Now on to more happier things

So after meeting the girl of my dreams, after 22 years of being an only child and somehow enjoying living alone, I got married. Everyone warned me that I was young and that marriage is not something you can prepare for, everything changes after it happens, etc... And they were right. I am young, and everything did change but, to put it bluntly and I'm not doing this for dramatic effect, I couldn't be happier. As I sit here and type this blog she, the only person in this world who I feel a connection strong enough to that I feel she is an extension of myself and me an extension of her, is sitting less than 3 feet away and regardless of where I am, I feel at home. I feel comfortable, I feel happy and damn I can't get this smile off my face. I'm sure lots of people get married for the wrong reasons, tons have unhappy marriages and everyone has problems, but at this very moment I can tell you with all assurances that I made the right decision - I am happy and there's no other way to explain it other than that. There are always ups and downs but the average is what I look at, and here, to me, the average is perfect - I'm not the best at math but I'm not the worst, and a perfect average isn't half bad :)

The wedding day was wonderful. We were fighting off a hurricane in NC and it was raining all over, I managed to have a spirited drive over to the wedding itself and got a slight scare with too much water between one of my wheels and the pavement - I'll chalk that one up to driving in a tux being more of a hinderance than an aid. I wasn't nervous, in fact, as soon as I arrived and started greeting guests I felt just at home. The more I thought about it, the more I wasn't nervous about the wedding, but about the honeymoon itself (no I wasn't nervous about that); after all, I hadn't had 2 weeks off since before I started AnandTech, since before I was 14...that's was a long time ago. What was I supposed to do for 2 weeks with no work, no stress, nothing but my beautiful wife? I ended up having the time of my life there too, but more on that later.

Neither Vinney or I are particularly religious, we have our own beliefs and morals and live by them, which tend to be similar to the morals and beliefs taught in all religions to an extent so it works out well in the end. Vinney comes from a Sikh family, and with me having no real idea of what I'd like the ceremony to be we agreed on a Sikh ceremony (which is why some of the pictures you may have seen online had my head covered with a purple bandana). I honestly felt a bit out of place until I could finally see and hold my bride, then I was brought back home again and everything was good.

Funny enough, I couldn't understand a single word of the ceremony. The person leading the ceremony could have been reading an AnandTech review in Punjabi and I wouldn't have had the slightest clue. My eyes were on Vinney the entire time and when it looked like it was my turn to do something, I did whatever I remembered I was supposed to do from watching a video of others go through the same thing. After a very short period of time it was over and then the pictures and shaking of hands started. It's nothing too unusual, similar to what happens at a tradeshow (except people were taking pictures of us instead of me taking pictures of products) so I continued to feel right at home. For those of you who aren't married yet, invest in some sort of a digital photo processing stand to be present wherever you get married. That way, have one photographer take whatever pictures people want and then let them go up to the stand and download them to CF card or print them out right then and there. I know I'm dreaming but it would save quite a bit of time, trust me :)

We spent the cocktail hour between the ceremony and reception dinner pretty much alone winding down and letting it soak in. This was also when we had our own little ceremony where we exchanged rings (there is no accommodation for that in the Sikh ceremony, but we made changes here and their to suit our desires), it was nice to have some quiet time before the reception dinner.

The dinner itself was great, the food was wonderful and contrary to what everyone told me would happen, I actually got to eat dinner. What I didn't get to do was eat enough of the wedding cake, which looked and tasted (the little bit that I did have) wonderful. I was honestly quite worried because the restaurant catering the wedding had just fired the chef that we both liked (the rest of the chefs weren't anywhere as good) for using too many ingredients in his cooking (what made his cooking better than the rest of the chefs) and we weren't impressed with the cake at our final tasting of it before the wedding. Luckily both issues were nothing to worry about when the big day arrived and it just made for an even more incredible event.

It was so wonderful to have the entire AnandTech family at the event, even ATers of the past (Mike Andrawes, Matthew Witheiler) made the wedding so very perfect for me. We ended up staying until almost all the guests had gone and left for our honeymoon the next morning.

I've got much more to post but I'm going to head to bed for now. Needless to say, it was overwhelming happiness that I was left with on that day and it is still with me today, which I hope I've conveyed in this post.

I've got work stuff to talk about too as well as lots more in upcoming blogs, I'm hoping to make them more regular again.

Take care and Good Night.