When life is so busy, treating your wedding anniversary as just another date night is tempting — think dinner at your favourite restaurant or a trip to the cinema. But your wedding anniversary is an occasion that deserves to be properly celebrated, so what could make it special? Here are a few suggestions for creating a romantic and memorable evening, or an even longer celebration if you have the time.
Activities
It’s easier to focus all your attention on each other when you leave the distractions of everyday life behind, so you could coincide your anniversary with a holiday or mini-break.Â
Check out this list of romantic holiday ideas from Hitched if you need inspiration. Your trip could be anything from an extravagant African safari or a sun-soaked, indulgent experience in the Maldives, to lower-key city breaks in places like Paris or Venice. Though you don’t necessarily need to go overseas — see whether there are any interesting spots a bit closer to home.
If a holiday isn’t possible due to things like time, money, work or childcare commitments, you can still have an amazing time at home. You could cook a romantic meal from scratch, for instance. We’d recommend Italian food like pasta, as the cuisine is universally popular and fairly straightforward to cook yet still elegant and delicious. Pasta Evangelists recommend cooking delicious dishes like agnolotti del plin or seafood linguine for your wedding anniversary dinners. Or why not go down memory lane and recreate the meal from your very first date?
Gifts
It often feels harder and harder to buy gifts for someone you’ve been with for a long time. There are always clichés like chocolates and champagne to fall back on, but you could use your wedding anniversary year as inspiration to think outside the box.
You could go down either the traditional or modern route. For example, if it’s your first anniversary, the traditional gift is paper. Therefore, you could treat your partner to a new book or some luxury stationery. The modern first-anniversary gift is a clock, so a watch could be another option.Â
Jewellery is always a great choice too, and each anniversary year is also associated with a particular precious metal or gemstone (gold for the first, garnet for the second, pearl for the third etc.). Eternity Rose has a list of all the different anniversary gift themes and if you still need help deciding, they’ve also provided a selection of gift ideas for each year.
Flowers
You can follow the same approach as above when it comes to choosing flowers as different kinds are associated with certain anniversaries. As listed here by Bloom & Wild, you can choose fluffy carnations if it’s your first anniversary, bold sunflowers if it’s your third, dainty daisies for your fifth, vibrant daffodils for your tenth, and so on.
Of course, you don’t need to be bound by these links. Roses are always a classic option and do feel like one of the more luxurious options, or maybe your partner has a favourite flower you’d like to gift them with. Alternatively, you could present a bouquet made up of flowers from your wedding bouquet, or perhaps there are flowers that make you think of a special place — like a country’s national flower.
Whatever you decide, doing something a little out of the ordinary will make your milestone that little bit more special. Though life may sometimes get on top of you, always find time to remember why you fell in love in the first place and to reflect on how the years have shaped your relationship. Here’s to more years of love!
This story originally appeared on Upscalelivingmag
