How’s that saying go? The road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? That seems fitting since the rapture is occurring tomorrow night. It’s either that or just the end of Oprah. Either way, I know the world is ending in some way this week.

Well, I had big plans for our anniversary week. Since today is our FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY, I thought maybe I’d do a post a day for the four days leading up to today, one for each year of our marriage. Then I had to lower my standards and thought I’d do the definitive Our Marriage story. Then I lowered my standards even more and thought I’d do the definitive Our Wedding story.

Well, guess what? Life got in the way.

On Monday, we had to deal with no hot water, a visit from the gas company to look at our gas-powered water heater, learning that our 33-year-old water heater was not only “illegal” but dead and then shelling out a lot of money we weren’t planning on spending to buy a new hot water heater.

On Tuesday, my father-in-law and his girlfriend came to pick up Toby and we all went out for a late dinner and I didn’t get E. to bed until almost 9:30.

On Wednesday, we ended up going to the food trucks with our friends (the food gets better every week, by the way).

On Thursday, this was it, this was the night I was going to work on the blog. But then, at about 10:30, E. woke up crying. I thought it’d be a couple minutes to put her to sleep. Nope, I was up with her all.damn.night. She was crying, thrashing, kicking (I took a foot to the face at least 4 times) and just generally miserable. Got a ton of sleep, as you can imagine. I was convinced she had another ear infection but when we had her long-scheduled follow-up with the ENT specialist this morning, he said not only did she have no ear infection, she, for now, doesn’t need ear tubes! Bullet dodged … for now. So, who knows what her deal was last night.

So after a week like that, this is the best DadJovi is going to get. And to make things more fun, our flamboyant drag queen wedding photographer (don’t worry, he came to the wedding dressed as a man), never gave us digital copies of our wedding photos AND our scanner is currently not working, so I just had to take the wedding pics outside and shoot them with my digital camera. So, these may not be the best but it’s the best I can do.

But doesn’t that sound just like a marriage? We all try our best. Some days, we hit it out of the park. Other days, we get yanked by the second inning. But (to mix my metaphor some), marriage is a marathon, and I think I chose the best running partner I could have ever imagined. Some days, he carries me to finish. Other days, I carry him. Some days, I want to leave him by the side of the road. Other days, we run perfectly in stride, hitting every step together and in perfect harmony.

You always hear that marriage is the hardest thing in the world, and five years ago, I don’t think we could have imagined just how hard it would be at times. But I also don’t think we could have known how joyous, fun and fulfilling it is too. I know that I married my best friend. And I can’t wait to see what the next five, 10, 15, 20, etc years hold in store for us.

But for today, I’m looking back at one of the most perfect days of my life. We got married in Key West, and we were so lucky that so many of our friends and family (100 of them, actually!) traveled so far and spent four amazing days celebrating with us. We still get told on a weekly basis that it was the best wedding anyone ever attended. And I don’t doubt it. It was a PARTY like no other.

And selfishly, it was amazing to gather all the most important people in our lives, people we don’t get to see as much as we’d like since most of them still live up north, and just spend some good, fun time with them. We snorkeled, we toasted the sunset nightly in Mallory Square, we ate oysters by the pool, we ate breakfast with chickens, and petted six-toed cats at Hemmingway’s House. And by the time the wedding rolled around, all the people from our two lives were one group.

So, if you’ll indulge me, here are some of my favorite pictures from our wedding at the Southernmost House in Key West. Perfection.

Need further proof that this was the most wild and fun wedding ever? I present to you the world-famous Bridal Muscle chug. I epitomize class.