Celebrating
on a Budget
by
LadyJade
A wedding
anniversary is always a special occasion, and it doesn’t
matter if you’ve been married for two years or twenty-two
years, each couple wants to celebrate in a big way. Some couples
run into a dilemma, especially those who are celebrating the first
important few years of marriage - money! Planning a wedding anniversary
celebration on a budget is quite common, but, for some husbands
or wives who want to let their spouse know how much they care,
it can be depressing when working from a limited budget.
A friend
of mine went through just that and she admitted it wasn’t
easy, but she made the most of it. My friend is a schoolteacher
and met her husband in college where her husband was studying
to be a physical therapist. The first ten years of their marriage,
the family relied on one income…hers. Even though my friend
carried the weight of household responsibilities and had very
little money to celebrate with, she managed. Her husband opened
his very own practice, and the couple celebrated their twenty-year
wedding anniversary last year. Her husband put on the party including
an exotic trip for two to Fiji afterwards.
My friend
reminisced about the “quirky” things they did to celebrate
their previous wedding anniversaries and as I listened to her
stories, they were beautiful pieces of history that will be focal
points in the future when their children plan for their fiftieth
wedding anniversary. I hope I can attend that one too!
Homemade
gifts are sometimes the biggest way to show how deep your love
really is!
Many couples,
including my friend and her husband, opt to give each other homemade
gifts when there is practically no budget in sight. There are
a lot of homemade gifts you too can make on your own, even if
you’re not a crafty person.
Special homemade
cards can say “I love you” better than any store bought
creation because the words that dance across the surface, come
from deep within your own heart. You don’t have to be a
poet to tell someone how much you care.
A weekend
wedding anniversary trip doesn’t have to be an exotic vacation
to Fiji to be memorable either. My friend laughed about their
first wedding anniversary as she recalled how they pitched a tent
at a state park, swam, roasted marshmallows, and had a really
good time. She said the funniest thing about it was that the entire
trip, including gas, food, and the camping fee, set them back
just twenty bucks! They even borrowed the tent.
Diamonds
aren’t the only form of jewelry that shows how much you
appreciate the person you married. My own husband pulled a good
one on me because I often joked about how I wanted one of those
frilly anniversary diamond rings with a matching pendant. My husband
went to the craft store and picked out everything he would need
to make me the prettiest necklace I’ve ever owned using
simple craft store beads. He put a lot of time and effort into
it, but the kicker was his explanation of the colors he chose.
The blue beads represented my eyes, the brown represented his,
the red represented the hot love we share, and so on. I’ve
never asked for a big frilly anniversary diamond since.
Romantic
dinners don’t have to be a full course venue featuring veal
and caviar to be romantic. A librarian once told me how she and
her husband had a candlelight pizza dinner because she burned
her intended anniversary cuisine.
Sometimes
our plans don’t go as planned and that’s okay. What’s
important is that couples love one another enough to giggle about
the ups and downs throughout marriage. A wedding anniversary celebration
shouldn’t be a stressful event. Concentrate on celebrating
the love you share for one another, and your wedding anniversary
celebration will be a bigger success than you ever could have
imagined -- so much so that you’ll remember it your entire
lifetime.
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