What My Wedding Taught Me About Celebrating

Today is my one-year wedding anniversary. I'm marking it the way I imagine a lot of people do: sitting on the couch with my husband, a slice of our wedding cake pulled out of the freezer and thawed on the counter, and our wedding album open between us. We keep flipping back to the same pictures and laughing about the same moments. And somewhere between the second bite of cake and the fortieth photo, it hit me: I was so happy to get married.

I know how that sounds. Of course you're happy you got married. Isn't that the whole point? But for me, it wasn't always so obvious. It took some getting there.

We already felt married

Frankie and I met in college. We're proper college sweethearts. We basically grew up together. By the time most couples are figuring out whether they're "serious," we had already bought a house, talked each other through career changes, and built an entire life side by side. I already felt like I'd met my person. In so many ways, it felt like we were already married. Because of that, a wedding never felt like something we needed. It wasn't that we didn't believe in it. It just didn't feel urgent. We had the partnership. Why did we need the party?

Losing my grandmother changed how I saw it

That changed when I lost my grandmother, who was also my best friend. Grief has a way of rearranging your priorities overnight. In the middle of missing her, I found myself imagining her at my wedding, dressed up, sitting with the rest of the family, watching Frankie and me celebrate everything we'd built together. I ached for a moment that would never happen.

It would have been easy to sit in that ache. To spiral into the what-ifs: what if we'd gotten married sooner, what if she'd gotten to see it, what if I'd known to celebrate while I still had the chance. But instead, I tried to turn toward what I still had. My grandfather is still here, still healthy, still very much part of my life. And that mattered more than I expected it to.

Frankie and I talked about it, really talked about it, and we landed somewhere simple: a wedding wasn't about proving anything to each other. It was about getting everyone we loved into one room to celebrate the life we'd already built. It was a chance to say, out loud and together, that this mattered while the people who mattered most were still around to hear it.

And it wasn't just family I wanted there. My closest friends have been with me through every version of this relationship, so I wanted them woven into the day itself, not just seated in the audience watching it happen. I loved pulling them into the planning, leaning on them for the small decisions, and having them stand up with me for the moments that mattered most. Getting the people I love that involved didn't just make the day more fun. It made it feel like a true reflection of the life we'd all built together.

The lesson: celebrate when you can

So here's what a year of marriage, and the wedding that started it, actually taught me. Celebrate when you can.

I think a lot of us hold back from celebrating because it can feel like "too much." Too extra to throw a big party for a birthday. Too much to make a fuss over an anniversary, a promotion, a Tuesday that just feels worth marking. We save the celebrating for the milestones we've decided are big enough to deserve it, and we let the rest slide by quietly.

But losing my grandmother taught me that there's no such thing as celebrating someone too much while they're here to feel it. Making a big deal over the people and the love in your life isn't extra. It's the whole point. It's not indulgent. It's not something you earn only after enough time has passed or enough boxes have been checked. It's a chance you get to take, and it doesn't come around forever.

A year later, eating thawed-out wedding cake and looking at photos of everyone who showed up for us, my grandfather included, I don't think about the wedding as a formality we finally got around to. I think about it as one of the best decisions we ever made, because it turned an ordinary kind of happiness into a room full of people who got to celebrate it with us.

That's the lesson I keep coming back to. Celebrate the love. Celebrate the birthdays. Celebrate the people who are still here to celebrate with you. It's never too much. It's what makes life worth celebrating in the first place.