This past Sunday Phil and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. We had a weekend-long celebration heading up to Northern Minnesota to spend the weekend by the lake and then making it back home in time for a special dinner at our wedding venue. After dinner we walked outside to check out the tent where our ceremony took place and then we watched the sunset from the hilltop looking out over the field where we had watched fireworks from on our wedding day. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night!

The next night we got back into our wedding clothes to eat the top of our wedding cake. My mom had preserved it for us and surprisingly, it still tasted ok. The bakery where we purchased our wedding cake from also gave us a fresh one for our first anniversary which definitely tasted better.

It’s amazing how quickly a year flew by. Immediately after our wedding we jetted to Bora Bora for two weeks, back home to LA for a week, then to Vegas the next week, Minnesota the next week, back to LA for 2 weeks and then to China for two weeks. Before we knew it the holidays had come and gone and our hectic travel schedule resumed. Then one day in late-January, actually on Phil’s birthday, we woke up in a cottage in the woods of Nashville and realized we wanted a change. After all the hectic traveling back and forth after our wedding, suddenly LA didn’t feel like home to us anymore. Our wedding made us realize all the people who are most important to us were back in Minnesota and that’s where we belonged.

I have to admit, every year we entertain the idea of moving back when we spend the month of December back in Minnesota for Phil’s holiday tour. Two Decembers ago, we found a home for sale online, but when we contacted the real estate agent to show it to us, it had already sold. We were kicking ourselves that we didn’t find it sooner. It was seriously our dream house – one that we could see ourselves starting a family in. It was much larger than we needed and sat right down the street from an elementary school. The neighborhood was part of a planned community with a daycare, pool, parks, gym, party rooms and even an ice skating rink. We kept picturing ourselves starting a family there and we always said we’d put an offer on that house if it ever came back on the market or if one with a similar floor plan did.

Guess what? Right around the time we were contemplating a move back to Minnesota from that cottage in Nashville a similar house did become available. Even though we agreed moving back was the right decision for us, we were hesitant to put an offer in. We decided to trust in God’s plan and go for it anyway. We ended up getting into a bidding war and we completely thought we were going to lose the house. I still remember going to bed that night thinking, “ok, let’s give LA one more year.” Imagine our surprise the next day when our realtor called us and told us they accepted OUR offer?!

Fast forward to today and I can’t tell you how excited we are to be celebrating our first anniversary in our new house! It’s definitely a change that we are getting used to. It’s crazy that we’re living just miles from where we both grew up. We’re still learning what it’s like to be homeowners and all of the responsibility that comes with that. I can say that we are happy to be closer to our families and friends and begin living the life we’ve been dreaming of since that day in December.

xo, Maria

Photos by Angela Doherty Photography

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