- My husband and I have been married for 5 years.
- Our City Hall wedding was on a Black Friday, for convenience.
- Now, regardless of the actual calendar date we celebrate every year on Black Friday.
When my then-boyfriend proposed on a deserted beach in Argentina in October 2016, I hadn't thought too much about what kind of wedding I wanted. I knew I wanted to be with him forever, but that's about it.
Once we made our engagement public, the questions came flooding in, and we realized we needed to actually start thinking about when and where we were going to get married. We started throwing out ideas. A beach wedding in South America sounded nice. So did a rooftop party in Brooklyn where we lived at the time.
However, things changed quickly when my soon-to-be mother-in-law's cancer prognosis made us realize that we had less time than we thought. We wanted all our four parents to be present, and that was the one thing we were not willing to gamble.
Also, shortly after our engagement Donald Trump was elected president and the extension of my H1-B work visa was put in jeopardy. We both wanted to continue living in the US, so this made us speed up our plan. If we got married quickly I could apply for a marriage-based green card and continue working and living in New York.
We set a wedding date for only a month and a half after getting engaged: Black Friday.
Why we chose that date
My husband had already been planning to bring his parents to New York to spend what could have been his mother's last Thanksgiving with the whole family. I asked my parents if they could make the trip to New York happen with such short notice, and thankfully they could.
We also figured City Hall was not going to be as crowded the day after Thanksgiving, making logistics with our elder parents easier to navigate.
We knew a lot of our friends were not going to be able to attend, since they'd probably be with their own families celebrating the holiday. However, we were surprised at how many changed their plans to be in New York that Friday.
For those who couldn't make it, like my cousins in Argentina who couldn't get a travel visa in time, we live-streamed the ceremony on Facebook so they could be part of our special day.
We got married in a fairly empty Brooklyn City Hall, with our close friends and family and my husband declared that paying $25 for our marriage ceremony was the best Black Friday deal he has ever gotten.
We don't celebrate our anniversary on the actual calendar date
We got married on November 25th. However, we don't celebrate our anniversary on that date.
Because we have three kids and are both pretty forgetful to begin with, we decided that to take off the pressure of having to remember when our anniversary falls every year, we are just going to celebrate on Black Friday, regardless of what calendar date it actually is.
This has turned into a fun tradition, and truly ensures neither of us forgets to celebrate.
There are also added benefits to going with this day. We are both home from work, so we get to spend the day together. It's easier to get a reservation for a date since most people are still traveling or spending time with family.
Our kids are home from school, which might not make the day ultra-romantic, but it does remind us of the family we built together.
After our City Hall wedding, we got married two more times. One in South America so my extended family could be present, and one last big celebration in Maine before my mother-in-law passed away.
Even though we have technically three wedding anniversaries to celebrate, we still choose to go with Black Friday.