Anniversary gifts by year: the traditional and modern list

The traditional anniversary gifts by year are paper for the first anniversary, wood for the fifth, tin for the tenth, silver for the twenty-fifth and gold for the fiftieth, and many of the years between have a theme of their own. When you are stuck for a gift, a theme is a useful place to start, because it changes the question from what to buy to what you could do with paper, or with wood.

The lists are not all the same. They differ from one source to the next and from one country to another: one gives linen or silk for the fourth year where another gives fruit and flowers, a few swap paper and cotton between the first two years, and for the sixth, some give sugar or candy where others give iron. Wikipedia’s table of the traditional anniversary gifts sets the US and UK lists side by side, and the Emily Post Institute’s anniversary gifts by year gives a classic list and a modern one. The table below follows the traditional list as it is commonly given in the US, with alternatives other lists give in parentheses, and sets the modern list beside it.

The lists were drawn up for wedding anniversaries, but they can suit any couple who keep count, whether you date your years from a wedding, a first date or the day you moved in together.

The anniversary gift list, year by year

From the first year to the fifteenth, every year on the list has a theme. After that, many lists go to the twentieth and then move in steps of five, though some fill in more of the years between. In the table, alternatives that some lists give are in parentheses, and a dash means no modern theme is common enough to list.

The two lists pull in different directions. The traditional one is mostly materials, which leaves room to make something; the modern one leans toward finished things in the early years, such as clocks, appliances and watches, then returns to metals and gems. From the fortieth year on, they give the same theme. Neither is more correct than the other, so use whichever gives you the better idea, or both.

Looking for a third anniversary present for him, or for her? Leather is the traditional theme and crystal or glass the modern one. Start from what they carry every day: a notebook, a key ring, a strap for a watch or a camera, or a glass with your date engraved on its base.

Making a theme your own

• Read the theme loosely. Paper can be a letter, a book, a pair of tickets or a map; wood can be a tree, a frame or a long walk in the woods.
• Look for a material with a story in it. A print of the photo from your first trip, framed in wood, says more than the frame on its own.
• Make it, or make part of it. A note in your handwriting, tucked inside, turns something you bought into something from you.
• Give a day as well as a thing. A theme can shape a whole day: a visit to an orchard for the fruit and flowers, an afternoon with a block of clay for the pottery.

First anniversary: paper

Paper is the easiest theme to make personal, because so much of a first year ends up on paper anyway: tickets, receipts, the notes you leave each other. The modern list gives clocks.

• A letter about the year. What you noticed about them, what surprised you, the moment you knew this was going somewhere. Write it by hand and seal it.
• A scrapbook of the twelve months. Glue in the tickets, the notes and a few printed photos in the order they happened, with a line under each in your own writing.
• A book with a note inside. Choose one you think they would love, and write on the first page why you chose it for them.
• A clock, for the modern list. Something small for a desk or a bedside table, with a date on the back that only the two of you would recognize.

Fifth anniversary: wood

Five years in, wood suits a gift that is meant to last, and even to grow. The modern list gives silverware.

• A tree to plant. In a garden, in a big pot by a window, or, with permission, somewhere you can go back to; choose one that will still be there for the next five years and the ones after.
• A wooden keepsake box. Fill it before you give it, with something from each of the five years: a photo, a ticket, a note.
• Something made by hand. A frame, a cutting board, a small shelf, made at home from a plain piece of wood; or a woodworking class where the two of you make one side by side.
• A day among the trees. A walk through a forest you have never been to, with lunch packed and nowhere else to be.

Tenth anniversary: tin or aluminum

For a 10th anniversary gift, tin can seem a modest material for such a round number. That is part of its charm: the gift is in what you put inside. The modern list gives diamond jewelry, if jewelry is what they love.

• A tin of ten notes. One for each year, each with a single memory from it: where you were, what you did that summer, a joke that started then.
• A lantern for evenings outside. A tin or aluminum one, for a balcony, a porch or a camping trip, with a promise of more evenings out.
• Ten photos in one frame. One picture from each year, printed small and set in a grid, so the decade hangs on a single wall.
• A trip back. Return to the place you took your first trip together, or where you spent an early anniversary, and see what has changed and what has not. If it is far, bring it home instead: its food, its music, the photos from then.

Twenty-fifth anniversary: silver

Twenty-five years is the silver anniversary on both lists. Whether you are looking for an anniversary gift for 25 years of marriage, your own or that of a couple you love, silver gives you plenty to work with.

• A silver frame for an early photo. Choose one they may not have seen in a while, and write on the back where it was taken.
• A silver keepsake, engraved. Both names and two years: the one you started counting from, and this one.
• A gathering of the twenty-five years. A dinner or a picnic where everyone brings a dish, with people from each part of the story; or, if a party is not their style, a quiet evening or a weekend away for the two of them.
• A book of twenty-five memories. Ask family and friends for one memory each of the couple, written on a card, and bind the cards together.

Fiftieth anniversary: gold

Fifty years is gold on both lists. A fiftieth can be a family occasion as much as a private one, so these ideas work whether you are one of the couple or one of the people celebrating them.

• A gold-edged album with a page for each year. Fill as many pages as you can from family photos, and leave the gaps for the couple to tell you about.
• Their story, written down. Sit with them, ask how they met and what they remember of the early years, record the answers and write them up as a booklet for everyone.
• A photo of everyone together. Bring together the people who have been part of the fifty years, take one picture with all of you in it, and frame it in gold.
• A gold keepsake marked with the date. A small gold-colored ornament, frame or charm engraved with the day the fifty years began.

Ideas for the years with no clear theme

Between the milestones, many lists leave the years blank, though some longer ones fill them in, so the sixteenth, the twenty-third or the thirty-eighth may have no theme on the list you are using. That leaves you free to choose your own:

• Borrow from the nearest milestone. A twenty-third anniversary can lean toward the silver of the twenty-fifth, or look back to the china of the twentieth.
• Use the number. As many notes, photos or small things as the years you are marking, each one with a memory attached.
• Take a theme from the past year. Something from a place you went, a hobby one of you took up, a dish you learned to make.
• Go back to the first theme. Write another letter on paper: what you would tell the two of you in that first year, now that you know what came next.

A gift that fits any year

Every list leaves out the one material that is yours alone: your story. If you would like a gift that suits any year on the list, LoveReel can turn that story into a short film. You tell it in your own words and add a few of your photos, and a narrated film of it is made with AI. Watching the preview costs nothing, and you pay only if you love it. Read about the anniversary film.

Whatever you choose, give it with a few words about why you chose it. The theme gets you started; the reason is the part that is yours.