Pre-Anniversary Celebration

Tonight, Andi and I celebrated our anniversary a little early by visiting the place where we got married just one year ago on Saturday.  Since we'll be out of town on our actual anniversary date, we wanted to carve out some time to visit the gardens where we said our vows and dine at the restaurant we took our family to after our wedding.

I looked forward to tonight all day long - came home a little early from work, spruced myself up and met Andi around 4pm. We drove down to Wayzata to Noerenberg Gardens. It's such a beautiful site - lots of fresh summer flowers and directly overlooking Lake Minnetonka.

I printed a copy of our vows and we recited them to each other as we sat on a bench overlooking the water. Then we took some photos (because people, that's what we do!) of ourselves in the spot where we said "I do."

We were married inside these columns on July 31, 2009.  Our parents, siblings and our pastor by our side as we said "I do."

One of my favorite wedding photos was taken under this boat dock overlooking the water. That photo from our wedding day hangs in our living room and reminds me everyday how happy I am to be married to that man.

We have about a million photos of us walking inside Noerenberg Gardens on our wedding day. It felt special to walk those same brick pathways tonight as I remembered how I felt the day I married my best friend.

I'll never forget how special - or how windy! - our wedding day was. Andi and I said over and over tonight - we'd never change a thing about that day: our wedding day was the most magical day we could have ever dreamed.

After visiting Noerenberg Gardens, we went to dinner at NorthCoast in Wayzata, the restaurant we took our family to dinner following our wedding. We asked to sit at a booth, directly in view of the table we dined with our family that night and one that overlooked the water. Tonight we dined on yellow fin tuna, flank steak and lemon custard dessert. Dinner was just as good as we remembered on our wedding night. We talked about our wedding night and how perfect our dream came to fruition. We talked about the year gone past and how lucky we are to have found one another.

I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Tomorrow we work, then off to Vancouver, British Columbia to celebrate our anniversary in style. Andi's got a whole weekend planned for us - a one-year anniversary to remember.