Weddingbee Blog

Catch up on the entire After “I Do” series here! And if you have a burning question you’d like to see discussed, submit it here!

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How did you celebrate your first anniversary? If you exchanged gifts, what did you get each other?

Thank you to Mrs. Starfish for this question!

We celebrated our first anniversary with a trip to NYC!

We had an amazing dinner at Morimoto on our actual anniversary date and then finished the night off at the top of the Empire State Building!

We did the “paper” thing. I got the Dude a notebook for keeping football stats made out of an old Blue Oyster Cult album cover. He got me a hardback copy of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. (Yes, that was a special request on my part!)

Mr. Powder Puff and I celebrated our first anniversary with a day in downtown Chicago! We took an architectural boat tour on the river, which was incredibly well done and interesting, shopped, and then had a romantic evening out. We sipped drinks on the roof of the Wit Hotel, and then ate dinner at a cozy Italian restaurant, which was so yummy. Since our day out was a little spendy, we didn’t exchange gifts, but Mr. Powder Puff did surprise me with a couple dozen roses. Tres sweet!

We went to Mr. MJ’s cousin’s wedding, and Mr. MJ had a bad cold so he left early. (We’re so romantic!) In all seriousness though: Mr. MJ’s cousin got married on 9/11/10, and we were married on 9/9/09. I shot the ’girls getting ready’ shots for their wedding, so I spent pretty much the entire day with them. Mr. MJ joined me before the ceremony and left after dinner. I, meanwhile, stayed and partied a while with his family and their friends. So that was our anniversary weekend! (Note: on the night of our actual anniversary, I was in class. Tres romantique!)

On the gift front though, we did well. Mr. N got me a variety of ’paper’ goods: a calendar with my favorite animals on it, a cute print for my office, and a modern take on ’paper’: a Kindle! He also got me a watch for the ’clocks’ tradition, and some perfume I liked, among other little things. I, on the other hand, got him a huge framed world map on canvas. We have it hanging in our living room. (And uh, I still need to get the watch resized. It’s been sitting in a box by the back door for 6 months now. Whoops.) Since we unthinkingly cut in to–and then ate–the top tier of our wedding cake on our wedding day, I contacted the lady who made it and asked her to make a new one for us. She did, and it was delicious! (We dug into it on our actual anniversary, after I got home from class that night!)

Nothing too elaborate for the Mary Janes on their first anniversary, as you can see. But when you’re students and your anniversary’s a month into the semester, you can’t be jetting off to relaxation and romance! There’s homework to be done!

Our one year anniversary just happened to coincide with graduation from design school. We planned a night out with friends to celebrate NO MORE HOMEWORK! and Mr. Quiche had a gift for me. I opened it up & inside was a fat stack of pesos, a sombrero, a Mexican flag…and plane tickets to Mexico! We left the next morning at 8 AM and celebrated our first anniversary on the beach in Playa del Carmen. I had never been surprised like that before, and it was awesome.

Needless to say, my gift of a framed wedding picture (we had yet to have any pictures printed) paled in comparison, but Mr. Quiche assured me that it was perfect!

We took a quick 2 day trip to Napa and brought the dog (because what’s a trip without our hairy beast of a child?). Mr. Peng set up a private tour of some wine caves and we just spent a glorious 48 hours doing our most favorite things in the world—eating and drinking!  We didn’t exchange gifts, but we filled up on more-expensive-than-we-like-to-spend meals at Ad Hoc and Bouchon. Yum yum!

Is it just me or does Billie not look appreciative enough to be in freakin’ Napa!?! She’s like yeah, uh huh, Bouchon, whatever. I eat stuff off the ground. Like I care about Bouchon. Dogs. Psh.

I thought I’d be wishfully thinking about our wedding on our anniversary, but truth be told, I was so happy to spend the day with Mr. Peep and have the wedding behind us. We woke up late, ate two left over wedding cupcakes (which were surprisingly ok), went on an awesome hike and enjoyed the sunshine. Then we got all dressed up and relived our wedding weekend. We went to our rehearsal dinner venue for cocktails and appetizers and dinner at our wedding venue. Pretty fabulous, and we might just have to do it again in May.

As for gifts, Mr. Peep read the most fantastic quote to me in our vows, so I had the quote framed:

“You have bewitched me, mind, body and soul and I love, love, I love you. I never wish to be departed from you from this day on.” Pride and Prejudice.

His gift to me—my first facial, which was divine.

Our anniversary is close to Memorial Day, so we took an extra day off of work that weekend and went to Paris for a long weekend. Paris is my favorite city in the world, and Mr. Dahlia had never been (despite taking French in high school!). It was absolutely wonderful.

Our anniversary got bumped by father’s day and honestly I regret not doing something special for our first anniversary. (My dad could have lived without one Father’s Day celebration.)

I feel like this is something common in our relationship. No honeymoon, no anniversary celebration, no gifts. I think we might have to switch that up a little.

Since our anniversary is over New Year’s, we celebrated a few times. We went out to a fancy dinner on NYE at Revolution in down town Durham. We flipped out as Cameron Crazies cheering our devils on to victory over Miami. And then we did a midnight gift exchange. Lambster got me a clock for our family room and a book of miscellany with a gift certificate for dance lessons tucked inside. I got him a coffee table book on Dali (his favorite artist) and I bought all of the supplies to paint him a 3’x5’ oil painting commemorating our honeymoon to Italy. Now I have no idea how we’re going to top it next year!

We just celebrated our first anniversary this past weekend, for our city hall wedding. Since we plan on making a bigger deal out of our September anniversary, we didn’t do much for our “legal” anniversary. Actually, Mr. Jelly surprised me with an impromptu picnic (that we had in our backyard) and we went out to a tapas bar for dinner. Other than that, most of the day was spent running errands for our new house and shopping for a new washer/dryer. That’s married life for you!

We plan on taking a trip to Hawaii for our “big” anniversary in September.

Our first anniversary fell on a work day, so Mr. Deviled Egg surprised me with roses and made reservations at The Capital Grille in downtown Pittsburgh. We enjoyed a relaxing and delicious dinner and then headed home to eat the replica I made of the top tier of our wedding cake. I posted about it here. The dinner was a nice treat for us, so I think we might make that an annual tradition. I’d also be OK if we made carrot cake an anniversary tradition, too!

We didn’t have a chance to celebrate on our actual anniversary. Mr. Joey got was in Alabama for a school thing and I was at home taking care of our puppy. We did celebrate a few months later by heading to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park. It was the perfect weekend. Our first trip together was to a National Park (Glacier) and it was fitting to celebrate our 1st anniversary at another National Park.

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What about you? How did you celebrate your first anniversary?