Modern ways to celebrate your wedding anniversary

Whilst the gift of a bouquet and a meal out at a favourite restaurant is a sweet way to mark the occasion, there are other more modern ways that you can celebrate.

You may even create your own tradition to repeat each year. Here are some ideas:

Create an anniversary tradition

On your anniversary, book a getaway somewhere special for a night or a few days. Ask your children’s grandparents to take care of them whilst you take time for yourselves. If it is not possible to take time away from home, watch your wedding video together with your kids. Children will make some hilarious and original observations, whilst understanding that there was life between you and your spouse before the children appeared.

Choose a modern gift

Since the early 20th century, there has been a list of modern wedding anniversary gifts, as well as flowers, colours, and gemstones that symbolise each year a couple are together. This list is built from a traditional list dating back to the medieval period when 25 years of marriage was marked with a silver wreath and 50 years with gold. For example, the modern gift for a fourth anniversary is electrical appliances and the colour blue or green.

A gift that can last a lifetime will hold more meaning than a bouquet that wilts in one week. Choose a rose, picked at the peak of perfection and preserved, and gift in the colour that represents each of your wedding anniversary years. Over time, you will have a bouquet of preserved roses as a reminder of the love you hold for each other.

Reread your wedding vows

As a joint gift to yourselves for your wedding anniversary, have your vows printed on canvas along with the date you got married. Hang this at home as a reminder of the commitment you made to each other at your wedding. As marriages take work, the vows help you both stay focused. When celebrating your anniversary you can see what you have achieved and the challenges overcome.

Appreciate the past, plan for the future

Having an anniversary conversation about all you have experienced in the last year helps build a foundation for the next year. You could even have a journal in which you write your individual recap of the year, with responses to similar questions each year such as “the best thing that happened”, “most challenging”, “ most funny” which you can refer back to whenever you wish. You could add the things you want to do in the following year and the next five years.

Celebrate with family

Your wedding is the day you start your lives as a family. Celebrate with all your family with cake and a fun night together. A date night can be on a different evening when you can go out together for some fun, perhaps to try a new restaurant in town or a long weekend where you have time to talk, share, and remember why you fell in love in the first place, and fall in love all over again.

Heritage tour

It is fun to look back with a “heritage tour” for a milestone anniversary. Take a trip back to where you first met and have dinner where you had your first date. You could visit the area where you first lived together and the store from where you bought your wedding rings and perhaps choose an eternity ring or other new piece of jewellery.

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