Jitney Wedding Anniversary CD // via Jitney's Journeys

Music embraces us. It comforts us. It energizes us to move. It may even compel us to cry.

When JD and I first started dating, I made him a smörgåsbord of awesome mixed CDs.

I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you'd feel me somehow

Those are the first words JD heard when he popped in the first CD I had made him as he embarked on a summer-long mission trip to Mobile, Alabama. What was I thinking...? The songs ranged from "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls to "Grillz" by Nelly... the song Iris (lyrics above) because that is the name I so lovingly bestowed upon his Impala after finding out he hadn't given it a name yet. I shouldn't even have to mention why I would put a song like Grillz on the CD!! Come on.

Anyway, we had no doubt that we wanted to share our passion for music with our wedding guests. Don't worry. Our music choices were much more viable than what I would put on his CDs. Mama E (Whit's mom) designed the CD covers. We gave her an idea of what we wanted. She worked her magic and produced these lovely designs for our wedding CD and Year One.

The flow of the song list is meant to exemplify the flow of our relationship, from the beginning of it to the wedding day. In hopes that we may help to expand your musical horizons, here's our song list from our Wedding CD:

the tradition begins

In honor of our friends and family that stood beside us on our wedding day, we decided to send out an annual CD, in tribute to the songs which translate into the years of our marriage.

Year One

We were super excited to send out our first CD!! We found some sweet envelopes at The Container Store, stamped them with a little fleur-de-lis and snuck in a tiny note to remind the recipients just how amazing they are. We loved being able to send these to our new friends we've made in the past year too. In fact, we implemented one of our newlywed couple friends' songs from their first dance at their wedding {She Knows Her Way Around}.

YEAR two

Our theme for designing the CD cover was Air Mail. We designed the cover so that it had postage and passport stamp images from all of our travel destinations throughout our two years of marriage (including Barbados, Bahamas, Hawaii, Israel, Germany, France, Austria and Switzerland). For the envelopes, we used these from The Container Store. Aren't they just marvelous?!

We love when our friends send us texts saying they received the CD and love it!!! Our favorite from this year was from Matt & Julie (the newlyweds) via Instagram: "Jamming to our favorite annual CD from such creative, wonderful friends @jitneysjourneys #bestsaturdaysurprise #cruising" (photo in slideshow).

YEAR Three

This year's mix was planned in such a way to demonstrate our waking up physically and also spiritually throughout this past year. There is purpose in every song that we add to every album. Each song or a few lyrics from each song have a special meaning behind it. Granted "our meaning" behind a lot of the songs are probably way different from the intentional meanings of the lyrics. For instance, some of the lyrics in the song "Lover of the Light" by Mumford & Sons are parallel to our walks with Christ, as He is the Light. You'll see more of this throughout the other CDs as well.

YEAR four

For year four, we worked incredibly hard on preparing the playlist for the Jitney Album. So hard, in fact, that we couldn't decide on which cover design or which songs to shuck from the playlist. Instead, we decided to wait until Christmas. "Let's just do a Christmas edition!! That'll be fun!" So we went to Japan. I took a class on handlettering. I designed a cover that JD is obsessed with... (I tell you this not to brag on myself, but to inform you that he seriously brings it up in conversation pretty frequently - he speaks to my heart when he affirms my creativity. He speaks my language, people. It's just another way that he loves me well. It may end up being on our Christmas card this year so I can't ruin the surprise.) but once again, we couldn't narrow down the playlist, address all of the envelopes, travel back to America, and see all of our family in time before Christmas. It just wasn't going to happen.

So, as my friend Julie says, Year Four just didn't happen. Kidding. Obviously, our fourth year of marriage did happen and it was sheer bliss. But the album didn't happen.

We [hopefully] made up for it the next year though!

YEAR five

Listen to the Year Five playlist on Spotify!

Behind the Cover Design:
We wanted to keep it simple. White, dark gray and red. We wanted it to have a theme of travel, foreign languages and love. JD actually visualized the design, I just made it happen. [#teamwork] We translated the word 'love' for every country we've visited (by we translated, I mean 'Google translated') then created the shape of the English word 'love' using those translations. Flip over the cover and you'll see Jitney's Journeys spelled out in red as the song list goes down (also JD's ingenuity). It's minimalist, but I'd say it's my favorite from the past five years.

Behind the Playlist:
Per the usual, all of the songs are songs we love. They either explicitly sing the word love, talk about great love stories, are related to TV shows that we love, represent our love for travel, worship the Ultimate Love or are simply bands that we love. Normally we would like to write specifics about every song but they're all pretty self-explanatory and awesome. However, we do feel like we need to explain one of the songs.

Disclaimer for Run & Go: This is what we think of and who / what JD imitates when the song starts playing. Many of you will probably never see this super cute side of JD (which I'm okay with, because I love wrapping these moments up, all for myself) but he really knows how to throw his shoulders back, rear back his head and start whistling a happy tune with fists swaying side to side. His favorite song to whistle is the Robin Hood theme song. Please note that neither of us have killed a man or are on the run and go.

Notes about the rest of the playlist: You'll hear the words "Ain't cuttin' my hair till the good Lord comes" when the playlist starts (because JD's hair is that perfect and I never want him to cut his hair short again - unless Jesus tells him to, of course.) and you'll hear a few song cameos from our favorite TV shows that went off air this year (if only we had a song from The Mindy Project on there). You'll hear slow songs, fast songs, songs that will bring you to tears (either from reminiscing or because you're laughing so hard) and songs that will make you want to walk around the house whistling.