When our first wedding anniversary started looming I started to panic about what to get Tree. I pondered over gifts and searched the internet for inspiration but all I found were variations of the standard ‘gifts for men’; watches/wallets etc etc. Each of these had a hefty price tag and lacked the personal touch (unless you got it personalised in which the price tag would be stratospheric!). And as a student at the time, my bank account was more on the malnourished side. It got me thinking- even if I managed to scrape enough money to get Tree a fancy watch, how could I top that next year? Or the year after that… Would I just be going for more and more expensive gifts in an effort to show how much I loved him? Doesn’t that completely defy the point of anniversaries? After sweating over what to do we both came to the agreement of not buying anything and instead planned to go for a lovely dinner together.
So I broke the rule a little… For the record Tree says he also came up the same idea but didn’t get around to executing it before our anniversary…
Like most people, we’re guilty of being snap happy with our camera and end up with hundreds/thousands of photos which just sit on a memory card. I thought it would be nice to pick out a few and put together a timeline scrap book of our first year together. Making it was so much fun and I started digging through other bits and pieces that we’d been hoarding- ticket stubs, the hand made wedding invitations we’d made etc and put them together in this lovely plain scrap book from Paperchase (£5 A5 landscape scrapbook, available online).
I didn’t have time to fill the entire book so instead stuck to a double spread of pages to dedicate to the 1st year. We now have the agreement that each year we take it in turns to be in charge of filling out the timeline of the last year. It can only take up two pages and it has to be a surprise for the other on our anniversary. Nearly 3 years on, it’s worked so well! Gone are the panics over what to get- because we already know the plan! We even spend the year hinting to the other one which significant tickets/ memorabilia which should keep safe for use in the scrap book!
I love the way we have a beautiful way, but simple way to chronicle our marriage. God Willing, one day we’ll have something amazing to show our children, maybe even our grandchildren!
What do you think of the idea? Do you have any other solutions to the dreaded anniversary present dilemma?
love,
little pomegranate
I love this idea – I have so many little bits of ephemera from our trips away that fall out of pockets and bags with the intention of collating them into a collective memory. We did put together a scrapbook of sorts for my late father in law who had a form of dementia and it was helpful – the idea of a time line would make this kind of memory collection even better