Barack Obama Told Michelle He’s Still the Luckiest Guy in the World on Their 34th Anniversary

by · Thought Catalog
JIM WATSON / AFP via Getty Images

Gossip

By Chrissy Stockton

Updated 5 minutes ago, October 3, 2026

Barack and Michelle Obama marked 34 years of marriage today, October 3, with an anniversary exchange on social media. They married in Chicago in 1992.

Arm-in-arm and all smiles, Barack and Michelle Obama stride along Pennsylvania Avenue during the Inaugural Parade following his swearing-in as the 44th President on January 20, 2009. Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool / Getty Images.

“Happy anniversary, @MichelleObama! I’m still the luckiest guy in the world to be with you,” Barack wrote.

Barack and Michelle Obama share a warm embrace on stage during the second night of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, August 20, 2024. Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images.

Michelle has said she was sold by the end of their first date, though she’d repeatedly turned Barack down after they met at a Chicago law firm in 1989. She was his advisor and mentor, and he was a summer associate. Michelle thought dating someone she mentored would be “tacky,” but she agreed to go out with him after he offered to quit his job.

A young family night: Barack Obama nuzzles daughter Malia while Michelle holds Sasha as election returns come in from a Chicago hotel room on November 2, 2004. Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images.

The yellow Datsun Barack drove to pick her up had a rusted-out passenger floorboard. Their date took them to the Art Institute of Chicago, on a walk and to a screening of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. At a Baskin-Robbins in Hyde Park, they ate ice cream on the curb and shared their first kiss. Barack later recalled, “I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate.”

The Obama family — Malia, Sasha, Marian Robinson, Michelle, and Barack — bundle up together for the annual National Christmas Tree lighting ceremony on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., December 3, 2015. Photo by Olivier Douliery-Pool / Getty Images.

They went on to raise daughters Malia and Sasha, spend 8 years in the White House and continue public service afterward. A 3,000-pound boulder and plaque now mark the site of that first kiss on Chicago’s South Side.

Thank you for reading Thought Catalog. Keep up with us on Facebook, or dive into more on our website.