Celebrating Our First Anniversary in Williamsburg

I was shocked when I realized we had been married for almost a year—it went by so fast! To celebrate, H and I went to the Williamsburg Inn (“the scene of the crime”) for a long weekend away. This weekend was an absolute dream—we both agreed it was one of our favorite things we did this year. I loved spending some quality time together before we plunged into the craziness of September wedding season.

We left on Friday with the remnants of our wedding cake in tow, so we could eat it on our first anniversary for good luck (I could be wrong about the luck, but why else would you eat year-old cake?). We checked into the Williamsburg Inn and immediately headed for the pool—it was one of the hottest days of the year and all we wanted was to get in the nearest body of water. We chose the “serenity pool” near the spa and floated around sipping frosé and feeling totally relaxed. For our afternoon at the pool, I wore a strapless floral-print bikini that I had been waiting all summer to debut, with a white t-shirt, chambray shorts, and gold lace-up sandals for the walk there and back.

That night we ate at the Blue Talon, the French restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner. We loved walking through Colonial Williamsburg on the way to the bistro, and everything we ordered was delicious, as always. For dinner, I wore a romantic blue midi dress with gold sandals, hoop earrings, and my hair in a messy bun since I chose another half-hour in the pool over extra primping time.

When we got back to the room there was a surprise waiting for us—the hotel staff had dropped off champagne, a mini version of our wedding cake, and a note from our lovely wedding coordinator from the Williamsburg Inn, Yuani! It was so sweet of them and it made our anniversary feel so special. We decided to have the cake the next night, since we had filled up on chocolate mousse at the Blue Talon.

Saturday morning, we had an elegant breakfast together at the Williamsburg Inn, and then I was off to the spa for a massage that H had booked for me as an anniversary surprise. The Colonial Williamsburg spa is so calming (I swear as soon as I step into reception and smell the lavender scent my blood pressure goes down) and the massage was heavenly. Afterwards we met my mom and a few other family members who were in Williamsburg for the day at the Cheese Shop for lunch. It was great to see them, and we shared some fun memories of the wedding! We walked to Wythe’s Candy after we had our sandwiches, since no trip to Williamsburg would be complete without chocolate-covered graham crackers. For lunch and walking around the restored area I wore a gingham halter top, white shorts, and Sperrys.

After lunch, we played a few sets on the clay tennis courts at the Williamsburg Inn. I had never played on clay before, but once I adjusted to the slower speed I loved it! Since it was in the 90s and crazy humid, we only played for an hour, chugging water the whole time, before retreating inside. We had planned to spend the rest of the afternoon at the pool, but a surprise thunderstorm drove us back indoors. We got a drink at the lobby restaurant to wait out the worst of the rain, and out of the blue an entire wedding party descended on the bar, clearly scrambling to get out of the rain between the ceremony and reception. We had to laugh since we had been in the same situation exactly a year before.

That evening, we had dinner at Le Yaca, a fancy French restaurant. H and I have wanted to try it forever, and the food was even better than I thought it would be! I wore a white dress with a sweetheart neckline and puffy sleeves that I had originally gotten for one of my bridal showers, paired with leather sandals. On the way to dinner, I recreated one of my portraits from our wedding day descending the same staircase where Queen Elizabeth was photographed during her stay at the Williamsburg Inn in 1957—I couldn’t resist!

When we got back to our room, we each took an obligatory bite of our year-old wedding cake, which was not very good after being frozen and defrosted (shocking, I know). We had a slice of the mini-cake that the hotel had sent us and toasted our first wedding anniversary.

The next morning, we had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel and decided to check out the Governor’s Palace before we drove back to DC. It’s one of my favorite places in Colonial Williamsburg—the house and gardens are so beautiful, and they’re always adding new details or redoing rooms to make them more historically accurate. For our tour of the Governor’s Palace I wore a lavender blouse with puffy sleeves, denim shorts, and flat leather sandals. 

That was our first anniversary weekend! Williamsburg has a special place in my heart, and we had a great time revisiting old favorites, like the Blue Talon and the Cheese Shop, and trying out new things, like the clay courts and the serenity pool at the Williamsburg Inn (the last time we were there, we were too busy to check them out somehow). This trip was the perfect way to celebrate our first year of marriage.