How to celebrate our first wedding anniversary?

Happy anniversary. What have you learned during the first year? What would thrill her?

It’s really your question.

Cooking her a beautiful meal.
Taking her to a special place.
Writing her a letter or a poem.
Gifts are nice but not necessary. At least, it is never necessary to spend a lot of money.

You can think of six or seven small things and surprise her throughout the day.

A love note written in soap on the bathroom mirror.
One fresh flower in a bud vase and freshly squeezed orange juice.
A small, nicely-wrapped little something in the toe of the shoe she is going to wear today.
An IOU for a back rub.

etc. Set some special precedents for your lives together.

Do something you love doing together and don’t do often because of lack of time or money. You can buy something if it’s something you’ve both been wanting. Talk it over ahead of time.

Did you save your wedding cake? You could have an indoor picnic with your cake, lay out a spread of goodies, champagne, and candles and feed each other the saved cake, or…. go back to where you spent your wedding night and recreate the moment.

Congratulations! And thank you for giving us at least two weeks’ notice to brain-storm with you. We don’t always get that much heads-up when it comes to timing.

All of the above are great ideas. Here is another:

What about something that can become a tradition? One example is that the 1-year anniversary is traditionally recognized by a gift of a paper product. A recommendation is the book, Griffin & Sabine. If your partner has an ounce of romanticism, it will be a home run. Trust me on this.

Here is a list of both traditional and modern gift categories by the number of the years married. It might help you plan out future gifts.

You are early in the building of your own history and traditions. In later years you will think back to this period as the beginning of your lives together. Now is the time to be creating the moments that you will look back on—and perhaps try to recreate later on. Choosing a wonderful place for memory-building is a great way to do that—a place that is likely to still be there in ten years, or fifty.

That doesn’t have to mean somewhere expensive or commercial. A beautiful state or national park stands a good chance of longevity. A national monument and gardens. A well-kept seashore or lakeshore area. A river, a mountain. A place that either can’t be bought and sold or already has been and is being preserved for by the owner with access for visitors.

Where do you live? Can you get to some special place in short enough travel time to spend a couple of days there? Or even just a day trip?

Be sure to have someone take your photo together. And just for good measure, buy a picture postcard of the place.

Buy ten and send her one every year for the next ten years with an anniversary message on it.

My husband and I went here on our first anniversary.

Women REALLY REALLY like having flowers sent to them at work. Especially for the first Anniversary. Proves you didn’t forget.

@majorrich: All women? Sometimes it is seen as a clichéd gesture that requires no thought.

I was being good I thought. It was a big office and everyone came by and made all over her. Then we went out to dinner and all the other stuff. Chiched flowers are for bonus points.

What your wife loves may well not be what some other women want.

Everyone came by and made what all over her?

It sure looked that way. We worked in the same gophertown, and I could see her pod from mine. I’m sure some folks don’t want flowers or what not, but my wife likes to get flowers. I send them occasionally for no particular reason. We’ve been together longer than we’ve been apart now and the mere act of remembering the anniversary wins me points.

Wife unit came by just now and said I also gave her a totes umbrella, and some rain shoes. It was a very wet September.

How can she remember those things, but not how to work the remote for the TV?

I am not one to be happy with receiving flowers. I appreciate the thought, but if my husband sent me or brought me flowers it would mean somehow he had not been paying attention. What is important is knowing what she personally likes and what you both enjoy to do together. I love that @Pied_Pfeffer reminded us the first anniversary is paper. Maybe make something out of paper, a handmade card, or a gift of an album with photos from your first year together as a married couple as the first couple of pages, with future pages to be filled each year catching glimpses of the place you live, places you have travelled, you can glue on ticket stubs from concerts and write down next to a photo your memories of that day. Add a nice dinner and it sounds good to me. If you can afford a weekend away even better.