One Year Later
It’s been one year. One year since Mr. Mustang and I spoke our wedding vows to each other, walked down the aisle together and left for our honeymoon as man and wife. When people ask us shortly after our wedding if anything has changed now being married, we are in the majority of newlyweds who simply reply, ‘no’. The only thing that has changed since we got married is that we can no longer call each other ‘fiance’ and as of Monday, April 27th we are no longer considered newlyweds.
The only thing that is unfortunate about our first year wedding anniversary is having to celebrate it in quarantine instead of at Roche Harbor but looking back though, we are extremely fortunate. We rather celebrate our anniversary in the comfort of our own home rather than getting married this year but having to postpone it due to the shelter-in-place order. Because of the unusual circumstances of having to remain indoors during this time, how we decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary was rather fitting.
When we celebrated our first dating anniversary, I took Mr. Mustang to Canlis in Seattle and had the reservation under his name. Throughout the entire night, the staff at the restaurant kept referring to us as Mr. & Mrs. Mustang and we only smiled, and never corrected them. As we left, we joked that if we ever got married we would return to Canlis to celebrate our first wedding anniversary because we would actually be a Mr. & Mrs. We are not able to dine in the actual restaurant due to the quarantine but fortunately Canlis is still operating as a take-out establishment for the moment. For $55 a person (including a bottle of wine), we got a mushroom and tomato lasagna, salad, dinner rolls and a peanut butter chocolate dessert. Not a bad deal honestly and in classic Canlis fashion, tasted fantastic. We also got a small thank you card that wished us a happy anniversary but the cherry on top was who it was addressed to: Mr. & Mrs. Mare.
If you want to learn more about the meal, please click HERE.
We were originally planning on having dinner in our actual dining room however Canlis provides free live-stream piano music through YouTube and we decided to eat in the living room instead. The plan was to only watch the live stream for about 30 minutes or so but we ended up watching the entire 3 hour stream. While tuning in, anyone can request songs through the comment section of the live stream and we asked for at least a dozen songs over the course of 3 hours. The pianist played every song we requested (that he knew of) ranging from Cole Porter to Randy Newman to The Beatles and even Soundgarden. We tried to get him to play songs from musicals like The Drowsy Chaperone however he’s not a jukebox and only knows a finite number of songs. Towards the last hour of the piano live stream, Mr. Mustang and I were lazily lounging on the couch, both on our phones but still enjoying each other's company. In the end, considering the unique circumstances that we were under, it was the perfect way to celebrate our anniversary.
For anniversary gifts, the first year is simply ‘paper’. Paper. Not the most romantic item in general but depending what is on it could make the paper priceless. Keeping within the paper theme, Mr. Mustang got our wedding vows beautifully scribed by our wedding calligrapher and I commissioned a watercolor artist from Friday Harbor to paint the moment we were at the altar during our wedding ceremony. Unfortunately we won’t be able to collect either until the quarantine is over but that just gives us more time to select proper frames and getting sticker shock learning that frames cost more than paintings.
If you like to read our vows, please click HERE.
When reflecting on our first year of marriage, we had quite an amazing year. In 2019, we got to experience:
3 Seahawk games
7 Sounders games
13 plays, shows and concerts
ran an 8k through the new Alaskan tunnel
18 movies
Flown over 20,000 miles in travel
Went to countless restaurants, excursions and parties
And as we look forward to the next year, we originally were expecting to travel to Japan and Europe, see more movies, plays, host more guests at our home and possibly even buy a new home. We still hope to accomplish all these things but now have to stretch these plans into 2021 instead of the end of 2020. As we grow old together, we will keep maintaining this blog with updates on places we have visited, shows we have seen, food we have been cooking and overall what we have been up to on a weekly basis.
Thank you to all our friends and family with your love and support and we hope you will continue to stay within our lives as we grow together as husband and wife.
