The Long Way Home
An interactive anniversary site celebrating our first decade of marriage—fourteen chapters, 140+ photos, and our wedding playlist, built as a digital keepsake.
The spark
Our ten-year wedding anniversary was coming up, and I wanted something no photo book or slideshow could do. Kate and I met on Match.com—she says the Warren Buffett photo on my profile is what caught her attention—and a decade later there was a whole story to tell: the proposal, the wedding, two daughters, a few homes, and a lot of life in between. So I built the story as a website.
What it is
- A fourteen-chapter narrative timeline that walks through our first decade, from first message to ten-year vows.
- More than 140 curated photos woven into the story, with a full-screen lightbox gallery and keyboard and swipe navigation.
- A floating music player loaded with songs from our wedding playlist that follows you through the story.
- A visual identity pulled from our wedding day—navy and coral, drawn ornaments, and a different typographic treatment for each chapter.
- Cinematic touches like Ken Burns photo effects and drifting petals, all of which degrade gracefully when reduced motion is preferred.
Stack
- Next.js and React with a fully static export—no backend, no accounts, just a fast site.
- Tailwind CSS and Framer Motion for the design system and motion work.
- Custom display typography (Playfair Display, Cormorant Garamond, Pinyon Script).
- Hosted on Vercel at adecadeofus.com.
What I learned
- Personal projects deserve production polish. Treating a gift like a real product—design system, motion guidelines, accessibility—is what makes it land.
- Constraints help: a static export with no backend kept the focus on storytelling instead of infrastructure.
- Curating 140 photos from ten years is the real work; the code is the easy part. Editing is what turns an archive into a story.