Category Archives: Liz’s Life

Settling Into Married Life

Posted in Cohabitation, Married Life, Wedding Planning by

Well…it’s over! Luke and I are back from our honeymoon and getting settled into married life. I was a little sad the day after our wedding, but in general I have not experienced the dreaded post-wedding depression I’ve heard many brides go through.

People have been asking me, “Is it terrible being back, knowing it’s over?” and the answer is honestly “not at all!” In fact, it feels so good to have my LIFE back.

For the past seven months much of my focus has been on our wedding and all the preparations for the day. It is really amazing to be able to come home and not have any place cards, programs or vendors to deal with. Now my time is spent on things I love doing like reading, cooking, being with friends ect.

Not to say that I am HAPPY our wedding is over…trust me, I would re-live that day over and over again if I could. It was such a wonderful 24 hours. It’s just nice to have a calmer life with more free-time.

Moving in together has been a seamless adjustment so far. It’s nice knowing I get to wake up and come home to Luke everyday. In fact, it’s given me more time to spend with my friends and pursue my own interests apart from Luke because we no longer have to plan when and where we’ll see each other.

Luke’s been a dream to live with so far. I’m not surprised though, he’s incredibly thoughtful. There’s been a pretty even distribution of “chores” (in my mind at least), but Luke’s gone above and beyond to show me he cares like:

– Setting the coffee timer so there’s a fresh pot for me when I wake up after he’s left

– Cooking dinner and NOT making me do the dishes

– Putting his clothes for work out the night before so he can get ready in the morning without waking me at 6am

– Letting me watch my trashy reality TV shows instead of Stossel or Breaking Bad. Thank goodness for DVR! :)

People say the first year of marriage is the hardest. So far, if that’s true, then we’re going to have the breeziest life together. I’m sure we’ll run into co-habitation annoyances sooner or later, but right now all is good.

Many thanks to you all for your kind comments and well-wishes during our wedding. I read them all and felt very loved and supported by my wonderful readers.

Have a relaxing weekend!

To My Love

Posted in Dating, Love by

Just the other day I was reading through some old emails and came across one to a friend of mine. I was telling her about my weekend, “I met this guy named Batman….no joke. lol! He took my number, so let’s see where this one takes me…” Little did I know that it would take me on three years of adventure filled with laughter, fun and of course hugs and kisses. The day I wrote this email, I certainly did not know what amazing things were in store for us. 

Since you’ve come into my life, everyone close to me has agreed that I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. I thought I had a complete life before I met you- I had great friends, family, a career and my own interests and hobbies. I had no idea how the addition of someone to share it with would make everything seem 10x fuller, happier and complete.

I prayed to God many times to guide me to a man who was smart, kind and handsome. He’s blessed me with much more than I ever could imagine. Your patience, thoughtfulness, intelligence and confidence amaze me. I thank God every day for bringing us together.

Thank you for loving me for exactly who I am. You celebrate my talents & triumphs and are patient and understanding when I may not be at my best. We laugh together every day and have the best conversations, which is more than I could have asked for.

Today, I hope you know that I love you with all my heart and I can’t wait to be your wife.

Love always and forever,

Liz

A Love Letter

Posted in Dating, Love, Wedding Planning by

This weekend Luke and I attended our Pre-Cana retreat on the south side of Chicago. Pre-Cana is the day long preparation class all couples who get married in the Catholic church are required to attend.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending my Saturday in a room from 9:00 – 4:00, but it ended up being a pretty enlightening day. The purpose of the retreat was to prepare Luke and I not just for our wedding, but also the life-long marriage that comes after it.

It’s easy to get caught up thinking about the wedding portion without spending much time preparing for the marriage. During the day we talked about everything including: how we define the word commitment, how many kids we want to have, how we’ll manage our finances and how our faith will play a role in our lives.

My favorite part of the day was when we were asked to write each other a love letter describing our feelings about our upcoming wedding. It was nice to have a moment to document my thoughts and also to read Luke’s in return.

The letter was to start with the line “the biggest emotion I have about our upcoming marriage is…” I won’t go into detail, but some of the words used in our letters include: excitement, hope and anticipation.

I’m planning to keep those letters locked away safely, so on our anniversaries Luke and I can pull them out and re-live the emotions we’re feeling leading up to our wedding.

I wonder if we’ll have the same feelings years from now or if we’ll laugh at how naive we were! Either way, it will be a sweet memory to relive.