GTKY: Anniversary Traditions!

simplyelise · October 2015

My husband and I are celebrating our 1 year anniversary this Sunday and I thought I'd toss out a related question to liven up the board this afternoon.

SO, how do you and your spouse celebrate your anniversary? Any special traditions involved?

For us, we decided to focus mostly on experiences this year and are treating ourselves to a couples massage Saturday that we bought off Groupon. Then we're making homemade linguine noodles (FX, we've never done it before!) and this blushing gorgonzola cream sauce. Then on Sunday we are going on our monthly date night to one of our favorite restaurants. As for a gift exchange, we're just sticking to the traditional paper gifts and making each other cards. I'm really excited about mine because I'm drawing a cartoon of one of our inside joke pet names.

hoffse · October 2015

We typically go out to a nice restaurant each year, and it's really the one time per year we pay for a nice restaurant. For our first anniversary I honored "paper" by (finally) finishing our wedding scrapbook. I didn't do anything like that last year though, and I don't anticipate exchanging gifts for our third anniversary in April.

Actually, we're going to be on an airplane on our third anniversary this year, flying back from California for my firm retreat. We're taking the redeye on SW in economy (ugh). Romantic! Ha.

In theory I would like to take a romantic trip every 5 years. I have a notion that it might be nice to do DC for our 5th anniversary to see the cherry blossoms. It usually falls near our anniversary each year, and I've always wanted to see them. That would be a pretty cheap/easy getaway for us with points. Then I would be inclined to do something bigger for our 10th. We'll see how that plays out though.

julieanne912 · October 2015

For our 1 month I sent him a Facebook message and said "Hey look, we made it a month". Does that count? :-D He isn't in town right now.

But yeah we just got married in September.

For our first date we went to a daytime hockey game and then to a pizza place afterwards. So now we try to do that on the same weekend our first date was (the Saturday before Super Bowl)... hockey game and same pizza place. We have season tickets but it's still fun to do the same routine that day. But, obviously we're at the mercy of the hockey schedule for that, but this past year (2015) was the only time there wasn't one. We've got one for 2016, but it's at night, so maybe pizza before this time.

simplyelise · October 2015

julieanne912 said:

For our 1 month I sent him a Facebook message and said "Hey look, we made it a month". Does that count? :-D He isn't in town right now.

But yeah we just got married in September.

For our first date we went to a daytime hockey game and then to a pizza place afterwards. So now we try to do that on the same weekend our first date was (the Saturday before Super Bowl)... hockey game and same pizza place. We have season tickets but it's still fun to do the same routine that day. But, obviously we're at the mercy of the hockey schedule for that, but this past year (2015) was the only time there wasn't one. We've got one for 2016, but it's at night, so maybe pizza before this time.

That's a fun tradition!

We were already engaged by the time our first dating anniversary came around, so we never really got into celebrating those. I don't think we did anything special for either one actually!

csuave · October 2015

We don't do anything big. We exchange cards and go out for a nice dinner. This year our second anniversary was on Labor Day so we went out to breakfast too since we had the day off.

We also like to go out for dinner to celebrate our dating anniversary. We like to go out to dinner so the more occasions the better!

We want to take a nice romantic trip for our 5 year anniversary. Maybe Hawaii.

jessica490 · October 2015

We make sure to eat at the golf course that we got married at (it's beautiful!)

We also take a trip every year around that time to celebrate. We don't have any kids so it's all about us

short+sassy · October 2015

My H and I just go out to a nice dinner for our anniversary and give each other a card. We don't really give gifts to each other anymore for anything, mainly because neither one of us needs more stuff. But, every once in awhile, if we see something we know the other person will like/could use, we'll pick up an "I love you" present.

Not for our anniversary, but for V-Day this year I saw an opportunity to do something a little different and fun. There are all kinds of walking tours people can take of the French Quarter. It's normally not something we do but, about a month before V-Day, I saw a Groupon pop up for an "Aphrodisiac" walking tour of the FQ. We celebrated V-Day the weekend before to avoid the crowds, but I told him I had made reservations in the Quarter for dinner, but we needed to go a few hours earlier for a surprise. And then I surprised him with the walking tour! What was even better is we ended up being the only two people on the tour, so it was really personalized.

In case anyone is wondering what an Aphrodisiac tour consists of, it included being given a love spell at one of the Voodoo shops. We had oyster shooters at a bar, wine and chocolates at another place, and stops at some other stores that I think were a further reach for being romance related, but it was all still fun. With our tour guide giving a discourse and a bit of a history lesson throughout.

short+sassy · October 2015

I wish we could still go to the restaurant we had our first date in, but it closed a long time ago

.

vlagrl29 · October 2015

we just had ours on October 3rd. We always go out to a nice restaurant - just the 2 of us and we also try to stick with the yearly anniversary gifts. This year (6th) was either candy or iron. I got DH a gift from Etsy- I ordered the numbers of his new studio address from someone that makes numbers out of Iron. It turned out pretty cool. Last year was our 5th and we were saving money for a trip so I ended up getting him an anniversary card made of wood and I had it personalized for us.

dragonstarjk · October 2015

We always try to plan our annual trip around our wedding anniversary, so that's our gift to each other. Typically we try to travel somewhere new to visit an MLB stadium. Usually the night of, we will have a nice dinner--either in town if we are not traveling, or somewhere nice if we are on vacation that day. Every five years, we plan to do a BIG trip. For our 5-year anniversary, we did 2 weeks in Hawaii. For our 10-year, we are planning to do a 12-day British Isles cruise.

We celebrate our dating anniversary because we dated so long before we got married (7 years). We started dating right after the biggest event in our town--PRCA rodeo comes to town--so every year, we get Saturday night tickets to the Rodeo. That's our dating anniversary tradition

julieanne912 · October 2015

simplyelise said:

julieanne912 said:

For our 1 month I sent him a Facebook message and said "Hey look, we made it a month". Does that count? :-D He isn't in town right now.

But yeah we just got married in September.

For our first date we went to a daytime hockey game and then to a pizza place afterwards. So now we try to do that on the same weekend our first date was (the Saturday before Super Bowl)... hockey game and same pizza place. We have season tickets but it's still fun to do the same routine that day. But, obviously we're at the mercy of the hockey schedule for that, but this past year (2015) was the only time there wasn't one. We've got one for 2016, but it's at night, so maybe pizza before this time.

That's a fun tradition!

We were already engaged by the time our first dating anniversary came around, so we never really got into celebrating those. I don't think we did anything special for either one actually!

This year, on the actual day of the datingversary, was the day he proposed, so that was even more fun

Mustard76 · October 2015

We go to dinner every year, and we've lived in a different city each year that we've been married, so it has been fun for us to find a new restaurant. (Last year we celebrated a week late due to H's travel schedule.)

Also, every other year (the even anniversaries, not the odd) we do something we wouldn't ordinarily do. For 2, we went on a ski trip. Quite the adventure for first-time skiers. Ha! For 4, we did a beer master tour at the brewery which lasted all day. We don't really exchange gifts, but we always do cards.

smetter04 · October 2015

H and I have never exchanged anniversary gifts, but we always do a nice dinner. On our first anniversary we made a nice meal at home because we bought our house the month before, but since then we've gone to a nice restaurant we don't normally go to.

We do try to do something fun together for our anniversary instead of doing gifts. Last year we saw the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera because it's my favorite musical and it was in town on our anniversary weekend! This year we didn't do anything like that because we were heading to Europe in a month.

smetter04 · October 2015

Oh, and I'm formerly bridejl

The saved logins on my laptop were wiped and I couldn't get in. I've been wanting a new username anyway.

BlueBirdMB · October 2015

We go out to dinner and try to do it somewhere pretty so we can do our real tradition, which is... cheesy, but I love it. We privately (just the two of us) read our vows together again. We plan to keep that tradition going.

We did a weekend in the lakes region of our state (only like an hour away) for our first anniversary. Our second anniversary we were in Boston just for dinner (also only an hour away). This year we have tons of hotel and flight points and are taking a basically free trip (besides food) to New Orleans.

cbee817 · October 2015

We usually go out to eat- DH is home all summer (teacher) so I usually take the day off. For 5 years (2011), we went away for a night about an hour away. DD#1 was just a few days shy of 1 and for 10 years (2016), we're thinking about going to NYC for a few days. It's always been our favorite city to visit and we haven't been there since Christmas 2009. We'll see- still up in the air depending on if we start looking for a new house in 2016 or 2017.

Happy Anniversary!

kmurphy2131 · October 2015

short+sassy said:

I wish we could still go to the restaurant we had our first date in, but it closed a long time ago .

We spent our first and second dating anniversary at the same tiny fondue restaurant, then he proposed there on our third anniversary. Six months later it closed and we are so disappointed still. We wanted to be able to keep going back on our anniversary. I feel your pain on restaurants closing. It's like they don't care that people have memories lol

For our first wedding anniversary this year we went back to the hotel where we got married in Florida. They made us a small cake that was the same flavor as our wedding cake. We were so stuffed from appetizers and dinner on our wedding night neither of us ate much cake so we were really excited about that.

I'm not sure what we will do going forward. We found a cute place in Maine (we live in MA) that reminds us of the hotel where we got married so maybe we will go there for a night. The only catch is it opens the first weekend in May which is a couple weeks after our anniversary.

JoanE2012 · October 2015

We usually just exchange cards and go out for a nice dinner. We are planning to return to our honeymoon spot for our 5 year anniversary though.

Xstatic3333 · October 2015

We don't do cards or gifts, but do use it as an excuse for a great dinner out. We live in an awesome food city but are usually pretty cheap about eating out (we pretty much don't) so it's nice to splurge without guilt. Sometimes H does get me flowers, which is sweet. The flowers I like are more natural/local types so it doesn't break the bank, and I really do enjoy them.

We're not anti-gift in general, and tend to do nice birthday gifts. It's not about stuff accumulation; usually we get each other something related to a hobby (diving for me, computers/electronics for him) that we'll get a ton of use out of but can't really justify buying normally. We just don't do gifts for anniversaries or Valentines Day.

PurpleBookmark · October 2015

I'm getting some great ideas here for our next anniversary!

We have been married 8 years and don't have a set tradition. This was the first year I did a traditional yearly gift, I can't remember what it was but I pinned the list on Pinterest for future anniversaries. I bought him a mug so maybe ceramic? I googled it and it said 8 years is bronze so perhaps my list is incorrect lol.

We do usually have carrot cake as that was our wedding cake flavor!

blondie42107 · October 2015

We always had great intentions of following the traditional anniversary gift themes but we're going on 9 years and haven't yet. We typically do a nice dinner, gift, etc. It really just depends. We wanted to do a bigger trip for our 5 year but didn't so now we're looking at that for our 10 years so we have about a year and a half to plan that!

als1982 · October 2015

We don't do gifts for holidays or anniversaries, but around our dating anniversary we usually replicate our first date by having drinks at the restaurant in my signature photo and then going to a MLS soccer game.

simplyelise · October 2015

PurpleBookmark said:

I'm getting some great ideas here for our next anniversary! We have been married 8 years and don't have a set tradition. This was the first year I did a traditional yearly gift, I can't remember what it was but I pinned the list on Pinterest for future anniversaries. I bought him a mug so maybe ceramic? I googled it and it said 8 years is bronze so perhaps my list is incorrect lol. We do usually have carrot cake as that was our wedding cake flavor!

I think there are two lists, so maybe bronze is the pricey list and ceramic the cheap list?

short+sassy · October 2015

simplyelise said:

PurpleBookmark said:

I'm getting some great ideas here for our next anniversary! We have been married 8 years and don't have a set tradition. This was the first year I did a traditional yearly gift, I can't remember what it was but I pinned the list on Pinterest for future anniversaries. I bought him a mug so maybe ceramic? I googled it and it said 8 years is bronze so perhaps my list is incorrect lol. We do usually have carrot cake as that was our wedding cake flavor!

I think there are two lists, so maybe bronze is the pricey list and ceramic the cheap list?

I think the two lists are "traditional" and "modern", but I think "pricey" and "cheap" would cover them also, lol.

short+sassy · October 2015

BlueBirdMB said:

We go out to dinner and try to do it somewhere pretty so we can do our real tradition, which is... cheesy, but I love it. We privately (just the two of us) read our vows together again. We plan to keep that tradition going.

We did a weekend in the lakes region of our state (only like an hour away) for our first anniversary. Our second anniversary we were in Boston just for dinner (also only an hour away). This year we have tons of hotel and flight points and are taking a basically free trip (besides food) to New Orleans.

I love that! What a neat tradition.

One of my favorite MM deals in NOLA is Happy Hour at Delmonico's. It is one of the Emeril's restaurants and is normally serious $$$$$$$. But during Happy Hour (5-7PM M-F), they have a bunch of $5 and $10 plates. It's a great way to sample awesome 4-star food, but without breaking the bank.

One of my all-time favorite restaurants is J'acques Imo's. It's off the tourist beaten path because it's not near the Quarter, but is easy to get to by streetcar. It's authentic Cajun food that is FANTASTIC. It's also 4-star quality dishes, but at an average entrée price of around $25.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about NOLA and/or want more recommendations.

brij2006 · October 2015

We're really lame. But it really depends on the year and what's going on.

Our first anniversary we went out to a swanky restaurant and dropped $200 for dinner. It was sooo good.

Last year (our 2 year) we cooked a new recipe together at home. But we were in debt payoff mode, so extra spending just wasn't happening.

This year (3 year) we had a baby. So we didn't go anywhere for dinner, but I bought him some scotch and glasses for it that he had been eyeing, along with a new wallet. He got me a bracelet I've been begging for 10 years for.

But we also booked Hawaii. So that's our anniversary, Christmas, and birthday gift to each other.

We are experience people though. Gifts for each other is rare, but it's what worked this year.

BlueBirdMB · October 2015

short+sassy said:

BlueBirdMB said:

We go out to dinner and try to do it somewhere pretty so we can do our real tradition, which is... cheesy, but I love it. We privately (just the two of us) read our vows together again. We plan to keep that tradition going.

We did a weekend in the lakes region of our state (only like an hour away) for our first anniversary. Our second anniversary we were in Boston just for dinner (also only an hour away). This year we have tons of hotel and flight points and are taking a basically free trip (besides food) to New Orleans.

I love that! What a neat tradition.
One of my favorite MM deals in NOLA is Happy Hour at Delmonico's. It is one of the Emeril's restaurants and is normally serious $$$$$$$. But during Happy Hour (5-7PM M-F), they have a bunch of $5 and $10 plates. It's a great way to sample awesome 4-star food, but without breaking the bank.
One of my all-time favorite restaurants is J'acques Imo's. It's off the tourist beaten path because it's not near the Quarter, but is easy to get to by streetcar. It's authentic Cajun food that is FANTASTIC. It's also 4-star quality dishes, but at an average entrée price of around $25.
Feel free to PM me if you have any questions about NOLA and/or want more recommendations.

Fantastic tips! I will definitely PM you when we get closer to the trip.

PurpleBookmark · October 2015

short+sassy said:

simplyelise said:

PurpleBookmark said:

I'm getting some great ideas here for our next anniversary!

We have been married 8 years and don't have a set tradition. This was the first year I did a traditional yearly gift, I can't remember what it was but I pinned the list on Pinterest for future anniversaries. I bought him a mug so maybe ceramic? I googled it and it said 8 years is bronze so perhaps my list is incorrect lol.

We do usually have carrot cake as that was our wedding cake flavor!

I think there are two lists, so maybe bronze is the pricey list and ceramic the cheap list?

I think the two lists are "traditional" and "modern", but I think "pricey" and "cheap" would cover them also, lol.

Love it, we would definitely be shopping from the cheap list!

AprilZ81 · October 2015

We took a cruise for our 1st anniversary (it was a week early, but still). The airline tickets were our "paper" gift.

We also went out for a nice dinner on the actual anniversary date.

This year for our second anniversary we will be at an NHL game. I need to look into getting our names on the jumbotron.

abrewer5 · October 2015

Is it terrible that I actually can't remember what we did on our first anniversary in May?... I believe we went for a boat ride and past the place we got married (we got married on the water), and I'm sure we went out to dinner. But honestly, I can't remember. I don't believe we exchanged gifts either. We're pretty terrible about that kind of stuff.

For our dating anniversary we usually go to Outback where we went on our first date and go home and watch the movie we saw in theatres. It's a terrible movie, but it's fun... We were 15 when we started dating, so a casual chain restaurant and crappy movie was expected at that time

GTKY: Anniversary Traditions!

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