Must be September 8th.

If Belgian waffles with strawberries and whipped cream are on the breakfast menu, it can only mean one thing:

It's our anniversary!

Some of you may know the sad story of our wedding cake. As in, we didn't have one. The cake I had dreamed about for months failed to materialize at our wedding, courtesy of a very unorganized pastry chef who lost our order one week after we finalized all the details and paid for the thing. I waltzed into my reception, only to be pulled aside by my mother who said, very gently, as if she were expecting a full-on freak-out: "Now, don't get upset."

I don't know about you, but whenever someone says to me "Now, don't get upset" my first reaction is to, well, get upset. Call me crazy, but there you go.

Anyway, long story short: we got married in the morning and had a brunch reception at one of my favorite NC venues, the Carolina Inn. Mom, god bless her, along with a quick-thinking bridesmaid, had the chef create a stack of Belgian waffles and decorated the faux-cake with strawberries and whipped cream. This is what we cut and fed each other much to the delight of our guests (and the immense relief of my Mom and Frank, who swears that's when he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he had married the right person when I didn't throw the anticipated full-on freak-out over the missing cake).

We never say something "went wrong" at a wedding. Instead, the "thing" in question went "not as planned." Our "not as planned" resulted in a long-standing tradition: every year on our anniversary we go out for Belgian waffles. This year, Daniel got to come along because his school is closed for the day due to a power outage caused by Tropical Storm Hanna. He commemorated our anniversary tradition with these shots. This one is barely blog-sharp, but it's cute:

Happy Anniversary to us!