the one about saying yes

Eight years ago today, my then-boyfriend walked me to “our spot” on IU’s campus, dropped down on one knee, and asked me to be his wife.

He even had his roommates video the proposal.

It didn’t dawn on me until later that it was April Fool’s Day.

Thankfully, he wasn’t joking…just a minor coincidence.

At the time, I was a young 21 years old. He was 20. It kind of seems a little ridiculous to think that we could feel such real emotions and feelings and authentic love for each other with such little life experience.

It felt so right. We felt so ready.

Despite how ready we felt, we were still young, and I suppose looking back, I thought I was just saying yes to love and romance and the happily ever after. I thought I was just saying yes to the white dress and the church wedding and the reception with our friends and family. I thought I was just saying yes to turquoise and flowers and a five-tier wedding cake.

I knew that the marriage was more important than the wedding, but the stars in my eyes were focused intently on hydrangeas or roses or chocolate or red velvet or mashed potatoes or scalloped. I spent hours with bridal magazines and scouring wedding websites….looking for the perfect cake topper and veil and center pieces.

And to think this was all before Pinterest.

It’s been eight years since our engagement and almost seven years since our wedding day, and I figured out a long time ago that all of the things I thought I was saying yes to were, in fact, not all of the things.

More like 1% of all of the things.

Really, on that cloudy day in Bloomington, tucked inside the gazebo near the Sample Gates, what I said yes to was cleaning up our daughter’s vomit together at 2 a.m. I said yes to quiet Friday nights at home after busy work weeks. I said yes to Lowe’s trips and Target runs and trips to Wal-Mart for toilet paper. I said yes to Disney movies on repeat and dance classes and the ‘terrible two’s’. I said yes to Goodwill furniture and Thai take-out and lots of Netflix. I said yes to gaining and losing and gaining the same 30 pounds (oh, that’s just me) and evening walks and family bike rides and lots of skinned knees. I said yes to baby shushing and baby swaddling and, just, babies.

It’s not always glamorous. In fact, it is rarely, if ever, glamorous. It’s been a long time since I even looked at my wedding dress. A few pictures of that day hang on our walls, but the rest are tucked away in albums. I don’t know where my cake topper is, and I can’t remember if I had roses in my bouquet.

What I do know is that it has been one crazy, messy, exciting, up and down, fabulous, stressful, hand-in-hand journey, and I am so happy I said yes.

And that he didn’t say, “April Fool’s.”