Weddingbee Blog

By the time Mr. Cardigan and I get married in January, we will have been together for five years. In those five years, we’ve created a ton of traditions and routines for ourselves, all of which I cherish deeply. For example, every year for Valentines’ Day, we make one another gifts rather than buying them—it’s been a great way for us to celebrate the holiday on the cheap, and it’s also shown me that Mr. C can be pretty dang creative when he wants to be.

My absolute favorite tradition, though, is the anniversary love letter. It started on our first anniversary: I wrote Mr. Cardigan a letter that he was not allowed to open until the same day the next year. So, on our second anniversary we got to read that first letter together, and I also gave him a letter for the next year.

It’s been such a fun and special tradition, and both Mr. Cardigan and I look forward to getting to read those letters together every year—it’s so much fun to look back to the last year of our relationship, and to see my predictions for what the year would hold.

By the time we actually read the letter, I’ve usually forgotten what I wrote, so it’s just as much fun for me as it is for him. And I never fail to make some pretty accurate predictions. In the letter I wrote the year before we got Cullen, I had mentioned that I hoped there was a puppy curled at our feet as we read the letter. We just so happened to get Cullen only days before our anniversary, so when we read the letter from the last year, Mr. Cardigan and I were surprised to see that I had predicted we would get him!

This past January when our dating anniversary rolled around, Mr. Cardigan decided that he wanted to join in on the tradition. So, we sat down together and wrote one another letters.

They’re sitting in a safe place, awaiting our wedding day when we plan to read them before we walk down the aisle. This will be the first time that Mr. Cardigan and I won’t be sitting together as we read the anniversary letter, but I’m looking forward to seeing the pictures that our photographer captures of him reading this last anniversary letter as an unmarried couple.

Of course, we also plan to sit down together a few days before the wedding to write one another letters to read on our one year anniversary. Our first anniversary letters to read as husband and wife!

I absolutely cannot wait to see what Mr. Cardigan wrote in his letter, and I’m excited for him to read mine. I think it will be a great way for us to “connect” with one another on our wedding day, even though we’ll be spending most of the day separate from one another while getting ready.

Do you have any special traditions that you share with your SO?