How to Make Your Anniversary More Than Just Another Day

After the wedding day passes, everyday life returns and routines begin to settle in.

It’s normal to feel a bit sad when such a carefully planned day ends. Many people feel relief, but there can also be a sense that something is missing from your daily conversations. Planning the wedding took a lot of time and energy.

If your wedding day was the best day of your life, the days that follow might feel less special. But you can still look forward to something exciting: your anniversary.

Don’t let your anniversary turn into just another ordinary day. Bring back some of the wedding excitement by celebrating your marriage each year.

Planning is important for romance. While some believe romance should be spontaneous, it often comes from thoughtful preparation. You spent a lot of time planning your wedding. Now, your focus may shift to your home, careers, or future plans, but don’t stop planning romantic moments together.

Don’t use all your planning energy on the wedding day. Hold onto your folder or notebook. While you might not need the seating chart again, you can use that same effort to create new traditions for your marriage.

Marriage has many benefits, and one of the best is creating traditions together. You may have already talked about holiday traditions, but planning your anniversary can be a fun way to start new ones. Try bringing it up during a date night.

Here are some ideas to help you start planning your own anniversary traditions.

1. Honor Your Wedding Day Every Year

Find a way to include something from your wedding day in each anniversary celebration.

You might recite your vows, watch your wedding video, look through your photo album, or share wine from your wine box. Choose one way to honor your wedding day each year. Take time to reminisce and relive those special feelings together. Your anniversary should feel important, even if it’s simple and doesn’t cost much.

2. Celebrate with Consistency and Incorporate New Ideas

To keep your anniversary special, pick one thing you’ll do together every year. This could be watching your wedding video, reciting your vows, opening your wine box, visiting your wedding location, or writing down your favorite memories from the past year.

Add variety by trying something new each year. You might go out for a special dinner, take a trip, start a marriage journal, visit your honeymoon spot, or try a new activity together. Keep one tradition the same, and change up the rest.

3. Make It Fun

Anniversaries are a great chance to get creative and build new habits together.

Make time to talk about what would be meaningful for each of you every year. Enjoy trying new things together, and don’t stress about the planning. Your anniversary isn’t meant to be another big event to organize. It’s a chance to celebrate the marriage you’re building.

4. Plan a Vow Renewal

You probably won’t have a full vow renewal every year, but planning one for a future anniversary can be a fun way to change up your celebration.

If your wedding was big, you might prefer a smaller destination vow renewal. If you skipped a big wedding, you could plan a larger party for your vow renewal. Consider doing this on a milestone anniversary or after a tough year. A vow renewal is more than a party—it can help strengthen your marriage.

5. Wear Your Wedding Dress

It might sound unusual, but putting your dress, suit, or tux back on can be a fun way to celebrate.

This could happen in a few different ways. You could dress up and have a fancy dinner at the house. You could schedule a photo shoot in your wedding outfits and capture more photos together, including some you may have missed on the wedding day.

Putting the wedding dress back on could make you feel beautiful, stir up emotions from the day, or become an exciting way to relive the wedding together. And if both of you need a reason to restart the lapsed fitness program, this is it. You will be wearing those outfits again in a few months. A recent trend is the “trash the dress” photo shoot. If you did not have the heart to do it around the wedding, maybe you will be ready a few years later.

6. Plan Photos

Once families are started, photos of just the two of you are often forgotten.

A great way to celebrate your anniversary is to plan a photo shoot for just the two of you. These could be lifestyle photos in your home, updated couple photos, or pictures that recreate the feel of your engagement shoot. The photo shoot does not have to be long, but it creates new intimacy, gives you updated photos, and can be a blast to do together.

7. Use a Wine Box

The wine box, or letter box, is something many couples choose on their wedding day in place of a unity candle or sand ceremony. Wait, you have never heard of a wine box?

First, read my dad’s wine box post.

You can still start using one even if you did not include one at your wedding. Essentially, the wine box is a small wooden crate large enough to hold a bottle of wine and some letters. The letters could include notes from your parents, siblings, or from each other about your wedding day and marriage.

Each year on your anniversary, open the wine and read the letters together. You can ask family members to write letters now to use in the future, or include your vows to read while you share the wine. The idea is simple: your anniversary is a chance to remember, celebrate, and keep choosing each other. The wedding day ends, but celebrating your marriage should continue.

Blog Post written by my daughter, Elizabeth Squirek. Check out her blog at https://somethingtoowineabout.wordpress.com/

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