Hey, friend!

So.... I am a married man. I did take the longest vacation I've ever taken away from work. I did visit a new continent. And they were all as incredible as I'd hoped!

This newsletter is mainly life updates. If you're here for the Laravel, you may find this one less interesting, and that's fine! Back with more code next month.

Wedding: The basics

We spent the day before the wedding driving over to Savannah with my parents and kids. You can learn more about our wedding story and our love for Savannah (and my wife's delightful sense of humor and writing style) on our wedding site: https://www.imaniandmatt.com/

We kept the wedding very small, which at times made me sad that every person I know and love couldn't be a part of it, but mainly just felt right. Our families were there and a few shared friends, and we delighted in seeing these different groups mingle. We got a chance to talk with every person, and most of the wedding came to a casual hang the night before so we got a lot of time with many folks.

Wedding day: The snafu

Imani and I spent the morning of the wedding prepping the venue. We did have folks helping, but we also DIY-ed a lot of the elements of the wedding to save money.

Funny enough, this little snafu didn't happen as we preparing, but after...

When I finally dropped Imani off at her room to get ready, I had another hour before I needed to be ready, so I grabbed one of the hotel's bikes and attempted to zoom over to the restaurant where my family was eating brunch to give them all pre-wedding hugs. But... the bike chain popped off.  So, I fixed it, not thinking twice about the negative impact of grease-covered hands the day of your wedding.

Thankfully, once I got back to the hotel, they had some de-greaser and I was able to get my hands clean enough. But there were definitely some moments there where I thought I had screwed everything up.

Then... it rained! On our wedding day! Damn you, Alanis Morisette! But the venue was able to move our rooftop wedding into a banquet hall and it was still wonderful and gorgeous and everything we'd hoped for.

Reception

And then we partied. For hours.

Honeymoon

As I mentioned last time, we honeymooned in Thailand. We planned our wedding date around my kids' winter vacation (which they spent with their mom this year) so we could go somewhere further than we can usually schedule travel to.

Man... 24 hours of travel takes it out of you, but Thailand was worth it. Bangkok is an incredible and amazing city full of new sights and sounds and tastes and smells and experiences... but Phuket really took our breath away. Here's just one quick shot from several days of nonstop beauty:

Family honeymoon

When I taught the kids about the concept of a honeymoon, including the part where the newly married couple go by themselves away for a while, my daughter's immediate question was, "Where are we going for our honeymoon?"

We laughed at first, but realized that a trip together with the four of us would be a great opportunity to bond as a family, so we took this past weekend to travel up to Ober Mountain in Gatlinburg and enjoy the kids first time snow tubing. I don't share pictures of my kids here per their mom's request, but it was wonderful and beautiful and I could write an entire newsletter just about this trip if I felt like I had space for it. Here's one kid-facing-away picture so you can see that you can actually have a cold, snowy-ish experience in the south!

What's next?

Video course, releasing early summer. At least two conference talks, maybe more. Possibly working on my next book, and definitely on more video and written content online. All sorts of plans for Tighten's next phase. And so. Much. More.

Plus, just being obsessively delighted with being married. I love it.

What Else?