My anniversary and my daughter’s birthday are the same day — how can we celebrate both?

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Photo from this cute monster-themed party. Photo by Karina Picache Photography.

Our daughter was born on our wedding anniversary. I am absolutely not prepared to compromise on celebrating either of these occasions — our wedding anniversary means everything to me, and I intend to celebrate it with enthusiasm every year. Having said that, I also want my daughter to have a lovely birthday every year.

Does anyone have any ideas about how we can successfully combine the two celebrations? — Strawbs

Comments on My anniversary and my daughter’s birthday are the same day — how can we celebrate both?

  1. As a daughter born on her parent’s wedding anniversary, I feel pretty competent in discussing this topic. 🙂
    First, I think it’s awesome that you want to make both holidays so celebratory. That was definitely a priority for my parents as well. I will say, though that as I got older, it seems like the day became more about me than them…or maybe I was just a little self-absorbed… In our case the actual day was all about the family- we rarely had parties of either kind on that day and instead just spent time celebrating our family. Parties were saved for the weekends. I remember lots of focus on a family dinner (or two). My parents would often have steamed crabs (it’s June in Maryland-that’s what we do 😉 ) and my sister and I would usually have pizza or Chinese- my choice. We’d sit around and open presents- a lot like a Christmas morning, there would be lots of presents for each of us.
    I would also make sure that your daughter understands why your wedding anniversary is as important as her birthday, just in different ways. Maybe I’m mentalizing, but I think that this was one thing that helped me realize that there is a world outside of me, and that my parents did some pretty awesome and important things before I was born.
    The other important thing (for my family) is that I am not an only child. This meant that my parents had to make sure that my sister never felt left out. Even now, she jokes that she’s the only one that doesn’t have a special day that day. If this is ever an issue for your family, I urge you to make it a priority to include others that may just be observers. Nobody should feel left out.
    That’s just a brief telling of my birthday/parent’s anniversary experiences. It can be done, and it can be an awesome day for everyone- I imagine it just takes more work than if they weren’t the same day.

    • I was born on my parents anniversary (4th). The doctor SAID I would be born on that day…I am never late. I NEVER had a birthday party in my life…but my parents ALWAYS went out to celebrate their Anniversary. I am older now, Mother still alive, their selfishness hurt me my entire life. At age 30 & 50 friends or my children had surprise parties for me. My older sister was extremely jealous that I was even born on parent’s anniversary. My Grandmother said that only a very special child is born on a parent’s anniversary. Please start a tradition to celebrate your child’s precious life. Separate it or you will hurt that child for life as you celebrate other children’s birthdays on THERE day. I forgave ALL of them. They never knew how hurt I have been…

    • You’re so lucky your parents make it a priority to make sure both are celebrated. My mom passed away when I was eight (I’m now eleven) and my dad had to get a full time nanny because he was always at work. She has now been with us for 3 years (almost 4). Last year me my dad and nanny were downstairs getting our Christmas decorations. I was told to grab something from upstairs and when I came back down they were making out.:( I’m not entirely sure when they got together but I KNOW IT WAS ON MY BIRTHDAY! this year (in 2 weeks) we are supposed to be going away for my birthday but we never celebrate my birthday anymore and I feel like my dad likes his girlfriend more than me. Every year since my mom passed away I spend my birthday In my room crying.
      Sorry if this is irrelevant but it feels good to get it out.

      • Don’t cry !! Feel happy on your birthday as you were born to your mom ss a god gift . for your mom must be watching you somewhere in this universe sending her blessings to you. Do not cry please as it will make her soul unhappy too. Mom is gone but her blessings are not gone. Focus on your studies as of now. And be proud of yourself . And live each day full of life forgetting about your dad’s attitude. Dads are generally like that . nothing strange .

  2. oh, it will be interesting to see how the response of making 2 separate important holidays equally important on the same day. Ours is our Wedding anniversary and mother’s day.

    I do have a married couple friends that share the same birthday. What they do is whomever has the “big number” birthday that year ie: 30 gets the big party (She is 2 years younger) and the rest of the years is just our normal birthday group outings where we all just eat and hang out celebrating. I do know however that this will be the first year that they also figure out a third holiday mixed in as their birthday falls on mother’s day and they have a 2 year old son. Should be interesting what they come up with.

  3. My son is born on our anniversary (and 1 week after my birthday). This year we had a combined 30th and 1st birthday party for the two of us, but haven’t yet done the anniversary/birthday celebration yet.

    For us, our anniversary is more about the season we were married (Christmastime) than the actual day (we just picked the Saturday before Christmas), so we feel flexible about celebrating some time during the Christmas season. Our son’s birthday is more about the actual day, though I know that it’s easiest to plan parties for weekends for friends/family.

    Our plan is to emphasize the milestone anniversaries, like this year we’re doing a trip for our 5th wedding anniversary, since we feel that trumps extravagantly partying for our son’s 2nd birthday. But any other year I am fine carving out some alone time (dinner out, family celebration at home? walking around doing Christmas shopping for our families in downtown and looking at the lights) as a celebration of our anniversary season, and focusing more on throwing the birthday parties for little dude.

    I am interested in what other people have to say!

  4. My parents got married on my 7th birthday so they wouldn’t forget the date. I always felt this wasnt very fair- my nana would make a cake to share which still has feeling bitter. Also my sisters felt left out. I don’t know if things are better or worse mow my patents or divorced!

  5. While your child is little you could make the day time about them, and then get a baby sitter for the evening and go out for your anniversary. As they get older you could rethink this.

    • I was going to suggest this. Especially if Grandparents tend to come to town for the birthday celebration, it is an ideal set up for a free and special sitter.

  6. My daughter was born the day after our anniversary…on St. Patrick’s Day. We celebrate her birthday during the day–avoiding all St. Patrick’s Day themed anything–and get a sitter for the evening. When her birthday is on a weekday, we’ll do our anniversary the weekend before and her birthday the weekend after.

      • My son is also a St. Paddy’s day baby, with the double-whammy of having a father named… Patrick.
        He’s only two so I’ve probably got some time before he makes a fuss, but you’ve definitely given me some food for thought. If you don’t mind my asking, why does your sister feel so strongly about no holiday/birthday themes?

      • Really? My cousin was born on St. Patrick’s Day, and she loves all things St. Patrick’s day. She always calls to make sure that I’m wearing green. In fact, she went on a special trip to Ireland for her 30th birthday.

        I guess to each their own.

  7. we didn’t have a second celebration to do, but we also didn’t have a good way to get a free evening for our anniversary. so i took off work – we basically spent all day celebrating our anniversary while the kids were at daycare, and spent a perfectly normal evening.

    maybe you could do something similar with a birthday party in the evening? or vice versa: birthday party day with a babysitter and anniversary out in the evening (this could even be part of the birthday if you have someone the kid loves that they get to hang with in the evening).

  8. Our son was born two days before our first wedding anniversary. It hasn’t been something we’ve had to figure out yet, as we just skipped that anniversary and spent it taking care of our newborn. I think for us the only issue will be anniversary milestones we might want to celebrate with a party (5 years, 10 years, etc.) and not wanting to throw two parties in one weekend.

  9. My son was born the day before our anniversary. We definitely didn’t celebrate the year he was born, or on his first birthday. There was just too much else going on. This year I’m not sure what we’re going to do yet, but my husband and I did recently take our first baby-free trip (five days in Mexico, woo!), so even though it wasn’t exactly on our anniversary, it is kind of counting for our big celebration this year. I’d still like to fit in a date sometime around our actual anniversary, though, since we’ll be celebrating five years.

    In short, I have no solutions.

  10. Our daughter’s birthday is the day after our anniversary (she was due on) and we either celebrate our anniversary the weekend before or near each other. Like this year it was Fri/Sat so we did our anniversary on Saturday and her birthday on Sunday.

  11. My birthday is 5 days before Christmas, and is also the same day as my steomother’s. I’ve never felt like I’ve had a “me” day, and don’t even care about my birthday and therefore don’t see what’s so special about other birthdays or celebrations. It’s made me a bit of a party pooper because I just don’t get it all.

    Please consider doing something separate for her birthday.

  12. Yeah, I think trying to separate the two days would be a good thing. It’s so important for kid’s to feel like the world revolves around them for one special day! My brother and I have our birthdays in the same month so all of March was a celebration, we always did extra special things, and whenever we would go out my Mom would have the waiters sing to us. All month long. It was awesome! When we were younger we would share a party but we’d both get our own cake. But on the days themselves, it was all about that kid! I just loved it! That’s what I do for my daughter, all month long we do fun things in lieu of a big party. We’re taking her and her cousin to the zoo, she gets a special play date with her bestie. A dinner night out with her greatgrandmother. But on the day of, we’ll try to make it extra special by having her wake up to balloons and just general happy birthday songs all day!
    So, my advice would be to celebrate your anniversary the weekend before, the day of do something awesome with just your little family, to celebrate how amazing it is, and then do something extra special for your little one on the next weekend. That way the fun lasts longer! I’m all about celebrating as many days possible!
    On a side note, my husband and I started dating on the 11th and got married a few years later on the 13th. So our anniversary celebration is three days long! It’s extra fun like that!

  13. My son was born the day after I got married. He is small enough that we have always just celebrated his birthday on a Saturday around his birthday and not actually told him when his birthday is. He turns 4 next week so I know this plan can’t last forever. I also like to celebrate my anniversary, but we usually just get a sitter and go to dinner on the actual day of my anniversary. For our son’s first birthday/our first anniversary we actually just went on a mini vacation for the weekend and celebrated it all. As he grows older we might do something similar.

  14. Hello, op here

    Thanks for the replies so far! It really helps as I don’t want to end up resenting sharing our anniversary, so input is really welcome! I do want her birthday to feel special but am not prepared to marginalise our anniversary as a result (it wasn’t just a legal thing, we pledged our eternal love at stonehenge, and it does suck that the two clash, I spent the day of the birth telling all the midwives it was my wedding anniversary and showing off the card from my hb :-)!)

    Really appreciate input from poster with experience ad child in this area 🙂

  15. I like the idea of celebrating one either weekend the side of the date. And also really like the comment about it helping one poster realise their parents were people too. I think the best idea is def to have one weekend each, and either take the day or evening to ourselves, depending on whether daughter is home during day or evening 🙂

    I just want both to keep feeling really important, the idea of our anniversary being marginalised makes me crushingly sad and I won’t do it. I?m just wondering if there are cute ways of acknowledging both as so important without leaving anyone feeling ripped off.

    • My husband and I met on his birthday, so our “anniversary” before we got married last year was on the same day. It was tricky even with all participants being grownups but to be honest I was more insistent on making his birthday special than he was!

      I’m glad to have switched our anniversary now to when we got married, but I’m wondering if, despite of course it being a significant day to celebrate, you might want to consider keeping your pre-marriage anniversary, like when you met or your first date? You can still celebrate the marriage at that time, but it would be more of a “yay on this day a magical journey started” celebration than an “on this day we made a big step in a magical journey” thing?

      In the end, unless you chose the marriage date because of some significance, the date itself probably had more to do with convenience (when you could get to the place and get the officiant to come and sign the paperwork and everyone was available to come watch you do those things) than feelings. Changing the day you celebrate it, by a day or a month or whatever amount of time, shouldn’t affect how cool it is to celebrate. It’s not like you weren’t serious or committed or in love before that exact day.
      Whereas birthdays are pretty specific, you get older on that day, not some other day.
      Yes technically you’ve been married one more year on your anniversary, but you were together and in love before that day, so it’s a bit more flexible imo.

      • How about having a wedding breakfast and a birthday tea – ok so that’s v English both in terminology and approach, but as celebrations usually involve special food (or at least they do in our house), that might be a way to slice the day up so everyone gets their sparkle time?

  16. We have several smash-up special dates in our family. Every few years my birthday falls on Mother’s Day, and I’ll selfishly admit that I never have liked combining other family activities with my special day. My hubby’s bday is a few days before Fourth of July, and it ends up as a double-party with fireworks, which is cool, but I feel like his birthday gets lost in the shuffle sometimes. Also, my daughter was born Dec 23 (actually, all of my kids were born within a few weeks of Christmas), so we make a special point to celebrate each birthday separately and uniquely. Parties are usually on the weekends for practicality’s sake, but THE DAY is always THE DAY for them, their-always-and-forever special day.

    My advice to the OP is to celebrate separately, with the birthday being the primary “day-of” celebration, and the anniversary being a weekend affair, except perhaps for milestone anniversaries.

    I am a HUGE FAN of birthdays. For the other 364 days of the year, we’re just average folks going about our lives, but for that one day, we get to be the Grand Honorable Fairy Queen, Ruler and Exemplar of All that is Right in the World. Nothing should detract from that.

  17. My birthday is on my parents anniversary as well as a week before Christmas. My parents celebrated their anniversary on another significant day in spring and made sure the Christmas tree didn’t go up until the day after! It will be tough I’m sure but I turned out fine! But make sure you give your little one her day 🙂

  18. My birthday falls two days after my dad’s. When I was younger, I always got my own special day, but as I got older we did combine birthday celebrations sometimes (only because we both agreed and we both have the same favorite cake anyway). My siblings never minded having a father/daughter day, because they always knew they got their own turn as well. I think the key for my family was that we are all really close, so we knew no one would feel left out or ignored, or like they weren’t “the favorite.”

  19. I really don’t know which is best to do ? My wife wants to do Our 25 wedding anniversary on March 30 which is also by daughter’s Birthday on this day and she is turning 25 this year and it makes me feel uncomfortable in having it because it will interfere with all kinds of drama in the future.
    How can I change or rearrange this special day without hurting my wife feeling on making this exact day special without hurting both women . Please help for some advice of this issue.

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