What to give for a wedding anniversary

One name, three different presents

A spouse gives something that stays between the two of them, and it does not have to explain itself to the room. This is the only one of the three that can be private to the point of being unreadable by anyone else: two first names under a sky, a date under a moon, a street plan the neighbours won’t recognise.

The children or grandchildren club together, and the present becomes a single visible object — something that goes on the sitting-room wall and gets noticed by everyone who walks in. That is the usual shape of a twenty-fifth or a fiftieth, where the next generation organises the day.

A guest has a constraint the other two do not: not to upstage the main present, and not to duplicate what another guest has brought. Small, personal and evidently chosen beats expensive every time when you are the fourth parcel on the table.

The first ten years, while the date is still recent

At this stage nobody has forgotten anything, so putting the wedding day on a poster is not solemn — it is current. It is also the age when you still have the time of the ceremony and the name of the street: everything a poster needs to show that evening rather than write it.

Only one year in this stretch names a material you can genuinely give as a made thing: the fifth, wood. Paper, cotton and leather are easier to joke about than to give. A natural wood frame around the poster falls straight onto that year with no forcing of the symbol.

Silver and gold: the present arrives from several people at once

At twenty-five and fifty there is a party, and somebody is organising it. The gift changes character: no longer private, it has to survive being unwrapped in front of thirty people. A framed poster does that better than a small object, because a room can look at it together and somebody can tell the story behind it.

What is on it matters more than what it is: the street plan around the register office, the sky over it that night, the moon that evening. None of these can be bought off a shelf, and none of them mean anything for any other couple — which is exactly what a group present is usually missing.

For a couple who like numbers, the anniversary poster in numbers counts the months, days and hours spent together and, if you wish, four milestones from their life.

The trap here is having “50 years” put on the object. Twelve months later the inscription is out of date, and a thing that should have commemorated a marriage now commemorates a lunch.

What is worth writing on it, and what ages badly

Three inscriptions age well, because none of them depends on the year you happen to be giving: the wedding date in figures, the two first names, and the place. Three age badly: a count of years, the name of the anniversary, and any message written in the first person by somebody who is not half of the couple.

Space settles the argument more often than taste does: a poster has a title and one line beneath it, and the temptation is always to add one more sentence. The rule we work to is short — one idea per poster, and it reads from across a room.

A wedding anniversary is the one date you know a year ahead

It is the one date of the year that cannot ambush you: it never moves, and it is already in the calendar. It is also the one most often missed, because no shop window reminds you of it — unlike Christmas or Mother's Day, which announce themselves weeks ahead.

Nothing here is made in advance: the print run starts after the order. So the simplest thing is to set a reminder ten days before the date, once and for all — choosing the object itself takes ten minutes.