It’s another installment of wedding anniversary gift ideas! Today I’m sharing 1st wedding anniversary gift ideas. The traditional gift theme for the first wedding anniversary is paper. The modern gift theme is clocks. But, as usual, I’m only going to cover the traditional gifts. Clocks are kind of self-explanatory anyway.
TICKETS
(airline, concert, sports event, museum, musical, etc.)
For our first wedding anniversary, I gave Brad (and myself) Zac Brown Band concert tickets. It’s one of Brad’s favorite bands, and the concert was a couple weeks after our anniversary so it worked out perfectly. I even saved our tickets and framed them to always remember the occasion. When you’re ordering tickets, just make sure to order the paper version of tickets– it’s not really a paper gift if you get the paperless tickets. Know what I mean?
Got a big budget? Celebrate your first anniversary by jetting off with airline tickets. It doesn’t have to be a surprise. You and your husband/wife can plan it out. If you want to have at least one surprise, give him/her another paper gift mentioned in this post.
ART PRINTS
Brad gave me an Indiana print (where we both grew up and currently live) I’d been coveting for my 1st anniversary gift. I framed and hung it in our guest bathroom.
There are tons of sentimental and customizable art prints out there.
Here are some of my favorites:
custom wedding bouquet painting
OR you can save this idea for your 4th wedding anniversary (traditional gift is fruit or flowers)
custom family portrait illustration
Star Wars custom family portrait
This artist also does custom wedding day, superhero, and movie/book (Harry Potter, Ghostbusters, etc.) portraits. I’ve worked with her before, and she’s wonderful. Tell her Chelsea from Two Twenty One sent you!
PAPER PRODUCTS
(stationery, business cards, etc.)
This is quite the obvious paper product gift idea. There’s tons of pretty stationery out there for the ladies. And there’s tons of manly stationery out there for guys.
PHOTO BOOKS
Surprise your lover with a custom photo book. The topic of your photo book is up to you– honeymoon, first year of marriage, etc. There are tons of online photo book publishers out there where you upload all the photos you’d like to use and select the theme and layout of the book. Check out Shutterfly, My Publisher, or Blurb. You could even make a photo book with Instagram photos (here or here). This is a super sweet and thoughtful gift idea because it’ll show that you took the time to put the book together.
JOURNALS/BOOKS
There are some fun journals out there (other than your typical journal), like Line a Day and the Christmas Memories book. I’m not gonna lie– it’d be ridiculously romantic and Noah-from-The-Notebook-esque if you secretly did a Line a Day journal for your love for the first year of your marriage– writing down things you did together or something sweet about him/her. I’m pretty sure I would’ve cried if my husband did that for me, and I’m not a big cryer.
CALENDARS
Calendars are paper, right? From wall calendars to custom desktop Instagram photo calendars, you can’t go wrong. You know what would be awesome? Giving your husband/wife a calendar with date(s) circled and then handing him/her tickets. Instant brownie points are sure to be awarded.
OTHER IDEAS
book • autograph • poster • magazine subscription • puzzle • paper mache
I hope you found these gift ideas to be helpful in planning your 1st wedding anniversary gift! Keep in mind, these are also great gift ideas for any occasion.
Happy anniversary to you and yours!
Other anniversary gift ideas:
2nd wedding anniversary
3rd wedding anniversary
4th wedding anniversary
I LOVE the custom bouquet painting. I may have to email it to my husband with a *HINT HINT* subject line. He loves getting those emails haha.
Do iiiiiiiit. I used to send Brad engagement rings. I’m subtle like that.
great ideas…we just celebrated our 27th anniversary last weekend (which calls for sculpture as a gift) My hubby researched this apparently..and bought me a lovely sculpture of a rose..my favourite flower…
Aw, that’s so sweet and thoughtful of him! Happy 27th anniversary!
I love all your ideas! I so love the art prints of the house… Just wish it wasn’t so pricey! I wanted to get them for both our parents for Christmas but it’s a little out of our price range!
Aren’t they adorable? There are cheaper options on Etsy. Do a search. You should be able to find some that are more in your price range.
Love these ideas!!
Me too! I want to celebrate my first anniversary again. 🙂
Love your posts, Chelsea! We just celebrated 1 year and each got each other a puzzle!! I personalized his with a pic from our wedding while his was from Target. 🙂 But then he scored high with two fun prints for my new home office. I also got him a magazine subscription. We’re loving this themed anniversary thing. Thanks for your ideas!
Thanks, Molly! Aw, that’s so sweet. I think the anniversary themes are a great idea. They especially help the guys out because there’s some sort of guideline.
Great gift ideas! Love how you think outside of the box, too! Never would have thought of tickets for a paper gift!
Thanks, lady! I’m not gonna lie, I patted myself on the back when I thought up the ticket idea.
I was curious if the Indiana art print was the 8×10 or the 5×7. I couldn’t really determine the scale of it from your bathroom pictures. I’m also from Indiana and still currently live there and am thinking of getting something from that Etsy shop.
The Indiana print is an 8×10. 🙂
These are great ideas and the timing couldn’t be more perfect – We celebrate our 1st Anniversary on Sunday! I really wish I knew about that Line a Day book last year! How wonderful would it be to look back on that in 5 years! We’re going away for the weekend and keeping our gifts at paper and under $25. I’ll post about what we come up with next week, but I can’t wait to get one of those house portraits for Christmas or for next year!
Happy Anniversary! Isn’t the One Line a Day book a good idea? I think it’d be something sweet to do for a baby’s first year.
Thanks so much for featuring my work! xo
No problem! I love your shop!
I love these ideas. Would canvas count as paper?
I made a Calendar for our first Anniversary. For each month I put a photo of the two of us at an occasion that was held in the month. He loved the paper gift.
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Great first anniversary gift Ideas Chelsea! My husband dedicated ( MyDayRegistry.com ) the day of our wedding to me for our first anniversary. Such a wonderful and sentimental gift idea! I know your readers will absolutely love it!
Love these ideas! One thing to keep in mind about photo books and line a day books – they take a LOT OF TIME. Take a look at http://www.HeartfeltBooks.com as you can select questions to answer about your relationship and they publish the answers in a beautiful, hardbound book.
Love these ideas! To add to the list, check out JustPaperRoses.com for paper flowers. Awesome concept.
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Several years ago for our first anniversary, my husband gave me a paper gift certificate for a special anniversary rainbow sundial (a cool clock that uses the sun) that he found online. I thought it was a really clever gift – he did both traditional and modern gift suggestions in one!
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