Six years ago, in 2008, Silver Bullet and I officially tied the knot in Singapore. And as I remembered it, it was an unnecessarily exorbitant wedding with way too many people and a whole lot of “must-haves” as dictated by culture and tradition. Interestingly, by the virtue of our wedding with a guest list of almost 250 people  -, our affair was actually considered “smallish” if we were to compare that to most weddings in Singapore. Although I’ll be just happy, if not happier if I get to keep the number to just 25.

It took us a whole year to save for that wedding. Almost every single penny we saved specifically for the wedding was wiped out , with not much spare change left after that. We split up the expenses 50-50 between the both of us, making sure that we budgeted the expenses carefully. leaving no room for screw-ups that potentially could land us in debts after the entire wedding camaraderie. We also made sure that both of our parents contributed very minimal or zero percent to our wedding expenses. Most important of all, we made sure that we remain debt-free.

Six years on, we still sometimes speculate what we could have done with all that money if we hadn’t “splurge”. It wasn’t as if our wedding was really lavish, too! For us, having the wedding proper was just something we needed to do, and given our nonchalance about the whole thing, it is of no surprise that we both don’t really care about weddings, let alone wedding anniversaries…

…which brings me to now…

As year, after year, after year, we keep forgetting our own wedding anniversary. We never have consciously thought about it and we usually treat it just like any other days.

The only reason I remembered this time round and actually writing a post on this is because of a conversation I had with Silver Bullet a few days prior to our actual anniversary while I was viciously typing away on my laptop, working:

Silver Bullet:  Do you remember what day X is?

Me: No. What? I have a meeting. I think. Why?

Silver Bullet: No?

Me: (Proceeding to check outlook calendar). No, not really. Do we have something? Dinner with anyone planned that I forget? I have an important afternoon meeting though.

Silver Bullet: Well, babes…..six years ago….

And then it clicked. Oh crap! There we go again and I immediately started guffawing, realizing what a silly thing to be forgetting about.

I was actually surprised that Silver Bullet remembered (then forgetting again within a few hours) and it turned out the only reason he remembered was because one of his friends has actually initiated an advance wedding anniversary congratulations to him earlier in the day. How sweet!

So now that we both are being reminded about our imminent Anniversary celebration, guess what did we do? We laughed about it, did not proceed to make any immediate plans (although I did make a small note to remind myself to publish a post about it) and promptly went back to our laptops to finish our work as quickly as we can.

Us being big, fat useless romantics is not a big surprise. We do this all the time, year after year and birthdays after birthdays. Luckily for Silver Bullet though, I am not one to make a big fuss about forgetting to celebrate wedding anniversaries; just because I just don’t see the need to.

We both still forgot about our wedding anniversary on the day itself, but was reminded again when we received a congratulatory message from my in-laws on the morning of our anniversary.  It still feels  little nostalgic, though!

Six years of marriage, 3 cats and 2 kids later, we remain the practical couple we have always, pivoting our relationship on 4 key factors:

• Honesty
• Trust
• Commitment
• and Communication

Years of several failed, wasted relationships taught me wisdom. Those then became my very personal 4 main ingredients to successful relationships and, for me, if either one of those ingredients is missing, the relationship spells disaster. While I do belief that we have, to a certain extend, work hard on our relationship, we also don’t have to try too hard to make it work- because for me (again my personal belief), if you do have to work really,really hard to keep your relationship with your other half such that you feel eaten up inside every single day of your life, then that relationship is questionable.

While Silver Bullet and I are worlds apart when it comes to our individual personality, we both do share very same values in life and have very similar beliefs on parenting. Those foundation brought us even closer and despite the stark difference in our personalities, believe it or not, they actually bring out the best out of us.

We may have lack the enthusiasm about celebrating our 6^th Anniversary on a “grander” scale, but that certainly does not equate to the lack of love or respect for each other. Au contraire.

We are in this for the long run, and I see us as that old, crazy, but loving couple who still kiss, hug and continue to stride hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm as we walk the streets of our home, still enjoying each other’s company in our twilight years with many stories to tell for our kids and our grandchildren.

Happy 6^th Anniversary, Love. Here’s to many, many more great years to come.