Anniversary Present Guide

Anniversary presents fall into two camps: the ones you buy for your better half year after year, and the present you bring to somebody else’s big anniversary.

In some countries custom dictates that the fifth year calls for a gift in wood. The materials grow more durable and more valuable the longer a marriage lasts. We would argue that oak trumps glass, silk, crystal and even a few of the metals, and that it needn’t be saved for the fifth anniversary alone.

What we love about the list below is the story it tells. A marriage starts with the small, practical things, grows into swings and benches as the family does, then circles back to a quiet seat in the garden and the names of all the grandchildren. Each gift can be engraved with names, a date, a nickname or a saying that’s just yours.

Here is our pick for each year, all engravable with names, a date or a saying that’s just yours.

• 1st (Paper): The Occasion Photo Frame for the first photo as a married couple, or, for the practically minded, a Receipts Jar to keep the year’s paper trail together.

• 2nd (Cotton): A Cup Tray and a Breakfast Jar, for the morning routines they’re settling into together. Not the most romantic, but a happy marriage runs on the everyday too.

• 3rd (Leather): A Boot Jack by the back door.

• 4th (Fruit or Flowers): A Fruit Bowl for the centre of the kitchen table, or, for the flowers, a hand-thrown Campana Pot from Bergs Potter — a living gift that only grows more beautiful with the years.

• 5th (Wood): This one is ours, and you can take your pick of the whole range. Our hunch? A Large Swing to mark wood the way only we can.

• 10th (Tin or Aluminium): The Compost Caddy, with its dishwasher-proof tin insert. Tin, beautifully disguised.

• 15th (Crystal): A Snuggle Swing Bench with room for a growing family to snuggle up in together.

• 25th (Silver): The Breakfast in Bed Tray. With the children flown, lazy mornings are finally yours again.

• 30th (Pearl): A Height Chart to measure all the grandchildren growing between visits.

• 40th (Ruby): A Mile Post with the distances to wherever the children have settled.

• 50th (Gold): Now we’re into bench territory. A Classic Bench, somewhere to sit together and watch the garden you’ve grown, or somewhere to perch when you’re taking shoes on and off.

• 60th (Diamond): The Family Tree Bench, engraved with everybody’s names.

• 70th (Platinum): An oak walking stick, carved with celebratory words, to lean on after seventy years of leaning on each other. Available soon.

Years not listed can still be marked with any of our boards, trays or benches, engraved to suit.

Forgetting, or not making a fuss of your own anniversary, is never a good idea. I speak from experience.

It’s easy to find a gift that fits the way you actually live: something for the morning breakfast routine, a swing as a playful destination in the garden, a tray for your TV suppers. Think about your hobbies, your home, the habits you share. Engrave a nickname or a saying you both use. Commission something for the home you’re building together, a cheese board for cosy evenings, a carving board that gets you cooking side by side. The bonus is that whatever you choose becomes part of your every day.

For other people’s anniversaries it’s usually the big milestones that call for a present from outside the marriage.

A bench engraved with the names of the grandchildren, or a family saying, is the most popular present for parents’ anniversaries. It becomes the focal point of the day and a daily reminder for years afterwards.

If you’re invited to an anniversary party, a present is expected, and we have something for every budget and every sentiment. Be as romantic or as cheeky as you like. With the engraving of your choice you can make it perfectly theirs.

Reach eighty years together and tradition finally agrees with us: the 80th is the Oak Anniversary. It comes home to the wood we’ve believed in all along, strong, long-lived and only better with the years.

Almost nobody gets here. Around six in a hundred couples reach their Golden 50th, barely two in a hundred their Diamond 60th. To mark eighty years you’d both be well past a hundred, and the couples who manage it tend to make the national news. It is, quite simply, the rarest anniversary there is, and the only one named for oak. We think that says everything about what oak is for.

If you are buying for an 80th, get in touch and we will make something worthy of it.

Life moves fast and we soon stop counting the days, but each day counts. Learning to appreciate every one of them doesn’t just make the days better, it rather improves your odds of reaching the milestone anniversaries in the first place.

The romantic husband who commissioned one of our trays didn’t wait for his silver anniversary. He simply made a fuss of getting to twenty-three. Go for the picnic. Drink the champagne. Sit a while on the bench in the garden with your cups of coffee. Before you know it you’ll be marking Pearl, Ruby and Gold, as long as you’ve learned to celebrate every day in between.