Alison Brie and Dave Franco Reveal Their Wedding Anniversary Tradition (Exclusive)

Dave Franco and Alison Brie celebrate their wedding anniversary each year with a little stroll down memory lane.

During an exclusive interview with PEOPLE at the Los Angeles premiere of their new film Together, the couple, who married in 2017, revealed that their anniversary tradition involves a slightly “embarrassing” rewatch of their proposal. Only, there is a bit of a catch.

Franco, 40, has a video of the proposal on his phone — but Allison, 42, does not. “I don’t have any ownership,” she says, prompting Franco to explain, “I know she’ll send it to everyone she knows, and it’s very embarrassing for me.”

Instead, Franco lets Brie watch the video just once a year — on their anniversary.

As for why the video is embarrassing for Franco, the pair comically detailed to PEOPLE how the proposal didn’t go quite as planned. At the time, they were set to take a trip to Big Sur, California — one of their “favorite places on Earth” — and Franco decided it would be the ideal time to propose.

However, he didn’t have a ring yet because he knew Brie wanted to choose it with him and have their friend, jewelry designer Irene Neuwirth, make it.

“So the day before we left for Big Sur, I was like, ‘You know what? I should have a placeholder ring, just to have something to put on her finger.’ So I went to this antique store down the street from us and I got what I thought was a really cool old ring,” Franco recalls.

“I was like, ‘Okay, I don’t have the actual ring, but I have the mask.’ And that’s going to be this sweet thing where she’s going to realize, I kept this mask from the first time we met, which kind of proves, this was love at first sight,” he continues, referring to a silver Zorro mask that Brie was wearing when they met while celebrating Mardi Gras in New Orleans, in 2011.

As Franco prepared to pop the question in Big Sur in August 2015, he took Brie to a spot with a stunning view and told her he wanted to take her photo.

“So I set up a video, she’s looking out at the view. She turns around, I’m on one knee, I’m wearing the mask, I got the antique ring, the placeholder ring,” Franco recounts.

But his sweet gesture fell flat when Brie failed to grasp the significance of the mask. “I have no memory of this mask,” the Community star tells PEOPLE. “I mean, I remember it from the weekend, but I had no idea he had kept it all the time.”

The antique ring, meanwhile, was not in a ring box, but rather in a big box with “a paper napkin from a convenience store,” Brie notes.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the perfectly romantic moment that Franco had envisioned.

“What she sees is, I’m wearing this stupid Zorro mask and holding up this janky ring,” the Neighbors actor recalls.

“He just says, ‘Will you marry me?’ And I go, ‘Huh?’ ” Brie continues. “I started laughing.”

Amid all this, Franco is desperately trying to make Brie understand why he was wearing the mask and that a proper ring was forthcoming.

“And then I let out an exuberant, ‘Yes,’ ” Brie recalls. “The whole time he’s explaining, ‘I kept this mask all these years because I knew that you were the one.’ I’m like, ‘But are you being serious?’ I’m looking at this janky ring in this box and he’s like, ‘Irene is going to make your ring,’ and I go, ‘Yes!’ ”

The couple went on to marry in an intimate ceremony in 2017. Brie later shared during an appearance on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen that her favorite moment from the wedding was the vows.

“We wrote our own and didn’t know what the other person was going to say,” she said at the time. “It’s funny to hear them out loud and you feel like, ‘We said all the same things that we want to be for each other.’ That was very sweet.”

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Months after tying the knot with Franco, Brie shared a little insight into their life together as a married couple.

“Something about being married made me feel so settled, almost more free, I guess, rather than like trapped,” she told PEOPLE in November 2017. “It’s great. So now, let’s go do whatever we want. Onward and upward.”

Together is in theaters now.