A few weeks ago I celebrated my 25th wedding anniversary. When I asked my husband how we were going to mark the occasion, his initial reaction was, do people still do that?

We are fairly low key people, we didn’t want an extravagant do but we did want to mark this milestone that we had reached.

What did we do? We invited 20 of our closest friends to join us for dinner and to help us celebrate. We spent the morning preparing food and cleaning the house, ready for everyone to arrive.

As a celebrant, I couldn’t let this occasion pass without saying a few words. I had written them a few weeks prior to our anniversary and when I read them to my husband, his reaction was that they are nice words, and he’d have a think about what he want to add.

Needless to say, the day arrived and while I had tweaked the words a little, no contribution had come from my other half. At one point in the evening I did wonder if it was too small a gathering tobother with my speech, it felt a bit formal for such a relaxed occasion.

After a glass or wine (or two), I thought why not. So I clinked a glass and got everyone’s attention, and started my speech.I won’t go into all the details here as I’m sure you are not bothered how I met my husband but everyone said what beautiful words they were and that I should share them, so here is part of what I said.

“Finding your soul mate isn’t about one special moment in time, it’s about finding a person that you can fall in love with over and over again. As we grow and experience life, we change, and we have to fall in love with each new version of each other.

As with most marriages of this length, we have had our ups and downs. There has definitely been versions of ourselves that the other was not so keen on, but we have grown through those moments onto better things. We’ve reached the point in our lives where we’re as content in our own company as we are together. We do not rely on each other for our happiness but we find it when we are together."

And for me, this is what sums up our marriage, falling in love with each new version of the person that I initially met.

I concluded my speech by saying that we were excited to share our milestone with them because love, friendship and laughter are always much better when shared.

So this is for the other low key couples out there, who want to mark a special occassion, but don’t necessarily want to renew their vows. Do what feels right for you, a family gathering, a few friends or your own version of friends for dinner. And if you do want to renew your vows, go for it. I’m more than happy to help you create a celebration of your life together.