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Original poster

Do you celebrate how long you’ve been together and your wedding anniversary or just the latter?

117 replies

JusWunderin · 30/04/2024 12:17

I’ve been with DH for 10 years in August and our first wedding anniversary is 3 weeks later in September.

I saw a post recently where a lot of people said they no longer celebrate how long they’ve been with their partners but only their wedding anniversary’s.

I’m not really sure it feels justifiable to have a celebration for 10 years together and then another 3 weeks later for our anniversary so I’m think I’ll just combine the two and celebrate both on our anniversary.

But I’m interested to know whether anyone else celebrate both, or just one?

OP posts:
JayJayj · 04/05/2024 23:07

My husband and I got married after being together 7 years. I chose a date 6 months after our first date anniversary so we get 2 a year.

We no longer do cards and presents but we do acknowledge both. We have been together since we were 18/19 so 20 years and married for 13!

Mew2 · 05/05/2024 06:10

So we celebrate both....
Our anniversary of our first date is in March and our wedding anniversary is in September so we celebrate both as they are 6 months apart...
Lots of my married friends celebrate both as well...

dudsville · 05/05/2024 06:34

We mark when we first met and when we got married which was on an anniversary of when we got together. We're not overly romantic day to day but we like marking these. We just do cards or a meal though, no presents.

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Events & celebrations
Simplelobsterhat · 05/05/2024 08:48

We 'celebrate' both in that we'll try and have a date night end of January as that's roughly when we got together. We don't do presents or mark a specific date though. I think the main reason we kept it going was that years ago, before we were married, we agreed to do that instead of celebrate valentine's day, as it's so close and more meaningful to us, so when we got married I told DH I'd like to keep up that tradition on top of wedding anniversary, as it's my valentines day! Now we have kids I appreciate it as a push to arrange childcare after all the family fun of Christmas!

However, our wedding anniversary is in the autumn. I probably wouldn't do both if they were as close together as yours.

QueSyrahSyrah · 05/05/2024 08:53

We celebrate our wedding anniversary in terms of cards and gifts, but we usually mark the date we originally got together with a nice meal or a lunch out or something. The latter is near Christmas though so it makes a nice little event just for us before we spend the festive period with family / others all around. We might not bother if it was another time of year.

Montelukast · 06/05/2024 11:42

We don’t really have a specific ‘date’ that we got together, as we met online and talked for a while before we met up and then we never really said ‘okay this is official now’ we were just together from then on ? It was quite natural really. I even joked with him he had never asked me to be his girlfriend 😂 it was all just very obvious we were together.
Now we have a wedding anniversary it’s great because we can celebrate a specific date :)
I can understand if you’ve been together many years before getting married you want to celebrate those years too.

on another note what are people’s opinions on sending cards to other people for their wedding anniversaries ? Is it the done thing or not ? A family member got very upset recently when she wasn’t sent a card from her son to say congrats on her wedding anniversary, and no it wasn’t a special year.

GoosieLucie · 06/05/2024 11:53

We celebrate neither! 😂

I can't remember the date we met or the date we got engaged - and although we're both vaguely aware of our wedding anniversary date we very rarely "celebrate" it, ie we don't usually do anything special - and we're not the cards/presents type so don't buy each other anything.

We went out for lunch on our first wedding anniversary (or maybe it was dinner, I can't now recall) and also on our 40th - and I daresay (if we make it that far) we might decide to do something on our 50th, in 4 years time. But on all the others, nope they're just like any other day!

cockadoodledandy · 06/05/2024 20:15

Well we have no interest in getting married, so if we celebrated anything it’d be when we got together but we don’t bother with that even. Can’t see the point really.

Blanketpolicy · 06/05/2024 20:41

Been together 33 years, married 20. Have never celebrated either date. Every day I put up with him should be a celebration for dh 😂

HowDidThisHappenDinesh · 06/05/2024 20:53

We make our wedding anniversary a ‘thing’ (go on holiday or celebrate with family) but also celebrate the day we got together with dinner or a small gift just the two of us. It feels significant to mark both even in a small way. But the latter is also the day we got engaged so doubly(?) significant maybe.
10 years together definitely seems worth making @JusWunderin congratulations!

Rocknrollstar · 06/05/2024 21:06

We met on Valentine’s Day so we always celebrate that day and our anniversary.

Whyamiherenow · 07/05/2024 07:34

My auntie still marks the anniversary of her first date with my uncle. It’s been 62 years. He is no longer alive. She also marks their wedding anniversary. Which would be 58 years. There’s no right or wrong. Just do what you want to do. Maybe a lower key celebration for one than the other depending on the respective number of years / significance. Just do what makes you happy 😊

NotJohnMajor · 07/05/2024 07:38

Just our wedding anniversary. We've never celebrated when we first got together, even before we were married. I couldn't tell you the exact date we met or first went out on a date together, though I know roughly when it was as it was near my birthday.

DilemmaDelilah · 07/05/2024 07:43

We don't really celebrate any. We got together on July 11th. We had a Registry office wedding 2 days before my mother died, on October 12th - so it doesn't seem right to celebrate that. Then we had our 'real' humanist wedding with a family party nearly a year later, on September 3rd, but my MIL wasn't well enough to come and she died a month later, so it doesn't seem right to celebrate that, especially as our 'honeymoon' was spent just half an hour from MILs in case we were needed and most of the following 3 weeks or so were spent in sharing the care for her with my SIL.

We are quite old though and don't really feel the need to celebrate a single day.

mitogoshi · 07/05/2024 07:50

Thankfully we are getting married just a few days shy before the anniversary of when we met in person and a few days after when we spoke online, wasn't deliberate, date was controlled by other complicated circumstances

Ficklebricks · 07/05/2024 10:09

Spirallingdownwards · 30/04/2024 12:25

Just the wedding anniversary.

Celebrating "when we got together " is for those that don't get married or if counted in weeks/months rather than years are still at school.

Edited

Totally disagree. A couple who has been together 10 years before saving enough money for their big dream wedding isn't a "new" couple. They've been together a decade at that point and it shouldn't be forgotten just because society decided on an arbitrary date for official celebrations.

NotJohnMajor · 07/05/2024 10:53

It's entirely up to the couple what they want to celebrate. My own view is that having too many celebrations makes them less special, so I would rather stick to one and our wedding anniversary seemed the best one - but we were only together for two years before getting married; if a couple had been together for ten years before getting married and were used to celebrating the date they got together, I can see why they'd continue.

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