If you’re blessed with a loving and lasting relationship, you will appreciate these tips for hosting your own anniversary celebration. Read on for this helpful guide!
Is your wedding anniversary on the horizon? Whether you’ve been together for just a year or are celebrating a half century of married life, it’s time to party!
However, you can’t guarantee that somebody else will make the arrangements for you – so I put together this helpful guide for hosting your own anniversary celebration.
As you might know, I’m a bestselling author and relationship columnist (for Psychology Today and Oprah).
Plus I founded a research based relationship video course: Secrets of Happy Couples.
It’s very relationship revitalizing to celebrate your anniversary in a special way – so here are some really useful pointers.
Below you will find some top tips for hosting your own wedding anniversary celebration event that will bring your loved ones together to commemorate your big day.
At one time, you could be fairly confident that once your children reached adulthood they would take over the duty of organizing your anniversary parties, especially for those all-important milestone years. Now, times have changed, but the good news is that there’s no reason why you can’t plan a party for yourselves. That doesn’t mean that others won’t be happy to help you out, though. See if your friends or family members would be happy to get involved in the planning process and, if so, delegate some of the tasks.
One great way to mark milestone anniversary years is by holding a destination celebration. Whether you choose a rural farmhouse where all the family can get together and spend some quality time in each other’s company, or whether you decide to go tropical and spend your anniversary soaking up the sun on a beach with all your loved ones, going away to celebrate your special occasion is a great way to ensure you have a memorable time. Also, some resorts offer event packages which can make it even easier to plan your party.
If you’re going to host your own party, you might want to select a theme to make it easier to make the necessary arrangements. You might want your party to reflect the decade that you married in, or if you want a fancy event you could go for a black tie and evening dress theme. For something a little more unusual, what about a casino night or cocktail party? Once you’ve decided on a theme, it’ll be much simpler to arrange decorations, food and entertainment.
Of course, you need to send out invitations to friends and family members that you want to attend your party. If you’ve chosen a theme for your event you may want your invitations to reflect that theme, otherwise, you may want to choose a design that is fitting for your relationship, perhaps reflecting your shared hobbies or with an image from your wedding day on it. Make sure to add all of the key details to your invitations. You’ll need to outline the following:
Of course it’s in poor taste to specifically ask for anniversary gifts from your invitees, but if you really aren’t interested in receiving presents you can mention it on the invitations. If you don’t mention gifts, it’s likely that at least some of your guests will bring them. You may add a note to ask for donations to a specific meaningful charity if you’d rather not receive a physical gift.
An anniversary is a celebratory occasion, so you need to organize some entertainment to make sure that your guests (and you!) really have fun. If you’re hosting a traditional party with dancing, select a band or a DJ that not only reflects your personal tastes but that also plays a musical style that most of your attendees will enjoy. You can always hand over a personalized playlist of meaningful songs to add to the evening’s entertainment lineup.
If your event isn’t going to be traditional you might want to organize something a little more unusual. You could host a murder mystery party, arrange a magician or even book a karaoke – the options are endless!
Hiring a photographer to capture the images of your wedding day is something that virtually every couple does. However, when it comes to anniversaries, it’s less common to book a professional’s services. Nevertheless, if this is a milestone year for you, you may want to consider going down this road as then you’ll have special images that will help to capture the essence of this key occasion. Alternatively, you could ask a close friend or family member to be your personal photographer for the evening. Their closeness to the guests will lead to more candid shots that could make your photos even more memorable.
An anniversary cake is just as important in its own way as a wedding cake, but you have a lot more freedom when it comes to its style. While a traditional wedding cake is a tiered and decorated center piece, your anniversary cake can take many different forms. Why not go for a donut wall or a tower of cupcakes? You could even tailor your whole menu to reflect the theme of the occasion or your own personal tastes.
It’s almost obligatory to have a slideshow of your married life as part of your wedding anniversary celebration. You can either make this yourself or trust a loved one to put one together for you. Just give them access to all of your photos and videos from through the years, or even share everything online in the cloud so that guests can add their own photographs before the party itself.
Although an anniversary celebration doesn’t have hard and fast rules about speeches like your wedding day did, it’s still a good idea to have a toast to your future. Both of you or just one of you can give a short speech about your relationship and, of course, thank your guests for helping to celebrate this milestone event.
The most important thing when it comes to celebrating your anniversary is to make sure that it is representative of you and your relationship. It’s your special day, so arrange a celebration that truly reflects your life together.
Think about subscribing for free weekly tools here.
No SPAM, ever! Read the Privacy Policy for more information.
