Wooden Weddings

Today is our wedding anniversary. Five years ago today (five years! already?) we stood up in front of friends and family and promised to love and honour each other for as long as we both shall live. Then we popped round the corner to the village hall and had a really cracking party, with lots of food (cottage pie and blackberry & apple crumble), plenty of drink and some really fabulously terrible dancing.

It was a classic English wedding. The weather was dreadful but it didn't matter. The traffic had grid locked and half the guests didn't make it to the church on time. There were scenes of people, in full wedding gear, sprinting down the road from the nearest tube station, a good 2 miles away. Others had to get changed in the graveyard, ducking behind the largest tombstone they could find. One American visitor at her first English wedding having surveyed the mayhem was heard to comment, 'this is brilliant, totally out of Four Weddings and a Funeral' and then proceeded to wander around looking for Hugh Grant for the rest of the evening. My brothers sang our first song (Van Morrison's Crazy Love for those interested) and they totally rocked. I was newly pregnant, but no one knew. No one that is except for the people Dave had gone out with 2 nights earlier and had told by mistake after a beer too many. We danced and danced, and laughed and ate and drank and my hair completely collapsed from its original elegance, but I couldn't have given a hoot. I was getting married to the love of my life (cliche, but true) and I could not have been happier.

Five years on here we are. 2 children, one dog and in Bosnia. We're so lucky. I'm as in love with Dave today as I was when we got married. He is my partner in life and adventures, and we have so much that we still want to do together. I still fancy him as much as I ever did and he still makes me laugh. Obviously, as with all married couples, we have our ups and downs. He is lucky that I find cold hands in bed funny and he could try to learn that there is no magic fairy that puts dirty clothes into the laundry basket. I could try to remember that he isn't my own personal on call IT helpdesk. That sort of thing. But in the big things, the things that actually matter we support each other. We have worked out how to sit down and talk to each other about problems that have arisen, the little scraps and scrapes ironing themselves out that way. Most importantly, we've got two lovely happy little boys and we feel that we are really enjoying our lives, doing what we want to do, trying out what we want to try and just giving things a go and seeing where they lead us. If the two boys learn one thing from us, I hope that it is that.

Bosnia is a special place for us. Just a few months after we started going out, I needed to come to Bosnia to do some research for a Masters Thesis. Almost flippantly (but secretly hopefully) I asked Dave if he wanted to come too. He handed in the notice on his apartment the very next day. The rest, as they say, is history. Six months later we got engaged in Sarajevo at an old Turkish fort which sits above the city, overlooking the valley in which Sarajevo is situated.

Still, I can't believe it has been five years since we got married. I looked it up and it is our Wood Anniversary today. Wish I could say that I've been whittling something special over the last few months, but blatantly I haven't. Wonder if a cardboard castle would count? We've arranged to go out tonight and we may not be able to resist the urge to celebrate in the traditional Bosnian fashion; putting white ribbons on the car, hanging flags out of the windows and driving round town beeping our horn. Where's that English flag gone?