Time flies sure when you’re having fun! I can’t believe that it’s been an entire year since our wedding and we’re already celebrating our first anniversary. We’ll be celebrating with a romantic meal at the restaurant where we had our rehearsal dinner and then having an overnight “staycation” within the hotel of our wedding venue where we’ll exchange our anniversary gifts.
According to Wikipedia: “the historic origins of wedding anniversaries date back to the Roman Empire, when husbands crowned their wives with a silver wreath on their twenty-fifth anniversary, and a gold wreath on the fiftieth. Later, principally in the twentieth century, commercialism led to the addition of more anniversaries being represented by a named gift.”
In keeping with tradition there are gift “themes” for anniversaries from the first through the fifteenth year, then every five years (for example: on your twentieth, twenty-fifth and thirtieth) and then every ten years (fortieth, fiftieth, sixtieth and so on)! I personally think that it’s a fun tradition to follow and it helps to provide gift-giving guidelines, especially if you can’t think of anything to gift one another to celebrate the occasion (I have a hard enough time coming up with gifts for birthdays and Christmas!).
This year (our first year of marriage) the traditional gift theme is paper. I prefer for our milestone / anniversary gifts to be meaningful and long-lasting (as opposed to little tchotchkes) so I’m pretty pleased with these ideas.
For a quick shop of all of the items we considered, you can skip the full post and find everything in my ShopMy storefront here.
WORKS OF ART
Source a poster for performance you attended on first date or another momentous occasion (maybe a special Broadway show, film, concert, etc.)
The poster could also be for an event that you didn’t actually attend, but has significance (favorite band, etc.) and the event occurred on a special date in your relationship, such as your first date, proposal date or even on your wedding day.
One Perfect Year Custom Photo Art
Folded Book Anniversary Date Display
*Top Tip: skip the plastic frame and have any art or photos professionally matted & framed for a more deluxe gift! Framebridge is a great resource for this!
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BOOKS
If your partner is especially a book lover, I recommend buying them a first edition of their favorite book or obtaining a book that they’ve wanted that’s out of print. The rest of these suggestions are custom or more sentimentally-driven.
Professionally Printed Photo Album
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MISCELLANEOUS
Couples Adventure Challenge
(with instant-print camera for documentation!)
Custom NYT Newspaper Front Page Puzzle
Custom Invitation Paper Ornament
If you are participating in the tradition of eating the cake topper from your wedding day on your first anniversary, I have detailed instructions on how to successfully accomplish this (as provided by our wedding cake pastry chef) in this post!
If you’re planning ahead for future gifts, I’ll be updating this section with anniversary gift ideas every year so keep an eye out!
I hope this list helps you with gift ideas for your loved one. Good luck in your present search and congratulations on celebrating your first wedding anniversary!
Sending hugs —
xx, Natalie