me and you {march}

Nobody ever tells you that marriage will be easy,

people who have been married for the longest of times,

will tell you that it's all about working things through together,

about making compromises,

about knowing when to admit defeat,

and putting the other person's feelings first a lot of the time.

But I think we all,

somewhat naively,

think that our own love stories

will be plain sailing on still waters,

like the happy ever after from a movie.

Well let me tell you...

we do not have that marriage.

We argue.

We irritate one another.

We pick fights with one another.

We take each other for granted.

We have days when we just wish the other would leave us the hell alone.

But that's just it,

we have a marriage.

And those things are as much a part of marriage,

as the romance and the kisses and the "I love you's".

Ultimately for us

I think it comes down to one important word:

choice.

Ten years ago this month

we chose one another.

We didn't exactly know what we were choosing at the time,

but we still made that choice,

to choose the other person.

And that word choice, is always the first one to pop into my brain

on the days when I'm mad as a crazy thing at that man I chose to marry.

I chose him,

he chose me,

we chose this life together.

And through thick or thin,

I still choose him

and the life that we've made together.

At our wedding a sign (which I painstakingly made) read

"Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairy tale."

It was sort of the tag line of our wedding day.

And of all the many beautiful words that we heard and said and sung on that day,

it's the quote which has stayed with me the most.

Because as corny as it may sound,

that is our fairy tale;

the ordinary life.

We chose it,

and we wouldn't have it any other way.

This project isn't just for married people,

it's for anyone and everyone with a special person in their life.

Because it's always nice to have an excuse to record our relationships

and to show of what works,

and maybe talk about what doesn't.

Since having kids,

documenting the 'us' that started our family

went on the back burner

in favour of photographing our cute offspring.

But this year is our year to change that,

and we're loving taking a little time out each month,

to take a photo just for us.

I'm are doing this project alongside Becky at Ar-Blog, 

Fritha at Tigerlilly Quinn and Kirsty at My Two Mums,

and we're loving seeing all of your couples photos too.

<div align="center"> <a href="http://www.dearbeautifulboy.com/p/me-and-you-family-portrait-project.html" title="dear beautiful" target="_blank"><img src="http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/ll320/looby_boo/meandyoulogo-200_zps1e583b38.jpg" alt="dear beautiful" style="border:none;" /></a></div>