For some reason, my husband and I have never been ones to indulge in anniversary presents. I have friends who celebrate monthiversaries with their boyfriends marked with some form of gift exchange and a slap-up dinner out. To be honest James and I can’t really recall when we became a couple so found it difficult to define a date before we got married.
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One thing I do know is today we’re celebrating five years of marriage. 1825 days of being Mrs C and 60 months of being a wife.
According to the folks at Hallmark, I should be passing a piece of wood to my husband today. Yes five years is traditionally celebrated by exchanging wooden mementoes and looking at the little round-up of anniversary gifts I found on Not On The High Street I’m starting to wish we did partake in a bit of gift giving.
While we don’t indulge in anniversary presents we do like to celebrate. Last year we went to Southwold for a night by the seaside, and I’ve mentioned our previous jaunts in a romantic break post too. This year we’re very lucky to be in New York on a long awaited trip to the Big Apple.
We also have three traditions we seem to have become accustomed to; one involves buying a Christmas decoration from the getaway location to remind us of that particular year and the second is snapping a selfie of us holding a photo from the year before. Very Pinterest. The third is a hand typed note using the typewriter we used for our wedding guest book.
I do put a whole load of effort into a heartfelt card to mark the occasion. I used to think James and I had a competition on who could get their mitts on the best card and then James reminded me it was just me who entered in to this contest. What can I say, I like a pretty piece of correspondence. This year I commissioned a stunner of a card from Cheryl Rawlings (as you can see above) and I was tickled pink by the results. In previous years I’ve ordered through the plethora of sellers on Etsy and particularly adored the Em Dash Co custom calligraphy and Constellation Co’s ‘You Are’ cards. I think James kind of liked them too.
So how do you lovely lot mark anniversaries? If you’re in a relationship do you just exchange a card and have a night in? Or do you go all out on the romantic celebrations? Any traditions you have to mark another year together?
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We don’t generally do presents but try and get away too. Our anniversary is in May. For the the first year we went to Ibiza, second just for a day to Arundel and last year we stayed in a tipi in the Lake District. It was freezing and wet and my husband had an ear infection so was pretty much deaf the whole time! It sounds awful on paper but we actually had a blast. Nothing to do with our anniversary but we try and get away for a long weekend in November or December and also have a tradition of buying a Christmas decoration. It’s Madrid this year and I can’t wait. I hope you’re enjoying New York. It’s one of my favourite places, I’ve been 3 times and would go back in a second xx
Thanks Sophie, we’re having a fab time.
Enjoy Madrid, such a vibrant city and so many great bars and eateries x
We celebrated our first anniversary in July, and as it is also my husbands birthday it is always going to be difficult to decide what to do. In the end we had a night in bath for our anniversary and London his birthday. Cue a hugely expensive month! For that reason we didn’t do presents, I really wanted to do the traditional for each year, first being paper, but all the lovely things I say would have been presents for me in truth! ? enjoy New York! X
I love Bath Emma, it’s a smashing location for an anniversary break x
We tend to do wedding anniversary presents. This year was 2 so cotton and I blagged a pair of glittery LK Bennet shoes as they came in a cotton bag! Andrew is very excited that next year is leather oo-er
Oooh, he’s a keeper Claire!
Firstly, huge congratulations on your anniversary Lauren! What an absolutely gorgeous card. Have a fantastic time in NYC. Like you, my boyfriend and I aren’t totally sure when we got together so we’ve never had an anniversary really. However, for the past few years we’ve celebrated another special date – I got quite ill a few years ago (am fine now!) and he has always taken me out on that day to celebrate being able to smile. We’re now planning our wedding for next year and I am so, so excited that we’ll have a wedding anniversary date to celebrate. I think I would quite like to do the whole traditional paper etc thing. I absolutely love your 3 own traditions and I think I will be stealing your Christmas decoration idea – sorry in advance! Xx
Sian, what a wonderful day to celebrate. So glad to hear you are doing well.
You are very welcome to pinch our anniversary traditions. Big hugs x
We don’t do gifts or anything but there is also a flower for each year, and my hubby gets me that flower for our anniversary and if he can’t get hold of it he will buy the flowers we had at our wedding.
What a lovely idea Claire x
We also had our honeymoon in New York – enjoy!!
Happy Anniversary! New York is amazing, and where Rob and I got engaged. Hope you are having a great time.
We have only had our first wedding anniversary this year so I tried to find a paper themed present – it ended up being tickets and I was slightly annoyed it wasn’t more creative, but it gave us something to look forward to. Rob turned out to be the most thoughtful out of the pair of us as he gave me a coin dated 2015 (being the first year of marriage) and he wants to give me a shiny new coin for each year we are married. He has set himself a hard task as he wants them to be from places special to us or places in the world we would like to go.
Prior to to being married we had an occasional dinner out on the date we met, but would mostly just have a bottle of wine and box of chocolates at home. This date is only 10 days before the wedding anniversary date which is handy to remember.
Next year we will be in Canada on our wedding anniversary and I am sure we will end up with plenty of mementos!
I love the coin idea Claire! This is so original and makes such a sweet keepsake x
Congratulations! Another perfectly timed RMS post! We’re celebrating our first anniversary at the end of November and while we’re only doing small paper related gifts we’re having a meal and night at the hotel where we held our reception, which I can’t wait for. I’m a big fan of new traditions and I’m hoping that they’ll appear over the years, but I do love the idea of posing with a photo from the previous year – very sweet. Enjoy your NYC celebrations! x
Thanks Rebecca, have a wonderful anniversary too x
Happy anniversary! I love the card, I’m a big Cheryl Rawlings fan!
We exchange cards and gifts (which are based on the traditional themes of paper, cotton etc) but my favourite thing we do is our little journal! We travelled around America for 3 weeks for our honeymoon and kept a travel journal to remind us of all the things we did. On our anniversary we sit and read it together and then one of us adds a new entry for our anniversary, detailing any major things that have happened in the last year and what we did to celebrate the day. We’ve only been married a few years so it’s not a very long journal at the moment, but hopefully it’ll be nice to look back on our memories in years to come!
Such an ace concept Laura. It’ll be fab to look back on over the years x
Me and my other half will go for dinner or something on the date of our first date in March each year. We don’t get presents though, as it’s too close to Christmas and our Birthdays! I love your decoration tradition though how lovely.
x
Dinner is always a lovely way to mark an occasion Abie x
LOVE that card Lauren, I will definitely be looking to Cheryl’s work when I next need something special! We are the same and have only started celebrating anniversaries now we’re married, and it seems like the perfect excuse for a trip away. Have an amazing time in New York!xx
Thanks Amanda. I was very impressed with Cheryl’s design process – working up three drafts first. A really nice experience x
Aaah massive congratulations on five years married! I adore that card, you defo win the prize this year. xx
He did good though Karen. A beautiful hand sketched Empire State building card x
Just like you Lauren me and the husband have no idea what date we started going out! It was July 2006 (???!!) We think! Anyway we do celebrate our wedding anniversary, last year was our 1st so we went out for a fancy dinner in Manchester andcwoke up with the worst hangovers in years!! We were also home by midnight -I dread to think how I’ll we would’ve been if we’d stayed out later! This year we went out for lunch with our new baby.
We just do cards and my Husband buys me some flowers and for valentines its cards only..
Ha ha Vicky. We rarely go out just the two of us and get hangover ready – the perils of living in the sticks and extortionate taxi fares. It’s nice to do it once in a while though x
Our first wedding anniversary is coming up on 6th December and as it’s so close to Christmas we’ve decided to do hotel or weekend breaks rather than presents. I love hotel breaks so it’ll be nice to always have the first weekend of December away together before the Christmas madness starts! Enjoy NYC!
Thanks Alanna, we had a fab time. Have a lovely first wedding anniversary.
[…] week has seen me return to normality after spending four nights in New York. Thank you all for your anniversary wishes. James and I had a fab time and so I wanted to share a few of my favourite moments from the […]