First Wedding Anniversary

March 9, 2014 | 0

Hey everyone. If you’ve been a long time reader of my blog, you’ll have notice that I usually write about LEGO in a very non-personal manner, sticking to reviews, news and promotions. Today I hope to take a detour from my regular editorial pieces and write about something a little closer to my heart than LEGO.

Earlier this week, on the 3rd of March, I celebrated my very first wedding anniversary! I can’t believe it’s been more than 365 days of marriage and it’s been an incredible journey so far, with much to be thankful for and much much more to look forward to.

I’d love to dedicate this post to my wife, and share some of the more exciting (read: LEGO) parts of our wedding and a little bit about what it’s like to be married to a LEGO nut.

Firstly a little story about how I got back into LEGO. As a kid, I was absolutely crazy about LEGO, owned a ton of cool sets and even kicked all sorts of butts at LEGO competitions. The pinnacle of my Competition Career was when I beat a bunch of other kids in a Creative Building Competition, winning about RM1,000 in cash (approx AU$330) and RM500 in Toys ‘R’ Us vouchers in addition to the absolutely sweet Enchanted Island set. Check out how happy I was below.

My teenage years came and went and I got distracted by girls (ugh, huge regret) and kinda abandoned my LEGO sets which were then given away/sold off by my mum. Seriously, if you’re a younger boy reading this, there will come a point in life where you’ll have to choose between chasing girls and LEGO. You ALWAYS pick the latter.

Anyway, this is what’s most commonly known as one’s Dark Ages: where LEGO is set aside for other pursuits in life. Thankfully, the Dark Ages won’t last forever and I have to credit my wife (then my girlfriend) for lifting me out of the depths and making me the Adult Fan of LEGO (AFOL) that I am today!

In my college and university years, I begun flirting with the idea of getting back into LEGO. My interest was initially piqued by images of the Toy Story and Spongebob Squarepants, specifically the Krusty Krab set but nothing ever materialized out of it. I also spent a lot of time gawking at LEGO sets at the Rundle Mall Toys R Us during my university days but again, nothing ever materialized. Check out a post on an old blog.

It all changed sometime in 2011 when I started dabbling with the LEGO Collectible Minifigures but it was nothing serious till we were wandering around Target and I spent a little too much time staring at 3833 Krusty Krab Adventures, serendipitously the updated model of the Spongebob set I fancied way back in 2007. My wife offered to buy me the Spongebob Set and 5770 Lighthouse Island. I hesitated for a bit since I didn’t want to waste money (but in my heart I really wanted to say yes!) and asked if she was sure, and she said yeah, go for it.

Long story short, that was just the catalyst I needed to get back into LEGO and I’m glad to say that it hasn’t stopped since then!

We got married on 3 March 2013 and I have to say that I couldn’t have married a more amazing woman.

For starters, she allowed me to have a little bit of LEGO at our wedding.

She bought me some LEGO cufflinks on Etsy, which is always seems to impress people that I meet. You could make them on your own by gluing the metal bits of cufflinks into a 2×2 brick of your choice.

Instead of regular bride and groom figurines on our wedding cake, we used this specially made Wedding Cake Topper set, which you can buy on LEGO.com. They say it’s a wedding favor set, but really, it should be a cake topper set.

Perhaps my favourite element of our wedding was our bombonieres or wedding favours, which was my little pet project.

Basically, I wanted to have our own little Build-A-Minifigure station where our guests could build LEGO versions of me and my wife on a small platform. It was a relatively inexpensive and fun way to let our guests have a little fun with LEGO.

I highly recommend try it for yourself if you’re planning a wedding or are getting married to a LEGO nut. I’ll write a proper guide on how to make your very own LEGO bombonieres soon.

So it’s been a year of marriage and I couldn’t be happier. The wife has been amazingly supportive AND patient with my hobby; as a married LEGO fan, there’s literally nothing more important.

She’s helped me build huge sets like The Simpsons House and our very own Volkswagen T1 Campervan.

She tolerates my incessant need to walk into any Kmart, Target, Myer and Big W to check out if there are new sales or promotions when we’re out shopping.

If I could give you a tip to keep your partner happy, remember to always be neat and organized. LEGO sets on display, unopened boxes and parts lying around can effortlessly pile up and before you know it, it starts to look like a huge plastic mess. AVOID THAT AT ALL COSTS and learn to be organized!

Well that’s it for now, hope you enjoyed a little peek into my life and the one person that’s more important to me than my hoard of LEGO bricks!