Help! I need help trying to figure out an appropriate yet thoughtful one year anniversary gift for my wife. Our anniversary is five weeks away and I don’t have any idea what to get her.
The one year anniversary gift should be “paper” of some kind, according to tradition. Can y’all help me with this?
D’oh
This is what we did for our first anniversary. We were going to go to Toronto for the weekend and take in a play and see the sights. Being totally practical and pragmantic, the day before we took off, I looked at the cost of the weekend ( $500 approx) and called my husband at work and said, " You know, we could really plunk down alot of trees on our bare property for that amount of money." So we spent a rainy cold spring weekend digging over 40 holes in clay planting trees that were about ten inches high. They are now about waist high and in twenty years, we won’t see our neighbors.
I love giving the gift of a little tree to friends who just had a baby or got married ( along with another gift) ( Provided they have a house) Saplings are like 3 for $10 ( Or free from a county extension service) and if you follow planting instructions, are a lasting and wonderful tribute.
If that isn’t doable, and depending how much you want to spend , maybe you could call her boss and make arrangements at work on a Friday and ask if your wife could take a long lunch or leave early with the instructions of " Here’s X amount (with an envelope of mula in it) of money to go buy yourself a new outfit and get done up nice. Your going out somewhere special with your husband tonight. It’s a surprise." If her boss is a female she will eat it right up at how romantic you are. If her boss is a guy, he will think how clever you are at “getting some”. 
You can’t lose.
( Hubby did this with me and I talked him out of it and we planted more trees. My coworkers declared me insane. But, hubby and I have the best conversations with shovels in our hands, I swear.)
The first anniversary celebration is crucial. Some women wig out if their spouses don’t do it right. Some expect a big fat chunk of jewelry ( even though they are eating Macaroni and cheese every night) or they expect their husband to be Rico Suave and wisk them off their feet. All I can say is that if you do it right, you be in like Flynn for weeks, if you know what I mean. 
Good luck and let us know what you decide.
People change not because they see the light but because they feel the heat.
Thanks, Shirley.
This is a great idea, especially since she loves growing plants but, unfortunately, we don’t have a house.
Great idea. The only problem is that my wife has a tendency not to want to spend money on herself.
Apparently, my wife is like you.
Boy, don’t I know it. I’d also like to take her out of town for a getaway but I’m not sure where to go. Perhaps a resort/spa of some type?
D’oh
Might I suggest photo albums, with pics of your first year of marriage in them? That is, if you can’t do the tree thing. I like the tree thing.
My brother asked me to say a few words at his wedding, which was last year. Judging from the feedback I got from the guests, my speech was really good. On their first anniversary, I gave them a framed copy of the speech. They really liked that.
Cristi suggested:
Again, another great idea. The only problem is that we don’t have many photos of us together. She does have many photos from before we were together that sit in an old shoe box. Maybe a nice gift (one of several) would be to organize these photos in photo albums. The only problem is how to do it on the sly.
D’oh
Having just passed the 1st anniversary a week ago, here is what my wife and I did. We decided together to get a picture done of us (on a yearly basis), that way we can look back 40 years from now and see the progression of our marriage. Then, we each came up with one gift for the other. She went with contemporary 1st (clocks) and got me a desk clock for work that can record her saying something. Pretty neat and it is kind oof like having her around. I got her a traditional 1st (paper) and got her an actual menu from Jerry’s Famous Deli in LA. It was her favorite place we ate at during our honeymoon and made her quite happy. No small feat to get one of those either.
It’s not bragging if you can do it - Satchel Paige
If a getaway is what you’d like to plan, why don’t you try to find a bed and breakfast sort of place and make a weekend out of it? They’re much more personable than a hotel, and sometimes it’s fun to just drive around and gawk like a tourist at the autumn leaves.
lovelee
Mullinator stated:
Isn’t that the whole idea behind anniversary gifts? Thoughtful and creative gifts?
lovelee suggested:
D’oh
We’re far from rich, so don’t get me wrong here. My husband isn’t very good at gifts in general (he’s getting better). He actually got me a spectacular diamond anniversary band. He said he knows you’re supposed to wait for that (like 10 years or so) but he really wanted me to have it. Point is, any gift that comes right from the heart is what’s important. That or diamonds, they both work for me
PS- how about something from the place you honeymooned?? A short return trip? A picture frame from there with a picture of the two of you in it? A piece of jewelry specifically bought there?
Run for the hills, folks! Or you’ll be up to your armpits in martians!
I started a GREAT tradition for my anniversaries. Unfortunately there were only two of them. But they were GREAT.
I decided that it would be cool to take an Anniversary trip every year. So the first year I arranged for me and hubby to fly to New Orleans for the weekend, got a good hotel room in the French Quarter, researched some good restaurants, etc. etc. Hubby knew nothing about it.
We were leaving on Friday. On Thursday night, I said, “Let’s go out to dinner tomorrow night in the city. Why don’t we both work through lunch so we can take off a little early. I’ll pick you up at 4:00 and we’ll decide what to do from there.”
Meanwhile, I put together a big bag of all kinds of New Orleansy type stuff - bottles of Bourbon (for Bourbon St.), Tabasco, etc. Towards the bottom were a couple guide books, and our plane tickets were at the very bottom.
He left for work before I did in the morning, so I threw together our suitcases after he left. I picked him up from work, and gave him the bag. He was confused at first, then got progressively more and more excited as he went through the gifts. The best part was at the end, when he saw the plane tickets. He looked at 'em, and asked me “When do we go?”
I looked at my watch, and said, “Our plane leaves in an hour.”
It was waaaay cool. And it started a tradition of one year I planned a trip, the next year he did. When it was his turn, we went to Disney World, but he had left a gazillion clues around the house that we were going to New York City. I was pretty surprised to find out on the day we left that we weren’t going there - he just didn’t want me to guess where we were going so he left red herrings around!
Athena: That is entirely too cool. I’m going to send your idea to my husband. Lack of finances has prevented us from taking a real vacation together, but things are a little better now. I doubt we could do anything like that this year, but it’s only our fourth year…kinda dull. Maybe when the fifth anniversary rolls around…
Yeah, Athena. Way cool. I may modify your idea somewhat and go with it.
D’oh
Cristi:
The real lovely thing about this is that it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive. A camping trip planned and executed without you knowing, where you get whisked off to some wonderful place unexpectedly could be very fun and cheap. I’ve even thought that you could do this in your own home - spouse goes off to work, you spend a couple hours making your living room into an arab tent or a beach or something like that (borrow stuff from friends, or go to the used store to buy stuff) and you spend the weekend in there. You arrange before hand to have food delivered and movies around or something like that.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
– William of Ockham
As far as a “gift” gift goes (as in, something you put in a box and wrap with pretty paper)…
Write her a poem. Take it to a person who does calligraphy and have them put it on that really cool frayed parchment and have it framed.
If you suck at poetry, you could just do it with her favorite poem or find one that fits (I recommend Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda).
Veni, Vidi, Visa … I came, I saw, I bought.
There is a bed and breakfst on Amelia Island in Florida (sorry, can’t think of the name) that is a nice place to go. Well, as long as a hurricane isn’t bearing down on you. As part of our honeymoon, we went to LA with the entire goal of getting on TV. We sat in the audience for Politically Incorrect, Jeopardy, and got on The Price is Right. The Del Capri hotel is beautiful, cheap, and downtown. Getting in shows are free, so if you are near LA, it might be a good trip to take.
Misanthrope – I will donate the only piece of verse that I ever wrote that I thought was any good:
Silver and gold have I none.
None but the gold of the rising sun
Which, rising, beckons us rise too.
Silver and gold, ah! But I have you.
“non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem”
– William of Ockham
Thanks so much, Pluto. I think I’ll memorize it and recite it to her on our anniversary.
D’oh
You do realize, Misanthrope, that you now are morally obligated to tell us what you decided on, how it went over, and the general state of happiness on your anniversary. I’m waiting!
If you don’t have enough photos to get together for a photo album, how about a scrapbook? Likely if you look around, you can find enough “stuff” from your first year to make one up.