How Has It Been A Year Already?

As you may already know, Tim and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary over the weekend. It's amazing to think just how fast time flies and at the same time, just how far we've come over the past year. It's even crazier to think that this year also marks 10 years of being together. We've both changed and evolved into different people over the past decade, but the part I'm most thankful for is that we've made those transitions together.

In all honesty, we promised each-other we wouldn't do any big gifts or go out for a big dinner this year — that we'd keep things low key, cook at home and break into the few goodies we've been saving over the past year, like a bottle of champagne and wedding cake to enjoy while the sun went down outside.

One thing that surprised me were all the anniversary cards:

I knew the day was meaningful to us, and we did get each-other cards, but I didn't expect to get so many cards from family members — it was something that really did make the day feel special and honored. Tim's mom even put together a little vase of dried flowers she'd preserved from the wedding — how creative is that?

Last year we held our rehearsal dinner at Azzurro, the restaurant where we first met. Wes, the manager and our friend for the same 10+ year timeframe, gifted us with a bottle of champagne. We decided to save it to open and celebrate with on our first wedding anniversary, which turned out to be such a fun treat:

We ended up saving the cork to remember the evening and will have to think of a creative way to either keep or display it.

Here's the view just out of lens focus from above:

Good old Basil never fails to be right up in the thick of things with us. I think he thought that wine cork was a big dog cookie given the look of passion he was bestowing upon it!

For dinner, Tim grilled steak and shrimp on skewers (on the new grill!) and I had fun setting up the table for an alfresco dinner now that the weather is so perfect in the late evenings:

While bringing all the tableware outside it was neat to think how almost every piece had been given to us as wedding gifts — everything from the plates and bowls, knives, champagne flutes to the recycled brass horn iPhone dock playing tunes while we ate came from so many of our family and friends. 

We even pulled out the silver cake cutter my mom gave us to cut our mini wedding cake:

Yes, you heard that right — a mini wedding cake. Let me tell you about this cake! We ordered our wedding cake from Pearl's Cupcake Shoppe here in town (read up on our tasting adventure in this post and see pics of our wedding cake in this post) and one of the coolest touches they offer to wedding couples is a 6 inch replica in the same flavor of the wedding cake 1 year later. It's like a little cake topper and felt like such a neat gift 1 year later to enjoy:

Some of you might remember that one of my biggest regrets from the wedding was not having the restaurant pack up a to-go carton of food with wedding cake for us to take on the honeymoon, so you can imagine how long I've been waiting to enjoy this cake!

It was a "Queen Bee" flavor, which is a honey cake with a light honey flavored frosting — and at Pearl's they don't skimp on the frosting:

Tim's parents actually saved the topper off our original cake and preserved it over the past year, bringing it to us as a gift this year. We decided to indulge in the fresh version from Pearl's this year and save the frozen original to try during future anniversaries. Have you had experience with frozen wedding cake? How did it turn out? One of my coworkers recently told me they tried their frozen wedding cake and were underwhelmed, however, they haven't met the preserving powers of my mother-in-law. I'll be curious to give it a go when the timing is right.

As an added bonus, the summer/fall 2014 issue of Richmond Bride Magazine released this week and includes a back-page feature on on the DIY and local elements from our June wedding. It certainly made for a timely little anniversary surprise!

I swear it's the little things like cake, champagne and a little quality time that can mean the world. Thanks for sharing in all of our little celebrations — this blog has continually been such a unique way to archive some of our favorite moments to look back on and it means so much that you care to check in!

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Our Wedding Ceremony Recap | Our Wedding Reception Recap | All Wedding Posts