You’ve been together for so long. You’ve had ups and downs, ins and outs and you know for sure that there’s no no one else you’d rather be with.
Now your anniversary is coming up! Maybe its your 6 monthsary or the landmark of your first year together. Maybe it’s even your 10th or 20th year together and that beautiful day where you can celebrate all those years of love and devotion is arriving soon.
There’s just one hiccup: you’re miles apart when the date arrives which means you can’t spend your special anniversary day together. That can be really rough, since there’s nothing you want more than to be with the person you love on at least this day of all days.
It might seem like you’re doomed to spend the day alone, but fortunately there are some wonderfully romantic things you can do together on your anniversary despite being far apart. This article highlights 10 tips to help you celebrate your long distance anniversary while far apart:
1. Plan Ahead
When you’re miles and miles apart from one another, it doesn’t really make sense to wait until the last minute to plan what you’ll do for your anniversary together.
Making a real effort to plan ahead for anniversary activities together means that no one is left disappointed. Why? Because you’ve both planned what you’ll do to celebrate and what date and time you can both reasonably do something together.
There’s no confusion about when or if you’re going to do something specific which means there’s less of a chance for either one of you to get hurt or upset over a misunderstanding about how you’ll celebrate your anniversary together.
With the distance mixed in, celebrating a special event can turn into a very stressful negative experience very quickly if both you and your partner are not open and clear about what you expect for this special moment together.
2. Don’t Panic if things don’t work out
So maybe you had plans and you thought that you and your SO had it all figured out. You’d have a meal together via skype, have some nice conversation and even do a fun activity or two together afterwards. But as the anniversary date got closer, it became clear that either you or your partner just wouldn’t be able to stick to the program you’d both planned together.
It would be so easy to get upset, feel slighted and turn what should be something really positive into a big relationship fight. But fights in a long distance relationship can escalate in to something worse!
Our advice to you? Don’t panic and try to be reasonable. Anniversary celebrations don’t have to be celebrated on your anniversary date or even during the week of your anniversary.
This is YOUR celebration, so you have every ability to decide when you want to celebrate it. Whether it’s months down the line or until the next time you are together. So don’t panic if your initial plans just don’t work out. Look at the bigger picture and try to be flexible!
3. Make it a full day event with other friends and family
Maybe your long distance circumstances are a little different. You actually won’t be able to celebrate your anniversary at all together. You can’t afford the postage to send a gift, your partner has to work or maybe you both only communicate via snail mail or text messages.
That’s okay! There’s no strict rule that says you absolutely must celebrate your anniversary date together, or even at all. But just knowing this fact doesn’t mean that you won’t feel a little down because you can’t celebrate this special moment in your relationship together.
If you’re feeling that way, how about turning your anniversary date into a day that you spend with other family or friends? You can “celebrate” among those you love, and hopefully avoid any sad feelings since you’ll be having a good time with other people who are close to you on that day.
Maybe your partner can also do the same, making your shared anniversary date a time spent with friends. Then you can both come together and share how your day went and what special things you did with the people you care about -in that way you can find joy your anniversary day together even if you can’t actually honor it together.
4. Don’t be afraid to be nontraditional in your celebration
LDRs are a nontraditional type of relationship. It only stands to reason then that not all aspects of our relationship will be traditional! Anniversaries included!
Distance will always present a challenge to LDR couples, but don’t be disappointed because you can’t participate in the typical media depictions of an anniversary celebration. It’s YOUR day, so celebrate it how you want! The point is to honor how far you’ve come in your relationship, not to go through a set ritual of how everyone else celebrates.
So DO have a skype date and DO have that 3 hour long phone call. If that is how you want to celebrate your anniversary and it makes you happy, then by all means DO IT!
5. Plan a Skype Date
Skype dates are without a doubt one of the easiest ways to do pretty much anything you wish you could do together face to face.
A skype date typically involves making or eating a meal together, having some nice conversation, enjoying a fun game or activity or two and spending the rest of the time doing whatever makes you and your partner happy!
Another cool idea is to send gifts to one another and only open them up together when you have the skype date! It adds an element of excitement to your anniversary date, knowing something special is waiting in store for you.
P.S. Don’t forget to take pictures!
6. Send Gifts
So you can’t be there with your partner? That’s alright! How about sending them a gift instead? There’s so many options out there for sending the perfect gift to your long distance love.
Some wonderful companies will even ship a gift directly to your partner so you don’t have to worry about shipping or customs issues at all. And often times the shipping cost is considerably cheaper when a company ships it out for you! So even though you couldn’t be there in person, and maybe you couldn’t even celebrate it together online, you still were able to celebrate in a small way by sending one another a heartfelt gift.
PSST! You might like also like this: 50 Long Distance Relationship Gift Ideas!
7. Open When Letters
Open When Letters are one of our favorite gift ideas! The main reason? Because so much love goes into the creation of each and every letter. When your partner gets their gift from you they’ll be utterly blown away at how much you love them (because frankly, open when letters take a lot of time and a lot of work!)
So how about creating a set of open when letters for your anniversary day? Here’s some envelope title ideas:
1. Open when… Its our Anniversary!
2. Open when… You want to know how much I love you
3. Open when… You want to walk down memory lane
4. Open when… You want to think about our Future Together
5. Open when… You want to know why I am so thankful that you love me!
See Also: 101 Open When Letter Topics!
8. Record a video message
The next best idea is to create a video message for your LDR SO! It can be anything from a series of photos to music (or you narrating!) to an actual video of you talking to them, telling them how much you love them. Or a combination of all of those!
Include “your song” as the background music to the video, and this simple gift idea can end up meaning so much to your partner -maybe even to the point of tears.
9. Anniversary timed “open at” gift boxes
Another sweet gift idea, how about creating a series of gifts that your SO should open at varying hours throughout the day. That way, even though you can’t physically be there, you’re sending reminders of how much you love them every time they open a gift throughout the day. We think this is the perfect LDR anniversary gift!
10. Share the same meal that day
If all else fails, and you aren’t able to do any of the above for your anniversary date, but you still want to do SOMETHING to make it feel special: try planning, cooking and sharing the same meal “together!”
Even if you can’t skype or do anything together for the whole day, just knowing that you can your partner are doing something together in unison (like perhaps eating the exact same meal or something similar) can make your anniversary date still feel special in a unique way.
What about YOU? What are some unique ways you have spent an anniversary when away from your spouse? Would you do any of the above ideas?
