POLL: dating/wedding anniversary recognition

mrscaty

I got into a discussion with my friend because I told him that I wouldn't be celebrating our dating anniversary after we get married, we would only acknowledge it. He said that if/when he gets married, he will still want to celebrate his dating anniversary.

So, after you are married (or now if you are already married) how do you celebrate your anniversaries (if at all)?

For the purposes of this poll:
celebrate = money spent
acknowledge = no money spent

AddieCake

We acknowledge it, but it's casual. The first year, we were like, "Oh, shit, our dating anniversary was yesterday. We've been together X years! Yay!"  Last year, we remembered around Christmas that it was coming up and commented how we'd been together almost X years and yay!  And then the actual date passed us without us even noticing. 

mrscaty

smichek said:

Our dating anniversary is today, yay! Just had to comment and share that We celebrated last night but likely won't celebrate it once we're married.

Ours was yesterday (6 years!!). That's how the conversation with my friend got started. I didn't know what to get FH and he was like "well that's gonna suck once you're married - having 2 anniversaries". 

KeptInStitches

Once we're married, we'll probably only celebrate our wedding anniversary.

JoanE2012

We do not celebrate our dating anniversary.  We'll mention it, if we remember.  Last year I remembered about a week after the fact.

mrsmagicgeek

FI wants to celebrate both! Since our dating anniversary is 3 days after Christmas though I imagine it will fade out eventually.

JCbride2015

I checked that we will "celebrate" both, but I don't think we'll continue to give each other gifts.  Really, we don't do that now for our dating anniversary-- we usually go out for a nice dinner or to a show.

We'll have celebrated 12 dating anniversaries before we get married, so I think Feb 17 will always be ingrained as "our anniversary" as well as the wedding date.  It's just been so long.

kaitlynmichelle

As we have been together for almost 10 years we plan to celebrate both. We got engaged on our dating anniversary so it is a special day for us. We are getting married next month, so 3 months shy of 10 years together.

Also this means more cake.

hellosweetie1015

We don't even know our dating anniversary, haha, so we don't really acknowledge it. I'm sure the month will get acknowledged. I know it was after Valentine's Day, 2013, haha. But we were both sort of fuzzy when we started - it was an online thing, and we both went into it with a little uncertainty about what we wanted out of it. So I didn't really mark my mental calendar, and he's not one to keep a mental calendar so...

We will be celebrating our wedding anniversary, but I want to do so by DOING special things, not by gifts. Like, I hope to be able to take us to a Blackhawks game for our first anniversary (paper = tickets).

CMGragain

I started dating my DH when I was 16.  I have no idea of the exact date, but it was in 1967.  I do remember what date we were married!

daria24

We didn't even celebrate our anniversary back when we were dating. So far we've celebrated our wedding anniversary by going on small trips, which I hope we can continue. It's mostly just an excuse to travel, we don't do presents. 

Inkdancer

We celebrate, but usually by cooking a nice dinner for each other. He does dinner, I do dessert. Then we snuggle. I imagine our wedding anniversaries will be similar.

Cookie Pusher

Our dating anniversary is right around my birthday, so we've always just rolled the two into one celebratory dinner. Now that we're married, I don't see that changing unless we stop celebrating my birthday!

Peaseblossom55

Our dating anniversary will be 5 years in October so we'll may be go out to dinner, there was talk of going away for a long weekend too.  We'll probably celebrate our wedding anniversary more than our dating anniversary though going forward.

IrishPirate60

I equate "dating anniversaries" to high school-aged people. Way too much drama. (High school teacher for 10 years.) Sorry. Just not that interesting!

LadyMillil

DH always gets my birthday and our dating anniversary mixed up and was worried about remembering another date once we got married. I told him that he only needs to remember my birthday and our wedding anniversary. We got engaged on our dating anniversary and married less than 2 weeks after. Since the anniversaries are so close together we won't celebrate both, but might have a special dinner at home for the dating anniversary.

theartistformerlyknownas

We're getting married within a week of our dating anniversary so I imagine they'll get lumped together.

LabLove86

This past June was our one-year anniversary, and we just celebrated last week. On the actual anniversary itself we made dinner at home and just went our for some ice cream. 

Neither of us put a ton of weight on our dating anniversary - but I have a feeling the eventual wedding anniversary will be more important to both of us. So I put we would acknowledge the dating, but celebrate the Wedding.

chocolateygabs

We just got married on the 2nd (Yay!), and part of our reasoning for the date is that it was as close to our dating anniversary as we could get and still get married on a weekend.  We did celebrate the dating anniversary as part of our honeymoon. We wanted to go out to a fancy dinner, and the resort we stayed at gave us a free entrée with a free appetizer or dessert for each.  Our dating anniversary was the 5th, so we thought it would be perfect to wrap up that celebration with our overall honeymoon.  I don't know what we will do in the future, probably just acknowledge it as opposed to celebrate our wedding anniversary and then three days later celebrate our dating anniversary.

Of course, there are other ways to celebrate than spending the money *nudge, nudge*, *wink, wink.*

NavyBlue143

We'll acknowledge the dating anniversary, if we remember it. But we only celebrate the wedding anniversary. Both of our birthdays are in August; and our wedding anniversary is in September; our dating anniversary is November 1; and we're celebrated out by then.

WinstonsGirl

We acknowledge our dating anniversary, and DH might bring me flowers.  I'll buy him some peanut M&M's and that's about it.  We don't do anything else for it

rajahmd

We usually just do a dinner out to celebrate our dating anniversary. We save gifts for wedding anniversary. I selected celebrate both though because I count buying a nice dinner as spending money and celebrating.

We consider it important to celebrate because if we hadn't started dating, we wouldn't be married.

hellohkb

We will be together for 9 years on our wedding day and together 10 years on our 1 year marriage anniversary, so that first anniversary will be special on both days. After that, we would probably try to continue to celebrate for both.

OliveOilsMom

We don't even remember the actual day of our dating anniversary and we have been together 6 years.  We know its October 20-something.  I can always look it up if I want though.  The reason I was able to figure out our first dating anniversary, when it was coming around, was because we went out on a Sunday night for dinner.  And our football team, the Eagles, were on a bye week.  So all I need to do is google the 2008 Eagles schedule to figure out the exact date.  Weird, I know, but we don't celebrate it anymore anyway.  We have a bigger date to celebrate now!

Senecaf

We started dating so long ago I've forgotten the date. We never have celebrated our dating anniversary so marriage date only for us.

Maggie0829

Our dating anniversary is sometime in May so once June rolls around we think "wow we have been together X years."  But other then that we don't really acknowledge or celebrate it.  Hell, we barely celebrate our wedding anniversary.  I mean, yes those dates are special to us but the fact that we are still together and just as much in love as we were when we first got together is what really matters.

MegEn1

We still can't figure out our dating anniversary now. I thought it was when we had the exclusivity talk, but he swears that it should be retroactive to our first date. We compromised and made it February 15 (pretty close to our first date). We did that because I got paid on the 15th of every month and so I knew I'd remember the date.

After the wedding, we'll likely just do V-day and call it good.

ShellD13

We got married 1 day after our "official" dating anniversary because H and I refused to get married on a Friday the 13th ;-)  But even before the wedding, we didn't really put much effort into the dating anniversary...birthday, valentines day, calendar holidays for us :-)

jenna8984

We don't have a dating anniversary either. We met mid December 2010, but broke up for January/ Feb 2011 and got back together and serious in March 2011. So we never knew whether to call December or March the anniversary so we just don't have one. I do think it's a little high school-y, and I've never celebrated an anniversary with any ex (who were 4 years and 2 years of dating). I'm excited to get married and actually have an anniversary for once.

Bubblegum5586

We at least acknowledge it since we got married after almost 8 years of dating. So 4 months after our 2nd wedding anniversary will be 10 years together. Since we have so much history considering we have been married for such a short time it is nice to acknowledge, and to reminiscence our life together and how we were at 19 when we started dating!

SBmini

I think we've moved on, but I guess we'll find out next month when we have our dating anniversary. We dated for nearly 10 years before getting engaged. On our 10 year dating anniversary, we were staying with his parents, attending an engagement party for his cousin. I looked at him across from the breakfast table and said, "Happy 10 year anniversary"

And that was that.

Being that we got married 10.7 years after we met, I think it is fitting to move on. We will count our first wedding anniversary as both our 1 and our 11. It's a nice transition.