People celebrate what’s important. Milestones, usually. Birthdays. Anniversaries. National holidays are celebrated. Various religious holidays are observed by every sect. If it’s not a day-off, it’s a picnic, a festival, a romantic dinner or a party with family and friends, to celebrate what’s important.

Along with annual celebrations, there are occasional, one-time celebrations. Many feel it’s important to celebrate marriage in a beautiful wedding ceremony. New businesses must celebrate their Grand Opening with a celebration to draw attention. Many folks throw a party when they move-in to a new house. Celebrations that celebrate what’s important are a part of all human cultures and are expressed in many traditions.

There are people who skip the celebration. Independence Day may not mean much to new immigrants. Jews usually don’t celebrate Christmas. 

Forget a wedding anniversary or the spouse’s birthday and endorphins of burning guilt will surge from the head, slowly to the toes. Picture deer’s eyes in the headlights, if you will.

People celebrate what’s important to them. If a wedding day or a birthday don’t merit some sort of recognition or celebration, it better have been agreed-upon well in advance of that given milestone. Having a calendar or list of important dates to remember must have been suggested before now!

This wedding planning season has nearly come to an end without any casualties. Planning a wedding celebration is a fun, fulfilling, emotional and exciting season. As the wedding planning season closes, the first anniversary planning season is truly something to get excited about! 

The first anniversary will celebrate the successes of 365 days of undivided loyalty, devotion, romance, and all the expressions of love combined. It doesn’t have to be in Paris or on a ten-day cruise, but agree upon how to recap the happiness of your first year of marriage.

Realistically, there might be some sad or even bad days in the first year of marriage. Taking time to remember, talk about and share the good times can take the sting out of the more harsh memories. Some couples keep a journal in which each may contribute good memories of any given day. That would be a meaningful must-read for future generations.

The first days of marriage are so important and worthy of celebration in themselves. Ninety-days into a marriage shouldn’t feel anything like Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day. Enthusiasm for the relationship will increase as each partner becomes involved in planning the anniversary with suggestions, ideas and eventually concrete plans for an anniversary celebration worthy of a great relationship like yours.

Thoughtful anniversary celebrations express something that is important to two unique people. Anniversary celebrations express devotion, recognize success, and mark the season of sharing another year of devotion and love together.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Life has no meaning the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal.” The fact is, as this hectic and exciting wedding season comes to its glorious conclusion, look forward to planning the first of 50 or more years of anniversaries of this ever-so-important date in all of life that everyone wishes could last forever.