celebrating wedding anniversaries

(This is the hotel in Ireland where I had my wedding reception 6 years ago!)

Next week I will be celebrating my sixth wedding anniversary. I thought I would share with you some ideas from past anniversaries. I like to use the traditional anniversary gift themes and make them my own. Also, since my husband and I both enjoying watching movies- I choose a movie to go with the theme too. For example:

Year 1 is paper. I bought my husband tickets to see Les Miserable on Broadway in NYC. I also bought the movie version so we could watch it over and over again and remember our fun date to the city.

Year 2 is cotton. I gave my husband a monogrammed cotton apron from Williams Sonoma and a gift certificate for a cooking class here. We ended up choosing a class that had a Provencal theme - which was perfect since we went to Provence for our honeymoon. My movie choice was "No Reservations."

Year 3 is leather. I bought my husband a leather bound copy of a Peter Mayle book. While we were on our honeymoon (in Provence and Paris) we read aloud the book "A Good Year" by Peter Mayle which is set in the French countryside. The movie version of a "A Good Year" with Russel Crowe came out around the same time and was a perfect accompaniment for this occasion.

Year 4 is fruit or flowers. Since we are usually on the Cape for our anniversary I decided we would have a picnic on the beach with fruit and flowers. We watched "A Room with A View" which has a great picnic scene in it.

Year 5 is wood. I found a wooden buoy from Pottery Barn with the number 5 on it and gave it to him while we were on the Cape. As a funny coincidence we ended up having dinner at a restaurant that had wooden menus! We watched a Woody Allen movie- but you could also watch anything with Elijah Wood or Woody Harrelson.

This year, for our sixth wedding anniversary, the theme (or traditional gift) is candy. As is tradition, we are leaving for the Cape today. Stay tuned for my gift idea and movie pick- I will post them when I get back next week. I think this year might be my favorite!!!