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3rd Trimester
1 Year Anniversary (a little sad, need help)
Im having a hard time being excited for our anniversary this year. We hardly have anything planned because we're broke, but more than that, what's so frustrating for me is that both DH and I are working are @sses off! We both work full time, and then he's doing a 18hr/week unpaid internship with the US Marshals and I'm selling Lia Sophia jewelry and working 10hrs/week doing admin stuff for a friend that owns a million different companies. There are anniversaries that I think should be super special, and 1 year is one of them. We're going to dinner tonight and that's all we have planned, we're not even doing gifts. I'm not usually a big gift person (never expect anything for V-day or my b-day and would be fine skipping Christmas), but I feel like I really want us to have something for our 1 year, to look back on and say "This is from our 1 year anniversary!"
Also, I always try to do something really special for DH for events like this and I'm totally uninspired this year. I don't know if it's from being exhausted with the pregnancy or if I'm just down that things are to tight for us right now despite us working so hard, I don't know, so do any of you have any good ideas? Anything inexpensive that we could do or that I can do for DH? I had this big train ride (he looooves train rides) with a fancy dinner planned for Saturday night and ended up having to cancel because I couldn't come up with the $150 for tickets, so I would like to find something to do to replace it.
I wish this wasn't a big deal to me and I really wish that I wasn't so down about this and that I could just be grateful that we get to go have a nice diner tonight but seriously every time I think about it I just want to cry 
Help!
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Re: 1 Year Anniversary (a little sad, need help)
Each year on our anniversary, DH and I watch our wedding video and flip through our wedding album. It always makes me feel super close to him to relive those moments and its a tradition that I look forward to each year.
Also, do you still have the top layer of your wedding cake? I know some people think its gross, but you're supposed to eat the top layer on your 1 yr ann. We did and ours still tasted good even though it was in the freezer for 365 days.
Instead of gifts, why don't you each write a love letter to each other. The traditional gift for the 1 yr ann is supposed to be paper anyway.
Just take it easy, light some candles and snuggle up to your hubs. You don't need the grand gestures anymore...you have the best gift anyone could ever wish for already!!!
Maybe you two could dress up and have a friend or family member take a couple of pictures of the two of you together... paticularly if there are pretty fall colors where you are. You can frame one of the photos (maybe black and white if no fall colors) as your "anniversary photo."
You could come up with a project to do together (maybe something for the baby's room) that would be cheap but that you could always look at as your anniversary gift to the baby.
If you have a fireplace you could build a fire put a blanket on the floor and buy your favorite foods (cheeses, breads, meats, olives, chocolates or whatever) and have a picnic and some 1 on 1 QT together. Do you have your frozen wedding cake? That would be a wonderfully romantic end to your picnic.
It's tough celebrating when you are uninspired and broke but I hope you have a wonderful anniversary!
Edit: A word about the wedding cake... even a year later DH and I were surprised at how good our cake was! We didn't get to really focus on it at our wedding so it brought back so many memories sharing the cake. If you don't have your original topper maybe you can buy or make a small cake as a substitute.
All DH and I did for our first anniversary was go out to a nice dinner, no gifts. IMO you don't have to spend money to make something special. It is what you make of it.
If you are looking for something special to mark the day without having to spend money. Why don't you both write messages to each other seal them and open them in a few years.
Similar situation.
You have to look at the brighter side.Think of all you have accomplished together. Think of your happiest moments. Don't think of what you don't have; think of what you do have. Enjoy dinner, especially dessert...and maybe anything that will come after.
At least you'll spend your anniv together. I just found out that DH will be in China for our 1st. He's already been there for a week and our anniv is next week.
At my bridal shower, my bridesmaids did a candle ceremony where basically they gave us 8 or so different sets of candlesticks, each with a little poem as to how they should be used. The next set coming up for us will be our 1 year anniversary on 10/25. Even though they're for the first anniversary, I want to keep burning them each year to have something to always come back to.
Maybe you and DH could start a little tradition along those lines. Good luck! Just take a little time each day to think of one thing to be grateful for (even if it's as little as "I had a nice dessert with DH") and maybe that will help get you excited.
Next February is DH and I first anniversary. Emma will be 2 months old by then, DH's son is 15 and my son is 8. We are not big gift givers and I don't expect anything other than maybe going out to eat and remembering how we met, what drew us to each other, how blessed I am to have him and knowing I wouldn't change one argument, any longer kiss that made me late for work when we were dating, the anticipation of waiting for him to propose.. All of it was worth it and then some.
Walking in a park after dinner doesn't cost anything. No matter what you do for this anniversary it will still be the most memorable one 40 years from now. You'll look back telling your grandbabies..."On my first anniversary, we didn't have much back then but we went to eat and just spent the night talking." That in itself is romantic, being able to build those kinds of memories. Congratulations!
It doesn't have to be fancy to be special. I did love coupons for my DH for one of our anniversaries (some naughty and some for things like going to an action movie), and he loved that more than anything. You guys are going through such a big time in your life anyway, that it's going to be memorable no matter what. On their first anniversary, all my parents could afford was a box of mac and cheese, and they still pulled out their nicest stuff, and just made it a special night. DH and I do stuff like that all the time. We'll pull out our wine goblets that go with our good china and have chocolate milk in them or something like that.
I'm sure you'll have a great anniversary! And congrats!
twitter: @aliciamariel
Just a little additional note, usually we are minimalists. Our dates usually involve a movie at home and pizza or visiting a pet store or me making him a nice candle lit dinner or doing massages, so because of this we like to do something bigger for anniversary. I guess I'm just used ot being able to go all out at least once a year so I'm having a hard time adjusting this year.
Also, DH isn't much for really mushy stuff like rereading our vows, or watching our wedding video (he didn't even watch it right when we got it). We poured sands at our wedding and have sand left over that I want to pour into our vase and I think even getting him to do that is going to be tough. He just doesn't really get into the "symbolism" of stuff.
We do have our anniversary cake to eat and maybe I'll write him a letter. It'll probably end up on the floor of his car, but at least it's something...
God, I have got to adjust my attitude! I'm going to ruin our dinner tonight if I can't find a way to pep up about this!
Feel free to come and slap some sense into me. This really isn't like me...
That's a bummer about DH not being around! Hopefully you'll get to do something fun when he gets back!
These are all great suggestions. For our anniversary we went and played bingo, it was like $20 and it was something fun that we have never done before.
You'll have a lot of anniversarys to celebrate and things won't always be like they are now. Maybe for your 10th you can do something spectacular to make up for these years when times are tough.
today is our first anniversary. we had planned on going to niagara falls or to the ocean (i've never been) but of course we're broke & I'm due in two weeks. so we're going to dinner & coming home to snuggle, eat our leftover wedding cake, and have some *sexy time.* sounds like a good idea to me. lol.
good luck & happy anniversary!
First of all let me tell you Happy Anniversary to both of us! We share the same anniversary and me and DH are running into the same issue. Money is tight right now and mine is in between TDY's so he basically is coming home today and leaving on monday. I had some trouble coming up with something too, but I think what we're going to do is have a dinner and movie night at home. My DH loves spaghetti so I'm making that, and he is providing the movies. One that he likes and one that I like. Then we're doing the traditional eating of the top of our wedding cake.
As far as gifts go, I don't know what he did for me if anything. I'll be happy to just have a night with him, home, in my arms. I have gathered little things from our first year of marriage and put them in there. For instance, I gathered our ring boxes, wedding announcement, his favorite picture from our wedding for him to take with him when he's away, the first ultrasound photo of our daughter, I think I have some birthday card that he gave me while we were still dating and then I added a list of the reasons that I love him, and it cost nothing. Maybe something like that would work out for you. The first anniversary is more of a milestone then a celebration. The traditional gift for it is paper and I got told that really the first anniversary is not about the gift or how you spend it as long as you're together.
The most important thing is you spend some quality time together. You have so much to celebrate with going out or spending $ !
Definitely make the time special- look at wedding pics, talk, either go for an inexpensive dinner (for our 1st+2nd anniversary dinners we spent under $40 apiece) or order some good food in.
Try not to look at it as a bad thing. Our 3rd anniversary is less than 2 weeks before my due date and I we'll probably just go out for a quick dinner and enjoy the rest of the night at home. Unless of course I've had the baby by then or gone into labor--then we might be spending it in the hospital!
For our first anniversary in August, took the day off and "hiked" (it was more of a leisurely stroll) a couple of historic trails around our area. I don't know how much time you have today, but you can do something like that.
If you wanted to do something fun and creative, you can buy two pumpkins and carve them. You can make it a romantic theme, or a baby theme, or stick to the regular Halloween theme. If you want to keep them for years to come, AC Moore and Michaels sell these fake pumpkin things to carve.
You can also make a romantic dinner together. Find a nice recipe for the whole dinner or just a "wedding" cake and then have fun together decorating it.
My view on anniversaries is you celebrate being together. DH and I always find something fun and unique to do together, instead of giving each other something. We take lots of pictures and hang one up, and that ends up being our keepsake.
Proud Mama to Mickey (12.03.09) and Nemo (06.06.13)
I'm with the others on this...it shouldn't have to come down to what you spend to make it meaningful...and I too, completely understand how difficult it is to get your head around that.
My DH and I are broke as a joke. He is the only one earning at the moment and I am desperately houding my agencies to get me supply teaching work. We're living on lots of canned stuff as well because we can't even afford to get stuff to make proper dinners. The debts we're trying to get taken care of before LO is here and our 1 year is coming up the 1st of November.
I'm huge on being sentimental and making something for occasions, but DH and I have agreed that a nice dinner is in order and we really want to try to have it at the small hotel where we had our intimate reception dinner the night of our wedding. Other than that, we've agreed on not doing tangible gifts because we would rather look back years from now and see how we made it so much farther on so much less. That's more important to us.
I LOVE the ideas of doing pumpkins! I think I might do this!
Well, for our first anniversary, we had a 6-week old so we didn't have much of a night on the town planned.
I think one of the gifts for first anniversary is paper. Something that my husband did that was awesome though was that he wrote me a letter about our first year together, how thankful he was, he excited he was about the baby and our future together, etc. It didn't cost anything at all but it was an amazing gift and I still have it in my nightstand - best gift ever!