Anniversary Gift Ideas for Your Wife

Your anniversary is coming, and you want the gift to say more than happy anniversary. The best anniversary gift ideas for a wife show her that you remember the day, and that you still pay attention to the woman you married. Below are 11 ideas across a range of budgets. Our top pick is a song about your marriage, because it turns the story you share into something she can hear.

Hear a Songbond song for yourself

This one was made for another family. Yours would carry her name and your stories.

11 anniversary gift ideas for your wife

1. A song about your marriage ($39.90). Share the day you met, the moment you knew and the thing she still does that makes you laugh after all these years. Songbond turns it into an original song, ready within 24 hours.
2. A piece of jewelry with your date inside. A bangle or ring engraved with your wedding date on the inside, where only she will see it. Usually $80 to $400.
3. Her wedding bouquet, made again. Take your wedding photos to a florist and ask them to match it, stem for stem. Usually $60 to $150.
4. The trip she keeps saving on her phone. Most people have a folder of places they have screenshotted and never booked. Find hers, pick one and book it.
5. Your wedding album, finally finished. Plenty of couples never get around to it. Pick the photos, design it online and have it printed. Usually $100 to $300.
6. A letter about what you were thinking at the altar. She knows what you said. She has never heard what was going through your head while you stood there waiting.
7. Dinner from your wedding menu. Cook it at home, or ask a caterer to make a small version for two. Set the table with anything you still have from the day.
8. A watercolor of your first home. The apartment with the broken heater, or the first house you bought. Painted from a photo. Usually $60 to $200.
9. A bottle to open on a later anniversary. Buy a wine that ages well, label it with the year you will open it, and put it away together. Usually $40 to $120.
10. Dance lessons for the two of you. Especially if your first dance was a nervous shuffle. Usually $50 to $150 for a short course.
11. An hour with a photographer. Many couples have almost no good photos of the two of them since the wedding. Book a session somewhere that matters to you. Usually $150 to $400.

How to choose for your wife

Think back to the anniversaries she still mentions. If there is a year you got it right, notice what that gift had in common with the ones she forgot. It is usually time, effort or a memory, more than price.

• If she is romantic: the bouquet, the altar letter or the song.
• If she loves to travel: the saved trip or the photographer somewhere new.
• If she loves your home: the watercolor, the wedding dinner or the finished album.

Start an anniversary tradition this year

The gift lasts a day. A tradition lasts every year after. Pick one small thing you can repeat. Take a photo in the same spot on every anniversary, standing the same way, and watch the two of you change. Write each other one card a year and keep them all in the same box. Or play the same song at dinner every anniversary, whether that is your first-dance song or one made about the two of you. By your 25th, the tradition will be worth more than any single gift.

Make your anniversary song

Create an anniversary song for your wife from the years you have shared. It is ready within 24 hours, and express delivery gets it to you in about an hour if the date is closer than you thought.

Also in the Journal: an anniversary song for your wife and 25th anniversary song ideas.