Marriage is the best. We had begun to suspect this, but now we're quite certain. Weddings are amazing--but they're the beginning of married life, which has less tuxedos and champagne, but is just as worth celebrating. 

Fairytales are usually ended with a wedding, and then they have a vague happily-ever-after. What about all the rest? What happens after they get married? What about crazily-ever-after, or laughingly-ever-after? Or harder-than-we-thought-but-better-than-we-imaginedly-ever after?

Weddings are best-day-evers, but it's not all "down hill from there." Our wedding was the party-we-had-the-most-fun-at, ever, but the reason it was such a good day was because it was the first day of being married to each other. Which means that sometimes, staying home and eating takeout Chinese and laughing 'til your stomach hurts is also a best-day-ever.

So we had the idea to get together with some of the couples whose weddings we've gotten to photograph, to chat about married life, and then get them into our studio and take some pictures of how much they love each other. We love getting to be a part of a wedding day, and we thought it would be the coolest to get to see them again (plus, we love getting to ask people snoopy questions, and this seemed like a good excuse).

We came up with a bunch of questions, they answered our questions over dinner, and then we brought them back to our very humble studio.

We've had way too much fun working on this together--Peter has been the photographer and snoopy-question-asker, and I (Susannah) am the notetaker, writer, and behind-the-scenes-video-taker. We'll be posting The Marriage Project over the next few weeks, because of Valentine's Day (you know, love and stuff).

It's been so inspiring and beautiful to see all of these real, honest marriages. People who love each other and know that marriage isn't just roses and champagne AND it isn't monotonous bondage. Marriage includes tough times, laughing fits, realizing you're fighting about something stupid and making out instead, learning to forgive (and apologize) more than you might want to, and getting to hang out with your favorite person in the whole world. It's not easy, but it's outrageously worth it.