Today marks four years married to the man God created perfectly for me. And on this anniversary, we’re celebrating something we’ve prayed for and waited on for over 2.5 years—the growth of our family!

It feels almost unreal to think that a Wild child is on its way after such a long season of waiting. But I can honestly say that season made our marriage so much stronger. We relied on each other, prayed together, supported one another’s dreams and never stopped believing that our time would come.

When I think back on all that we’ve gone through the past few years I realize there is literally no one else in this world I would have wanted by my side.

I realize that the man I married four years ago is not the same man I fall asleep holding hands with each night.

He has changed.

And I have changed.

Because seasons like that change you.

But we’ve changed together.

When I see the strength and passion Tyler puts on his shoulders as the man of our household, it makes me fall in love with him even more. How he brings me gummy bears and vitamin water when I’m feeling sick and when he cooks to Jamaican music blaring in the background. [Girl find yourself a man who likes to cook, it’s life changing!] But it’s the way he takes care of us + himself on a daily basis that truly makes me admire him more and more every single day. 

It’s so funny to think we were just kids when we fell in love over 7 years ago. Like how in the world did I know that the kid I fell in love with would turn into one of the kindest, most handsome and caring men a woman could pick for a husband?

I didn’t. But God sure did.

Now don’t get me wrong, as much as I love this man we’ve had our fair share of challenges. But how we’ve grown together over the years in how we handle those challenges is something I pray we can continue doing even as more family members get added to the Wild clan.

But what I thought would be super fun is to share a few anniversary traditions I make this man of mine do every single year + a few photos from our pregnancy announcement!

Also a side note, Tyler only does these things because he knows it makes me happy so add that to the list of why I love him.

Anniversary Traditions to Start at Home

If you’re looking for some anniversary traditions to start with your boo thang here are three of our favorite and if you stick around to the end I’m sharing some of our favorite photos from our pregnancy announcement!

1. Start a Capsule Letter Box

Tyler and I don’t do gifts. We both would rather spend money and time together than on each other so that’s where this idea of our capsule letter box came to be. Each year, we write each other a letter about the past year together, date it, tape it shut, and place it in our box on the night of our anniversary. Then, we sit down in our pajamas and take out the prior year’s taped up letter and read them together!

This is truly one of my FAVORITE traditions because I’m reminded of so many things that we’ve gone through that we easily forget as the days go by. We write about anything from job changes, to vacations we took, to challenges we faced and everything in between. Here is where it gets really amazing! I’m sure that both Tyler and I wrote about how this past year we finally were able to get pregnant and the feelings + emotions that have come with that. But the thing is, we won’t read those feelings + emotions until next year when Baby Wild is actually sitting in our arms. Like how cool is that to go back into time and fully feel again what we once were feeling?

I think it’s so easy to forget the little details of each year once they start adding up, but this tradition has allowed us to relive each and every year all over again. We sit and laugh about inside jokes we used to have that we forgot about and just so many fun things.

We started doing this when we were dating, so we have a good amount of letters in our box at this point which I love to go back through and reread all the letters we’ve ever written to each other. 

I mean cue allll the tears. It’s so so special. If you’re looking for an anniversary tradition to start I highly encourage you to do this one!

2. Find your go-to treat

The second tradition we do that is a MUST is we go get turtle cheesecake from our local diner who literally makes the best cheesecake.

For our wedding, we didn’t do a cake. We did little mini fall-themed desserts and the cake we cut was a turtle cheesecake. It’s our guilty pleasure and honestly a dessert we only have once or twice a year. 

But no matter what our plans are or where we go out to eat we drive on over to the diner and pick up our cheesecake to eat back home in our pajamas while we read our letters to each other. 

3. Take Anniversary Photos

And lastly, each and every year we schedule time to get all dressed up for each other to take professional anniversary photos. This started year one of marriage as my best friend is a photographer and thought it would be such an awesome idea.

That first session was incredible. I mean tell me this? When is the last time you’ve slowed time down enough to dance in the street or stare into your significant other’s eyes and pick out each speck of color? When have you slowly movie-liked kissed one another and held hands while laughing and walking? Life can get busy and marriage can get hard, but it’s the little things that make you fall in love all over again that makes a marriage strong.

I fully believe that your marriage deserves the love, attention, and affection it had the day you said “I do” and these anniversary photoshoots give us that chance to do it all over again. We may not be in a white dress and suit + tie, but for just a moment we are allowing ourselves to fully show each other love and forgetting the hustle-and-bustle of the world around.

There are so many things we easily get caught up in when life takes over, but these moments together are ones I will forever cherish.

Our first anniversary, we actually held this photoshoot on October 17 [our actual anniversary]. After we hit up all of our favorite places in Madison, we then went on our date to a super fancy restaurant and not once did I feel the urge to get out my phone and take a picture or capture the moment because that had already been done. It was a date where we both were fully present and I don’t know about you, but not every date is like that for us so it truly makes our anniversary dates that much more special!

I will admit, Tyler doesn’t love these sessions as much as I do, but he takes one for the team.

Sneak Peek Into Our Anniversary Photoshoot

Here is a peak into our favorite photos from our Four Year Anniversary photoshoot with Kim Kedinger Photography! This one was a little different as we also included our pregnancy announcement into this session, but oh how special that made the evening. I will NEVER forget this time together and the celebrating of our sweet baby Wild.

So there you have it, that’s what four years looks like for us and the three traditions we do each and every anniversary.

I’d love to hear, do you have any anniversary traditions?