Fifty years, and nobody has written any of it down
An anniversary is the one occasion where the gift is genuinely about two people, and where the interesting material is the bit they disagree about.
An anniversary story is a different job from one person's life story, and better for it. You are recording two people talking about the same fifty or sixty years, which means you get two versions of how they met, two accounts of the difficult year, and the bits each of them has never said out loud in front of the other. Record them together for the shared story and separately for the honest one.
Why two people is better material, not double the work
The received wisdom is that a couple’s story is one story told twice. It is not. It is one story told from two chairs, and the gap between the two chairs is where everything interesting lives.
How they met. Ask them separately and you will frequently get two different first sightings, two different opinions about who was keen, and at least one detail the other has never heard.
The hard years. Every long marriage has one. Separately, people are honest about it. Together, they are kind about it. Both versions are worth having.
Who decided what. Houses, jobs, moves, children. Couples remember the decision-making completely differently and both are usually convinced.
The ordinary texture. Who did what, who cooked, who drove, what Sundays were like, what they argued about. This is the part their grandchildren will actually read.
Record them together and apart
The practical method, if you are doing this yourself:
Together, first. Forty minutes on how they met and the early years. It will be warm, they will interrupt each other, and it will be funny. This is the easy session and it gets everybody comfortable.
Then separately. Half an hour each, ideally with the other one out of the room, on their own childhood and family, which is the part that is not shared and which gets skipped when they are together.
Then together again, if there is appetite, on the children, the house and the years in the middle.
The recording guide covers the mechanics. The one adjustment for a couple: put the phone between them rather than in front of one, and expect to lose the odd word to them talking over each other. It does not matter.
Golden, diamond and the rest
Fifty years is the one where families do something, and sixty is the one where they realise they should have done it at fifty.
If it is a diamond anniversary, be slightly more careful about the pace. Sixty years of marriage usually means two people in their eighties, and two shorter sessions will get you better material than one long one.
If it is a ruby at forty, you have the luxury of time. That is the anniversary to do this at, and almost nobody does.
If one of them has died
Families ask about this and it is a real thing to want.
A story of a marriage told by the one who is left is a legitimate piece of work, and a moving one. It is not the same book, and it should not pretend to be: it is one person’s account of two people, with the other voice coming from letters, photographs and what the family remembers. Building a story from what is left covers how that works.
If you are giving it as a family
Anniversaries are often the easiest one to fund between several people, because the occasion is already shared and everyone is already contributing to something.
If several of you are putting in, say so when you get in touch and we will work out the practical side.
Timing
Anniversaries are known years ahead, so this is the occasion where a finished piece of work on the day is realistic. Four to six months is comfortable for two people.
Closer than that, start the conversations anyway. The recording is the part with a deadline attached to it, not the writing.
I conduct every conversation myself, and I write every story myself. Nothing is handed off. Read about Amanda→