Suzanne Carillo

On Tuesday I will have been married for 24 years. As you can see…I started celebrating early.

When I got married we didn’t have cell phones (only wealthy people owned mobiles and they carried them around in a small suitcase they were so large!) , no home computer (you could use computers at university or the library), there was no social media (you had to gossip in person!), fold out paper maps were used for navigation and if you wanted to chat with someone you either had to pick up the phone or go and visit them.

It was scary fabulous!

24 years of marriage means I have spent more years of my life with my spouse than without.

I didn’t actually get married in this dress. We eloped. I bought this dress ten years after we were married to wear at a trade show for my business when I introduced a line of wedding scrapbooking papers and embellishments.  I did the photo shoot for a fun link up party with Catherine. I wish I could have found some photos of us dressed up for the trade show, but no luck.

I had to squeeze my fat feet into these tiny fabulous vintage boots that I bought at an estate sale. I thought they were so amazing with the dress.

What happens when you share you life with someone for so long?

 

You learn a few things.

I’m going to share 10 things I’ve learned in 24 years of marriage, just so you know, it’s not all romantic sunsets, scattered rose petals and great sex. Surprise!

 

1.  Some days your best friend will be a family sized chocolate bar, bag of chips and whatever alcohol you have in the house. Just don’t hang out with them for too long.
2. If you can’t laugh you’re in big trouble. 
3. Just because your husband is nodding his head doesn’t mean he has actually heard a word you’ve said.
4. Boredom and laziness go hand in hand.  If someone told you that marriage is easy, they lied. Like everything in life worth having it takes work.
5. You can choose to be right or you can choose to be happy.  Some days you will make the wrong choice.
6. Never assume you know everything about your partner, no matter how long you’ve been married.
7. We chose our spouses, not their families.
8. Sex is not overrated in marriage.
9. Separate bathrooms and a GPS are luxuries well worth every penny to avoid conflict. 
10. Time apart may make the heart grow fonder but too much time apart and you can grow apart.

 

 

This is us on our wedding day getting married by a justice of the peace in a hotel room.  Fancy!

I was wearing my sister’s graduation dress that I borrowed and Robert was wearing the only suit jacket he owned. We picked up the flowers on a whim on the way to the hotel.

This is us at our wedding reception we had about a month later at my parent’s house.

We didn’t have wedding bands until about a year later.

Here I am wearing the same dress and scarf today.

I tried to do my hair a bit like in the photo but at that time I had a spiral perm and it was much easier for my hair to keep the curl.

It’s scary and a bit depressing seeing two photos that are 24 years apart like that. As Melanie wrote to me, “It’s hard to believe we were ever that young.”

How about you? Care to share any words of wisdom you’ve learned about marriage?

 

If you want to see us dressed up vintage style for a dance party in a heritage airplane museum that’s what we did last year for our anniversary. Or you might enjoy reading about the best date I’ve ever been on in my life. I sure did!

Linking up with Visible Monday (cause you don’t get more visible than a wedding dress!)  I Will Wear What I Like