Friday, June 22, 2012

Wedded Bliss: Planning an Exceptional One Year Anniversary

Our one year wedding anniversary is quickly approaching. I am one of those calendar crazed sentimental people who just love little countdowns and remembering special days each and every year (what about monthly you ask?? even better). Birthdays, anniversaries, any series of "firsts"... I cannot get enough of it.

Lately I've been doing a lot of remembering of how I spent the beginning of last summer: finishing wedding plans, meeting with the caterer, tracking down dinner requests, assuring our parents that less really is more. It was great fun and I loved having the intimate wedding of my dreams while marrying the man of my dreams all at the same time.


Our "First Look" while hiking our favorite trail in the local glen prior to our wedding ceremony.
Photo taken by: Life in Balance Photography


So of course I want our first wedding anniversary to be something else that we can cherish. I want to have something that can become a tradition. I want something that is a remembrance of what our day was like one year ago. It is not that I want each anniversary to be the same, but I'd love to have one simple custom that we just always do. Oh, and I want to document it.

As I've begun thinking about our plans I have found that it is interesting (to me) to consider how married couples spend anniversaries. Talking about the past year, planning the upcoming year, reviewing a wedding video or some favorite photos, considering what they have learned about their "better half" and of course on the first anniversary eating the saved wedding cake (which lucky for us our caterer is in walking distance of our home - my husband has a sweet tooth that just won't quit, so a half-frozen, 365 day old cake may not due when he is expecting some supreme anniversary treat). I think that all of these ideas could easily fit into our special little evening, even the cake as we did gingerly tuck it away in our freezer last summer... possibly the most traditional thing we did for our entire wedding. I guess I wouldn't use the word "traditional" to describe our wedding or us for that matter. We like having traditions, but they are typically ones we start ourselves. Hopefully we'll be starting one or two new traditions at the end of next month when we celebrate our first wedding anniversary.