I could make this a really long post but in the spirit of wanting to keep it short – I’d love to pull focus on just a couple major things that I’ve learned in our first year of marriage. Side note, we looked back at our wedding footage and I made this 30 second recap of our wedding day – so fun!

1) PUT YOURSELF FIRST

How can you bring someone else happiness, until you’ve found your happy place? Right? Happiness isn’t an end goal, but its like exercising and needs to be practiced continuously. We have ups and downs, but only you can control how you feel – don’t wait for your spouse to do it. Throughout marriage you’ll learn what triggers happiness and love for both of you too, and when your spouse is right on their intuition if there’s anything they can do – that’s a huge bonus – but should never be what you rely on. Rely on you 1st.

2) THE LOVE LANGUAGES THEORY – IT’S REAL

Coming off the 1st point, I learned how effective it is to figure out your spouse’s love language. Now, to be honest, I think we’re still figuring it out – and to be fair, it can change over time. Maybe a mini side-lesson is that you should never think you’ve got your partner all figured out either hah (and why would you want to because that’d be boring).

3) LOVE IS A DECISION, NOT A FEELING

I once read the words of Joyce Meyer, a very wise and Godly woman, who said: feelings are fickle, they come and go and are fleeting… love is often defined as a feeling but it’s rather a decision on how you want to treat someone. To me, it comes full circle with how: words hold power – words are how we declare our vows – vows are a layout of how you promise to treat someone within your union with them – your union is your decision to love… and that’s powerful.

4) NEW EXPERIENCES TO BOTH OF YOU ARE BONDING:

This is in our travels, the people we meet, and the things we do. Especially for scary or adrenaline filled moments, you’ll feel bonded. You’ll feel like 2 teenagers again! The moment that’s jumping out in my head right now what on our Tulum honeymoon – we zip lined at night, cool raindrops of a storm hitting us midair, finishing through a warming ring of fire before landing in cenote water.

5) DO YOUR ADULTING TOGETHER

Aside from love, feelings, and adventure – we must learn to ADULT together. I think this is so important it should really be #1 because money matters is the #1 cause of divorce these days! Adulting can be a downer, but it’s necessary to see your partnership like a business too. Buying a home, talking about money, deciding when to start a family (if you already both knew you wanted to “eventually”). For us, we wanted to buy and invest in a home along with getting married and it was ALL happening around the same time: we bought a condo in January 2018 and got married & honeymooned November 2017. Read my post on the mindset, budgeting and how we kept our intentions in place for a small wedding. Overall, we bought a starter-home so to stop throwing our money out in rent, and kept each other in the know for how much the wedding was costing. Now, we are on the horizon of purchasing a slightly larger place and renting out our current place. We talk money, business, and strategy often – because it’s ever changing and so important to keep eachother in the know… even down to the, “babe we’ve spent too much eating out this week, next week is going to be all mexican and ramen” haha.

Marriage is life’s biggest adventure! I feel lucky to have someone like Chris to spend it with. It’s fun to look back on this 1st year of being married and we still have so much to learn, discover and create on this journey. We invite you to come hang out with us over on instagram and let us see all your life lessons, and adventures too.

Hopefully you found this helpful! Let’s start a discussion in the comments below if you feel like anything was missing or could be added to this list ❤️