Next Tuesday is our two year wedding anniversary.
Our anniversary came up fast this year and yesterday Ryan and I discussed traditional gifts that couples exchange on their second wedding anniversary.
Last year I told Ryan about the whole “traditional wedding gifts by year” thing and we both adhered to the paper theme for our first year anniversary. (I gave him a Met, Married, Engaged map and tickets to a hockey game.) For a couples’ two year wedding anniversary, the theme is cotton which stumped both of us at first.
Neither of us really care to receive sheets, towels or clothes and kind of want to make our anniversary gifts a little more lovey than practical. I have two ideas, but I need to get crackin’ if I’m going to have them ready in time! Any fun cotton-themed gift ideas out there? (Pinterest is seriously letting me down. A monogramed laundry bag? Really?)
I also have the idea to just wrap a normal gift in a sheet and give it to Ryan, but that seems like cheating. Sneaky!
Lunch
Today’s lunch began with a handful of almonds and hazelnuts and ended with spring mix greens topped with salmon salad.
Plus a few sweet pickles on the side. Yum!
Questions of the Afternoon
- Do you celebrate anniversaries?
- What is the best anniversary gift you’ve given or received?
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Josh’s birthday is coming up in two weeks and then our 2 year (dating) anniversary is the weekend after that! I have to get cracking on gift ideas too!
This year for our second anniversary I gave the hubs a nice monogrammed bathrobe with a gift certificate for a couples massage tucked away inside. It was cotton so that ticked that box and we get to do something together (which is more important than material things to us). Win-win!
I always celebrate my anniversary with my boyfriend! I always cook him his favorite dinner and he loves it!
I was stumped by cotton too. I ended up getting him a shirt of his favorite football team which was seriously lame considering all of the other anniversaries. Maybe the gift could be a cotton robe and you could treat him to breakfast in bed. Bonus points for sneaking a more personal and meaningful gift into one of the pockets :). A couples massage would also require cotton robes and you would get to spend an hour relaxing together! Good luck. And you better start thinking about next year because it’s leather and equally as tricky!
Hey-my husband and I decided to stretch the whole “linens” gift idea into staying at a swanky hotel with nice sheets for our second anniversary. We checked in early, walked to dinner and drinks, and had a great night “in” at the hotel. I’d highly recommend it!
The boyfriend and I try to go out for dinner or have some sort of date on our monthly anniversary (means that we know we at least get one date night a month) and we love it.
And I’m totally behind the idea of cotton candy!
Hmm, what about a sailing dinner? I don’t know if there is something like that out your way (we have them here in California). Anyways, boat sails are/were made from cotton…it’s a stretch, but it’s something 🙂
The food looks yummy!! What was in the salmon salad? I was actually thinking of using tonight’s salmon dinner leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch (:
Have you ever seen the game of love on pinterest?
http://www.thedatingdivas.com/romantic-rendezvous/the-game-of-love/
I have been searching for 2nd anniversary ideas and thought this might be an option for me :).
The 2nd is a tough one! There are certainly a lot of pillows, totes, and sheets out there, that’s for sure. uncommongoods.com is neat site that lists gift ideas by the year of your anniversary so you could check that out! Good luck and congrats. 🙂
What about a picnic lunch or dinner? You could sit on a cotton blanket. You could use cotton candy for a dessert.
I got my husband a cotton tshirt to a brewery then we went there for. A tour and had lunch….we celebrated our 12th anniversary…it was silk!
SNUGGIES 🙂
yessss.
I support snuggies. my parents got me a leopard print one and it is fantastic.
I gave my husband a watch (the real gift) and cotton undershirts (he always needs those) as the “cotton” gift for our 2 year anniversary.
We don’t stick with the traditional gifts. The best anniversary gift was definitely our first wedding anniversary when my husband planned a surprise trip to San Francisco to celebrate (we live in Michigan). He did an amazing job picking out where we stayed too/ He definitely gets Best Husband award for that one. 🙂
You peaked my curiosity about wedding anniversary gifts, and I found this website: http://marriage.about.com/od/2ndweddinganniversary/p/2anniv.htm
Not sure if it will help, but I thought there were a couple of good ideas!
My husband and I just celebrated 2 years in August, and the cotton gift stumped me too. what about a tie?
you two should stop being so selfish and just get sadie some new toys 😉 haha but really, on christmas morning our family gets more excited about the dog finding the squeakers in her new toys than any of our own gifts!
Cotton, hmm… What about getting each other a new pair of jeans? Denim = cotton.
Or maybe take some cheesy photos wearing matching denim outfits? I’m thinkinh jeans and jean jackets. A 2nd anniversary portrait! In a denim-covered frame?
Cotton is a tough one. I like the cotton candy idea plus another gift maybe?
One of my college professors had us pick cotton once on a school trip. I’m from Ohio so it’s not something we have much of here. Maybe you could go to a historical village type place and see the whole cotton process, haha.
My husband and I are about to celebrate our 1st anniversary in December and we’re planning to go to Florida actually. He used to live in Fort Myers and Orlando (Ocoee). I’m using my miles to get an upgrade to first class so maybe I’ll say the ticket is my paper gift.
What about donating in each other’s name to something like World Vision? I know the Smiles gift programme here (http://www.worldvision.org.nz/Portal/Smiles/SingleProduct.aspx?GiftCode=1316) has options like “Train a Farmer” for $30, so you could potentially be helping a family support themselves by growing something like cotton. 🙂
My husband got me a big ball of craft cotton! It’s been sitting in my top bedside table drawer for 5 years now.
You could always re-give the present you got Ryan last year – it has cotton on it 🙂
Could you make a blanket with photos of the two of you- and include cotton? Or something along those lines?
my husband and i just celebrated our 17th anniversary a couple of weeks ago! 🙂 🙂 okay, this is a naughty idea … you could give him a tie (think julia roberts and the movie pretty woman). then he could wear it out to a nice anniversary dinner. heee!
The only idea I have is maybe a bed & breakfast type-thing in the southern area since we were known for production of cotton. Since I know you live in Fl, you could travel into GA or Al and stay in a place maybe even visit some of the old southern plantations & such. I’m a history dork myself, plus it just seemed kinda romantic 🙂 You could also just tour one and stay in a hotel or something (since hotels give you cotton robes and fresh towels too lol)
Yesterday we celebrated our 2nd year anny. The first year I did paper (plane tickets to San Diego!) and this year I was seriously stumped. I wanted to book a trip to Arizona but tickets were unreasonable. So what did I do? I read through all of your gift posts… and the comment section! It was the comment section that someone had suggested a “meat of the month” club for her hubby. My husband is a huge carnivore and we don’t buy meat that often (turkey and chicken when we do) so I bought a monster package from Omaha Steaks and he LOVED it! He texted me in hte middle of the day saying, “I can’t stop thinking about the meat. I love you.” haha succcess!
ha! that’s awesome!!! this made me laugh out loud. 🙂
I’m so glad your a few months ahead of me on the same year anniversary so I can get ideas! lol…
For cotton… this is kinda cheesy but can actually be cute, I’ve seen it more than once on groupon, a large blanket with a picture embroidered/woven into it. It looks JUST like the picture. It’s not something anyone would die to have but if you had a fun picture of the both of you that you loved it could be a fun way to hang on to it.
.
ps…A friend of mine got one for our friend for her bachelorette party…Seeing it in real life makes it way cuter.
Wow I can’t believe it’s been 2 years! We usually bypass any tangible gifts and just do something special together to commemorate. One year we went parasailing, another year we went wine tasting or we usually plan a little overnight getaway.
Since I’m a knitter, I made my husband an iPad/Touchpad case with cotton yarn.
that’s awesome! i’m impressed. i want your skills!
A Nice Robe!
does he have a favorite sports team? if so you could get him some sports-team-themed memoriabilia he could wear (like cotton tee shirts).
What about a get-away trip…where you can actually pick cotton! I mean, we are in the South. 😉 I’m not sure if they have anywhere in FL, but I know they do in GA & AL!
What about a memory quilt using his old T-shirts?
My husband and I don’t follow any of the gift guidelines but we do try and make the day special. Two years ago I got him a beer of the month subscription and this year I got him a Nats baseball cap. Buying thoughtful affordable gifts can be hard enough, why make it harder with antiquated rules.
How about a new cotton duffle/tote/messenger bag for the gym or office? Land’s End has some great items and can also be monogrammed.
Buy a fluffy kitten and name it cotton???
Hahahha, Sadie would loooove that! I just celebrated my 2 yr anniversary but we haven’t really adhered to traditional gifts. For anniversaries and valentines day we go away somewhere for the weekend instead of doing gifts. t’s a great excuse for a mini vaycay, even if its something cheap like camping!
We just had our 2 year in August and I got him really nice towels (we’ve been using ones from college) and some cotton polos for work. Boring, but he was excited because he never buys stuff like that for himself.
I got a few fun (and sexy) cotton pj’s!
I did, however, make him a card entirely out of cotton balls so…there’s that idea that you can totally steal. 😉
How about cotton seeds to grow your own cotton plant!
I’m way behind on my blogs, but Tshirts Quilt: http://www.campusquilt.com/order/index.html
I did this as a wedding gift for my husband, and he loved it 🙂
Just curious (cause I can’t seem to see it anywhere…), what did Ryan give you for your first year anniversary gift?
Does this count as cotton? Canvas is made from cotton, right? http://gifts.redenvelope.com/gifts/family-tree-wall-art-30058843?REF=REDSRCHgoogkwd_red+envelope_e_BRAND&PRID=alex5off&q=family+tree&viewpos=1&trackingpgroup=productsearch
Or what about a special Christmas stocking that you can use forever and ever. (I’m trying to think of something you could build traditions on….)
We got a pillow topper for our mattress from Kohl’s and it was seriously the best purchase we ever made! Our bed is amazing now!
Another option would be really nice pillows. People always forget about pillows but nice ones make a difference! Eric gave me a Tempur-pedic pillow for Valentine’s Day this year and it was a great gift.
This reminds me of the story of how my dad bought my mom a sheep dog named Paper for their 1st anniversary just to follow the gift traditions. They had to give the dog away shortly after since my sister was born since he wasn’t very nice. I think that is the only year they followed the gift traditions. haha.
Last year for cotton, we gave each other new winter coats that we both needed.
The 3rd anniversary is leather. The “modern” version is glass so we are getting new cell phones.
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