was the most perfect day of my life.
God surrounded us so sweetly from the moment I woke up, throughout each sacred moment of the entire day, and followed us, as if he were in the backseat of Matthew’s Hyundai when we left through a tunnel of sparklers and drips of the first comings of a spring rain.
We did have the good luck rain on our wedding day! Lucky for us, it waited until our planned outdoor ceremony and outdoor reception was finished. (Thank you Jesus!)
I felt God’s presence on my wedding day more than I ever have in my life and that was no coincidence. I’m not just saying that because it sounds good or to over dramatize my experience. Our wedding day wasn’t about the glitz and the glamor, it was about the glory of God, honoring Him and each other as we began building the most sacred relationship as husband and wife.
All of a sudden, it’s the first anniversary of our wedding day. This past year flew by! As we neared June 10, I was so excited to celebrate our first year of marriage, but there was also this sadness because our first year of marriage was over. I remember saying to Matthew as we were planning how we wanted to honor this milestone together,
“I am so happy to be nearing our first anniversary, but it’s so sad, we’re no longer newlyweds!”
His response floored me.
Without hesitation my husband answered, “That’s not true my wife. We’re never not newlyweds.”
It hit me, he’s right! Yes, the honeymoon phase might be over, but being “newlyweds” doesn’t need to have a timeline. Treating each other with that glowing newness and love doesn’t have to end after the one year mark. Loving each other like your brand new is a choice you get to make every day in your marriage.
One way that we chose to make our first anniversary last was actually by going back in time. Might seem a bit counterintuitive, but hang in there with me for a second.
One year ago, Matthew and I uttered the sweetest words of adoration and made lifetime promises to each other infront of all of our friends, family, and loved ones. It was a big moment and included a lot of big words especially on my end (sorry, that’s just what you get from a Professional Writing major). After we closed our vow books on June 10, 2023, we knew we didn’t want those words to stay trapped between the bindings.
On our first wedding anniversary, Matthew and I reread our wedding vows to each other. We stumbled over the words we had written over a year ago and giggled at how shaky our handwriting was. It felt clumsy and dramatic in the moment to read these proclamations of love to each other a year later in front of no audience and with no major milestone to follow. Then we remembered who the most important audience is - God and each other.
In rereading our vows to each other, we created space for a really vulnerable and sweet time of reflection for our marriage. The words we said on our wedding day became alive again and reminded us that in choosing each other every day, we’ll never not be newlyweds.
So, what was my first year of marriage like? What went well? What went poorly? How did God teach us and grow us in this past year? What have we learned about each other/ourselves?
Well dear reader, I guess you’ll have to continue reading The Mrs. Murray Monologue to find out…
Yours truly,
