Archive for the ‘Anniversary’ Category

Your third anniversary is coming up and your mind is racing as you browse countless gift ideas, a new pair of shoes, a tie L, flowers, jewelry? Then just like last year and the year before your brain goes into full overload, shuts down and triggers “gift shopping procrastination” till the last minute when in desperation you grab a cheesy scarf or tie depending on the sex of the recipient.

• Keeping a marriage for three years can be a tough job. Surpassing every challenge and overcoming obstacles of married life can be quite difficult. Anyone who can reach this milestone should be able to get through finding a thoughtful gift.
   
  What gift are you going to choose for your loved one? In your mind, you probably think it must be expensive, or it must be unique. Well a gift need not always be expensive to be appreciated. Remember the old saying “It is the thought that counts“, While this is very true, we need to clear up one important point, the keyword in that saying is “thought“. This does NOT mean that you “thought” enough to get a gift, but instead refers to the thoughtfulness that went into the choosing of a gift whether it be homemade or outrageously expensive.
   
  Leather is the traditional 3rd year wedding anniversary. Leathers are known to be strong, warm, flexible and durable as well. it has strong qualities like that of the married couple who has stayed together three years. So with that in mind, lets look at some leather gift ideas.
• Leather clothing – you should check your spouses’ closet before buying leather clothes. Leather jackets can be appealing to almost everyone.
• Leather shoes & bags / handbags – check your spouses’ shoe size before buying new leather shoes, be extra careful in choosing handbags, because wives are choosy when it comes to their accessories. You might want to enlist the help of one of her friends in choosing a gift like this.
• Leather wallets – be careful with choosing the wallet for your hubby. Like wives, they can also be meticulous about it.
• Leather roses – yes you read that right, and yes they are available, just search leather roses on any search engine.
• Leather belts – this is a practical gift. Check out the size of your spouse before buying one.
• Leather gloves – there are many type of gloves that you can choose. This is great for areas with cold temperature.
• Leather desk accessories – check your spouses’ deck, is it organized? Give him/her a leather desk set to organize his/her desk.
• Leather briefcase – this is the right gift for people on the go or for executives and lawyers.
• Leather sporting goods – Is your spouse a sports fanatic? Footballs, baseball gloves and a lot of other sports equipment is made from leather.
• Leather luggage – plan to have a romantic out of the country trip? Surprise him / her with a new luggage bag.

People have celebrated wedding anniversaries since antiquity, each culture having its own set of practices covering what presents have been exchanged. Over the years certain gifts have been set aside for specific years, creating a traditional anniversary gift list. The traditional anniversary gift list was created at a point in time when people had less starting out in wedded bliss, so the list is a somewhat practical one. This traditional anniversary gift list was actually comprised of items which would be of real benefit to the new couple.

As the years have gone by, a newer anniversary gift list of a more modern nature has arisen to appeal to the more affluent modern couple. With the newer trend of later marriages, there is less need for starter items for newlyweds, as each usually has a lived alone and acquired items on their own which will be added to the combined household. This is completely opposite the traditional way of staying home until a suitable candidate was received for marriage.

This newer anniversary gift list also allows for practical gifts within the first few years of marriage, but it also has diamonds showing up three times as opposed to the traditional anniversary gift list with its one occurrence of diamonds. There are instances though, where both anniversary gift lists name the same gift.

Anniversary gift lists are nice a nice reference to get ideas for your anniversary, but a gift that is given out of love and that comes out of the understanding of your spouse will outdo a listed gift on any day. So with that thought in mind, here’s the traditional versus modern anniversary gift list. May all your anniversaries be happy and full of love.

1st year
Traditional List: paper
Modern List: clock

2nd year
Traditional List: cotton
Modern List: china

3rd year
Traditional List: leather
Modern List: crystal, glass

You’ve been wracking your brain to come up with creative anniversary gifts to express your love and affection for your spouse in a unique way. Whether you’re on your paper or diamond anniversary, it can be difficult to summarize the complex admixture of love, passion, camaraderie, and intimacy that defines marriage. It can be particularly vexing to stuff all these complex emotions into a gift that really means something. This is the reason why the vast majority of so called creative anniversary gifts end up either gimmicky or ridiculous or overly ornate and sentimental.

So is there a way out of this anniversary gift conundrum?

Here’s an idea that you’re guaranteed not to have thought of before – creating a personalized magazine cover for your anniversary. The process is simple, cheap, and wonderfully fun. You can design your magazine cover around photos that you already have, and you can do it in almost total secrecy and thus be able to surprise your honey with a truly unique set of creative anniversary gifts (assuming you also add on something more traditional, like chocolates, jewelry, or dinner out on the town).

Easy to use online personal magazine cover templates can help you produce professional quality results quickly. Best of all, you control the design and content elements, so you can create a tone that truly reflects your dynamic as a couple. If you’re silly together, you can dress up a fake magazine cover highlighting each other’s idiosyncrasies as bold headlines for the magazine. If you’re more sentimental, you can cast your spouse as celebrity royalty and include special poems, lyrics, or meaningful thoughts as headlines, bylines, or photo commentary. The creative stops you can pull out to express your dedication are nearly infinite.

Personalized creative anniversary gifts await you at YourCover.com, the top place to go to dream up and print out your personalized magazine covers.

People love to celebrate anniversaries, being together another year shows that they truly love each other and they continue to strengthen the bonds and celebrate their union year after year. A lot of couples celebrate this special occasion by giving gifts to each other that symbolizes their anniversary, like “paper” for the 1st year and “leather” for the 5th year. Although following the “Traditional Anniversary Gift List” can sound easy at first, but it can be very difficult and frustrating trying to follow the list for some years.

Sure the Silver, Golden and Diamond anniversaries are easy, its pretty well spelled out. But what about anniversaries like the “Paper” (1st) anniversary or “Steel” (11th) anniversary? These can be difficult for a woman and almost impossible for a man shopping for the perfect gift that will show their love and appreciation of their partner. So with the summer months which are the busy season for weddings and anniversaries approaching fast I thought this would be a good time to start covering each of the years and their symbolic gift.

“Paper” is the traditional symbol of the first year wedding anniversary.

Since the traditional symbol for the 1st wedding anniversary gift is paper, you’ll need to start “thinking outside the box” if you’re going to follow this list successfully.

Some cheaper but very thoughtful gifts of paper would be homemade coupons good for a massage or breakfast in bed, poetry or love letters hand written on nice stationary, homemade greeting cards.

In the moderate price range could be books that would be of interest to the recipient, photographs, you can order a copy of the newspaper from the wedding date that shows what was going on the day of your wedding, tickets to a show or sporting event, posters, board games, puzzles, gift certificates to their favorite stores, stationary, tickets to concerts, or my favorite – paper roses.

While gift cards and gift certificates are acceptable gifts for a couple, I would NOT recommend this as a gift to a spouse, this is your first anniversary together and you need to put a little more thought into it than giving something as impersonal as money.

I personally think that “paper roses” are one of the best first year anniversary gifts available, for two reasons, one – you have the romance and intimacy of roses, two – your able to stay with the “traditional” list of anniversary gifts. A bonus to this idea is that unlike real roses this gift can last forever. I am not talking about artificial flowers here, these are paper roses that are hand made especially for first year anniversaries, you can even have them personalized.

On the more expensive end would be airline tickets to a dream vacation, an oil painting from your wedding photograph, fine art prints.

Just remember, you can express your love and feelings without giving expensive gifts, just put a little thought into it. Love is still the best gift, it is costless yet so pure and irrevocable.

Next week I’ll cover the 2nd/Cotton anniversary.

Almost two years have passed since you both said “I do” and now your 2nd wedding anniversary is coming up, and as so many times before on occasions that etiquette requires the exchanging of gifts, you get stuck in a gift tunnel vision. An example is the spouse who buys flowers for every birthday, anniversary or holiday. Now don’t get me wrong, flowers are great, and so is filet mignon but I don’t want it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Get the point? Mix it up, put a little thought into it. It’s not as hard as you might think and you might even have fun, your spouse will appreciate a gift that shows you put some thought and consideration into its purchase.

Traditionally, cotton is the symbol for the 2nd year wedding anniversary. Cotton symbolizes the sweet and smooth flowing of the couples’ relationship. When the couple celebrates their 2nd year of being together, they are closer to one another. They are sweeter than the last year. Time may change them for the better. It is right to make the cotton the right gift idea suggestion for this wedding anniversary.

Cotton is a durable, versatile and highly flexible material. These are the qualities of the couple in a successful marriage. Moreover, cotton symbolizes great prosperity.

O.K. now we know that we need to put some thought into this gift and it should probably be made of cotton, I can hear you saying “How am I going to find a thoughtful gift made out of cotton?” Well don’t freak out just yet. Through the miracle of internet shopping and speedy home delivery gone are the days of having to settle for what the local stores had to offer, now the world is at your finger tips, literally.

Here’s a few tips to get you started

• Personalized cotton wedding throw.
• Personalized cotton towels.
• Personalized cotton briefs and underwear.
• Cotton Roses
• Cotton hammock big enough for two.
• Embroidered Quilts
• Embroidered cotton t-shirts or jackets
• Personalized Photo Pillows
• Personalized Photo t-shirts

My favorite would have to be the Cotton Roses, why? Simple, the roses say “I love you” and the cotton says you loved your spouse enough to find roses made of cotton. Just do a search for any of the items above on your favorite search engine and you’ll have your perfect gift before you know it.

Next week we’ll tackle the third year wedding anniversary.