As wedding week winds down, here’s the promised recap of how we celebrated our anniversary this year — where we went, what we ate, the gifts we exchanged, and the small keepsakes we added to our home.
We kicked things off with a few photographic traditions. On Wednesday afternoon we went to Richmond’s Carytown to visit our favorite photo booth at the New York Deli. It was Clara’s first time in a booth and she adored it, so we grabbed an extra strip. Both photo strips now sit on a shelf in our dining area alongside other strips from big days we’ve saved.
We also keep another small anniversary photo collection in our bedroom. On the ottoman by the mirror we have framed pictures from the last two anniversaries — a tradition we plan to continue each year until the collection eventually moves to a wall. In the left photo from our first anniversary you can see us holding the cupcakes we froze from our wedding to eat a year later. Surprisingly, they were pretty good.
To continue the anniversary “portrait” tradition, we came home from the photo strip session and, despite the heat, took a few backyard photos with Clara included. A tripod and the camera’s timer made it easy to capture the three of us.
We especially loved the shot that features the arch we were married under in the foreground.
For our anniversary meal, we wanted to honor our Alaskan honeymoon, so we decided on a salmon dish. I’m currently working my way through Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution, so we adapted a salmon stir-fry recipe. Kroger didn’t have every ingredient the recipe called for, but the result was delicious.
After dinner, with Clara asleep, we exchanged presents. Although the traditional third-year gift is leather, we each chose art. Sherry surprised me with two 12″ x 12″ enlargements from Clara’s newborn photoshoot, framed in inexpensive Ikea frames and hung in our bedroom. They replaced a botanical print and now let us admire our daughter even when she’s sleeping in her nursery across the hall — they even match the bedroom color scheme perfectly.
For Sherry’s gift, I created a postcard-sized piece of graphic art that highlights moments and inside jokes from nearly six years of knowing each other and five years of dating and marriage. It mixes sentimental notes — like how we became a family of four — with playful memories, such as the brief confusion over her name and nods to her role as a hands-off driver or an affectionate “baby momma.”
The gift exchange wrapped up on 7/7/10, but the celebrations continued. A day trip had been planned, though extreme heat forced us to postpone it to the following day when temperatures dropped into the 90s — still warm, but more tolerable than the triple digits.
We drove west to Charlottesville, VA, to get close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and to visit the area near where we got engaged. Most of the day we spent on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, enjoying the views and reminiscing about past adventures.
For lunch we stopped at Blue Mountain Brewery near the mountains. Even though we don’t drink much, the setting and local food were worth the visit. The brewery’s green-minded features — like visible rain barrels — were a nice bonus, and Sherry admired their deep bronze metal roof, dreaming of one day having a similar look on our house.
The meal itself was simple and tasty, made with local ingredients. I spent parts of the lunch with Clara in my Ergo carrier, enjoying her many expressions — sleepy, happy, bashful, and occasionally grumpy — which kept us entertained throughout the meal.
After lunch we stopped by my alma mater to pick up Clara’s first UVA onesie, then headed home to officially close out the extended anniversary celebrations. The next morning we made one final nod to our lemon-and-lime themed wedding with Clara’s eight-week photo — another little keepsake to add to our growing collection.
Thanks for joining us for wedding week. It’s always inspiring to take a step back and celebrate relationships and the moments that spark DIY and design ideas. We’ll be back with regular posts soon. In the meantime, enjoy your anniversaries and the milestone moments that come up over the next year.
Psst — if you want more photos of Clara, click the sidebar button with her picture for lots of regularly uploaded Baby P photos.