We celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the weekend. The traditional gift to give your spouse is paper.

When it comes to paper gifts I found lots of lovely ideas. I remember one of my friends gave his wife the sheet music of their first dance in a frame. And somewhere in the depths of my memory he gave her a print of the place he proposed (Blakeney Point, Norfolk) too.

They were the first of my friends to get married and strangely I don't know what any of my other friends gave each other after that (although I now intend to find out)!

I wanted to give Andy something personal. The best part of our wedding day was exchanging our vows. We felt like the only people in the room, lost in the moment together.

I decided to create a memento using our vows and one of our wedding photos. I love this photo, I thought it was perfect as it has a wandering off into the sunset to live happily ever after feel about it.


I added our vows, his at the top, mine below using the same fonts and heart detail from our invitations. I then uploaded the image to Photobox and ordered a single print, which I framed and wrapped up. It's printed on paper, albeit photographic, so to my mind it fits the theme.

Andy loves it and put it on the window sill in the lounge, where he can see it everyday.

I also gave him The Good Wife series one DVD boxset, the name seemed apt even if the subject matter isn't, and a set of Uno cards. On a recent weekend away Andy played for the first time and enjoyed it (he won a lot), the paper reference was too hard to ignore, especially as we often play cards together.


For his card I made the most of Moonpig and used my vows (again) for the design. Inside I added a date card for a meal at a steak house, to give us an evening out to look forward to next month.

Before deciding on my final gifts, I had a bit of a poke about the internet for some inspiration and I fell in love with this paper cut frame from Not On The High Street. But I realised if I bought it, it would be because I wanted it rather than because I thought Andy would love it.


Personalised First Wedding Anniversary Papercut  |  Not On The High Street  |  £30.00

Personalised Song Lyrics Print  |  Not On The High Street  |  £34.00

I was taken by this idea of using lyrics from your wedding song. Thinking Out Loud is our first dance, so this kinda had me at 'hello', but again this would've been more for me than Andy.

I love the line 'we found love right where we are', because for years Andy and I used to drink in the same pub but our paths never crossed. The romantic in me thinks that when we did meet, it was exactly when and where we were supposed to, and not a moment sooner.

What did you / would you give as a paper gift?