There are so many joyous moments in my life. I have been truly blessed in many ways, but one that stands out is the day I finally got married.

My sisters both got married in their thirties and I am sure my mom had given up all hope I would ever get married. There had been wonderful men I had dated in my twenties and thirties, but I had a lot of homework to do before I was ready to get married and just wasn’t ready for them.

I am so blessed that by the time I was ready my husband was too. We were both late bloomers in the marriage department. Both were in our forties and both had never married before.
Planning our wedding was just wonderful. I almost everything we chose to celebrate our special day. One of my favorite wedding details was a Shutterfly photo album that we used as a guest book. It was filled with important events and people in our courtship.

I have never understood the need to have people you invited to your wedding tell you they came by signing their name in a book. Our photo guest book has messages of encouragement around photos we love.

Here are some of them:

I’d like to hear about your moment of joy! Share your story and upload a photo (optional), and in return Shutterfly will gift you $5 off your next photo book to commemorate life’s joyous moments, and you”ll be entered for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

Do you have a favorite photo that captures it? Upload your photo below with your story for a chance to win a $200 Shutterfly Gift card.

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Shutterfly. The opinions and text are all mine. Offer valid for $5 off one photo book order and valid for one-time redemption per member. Taxes, shipping and handling will apply. BlogFrog hosted gift card contest live from June 17th to July 14th. For $200 gift card, participants must have uploaded a photo to be eligible. A winner will be randomly chosen and announced on July 18th. All participants remain the copyright holder of their photos.

What was  a joyful moment in your life?

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If you walk into a restaurant on Thanksgiving and see two ladies in their seventies sitting together enjoying a thanksgiving feast, what do you think?

• Do you think that their families live too far away?
• Do you wonder if they have outlived their relatives?

If you walk into Cracker Barrel in Greenville, South Carolina on Thanksgiving Day, you will see two ladies in their seventies sitting together enjoying a thanksgiving feast together for two different reasons. One will be there because she didn’t have anyone to spend Thanksgiving with so she asked a friend to spend Thanksgiving with her. My mom will be the other lady. She was invited to spend Thanksgiving with one of my sisters in Georgia just as she has been for the last several years. She is sitting with her friend so her friend won’t be alone on Thanksgiving.

I bet that there are many people who end up spending Thanksgiving alone.

• They may be a college student who is going home for Christmas and can’t make the trip twice in two months.

• They may not want to go down to dinner at the senior center and sit with others who haven’t anywhere else to go. It is just too depressing.

• They may just want a quiet dinner for two.

• They may not be able to afford the trip to see friends and relatives.

Whatever their reason for being alone, I hope that there is someone as special as my mom that will invite them to spend Thanksgiving with them.

Do you know someone that you need to invite to join you around the Thanksgiving table?