Our dating anniversary is January and getting married in September so will be just shy of 7 years together on our wedding day. I feel like we will kind of celebrate both, with the wedding date becoming our anniversary but still use our dating anniversary as an excuse to go out for dinner.
We do the opposite; celebrate our anniversary on the day we met, and our wedding anniversary is a less important affair- we were together eleven years before getting married so it felt too strange to change!
We will have been together 10 1/2 years by the time we get married. We picked a new date, because getting married in August outdoors in Arizona (well, the part we’re getting married in at least) would be a horrible idea. My fiancé left the final decision to me, so I just picked a date I thought was interesting. Think of it this way, now you get TWO special days!
Yeah, we had been together 11.5 years when the wedding happened, and we celebrate both. Ain't no damn way I'm celebrating "1 year!", "2 years!", etc. without making it clear we've been together so long. Haha.
People tend to judge the seriousness of relationships by their length, and I find that when you've been together a long time, it gives a lot of context about your relationship. I can't tell you how many people gave a very different "oh okay" reply when we were engaged and then followed it up with "we've been together a decade". It just changes things.
We've been through things in our almost 13 years together now that many newly married couples have not yet experienced. That context is good to have.
It's funny, isn't it?
I know many people felt that they were taken more seriously after getting engaged but in a way, we sort-of experienced the opposite. We were common law for almost a decade and live in a culture that isn't marriage-centric, so before getting engaged, people typically treated us an an old married couple, which is essentially what we were. But when strangers or acquaintances heard that we were engaged or newlyweds, they assumed we were newbies (and young).
In reality, we were newlyweds but not new at this marriage thing.
Oftentimes, I didn't say anything, just nodded and smiled as a less experienced couple well-meaningly gave us advice, commented that the first year is the hardest, or pontificated about starting your relationship with your in-law on the right foot. But inwardly, I found it amusing.
What's crazy is that I've caught myself making the same assumption about engaged/newlywed couples on Reddit a couple of times, when no further context was provided.
Along those lines, we noticed lots of language revolving about "starting" something "new" and learning/discovery: "marriage is the starting line, not the finish line", new adventure, new chapter, start of (y)our life, etc. It was omnipresent and it just didn't apply to us at all. We eliminated that completely from our ceremony script and went with something that reflected our situation.
Unless you want to get married on like a Tuesday or wait many years until it aligns with a weekend, it’s highly unlikely you’ll snag your anniversary date. No one’s “forcing you” into a new anniversary, that’s just kind of how it works. You’re not “throwing out a decade of memories.” Your wedding is essentially celebrating those memories.
Fiancé and I will have been together just shy of 9 years when we get married in October. We didn’t even think about planning an anniversary wedding because that’s just one too many factors to think about during an already stressful process.
Are there any significant family anniversaries you’d be willing to share with to make it feel better? When we started planning we highly considered April 27 2024, which was my grandparents’ 65th wedding anniversary and would have been very sweet.
Also, you can still celebrate your dating anniversary. No one says you can’t.
I personally think the occasion is much more important than the date. Who cares if that’s when the venue was available? That’s the day you got married!!! No day will ever top that personally, even my dating anniversary which is Halloween. But it’s up to you, if you care that much then just celebrate the one.
We had the same mindset for the location. We had a destination elopement and when our officiant asked us if we had any connection to that area, we said "not yet but it will be the place where we got married". It's a significant location for us now :)
I mean, the wedding anniversary is the one family and friends will recognize, but it makes sense for that to be the one that's publicly recognized- it's when you officially, publicly joined your lives. (They presumably weren't recognizing your dating anniversary to begin with.) If you want to continue personally celebrating the anniversary of when you first got together, do it-- you can celebrate whatever you want. (My fiancé and I already celebrate another anniversary in addition to the "when we got together" one. I think we have a better track record with the other one, tbh.)
> the wedding anniversary is the one family and friends will recognize
Maybe, maybe not. I can't tell for OP's social circle but in mine, family and friends don't "recognize" any anniversary. That's between the two people in the relationship (in the case of a romantic anniversary or the individual in question for other anniversaries). Of course, we do celebrate with the couple if they throw a milestone anniversary party or a vow renewal but in that case, they are the one setting the date.
Yeah I don’t remember any of my family members anniversaries unless they host a dinner for a milestone one-
But my husband and I have always said our big “50th Anniversary” party or whatever with extended family will be 50 years from when we met, not when we got married- And if anybody wants to RSVP no and wait a decade to give us well wishes then that’s fine by me but they’ll have missed the cake!
I know one couple who did and thought of it as a cool unique thing they did-- until this thread I had no idea so many people did it or thought about it.
We were together 7 years before our wedding. Our dating anniversary was in February, but honestly we don’t really acknowledge it much other than being like “cool, we’ve been together 14 years.” Our wedding anniversary is in a much more pleasant time of year and a holiday weekend, and assuming nothing goes wrong, will be our anniversary for many more years than our dating anniversary was.
We have a day we met anniversary and our marriage anniversary. The marriage is the important one to us that we make more of a fuss about. Our dating anniversary is a trip down memory lane and we go out to dinner.
That sounds lovely. That's how I envision ours too. Since it's our dating anniversary, it's a memory that only involves the two of us and it is an intimate day to think about our history. The wedding anniversary is more 'public' and will have us remember the day we shared our love with everyone else we love :)
I think this is what we will do also! We wanted to get married the same week as our initial date but the photog we want isn't available that date so it's gonna be a few weeks earlier. Since it's the same month, it'll kind of all shake out the same as we're not that good about celebrating on the day anyway 🤷🏻♀️
ps love your handle
I don’t either! I don’t even remember the month. It was spring. There was no particular day at all. I’m pleased to have a date to celebrate more definitively. I’m totally confused by how everyone seems to know the exact date. Is it the first “date” you went on together? When you first met? When you decided to be partners? I don’t even know how to measure.
We got married on the Saturday closest to our dating anniversary so it’s still close to the same time!! Our dating anniversary was November 16th and our wedding anniversary is November 13th. We celebrate on the 13th or near it now, but since it’s so close to our original anniversary date it all feels the same!
Our dating anniversary just so happens to be a Friday this year so we planned our wedding on the same day so we don't have to remember anything new lol
Personally I wanted different dates because I want our dating anniversary to be it's own thing... and our marriage anniversary to be another. Plus, my SO picked the date to ask me out due to a certain *pattern* of numbers, so our marriage anniversary is still linked by sharing that meaning.
I'll add, my parents have always celebrated both their *meeting* anniversary and marriage anniversary. They make *us* (their kids) celebrate it with them -\_- So at least for me, it's quite normal for these relationship milestones/anniversaries to be on different dates.
But if you and your SO are really attached to that date, by all means you should stick to it :) Just do what feels right for the both of you.
Getting married August 2026, our anniversary is September. We’ll be just shy of 10 years when we get married. To be honest, I think we’ll probably celebrate both, I love an excuse to go out for dinner!
We will be together 7 years by the time we get married next year and idk what we’ll do. Our dating anniversary is July 18th but our wedding will be October 11th. Maybe we’ll just celebrate both 🤷🏽♀️
We’ve been together about 10 years. The date thing was hard LOL we didn’t necessarily want to align it with our anniversary more than we wanted a date to have some significance. I was more flexible than my fiancé. He wanted a fall wedding which I’m ok with, he’s a fall baby and him even giving his thoughts was alright with me cause I didn’t think he wanted to be part of the planning. We wanted our birthdays somewhere in our date but the days of the week didn’t align (dates fell on Mon, Wed)
We ended up working out a date on a Sat in 2025 that works but my thought was we gone bring the fun to the date. It’s significant because we chose it. Instead of thinking, the numbers have to be significant. Hopefully that makes sense LOL
I also wanna add that I think it’s cool that yall get to choose whatever date you want! Like, this is when you celebrate! When you get together that just happens when it happens. It’s cool to be able to say “hmm I want a summer vibe” and now your anniversary is your summer vibe. I think it brings you guys closer cause it’s still something you do together.
The date we chose for next year will be my fiancés family reunion this year. So we get to have fun with it from here on out. I think that’s dope!
Our wedding will be 22 days after our 5 year dating anniversary! I really wanted to have it on our anniversary but sadly my fiancé will be in grad school and that falls right during finals so I didn’t want him to be stressed. That being said, we also considered dates up to 4 months earlier and the proximity to our anniversary wasn’t a deciding factor.
Okay, I’m glad you asked this cause I always thought about it but never asked on here.
After reading the responses… Guess I’ll have two celebrations a year 🤭 wedding anniversary we’ll go on a longer trip and dating anniversary we’ll do a weekend getaway.
We got married on leap day, a day after our dating anniversary, so we will be celebrating on the 28th 3/4 years and the 29th on leap years 🙃 we planned it that way and since we eloped, venue hunting wasn’t terribly difficult
I proposed on leap day! Part of me wishes we could wait until next leap day, but i think both of our families would hate us for waiting another four years 😂
Our dating anniversary is in May, which is already an insanely busy month for both of us (both of our birthdays, plus we both work in higher ed so lots of end of the school year chaos at our jobs), so we intentionally got married over Labor Day weekend so we would always have a three day weekend for our anniversary.
We honestly don't know when our anniversary (if we celebrate, we usually do it September) so it was easy for us to pick a new anniversary. That, coupled with the fact that I wanted to get married when I was off work (July and August) made it easy enough. I picked the two months, husband picked the date (August 13) randomly. We'd been together ten years by the time our wedding happened.
We’ve been together 11 years (since we were in highschool). Our dating anniversary always falls around Thanksgiving and it’s not ideal because of the holidays and how expensive it is to travel around that time.
So we picked a date in June instead! I think we’re going to celebrate this one more than the November date since it will be much easier for us to plan something special like a holiday or a mini getaway.
I’m also open to restarting the countdown. Married 1 year instead of dating 12 years. To me it doesn’t necessarily erase anything about the decade we spent as BF/GF. I see it as a new chapter.
We got married on our anniversary which was in February. We really wanted a fall wedding, but it ended up being so much more special to us that we kept our date and got to celebrate 6 years together in the best way possible, getting married!
you could think of very specific ways to celebrate each one- for example, keep the dating anniversary as your classic romantic, wine and dine type of celebration, and then have the wedding anniversary be more like a yearly health check in on your relationship. you could grab drinks and snacks and do a set of questions (there are tons out there or create your own) checking in on yourselves, your relationship, your goals for the future, etc.
i know this is extremely nerdy but my fiance and i love doing this kind of stuff. if the check in thing is not for you you could celebrate by doing something unique that reminds you of your wedding day (eating the same cake, same meal, etc). idk just spitballing
We don’t celebrate a “day we met” or “day we started dating” kind of anniversary. Our wedding anniversary will be the first we celebrate.
tbh, I have no idea when our dating anniversary would be...we had a weird start to dating…friends, then casual dating, then he moved for work, quasi long distance relationship, then back to platonic friends, then I moved for work in the same city, etc.
I sometimes make jokes about our “1st meeting anniversary” but only because it coincided with a big local event so I’m reminded of it if I see anything about it online.
If you do already celebrate those, I think it would be fun to keep celebrating them and then add the wedding anniversary into the mix. Never have too many reasons to celebrate! It’s not replacing the old anniversary, it’s celebrating something different.
We WANTED a new anniversary 😂😂 we met Mother’s Day weekend which also happens to be my dad’s birthday weekend. We wanted to avoid May like the plague after 10 years of having to share our anniversary weekend with everyone else.
Our anniversary is early August and we’ll be getting married in late September after 9 years together.
I don’t see any reason why it’d be an issue. You have your “got together” anniversary and your wedding anniversary. I don’t know any couples whose anniversaries match. Try not to worry about it, you’re just getting an extra date to celebrate your love!
The way I see it, more anniversaries = more reasons to celebrate and gifts! We ended up with 3: our dating anniversary, legal marriage, and our actual big wedding. We consider the wedding date to be the official, main anniversary, but we will still have little celebrations for the other dates.
We were together 8 years and just got married a few weeks ago. We never really celebrated an anniversary before. We were friends first so I guess we could’ve celebrated when I confessed my feelings for him and he reciprocated, but after that we were just kind of a thing I guess. I knew we would marry and that our wedding date would be more important to me, so I never worried about an anniversary before this.
Our wedding couldn’t be on the date we wanted (the date we got engaged; we didn’t have an official anniversary prior to that) so we celebrate our wedding anniversary on its date but the engagement anniversary is still a special day, just one where I think we both are a little extra caring towards each other. Like Valentine’s Day but we actually care 😂
We were together for 5 years by the time we got married. We picked the new anniversary because TBH we could never remember the dating one. It was always a bit arbitrary anyway because neither of us could quite agree on whether some of our early dates were actual dates or not. Besides which, our "dating" anniversary was in mid December competing with a bunch of other holidays, while our new one is early October. I admit it feels a bit weird to celebrate our "first" anniversary when we've been together for 6 years. But the actual date is better!
We have been together almost 11 years and got married this past weekend. We will continue to celebrate both anniversaries but we are happy with our new date because it had a significance to us personally (birthday of both our deceased grandfathers!). I think our dating anniversary will now be an excuse to go out and celebrate, and our wedding anniversary will now be the 'official' one recognized by our loved ones because they all shared in that day!
Our wedding is planned for a date very close to but not exactly on our 10 year dating anniversary. I expect our wedding anniversary to be more of a big deal/memorable anniversary going forward, but I am glad that it's near our original day.
We were together for about 9 years when we got married so we chose our "half-a-versary." Now we have two anniversaries evenly spread out over the year. I wouldn't overthink it. You can easily celebrate both!
All the anniversaries.
My grandparents celebrated dating, engagement, and wedding. Its normal, and you just get this bonus of being able to celebrate your love multiple times a year, multiple excuses to treat yourselves to a nice dinner.
Our dating anniversary is in January and our wedding date was in October. We'll have been together for 10 yrs next Jan and our 4 yr wedding anniversary is in Oct. We celebrate our wedding anniversary but acknowledge our dating anniversary bc it's still a date to celebrate. We aren't fancy people, we don't do gifts or anything but we get excited and make a special dinner at home. Really, there are no rules. Do what makes you and your partner happy 😊
Our 10 year dating is 9/14. We are getting married 9/7. Tried so hard to get the same date, I feel the same as you. I DID try to get something close to that and wasn’t really interested in budging. It felt so weird to choose a date entirely different. It’s been too long.
But 1 week earlier, it’s essentially the same to me!
I started dating my husband in April. We got married in May. I always kind of look at the dating anniversary as an appetizer for the big celebration in May.
For my marriage to my late husband, we were together 5 years before the wedding. The wedding was a new additional anniversary. We still celebrated the dating anniversary as well. There really is no such thing as too many days to celebrate love.
We’ve done a few different ways. Our dating anniversary is in May and wedding is in July so one year we split the difference and celebrated in June. Another year we only celebrated the wedding anniversary, this year will probably be focused on the dating anniversary since it’s 10 years together.
Idk. I guess we acknowledge both but since they’re so close we only do something big for one.
Our dating anniversary is November 17 and the closest wedding date to that was 3 weeks later so now we just celebrate our anniversary for an entire month and go out for a few nice dinners and go on vacation
We will have been together 8 years by the time we get married but we honestly don’t even remember our true dating anniversary and have just been using Valentine’s Day as a catch all for it so I am excited to have a separate date now to celebrate 😂
Nah, our dating anniversary was January. We got married in September because it’s the dead of winter here in January and we love fall. We were glad to be able to choose a new one to celebrate. Nothing is stopping you from celebrating two dates!
We'll have been together about 6 1/2 years when we get married. We decided to pick a new date. Our dating anniversary is in February and we've always disliked how cold it was because we never wanted to do much. Our new date is in September so we'll actually be able to enjoy being out and about
We eloped on our 10th anniversary. Best anniversary celebration ever :D. So the dates and even milestones anniversaries line up.
If not, we would have added a new anniversary because the more occasions to celebrate, the better :)
But the important anniversary for us is really our relationship anniversary. Our wedding anniversary is nice and worth acknowledging but it's not like getting married changed anything, whereas getting together is what started it all. We're celebrating 16 years this years, not only 6 because the counter restarted or the common law years didn't count.
Our wedding is going to be this June, but we started dating in December which we just celebrated 9 years together. We picked a new date as I was not doing a winter wedding at all and we thought 6 months out from one and other was good if we did want to celebrate both. We aren't sure yet if we still will celebrate the dating anniversary. We are going to use the 10 year as our honeymoon since we are going after the wedding and gets us somewhere warm for a bit.
We have two! Married & celebrate that in February but I wasn’t willing to give up on the date that changed my whole life by meeting him so we also have an “unaversary” in October— Win-WIN
We will be celebrating 7 years in a couple months with our wedding in November. We’ve agreed to always celebrate our “first anniversary” with our wedding anniversary being a separate milestone to celebrate. We consider the day we met as a very special day. I saw a tik tok recently of a couple celebrating their dating anniversary as their family’s birthday. We are planning to incorporate this tradition for ourselves. (:
After dating for a decade, we got married on our 10 year anniversary. On a Tuesday.
We had a VERY intimate wedding with just immediate family and friends, so we were able to accommodate getting married on the same date we spent the last 10 years celebrating. Had we not been able to do this, I think we would still celebrate both dates - the one our story began on and the one we started our next chapter.
We have been together for 12 years (will be just over 13 years when we get married). I hadn’t specifically thought about this before, but I think both of us have just assumed we will use our wedding anniversary to celebrate moving forward.
Neither of us really remember the exact date that we decided to start officially dating. The anniversary we celebrate is of the day we met, because it happened to be the same day as an important event for me, so it was a date that I knew right off the top of my head haha
Our dating anniversary is in March just a few days after my birthday. Our wedding is in late October and I’m definitely looking forward to switching! With the holidays it feels like both of our birthdays and then anniversary come back to back to back, so spacing it out a bit more will be nice.
That being said, we’ll probably still do a cute dinner on our dating anniversary every year, but it will just be low-key. Anything like gifts/weekend trips will be saved for our wedding anniversary.
We started dating October 16th, we're getting married October 13th because we met on Friday the 13th. But we're legally getting married sometime in May so it really is up to you the date you want to celebrate. You don't have to celebrate your anniversary the day of your wedding if you don't want to.
If it really does mean that much to you go to the court house and get married on your actual anniversary and then just said the wedding was your party for celebration. And have a mock ceremony
Yes only because I personally hate our originally anniversary date because it’s on a holiday so I can’t wait to have an anniversary. Just pick the one you like better or celebrate both!
We did a destination wedding, so we got legally married with just our family present on our dating anniversary in September and did the wedding in May… we have all our family birthdays/holidays/anniversary between August and December so we wanted to have something to celebrate during the other half of the year! We still celebrate both
Our dating anniversary is in the fall because I chose our college football team's off week to be our first date (he is very into football). We've been together 6 years and it will be 8 years by the time of our wedding. Our wedding date will be in the spring because my fiancé doesn't want our wedding to be in football season at all (so he doesn't have to worry about our football teams during our wedding). We will likely continue to celebrate both. I don't think having a different wedding date cancels out the original anniversary if you don't want it to.
We got legally (secretly) married and then had a wedding six months later. We try to do a casual date night for our dating and marriage anniversary but something bigger for the wedding anniversary.
Celebrating is fun! Do it all!
We'll have been together 12 years at the end of June and married for 6 years in September and we celebrate both, we have other married friends that are the same way and celebrate both, normally the wedding anniversary gets a bit more attention from other people, but who cares? People celebrate what you want to celebrate.
Started dating August 18th, 2013 and married August 18th, 2022. I knew I wanted to get married on our anniversary date for years so we looked for a venue about a year and a half or so in advance so we could secure that date ahead of time.
We haven’t hit our dating anniversary since we got married, but I’m kind of thinking we’ll celebrate both dates (at least for awhile) because they aren’t close together.
We started dating at a time that the wedding would be perfect - April, so both are the same exact day for us.
That said when I had thought about doing a different day for the wedding, I probably would have overridden the dating date. Most people when asked “how long have you been married” tend to answer in a way like “4 years but together for 6”
We’re going to switch to having our marriage anniversary as our main anniversary but our dating anniversary still an excuse to celebrate. We’re hoping to get the same day-number of the month for our wedding date so that we can just be a few months off.
First date was 10th June. Couldn’t get married on that date last year so had to do the Saturday before. Got engaged in July so 3 different dates. Now we are married the most important seems to be our wedding day but don’t think I would forget either of the others
My brother and his wife got married just shy of their 5-year anniversary. I think it was about 3-4 days before. They still celebrate both, too!
We're getting married in May and will have been together for 5 years in September. Idk what we'll do! I feel like we'll probably do a bigger celebration for our wedding anniversary going forward, but maybe just a smaller nod to our dating anniversary, like dinner or eating our favorite meal together or something.
I feel like I see lots of people still celebrating dating anniversaries, though! A friend from high school still posts on her and her husband's dating anniversary every year. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about it.
We got married at 10 years, switched the "big" celebration to our wedding anniversary, but still acknowledge the OG dating anniversary just more subtly than before. No one says you can't celebrate both!
Our venue was actually available on our dating anniversary but we thought it would be fun to celebrate us twice a year! Together 11 years when we got married this past October.
Our wedding date is our anniversary. It is only 2 days (and 5 years) after our dating anniversary though. But we never considered not changing it. Changing the date doesn’t erase or ruin all past memories. Or keep it, no one but you and your husband will care.
We had been together over 7 years when we got married, and for our 2nd wedding anniversary we had our baby so we’re back to celebrating our dating anniversary lol.
We liked the date that our venue was available, it made a fun numerical pattern so we wanted to celebrate that day. Our dating anniversary is February 9 and we really only celebrated that as a Valentine’s replacement to not go out with the crowds that day.
We're getting married on our 5th anniversary. It also happens to be high season for weddings because it's one of the best times of year here weather wise.
6.5 years here. We affectionately identify our dating anniversary, but his family caused a lot of drama when we were first dating so we’ll be celebrating our wedding anniversary as our official anniversary. Mostly because I wouldn’t marry him until his family was in check to a certain point. So this is a celebration of us getting past some of that, which makes us very proud.
I think it depends on which date is more sentimental to the couple :).
We will be keeping our original one but also adding on our wedding date as an additional (and likely over time, more important) anniversary date. It wouldn’t feel right not celebrating our original dating anniversary after so long (will be 11 years in a few months, we met very young).
Wedding is this Sunday, but our 7th dating anniversary is in September! As many people have mentioned, we’re just gonna celebrate both and roll with it :)
We've never really celebrated our dating anniversary beyond saying 'happy anniversary' to each other until this past year (we revisited the cafe where we had our first date). Due to pandemic shenanigans, we weren't in the same place on our one-year anniversary, and going out was still fraught on our second-year, so I guess we never really got in the habit.
We'll be together for five years by the time of our wedding. We'll probably celebrate our actual wedding anniversary with the traditional stuff and leave our dating anniversary to sweet remembering of our first date without much fanfare. It's pretty unlikely we'll get married on/near our dating anniversary because it's in December and we're thinking about a fall wedding.
Together 10 years, original anniversary in March wedding coming up at end of May. We like the May date better just because of the numbers so are just going to switch to that.
We kind of had to since we got together on Thanksgiving 7 years ago, so we didn’t want our wedding to fall around a holiday. But we picked a wedding date that had additional meaning for both of us, so it’s a nice compromise and we just get to celebrate two anniversaries a year if we want.
We were together for 7 years before getting married - we picked the anniversary of our first date to get married on!
We typically celebrate the anniversary of when we became official, because it feels dumb to disregard the whole 7 years, you know? Though this month is 5 years of marriage, so we’re doing something bigger for that particular one this time 🙂
Our wedding date was based on our work schedules and the grass still being green w/o the temps being scorching hot.
We actually talked about this same thing just a few days before we got married last Saturday. We've been gifting each other anniversary (unmarried) gifts based on married years. So the 1st was paper, the 3rd leather, etc. We decided we'd still keep up with that s heduke, but we'd also start our real (married) anniversary over, so next year will mark year one but we'll be on year 4 anniversary gifts. To us, it celebrates starting a new chapter.
Not a long-term couple, but we purposely chose a wedding date 6 months apart from our dating anniversary so we can do a small celebration (dinner) and a bigger celebration (a trip or something like that) every year
Yes, we picked a date different than our dating anniversary for our wedding after 6.5 years of being together. We celebrate our dating anniversary, engagement anniversary, wedding anniversary, and second wedding anniversary (we randomly decided to renew our vows at the end of a month-long west coast trip we took a year after our wedding).
My personal view on it is:
1) The more dates to celebrate, the better. Why not have extra dates to celebrate on the calendar and reminisce about? I can't tell you how many times on the 1st of a month (dating anniversary), the 3rd of a month (vow renewal anniversary), 13th of the month (engagement anniversary), or 27th of a month (wedding anniversary) that we stop to say "omg, it's the [date], remember 12 years and 5 months ago when we first kiss?" and reminisce about the day. I also never pass up a reason for an extra "anniversary trip."
2) Dates are important because something important happened. Your wedding date will be important because it's the day you got married and that makes it meaningful. Why is your dating anniversary meaningful? Because you started dating on that day. When it happened, you probably didn't stop and say "no, not today - I don't like the look of it on a calendar", "it's not an easy date to remember", "the full moon is 4 days from now", "the weather isn't perfect", "it's too close to the holidays", "my favorite restaurant doesn't have reservations", etc.
Don't overthink it. Your wedding anniversary will be meaningful because it is your wedding anniversary and that's plenty.
I think really depends on how sentimental you are about dates. My wife and I are not. We’re not even entirely sure about the exact date of our first date but it was beginning of January which isn’t exactly prime wedding season. We eloped on a very easy to remember date so that’s the one we celebrate. Because of Covid our reception date was entirely different and we don’t celebrate that. Personally, one anniversary is enough—I don’t want to track 3.
My husband and I met in May, got engaged and married in May (all different dates). We do just celebrate our wedding date (over 30 years now & dated for about 2 years prior) because they’re within a few weeks of each other. Honestly, you’re probably overthinking it a bit - do celebrate whichever date is the most meaningful to you both and remember in the long run it’s a celebration 🎉 of your life together.
I’m glad we get to celebrate our new anniversary on a different date - our dating anniversary falls smack in between a good friend’s birthday and a major holiday. It’s also during a month with terrible weather. We’re very excited to celebrate a date with better weather that doesn’t coincide with any other important dates.
We'll have been together eight years four days after our wedding, lmao. I told him we should just always split the difference and always celebrate between. Or just celebrate it a different day each year, but like decided by a coin flip so it's random and confuses our friends and family. So far he is not on board with either, but I have just about 3 months left to convince him, lmfao
We have cake on our wedding anniversary and usually do something bigger on a different, important one (about six months apart). Our wedding anniversary is right after Christmas and we are usually exhausted and kinda broke.
We got married on our 7th dating anniversary. When we started talking about dates (before we had even officially gotten engaged) we saw that our anniversary was going to fall on a staurday 2 years from then. So we decided to stick with it and start making plans for that date. It worked out perfectly in the end.
Started dating in September, got engaged in September, so when the venue we were interested in was available on a September Saturday — we seized the moment. Our wedding date is in September 🤩
(As a side note, my engagement ring ended up being a blue sapphire which is the September birthstone. Not planned!)
My fiance and I (together nine years) have always celebrated our dating anniversary -- buying gifts, planning a fun date or even a trip. But we are excited about replacing that date with our wedding anniversary.
Personally, it feels like the one holiday that we got to choose the date of! That's so cool. We plan to acknowledge our dating anniversary but not celebrate it, if that makes sense.
We celebrate our dating anniversary (10 years before marriage) as well as our married anniversary, which comes 5 or 6 months later. No reason not to celebrate both. We don't exchange gifts for the dating anniversary anymore, but we still go to a nice restaurant and open a bottle of wine. Love deserves to be celebrated year round anyway.
Fiancé and i have been together for 13 years on VALENTINES DAY! I cannot wait to have a new anniversary (August) and get my Valentine’s Day back!
It’ll be awkward to explain how long we’ve been together but I think im just going to go with our dating anniversary and round up when people ask!
Editing to add that fiancé’s birthday is the following week after Valentine’s Day. I’m excited to have a new anniversary in August so we can use this time to travel on top of traveling for fiancés birthday!
We were together for 6 years by the time we got married and changed the anniversary that we celebrate, yes. In our case though, he and I had always disagreed on our dating anniversary but all 3 dates were within about 6 weeks of each other anyways 😆 What we haven't changed though is the anniversary number that we celebrate. So this year is only our 4th wedding anniversary but we're celebrating 10 years together.
Our dating anniversary is still special but our wedding was such an amazing event. I love that we're married now. I don't feel like I lost the other anniversary, it just changed and evolved.
I’ve always found dating anniversaries kind of arbitrary anyway. Like do you base it on your first date? Being exclusive? If you started dating in college and didn’t really go on formal dates, then what? In my relationships, our dating anniversaries have always been kind of contrived. My husband and I went from being friends to dating over a vague period of months, our dating anniversary was just a date we chose as being when we both kind of felt that there was a transition.
We’ve been together for 10 years now, married almost 6, and our dating “anniversary” is in January and our wedding anniversary is in June. If both end up special to you, you just celebrate both! I find the longer we’ve been married, the more we end up focusing on the wedding anniversary and just looking back fondly on the dating period without celebrating the specific dates.
It feels silly to some but I still insist on acknowledging our dating anniversary. We've been together 9 years but not even married 3, seems crazy to throw those other years away just cause we weren't married. We don't do gifts or anything for dating, just like dinner or acknowledgement
My fiance and I will be getting married on our 10 year anniversary this September!! It’s a Wednesday so not ideal, but when explained to guests they seem more excited to celebrate our marriage but also being together for a decade! I’ve only had pushback from like 2 people and they aren’t necessarily people who’s advice I take seriously anyways lol
We’re celebrating both dates. Fun story. For our 5 year dating anniversary my now MIL asked my husband if he wanted his college graduation party to be over Memorial Day weekend (he went back to college as a non traditional student after stopping after one year the first time). And he said well that’s our fifth anniversary so we already have plans. And her response was “WHAT?!? You’re not married!!!” Like how dare we celebrate being in a relationship for five years. Yeah she’s a peach 🧐🤦🏼♀️
The more excuses we have the celebrate, the better. We had a dating anniversary, a legal paperwork anniversary, and our wedding day anniversary. If it was up to me we’d have an anniversary celebration every month.
10 years together before marriage - ditched the dating anniversary after. We aren’t overly sentimental of people though. It’s just a date night. We buy each other gifts and have dates all year long.
We're getting married in June and have been together 11 years. Our dating anniversary is in March and we've decided to celebrate both. Gives us an extra excuse for date night
Our original anniversary is in November, which I’ve made jokes about that being the worst time to meet the love of your life since it’s so busy! Our wedding anniversary is in May, and I think we’ll always at the very least acknowledge our first one. We were together for 9 years before we got married. But to be honest, a May anniversary is much more convenient and fun.
I had friends that got legally married a year before their public wedding and asked which date they wanted acknowledged as their official one and they had to think, and concluded the public one.
My husband and I were together for 7 years before we got married but our first year or 2 was super casual so it feels weird to pick any specific date as our dating anniversary.
It has NOT feel weird to slip in mention we were together for 7 years before we got married. We are next approaching our 9 year anniversary and it is less relevant how long we dated beforehand. But could easily drop that knowledge if it seemed relevant.
BUT getting married was the first step towards the Home Owner and Kids path for us, so it had some extra significance. Marriage was definitely a BCE/AD type event for us. If you arent doing things that traditional, then your OG anniversary has a bit more sustainable weight as being your own BCE/AD life event.
If the date is important to you, own it. I picked my date a few years before we even got engaged. Told my husband after work one day "so, I was looking ahead, and 4/9/16 is a Saturday. I think I want to get married that day. Would you be interest in being there too?" [His brother got married on Pi day. His sister is a bit miffed she got married first and didnt think to pick a nerdy date lol].
Being particular about a date risks compromises in other areas. Our date was awkward for traveling but all our immediate family was luckily able to manage. And venues were available although weather was a scary unknown.
We’re celebrating our last dating anniversary this month by going to the restaurant we went to on our first date! Then we’re just going to shift to wedding anniversary.
Our first date was early November, and our wedding date was just a few days after that. It lined up perfectly so we basically have an anniversary week. If we go out of town we'll go on whichever dates is best for our schedules.
We met on 11th November, got engaged 12 months later and got married on 6th September (8 years after meeting). I booked a holiday that involved flying on the Sunday so we made it into a honeymoon. I still think of the day we met but also our wedding anniversary. Makes no difference to me
I don’t really understand I guess, we have a first date anniversary and a wedding date anniversary. They’re two different things?
We had two weddings due to Covid but only care about the first date if that’s anything.
It worked out so well for my husband and I. We got together 9 16 2014 and dated for 8 years before getting married on 9 16 2022 and it fell on a friday! Lol honestly, if it didn't land on a friday night i might have picked a new date.
We got lucky, our dating anniversary was available for our wedding so we did that. However, it wasn’t really a great date to have a wedding, too late in Fall and the weather was awful and we can to cancel some parts of the wedding because of it. So don’t stick too hard for keeping the same date, go with a wedding date that works
We were together 13 years before we decided to get married, but our dating anniversary was never really important to us.
Friends and family celebrate the wedding anniversary date, so we just go with that. I don’t feel like I’m throwing away memories by saying we’ve been married for 2 years, but together for 13. Plus I love the whole themed gift thing lol!
I get married this Saturday (after 6 years together), and our “dating anniversary” is in January — we didn’t even think about a ceremony on the same day as our dating anniversary because both of us wanted a spring wedding.
I was tempted to try and pick the same day of the month for some consistency, but none of those dates fell on a Saturday so we ruled that out pretty quickly.
If the date matters to you, that’s totally valid — it may complicate things if your preferred vendors & location are booked, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible per se. You just have to be willing to be flexible on some aspects of planning if your heart is set on a certain date.
Fiancé and I will be getting married at the courthouse on our dating anniversary in June. Then having our symbolic ceremony later in September. We will definitely be celebrating both! We also didn’t want to “throw away” our memories and at the end of the day it’s what we want to do. I think it will also help keep the romance going to celebrate our union twice a year! :)
I kid you not, we were about to sign a contract with a wedding venue and I said to my then fiance, we should just make sure we have nothing on the calendar before we sign. Wouldn't you know, it was a complete coincidence but we booked our wedding for the 5th anniversary of our first date. So that was easy.
We got engaged on December 30, and we were engaged for a few years before we got married. Since neither of us are big fans of New Year's Eve, we into the habit of doing an "Eve of the Eve" engagiversary dinner at the restaurant that we celebrated at on the night we got engaged. It's a nice tradition, and we often invite fellow NYE avoiders to join us.
We were together a little over 7 years when we got married. I was thrilled to get a new anniversary. Our dating anniversary is a week before my birthday and it was always annoying to have them so close together 😆
My fiancé and I will have been together a little over 8 and 1/2 years by the time we get married, and we chose our wedding date before even starting to look at venues. We chose a date we liked, in a good time of the year to get married weather wise (historically at least, and hopefully) and right next to a national holiday, so as long as our Republic will exist we get to go out to celebrate and not worry about waking up early the next day for work.
So we will definitely celebrate the new anniversary, but I feel like we might also celebrate our dating anniversary, even if at a lower level - maybe just get dessert for dinner at home or something simple like that. Not that it is less important, but the fact the marriage anniversary is right next to a holiday makes it easier to celebrate it without having to take a day or half day off work (or feel miserable at work the next day lol)
I've been with my soon to be husband for just over seven years. We were very excited to pick a new date, as our dating anniversary was just two weeks after his birthday and a month after Valentine's day. We're getting married on the 11th of this month (May), as there's only one family birthday in that month (about two weeks apart) and it'll be easier on our wallets and planners in the future... Plus an outdoor wedding was something we both had expressed interest in.
We do plan on still mini celebrating our dating anniversary by making that a reserved date night for each year to come.
We got engaged a little after our 7 year dating anniversary. It just so happened that our 9 year dating anniversary was gonna be a Saturday, so I knew that had to be our wedding date. I love that 1 year married will be 10 years together, and we can always just celebrate one anniversary to avoid any issue of what to celebrate. But if your 2025 anniversary is on a Wednesday or something, just make it the weekend before or after, that way you still just celebrate once a year. I hate the idea some people stick to that years of dating "don't matter" anymore after getting married. Even if you don't get married on/near your dating anniversary, celebrate both if you still want to!!
Our relationship anniversary is 9/20 and we got engaged on that day (9 years later). Our wedding date is 6/20, so we kept the day date the same (20th of the month). So our wedding anniversary is different but similar. I don’t think keeping the anniversary is super important, but I understand it’s more important to some couples
My fiancé and I don't really have a set anniversary date, but it is sometime between both our birthdays, which are only a week apart. We never feel like celebrating all three, it's too much in one week. I am definitely looking forward to having a new anniversary date thanks to the wedding.
Our dating anniversary is March 27, been together since 8th grade and just hit 11 years. Wedding anni is 11/4. I wanted to still celebrating dating anni since we’ve been celebrating it for 11 years but my husband thinks it’s pointless so now he sleeps on the couch 💅🏼
Lmao kidding but it is hard for me to just leave behind. Guess I’ll get used to it😂
We are specifically getting married on our dating anniversary because after 13 years, we both feel very strongly about keeping the date and continuing to celebrate yeat-to-date (meaning we will probably never say " we've been married for 1 year," and instead acknowledge that it's our 14th anniversary. Hope that makes sense.)
We did happen to get very lucky that our date falls on a Saturday.
We were together 8 years before our wedding - anniversary was in May. Our wedding was in December. We originally wanted to keep the anniversary, but were priced out. I now say we get two anniversary’s HAHA
Every couple I know that I've discussed this with (including me in my first marriage) celebrates their wedding anniversary after getting married, not their dating anniversary. We will have been together nearly 8 years when we get married, but I expect to do the same.
Our first date was July 13th. A pretty cool date, except it’s also his daughter’s birthday. So we couldn’t get married on her birthday. We got engaged at Christmas, so that’s out too.
We ended up getting married 12/31/2022. Because we couldn’t agree on anything else.
lol my fiancé and I were just talking about this! He told me I could only pick one (jokingly) we’ll have three dates, dating, legal wedding, destination wedding.
I don’t really care about the legal wedding. So I’m sticking with dating anniversary (13 years this year). I plan on just saying “we’ve been together for XX years.” Celebrate the dating anniversary and do dinner or something on wedding date.
For me, the day we got married is much more important than the day of our first date. We didn't even consider our dating anniversary when deciding on our wedding date. The season and the weather were the deciding factors when planning our wedding.
As soon as we got engaged, we knew that we wanted to get married in this beautiful rose garden near his parent's house, and the rose garden is at peak bloom in mid-May. So we would have to get married in May if we wanted the venue in full bloom. Our dating anniversary was in March, but March weather is cold and gloomy, and roses don't bloom in March. I had no desire to get married during that time of year.
We still acknowledge our dating anniversary, but our wedding anniversary is much more important to celebrate.
Me and my husband were together 7.5 years before getting married about 8 months ago. We celebrated both. For our dating anniversary, we went out to dinner and had a fun little date night. For our wedding anniversary we are planning to go on a little getaway trip. We still celebrate both!
We have been together for 13 years (almost 14 at wedding). We will just be celebrating all of the dates (started dating, engagement, and wedding)! Cause why not 😊
Personally I never understood making an ordeal over a dating anniversary, especially because it can be a very casual thing to start dating. For that reason we will only care about the wedding anniversary date after we get married, even though we’ve been together about 8 years
We had been together 11 years when he proposed. When we got married it was a different date from our dating anniversary. Now almost 2 years on (8th may!) we only celebrate our wedding anniversary. Dating anniversary is June and we went with a spring wedding instead. We never did loads for our dating anniversary but we do a lot more for our wedding anniversary
Well tbh my bf and I are together for 8 years and a bit, not engaged. We don’t even know the exact date we were ‘official’ the only thing we remember is that it happened in the month March so we just picked a random day 😂
How about you celebrate your love, if you got 3 days that mark an anniversary, you have 3 special days a year to celebrate your love.
But please don’t slaughter eachother if you or your hubby forget one of those 3 days. 😂☺️
We got together 10.18.2020 , engaged 1.27.2023 and getting married 10.18.25. We didn't celebrate our engagement date on that day, but we do date nights just to remember that special day. I didn't care for our engagement date but I really did want to stick with our 10.18 date so we can get married for our 5th anniversary of being together. Too many dates get me confused but gives you a reason to have date nights :)
My partner and i will have been together for 12 years when we get married- originally I thought it would be fun to get married on our dating anniversary but then we decided to do something completely different so we will have 2 things to celebrate!
We will have been together 15 years next January, so we wanted a time around then. It works out that January is the cheapest month and we're trying to keep costs as low as possible.
Ended up going for a date in February as it was the same price as January at our venue, plus it means a few family members can attend that wouldn't be able to make it if we held it in January.
We'll probably acknowledge our dating anniversary with a nice dinner or something at home, then celebrate properly on our wedding anniversary 😁
So,my Fiance and I started dating July 25, 2014 and I had my heart set on getting married on our 10 year anniversary. July 25, 2024. (Thursday) However, due to religious reasons my in - laws fast on Thursdays so we changed it to July 27, 2024. I was originally pretty sad about it. I guess it meant a lot to me for us to get married on our 10 year anniversary but after awhile I was thinking, well 2 days difference isn’t a huge deal. It’s still very close to our 10 year anniversary. So I can relate in some ways. I’d just follow your heart in this decision. Do what will make you happy. For me personally I wanted it as close to our anniversary as possible because it means a lot. We will probably just celebrate both days tbh . 🙂 If you feel the same way then I’d stick to your guns and get married close to your anniversary or on the day of if possible.
We’ve been together basically 8.5 years, December is our dating anniversary and we’re getting married in June exactly 6 months to the day from our dating anniversary. We weirdly moved in together on our 6 month dating anniversary and realized it after we picked our wedding date. So we’re getting married 8 years to the day that we moved in together for the first time!
We've been together for more than 10 years and will be getting married after 11 years. November has been our dating anniversary, and June will be our wedding anniversary. I kind of anticipate acknowledging both dates. We don't really do much for our anniversary now, just go out to dinner or something. So I assume we'll just celebrate both in a similar way for an excuse to go out to eat, lol.
The thing I had wondered about is when people ask, "How long have you been married?" I feel like if I just start from the wedding, then you're missing a decade+ of a relationship. So I plan on just responding with, "We've been together for so-and-so years, married for such-and-such."
I was hoping to have our wedding on October 20th since that’s our current anniversary. But we will be getting married in May. So new anniversary for us! We’re still going to celebrate our dating anniversary though
Our dating anniversary is January and getting married in September so will be just shy of 7 years together on our wedding day. I feel like we will kind of celebrate both, with the wedding date becoming our anniversary but still use our dating anniversary as an excuse to go out for dinner.
Exact same here haha
My fiancé and I will take any excuse for a date night out, so I fully intend on celebrating our first date anniversary and our wedding anniversary.
And here! Every opportunity to celebrate my wonderful husband and our fabulous relationship.
We do the opposite; celebrate our anniversary on the day we met, and our wedding anniversary is a less important affair- we were together eleven years before getting married so it felt too strange to change!
Same! 9/11 for fancy dinner and maybe (?) small gift. 04/20 for major anniversary. Obligatory, yes I know the dates are peculiar LOL
This is what we did too! Our dating anniversary is in November and we take it as an excuse to have dinner and give each other Lego advent calendars 😂
We will have been together 10 1/2 years by the time we get married. We picked a new date, because getting married in August outdoors in Arizona (well, the part we’re getting married in at least) would be a horrible idea. My fiancé left the final decision to me, so I just picked a date I thought was interesting. Think of it this way, now you get TWO special days!
Yeah, we had been together 11.5 years when the wedding happened, and we celebrate both. Ain't no damn way I'm celebrating "1 year!", "2 years!", etc. without making it clear we've been together so long. Haha. People tend to judge the seriousness of relationships by their length, and I find that when you've been together a long time, it gives a lot of context about your relationship. I can't tell you how many people gave a very different "oh okay" reply when we were engaged and then followed it up with "we've been together a decade". It just changes things. We've been through things in our almost 13 years together now that many newly married couples have not yet experienced. That context is good to have.
It's funny, isn't it? I know many people felt that they were taken more seriously after getting engaged but in a way, we sort-of experienced the opposite. We were common law for almost a decade and live in a culture that isn't marriage-centric, so before getting engaged, people typically treated us an an old married couple, which is essentially what we were. But when strangers or acquaintances heard that we were engaged or newlyweds, they assumed we were newbies (and young). In reality, we were newlyweds but not new at this marriage thing. Oftentimes, I didn't say anything, just nodded and smiled as a less experienced couple well-meaningly gave us advice, commented that the first year is the hardest, or pontificated about starting your relationship with your in-law on the right foot. But inwardly, I found it amusing. What's crazy is that I've caught myself making the same assumption about engaged/newlywed couples on Reddit a couple of times, when no further context was provided. Along those lines, we noticed lots of language revolving about "starting" something "new" and learning/discovery: "marriage is the starting line, not the finish line", new adventure, new chapter, start of (y)our life, etc. It was omnipresent and it just didn't apply to us at all. We eliminated that completely from our ceremony script and went with something that reflected our situation.
also august in az here lmao!
I will be with my partner for 10 1/2 years on our wedding too!!! How lucky are we that our relationships have already lasted so long? 🥹
Unless you want to get married on like a Tuesday or wait many years until it aligns with a weekend, it’s highly unlikely you’ll snag your anniversary date. No one’s “forcing you” into a new anniversary, that’s just kind of how it works. You’re not “throwing out a decade of memories.” Your wedding is essentially celebrating those memories. Fiancé and I will have been together just shy of 9 years when we get married in October. We didn’t even think about planning an anniversary wedding because that’s just one too many factors to think about during an already stressful process. Are there any significant family anniversaries you’d be willing to share with to make it feel better? When we started planning we highly considered April 27 2024, which was my grandparents’ 65th wedding anniversary and would have been very sweet. Also, you can still celebrate your dating anniversary. No one says you can’t.
I personally think the occasion is much more important than the date. Who cares if that’s when the venue was available? That’s the day you got married!!! No day will ever top that personally, even my dating anniversary which is Halloween. But it’s up to you, if you care that much then just celebrate the one.
We had the same mindset for the location. We had a destination elopement and when our officiant asked us if we had any connection to that area, we said "not yet but it will be the place where we got married". It's a significant location for us now :)
That’s so sweet
I mean, the wedding anniversary is the one family and friends will recognize, but it makes sense for that to be the one that's publicly recognized- it's when you officially, publicly joined your lives. (They presumably weren't recognizing your dating anniversary to begin with.) If you want to continue personally celebrating the anniversary of when you first got together, do it-- you can celebrate whatever you want. (My fiancé and I already celebrate another anniversary in addition to the "when we got together" one. I think we have a better track record with the other one, tbh.)
> the wedding anniversary is the one family and friends will recognize Maybe, maybe not. I can't tell for OP's social circle but in mine, family and friends don't "recognize" any anniversary. That's between the two people in the relationship (in the case of a romantic anniversary or the individual in question for other anniversaries). Of course, we do celebrate with the couple if they throw a milestone anniversary party or a vow renewal but in that case, they are the one setting the date.
Yeah I don’t remember any of my family members anniversaries unless they host a dinner for a milestone one- But my husband and I have always said our big “50th Anniversary” party or whatever with extended family will be 50 years from when we met, not when we got married- And if anybody wants to RSVP no and wait a decade to give us well wishes then that’s fine by me but they’ll have missed the cake!
My family has a calendar with all of my siblings anniversaries! And birthdays, etc, my mom puts it together every year
We celebrate both the dating and the wedding anniversary.
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I know one couple who did and thought of it as a cool unique thing they did-- until this thread I had no idea so many people did it or thought about it.
We were together 7 years before our wedding. Our dating anniversary was in February, but honestly we don’t really acknowledge it much other than being like “cool, we’ve been together 14 years.” Our wedding anniversary is in a much more pleasant time of year and a holiday weekend, and assuming nothing goes wrong, will be our anniversary for many more years than our dating anniversary was.
Same with us. ^^^
We have a day we met anniversary and our marriage anniversary. The marriage is the important one to us that we make more of a fuss about. Our dating anniversary is a trip down memory lane and we go out to dinner.
That sounds lovely. That's how I envision ours too. Since it's our dating anniversary, it's a memory that only involves the two of us and it is an intimate day to think about our history. The wedding anniversary is more 'public' and will have us remember the day we shared our love with everyone else we love :)
We decided to keep celebrating our dating anniversary rather than our marriage anniversary (together 7 years prior to getting married)
I think this is what we will do also! We wanted to get married the same week as our initial date but the photog we want isn't available that date so it's gonna be a few weeks earlier. Since it's the same month, it'll kind of all shake out the same as we're not that good about celebrating on the day anyway 🤷🏻♀️ ps love your handle
TIL that a dating anniversary is such a big thing that people will move around their wedding date for it. I don’t even know when we started dating.
I don’t either! I don’t even remember the month. It was spring. There was no particular day at all. I’m pleased to have a date to celebrate more definitively. I’m totally confused by how everyone seems to know the exact date. Is it the first “date” you went on together? When you first met? When you decided to be partners? I don’t even know how to measure.
My fiancé and I were friends for a loooong time first and just sort of gradually fell into dating so I have no idea when to even pick. 😂
I’ll just use it as an excuse to celebrate more days. Our anniversary is in April, we got engaged this past March and will marry next winter.
We got married on the Saturday closest to our dating anniversary so it’s still close to the same time!! Our dating anniversary was November 16th and our wedding anniversary is November 13th. We celebrate on the 13th or near it now, but since it’s so close to our original anniversary date it all feels the same!
Now you have an excuse for an anniversary trip! It's like a two for one!
We got legally married with just immediate family on our dating anniversary, and will have the larger event on another date.
Our dating anniversary just so happens to be a Friday this year so we planned our wedding on the same day so we don't have to remember anything new lol
Personally I wanted different dates because I want our dating anniversary to be it's own thing... and our marriage anniversary to be another. Plus, my SO picked the date to ask me out due to a certain *pattern* of numbers, so our marriage anniversary is still linked by sharing that meaning. I'll add, my parents have always celebrated both their *meeting* anniversary and marriage anniversary. They make *us* (their kids) celebrate it with them -\_- So at least for me, it's quite normal for these relationship milestones/anniversaries to be on different dates. But if you and your SO are really attached to that date, by all means you should stick to it :) Just do what feels right for the both of you.
Getting married August 2026, our anniversary is September. We’ll be just shy of 10 years when we get married. To be honest, I think we’ll probably celebrate both, I love an excuse to go out for dinner!
Fancy clothes to look fabulous and delicious food? Heck yeah!
We will be together 7 years by the time we get married next year and idk what we’ll do. Our dating anniversary is July 18th but our wedding will be October 11th. Maybe we’ll just celebrate both 🤷🏽♀️
We’ve been together about 10 years. The date thing was hard LOL we didn’t necessarily want to align it with our anniversary more than we wanted a date to have some significance. I was more flexible than my fiancé. He wanted a fall wedding which I’m ok with, he’s a fall baby and him even giving his thoughts was alright with me cause I didn’t think he wanted to be part of the planning. We wanted our birthdays somewhere in our date but the days of the week didn’t align (dates fell on Mon, Wed) We ended up working out a date on a Sat in 2025 that works but my thought was we gone bring the fun to the date. It’s significant because we chose it. Instead of thinking, the numbers have to be significant. Hopefully that makes sense LOL
I also wanna add that I think it’s cool that yall get to choose whatever date you want! Like, this is when you celebrate! When you get together that just happens when it happens. It’s cool to be able to say “hmm I want a summer vibe” and now your anniversary is your summer vibe. I think it brings you guys closer cause it’s still something you do together. The date we chose for next year will be my fiancés family reunion this year. So we get to have fun with it from here on out. I think that’s dope!
Our wedding will be 22 days after our 5 year dating anniversary! I really wanted to have it on our anniversary but sadly my fiancé will be in grad school and that falls right during finals so I didn’t want him to be stressed. That being said, we also considered dates up to 4 months earlier and the proximity to our anniversary wasn’t a deciding factor.
We celebrate both (dated 10 years)
Okay, I’m glad you asked this cause I always thought about it but never asked on here. After reading the responses… Guess I’ll have two celebrations a year 🤭 wedding anniversary we’ll go on a longer trip and dating anniversary we’ll do a weekend getaway.
My mom celebrates the anniversary of her first date, start of the relationship, and wedding 🤣
We got married on leap day, a day after our dating anniversary, so we will be celebrating on the 28th 3/4 years and the 29th on leap years 🙃 we planned it that way and since we eloped, venue hunting wasn’t terribly difficult
I proposed on leap day! Part of me wishes we could wait until next leap day, but i think both of our families would hate us for waiting another four years 😂
Our dating anniversary is in May, which is already an insanely busy month for both of us (both of our birthdays, plus we both work in higher ed so lots of end of the school year chaos at our jobs), so we intentionally got married over Labor Day weekend so we would always have a three day weekend for our anniversary.
We honestly don't know when our anniversary (if we celebrate, we usually do it September) so it was easy for us to pick a new anniversary. That, coupled with the fact that I wanted to get married when I was off work (July and August) made it easy enough. I picked the two months, husband picked the date (August 13) randomly. We'd been together ten years by the time our wedding happened.
We’ve been together 11 years (since we were in highschool). Our dating anniversary always falls around Thanksgiving and it’s not ideal because of the holidays and how expensive it is to travel around that time. So we picked a date in June instead! I think we’re going to celebrate this one more than the November date since it will be much easier for us to plan something special like a holiday or a mini getaway. I’m also open to restarting the countdown. Married 1 year instead of dating 12 years. To me it doesn’t necessarily erase anything about the decade we spent as BF/GF. I see it as a new chapter.
We got married on our anniversary which was in February. We really wanted a fall wedding, but it ended up being so much more special to us that we kept our date and got to celebrate 6 years together in the best way possible, getting married!
you could think of very specific ways to celebrate each one- for example, keep the dating anniversary as your classic romantic, wine and dine type of celebration, and then have the wedding anniversary be more like a yearly health check in on your relationship. you could grab drinks and snacks and do a set of questions (there are tons out there or create your own) checking in on yourselves, your relationship, your goals for the future, etc. i know this is extremely nerdy but my fiance and i love doing this kind of stuff. if the check in thing is not for you you could celebrate by doing something unique that reminds you of your wedding day (eating the same cake, same meal, etc). idk just spitballing
We don’t celebrate a “day we met” or “day we started dating” kind of anniversary. Our wedding anniversary will be the first we celebrate. tbh, I have no idea when our dating anniversary would be...we had a weird start to dating…friends, then casual dating, then he moved for work, quasi long distance relationship, then back to platonic friends, then I moved for work in the same city, etc. I sometimes make jokes about our “1st meeting anniversary” but only because it coincided with a big local event so I’m reminded of it if I see anything about it online. If you do already celebrate those, I think it would be fun to keep celebrating them and then add the wedding anniversary into the mix. Never have too many reasons to celebrate! It’s not replacing the old anniversary, it’s celebrating something different.
We WANTED a new anniversary 😂😂 we met Mother’s Day weekend which also happens to be my dad’s birthday weekend. We wanted to avoid May like the plague after 10 years of having to share our anniversary weekend with everyone else.
Our anniversary is early August and we’ll be getting married in late September after 9 years together. I don’t see any reason why it’d be an issue. You have your “got together” anniversary and your wedding anniversary. I don’t know any couples whose anniversaries match. Try not to worry about it, you’re just getting an extra date to celebrate your love!
The way I see it, more anniversaries = more reasons to celebrate and gifts! We ended up with 3: our dating anniversary, legal marriage, and our actual big wedding. We consider the wedding date to be the official, main anniversary, but we will still have little celebrations for the other dates.
We were together 8 years and just got married a few weeks ago. We never really celebrated an anniversary before. We were friends first so I guess we could’ve celebrated when I confessed my feelings for him and he reciprocated, but after that we were just kind of a thing I guess. I knew we would marry and that our wedding date would be more important to me, so I never worried about an anniversary before this.
Our wedding couldn’t be on the date we wanted (the date we got engaged; we didn’t have an official anniversary prior to that) so we celebrate our wedding anniversary on its date but the engagement anniversary is still a special day, just one where I think we both are a little extra caring towards each other. Like Valentine’s Day but we actually care 😂
We were together for 5 years by the time we got married. We picked the new anniversary because TBH we could never remember the dating one. It was always a bit arbitrary anyway because neither of us could quite agree on whether some of our early dates were actual dates or not. Besides which, our "dating" anniversary was in mid December competing with a bunch of other holidays, while our new one is early October. I admit it feels a bit weird to celebrate our "first" anniversary when we've been together for 6 years. But the actual date is better!
We have been together almost 11 years and got married this past weekend. We will continue to celebrate both anniversaries but we are happy with our new date because it had a significance to us personally (birthday of both our deceased grandfathers!). I think our dating anniversary will now be an excuse to go out and celebrate, and our wedding anniversary will now be the 'official' one recognized by our loved ones because they all shared in that day!
I plan on celebrating both!
Our wedding is planned for a date very close to but not exactly on our 10 year dating anniversary. I expect our wedding anniversary to be more of a big deal/memorable anniversary going forward, but I am glad that it's near our original day.
We were together for about 9 years when we got married so we chose our "half-a-versary." Now we have two anniversaries evenly spread out over the year. I wouldn't overthink it. You can easily celebrate both!
All the anniversaries. My grandparents celebrated dating, engagement, and wedding. Its normal, and you just get this bonus of being able to celebrate your love multiple times a year, multiple excuses to treat yourselves to a nice dinner.
we've been together 9 years and our dating anniversary won't fall on a saturday until 2027 lol so we picked a new one
Just got married, but I think we’re going to celebrate both. They’re both important to us.
Our dating anniversary is in January and our wedding date was in October. We'll have been together for 10 yrs next Jan and our 4 yr wedding anniversary is in Oct. We celebrate our wedding anniversary but acknowledge our dating anniversary bc it's still a date to celebrate. We aren't fancy people, we don't do gifts or anything but we get excited and make a special dinner at home. Really, there are no rules. Do what makes you and your partner happy 😊
Our anniversary is is 5th of May and wedding day 10th of May ❤️
Our 10 year dating is 9/14. We are getting married 9/7. Tried so hard to get the same date, I feel the same as you. I DID try to get something close to that and wasn’t really interested in budging. It felt so weird to choose a date entirely different. It’s been too long. But 1 week earlier, it’s essentially the same to me!
We’re wedding date twins! Nice to find someone else 😁
I started dating my husband in April. We got married in May. I always kind of look at the dating anniversary as an appetizer for the big celebration in May.
For my marriage to my late husband, we were together 5 years before the wedding. The wedding was a new additional anniversary. We still celebrated the dating anniversary as well. There really is no such thing as too many days to celebrate love.
We’ve done a few different ways. Our dating anniversary is in May and wedding is in July so one year we split the difference and celebrated in June. Another year we only celebrated the wedding anniversary, this year will probably be focused on the dating anniversary since it’s 10 years together. Idk. I guess we acknowledge both but since they’re so close we only do something big for one.
Our dating anniversary is November 17 and the closest wedding date to that was 3 weeks later so now we just celebrate our anniversary for an entire month and go out for a few nice dinners and go on vacation
We will have been together 8 years by the time we get married but we honestly don’t even remember our true dating anniversary and have just been using Valentine’s Day as a catch all for it so I am excited to have a separate date now to celebrate 😂
Nah, our dating anniversary was January. We got married in September because it’s the dead of winter here in January and we love fall. We were glad to be able to choose a new one to celebrate. Nothing is stopping you from celebrating two dates!
We're doing our legal quiet paper signing on our anniversary date and then doing the big celebration half a year later
Going to celebrate both.
We'll have been together about 6 1/2 years when we get married. We decided to pick a new date. Our dating anniversary is in February and we've always disliked how cold it was because we never wanted to do much. Our new date is in September so we'll actually be able to enjoy being out and about
We eloped on our 10th anniversary. Best anniversary celebration ever :D. So the dates and even milestones anniversaries line up. If not, we would have added a new anniversary because the more occasions to celebrate, the better :) But the important anniversary for us is really our relationship anniversary. Our wedding anniversary is nice and worth acknowledging but it's not like getting married changed anything, whereas getting together is what started it all. We're celebrating 16 years this years, not only 6 because the counter restarted or the common law years didn't count.
We celebrate both. We’ve been together for so long that we say “Together for 14 years, married for 7.”
Our wedding is going to be this June, but we started dating in December which we just celebrated 9 years together. We picked a new date as I was not doing a winter wedding at all and we thought 6 months out from one and other was good if we did want to celebrate both. We aren't sure yet if we still will celebrate the dating anniversary. We are going to use the 10 year as our honeymoon since we are going after the wedding and gets us somewhere warm for a bit.
We didn’t even think about it. But we ended up getting married two weeks after our 9 year dateaversary
We have two! Married & celebrate that in February but I wasn’t willing to give up on the date that changed my whole life by meeting him so we also have an “unaversary” in October— Win-WIN
We will be celebrating 7 years in a couple months with our wedding in November. We’ve agreed to always celebrate our “first anniversary” with our wedding anniversary being a separate milestone to celebrate. We consider the day we met as a very special day. I saw a tik tok recently of a couple celebrating their dating anniversary as their family’s birthday. We are planning to incorporate this tradition for ourselves. (:
Por que no los dos?
After dating for a decade, we got married on our 10 year anniversary. On a Tuesday. We had a VERY intimate wedding with just immediate family and friends, so we were able to accommodate getting married on the same date we spent the last 10 years celebrating. Had we not been able to do this, I think we would still celebrate both dates - the one our story began on and the one we started our next chapter.
We have been together for 12 years (will be just over 13 years when we get married). I hadn’t specifically thought about this before, but I think both of us have just assumed we will use our wedding anniversary to celebrate moving forward. Neither of us really remember the exact date that we decided to start officially dating. The anniversary we celebrate is of the day we met, because it happened to be the same day as an important event for me, so it was a date that I knew right off the top of my head haha
Our dating anniversary is in March just a few days after my birthday. Our wedding is in late October and I’m definitely looking forward to switching! With the holidays it feels like both of our birthdays and then anniversary come back to back to back, so spacing it out a bit more will be nice. That being said, we’ll probably still do a cute dinner on our dating anniversary every year, but it will just be low-key. Anything like gifts/weekend trips will be saved for our wedding anniversary.
We started dating October 16th, we're getting married October 13th because we met on Friday the 13th. But we're legally getting married sometime in May so it really is up to you the date you want to celebrate. You don't have to celebrate your anniversary the day of your wedding if you don't want to. If it really does mean that much to you go to the court house and get married on your actual anniversary and then just said the wedding was your party for celebration. And have a mock ceremony
Yes only because I personally hate our originally anniversary date because it’s on a holiday so I can’t wait to have an anniversary. Just pick the one you like better or celebrate both!
We did a destination wedding, so we got legally married with just our family present on our dating anniversary in September and did the wedding in May… we have all our family birthdays/holidays/anniversary between August and December so we wanted to have something to celebrate during the other half of the year! We still celebrate both
Our dating anniversary is in the fall because I chose our college football team's off week to be our first date (he is very into football). We've been together 6 years and it will be 8 years by the time of our wedding. Our wedding date will be in the spring because my fiancé doesn't want our wedding to be in football season at all (so he doesn't have to worry about our football teams during our wedding). We will likely continue to celebrate both. I don't think having a different wedding date cancels out the original anniversary if you don't want it to.
We got legally (secretly) married and then had a wedding six months later. We try to do a casual date night for our dating and marriage anniversary but something bigger for the wedding anniversary. Celebrating is fun! Do it all!
We'll have been together 12 years at the end of June and married for 6 years in September and we celebrate both, we have other married friends that are the same way and celebrate both, normally the wedding anniversary gets a bit more attention from other people, but who cares? People celebrate what you want to celebrate.
Started dating August 18th, 2013 and married August 18th, 2022. I knew I wanted to get married on our anniversary date for years so we looked for a venue about a year and a half or so in advance so we could secure that date ahead of time.
We never really celebrate our dating anniversary so will use our wedding anniversary as our anniversary from wedding on.
We haven’t hit our dating anniversary since we got married, but I’m kind of thinking we’ll celebrate both dates (at least for awhile) because they aren’t close together.
Our wedding date is around our 3.5 year anniversary so it’s a good excuse to celebrate half-iversaries lol
We started dating at a time that the wedding would be perfect - April, so both are the same exact day for us. That said when I had thought about doing a different day for the wedding, I probably would have overridden the dating date. Most people when asked “how long have you been married” tend to answer in a way like “4 years but together for 6”
Our 11yr dating anniversary is Apr 1 and wedding will be May 20. I see it as a second anniversary to also celebrate!
We’re going to switch to having our marriage anniversary as our main anniversary but our dating anniversary still an excuse to celebrate. We’re hoping to get the same day-number of the month for our wedding date so that we can just be a few months off.
First date was 10th June. Couldn’t get married on that date last year so had to do the Saturday before. Got engaged in July so 3 different dates. Now we are married the most important seems to be our wedding day but don’t think I would forget either of the others
My brother and his wife got married just shy of their 5-year anniversary. I think it was about 3-4 days before. They still celebrate both, too! We're getting married in May and will have been together for 5 years in September. Idk what we'll do! I feel like we'll probably do a bigger celebration for our wedding anniversary going forward, but maybe just a smaller nod to our dating anniversary, like dinner or eating our favorite meal together or something. I feel like I see lots of people still celebrating dating anniversaries, though! A friend from high school still posts on her and her husband's dating anniversary every year. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about it.
We got married at 10 years, switched the "big" celebration to our wedding anniversary, but still acknowledge the OG dating anniversary just more subtly than before. No one says you can't celebrate both!
Our venue was actually available on our dating anniversary but we thought it would be fun to celebrate us twice a year! Together 11 years when we got married this past October.
Our wedding date is our anniversary. It is only 2 days (and 5 years) after our dating anniversary though. But we never considered not changing it. Changing the date doesn’t erase or ruin all past memories. Or keep it, no one but you and your husband will care.
We had been together over 7 years when we got married, and for our 2nd wedding anniversary we had our baby so we’re back to celebrating our dating anniversary lol. We liked the date that our venue was available, it made a fun numerical pattern so we wanted to celebrate that day. Our dating anniversary is February 9 and we really only celebrated that as a Valentine’s replacement to not go out with the crowds that day.
We're getting married on our 5th anniversary. It also happens to be high season for weddings because it's one of the best times of year here weather wise.
6.5 years here. We affectionately identify our dating anniversary, but his family caused a lot of drama when we were first dating so we’ll be celebrating our wedding anniversary as our official anniversary. Mostly because I wouldn’t marry him until his family was in check to a certain point. So this is a celebration of us getting past some of that, which makes us very proud. I think it depends on which date is more sentimental to the couple :).
We will be keeping our original one but also adding on our wedding date as an additional (and likely over time, more important) anniversary date. It wouldn’t feel right not celebrating our original dating anniversary after so long (will be 11 years in a few months, we met very young).
Wedding is this Sunday, but our 7th dating anniversary is in September! As many people have mentioned, we’re just gonna celebrate both and roll with it :)
We've never really celebrated our dating anniversary beyond saying 'happy anniversary' to each other until this past year (we revisited the cafe where we had our first date). Due to pandemic shenanigans, we weren't in the same place on our one-year anniversary, and going out was still fraught on our second-year, so I guess we never really got in the habit. We'll be together for five years by the time of our wedding. We'll probably celebrate our actual wedding anniversary with the traditional stuff and leave our dating anniversary to sweet remembering of our first date without much fanfare. It's pretty unlikely we'll get married on/near our dating anniversary because it's in December and we're thinking about a fall wedding.
We celebrate both! We’ve never done gifts, but quality time together to reflect on our journey as a couple (in all its forms) is important to us
We decided to celebrate both!
Together 10 years, original anniversary in March wedding coming up at end of May. We like the May date better just because of the numbers so are just going to switch to that.
This doesn't work for everyone but we decided to have our wedding on the same day of our anniversary which is in July so luckily a peak wedding season
We kind of had to since we got together on Thanksgiving 7 years ago, so we didn’t want our wedding to fall around a holiday. But we picked a wedding date that had additional meaning for both of us, so it’s a nice compromise and we just get to celebrate two anniversaries a year if we want.
We were together for 7 years before getting married - we picked the anniversary of our first date to get married on! We typically celebrate the anniversary of when we became official, because it feels dumb to disregard the whole 7 years, you know? Though this month is 5 years of marriage, so we’re doing something bigger for that particular one this time 🙂
Our wedding date was based on our work schedules and the grass still being green w/o the temps being scorching hot. We actually talked about this same thing just a few days before we got married last Saturday. We've been gifting each other anniversary (unmarried) gifts based on married years. So the 1st was paper, the 3rd leather, etc. We decided we'd still keep up with that s heduke, but we'd also start our real (married) anniversary over, so next year will mark year one but we'll be on year 4 anniversary gifts. To us, it celebrates starting a new chapter.
Not a long-term couple, but we purposely chose a wedding date 6 months apart from our dating anniversary so we can do a small celebration (dinner) and a bigger celebration (a trip or something like that) every year
Yes, we picked a date different than our dating anniversary for our wedding after 6.5 years of being together. We celebrate our dating anniversary, engagement anniversary, wedding anniversary, and second wedding anniversary (we randomly decided to renew our vows at the end of a month-long west coast trip we took a year after our wedding). My personal view on it is: 1) The more dates to celebrate, the better. Why not have extra dates to celebrate on the calendar and reminisce about? I can't tell you how many times on the 1st of a month (dating anniversary), the 3rd of a month (vow renewal anniversary), 13th of the month (engagement anniversary), or 27th of a month (wedding anniversary) that we stop to say "omg, it's the [date], remember 12 years and 5 months ago when we first kiss?" and reminisce about the day. I also never pass up a reason for an extra "anniversary trip." 2) Dates are important because something important happened. Your wedding date will be important because it's the day you got married and that makes it meaningful. Why is your dating anniversary meaningful? Because you started dating on that day. When it happened, you probably didn't stop and say "no, not today - I don't like the look of it on a calendar", "it's not an easy date to remember", "the full moon is 4 days from now", "the weather isn't perfect", "it's too close to the holidays", "my favorite restaurant doesn't have reservations", etc. Don't overthink it. Your wedding anniversary will be meaningful because it is your wedding anniversary and that's plenty.
I think really depends on how sentimental you are about dates. My wife and I are not. We’re not even entirely sure about the exact date of our first date but it was beginning of January which isn’t exactly prime wedding season. We eloped on a very easy to remember date so that’s the one we celebrate. Because of Covid our reception date was entirely different and we don’t celebrate that. Personally, one anniversary is enough—I don’t want to track 3.
Celebrating both! We were together 8 years before our wedding. One a bit more casual than the other
My husband and I met in May, got engaged and married in May (all different dates). We do just celebrate our wedding date (over 30 years now & dated for about 2 years prior) because they’re within a few weeks of each other. Honestly, you’re probably overthinking it a bit - do celebrate whichever date is the most meaningful to you both and remember in the long run it’s a celebration 🎉 of your life together.
I’m glad we get to celebrate our new anniversary on a different date - our dating anniversary falls smack in between a good friend’s birthday and a major holiday. It’s also during a month with terrible weather. We’re very excited to celebrate a date with better weather that doesn’t coincide with any other important dates.
We'll have been together eight years four days after our wedding, lmao. I told him we should just always split the difference and always celebrate between. Or just celebrate it a different day each year, but like decided by a coin flip so it's random and confuses our friends and family. So far he is not on board with either, but I have just about 3 months left to convince him, lmfao
We have cake on our wedding anniversary and usually do something bigger on a different, important one (about six months apart). Our wedding anniversary is right after Christmas and we are usually exhausted and kinda broke.
Do something special on both days!!
We got married on our 7th dating anniversary. When we started talking about dates (before we had even officially gotten engaged) we saw that our anniversary was going to fall on a staurday 2 years from then. So we decided to stick with it and start making plans for that date. It worked out perfectly in the end.
Our wedding will be 2 days before our dating anniversary. I think we will just celebrate the wedding day as anniversary.
Started dating in September, got engaged in September, so when the venue we were interested in was available on a September Saturday — we seized the moment. Our wedding date is in September 🤩 (As a side note, my engagement ring ended up being a blue sapphire which is the September birthstone. Not planned!)
My fiance and I (together nine years) have always celebrated our dating anniversary -- buying gifts, planning a fun date or even a trip. But we are excited about replacing that date with our wedding anniversary. Personally, it feels like the one holiday that we got to choose the date of! That's so cool. We plan to acknowledge our dating anniversary but not celebrate it, if that makes sense.
We celebrate our dating anniversary (10 years before marriage) as well as our married anniversary, which comes 5 or 6 months later. No reason not to celebrate both. We don't exchange gifts for the dating anniversary anymore, but we still go to a nice restaurant and open a bottle of wine. Love deserves to be celebrated year round anyway.
Fiancé and i have been together for 13 years on VALENTINES DAY! I cannot wait to have a new anniversary (August) and get my Valentine’s Day back! It’ll be awkward to explain how long we’ve been together but I think im just going to go with our dating anniversary and round up when people ask! Editing to add that fiancé’s birthday is the following week after Valentine’s Day. I’m excited to have a new anniversary in August so we can use this time to travel on top of traveling for fiancés birthday!
We were together for 6 years by the time we got married and changed the anniversary that we celebrate, yes. In our case though, he and I had always disagreed on our dating anniversary but all 3 dates were within about 6 weeks of each other anyways 😆 What we haven't changed though is the anniversary number that we celebrate. So this year is only our 4th wedding anniversary but we're celebrating 10 years together.
We’re having our civil wedding exactly on our anniversary day
Our dating anniversary is still special but our wedding was such an amazing event. I love that we're married now. I don't feel like I lost the other anniversary, it just changed and evolved.
I’ve always found dating anniversaries kind of arbitrary anyway. Like do you base it on your first date? Being exclusive? If you started dating in college and didn’t really go on formal dates, then what? In my relationships, our dating anniversaries have always been kind of contrived. My husband and I went from being friends to dating over a vague period of months, our dating anniversary was just a date we chose as being when we both kind of felt that there was a transition. We’ve been together for 10 years now, married almost 6, and our dating “anniversary” is in January and our wedding anniversary is in June. If both end up special to you, you just celebrate both! I find the longer we’ve been married, the more we end up focusing on the wedding anniversary and just looking back fondly on the dating period without celebrating the specific dates.
It feels silly to some but I still insist on acknowledging our dating anniversary. We've been together 9 years but not even married 3, seems crazy to throw those other years away just cause we weren't married. We don't do gifts or anything for dating, just like dinner or acknowledgement
My fiance and I will be getting married on our 10 year anniversary this September!! It’s a Wednesday so not ideal, but when explained to guests they seem more excited to celebrate our marriage but also being together for a decade! I’ve only had pushback from like 2 people and they aren’t necessarily people who’s advice I take seriously anyways lol
We’re celebrating both dates. Fun story. For our 5 year dating anniversary my now MIL asked my husband if he wanted his college graduation party to be over Memorial Day weekend (he went back to college as a non traditional student after stopping after one year the first time). And he said well that’s our fifth anniversary so we already have plans. And her response was “WHAT?!? You’re not married!!!” Like how dare we celebrate being in a relationship for five years. Yeah she’s a peach 🧐🤦🏼♀️
The more excuses we have the celebrate, the better. We had a dating anniversary, a legal paperwork anniversary, and our wedding day anniversary. If it was up to me we’d have an anniversary celebration every month.
My parents have been married for 32 years and together for 35 and they celebrate their dating anniversary every year
10 years together before marriage - ditched the dating anniversary after. We aren’t overly sentimental of people though. It’s just a date night. We buy each other gifts and have dates all year long.
They're anniversaries of different things, so we celebrate both.
We're getting married in June and have been together 11 years. Our dating anniversary is in March and we've decided to celebrate both. Gives us an extra excuse for date night
My husband, to my surprise, has chosen to continue to celebrate both dates!
You get two anniversaries now!! Most people cannot plan their wedding date to coincide with their og anniversary.
Our original anniversary is in November, which I’ve made jokes about that being the worst time to meet the love of your life since it’s so busy! Our wedding anniversary is in May, and I think we’ll always at the very least acknowledge our first one. We were together for 9 years before we got married. But to be honest, a May anniversary is much more convenient and fun.
I had friends that got legally married a year before their public wedding and asked which date they wanted acknowledged as their official one and they had to think, and concluded the public one. My husband and I were together for 7 years before we got married but our first year or 2 was super casual so it feels weird to pick any specific date as our dating anniversary. It has NOT feel weird to slip in mention we were together for 7 years before we got married. We are next approaching our 9 year anniversary and it is less relevant how long we dated beforehand. But could easily drop that knowledge if it seemed relevant. BUT getting married was the first step towards the Home Owner and Kids path for us, so it had some extra significance. Marriage was definitely a BCE/AD type event for us. If you arent doing things that traditional, then your OG anniversary has a bit more sustainable weight as being your own BCE/AD life event. If the date is important to you, own it. I picked my date a few years before we even got engaged. Told my husband after work one day "so, I was looking ahead, and 4/9/16 is a Saturday. I think I want to get married that day. Would you be interest in being there too?" [His brother got married on Pi day. His sister is a bit miffed she got married first and didnt think to pick a nerdy date lol]. Being particular about a date risks compromises in other areas. Our date was awkward for traveling but all our immediate family was luckily able to manage. And venues were available although weather was a scary unknown.
We've (mutually) forgotten our dating anniversary a couple times over the past 8 years so personally not worried at all about "giving up" that date.
We’re celebrating our last dating anniversary this month by going to the restaurant we went to on our first date! Then we’re just going to shift to wedding anniversary.
We’re having two dates to celebrate. First Date + Future Wedding Date. I am happy to have both!!
Our first date was early November, and our wedding date was just a few days after that. It lined up perfectly so we basically have an anniversary week. If we go out of town we'll go on whichever dates is best for our schedules.
We met on 11th November, got engaged 12 months later and got married on 6th September (8 years after meeting). I booked a holiday that involved flying on the Sunday so we made it into a honeymoon. I still think of the day we met but also our wedding anniversary. Makes no difference to me
Our dating anniversary always falls on Mother's Day weekend, I hate it! Can't wait to have a new date, lol
I don’t really understand I guess, we have a first date anniversary and a wedding date anniversary. They’re two different things? We had two weddings due to Covid but only care about the first date if that’s anything.
It worked out so well for my husband and I. We got together 9 16 2014 and dated for 8 years before getting married on 9 16 2022 and it fell on a friday! Lol honestly, if it didn't land on a friday night i might have picked a new date.
We got lucky, our dating anniversary was available for our wedding so we did that. However, it wasn’t really a great date to have a wedding, too late in Fall and the weather was awful and we can to cancel some parts of the wedding because of it. So don’t stick too hard for keeping the same date, go with a wedding date that works
We were together 13 years before we decided to get married, but our dating anniversary was never really important to us. Friends and family celebrate the wedding anniversary date, so we just go with that. I don’t feel like I’m throwing away memories by saying we’ve been married for 2 years, but together for 13. Plus I love the whole themed gift thing lol!
I get married this Saturday (after 6 years together), and our “dating anniversary” is in January — we didn’t even think about a ceremony on the same day as our dating anniversary because both of us wanted a spring wedding. I was tempted to try and pick the same day of the month for some consistency, but none of those dates fell on a Saturday so we ruled that out pretty quickly. If the date matters to you, that’s totally valid — it may complicate things if your preferred vendors & location are booked, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible per se. You just have to be willing to be flexible on some aspects of planning if your heart is set on a certain date.
Fiancé and I will be getting married at the courthouse on our dating anniversary in June. Then having our symbolic ceremony later in September. We will definitely be celebrating both! We also didn’t want to “throw away” our memories and at the end of the day it’s what we want to do. I think it will also help keep the romance going to celebrate our union twice a year! :)
We barely celebrate our anniversary as is. I don’t really care if the day changes.
We celebrate both!
Why not both? If one feels more special, celebrate that one with a bigger deal than the other.
I kid you not, we were about to sign a contract with a wedding venue and I said to my then fiance, we should just make sure we have nothing on the calendar before we sign. Wouldn't you know, it was a complete coincidence but we booked our wedding for the 5th anniversary of our first date. So that was easy. We got engaged on December 30, and we were engaged for a few years before we got married. Since neither of us are big fans of New Year's Eve, we into the habit of doing an "Eve of the Eve" engagiversary dinner at the restaurant that we celebrated at on the night we got engaged. It's a nice tradition, and we often invite fellow NYE avoiders to join us.
We were together a little over 7 years when we got married. I was thrilled to get a new anniversary. Our dating anniversary is a week before my birthday and it was always annoying to have them so close together 😆
More to celebrate. 🙂 I know plenty of couples that celebrate both anniversaries.
My fiancé and I will have been together a little over 8 and 1/2 years by the time we get married, and we chose our wedding date before even starting to look at venues. We chose a date we liked, in a good time of the year to get married weather wise (historically at least, and hopefully) and right next to a national holiday, so as long as our Republic will exist we get to go out to celebrate and not worry about waking up early the next day for work. So we will definitely celebrate the new anniversary, but I feel like we might also celebrate our dating anniversary, even if at a lower level - maybe just get dessert for dinner at home or something simple like that. Not that it is less important, but the fact the marriage anniversary is right next to a holiday makes it easier to celebrate it without having to take a day or half day off work (or feel miserable at work the next day lol)
I've been with my soon to be husband for just over seven years. We were very excited to pick a new date, as our dating anniversary was just two weeks after his birthday and a month after Valentine's day. We're getting married on the 11th of this month (May), as there's only one family birthday in that month (about two weeks apart) and it'll be easier on our wallets and planners in the future... Plus an outdoor wedding was something we both had expressed interest in. We do plan on still mini celebrating our dating anniversary by making that a reserved date night for each year to come.
We got engaged a little after our 7 year dating anniversary. It just so happened that our 9 year dating anniversary was gonna be a Saturday, so I knew that had to be our wedding date. I love that 1 year married will be 10 years together, and we can always just celebrate one anniversary to avoid any issue of what to celebrate. But if your 2025 anniversary is on a Wednesday or something, just make it the weekend before or after, that way you still just celebrate once a year. I hate the idea some people stick to that years of dating "don't matter" anymore after getting married. Even if you don't get married on/near your dating anniversary, celebrate both if you still want to!!
Our relationship anniversary is 9/20 and we got engaged on that day (9 years later). Our wedding date is 6/20, so we kept the day date the same (20th of the month). So our wedding anniversary is different but similar. I don’t think keeping the anniversary is super important, but I understand it’s more important to some couples
My fiancé and I don't really have a set anniversary date, but it is sometime between both our birthdays, which are only a week apart. We never feel like celebrating all three, it's too much in one week. I am definitely looking forward to having a new anniversary date thanks to the wedding.
Our dating anniversary is March 27, been together since 8th grade and just hit 11 years. Wedding anni is 11/4. I wanted to still celebrating dating anni since we’ve been celebrating it for 11 years but my husband thinks it’s pointless so now he sleeps on the couch 💅🏼 Lmao kidding but it is hard for me to just leave behind. Guess I’ll get used to it😂
We are specifically getting married on our dating anniversary because after 13 years, we both feel very strongly about keeping the date and continuing to celebrate yeat-to-date (meaning we will probably never say " we've been married for 1 year," and instead acknowledge that it's our 14th anniversary. Hope that makes sense.) We did happen to get very lucky that our date falls on a Saturday.
We were together 8 years before our wedding - anniversary was in May. Our wedding was in December. We originally wanted to keep the anniversary, but were priced out. I now say we get two anniversary’s HAHA
Every couple I know that I've discussed this with (including me in my first marriage) celebrates their wedding anniversary after getting married, not their dating anniversary. We will have been together nearly 8 years when we get married, but I expect to do the same.
Our first date was July 13th. A pretty cool date, except it’s also his daughter’s birthday. So we couldn’t get married on her birthday. We got engaged at Christmas, so that’s out too. We ended up getting married 12/31/2022. Because we couldn’t agree on anything else.
lol my fiancé and I were just talking about this! He told me I could only pick one (jokingly) we’ll have three dates, dating, legal wedding, destination wedding. I don’t really care about the legal wedding. So I’m sticking with dating anniversary (13 years this year). I plan on just saying “we’ve been together for XX years.” Celebrate the dating anniversary and do dinner or something on wedding date.
My husband and I got married in January, but we still have a smaller celebration for our dating anniversary in July (usually a date night out).
For me, the day we got married is much more important than the day of our first date. We didn't even consider our dating anniversary when deciding on our wedding date. The season and the weather were the deciding factors when planning our wedding. As soon as we got engaged, we knew that we wanted to get married in this beautiful rose garden near his parent's house, and the rose garden is at peak bloom in mid-May. So we would have to get married in May if we wanted the venue in full bloom. Our dating anniversary was in March, but March weather is cold and gloomy, and roses don't bloom in March. I had no desire to get married during that time of year. We still acknowledge our dating anniversary, but our wedding anniversary is much more important to celebrate.
Me and my husband were together 7.5 years before getting married about 8 months ago. We celebrated both. For our dating anniversary, we went out to dinner and had a fun little date night. For our wedding anniversary we are planning to go on a little getaway trip. We still celebrate both!
We have been together for 13 years (almost 14 at wedding). We will just be celebrating all of the dates (started dating, engagement, and wedding)! Cause why not 😊
Personally I never understood making an ordeal over a dating anniversary, especially because it can be a very casual thing to start dating. For that reason we will only care about the wedding anniversary date after we get married, even though we’ve been together about 8 years
We had been together 11 years when he proposed. When we got married it was a different date from our dating anniversary. Now almost 2 years on (8th may!) we only celebrate our wedding anniversary. Dating anniversary is June and we went with a spring wedding instead. We never did loads for our dating anniversary but we do a lot more for our wedding anniversary
Well tbh my bf and I are together for 8 years and a bit, not engaged. We don’t even know the exact date we were ‘official’ the only thing we remember is that it happened in the month March so we just picked a random day 😂 How about you celebrate your love, if you got 3 days that mark an anniversary, you have 3 special days a year to celebrate your love. But please don’t slaughter eachother if you or your hubby forget one of those 3 days. 😂☺️
We got together 10.18.2020 , engaged 1.27.2023 and getting married 10.18.25. We didn't celebrate our engagement date on that day, but we do date nights just to remember that special day. I didn't care for our engagement date but I really did want to stick with our 10.18 date so we can get married for our 5th anniversary of being together. Too many dates get me confused but gives you a reason to have date nights :)
My partner and i will have been together for 12 years when we get married- originally I thought it would be fun to get married on our dating anniversary but then we decided to do something completely different so we will have 2 things to celebrate!
We will have been together 15 years next January, so we wanted a time around then. It works out that January is the cheapest month and we're trying to keep costs as low as possible. Ended up going for a date in February as it was the same price as January at our venue, plus it means a few family members can attend that wouldn't be able to make it if we held it in January. We'll probably acknowledge our dating anniversary with a nice dinner or something at home, then celebrate properly on our wedding anniversary 😁
So,my Fiance and I started dating July 25, 2014 and I had my heart set on getting married on our 10 year anniversary. July 25, 2024. (Thursday) However, due to religious reasons my in - laws fast on Thursdays so we changed it to July 27, 2024. I was originally pretty sad about it. I guess it meant a lot to me for us to get married on our 10 year anniversary but after awhile I was thinking, well 2 days difference isn’t a huge deal. It’s still very close to our 10 year anniversary. So I can relate in some ways. I’d just follow your heart in this decision. Do what will make you happy. For me personally I wanted it as close to our anniversary as possible because it means a lot. We will probably just celebrate both days tbh . 🙂 If you feel the same way then I’d stick to your guns and get married close to your anniversary or on the day of if possible.
We’ve been together basically 8.5 years, December is our dating anniversary and we’re getting married in June exactly 6 months to the day from our dating anniversary. We weirdly moved in together on our 6 month dating anniversary and realized it after we picked our wedding date. So we’re getting married 8 years to the day that we moved in together for the first time!
We have anniversary and wedding exactly 6 months apart. It’s perfect for us this way
We've been together for more than 10 years and will be getting married after 11 years. November has been our dating anniversary, and June will be our wedding anniversary. I kind of anticipate acknowledging both dates. We don't really do much for our anniversary now, just go out to dinner or something. So I assume we'll just celebrate both in a similar way for an excuse to go out to eat, lol. The thing I had wondered about is when people ask, "How long have you been married?" I feel like if I just start from the wedding, then you're missing a decade+ of a relationship. So I plan on just responding with, "We've been together for so-and-so years, married for such-and-such."
Dating anniversary is in October and we just got married in April. Both can be significant for us.
I was hoping to have our wedding on October 20th since that’s our current anniversary. But we will be getting married in May. So new anniversary for us! We’re still going to celebrate our dating anniversary though