How To Make Your Wedding Anniversary Memorable For Your Wife
Posted: Thursday, October 11, 2007
by Ben Jones
Too-Write!
The quickest way to ensure a memorable wedding anniversary is to forget about the wedding anniversary altogether. I wouldn't recommend you try this method; although it may save you a few dollars up front it will almost certainly cost you a lot more in the long run.
So what present should you buy? Well anyone can buy a gift voucher, book or other pedestrian present, but if you really want to make your next wedding anniversary special then try being creative. Let’s start with a tough question: when is your wedding anniversary? Actually it gets worse because you'll also need to know how long you've been married. Granted this might be a big ask for many men, but if you honestly can’t recall, you could always try and sneak a peak at your wedding certificate while your better half is out of the house (she’s probably out buying you a really meaningful anniversary gift, so pull your finger out and lets get started!).
So what present should you buy? Well anyone can buy a gift voucher, book or other pedestrian present, but if you really want to make your next wedding anniversary special then try being creative.
Each wedding anniversary is represented by something that is meant to signify the length of time you've been married – 50 years is gold, 25 years is silver and 1 year is paper (and no, don’t just buy a card!). In addition each wedding anniversary has its own color so try and work that into your creative theme.
Now since you are reading this article you obviously have internet access. Great! Go to a search engine and look up the specifics about your next anniversary. For example, if it's your second anniversary then this is historically represented by cotton. I know, cotton sounds tricky so we’ll focus on a few examples shortly. First, resist the urge to rush out to purchase a new set of sheets or some plain bath towels, that's not creative, it's lame. Take a deep breath and put some serious thought into it!
Here are a few simple examples:
- Sweet - His and her bathrobes embroidered with your pet names for each other
- Fun - Find a photo of you and your wife and have it printed on a T-shirt
- Romantic - Buy a cotton blanket, pack a picnic basket including cheeses, champagne and strawberries and whisk her away to a picturesque location
If those examples don’t appeal to you or your budget and you can’t think of anything else related to cotton then instead put some thought into any present your wife would enjoy. Take that present and wrap it with cotton fabric including a cotton bow to hold it together (fabric shops sell material by the meter and will be more than happy to help measure sizes accordingly). If you’re really creative you could even make a card out of something like a cotton place mat and write on it using a laundry marker. Remember to select fabric and bow according to the color appropriate to your anniversary: Romeo eat your heart out!
You'll no doubt be feeling embarrassed or corn-ball while buying, making or preparing your special gift, but believe me, your wife will love the extra effort and creativity and will find it very romantic. I think we all know what that means for us men later that night. That’s right, we don’t have to listen to our wives complaining about how we don’t know them at all and how crappy our presents were (again).
Honestly your wife will love your creative ideas because after all you are showing her how important she is to you, that you still want to impress and please her and that you are willing to put in some extra effort to make your anniversary a special and memorable day for both of you to share and enjoy.
One final but important point: A friend of mine recently went to some effort to come up with a unique gift for his first wedding anniversary (represented by paper). After much thought he settled on an environmentally friendly angle and bought an apple tree to represent paper (before it's cut down) and selected red apples for love. Sadly his planning and careful efforts to come up with, buy and hide said apple tree were completely undermined by the fact that he didn’t include an anniversary card.
This will come as a shock for some of you but the card is actually more important than the present. Oh don’t get me wrong, you’re in serious trouble if you turn up without a present, but consider yourself up the proverbial river if you forget or neglect a card filled with sappy, romantic sentiment.
So if you’re going to put the effort into being creative with your present and you actually want to impress your wife then please, please, please remember an anniversary card. It’s like taking champagne on your picnic and forgetting glasses. Oh yeah, for those of you considering the picnic suggestion above don’t forget glasses, plates, cutlery, napkins and one long stemmed rose (preferably the correct color but when in doubt go with the classic red).
As to what you put in the card, I'll leave that to your now creative and fertile imaginations.
Good luck and happy anniversaries!
Good luck and happy anniversaries!
This Article has been viewed 9,059 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
More commentsIf anyone is stuck on a specific wedding anniversary then post a comment here and we'll see if we can't come up with some creative ideas for you. Regards, Ben.
Do you know where we can find a list of what item represents which anniversary. For instance, all I know is that 25 years is silver and 50 years is Gold (I think). Where would I find the rest? Just Google it? Great ideas by the way!Thanks for your comment Jean. Here's a quick list of the traditional wedding anniversary types: 1st = Paper, 2nd = Cotton, 3rd = Leather, 4th = Fruit/Flowers, 5th = Wood, 6th = Iron, 7th= Copper, 8th = Bronze, 9th = Pottery/Willow, 10th = Tin, 11th = Steel, 12th = Silk, 13th = Lace, 14th = Ivory, 15th = Crystal, 20th = China, 25th = Silver, 30th = Pearl, 40th = Ruby, 45th = Sapphire, 50th = Gold, 55th = Emerald, 60th = Diamond (plus you deserve a medal if you make it this long!!).
Your article made me wonder if you are one of those who has forgotten an anniversary in the past. Thanks for the ideas.Ted I hope you're not speaking from experience?
I'm glad to say that I've remembered 2 from 2 so far. Of course I have plenty of years ahead to forget and I am a guy after all. :)
Here's hoping if I do forget that I get brownie points for the effort I make now. Yeah not likely I know!
So that's why I set reminders, and I don't mean a reminder, I mean reminders. If you're like me, a typical guy that would forget his head if it wasn't screwed on tightly, then set a reminder in your phone, on your computer, keep a calendar with a note on it, write a reminder note and put it in your wallet, anything that ensures you don't forget. It's just not a risk worth taking *grin*.
Cheers,
Ben.
Ben, Thanks so much for the article. . . very sweet, awesome ideas! My anniversary is next month so I will definitely be forwarding this on to my husband :) Keep up the great writing!Laura, thank you for your kind comment. I hope it helps give your husband a gentle shove in the right direction. Any more than a gentle shove and he could end up on his poor romantic face *grin* A very happy anniversary for next month for both of you! :) Cheers, Ben.
Ben, you actually expect men to be sweet and sensitive when picking out a gift? Bummer. LOL! Some good ideas. Now you need to write about what women can give to men. Hint: ELECTRONICS!Danny good point! Electronics are always a winner with me. Of course it's a little tricky to tie that in with "cotton" for the 2nd anniversary for example. So maybe she could get a sexy bunny outfit, replete with "cotton" tail? (Though we wouldn't find it as sexy and clever when we realized that she actually expected us to wear it!!) LOL!
Thanks for some good ideas, it's our 2nd anniversary soon, so glad you used that as an example. Maybe do an article on 3rd anniversary before my next one haha!Hi David, I'll see what I can do. Just out of interest, what did you do for your 1st anniversary? :) Cheers, Ben.
Congratulations on pulling in the big win, Ben. Marriage is a very important commitment to be upheld, and so is maintaining a happy bride. Contributing adequate beneficence for special occasions may count for 75% of the grade in some cases. Ha! A well written, noteworthy subject with good insight.Hi Scott, It was an unexpected but very nice suprise. There were some really impressive articles so I'm honoured to have been selected. Of course we all know where the money is going... :) Cheers, Ben.
Ben, very insightful ideas. if i get married again i might ask you for ideas on anniversary gifts. i like the idea of a big cotton blanket and get a basket with cheese crackers champange and picnic somewhere senic. victor from creative corner ps. very goodarticle. i enjoyed reading it immensely.G'day Victor, Fancy seeing you here. Thanks a lot for your kind comment on my article. It was a lot of fun coming up with "creative" ideas. Just not sure what I'm going to do for the next anniversary! :) Cheers, Ben.
Well it's been almost a full year since my last wedding anniversary, time for me to put my thinking cap on again for a present. The third wedding anniversary is "Leather" so who knows where we'll go with that one. :)
My husband and I both love the outdoors, especially working on our garden and landscape..so for our anniversary each year we go shopping for a special plant or tree that we can hopefully keep forever. Then when we are old and gray we can look back on our yard and remember all the different plants we got each year.
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