20 First Year Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

Celebrating your one year anniversary is such a special occasion and gives you a lovely opportunity to reflect on your first married year. One way to mark this important day is through the giving of a traditional gift and for your first year of marriage, it’s paper. Paper is seen as a material that is delicate and a blank slate, ready to be nurtured through the many years you have together. The fibres within paper also signify the interweaving of you both in your relationship too.

Below we’ve listed 20 great ideas for paper gifts, some simple and classic and others more inventive and out of the box thinking.

1. Drawing or Painting

Gift your loved one with a lovely new drawing or illustration that you can hang in your home together. It could just be a piece of art by someone you both love, or something more personalised such as a couple portrait or illustrations of key locations that mean something to you as a couple.

2. Star Map

Lots of cool companies now offer the ability to capture the sky’s night on your particular wedding day and display it in a gorgeous illustrative print. A great gift for any other halves that are into stars, astronomy or anything celestial.

3. Photo Art

Get some of your favourite couple photos printed or one of your best wedding photos as a nice piece of art for your side table.

4. Notebook

A classic and elegant gift, a leather bound notebook is always a winner for those among us who love list making or journalling. Whilst a plain notepad is one option, other options are travel journals, diaries or gratitude journals for example.

5. Personalised Notecards

Perfect for when you need to say thank you for Christmas presents or when someone has hosted you, personalised couple notecards are a chic option for any couple who is a stickler for manners (or just loves fancy stationery…)

6. Puzzle

If you and your loved one enjoy a game or a cosy and wholesome afternoon, then a gifted puzzle would be ideal for you. Go for a classic but beautiful option like this Liberty one or go quirky with a puzzle depicting the front page of The Times on your wedding day. We can imagine it’ll be fun to learn what was happening whilst your head was in full wedding bubble mode!

7. Photobook

Photobooks will always be a wonderful way to celebrate your relationship together, whether they chronicle all the years you’ve been together, or all the lovely photos from your wedding day. There’s so many great companies online now such as Papier where you can easily send over the photos and get them digitally printed into a book.

8. Your Vows Printed

If you and your partner chose to write your vows, then a sweet and sentimental gift option is to have them printed. They’re lovely hung up in your bedroom, as something to be reminded of every morning when you get ready.

9. Family Illustration

If you’ve gained some additional family members since you got married such as pets and children, then the 1st anniversary of your wedding is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate your blossoming family with a portrait.

10. Wedding Venue Illustration

After meticulously picking your wedding venue, and having the best day of your life at it a year ago, it’s likely the place will hold a very special place in your heart. Why not celebrate your 1st year of marriage with a beautiful illustration or painting of the beautiful place, so you’re forever reminded of that day.

11. Handwritten Note or Reading

If you or your loved one enjoys writing sentimental notes or particularly resonated with one of the readings you had on your wedding day, then a nice idea is to get them framed. Whether that be the original note, the note stitched or typed out, get creative as to how you’d like to display it.

12. Date Ideas Jar

It’s fair to say when you’ve been together a little while and you’re quite content in your little marriage bubble, weekly or monthly dates can fall a little to the wayside. This is why a lovely collection of dates in a jar is a nice idea to create something that is personal to you and is something that can be enjoyed throughout your second year of marriage.

13. Couple’s Cookbook

If you’re both foodies, then a shared recipe book is a great way to tuck away all your best recipes and will make a nice gift later down the line for future generations.

14. A Cookbook

Following on from the above, simply giving each other a cookbook from a particular chef you know they love is always a lovely idea.

15. A Book

If you’re big into your books, why not treat your loved one to a special edition or signed copy of a book they love? Or maybe create a little bundle of books you think they might enjoy. Perfect if you’re going on holiday soon too!

16. Tickets to an Event

If you’re fans of an experience, then a ticket to a particular event will always go down a storm with your loved one. Ideas we love include fancy cinema tickets, a concert or a comedy show.

17. An Experience Revealed in a Fun Way

If you’ve already come up with a wonderful idea for celebrating your first year of marriage, then why not reveal it in a fun way using paper. From scratch cards to origami, there’s plenty of inventive and cute ways to do it!

18. Travel Book and a Trip Away

If you fancy splashing the cash and going away for a little mini break to celebrate, then a lovely way to reveal the surprise is by wrapping up a travel book for that area for them. We particularly love these two alternative travel guides below.

19.Reading Subscription

Subscriptions will always be the gift that keeps on giving, so why not treat your loved one to a monthly book delivery that makes them feel special for many moments to come. Below are two of our favourites right now.

20. Handmade Voucher

If you’ve already pre-purchased or come up with your present idea, why not get a nice little voucher personalised to make the experience and reveal all the more special.