“You ready for this, princess?”
“You know it, Daddy. Get me to Barrett.”
He chuckles. “You know, you could at least make it a little easier on your dad. It seems as though you can’t wait to take someone else’s name. I think I made it clear to you when you were younger that you were never allowed to do that.” Tears shine brightly in his eyes, and he reaches over and hugs me tightly. “Tess, baby girl, I wouldn’t let you take anyone else’s name. Barrett is a good man. I’m so proud of you both and can’t wait to officially call him son.”
I swallow hard several times and pull back away from him, tears gently trickling down my cheeks. “I love you so much, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, princess. Now let’s make you a Ryan.”
I hear the traditional wedding march begin on the piano, going against the traditional organ, and my heart beats wildly.
Daddy whispers, “No more tears. We got this,” and I look over at him as he nods his head, his eyes still shining with tears. I squeeze his arm tightly, and he places his large hand over my own as he takes a deep breath.
The church doors swing open to reveal my future. The ends of the pews and altar are decorated with tulle and bright blue flowers. Our friends are standing around the decorations, the girls in their giant blue bridesmaid dresses, the groomsmen in their black tuxes. But that’s not what I am seeing. My eyes focus in on Barrett, and I see nothing else. His smile is wide, and I see him shift a few times on his feet. He keeps clasping his hands together only to shake them out at his sides. I speed up my walking as much as I can, but Daddy holds me at a steady pace.
“Easy, princess. I’m gettin’ ya there,” he whispers to me out of the corner of his mouth.
I smile at him but don’t turn my head. I don’t take my eyes off Barrett for a single moment. When I step close enough for the preacher to ask who gives this bride to this man, I shift my gaze to my dad for one moment as he and my mom release me to take another man’s name.
The wedding goes by in a blur of emotions, Barrett choking up in his vows, me crying through mine. His brother sings “I Cross My Heart” for us, with only his guitar to guide him as we light the white unity candle; my heart feels like it may literally burst. I have to hold back a sob from the happiness trying to break through.
When the preacher announces us as man and wife, Barrett doesn’t wait for him to finish saying he can kiss the bride before I am bent over backward in front of two hundred of our closest friends and family, their catcalls and whistles only adding to our happiness. And when he lifts me back up but keeps his lips pressed to mine for a few short moments, he leans in and whispers in my ear, “You have made me the happiest man alive for sharing my name, for starting our life together. I love you now. I love you tomorrow. I love you forever.”
Tears stream down my face as he steps back, takes my hand in his, and lifts them up in the air as his happiness shines for all to see. Then we take our first step down the stairs as man and wife. He holds my hand tightly in his own, and we race down the aisle, through the double doors of the sanctuary, and into the first door that we find. It’s a baby nursery that has been transformed into one of the rooms we used for changing clothes. The bridesmaids’ clothes, makeup, shoes, and handbags are scattered everywhere, but that’s not what I care about at the moment. And I’m pretty sure Barrett feels the same.
He takes my face in his hands and kisses me so thoroughly that my lips are tingling before we are finished. With a rough voice, he makes me swoon when he tells me, “You look so beautiful. No. Beautiful isn’t even a word to describe you. Radiant, glowing. I just… you’re mine. Finally.”
I smile, eyes watering. “Barrett, I’ve been yours forever.”
He shakes his head but his eyes never leave my face. “No, now you’re officially mine.”
Before I could respond, there was a knock on the door. The rest of the wedding party and our parents were waiting outside the door for us. We still had to finish taking pictures, and all the other details that go along with the wedding day. And I knew there would be time for more sappy emotions later. Right now, it was time to show off my husband.
Our reception… where we ate roast beef and marinated chicken breasts, garlic mashed potatoes and green beans, drank champagne, listened to Lauren and Josh, as well as our fathers, toast our new marriage, and danced until we were ready to be sent off. After our friends and family threw rice at us as we ran hand in hand out of the reception hall, we climbed into my grandfather’s classic Corvette. Barrett’s buddies went easy on decorating, only hanging strung-up cans off the rear bumper. Our first dance as husband and wife was to Love of a Lifetime by Firehouse. It wasn’t a fancy choreographed dance, we simply held one another as tightly as possible. Grateful to be in each other’s arms — for a lifetime.
Tears are streaming down my face from the memory of our wedding, but I can’t wait to continue looking through more. Barrett stands up and goes into the kitchen and returns with two bottles of water, a bag of popped microwave popcorn, a small plate of the chocolate chip cookies I had made earlier that day, and a plastic bag filled with peppermint taffies, my favorite.
Our first years of marriage… That first rental house we lived in… such a dump but we didn’t care. We had hand-me-down furniture, lived on frozen pizza, spaghetti and fried bologna and baked potatoes, but we were happy.
Our first Christmas tree… another hand-me-down from my grandparents. The decorations were minimal — and also mostly all hand-me-downs also — but we loved it. I made him listen to cheesy Christmas songs and watch White Christmas (which he hated, for the record, but did it once to appease me because it was our first Christmas together). The first night the tree was up, we made love under the twinkle lights and fell asleep there.
The day we became a family of three… Welcoming our first dog home, Oscar, a black lab mix…
The day we officially became a family of three... Bringing Cole home and into our world. We still lived at the rental house. The house might not have been perfect, but we made it a home. The bright green carpet in Cole’s room was worn and old, so we covered it with a large rug.
Two years later, when my stomach was swollen to the max with Grady, we broke ground on our now forever home.
We looked through photo album after photo album and remembered.
The births of our children…
The loss of the unborn baby who would have come a few years before Harper…
Loved ones who we have since said goodbye to… his father losing his battle, a man we loved so dearly and miss daily.
Vacations and holidays, birthdays and celebrations…
Bad haircuts and junky cars, times when we had fewer wrinkles, times of hardship and times of sorrow…
Happy times and moments of immaturity, bad decisions and right decisions…
We laughed and we shed tears — well, the tears were mostly on my part.
We remembered.
And when we close the final photo album, Barrett stands up and reaches down for me to help me stand. He wraps me in his strong arms and holds me tight. He blows out a deep breath before saying, “Tess, there is no other person on this earth who I would rather do life with than you. It hasn’t always been easy, and sometimes the mess got in the way but it’s been perfect. I wouldn’t change a single moment.”