Happiest of Fridays y’all!

Today is one of my favorites of the year! It’s our anniversary friends!

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Today we are sharing our top ten lessons we learned in our ten years of marriage!

P.S. The images you are enjoying today are compliments of Smith House Photography!

Let me preface this post with a disclaimer. I am in no way pretending to be a marriage expert, nor do I even remotely think I am qualified for giving sound marriage advice because everyone’s marriage is different, and well I’m literally not qualified. I don’t have a degree on the topic, however, I can say we (say Hi Kason!) have learned a lot in the past ten years of marriage.

Whoa! Ten years! How did that even happen?! My tips are 1-6 and Kason’s are 7-10! Enjoy!

Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way here’s our top ten lessons from ten years of marriage!

  1. If your spouse is willing to help you with something, don’t get upset if they don’t do it exactly how you would do it. Ok, so this is my lesson. Ever so often Kason will help me fold clothes. I grew up in a home where the towels had to be folded a certain way or I had to refold them. So naturally I still fold them the same way. The first time K helped me with the towels, I’m sure I made a comment while cringing a little, but I learned in time it doesn’t matter. He’s helping! And they still work the same regardless of how they were sitting in the cabinet.
  2. Our marriage needs Jesus. God created marriage, so inviting Him into it is imperative to a long, happy, healthy, and fruitful marriage. We learn from God’s Word just how Jesus lived so we strive to live the same through our interactions with our significant others. When we are seeking Jesus together as a husband and wife our marriage can only thrive.
  3. Pray together. We began praying together early on in our marriage and what a blessing it has been. If you have never done so it can be awkward at first, but trust me it becomes easier the more you do it. Just start out by praying together before you eat or before you go to bed. It can be a simple one sentence prayer, hold hands and feel the Lord’s presence as you go to Him together. It’s also incredibly difficult to pray with someone you are mad at, so it can humble you to apologize to each other so you never go to bed angry. Which me leads me to #4.
  4. Never go to bed angry. You might think is a given, but for some couples they need the time to cool off so they can refrain from being too ugly to each other. For us, this simply does not work. Trust me, I tried. Like once, and it was the worse night sleep of my life.
  5. Strive to serve each other every day. Whether it’s cooking dinner, cleaning up after dinner by clearing the table or loading the dishwasher for the one who usually does it, or an extra long hug, it can be something really simple. Just be aware and look for ways to serve them.
  6. Stand up to greet whoever comes home second. If you are a stay or work at home mama, stop what you’re doing the second you hear his keys unlock the door. Look him in the eyes, smile, and ask how his day was. There have been many days where I barely looked up to say hi, but I try to make it a point to greet him and welcome him home.
  7. Let her decorate the house. I’ll never understand the men on home shows that get so demanding about the color of the walls or style of cabinets. Really?!? You will want her to be happy and comfortable in every room. Odds are she will be spending more time in those rooms than you and do you really think your sense of style is better? It’s not, I promise.
  8. Budget your finances together. Sounds easy right? Those who do this know its not so easy at first. This will take practice and patience. Sit down with your wife and go line by line of expenses and income. You may find some surprises.
  9. Tell her she is beautiful every day. This one is simple but will have such an impact on several areas of your marriage. It will show her that you love the way she looks, have an incredible impact on how she feels about herself, and also remind you how lucky you are that she agreed to marry you.
  10. Hold her hand. Do this as much as possible, in public, at home, in the car, where ever. This basic gesture that may have been so frightening for you in the 6th grade will give your wife such a sense of love and comfort. It’ll show the world that you are happy and proud to be next to her in life.

There ya have it! Our top ten lessons we have learned through the past ten years of marriage! We hope you enjoyed them!

Here are some images from a little shoot we did to celebrate! That super yummy cake is from Maple and Love!

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Fun extra tid-bit: those cute forks above are the forks we used for our vow renewal in La Jolla for our five year anniversary! One has our wedding date, and the other has our five year anniversary date! They say “Lucky Us” because we have always had an underlying theme of “being lucky” in our relationship because K wrote a beautiful little message about how lucky he was before we got married and it has carried over into our marriage. He wore ace of spade cuff links for our wedding and vow renewal, we got married in Las Vegas, and if you look closely there are lucky charms on the cake in the pictures!

xoxo, Tamara and Kason!