Happy Unniversary!!

August 27, 2021 8:54 AM

Two of my good friends have announced their engagement, and are getting married in October of 2022. I would like to celebrate/commemorate their negative-one-year wedding anniversary this October. Due to COVID, there will be no party. Any ideas?

This is more meant to be kind of silly and fun. What would the traditional and modern negative-first anniversary gifts be? Ideas for a card? Poems, music, anything that would somehow celebrate/commemorate an event that is not going to happen for another year?

Any and all ideas welcome! Thanks!

posted by Gray Duck to Society & Culture (9 answers total)

A custom page a day calendar that counts down to their wedding date. Both paper and a clock.
posted by phunniemee at 9:04 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

Well, the positive-first anniversary gift is paper, so what if you take some paper away from them (that perhaps you can re-bestow upon them later)? Like... get them to give you some photos of themselves, that you then arrange into a frame or album and give back. Or... have each of them write a secret letter about the other, send them to you, and then you frame them and give them back? Or maybe you start a traveling journal among friends and family that starts with the happy couple, and then they send it along, until it makes the rounds and returns to them?

Next idea: a playlist of positive songs that use negatives in the title. Unforgettable. Unbelievable. Don't Go Breaking My Heart.

Next idea: something that uses batteries or magnets (negative and positive poles)?

Next idea: do a parody of The Knot wedding site that's called The Not.

Next idea: have them sit for old-fashioned silhouette portraits.
posted by dywypi at 9:05 AM on August 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

negative-one-year wedding anniversary

Demand a present from them.
posted by pompomtom at 9:08 AM on August 27, 2021 [13 favorites]

Best answer: Instead of a bouquet of flowers, send a bouquet of seeds. Take those sticks the little cards go on, fill a bunch with flower seed packets, and wrap/present it like an arrangement.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:13 AM on August 27, 2021 [17 favorites]

use their social media pictures to make a 'before we were married' photo album.
posted by noloveforned at 9:17 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

You might have to design it yourself, but if you're at all design-y or willing to hire someone who is, you might make something (card, craft, 3D printed thinger, sculpture, megalithic construction, what have you) with a focus on the negative space. Rubin's vase with their profiles on each side? An illustration or doctored photo of a crowded scene where the space without [crowded elements] is their wedding date, an appropriate symbol or word, the shape of their wedding venue (if recognizable at all), ...?

I also like the idea of a countdown / advent-style calendar. You could make it with day, week, or month granularity depending on your ambition.
posted by whatnotever at 9:41 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

bouquet of seeds

Genius!
posted by pompomtom at 10:05 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

“Next idea: do a parody of The Knot wedding site that's called The Not.“
— posted by dywypi at 9:05 AM on August 27

Call this ‘The kNot Yet’
posted by calgirl at 11:54 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

They will be doing wedding planning. If you search Ask.Me, there have been many questions and excellent about poems, readings and music for weddings. Make them a book of readings, a playlist of wedding songs. Sort of sappy but useful. You can do another ask or a MetaTalk to find the previous questions.

But do the seed bouquet, it's brilliant.
posted by theora55 at 10:23 AM on August 28, 2021