Back when Mikey and I first started our relationship, we decided we wanted a more traditional courtship. With that, we also established boundaries in order to keep our promises to each other and to the Lord. We decided we wouldn’t be alone in a room, or go out alone. When we did go out (which we did a lot!), we always took a chaperone. More often than not, those were my siblings. They did greatly enjoy going out with us, getting to know Mikey and developing a relationship with us as a couple. It was really fun and we had many adventures together!
That being said, it doesn’t mean we weren’t dying to go out on dates and do fun things alone together! We had so many ideas of things to do and places to go. We weren’t really writing them down and we couldn’t keep up with all of our ideas, so we knew we had to start a list! One day we sat down and wrote a list of 52 dates (one per week!). We got some of the classics, such as dinner and movie, and some more personalized for us like day trips around our area. We really enjoyed writing these and were looking forward to doing them!
After we finished writing them, I took a trip to Michael’s and bought little wooden hearts. I painted those hearts red and then with a medium tip white paint marker, I wrote each date on a little heart. We then bought a glass jar and dropped those in there. We ended up naming these “Dates Inza Jar” (Inza is our last name!).
Now that we’re married, we haven’t quite done one per week as we have intended to, but we’ve done quite a few! Sometimes in planning a date we just say the first we choose will be the one we do, and other times we dump out all the little hearts and find one that piques our interest on that specific day. After we do each date, we take the same white paint marker and write the day we did it on the back. It has definitely been so much fun for us to finally be doing all these dates we had planned and they really have enhanced our relationship. The jar is also a really nice decorative piece in our living room and we always get questions about it when friends come over. ;)
Here are the dates we wrote on our hearts. If you want to do this, you can use some of ours, but I suggest making more of them personalized for you guys as a couple! It doesn’t have to be once a week, maybe it can be once a month if you’re in a busier stage of life with kids and other responsibilities. I encourage you to try doing something like this in whatever way you can (that might mean staying home to watch a movie in bed with dessert…super fun!). :)
Dates in Our Jar:
- Movies & Frozen yogurt
- Game night & pizza
- Matheson Hammocks Picnic
- Puzzle & movie & dessert
- Zoo
- Gardens
- Star gazing
- Day trip to West Palm Beach
- Brunch
- Serendipity
- Splitsville
- Mini golf
- Big Bus Tours
- Fondue Night
- Ice Skating
- Local Museum
- Fancy Dinner
- Dave & Busters
- Vizcaya
- Movie Marathon
- Sports game
- Gulfstream Park
- MidTown
- Miami Beach Boardwalk
- Dinner Cruise
- Food Trucks
- Day Cruise
- Seaquarium
- Duck Tour
- Tour of Kitchens
- Holocaust Memorial
- Day Trip to Key West
- Sawgrass
- Sightseeing Cruise
- Horseback riding
- CineBistro
- Cook together
- Breakfast for dinner
- Bike ride
- Beach day
- Drive in movie
- Ice cream sundae night
- Color Me Mine
- Italian Day
- French Day
- American Day
- New TV Series
- Restaurant Hop
- Wild Card
- Wild Card
- Wild Card
- Wild Card
We added a few wild cards in case we wanted to do something different. Also, we came up with certain nationality days. On those, we would go eat at a restaurant from that place and then try to do something from that country. For example, on French Day we’d have crepes and watch Midnight in Paris.
This has definitely been fun for us do and has made our relationship go deeper! Soon I’ll be sharing some of our favorites from the jar so far. For now, check out our hashtag on Instagram #datesinzajar to see what we’ve done. I’d love to hear your date ideas as well :)
I love this Sophie. You know I’m a sucker for romantic stuff and this is that for sure. I might have to do that for us. Awesome idea. ❤️❤️