The 1st Anniversary Gift Is Paper
The traditional first anniversary gift is paper, on the American list and on most British ones (some UK lists swap paper and cotton between the first and second years). It is one of the oldest entries on the list: Emily Post included it in 1922.
US traditional: paper · UK lists: cotton or paper
What Does the 1st Anniversary Gift Mean?
Paper opens the list because it is the humblest material on it, and the first year is the one with the least history to write on. Post was blunt about it. She listed paper alongside wood and tin and said those presents were "seldom anything but jokes", and in her book they came from the guests at an anniversary party, not from one spouse to the other. The spouse-to-spouse version is newer and kinder: something made of paper that holds the year you just had, so the gift is the record rather than the material. The 1st is one of the eight anniversaries in Emily Post’s Etiquette (1922), the oldest widely read American list.
Checked against Emily Post, Wikipedia and Hallmark on .
What Are Good 1st Anniversary Gift Ideas?
- Your vows, printed and framed. The words you actually said, set in type you would hang. The most common paper gift, because it works.
- A jigsaw puzzle of the two of you. A printed paper picture laminated to board, which you then build together on the anniversary night.
- Love letters, one a month. Twelve sealed envelopes for the second year, each dated, each opened on its month.
- A map of where it happened. Where you met, married, or spent the first night in the first home, printed as a poster.
- Tickets. A concert, a play, a train. Paper you use, then keep in a drawer for twenty years.
- A book with a note in it. The book they keep meaning to read, inscribed on the first page with the date.
- A year-one photo book. The wedding album often takes a year to arrive. A small book of everything after the wedding fills that gap.
What We Make for the 1st
Our jigsaw puzzle is about as close to a literal paper gift as a keepsake gets: the picture is printed on paper and laminated to chipboard, which is itself a paperboard. Upload one photo of the two of you, pick an art style, and the puzzle is that portrait. The Paper Garden style renders you as a layered cut-paper collage, if you want the material in the picture as well as in the pieces.
1st Anniversary Questions
What is the traditional 1st anniversary gift? +
Paper. It appears on Emily Post’s 1922 list and has stayed first on the American list since. Some British lists give cotton for the first year and paper for the second.
Is a puzzle a paper gift? +
Yes. A printed jigsaw puzzle is a paper print laminated to chipboard, which is made from compressed paper fiber, so it is paper all the way through.
Other Anniversaries
- 2nd: cotton
- 3rd: leather
- 4th: fruit and flowers
- 5th: wood
- 6th: iron
- 7th: wool, copper
- 8th: bronze
- 9th: pottery
- 10th: tin, aluminum
- 11th: steel
- 12th: silk
- 25th: silver
- 50th: gold
Every year from the 1st to the 60th, with the US and UK lists side by side, is on the anniversary gifts by year page.