Everyone has heard that you are supposed to save the top layer of your wedding cake to eat on your first anniversary. So keeping with tradition, the day after our wedding last year Darren and I neatly wrapped up a portion of our wedding cake and placed it in the freezer awaiting our first anniversary to defrost it and take a bite. Fast forward to now and it was time to take that piece of cake out of the freezer. Well, for anyone who has followed this tradition, I am thinking you had the same experience as we did….a tasteless, old, gross piece of cake. After defrosting, the cake looked much the same but one bite by Darren who opted to go first and it was in and out of his mouth so fast. Yuck!

So where did this tradition come from? Reading a few websites it seems the tradition was born when cakes were more fruit based with some alcohol which preserved better. I am not sure if that is really the true story but today’s cakes certainly don’t stand the taste of time in the freezer.

Another tradition in celebrating a first anniversary is that the traditional gift is ‘paper’. Darren secretly did a lot of research on this and keeping with ‘paper’ as the theme for the first anniversary he bought us a beautifully framed picture of the Chain Bridge in Budapest, the very spot where he proposed. In order for our children to grow up knowing what a special spot the Chain Bridge is for us, we hung the picture in our kitchen so as we all have dinner together every night we are reminded of that magical spot.

I was unbelievably touched by this special gift. Unwrapping it brought tears to my eyes as I thought it was the most romantic gift – perfect for our first anniversary. This has been the most incredible year and I couldn’t be happier.