Second Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

They say that time flies when you’re having fun… and I can confirm that that’s absolutely true; I can’t believe that it has been TWO years since we said “I do”! It was honestly the best day of my life (so far) and I love going back to look through photos of the year during our engagement all the way up to our wedding day.

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.”

So now, in keeping with tradition there are gift “themes” for anniversaries from the first through the fifteenth year, then every five years (so on your twentieth, twenty-fifth and thirtieth) and then every ten years (fortieth, fiftieth, then sixtieth)! I personally think that it’s a fun tradition to follow, 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!).

For our first (paper) anniversary last year, I gifted my husband with a print of the stars‘ alignment from the night we met and he gifted me with a really fancy box set of hardback Harry Potter books to read to our [future] children. This gift may seem nerdy, but he came up with this idea all on his own! He knows how much I loved reading the HP series while I was growing up and how I want to share the books with our own kiddos someday; this gift was such a sweet gesture!

If you’re looking for even more first anniversary gift ideas, I shared some here.

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This year’s anniversary celebration looked a bit different since we can’t travel, go out to eat, or even stay at a hotel due to the pandemic lockdown orders, but we be made the evening special by ordering dinner in (this year’s meal was from Daniel’s Broiler because we could get it delivered) paired with a bottle of our favorite sparkling wine and enjoyed our meal by candlelight. It was a perfect evening, just the two of us.

As far as gifts go, this year we decided to buy a joint gift for each other because (1) the second (cotton) anniversary gift is kind of a tough one, and (2) what we chose was a bit of an indulgence so it seemed only fair that we both contribute to the gift because it’s technically for the both of us. 🤣

We upgraded our bath towels.

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Now, hear me out. Our existing bath towels were… fine, but they weren’t great. This was a luxury “glow up” that we’ve been super excited about for a while now. The towel set that we ordered from Weezie are plush and 100% cotton (so, perfect for our anniversary’s theme). We decided to order the Piped Edge Starter Pack in “Sand” (I love neutrals 🥰) plus a few more additional bath towels to keep us fully stocked.

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The towels look so beautiful and have great reviews so we can’t wait to use them! I’ll share my honest opinion of them after we’ve used them for a few weeks, but we can’t wait to give them a try!
[*UPDATE*: Click here for my Weezie review!]
We would have taken advantage of one of the beautiful monogramming options except that, as you can see above, we keep our towels folded up in a cabinet and the monogram wouldn’t ever be displayed so we opted out.

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Another great “cotton anniversary” gift would be new bedsheets. Now, that may not sound very exciting, but as humans we spend an average of 230,000 hours sleeping over the course of our lives so we may as well enjoy the experience! We had already upgraded our bed linens this past Christmas so we decided towels were the way to go for our anniversary, but we love our Boll & Branch sheets — they feel so luxurious!

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In addition to our bedsheets, we ordered a new duvet and shams so our bed basically got a major upgrade! It feels like we’re enjoying a room in a fancy hotel every night. (If you’re giving sheets as a gift to your honey, you could always pair them with some cotton lingerie to make the gift a bit sexier… 😉).

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If towels and bedsheets aren’t really your thing, here are some other cotton wedding anniversary gifts to consider:

Cotton Table Cloth / Napkins

This would be a great upgrade for your home to make it feel more “adult”, especially if you’re planning on hosting more meals (maybe for the holidays?). Just to give this a little extra “zjoosh”, you could add a set of napkin rings along with the linens.

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Cotton Bathrobe
(hers // HIS)

I think that a plush, cozy bathrobe is one of the best luxuries when you’re visiting a hotel. Why not have your own at home?

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Cotton Undershirts // Boxer Briefs

Admittedly, these are on the more practical side, but maybe the replenishment is way overdue? This is the perfect opportunity to purge and replace! 😏

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Cotton Nightgown

This gift doesn’t have to be a frumpy muumuu! There are a lot of really cute (or even sexy!) styles out there right now.

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Cotton (blend) Throw Blanket

This is a great gift for snuggling up on the couch, using on road trips / general travel, fireside, or even for an outdoor picnic.

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Cotton Twill / Canvas Duffle Bag
(his // hers)

Travel isn’t going to be halted forever and my husband and I love using our duffle bags for trips! We personally prefer them to pesky suitcases.

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Cotton-Scented Candles & Room Scents

Add some fancy matches to elevate your gift beyond “just a candle“. If your loved one is accident-prone, maybe skip the open flame and gift a spray or diffuser!

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I hope this list helps you with gift ideas for your loved one. Good luck in your present search and congratulations on celebrating your second wedding anniversary!

Sending hugs —
xx, Natalie