Anniversary Date Ideas
From the first year to the fiftieth, one idea at a time.
- Time
- An evening, or the whole day
- Players
- Two people
- Best for
- The anniversary itself, or the weekend nearest it
- Deck
- 100 ideas in 5 categories
How to use these anniversary date ideas
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the idea on the top card. If you both like it, put it on the calendar.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Ideas do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list you can copy.
When to plan an anniversary date
An anniversary arrives every year whether you plan for it or not. A few ideas saved a week ahead turn the day into something you both look forward to.
The first anniversary
Relive the beginning while it is still close, and choose one idea from A new tradition to keep for good.
A big round number
Mark the milestone has ideas for six months, ten years and fifty, built on the traditional themes for each year.
A busy year
Celebrate at home needs no booking, only an evening you both keep free.
Ways to use these anniversary ideas
One for the day, one for every year
Draw an idea for the anniversary itself, then one from A new tradition that you will repeat on every anniversary after it.
Three hearts each
A week ahead, each of you saves three ideas on your own phone. Any idea you both picked is the plan; if none match, do one from each list.
Not a round number
Year two or year nineteen counts as much as year ten. Relive the beginning and Celebrate at home fit every year in between.
Tips for a good anniversary date
- Put the date in both calendars a month ahead, so it does not land on a deadline or a work trip.
- One idea done slowly is plenty. An anniversary is not a checklist.
- Write the year on the back of anything you make together. In a decade you will be glad you did.
All 100 anniversary date ideas by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
Relive the beginning
Go back to the places, songs and firsts of your early days together.
- Retell your first date from the other’s point of view, as if you were them, and let them correct the details.
- Wear what you wore on the day you met, or the closest thing still hanging in your closet.
- Find the first photo ever taken of the two of you and restage it: same pose, same faces.
- Look up the songs that topped the charts the week you met and dance to the top three in the living room.
- Buy the snack you always shared in your first months and eat it wherever you used to.
- Cook the first meal one of you ever made for the other, including whatever went wrong the first time.
- Go back to where one of you first said “I love you” and say it there again.
- Dig out the first gift you ever gave each other and tell the story of choosing it.
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- Bring back a nickname or a running joke from your first months and use it all day.
- Go somewhere like your first date, only new to you both: a different café, a different trail.
- Repeat your second or third date, the one that always gets left out of the story.
- Spend the day like an ordinary Saturday from your first year: same breakfast, same errands, same bedtime.
- Stand outside the first place you called home together, or wherever one of you lived when you met.
- Call the friend who introduced you, or the first one you told, and ask for their side of the story.
- List ten things you know about each other now that you had no idea about on your first date.
- Retrace your first trip together, even a day trip, stopping wherever you can still remember stopping.
- Go back to your regular place from the first year, the everyday one rather than the fancy one, and order the usual.
- Act out how one of you asked the other out, line by line, with the roles swapped.
- Shuffle the photos from your first year and put them back in order without looking at the dates.
- Play the first song you ever shared, then each choose one that fits the two of you now.
A new tradition
Rituals to start this year and repeat on every anniversary after it.
- Plant one bulb in the same flower bed every anniversary, so it blooms a little fuller each spring.
- Keep an anniversary notebook where each of you writes one page a year, opened only on the day.
- Choose one spot to return to every anniversary, like a bench or a lookout, and see how it has changed.
- Film a short interview with each other using the same five questions every year, and watch the old ones first.
- Swap gifts under a rule that changes yearly: handmade one year, secondhand the next, then found on a walk.
- Add one charm, ornament or pin for every year together, each chosen for something from that year.
- Take the day after your anniversary off as well, so every celebration ends with a slow morning.
- Take turns planning the anniversary as a surprise: odd years for one of you, even years for the other.
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- Bake the same cake from the same recipe card every year, writing the year on the card each time.
- Do one thing on every anniversary that neither of you has ever done before, however small.
- Starting today, film one second of every day and watch the whole year back on your next anniversary.
- Eat anniversary breakfast anywhere but the kitchen: a park bench, the car, the back step.
- Alternate the style each year: dressed up for one anniversary, pajamas and takeout for the next.
- Spend every anniversary night somewhere other than your own bed, even if it is a tent in the yard.
- Pass one anniversary card back and forth, adding a note every year until it is full.
- Light the same candle only on your anniversary and let it burn down a little more each year.
- Make one small change to your home every anniversary, like a new plant or a print, chosen together.
- Wake up for the sunrise on every anniversary and see where the first light finds you that year.
- Plan next year’s anniversary before this one ends and seal the plan in an envelope until then.
- Give a two-minute “state of us” speech each, with charts drawn on napkins.
Celebrate at home
Anniversary evenings that need no reservation, just the two of you.
- Put together a slideshow of photos from all your years and watch it on the biggest screen you have.
- Cook a tasting menu of your years: one small dish per chapter, each named after a moment.
- Flip pancakes in the shape of the number of years you are celebrating, wobbly digits and all.
- Set up a “museum of us” in the hallway with labeled objects from your years, then give each other the tour.
- Write each other a quiz about your years together and trade papers over dessert.
- Cook a dinner of foods one of you disliked when you met and loves now.
- Decorate the home like it’s a birthday: a paper banner with the number of years, streamers, the works.
- Collect short voice messages from friends about the two of you and play them after dinner.
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- Bake each other’s favorite dessert in the same kitchen at the same time, back to back, no peeking.
- Each write three possible anniversary evenings on cards and let the other draw one blind.
- Turn the bedroom into a hotel room: fresh sheets, rolled towels and a handwritten note on each pillow.
- Draw anniversary questions on this site over dessert and keep going until the candles burn low.
- Dig out the board game you played most in your early days and play it by your old house rules.
- Light one candle for every year together and name a favorite moment as each one is lit.
- Hold anniversary dinner at the hour you first met, even if that means lunch or a midnight snack.
- Wrap three things you already own that remind you of each other and unwrap them after dinner.
- Make an anniversary brunch, put flowers on the table and stay there until noon.
- Cast the movie of your relationship, choosing actors for both of you, then watch one film starring each.
- Set the anniversary table somewhere you never eat: the balcony, the yard, in front of the bookcase.
- Take turns starting a story with “Remember when…” and keep going until neither of you can think of another.
Mark the milestone
Ideas for a particular year, from six months to the fiftieth.
- Six months in? Make a half-and-half dinner: one of you cooks the main course, the other the dessert.
- At 100 days together, list 100 small things you have already done together, starting from day one.
- Work out the date of your 1,000th or 10,000th day together and plan something small for it.
- For a first anniversary, plan one stop for each season of your first year together, all in a single day.
- The traditional first-anniversary gift is paper, so make each other something from it.
- Second year, traditionally cotton: tie-dye two plain cotton shirts in the yard and wear them to dinner.
- Third year, traditionally leather: clean, oil and mend your oldest leather shoes, belts and bags together.
- Fourth year, traditionally fruit and flowers: spend a morning at a pick-your-own flower farm in season.
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- Fifth year, traditionally wood: burn the date you met into a wooden cutting board with a beginner woodburning pen.
- Seventh year, traditionally wool or copper: take a wool blanket somewhere high and stay out until the stars come out.
- Tenth year, traditionally tin: punch a pattern into a clean tin can, set a candle inside and eat dinner by its light.
- Fifteenth year, traditionally crystal: hang a glass prism in a sunny window and watch the rainbows cross the room.
- Twentieth year, traditionally china: eat dinner off the best plates in the house, the ones usually saved for guests.
- Twenty-fifth year, traditionally silver: watch an old silver-screen classic and pick the couple most like you two.
- Thirtieth year, traditionally pearl: string a bracelet of thirty beads, one for every year together.
- Fortieth year, traditionally ruby: fill a red album with forty photos, one from each year.
- Fiftieth year, traditionally gold: pack a picnic for golden hour and watch the light fade from your favorite spot.
- Ten years in, each write down the ten best decisions you made together, then read the lists side by side.
- Celebrate the smaller anniversaries too: the day you moved in, adopted a pet or took your first trip.
- Let the number set the plan: three stops for year three, five courses for year five, and so on.
Keepsakes you make together
Things to make side by side that will still be around next anniversary.
- Draw the night sky as it looked on the night you met, using a free star map app, and frame it.
- Paint a set of coasters together, each showing a place that matters to the two of you.
- Sew a pillow cover from old T-shirts that each hold a memory from your years together.
- String ticket stubs, wristbands and receipts from your years into a garland above the bed.
- Hand-letter a poster of your inside jokes and favorite phrases, all jumbled together.
- Make your own deck of 52 cards, each with a memory written on it, and shuffle it on gray days.
- Fill an alphabet book of your relationship, one memory and one drawing for every letter.
- Pour a garden stepping stone and press pebbles from places you have been into the wet cement.
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- Lay out a front page for your anniversary, with headlines, a weather report and photos from the year.
- Decorate a keepsake box together for the cards, notes and tickets of the years still to come.
- Paint your shared bucket list on a canvas and add a tick beside each item as the years go by.
- Write the five meals you have cooked together most into a little cookbook, with a photo of each.
- Write the recipe for the two of you, ingredient by ingredient, on a card for the kitchen wall.
- Make seed paper from scraps and wildflower seeds, write the date on it and plant it in spring.
- Glue sea glass or broken tiles around a plain frame and put this year’s favorite photo inside.
- Make an illustrated field guide to each other, with habitat, favorite foods and usual calls.
- Cover a plain lampshade with an old map of somewhere that matters to you both.
- Draw a big tree on a long sheet of paper and add a leaf whenever a memory comes back to you.
- Trace each other’s profile from a lamp’s shadow on the wall and cut both silhouettes from black paper.
- Paint a small sign for the front door with both your first names and the year you met.
Frequently asked questions
How many anniversary date ideas are there?
There are 100 ideas, 20 in each of five categories: relive the beginning, a new tradition, celebrate at home, mark the milestone, and keepsakes you make together. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
Which anniversary do these ideas work for?
Any of them: the day you met, your first date or the day you married. Most ideas fit any year, and Mark the milestone has ideas for particular ones, from six months to fifty years.
What are the traditional anniversary gifts by year?
In the US, each year has a traditional material: paper for the first, cotton for the second, leather for the third, wood for the fifth, tin for the tenth, silver for the twenty-fifth and gold for the fiftieth. The milestone ideas turn these into things to do together rather than things to buy.
What can we talk about on our anniversary?
For a deck of questions about your story, your year and the one ahead, see anniversary questions for couples. For everyday life together, try questions for married couples.