Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
Lao Tzu

Whenever I hear the phrase love & marriage, I want to follow it up with “goes together like a horse and carriage”. But let’s dissect that a little bit. A horse pulls a carriage. Never the carriage the horse. The horse is a living, breathing creature with feelings. The carriage….not so much. So really, rhyming aside, it’s not like a horse and carriage. Love and marriage are one in the same to me. You can deeply love someone you’re not married to, and you can be married to someone you’re deeply in love with. I’m no expert in marriage, but I have some experience with it – I have been married for about 3 and a half years. And one thing is for certain- it’s a partnership, someone is sometimes giving more, someone is sometimes needing more. But always it comes to even out it’s keel at the end of the day (or week, or month). My husband is a pretty awesome guy. He’s the man who I never realized I needed in my life. He’s an amazing father to our daughter, and is everything on my list I made during my single days in my mid-twenties. (I highly encourage all single gals looking for a partner to write said list, it put things in perspective for me at a time in my life when I needed a change in my perceptions)  Finding the right partner to spend the rest of your life with is the most important thing you will do for yourself in your entire life (rivaled only by the choice to have children). True story.

The Lao Tzu quote above tells so much more about love and the strength of emotions that goes along with being with your true partner. When you love someone, you want to protect them, provide for them, and be the person you never thought you could be. When someone loves you back just as fiercely, it’s matched with inspiration and strength. It may not feel so poetic and courageous every day of your life, but when you look back on your time in a marriage, one can hope that this is what they see – that being loved deeply DOES provide a strength, and that loving someone deeply DOES give you courage. I look at my husband and I know that any relationship takes work, and marriage is no exception to that rule. It’s the strength and courage you get from being married that brings it all together.

My love story aside, there is so much love in the couple I photographed recently. Korey and Ryelle are newlyweds who met while on deployment in the military. Their energetic, vibrant love for each other was both positively infectious and inspiring. It was an absolute pleasure to take photos of them after a couple months of marriage while vacationing in Daytona Beach.

Here are some of my favorites:

 

Here’s to many more happy years together!

Cheers,