Celebrating milestones is something I am passionate about and always have been, as you may have guessed by now! Long ago, I declared myself a celebration enthusiast, and I am unapologetic about how much a love celebrating life, the big and little moments that make up our days, and establishing meaningful traditions in our own little family. I LOVE traditions… the ones that I grew up with and continue to maintain, the ones that Rob and I have started together, and being inspired by and learning new traditions and celebrations that we hope to make a part of our joyful home life.

With our second anniversary just a few days ago, I wanted to share some of our personal favorite traditions that have become a part of our annual rituals and celebrations. I have had a Google doc for several years now (but have a Celebrations Binder from Cultivate What Matters on its way to our house right now!), and it’s a compilation of all of the traditions that my family had growing up (my mom, in particular, is the queen of special, sweet little touches and traditions!), the traditions and celebrations that Rob and I have created for us, and the traditions, sweet touches, and culture we’d like to instill in our future children one day. I am incredibly passionate about instilling a sense of magic, play, and wonder in our day-to-day lives, and there are countless ways to make an ordinary event or moment extraordinary. I believe that the meaningful little touches and surprises matter — and this is one of the ways that I show love and thought best. Oh, I have so much to say about creating meaningful, thoughtful, special traditions to celebrate life well!

For our anniversaries, some of the traditions that are most important to us to commemorate another year of marriage are:

• watching our wedding ceremony video together (it’s a definite that I bawl throughout the entire thing; it’s so incredibly special to watch our wedding day again!)
• scrolling through our wedding gallery (I’m a total softie; it’s true — these gorgeous images are our family’s legacy, and they’re such a beautiful depiction of our first day of marriage and all of the enormous love and joy we felt that day!)
• dancing to our first dance song (Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling in Love! It brings back the happiest memories every time I hear it, and I firmly believe Rob can sing it just as well as Elvis can.)
• popping our favorite bubbly and toasting to our marriage using the crystal Waterford champagne flutes that we toasted with at our wedding (we also save the corks from year to year!)
• going on an anniversary weekend celebration, just the two of us (last year, we went to Beaufort, and this year, we went to Charleston. These trips are so, so special!)
• picking up cupcakes (or for our first year, our anniversary tier) in our wedding cake flavors
• reading our vows to each other again (I think this is the most important one, for obvious reasons. My favorite line from our vows is: “I vow to pursue your heart and love you the way God does: unconditionally and never-ending.”)

As much fun it is to have these meaningful traditions to commemorate and celebrate our marriage and anniversary each year, quality time together, reminiscing about our wedding and the past year while dreaming about the coming year(s), is truly the most important thing. I’m endlessly thankful for the past two years of marriage with Rob and a million more together!