This past Monday we celebrated our First Wedding Anniversary. (If you missed that post, you can check it out HERE. If you're in the market for an AWESOME First Wedding Anniversary Gift that stays true to tradition of the "paper anniversary", definitely check out that post. My husband is awesomely amazing!!! He got me the perfect gift.)
We decided to start a few "anniversary traditions" per say.
If you read the previous post, then you know one of them is our Anniversary Scrapbook. That's a work in progress but once we are finished with the pages for our First Anniversary, I'll make sure to write about it in case anyone wants to copy the "tradition" and wants to see what we did.
But this post is to just talk about the other "anniversary tradition" because a few people asked me about it.
I cannot take credit for the idea, as I saw it elsewhere online. (yes, Pinterest, I'm an addict).
The Idea
The basic idea is to take a picture every year on June 11th, our wedding anniversary. But it's not just any picture. It's a picture of us, holding the picture from the previous June 11th.
Because this is our First Anniversary, I can't really give you a clear example. But here is the photo we took:
The idea is, every year, you're taking a photo of you holding a photo. As the years go, the photos get smaller so eventually you won't even be able to see the original photo. But in a nutshell, it's a photo of a photo of a photo of a photo and so on. If I still have this blog in a few years, I'll do an update. But by then, I hope to have little Obie's running around and be too busy for this blog. (Although this blog is a release for me so I might do it as a stress reliever when I have screaming children.)
The Size
We took a wedding photo (courtesy of i Kandi Photography) and had it blown up into a 16x20. (We had Walgreens do it because I had a 30% coupon. It actually turned out really well and only cost us $10.) We opted for such a large photo, not because we're vain, but because, as you can see, even a large photo isn't that easily seen. So the larger, the better. (We felt any larger than 16x20 it was breaching on obnoxious.)
The Photo
The photo you choose is up to you. Just remember, that as the years go by, the pictures in the frames in each photo will get smaller. We opted for a full length photo because it clearly shows I'm in a white wedding gown, you can clearly see Nick's full uniform with the sword, and my bouquet is also easily seen. (ie. you'd be inbred to not know this is a wedding photo).
[We also decided we want to use the exact same frame every single year.]
The Camera
We had a friend come with us and take the photos. Thankfully he had the right idea. He snapped a good 100 photos. Both vertical and horizontal. And some closer, some further away. This ensures us many options to choose the best photo to get printed for the next anniversary.
Because you will be blowing this photo up to such a large size, I recommend using a nice camera. We borrowed a friend's nice Canon DSLR camera. If you use a simple point and shoot, it might not be the greatest quality when you increase the size.
(If you do not have a DSLR or know of anyone with one, most camera stores do allow you to rent cameras so that's an option too.)
The Location
You can take the photo anywhere you choose, obviously. For us, we decided we want to attempt to take the photo in a place that has a special meaning to us. The "special" place this year was on a beach here in Pensacola, Florida. This is the first beach we visited when we moved here. It's the first place we introduced Yadi to the Gulf. It's the beach Nick took me to when he woke me up at 5am and brought me to watch the sunrise while sipping mimosas. It's the beach I love to come to and think and journal. It's a quiet and secluded beach. It's never crowded and I've never seen more than 6 people on this beach, if any. It's kind of like "our" beach. So it has meaning to us.
We also opted for a "beach" photo because of our lifestyle. With being a military family, each anniversary has the potential to be in a different city or state. We like the idea of taking the photo in a place that might also represent where we are at that time in our life.
Where you decide to take your photo is totally up to you. Outside factors might affect that decision as well. For instance, we were predicted to have severe storms alllll day on our anniversary. Our backup place was to just have our photo taken in the restaurant that evening for dinner. Not exciting. No meaning behind it. Not specific to Pensacola. But we didn't seem to have any other options. Thankfully Mother Nature decided to have a lull in the weather and granted us the perfect opportunity.
{Although, in hindsight, our backup plan should have been a photo in our house. Being a military family, we'll move a lot. So it'd be fun to see the different living room scenes in photos as well. I shall remember that for when we need a backup or don't have a "special" place.}
The Display
Nicholas and I went back and forth between what to do with these large photos. As I mentioned, we wanted to keep using the exact same frame. But it would be a little obnoxious to have a bunch of large 16x20 photos. We finally came up with an idea. In the beginning, it will look a little odd and definitely unfinished. But here it is:
We will have one large 16x20, the current photo. Next to it, going down the wall will be all the previous photos in an 8x10 (possibly 5x7 as we get more but for now, a (few) tiny 5x7s next to the 16x20 might look awkward).
Here is an idea of what I'm talking about because I'm not that great with words. And I'm a visual person so if you are too, this will help you:
So just imagine that my wedding photo is in the bottom, far right box. Then next to it (Anniversary Photo June 2012) will be the photo we took on Monday. And then so on. Pretty simple.
This also all depends on our house. Being a military family, we'll be moving a lot. As of now, the house we're in, we have a perfect wall that could accommodate all these photos. But that might not always be the case. In those instances, we'll just brainstorm a new way to display them. Nick is good at that...he's an engineer and I have a semi-creative mind. We make a good team
Problems?
As with any project, you might come across some problems. I can't predict what those might be. For us, the problems could be lack of wall space. But the main problem we're going to have is a missing person.
I know that Nick will be not be present for about 50% of the our anniversaries. Heck, there's a good chance he could be gone for almost all of them. It just depends how deployments fall and how the Military Gods are feeling that year. So we'll have to decide, do we take it a few months early? A few months late? What do we do???? I don't want to think about that now because that thought upsets me but we'll cross that bridge, with soaked cheeks, when we get there. (And by we, I mean me. Nick won't cry over a simple photo. Nor over the situation itself. He will simply say "It is was it is." Dumb males and their lack of emotion.)
So there you have it! I hope my "tutorial" was easy to follow. Please email me or comment if you have any questions!
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