Our 5 Year Wedding Anniversary

On December 28, 2020 we celebrated 5 years of marriage! It’s hard to believe so much time has already gone by since our wedding day, but in many ways it also feels like a lifetime ago. We’ve now officially been married for the majority of our relationship! Our 5th anniversary felt like a big milestone for us and we were so excited to celebrate.  While there were a lot of things we weren’t able to do because of the current regulations in our city, Katie still managed to plan something really special for us. It was truly a magical couple of days, full of surprises. Keep reading for all the details and plenty of photos!

Hotel

We wanted to spend our anniversary somewhere that meant a lot to us, so we stayed a couple of nights at The Victorian Hotel in downtown Vancouver. The Victorian is where we stayed when we got married back in 2015, and it’s always been so special. It’s a gorgeous boutique hotel right next to Gastown, the city’s historic district. The rooms are charming and beautiful, and it’s such a unique spot. The hotel is in a beautiful heritage building that first opened in 1898! It’s a very special place to us and it was the perfect spot to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. The staff is incredible and made us feel so welcome, we truly cannot thank them enough. They did everything possible to make sure we had a wonderful stay and enjoyed our celebrations, and they had excellent safety precautions in place for all their guests. We highly recommend The Victorian Hotel for special occasions, or for a unique staycation in Vancouver. And if you’re not local to Vancouver, be sure to put this spot on your list for when travel is possible again and you can come visit!

Dinner + Drinks

For a very special anniversary dinner, we had an unforgettable meal from Mila Plant Based. Mila is a new vegan restaurant in the Chinatown neighbourhood of Vancouver, with an internationally inspired menu and amazingly creative dishes. We’ve been wanting to try them out for months now, and they put together a perfect menu for us for the occasion! We got to try two of their sushi rolls – Aburi Lox Oshi and their Mila roll, the most incredible Mushroom + Sausage Tagliatelle, and one of their special holiday entrees – a vegan Wellington. We even managed to save room for dessert and enjoyed their Peanut Butter Cup Pie! Their food was so amazing and we can’t wait to go to their restaurant in person to enjoy a full dining experience (complete with cocktails!). We highly recommend this restaurant for celebrating a special occasion, or anytime you want a fantastic plant-based meal. Mila is available for delivery, and open daily for lunch and dinner. They also just launched a weekend brunch menu that looks delicious! 

Anniversary Photoshoot

To celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary, we planned a photoshoot with our incredible wedding photographer Sara Rogers Photography. Sara did such an amazing job photographing our big day in 2015, and we were so excited to do another session with her to celebrate the occasion! We thought it would be really special to shoot in some of the same places we took our wedding pictures, and The Victorian Hotel was such a perfect spot for a photoshoot. The rooms have great natural light, and there are plenty of spots in and around the hotel that make for lovely photos. There is a gorgeous staircase and hall, as well as a really beautiful fire escape outside! We couldn’t be happier with how the images turned out.

A Surprise Proposal

Steph finally got her proposal! I surprised Steph during our photoshoot by getting down on one knee and asking if I could take her name. It’s something I had been thinking about for a long time now, and I actually can’t believe I managed to keep it a secret from her when she’s the hardest person to surprise! Even since we got engaged in 2014, Steph has always joked that she’s been waiting for her own proposal. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I knew it could be a really special way to celebrate our 5th anniversary. During our photoshoot I had our photographer Sara suggest that we go back to the staircase in the hotel where we shot some of our wedding photos. She suggested we re-create our first look, and got Steph to turn around while I grabbed a sign I had hidden away. Her reaction was so beautiful, and these photos make us tear up every time we look at them. It was such a special moment, and I’m so glad we have it all captured! 

Celebration

After the proposal and plenty of tears, we finished up the photoshoot. We headed outside onto the fire escape behind the hotel to take some beautiful photos with the city skyline. Just like on our wedding day in 2015, the sun came out and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect for us! Even though we were cold, a dry day with sunshine was more than we could have hoped for. To finish things off, we went down into the street to pop some champagne and celebrate. The streets were empty, the sun was setting, and we had a toast to 5 years of marriage and officially becoming The Burlton Family!

There are so many businesses and individuals who helped make this occasion so special, and we truly cannot thank them enough. We are so grateful and feel incredibly lucky to have had such an amazing celebration that we will remember forever! We’re so glad we chose to document this day, and these photos will be something we can look back on for years to come. It’s always worth it to document the big moments in your life and your relationship! Thank you so much to everyone who wished us well on our anniversary, and to everyone who has supported our relationship over the years. It means so much to us.

Disclosure: This post is not sponsored by any of the businesses mentioned. The Victorian Hotel did generously host us for our stay, and Mila Plant Based offered us a complimentary meal. We are so excited to share both of them with our audience as we had a wonderful experience and highly recommend them both!