The Best One-Year Wedding Anniversary Gift Ideas

One year down, forever to go. Celebrate your first wedding anniversary with one of these romantic and thoughtful gifts.

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June 23, 2022

Your first wedding anniversary calls for celebration and a token (or two!) of affection. Gift shopping for your favorite person is daunting at first, but trust me: you're in good hands. I rolled up my sleeves and tackled all the heavy lifting (read: hyper-focused online shopping) for you. And I found 20 top-tier first wedding anniversary gifts for every budget, style and love language. Keep reading to get all the information on traditional and modern one-year anniversary gifts, then shop the best gifts to spoil your sweetheart and mark a year of wedded bliss.

Groom Holding Bride on the Beach

Beach Wedding Couple

Follow my lead and capture your wedding anniversary with a professional photoshoot. Bonus points if you book your wedding photo to make it happen.

Photo by: Alyssa Forbes Photography / www.alyssaforbesphotography.com

Alyssa Forbes Photography / www.alyssaforbesphotography.com

Traditional First Wedding Anniversary Gifts

Each anniversary year has a correlating traditional gift steeped with symbolism and captures the moment in your marriage. Paper is the traditional gift of choice for first wedding anniversaries as it represents the turning of a page, a new chapter in life and the woven strength within your relationship.

Modern First Wedding Anniversary Gifts

Clocks are the go-to wedding first-anniversary gift for contemporary couples. The clock represents the passing of time together and your enduring love.

Embrace tradition with this paper-themed anniversary gift: the signature lay-flat photo album from Artifact Uprising. The heirloom-quality photo album is custom-designed with personal photos printed on ultra-thick, marble-end sheets. Each album boasts a hand-mounted binding to ensure it lasts for generations. Choose between a linen or leather foil-stamped cover, six cover design options and four unique album sizes to create a one-of-a-kind chic-and-sentimental gift. Fill your photo album pages with wedding photos or all your most cherished snapshots captured during the first year of marriage.

From $179

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a bouquet carrier who wouldn’t adore this artful gift. Commission a custom bouquet oil painting as it is an everlasting reminder of your wedding day and brings enduring beauty to your home in one fell swoop. All you need to start the process is to message Ukrainian artist Nataly Derevyanko of ArtFable on Etsy with a photo of the bouquet and the size and style of painting you have in mind.

If your partner is an avid writer or journals on the daily, this paper-inspired gift will speak to their soul. The love story journal features 16 pages for prompted entries based on milestones and occasions, including anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, wedding day, engagement, children, life accomplishments, trips and more. From there, there are 100 open-ended flat-lay entry pages that allow your spouse (and yourself) to scribble love notes, jot down memories and paste photos, recipes or ticket stubs to memorialize your never-ending love story.

From $69

My husband and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary with a paper gift we both enjoyed — two plane tickets to Italy. If you share a love of travel as a couple and it’s within your budget, follow our lead and jet off to somewhere special for your anniversary celebration. And to ensure you don’t forget your passports or lose your bags, go ahead and treat each other to a vegan leather passport case and luggage tag from Mark & Graham. The dapper duo comes in your choice of five vegan leather colors and 24 optional monogram designs.

Commemorate your wedding date in an elegant, understated way with this minimalist anniversary date art print. This custom print is made to order in any size of your choosing and delivered as a digital file so you can print it in a flash at home or on fancy paper at your local print shop. Frame the calligraphy print in a sleek black, nickel or wood frame with a crisp-white mat. Display on your home office bookcase or hallway gallery wall.

A custom calligraphy love letter scribed by Ashley Reich is guaranteed to sweep your spouse off their feet — especially if their love language is words of affirmation. Remind your beloved how much they mean to you with a heartfelt note, meaningful quote or lines from your wedding vows. Each love letter is hand-written on a cotton card and wrapped in a romantic floral jacket. The jacket is tied neatly with a velvet ribbon in a coordinating color, secured with a peony debossed wax seal and delivered in a vellum envelope.

Clink your coupes and cheers to your first married year with this timeless gold-plated ice bucket and a bottle of champagne. The classical ice bucket features lion knocker handles for a luxe appeal and comes with your choice of 19 engraved monogram designs. Gold not your finish of choice? Snag the same sophisticated vessel in silver-plated stainless steel instead. Pair your bucket with the same bottle of bubbly served on your wedding day to take you back in time.

If your idea of a perfect date night involves sharing a blanket, binge-watching tv and devouring a charcuterie board from the comfort of your sofa, have I got something for you. A Year of Movie Dates is the gift that keeps on giving with 50 sealed envelopes containing a card with a movie title. Open one envelope per week as a couple to keep your weekly movie nights interesting and discover new favorite flicks along the way. Each kit includes films of all genres and periods to keep you both on your toes.

From $77

Put a contemporary twist on the traditional paper anniversary and gift your design-obsessed partner this sleek paper mache vase designed by artist Marie Michielssen. Each sculptural vessel is handmade with recycled paper and comes in your choice of five artful silhouettes: small, large, double handle, four-loop and centerpiece bowl. Style the vessel as-is on a bookcase as a cool, textural feature, or fill it with dried or silk blooms inspired by your wedding florals and display it on the entry console to greet your spouse with romance when they walk through the door.

A matchbox as a wedding anniversary gift? This gorgeous, personalized wooden matchbox features a colorful motif, each of your initials and the year you were married. The underestimated gift makes the perfect accouterment (prelude, even) for a candlelit anniversary dinner at home. Use the included matches to light a mix of unscented taper and pillar candles galore around your dining room for unmatched ambiance. Cook the meal yourself for massive brownie points or, if you are my fellow married friend who has yet to master any viable skills in the kitchen, hire a private chef.

The hardcover travel book from Artifact Uprising allows you to immortalize all your travels from your first year of marriage. Each book is hand-crafted with top-notch ethically-sourced materials, like recycled matte paper, and comes with a customized dust jacket cover. Choose from 11 eye-catching fabric cover colors, including midnight, pacific blue, ruby, blush, olive and honeycomb, and fill the pages within with snapshots from your honeymoon abroad, the road trip two states over and everything in between.

From $40

Fresh flowers are failproof gifts for milestones big and small, but even the most beautiful, luxurious arrangements dry up after a few weeks. Why not skip the sad, slow death and go straight to the dry part with a bouquet of preserved blooms instead? The Idlewild Floral Co. dried flowers and bouquets are just as beautiful as fresh posies and will remain just so for a year or more. That’s right: a whole year! Spoil your sweetie with your choice of a white bouquet in three sizes, a blue bouquet or a sherbet bouquet, or make a custom bunch with poppy pods, yarrow and strelitzia stems.

Nothing says "I love you!" quite like swooping in and buying the custom pet portrait that was collecting dust in your partner's Etsy cart for the last few months. While said portrait has little-to-no sentimental value regarding your anniversary or wedding day, it does guarantee a giddy spouse. Each portrait is hand-painted on canvas based on a photo of your pup. Choose from two canvas sizes and 16 punchy backdrop colors to complement your existing home furnishings.

Give the gift of luxurious lounging with a dreamy Italian cotton-acrylic throw blanket. The cashmere-soft throw comes in four fresh colorways: pink salt, caramel, gray and navy. Don’t forget to take advantage of the optional embroidered monogram to give the blanket an extra-special touch. Take your pick of 16 monogram fonts ranging from traditional serif to circle script and contemporary diamond block designs. If you share a last name, use your marital monogram or shared surname initial as a nod to your anniversary.

Turn your first dance song or audio from your wedding video into eye-catching artwork for any room in your home with this contemporary soundwave spiral canvas or art print. Each piece is one of a kind and packs a graphic punch to your wall. Customize your spiral soundwave art with your choice of 55 ink colors. (Hint: If you’re not sure what color to pick, go with one from your wedding day palette.)

Treat your partner to a timeless treasure box for all the finds from adventures ahead. This minimalist wood memory box is handmade with wood and includes a lid customized with your names, wedding date and another line of text to use as you see fit. Take advantage of the optional personalization for the inside of the box lid, too. Add a custom engraving using your handwriting and the message of your choice. Present the box empty with the promise to fill it with meaningful mementos in the years ahead, or add a few tokens from your first year together to get the ball rolling.

$139 $109
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If the only thing you and your partner love more than each other is a bottle of red and a generously appointed charcuterie board, this is the winning choice for your anniversary gift. The elegant board includes three marble bowls for effortless dipping and a roomy platter to pile high with crispy crackers, butterkäse, capicola and maybe a fresh vegetable or two (if that's what you're into). Choose between a charcoal or white marble and take advantage of the optional monogram or personalization engraving for a sentimental touch.

Use your partner’s love language as your muse with this customizable love token gift. Each bundle includes 10 colorful token cards you select at purchase from a list of items like a dinner date night, 100 kisses, an uninterrupted afternoon and a personal favorite: argument winner. My advice? Choose tokens that correlate with the way your spouse feels loved the most to make this gift as meaningful as possible.

Treat your beloved to a custom photo calendar for their cubicle or home office. The way I see it, you can approach this gift in two ways. The first way is to use your top 12 favorite wedding portraits to mark each month of the year. The second option is pulling one photo from each of the last 12 months and correlating them with the months of the year. Make your first married Valentine’s Day picture the calendar photo for February, use your favorite photo from the pumpkin patch last year as the image for October and so on. Each calendar includes a walnut stand with brass hardware and your pick of six fonts for a custom, true-to-you design.

This personalized leather wallet gives a subtle but distinct nod to the paper anniversary because it includes a custom engraving of your handwriting. Put initials on the front of the wallet, then add a personal note to the inside so they have a love letter they can carry with them wherever they go.

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