Before Alison and I got married, if you said the names Madelyn or Princeton to me, the first things that would have come to my mind would probably have been a French children’s literary character and an Avenue Q puppet. Now, though, when I hear those names, my heart basically melts. They are my family.

Tomorrow, May 25, 2012, Alison and I will celebrate our four-year anniversary. Four years. Married. It’s not a significant milestone year like our first anniversary, or even our fifth anniversary. It has its own sort of significance this year though — it’s one year longer than we were together before we got married, and that one year has been quite a difference.

Before Alison, I was never a husband. She made me a husband just by being my wife. But she has also made me into the husband (and the man) I am today by being a really great wife.

The day we got married was such a special day. It sounds so cliche when I read it back, but it was seriously such a special day. It laid the foundation for so many things we share today. For one thing, Princeton was “conceived” on our wedding day. I think the success of our big day directly led to Alison starting her business, The Wedding Yentas, if only so she could try to extend the great experience she had planning the events. We shared our passion for music and theatre with a choreographed first dance and my surprise heartfelt (but not so solid) piano/vocal performance of She’s Got A Way. And perhaps most significantly, Clayton Kershaw debuted for the Dodgers on that day, pitched six innings, gave up two earned runs, struck out seven, and the Dodgers won the game 4-3…only we didn’t get to see it because we were walking down the aisle.

The day after we were married, we embarked on our honeymoon to Hawaii, where we documented the [PG-rated portions of the] trip on my trusty [non-HD] video camera. It was our favorite vacation ever, so we had to make sure to preserve the memory as best we could. Of course, it’s been well-preserved alright…on my MacBook hard drive, where it has lived for quite a while as I’ve worked on editing the “Alison and Bryan: A Honeymoon Adventure” video on and off for the last four years, promising myself right before every anniversary that this will be the year I finish it…

…well, this will be the year I finish it. Not before our anniversary, unfortunately, but soon after undoubtedly. I guess I got inspired this year, as I’ve made more progress on it in the last two weeks than in the last two years. And maybe part of the reason for my surge in effort is that I feel like I have to check it off my list so I can move on to newer video projects with a different star at the center of them. I think you know who I’m talking about.

Before Madelyn, I was never a father. She made me a father just by being my daughter. Madelyn has helped to make this last year the most thrilling ride of our marriage since we took off on that plane to Maui four years ago. I can’t even imagine my life without her, or even without Princeton for that matter, and yet on that most special day four years ago, we were without them.

As I watched the many hours of honeymoon footage we took and edited it together, I often found myself wondering “Who are those people?” because we seem so different then. Younger. Skinnier. More naive. Less tired.

So here’s a tribute to us on our anniversary — the opening sequence of our soon-to-be-finished honeymoon video…a sequence I’ve had done for just about four years. It’s us, just Alison and Bryan, on our special day of the past without our special pieces of the present.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJZLxXcxa40