Jenna & Trevor: From tree-hugging wedding to baby-hugging parents

Name & Occupation: Jenna, Photographer
Partner’s Name & Occupation: Trevor, Engineer
Wedding date: April 4, 2009
Your Offbeat Bride profile: Jenna & Trevor’s vegan tree-hugging wedding

Hello friends! The best thing that has happened to us, is that we adopted the most adorable baby boy. Also since Trevor and I have said our wedding vows, Trevor has continued to work away at the University where he is employed. I was working as a kindergarten teacher, then became unemployed, then became a photographer, then became a more-than-full-time-photographer.

I had the good fortune of having my photography noticed by the people over at Disney, and because of that my photography business has really taken off. Now in addition to photographing weddings, I also photograph a lot of Disney weddings, take photos for their website, and photograph Disney Corporate Events. Since then, our life has really changed in amazing ways. We’ve traveled and photographed amazing events that we never imagined we’d be a part of.

Looking back all these years later, what do you remember most about your wedding?
There were so many special things about that day, it’s hard to choose one, but one of the things I remember most, is my Dad singing at my wedding ceremony. It was such a special and unexpected moment, and it meant so much to us.

What big challenges have you faced? What have you learned from them?
This is a hard story to write, but I promise it has a happy ending. The challenge that was unexpectedly hard for us, was dealing with infertility.

The weird thing is that we knew we would probably have to adopt if we wanted to start a family, but when the moment actually came, it was much harder than we’d ever imagined. It felt like everyone around us was getting pregnant, and we had this very real and deep sadness for a while. Things got better when we began the adoption process, but it was very difficult and complicated. We went through a heart breaking failed adoption (think coming home to an empty baby room), but going through that experience together made us stronger.

We eventually went to the Sierra’s for a few weeks to help us heal, and were hiking on our way to Rainbow Falls when the photo of our son came through to our cell phone. He was five days old when we flew to Florida to meet him and his foster mom. Now I’m grateful for those sad days, because it brought us to Theo. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us. We learned though, that we’re a good team. We do good when things are great, and we get through when things get bad.

The other big challenge we’ve had to get through, is dealing with my new work schedule. I’m not home as much as I used to be, and it’s a big adjustment. We’re getting through it though, one day at a time.

How do you keep your romance alive?
We love to go to Viva Madrid, a locally owned Tapas restaurant, but besides the usual date night events, the thing we like to do the most is run off together for a quick walk or bike ride while someone watches Theo. We used to take walks together every morning but that doesn’t happen now that we’re parents, so it’s awesome when we get to walk and connect and talk again. To us, those stolen moments are romantic. We also like to leave notes for each other and send random text messages.

What advice do you have for newlyweds?
Trevor and I lived on our own forever, so we were both very stubborn when we first got married and naturally convinced that everything we did was the right way. We had to come up with a system for getting through fights together…

1. If an argument gets too heated, we call a “time out” and schedule a time to come back and talk about it. We aren’t allowed to bring up the argument until it’s time. By the time we come back, we’ve calmed down and can focus on the issue instead of the argument.
2. When we don’t agree, we pick one thing that is most important to us about the argument, and find a way to compromise to meet both of our needs.

And this is a silly parenting tip, but something that helped us a lot:

When Theo was a baby, we would get into little arguments about what to do because we were tired. It would be little arguments, like “why are you holding him like that?” We began to rotate days that we would make decisions. One day, Trevor got to make all of the decisions, the next day it was my turn. We didn’t have to give decisions a second thought. It helped us get through those months where we had absolutely no sleep. Bigger decisions we would talk through, but it took off a lot of stress to have one person calling the shots for the day.

And other advice? Pull out those wedding photos often and smile together about one of the happiest days of your life.

Want more? Head on over to Jenna’s site, thislittleblog.com