Create an Anniversary Time Capsule
An anniversary time capsule is a sealed collection of photos, videos, voice messages and letters that a couple makes on one anniversary and sets to open on a later one — the next, the tenth, the twenty-fifth. It records what the relationship is actually like this year, in both voices, and it cannot be opened by anyone before its date.
A wedding gets photographed from every angle. The ordinary years after it mostly do not, and those are the ones a marriage is made of.
An anniversary is the one evening a couple already sets aside to look at each other. A capsule gives that evening something to do, and something to open the next time round.
Seal it on one anniversary, open it on another
Pick the gap first. It decides what kind of letter you are writing.
This anniversary → the next
A year. Free, quick, and the easiest way to start: by the second time round it is a tradition.
First → fifth
Written by two people who have just started, read by two people who know how it goes. The predictions are the fun part.
Any year → the tenth
Ten is the first anniversary at which the early years feel like another life. Film the flat, the car and each other.
Tenth → twenty-fifth
Fifteen years, over which children, houses and jobs come and go. Our plans run to thirty years, with longer dates available as a per-year add-on.
Valentine's Day → the next one
For couples with no wedding date to count from, or who would rather not wait for it. Under a year, so it is free.
Anyone can remember the wedding. Remembering an ordinary Tuesday in year six takes a capsule.
Anniversary time capsule ideas
The best version has things in it that the other has not seen. The section after this one explains how to arrange that.
From each of you, separately
- A letter to the other, written alone and not shown
- A voice message: what you would miss most if this year vanished
- The thing they do that you have never told them you love
- What you think they are worried about, so you can find out whether you were right
- One prediction about the two of you on the day this opens
From the two of you
- A video at the table on the anniversary itself, both answering the same five questions
- The house, the street and the kitchen as they are tonight, filmed walking through
- What an ordinary weekday looks like, hour by hour
- The song, the series and the restaurant of this year
- What things cost: the rent or the mortgage, a dinner out, the last holiday
From the archive
- Ten photos from this year that never left your phones
- A message thread worth keeping, exported or screenshotted
- The card, the ticket or the receipt from tonight
- One photo from the wedding, next to one from this week
Film at least one thing each. In ten years the words will be familiar; the voices and the faces are what will have changed.
Write yours tonight, separately
Twenty minutes each, in different rooms. It is the part of the evening you will both be glad of when it opens.
One capsule or two
A capsule has one owner, and only they can add to it. That shapes how a couple uses it.
One capsule, made together
One of you creates it, adds the other as a recipient, and you fill it side by side. Nothing in it is a surprise, and it is done in an evening.
Two capsules, one each
Each of you creates your own, adds the other as the recipient, and sets the same opening date. Neither sees the other's until the day. It is worth the extra ten minutes.
As a present
Recipients are emailed when a capsule is created, as well as when it opens. For a surprise, make yourself the recipient and hand over the link or the QR code in a card on the day.
Dressed for the occasion
There is a free Anniversary skin that changes how the capsule's page looks to whoever opens it.
For someone else's anniversary
A silver or golden wedding is the other common reason to make one: the children collect a message from everyone who was at the wedding, and from everyone who has arrived since, and seal it for the couple.
One person gathers the recordings and uploads them, because a capsule has one author. If there is a party and you would rather each guest wrote their own from their phone, that is an event time capsule: one QR code on the tables, and every message sealed on sending and addressed to the couple.
What it costs, and whether it will still be there
A capsule that opens within a year is free and includes 300 MB. Longer ones are a single payment based on how far ahead they open — a few euros for five years, around fifteen for thirty — with 1 GB included and no subscription.
Whether it will still be there in fifteen years is the fair question, and we refuse to answer it with a slogan. Files sit on Cloudflare R2 and capsule details on Cloudflare D1, encrypted at rest. If we ever had to stop, we commit to warning you in advance and releasing every pending capsule early rather than letting it disappear. What we will not do is promise decades as though anyone could, so download your copy on the day it opens.
Anniversary capsule questions
What is an anniversary time capsule?
What should we put in an anniversary time capsule?
Can we keep our letters secret from each other?
Is an anniversary time capsule free?
Can I give a time capsule as an anniversary gift?
Can we make one for our parents' anniversary?
When should an anniversary capsule open?
This year of the two of you, kept
Pick the anniversary it opens on. Seal it on this one.
Pay once — yours to download and keep on opening day.