If you’ve followed me on Facebook of late, you must be wondering what’s all the sudden flurry of fiftyness all about. So here’s the mystery:
Today’s post is Love in india’s 50th baby step towards growing up. Yes, you’ve guessed it right – today’s is our 50th post. In order to celebrate our 50th step, today I bring to you 50 completely unique, thoughtful, creative and inexpensive anniversary ideas. Most of the ideas – as you’d see – are also applicable to any celebration in the context of a romantic relationship.
No point wasting time. Let’s get started.
- Write her a letter teaching her the “Alphabet of your love”. For each letter of the alphabet, find a word which is associated with your relationship/marriage. For example, A for Ahmedabad – where we first met, B for Bombay Blue – our favourite restaurant, C for Chocolate – the first movie we saw together, etc.
- If you want to make it even more special, you can do the “Alphabet of our love” in the form of a photo book – each page for a different letter, accompanied by an image of the item for that letter.
- Make a flashcard for each letter with the item and photo. Place them all over your home for her to discover.
- Create a funny timeline of the story of your love and marriage. Here’s an example I created for you.
- Leave a note on the bedside table saying, “I’ve locked up by cellphone, laptop and ipad.” Make sure you’re not in the room when she wakes up. On the bathroom mirror stick a note saying, “Because…”. While she’s in there, come back in the bedroom and place a big placard on the bed saying, “Today is your day.”
- Order a custom made cake with your couple photo on it. For example, India Cakes offers unique custom cakes with a photo and text of your choice on it at reasonable prices.
- Recreate your first date. Do exactly the things you did then. Ours involved a dinner out, followed by visiting different sea faces (almost) all around the city. (I came home around 3 AM that night :P). Simple fun first date activities are usually easy to replicate and deeply romantic for any couple.
- Give her a calendar in which every page has a different picture/theme, but for the same month – your wedding month, with your wedding date highlighted.
- Order custom anniversary key chains your and her names around a heart shape etc. – get creative with the design. Needless to add – don’t forget to order a pair. :P
- Try the following for a unique key chain dangler design: Use square danglers with the calendar of the month of your wedding in it. Mark out your wedding date creatively. A bit like this picture.
Imagine this inscribed in tiny 1 inch by 1 inch sheets of plastic/metal/wood to be used as danglers in your key chain.
- Make a scrapbook of all (as many as you can remember) cute messages you’ve sent each other during the heady days of first love.
- Make a scrapbook of all the romantic thoughts you’ve ever had about her but didn’t get a chance to tell her. Like, “I used to post cute cat photos in Facebook just to get your attention, ’cause I knew you love cats.”If you can, add relevant photos to your messages. It doesn’t have to be all your and her photos – get creative.
- Make a few simple little paper envelopes, stick them onto a big sheet of paper (a bit hard), and put a notes with the above messages inside them. Here’s what it might look like:
- Put your notes in the little envelopes but don’t stick them on to a piece of paper. Create a “Goody basket” with chocolates, framed photos, flowers and those little envelopes with your love inside them. If you have any special gift for her you can hide it in here too.
- Write “I love you” in different languages and fonts and present to her in the form of a love letter. You can also choose from steps #11 – #13 & repeat with these “I love you” messages.
Photo by glitterandgrunge.com18. Write a “50 unique things about you which make me fall in love everyday” letter to her. You can also choose from steps #11 – #13 & repeat with these “unique things about you” messages/notes.
22. Do you know “cafuné” in Brazilian Portuguese means “The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone's hair”? There are many such awesomely romantic words and phrases in other languages which have no English equivalent. Use these creatively in a love letter describing your special feelings for her, or use these as messages/notes in #11 – #13.
26. Create a “Memory Box.” Things to put inside – prints of your photos together, some of the (smaller) gifts you’ve exchanged over the years, the cologne you used on your first date, the clutch she carried on the day you first kissed her, your wedding handkerchief, her wedding slippers … You get the idea. Even if you’ve (unfortunately) lost track of some of those (really old) objects, you can replace them with newer ones, only under one condition – they all should hold some special memories for both of you.
27. Strew short romantic notes all over your home for her to find out. Start with one on the bedside table for her to discover first thing in the morning, then one on the breakfast table, one of the sofa … go crazy!
28. If craziness is not your thing, don’t hesitate to ask me for help with the messages. ;)
29. Choose a love quote (better still – create one), get it framed nicely, and gift her. Quite like this cute framed marriage quote. Again, if you need help with the quote you know where to come. ;)
30. Create a playlist of songs which fit in with your story – starting from how you first met, to your first kiss to how you fell in love and got married.
31. Do something new & lasting to mark the anniversary – like bringing a pet home, planting a shrub together or starting a new project together.
32. Take her to where you first met.
33. For effect, keep her eyes blindfolded on your way to the place (I’m hoping you’ll not use public transport :P), till the time you reach the place.
34. If you want to go beyond the romantic dinner, go out on a day long photo shoot. Visit all the places in the city which hold special memories for you and take couple photos.
35. What if you could recreate elements of your wedding day – only now, as a piece of art? Her wedding sari, or dress, your wedding suit, bouquets and accessories? My Dreamlines lets you do just that. Here you can upload photos of your wedding attires, get them hand-sketched in a size of your choice, and delivered to before your anniversary day, so that you can stage a grand romantic moment on the D-day! Actually if you plan it right, you can use a customized sketch for a wedding gift to your bride on the wedding day too. A totally out of the ordinary, personalized, thoughtful gift to celebrate the most special day of your lives.
My Dreamlines36. Make a scrapbook/album of your memorable photos together, at different stages of your relationship. Don’t forget to add captions.
37. Give her a calendar/photo book with her name written in custom themes in all pages.
38. Create a photo book with pictures and stories of each of your anniversaries so far.
39. Write down your special dates, add a caption to each and get it framed. Any local crafts shop will help you with the format, frames etc. Here’s a lovely set of framed dates from Kojo Designs.
Photo by Kojo Designs40. Order a cake with your names and message iced on it. You can arrange for a special delivery from the bakery along with flowers – most confectioners offer the service.
41. If you have any special gifts for her (like a ring or jewellery) hide it inside the cake. She’ll love the surprise of discovering it from within mounds of chocolate. (Make sure none of you choke on it!)
42. Cook her favourite dish as a surprise for dinner. “Cook” means “do it yourself.” :D
43. Blindfold her and feed it to her. She’ll be doubly surprised by the taste of her favourite food and to know that you’ve made it.
44. Recreate your wedding day menu, or at least one special item from it. No you don’t have to cook it yourself this time. :P
45. Play her favourite music in the morning to wake her up.
46. Wake her up by starting to kiss her all over.
47. Wake her up by starting to give her a body massage.
48. Wake her up by starting to touch her sensually. Nothing like starting off your special day with lovemaking.
49. Write a simple love letter or pick a style from the ones described earlier. Use it as background. Paste your wedding photo in the centre and get it framed. Don’t forget to give a separate copy of your love letter to her (what with all that hard work? :P) The end result would look something like this.
Photo by Lenny PhotographyYou obviously need to replace the odd bottle with your and her picture. :P
50.I discovered a great website for creating your custom love poem. You can customize it with her name and favourite gifts and then download it in the shape of a heart like I did. All of this for free!
51.Bonus idea! Girls love flower bouquets and girls love chocolate. Why not combine the two in the form of an exquisite candy bouquet like the one here?
Photo by josanne70Of course you can go for simpler ones like this one:
Photo by litreeSo there you have it – your exhaustive supply of unique and creative anniversary ideas for the rest of your married life! Do let me know what you think of them by leaving a comment.