Why I’d marry you
all over again.

Two years ago, I married you. Nine years into our life together, I can look back at everything that brought us here and still feel excited about what comes next. Making this magazine gave me time to sit with that feeling, photograph by photograph and memory by memory.

I started out choosing things for the pages. Before long, I was remembering the things that never made it into the pictures: what a song brought back, why a particular joke still made me laugh, and how much I liked having you beside me through it all. Looking at our life that closely made me grateful for more than the occasions we had thought to document.

I would choose the evenings at home again. The games we work through together, the shows we come back to, the little conversations that happen because we are sharing the same space. I would choose having something happen during the day and knowing who I want to tell. Those ordinary moments are a large part of what I love about being married to you.

I would choose getting to know you again, too. Learning the things you love. Finding something and thinking, “You would love this.” Having an idea for a surprise and getting impatient because I want to see your reaction. After nine years, I still want to make you smile. I still care about finding a way to give you something that feels unmistakably yours.

That was the thought behind this issue. I wanted you to open it and recognize our world. The music, the pictures, the shared favorites, and the details that belong to us. I wanted you to feel how much I enjoy paying attention to the life we have, and how much of that joy comes from sharing it with you.

I wanted you to open it and recognize our world.

Our wedding gave us a day to celebrate becoming husband and wife. The days afterward have given those words more meaning. I love being able to call you my wife. I love that there are memories now that neither of us had on the day we made those promises, and that we will keep adding to them.

If I could stand there again, I would still want “Big Love” to be our first dance. I would still want you beside me when the celebration ended and we went back to living our everyday life. That is the part I get to keep choosing: making a home together, making time for each other, and finding another reason to laugh in the middle of an ordinary week.

And I would choose the future we have not seen yet. I do not know what will fill next year’s issue. I like that. Somewhere ahead of us are photographs we have not taken, places we have not been, and moments that will become favorites without us knowing it at the time. I want to be there with you when they happen.

Sam, I would marry you all over again because I love the life I get to share with you. Because I enjoy your company, care about your happiness, and still look forward to the things we will do together. Thank you for nine years of memories, and for these two years as your husband. I am so glad we have more pages ahead of us.