Three Fun Anniversary Traditions

Hello and Happy Monday! Today is a special day in our house… it’s our anniversary!

Chris and I got married on May 20, 2016 and I can’t believe we are already celebrating our three year anniversary.

Time flies when you’re having fun! It also flies when life gets crazy and throws tons of curve balls at you, like kidney failure, a kidney transplant, and IVF. Although our first three years of marriage weren’t exactly what I expected, it has been a great three years filled with more good times than bad. We bought a house, adopted a second dog, traveled, and welcomed twin girls into our family. We are a different couple today than we were the day we said our vows. And I am incredibly thankful all of the ups and downs we’ve faced have only made us stronger. I am excited to celebrate our anniversary today!

In honor of our three year anniversary, I am sharing three fun ways Chris and I celebrate our anniversary each year. I hope these will give you some ideas for your own anniversary traditions!

Letter and Wine Box

On our wedding day, Chris and I wrote letters to each other and placed them in a box with a bottle of wine to be opened on our one year anniversary. As I mentioned above, life hasn’t gone exactly according to plan so we actually haven’t opened the bottle of wine from our wedding yet. On our first anniversary Chris couldn’t drink because he was in kidney failure and on our second anniversary I couldn’t drink because we were preparing for IVF. But each year we have opened the box and read the letters we wrote each other the previous year and placed new letters inside to be opened on our next anniversary. It has been a really fun tradition! It’s fun to read what we wrote each other a year ago with our hopes for the next year. It’s also fun to write letters to our future selves not knowing what the future holds for us. I have really enjoyed this tradition and this year we will finally be able to open the wine from our wedding, so it will be extra special!

Eat Cake and Watch Your Wedding Video

Chris and I did not have a traditional cake at our wedding. We had a tiered bundt cake from Nothing Bundt Cakes as our wedding cake and a cookie cake as the groom’s cake. Because of this we weren’t able to participate in the tradition of eating the top layer of wedding cake on your one year anniversary. To be honest, we were both ok with it. I’m not sure it’s a great idea to eat cake that’s been in the freezer for a year? Instead, we started our own tradition of getting a bundlet every year and watching our wedding video. It’s been really fun to relive our wedding day every year while eating the dessert that served as our wedding cake!

Exchange Traditional Wedding Gifts

Each year Chris and I have exchanged gifts following the traditional wedding anniversary gift list and it has been surprisingly fun. It forces us to be creative and think outside of the box. The one year anniversary gift is paper and we both got each other paper prints. Chris got me a beautiful print that recapped everything we did in our first year of marriage and I got him a blueprint to hang above his desk in our office. The second year anniversary is cotton and I got Chris a pair of canvas shoes, as well as a blanket designed with the constellations above our wedding venue on our wedding day. He got me a blanket too and it says “Morgan, Established 2016” on it. The three year gift is leather and I can’t wait to exchange gifts and see what we came up with for each other. Like I said, I enjoy this tradition because we have to be creative and it makes gift giving much more fun. If you want to see a list of the traditional gifts, you can find it HERE.

Anniversaries are a time to celebrate and reflect on everything that has happened since your wedding day. I hope this post has provided some ideas to make those celebrations a little bit more fun! Each year of marriage is a milestone worth celebrating!