Last weekend, my incredible husband threw me an incredible surprise anniversary party filled with – you guessed it- incredible, incredible people.

I was absolutely blindsided, as our real anniversary was Sept. 3 and we already celebrated all Labor Day weekend with family and friends in Buffalo. So little did I know that there was another celebration in store when I woke up on Saturday morning!

Our friends Chris, Ashley and Torrey were in town so I really thought nothing of getting up on Saturday morning to head down to King Street and walk around. I didn’t event think twice when the boys dropped Ashley and me off to do some shopping while they went to go “find parking” – and not hear from them again until an hour later.

To be honest, I was just so excited to spend some quality time in LOFT while Matt was distracted with his friends. No phone calls or warning “don’t buy anything!” text messages  – just me, Ashley and  a 30-percent-off-our-entire-purchase sale.

On second thought…that should have been my warning that something was up.

When Matt finally did call to tell us he was coming to pick us up, I didn’t understand why we couldn’t stay on King Street and do more shopping. I also didn’t understand why he was driving like a maniac to get back to our apartment, and why he slyly said “happy anniversary” right before I opened our apartment door.

But once I did open that door, I was greeted by a huge group of my beloved friends yelling “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!”

Then I understood. However, I was in such shock that I couldn’t think of anything else to say but “holy sh*t!!!” (Don’t worry Ma, it was caught on video.)

It was such a special day, and what made it even more special was that it was filled with people I would have loved to spend our actual vineyard-filled wedding day with. But since our guest count was already wayyyy over by the time I became good friends with everyone, (thanks Mama Ro), it was a difficult situation to deal with. Matt knew how upset I was about it and therefore wanted to re-create our wedding adventures at a vineyard for our anniversary. He rented a big bus and set up a wine tasting at Goomba Vineyards (how appropriate for this I-talian!) about 45 minutes away from Alexandria.

But to Matt’s surprise, fate stepped in to take the wedding day re-creation a bit further – our bus broke down on the way to the vineyard!

(For those of you who don’t know, about an hour before our ceremony – 20 minutes before the girls and I were supposed to be picked up – the trolley driver called my cell phone and said “Are you the bride? Well…I hate to tell you this BUT your trolley just broke down on the thruway. There’s no way I’m picking you up.” I asked him about 15 times if he was joking, handed the phone to my maid of honor and kept smiling – no broken trolley would ruin my day! Or a crazy organist, or a broken-hand piano player, or the back up limos that had to be jumped in the parking lot during the ceremony…haha but that’s a whole ‘nother post!)

Needless to say, the bus breaking down just made the day that much better. And the hot pink replacement that rolled up after a half hour of hanging out on the highway was more our speed (literally) anyways!

It was an exceptionally hilarious day, and I am so very thankful to my very thoughtful husband for planning such a wonderful anniversary celebration and to all of my dear friends who filled it with so much happiness. Here are some snapshots:

Let’s do this again next year for our second anniversary, k?